4A
OPINION
®he £ntics
gainesvilletimes.com
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com
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The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
LETTERS
Teachers should
VA gets funding it deserves
be focusing only
on American
culture, history
I read Ms. Hill’s letter in the Nov. 5 Times
with interest about her classroom teaching
and her wishes on multicultural professional
development.
Just how many cultures will teachers have to
study, how many additional text books have to be
printed and in how many different languages?
Our teachers have enough to do without teach
ing someone else’s culture. It is not up to our
already overloaded teachers to reflect some
other culture or religion in our classrooms.
They have math, phonics instruction, science
content and United States history to teach.
They are not in our schools to teach some other
culture, history or religion.
Thank God, in spite of the efforts of some of our
political leaders’ wishes, we are not some other
nationality yet.
George Roshau
Gainesville
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Your government officials
Hall County government
Board of Commissioners, 2875 Browns
Bridge Road, Gainesville, RO. Drawer 1435,
Gainesville 30503, 770-535-8288, www.
hallcounty.org. Chairman Richard Higgins,
rhiggins@hallcounty.org; District 1, Kathy
Cooper, kcooper@hallcounty.org; District 2,
Billy Powell, bpowell@hallcounty.org; District 3,
Scott Gibbs, sgibbs@hallcounty.org; District 4,
Jeff Stowe, jstowe@hallcounty.org.
County Administrator, Jock Connell, jconnell@
hallcounty.org
Planning Commission, 2875 Browns Bridge
Road, Gainesville, 770-531-6809.
Tax Commissioner’s Office, 2875 Browns Bridge
Road, P.O. Box 1579, Gainesville 30503, 770-
531 -6950, taxcommissioner@hallcounty.org
Tax Assessor’s Office, 2875 Browns Bridge
Road, Gainesville 30504, rswatson@hallcounty.
org. Real estate property, P.O. Box 2895,
Gainesville 30503, 770-531-6720; personal
property, P.O. Box 1780, Gainesville 30503,
770-531-6749
Public Works, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville, 770-531-6800, krearden@
hallcounty.org
Extension office, 734 E. Crescent Drive,
Gainesville, 770-535-8293
Marshal’s Office, P.O. Drawer 1435, Gainesville,
770-531-6762
Elections Office, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville, 770-531-6945, elections®
hallcounty.org
Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Gerald Couch, 610
Main St., Gainesville, 770-531-6885, www.
hallcountysheriffsoffice.org
Fire Department, 470 Crescent Drive,
Gainesville, 770-531-6838, www.hallcounty.
org/fireservices
District Attorney’s Office, District Attorney
Lee Darragh, P.O. Box 1690, 770-531-6965,
ldarragh@hallcounty.org
Public Safety, Director Marty Nix, 470 Crescent
Drive, Gainesville, 770-531-6774, mnix@
hallcounty.org
Animal Shelter, Director Mike Ledford, 1688
Barber Road, Gainesville, 678-450-1587,
mledford@hallcounty.org; Animal Control, 770-
531- 6830, 770-536-8812 (after hours)
Parks and Leisure Services, Director Mike Little,
4175 Nopone Road, Gainesville, 770-531-
8280, mlittle@hallcounty.org
Library System, 127 Main St., Gainesville, 770-
532- 3311, circdesk@hallcountylibrary.org
Gainesville city government
City Council, 300 Henry Ward Way, Suite
303 P.O. Box 2496, Gainesville 30501,
770-535-6860, www.gainesville.org,
citycouncil@gainesville.org. Mayor Danny
Dunagan, 770-718-7877. Council members
Barbara B. Brooks, 678-858-0305; Ruth
Bruner,770-532-7207; Sam Couvillon, 678-
SI 6-9711; Zack Thompson, 770-534-0041;
George Wangemann, 770-534-5861
City Manager, Bryan Lackey, 770-535-6865
Police Department, Chief Carol Martin, 701
Oueen City Parkway, Gainesville, 770-534-
5252, police@gainesville.org, www.gainesville.
org/police-department
Fire Department, Chief Jerome Yarbrough, 725
Pine St., Gainesville, 770-534-3612, www.
gainesville.org/fire-department
Public Utilities, Director Kelly Randall, 770-538-
2400, krandall@gainesville.org
Public Works, Director Chris Rotalsky, P.O. Box
2496, Gainesville, 770-535-6882, crotalsky@
gainesville.org
ROBERTO KOLTUN I Tribune News Service
The Bruce W. Carter VA Medical Center in Miami cares for about 58,000 patients a
year and serves Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.
BY CHRISTOPHER DALE
Tribune News Service
In advance of this year’s Veterans
Day, on Nov. 11, the legions of men and
women who have served in our nation’s
military received some welcoming news:
Congress finally agreed to fund the VA
Mission Act, which since its June passage
had been mired in budgetary disputes.
Announced on Sept. 11, an appropriate
date, the arrangement sets aside more
than $200 billion to improve the health
care services provided by the U.S.
Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Tales of delays and deficiencies,
including long waits and poor access to
proper care, have plagued the VA since
injured vets started returning from
Afghanistan and Iraq following 9/11.
Last fall —16 years after the War on
Terror began — the VA was still flooded
with serious complaints about patient
care; earlier this year, concerns about
doctor shortages made headlines.
It’s these issues that the VA Mission
Act seeks to address. The law makes it
easier for veterans to access covered
care through non-VA service providers,
who may be more convenient in terms
of expedience, distance or quality of
care.
The law’s primary principle is simple:
Those injured while serving in the mili
tary should not need to jump through
hoops for quality medical care.
The law also provides incentives
for recruiting new doctors to the VA,
including an attractive education debt-
relief initiative and specialized train
ing in afflictions most likely to impact
veterans, such as PTSD and painkiller
addiction.
It’s a terrific start, but the law has
shortcomings. For starters, despite
settling the summer-long financial
squabble, Congress failed to deliver a
long-term funding solution for the law’s
historically high (though completely nec
essary) revenue requirements.
But the law’s greatest disappointment
is its narrowly defined view of caring for
our injured veterans.
Tens of thousands of men and women
have returned from Iraq and Afghani
stan with permanent physical handicaps
and deep emotional scars — wounds
they will be coping with for the rest of
their lives. Many need assistance outside
the doctor’s office, including finding suit
able employment in an economy that,
though humming for many, is far from
ideal for individuals with disabilities,
whose unemployment rate is more than
double the national average.
Truly comprehensive care would
not only fix the VA but expand it to
empower injured veterans with eco
nomic opportunities, peer-to-peer
engagement, and group-centric mental
health programs that utilize injured
veterans’ greatest tool for overcoming
battle-born trauma: each other.
Of course, nonprofit organizations
like the Wounded Warrior Project have
been offering these life-affirming tools
for well over a decade. But why should
it be up to private charities to take care
of those who battled and bled for their
country?
In a political landscape where we
can’t seem to agree on anything, it’s
likely that anyone — Democrat or
Republication — would be challenged to
find a single service provided by chari
ties like the Wounded Warrior Project
that doesn’t deserve the full financial
backing of the U.S. government.
We shouldn’t have to pull on the heart
strings, and purse strings, of strangers
to care for wounded war veterans in the
United States. Their care should be pro
vided, in full, by the American people.
The VA Mission Act is a step in the
right direction, but we can — and should
— go further by expanding the defini
tion of what caring for injured veterans
means. Our wounded veterans deserve
not only exemplary health care, but all
the tools they need to re-assimilate into
civilian life despite missing limbs or
shattered psyches. And to provide them
what they are so obviously owed, the
wealthiest country in the world should
be relying on funding, not fundraising.
This column was written for the
Progressive Media Project, which is
run by The Progressive magazine, and
distributed by Tribune News Service.
"The election results are interesting, but it's
the results of the election that matters to me."
JIM POWELL I For The Times
IS -•
DANA SUMMERS I Tribune News Service
She Stines
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