Warbird Information Exchange

As some of you may know we do a radio show on Warbird Radio every Thursday night. About a month ago we did a show with Neil Hansen of Air America. he flew C-123's, DC-3's, C-46's, C-54's, and more. He had the honor of being shot down three times in one day. It was brought to our attention that the Air America veterans are not recieving any retirement support from the government. What they are trying to get is the ability to get the same health care coverage that a retired USAF or US Army veteran would recieve. Nothing else. The have created an act (Air America Veterans Act of 2009, S. 1494, Section 338) to try and fight for what they want. Any support would be appreciated. I was shocked to find out that these men were not being offered these benefits. 87 Air America pilots and crew members were killed during the Vietnam War.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

In a way, I'm not surprised. The jobs were through a 'private contractor' that the Government did everything they could to deny the existence of, who answered to who and on what level was never clear and unfortunately the entire operation fell into a very deep, dark crack in history that the current itterations of government wish would just go away.
I feel for those folks given what they did and where they did it, and the bravery involved, but unfortunately they are sort of in the same category as old workers for Studebaker or BELLANCA who's support and basic public 'Give a S#!+' disappeared when the doors were locked for the last time.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Same way Uncle did the AVG and the WASPS....

40 years from now will there be the same sort of support for veterans of Blackwater? (or XO or whatever they are calling themselves now)

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

I'm not surprised either. And they'll have quite an uphill battle to fight to get what they are obviously due for their service to our country.

This might be too "political" for some here, but I believe this is an important issue.

As an example of how tough it'll be for those Air America vets, a few years ago I saw a news article about how veterans of the US Navy's "Riverine" forces in the Mekong Delta were being denied benefits and compensation across the board for the complications and health problems that they have experienced as a result of our use of the defoliant Agent Orange in Viet Nam. It seems that it was DOD or Veterans Administration official policy that Agent Orange cases were acknowledged and dealt with only for military service personnel who actually had "boots on the ground" in Viet Nam. Therefore, Navy personnel who operated on patrol boats in the Delta and elsewhere were automatically excluded - even though they were effectively living in the run-off every day.

I thought to myself "what kind of BS is this??!!"

I was moved to write an op-ed piece about how it was a shame that as a government agency that is supposedly tasked with taking care of our veterans, the VA instead seemed to be more interested in finding loopholes, exemptions, and excuses for NOT taking care of our vets!

Of course, those Navy personnel were IN uniform (at least officially) and yet they were denied benefits and compensation for their ills, etc.

I've long thought (even though I am not a veteran myself) that we need to do a much better job as a society to take care of our vets - especially those that come back from war injured in any way - and their families, too. They put their lives on the line for all of the rest of us and we could do a better job of showing our appreciation and respect.

How stupid is it that military service personnel even have to pay income taxes? I mean, their salaries are paid in the first place out of our taxes, so turning around and making them pay taxes too is in effect the government helping itself to a hefty rebate that it doesn't deserve - at least not like the military servicemen and women who deserve that money more.

I also believe that all military service members deserve to have the best health care that is available - regardless of cost. Why should members (and even ex-members) of Congress who sit around on their figuratively-speaking fat backsides waiting for lobbyists to sweeten the ante for their graft and corruption get the best health care there is when too often VA facilities are understocked, understaffed, and sometimes in appaling condition. A few years ago, probably about the time that Bob Woodruff of ABC News was recovering from his head injuries as a result of an IED in Iraq, they did a story about Walter Reed Medical Center that showed that it was in some ways falling apart and infested with mold. Walter frickin' Reed! The supposed pinnacle of US Army medical facilities.

Of course, in order to give all of those vets that kind of medical care - that they unquestionably deserve - (regardless of whether or not we could exempt them from paying any more taxes) we'd all have to pay a higher amount of taxes ourselves to pay for it. I'm not holding my breath that enough so-called "patriotic" Americans will ever buy into the idea.

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“To invent the airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything!” - Otto Lilienthal

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Boris: "I always got plan. They don't ever work, but I always got one!"

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