To care for him who shall have borne the battle: Ongoing care for veterans

In a small room at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center on Monday, a dozen old soldiers sat in wheelchairs to one side of the podium.

Michael O'Neal pushed up from his chair and stood on his only remaining foot. After a bit, everyone sang the national anthem. Michael raised his hand to his face and held the salute. A tear formed at the corner of his only remaining eye. He had lost his foot and his eye to diabetes, long after his service in the late 1960s in Korea.

About 100 people were crowded into a small auditorium at the VA Medical Center in the Richmond District to pay tribute to all veterans, but more specifically to those suffering various illnesses requiring treatment at the center.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, thanked the veterans for their sacrifice and vowed to bring legislation in Washington to provide more help to veterans.

"There's a saying among the troops that you leave no man behind," Pelosi said. "We aim to make that, leave no veteran behind, either."

In the words of Abraham Lincoln at his second inauguration: "Let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

Advice: Ask a vet you know if he’s getting good medical care.

Read stories of the medical errors affecting our veterans.

Thanks to John Koopman for the source story in today’s San Francisco Chronicle.