Veterans' Champion My Hind Leg

I hope other disabled veterans will join me in saying "What?" to John McCain's assertion that he cares about us and we know he cares about us. Huh? What, exactly, has Sen. McCain done on our behalf lately? He likes to make excrutiatingly patriotic sound bites out of his service and his status as a prisoner of war during Vietnam, and I'm sure every other U.S. vet -- and most other Americans -- join me in applauding his service and his sacrifice. However, the man cannot excuse the rest of his political and personal careers on that basis. Has he actually fought for veterans' rights? No. Has he been a dominant voice for veterans' services? No. Has he made even significant personal donations to veterans' causes? Uh, no.

Yes, the man was horribly abused on behalf of his country during Vietnam. That does not make him a hero today. What would make him a hero today is personal sacrifice on the part of others who are enduring privation for their country now. He would be a hero if he could take a demonstrable stand -- and action -- on behalf of the veterans and current service members who cannot get the treatment and supplies they need because the U.S. government is so focused on its mission that anyone who no longer directly serves that mission is discarded as useless. Service members may have lost limbs, eyes, ears or other body parts in an unjust and illegal war, but once they're out of the battle they're out of the public consciousness. Period. No argument; no reprieve. In many cases, no help.

It's disgraceful that Sen. McCain calls himself a champion of veterans. He's a champion of the Republican Party, the wealthy and himself. As a disabled veteran, I'm ashamed of him.

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Living and Dying in Three-Quarter Time

There are going to be some good, hardworking people who'll never recover from Ike. You can recognize them on the street: They're the ones with the hollow eyes of war survivors.

I just spoke to one while I was walking my dog outside the Holiday Inn in Seguin, Texas. She's a single woman, middle-aged, and an evacuee from Gilchrist, a small town on the Bolivar Penninsula between Galveston Island and Port Arthur. Gilchrist wasn't one of the Texas Riviera's trendy beach communities. It was a country town populated by salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar working folks and farmers. The sum total of Gilchrist's commercial development comprised a True Value hardware store, a couple of country-and-western bars and a handful of mom-and-pop diners, feed stores and groceries. Ike took almost everything, leaving only a few building shells standing.

Angie, my new friend, lost everything except her dog to Ike. Her house. Her car. Her clothes and furniture. Her job. It's not like she had a lot to begin with, but she worked hard for what she did have, even after an auto accident last year severed the lower portion of her right leg. Surgeons reattached the leg, but it will never be normal. Through it all, Sophia Loren, Angie's sweet Rottweiler-Blue Heeler mix, has been her steadfast companion.

Angie and Sophie were separated briefly after they were bussed to a San Antonio shelter when their aging van was washed away by Ike's rising water. After Katrina and Rita, Texas law was changed to allow people to take their pets with them during mandatory evacuations. Sadly, legislators didn't deal with what would become of the pets once evacuees reached shelters. A San Antonio animal welfare organization collected all the sheltered evacuees' pets so they could be cared for properly, but the form the evacuees were required to sign gave the organization the right to place the animals in new homes if the evacuees didn't reclaim them within 10 days.

When Angie's head quit spinning, she read the fine print. She left the shelter, got a rental car through her auto insurance company, and headed for a motel that accepted pets. The expense, she said, is about to kill her, but she'll manage as long as she has Sophie.

FEMA still has not approved Angie for temporary housing assistance. They need her to fax them proof she actually rented the now-destroyed "cabin" (her term) she occupied before Ike vented his fury all over the upper Texas Gulf Coast. She didn't think to take utility bills with her when she left, and now she's sure they're scattered all over a narrow strip of land that's still soggy nearly two weeks after a 15-foot wall of water wiped most life from its surface.

Someone from Texas Governor Rick Perry's office called Angie's room this morning, she said. They wanted to know what they could do to help. "I didn't even know what to tell them," she told me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Where was I supposed to start? I told them about my dog. I'm not giving up my dog."

Sophie jumped up and licked my face. I wouldn't give her up, either.

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The Marines have landed!

The Marines have landed in Galveston, and all I can think to say is "hallelujah!" Finally someone who knows what needs to be done and will do it has arrived.

The USS Nassau, an amphibious assault ship, anchored seven miles off the Texas coast today and sent onto the beach four landing vehicles laden with SeaBees and heavy equipment. Having watched construction battalions at work, I can say with certainty that Galveston is in excellent hands as she attempts to recover from Ike's devastation. Now everyone please just get out of their way and let them do what they do with unparalleled expertise.

Thank you, officers and men and women of the Nassau. You have my undying gratitude -- and I'm sure you have the same from most other Galvestonians living in exile until this mess is over.

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