McCain: No Friend of Veterans, Unlike Obama

The AFL-CIO explains:

As Sen. John McCain runs for president, he’s using his own service to cast himself as a friend to war veterans. The truth is, although he served honorably in uniform 40 years ago, his much more recent Senate record on veterans’ issues is very different than his rhetoric.

In contrast, Sen. Barack Obama has a voting record that lives up to this nation’s promise to support those who have served. Obama supported the 21st Century GI Bill, while McCain, who had announced his opposition to the bill, didn’t show up for the vote.

In a new mailer, the AFL-CIO is reaching out to some of the more than 2 million union members who are veterans. The mailer features Walter Springs, a Vietnam vet and AFT member who supports Obama.

John McCain hasn’t fought for veterans in Congress, and he won’t fight for them as president. As a veteran, I want to do what’s best for veterans. That means I’m supporting Barack Obama.

The new mailer is just one of the ways that union veterans are taking part in this fall’s election.

Although McCain makes claims about his support for veterans, his words don’t match reality. His claim of a “perfect voting record” on veterans’ issues is contradicted by the Disabled American Veterans, which gives McCain only a 20 percent rating, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which gives McCain a “D”—a sorry distinction the group granted to only four other senators. In contrast, the IAVA gives Obama a “B,” and the DAV gives him an 89 percent rating.

Vet Voice, a veterans’ political group, has compiled a comprehensive list of McCain’s repeated votes against veterans’ benefits and health care.

McCain has proposed a plan that could shift veterans out of the Veterans Affairs (VA) system and into private health care, a move that’s been greeted by skepticism and criticism from veterans’ groups.

Rep. Chet Edwards, a Texas Democrat who chairs the subcommittee overseeing the VA and has won recognition from veterans’ groups for his excellent record, says McCain’s plans for veterans’ services just won’t cut it.

The Disabled American Veterans, at their national convention in Las Vegas this year, said that the McCain “plastic card” program could undermine the VA health care system, and in the worst-case scenario could even cause the VA system to be closed. Privatizing the VA health care system is something that virtually every major veterans’ organizations in our country opposes…it would undermine the expertise, the resources and the credibility we have at our veterans’ hospitals, where a vet knows he or she is going to be treated with special care and attention.

It would be devastating to a lot of combat-wounded veterans if you undermined our VA health care system and tried to privatize it, just as [McCain] supported partial privatization of the Social Security system…and that, frankly, would hurt a lot of veterans as well.

What’s more, McCain’s record on issues like jobs, trade and retirement security has disappointed working families across the country—as vividly illustrated by Paul Puzanghera, a canvasser for the AFL-CIO community group, Working America. As part of his door-to-door canvassing to talk with people about working family issues, he stopped at a flag-bedecked house in Bucks County, Pa., where the veteran who lived there said he was voting for Obama because “I don’t want to lose my home.” With the economy topping voters’ lists of concerns, union veterans are voting to protect their jobs and their families this fall.

Retired four-star Admiral John Namath is impressed with Obama’s record of support for the military.

Sen. Obama has consistently voted to fund our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and, just as importantly, has a proven record of support when they return home. That’s why independent veterans’ organizations give Sen. Obama higher marks than Sen. McCain. Despite consistent distortions of his record, thousands of veterans like myself support Sen. Obama because he has the judgment, character and integrity to be a great president. We will need a great president to lead us in these very challenging times.

Union veterans like Walter Springs understand that despite McCain’s service in uniform, his Senate record and his proposals don’t address the needs of today’s veterans and their families.