Matt Bin guest blogging at Canadian Cynic highlights the plight of the families of Canadian veterans suffering from chronic conditions brought about through their service:
I've been saying since the start of our work in Afghanistan that the price of this war isn't tallied today, but starting ten years from now and carrying on to the end of this generation. We've sent thousands of Canadians into an intense war zone -- many of them reservists -- and we must bear the cost of dealing with the consequences of our little national adventure as great and as long-term as those costs might be.
If we don't actively and cheerfully bear those costs, if we don't care for the mental, physical, and emotional well-being of the wounded and their families for as long and as far as they need us, then we have failed as a nation. The "support the troops" brand of politicization, crude and inane as it might be, requires those who subscribe to it -- most notably our current government -- to actually put in place the infrastructure and mechanisms by which these troops are actually supported.
As Matt points out, Veterans Affairs Canada has seen a marked improvement in the provision of service over the past decade but VAC is still an inflexible organization, either unwilling or unable to assess the needs of wounded and disabled veterans and their families beyond a set of rigid and often pointless rules.
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