> I agree that civilian and military disability statuses
> ought to be assessed similarly. Same with medical
> care. The military ought to be what they are supposed
> to be, the servants of us, the people. You know,
> democracy. Not folks we stand in awe of as legends
> among us, placed on pedestals high and mighty, and not
> people to whom we must pay constant, nauseating
> obeisance. This isn't Starship Troopers. Or some
> Plato-type republic with a warrior caste that sits
> atop us all. Or, at least, it shouldn't be.
The state should provide generous benefits to all people with disabilities. But I think they key difference between a disability that's acquired through bad luck and a disability that's acquired in the military is that the state is more complicit in the latter. Therefore the State should have to pay extra, somehow, for its culpability in military-related disabilities. Veterans' benefits are the most feasible avenue through which to extract that extra cost (at least in the future -- right now most veterans are still getting screwed).
A radical vet friend of mine, who receives pretty hefty disability payments for the PTSD he acquired fighting in the first Gulf War, has an argument about why generous veterans' benefits are particularly important: That the U.S. needs to be made to pay the full cost of its wars. Every fucking penny. His rationale is that the more Americans realize how much war costs in the long run, the less willing they'll be to fight it. So the more veterans (exploiting their hallowed position in U.S. society) demand and receive from their government, the costlier it is to fight wars -- and hopefully this will make Americans more wary of stupid imperialist ventures.
So my friend organizes and educates veterans to milk the U.S. government for every single benefit they could possibly be entitled to, no matter how small. If, e.g., you sign up for an aerobics class at the VA and they tell you you have to provide your own $10 heart rate monitoring device, you raise hell and get the government to pay for it -- it shouldn't matter whether everyone in the class can afford the device, or not.
So, by this thinking, we should all wish John McCain and his fellow war criminals got even bigger benefits. Whether this is an effective anti-war strategy is debatable, but I don't think you can say it's crazy.
-WD