Introducing The American Veterans And Servicemembers Survival Guide
07 December 2007 5:00 am by Taylor Marsh
Introducing The American Veterans And Servicemembers Survival Guide
Expert guest post by Bobby Muller, VFA
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I very much appreciate the opportunity to guest post here, and thank you very
much Taylor for letting me do so, and for everything you do to make people aware
of the issues facing our veterans and our servicemembers.
The reason I am here is that I want to let everyone know that Veterans For
America has just published online, and free to all, a new guide that will be
extremely helpful to all of our veterans and current servicemembers.
The American
Veterans And Servicemembers Survival Guide follows up on the famous
original survival guide, “The Viet Vet Survival Guide” which
was published over two decades ago. In fact, some of the original authors helped
us with this guide and for that I am very grateful.
This new guide is the culmination of everything I have learned on how to fight
for and get yourself the care you need – a lesson I had to learn myself
over three decades ago.
You see, after I was shot and paralyzed in Vietnam, I spent over a year in
the Kingsbridge Veterans Hospital in New York City, learning how to live life
as a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair.
My ward was the focus of a Life magazine cover story that portrayed the conditions
within the hospital as a “medical slum.” That issue was the second-highest
selling in the history of the magazine.
As the Walter Reed scandal and subsequent revelations show, when it comes to
failing to provide our wounded troops and veterans with the medical care they
need, history is repeating itself.
Then, as now, some troops and veterans become so beaten down by the bureaucracy,
the lack of care, and the general indifference to their situation, that in despair,
they take their own lives.
I felt immensely betrayed by my country when I returned home, and it kills
me to see another generation of American servicemembers grappling with the same
neglect. When I became a veteran, I quickly learned that the only way to survive
was to become my own advocate and the same is true for today’s troops
and vets if they want to survive the mammoth DoD and VA bureaucracies.
This “American Veterans And Servicemenbers Survival Guide” will
have twenty-eight chapters that our veterans and men and women in uniform will
find invaluable in getting the care and help they need. It will be constantly
improved and updated. The
book can be downloaded by clicking here.
The Survival Guide will help current servicemembers navigate through DoD programs
and will help veterans with critical issues like re-employment rights and homeless
veterans programs. It is a great guide, and I’m trying to get in the hands
of as many people as I possibly can.
Please use the Survival Guide, forward it on, post links to it. Our veterans,
servicemembers, and their families deserve far more care, attention and support
than they are getting now. Please join me in doing everything we can for those
who do everything they can to protect us.
Raised in a New York City suburb, Bobby Muller’s commission with the US Marines began the same day he received his Bachelors in Business Administration from Hofstra University in 1968. As a Marine Lieutenant, he served as a combat infantry officer in Vietnam. In April of 1969, Muller was leading an assault when a bullet severed his spinal cord and left him paralyzed from the chest down. His service in Vietnam and its aftermath changed his life. During rehabilitation at the Veterans Administration Hospital in the Bronx, NY, Muller experienced firsthand the problems of neglect, frustration and inadequate care being given to wounded veterans in the US. He decided to fight for fair and just treatment for all veterans by joining the anti-war movement, enrolling in law school at Hofstra and eventually serving as legal counsel for the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association. He founded Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) in 1978 and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (later renamed Veterans for America) in 1980.
