Veteran scandals hit the South

Shocking stories of the "shameful" treatment of veteran soldiers are reverberating across the country, but it hits an especially sore nerve in the South. As the Institute has shown in several reports, military bases and production have shifted South, and the region's share of veterans has also dramatically grown.

From 1990 to 2000, while the number of veterans nation-wide had declined by almost 4%, the South was the only region where the number of veterans increased, by 5%.

The Census lumps several states into the "South" that we wouldn't (DC, Maryland, Oklahoma), but that doesn't affect the trend lines -- most of the growth in the Southern veteran population happened in states like Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.

These numbers are pre-Afghanistan and Iraq. A large share of the troops in these wars were deployed from Southern bases including Fort Benning, GA; Fort Bragg, NC and Fort Hood, TX. Their return is dramatically increasing the veteran population in the South -- and the load on the overburdened and failing system to help them.

And the scandals keep mounting. From today's New York Times:

"Shameful details continue to emerge on the neglectful care extended to soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army's inspector general reports that more than nine out of 10 disabled veterans have been kept waiting for benefit evaluations beyond the 40-day limit set by the Pentagon. Some have waited up to a year and a half for benefits."

The Times piece notes that Veterans Affairs already has a backlog of 600,000 claims -- and "the veterans department will be swamped by 638,000 new claims in the next five years, adding up to $150 billion in costs."

There is bi-partisan outrage over the treatment of veterans. Here's a recent CBS poll:

Three out of four - 76 percent of - Americans do not think the Bush administration has done enough to care for these veterans. A majority of Republicans agree with all Americans overall on this issue.

Remember when the hawk's biggest outrage were (largely mythic) stories of peace demonstrators spitting on soldiers in Vietnam? What's their response to real, documented cases of abuse and mistreatment at the hands of our own government?