Officials tell the AP that the number of disability claims is increasing because of better treatment for battlefield wounds and more outreach from the Department of Veterans Affairs. And doctors are seeing different types of ailments, including traumatic brain injuries and PTSD:

More of the new veterans are women, accounting for 12 percent of those who have sought care through the VA. Women also served in greater numbers in these wars than in the past. Some female veterans are claiming PTSD due to military sexual trauma — a new challenge from a disability rating standpoint, Hickey said.

The new veterans have different types of injuries than previous veterans did. That’s partly because improvised bombs have been the main weapon and because body armor and improved battlefield care allowed many of them to survive wounds that in past wars proved fatal.

“They’re being kept alive at unprecedented rates,” said Dr. David Cifu, the VA’s medical rehabilitation chief. More than 95 percent of troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have survived.

But the VA’s outmoded system can’t keep up with the backlog of claims. More than 560,000 veterans currently have delayed disability claims that are more than 125 days old. And as the volume continues to grow and cost of health care for veterans increases, Harvard economist Linda Bilmes estimates that the health care and disability costs of the recent wars will cost the nation $600 billion to $900 billion. Despite the mounting claims, the VA is streamlining its process to more effectively take care of veterans because its mission “is to take care of whatever the population is,” Allison Hickey, the VA’s undersecretary for benefits, told the AP. “We want them to have what their entitlement is.”

BIDEN: Looking at your kids, most you have kids here, and it was the first time in my career, my life, I realized someone could go out and I probably shouldn’t say this with the press here — but it’s more important, you’re more important.

For the first time in my life I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts, because they had been to the top of the mountain and they just knew in their heart, they never get there again, that there was never going to get — there never going to be that way ever again. That’s how an awful lot you have feel.

There will come a day, I promise you, and you parents as well, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. [...]

So, hang onto each other. Hang onto each other. And I can’t tell you, I can’t tell you how deeply the five of us on this stage feel about the sacrifices you’ve made for this country. That doesn’t — that doesn’t fill the black hole. You should know only 1 percent of you have fought these wars and much less thank God than 1 percent of those that fought the wars are going through what you’re going through.

We owe you more than we can ever, ever repay you. As I said, my prayer is that that smile will come sooner than later, but I promise you it will come. God bless you all and my God protect our troops. Thank you.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow aired a clip of Biden’s speech:

But all of the impacts occurring simultaneously will have an even more devastating synergy (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts“).  It means the rich countries will be far less likely to be offering much assistance to the poorer ones, since there will be ever worsening catastrophes everywhere simultaneously so we’ll be suffering at the same time.  Heck, this deep economic downturn and the record-smashing disasters of the past two years has already exacerbated media myopia and compassion fatigue to help those around the world staggered by floods and droughts.

And that suggests another deadly climate impact — far more difficult to project quantitatively because there is no paleoclimate analog — may well affect far more people both directly and indirectly: war, conflict, competition for arable and/or habitable land.

We will have to work as hard as possible to make sure we don’t leave a world of wars to our children. That means avoiding decades if not centuries of strife and conflict from catastrophic climate change. That also means finally ending our addiction to oil, a source — if not the source — of two of our biggest recent wars.

Last November, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan “said rising temperatures and rainwater shortages are having a devastating effect on food production. Failing to address the problem will have repercussions on health, security and stability.”

The NYT reported in 2009:

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

That’s a key reason 33 generals and admirals supported the comprehensive climate and clean energy jobs bill in 2010, asserting “Climate change is making the world a more dangerous place” and “threatening America’s security.”  The Pentagon itself has made the climate/security link explicit in its Quadrennial Defense Review.

Sadly, the chance that humanity will avert catastrophic climate impacts has dropped sharply in the past two years (see “The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 2“).  And that means it is increasingly likely we face a world beyond 450 ppm atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, which in turn means we likely cross carbon cycle tipping points that threaten to quickly take us to 800 to 1000 ppm — a world of rapid warming and a ruined climate far outside the bounds of any human experience.

It is a world not merely of endless regional resource wars around the globe. It is a world with dozens of Darfurs and Pakistani mega-floods, of countless environmental refugees — hundreds of millions in the second half of this century — all clamoring to occupy the parts of the developed world that aren’t flooded or desertified.

In such a world, everyone will ultimately become a veteran, and Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day may fade into obscurity, as people forget about a time when wars were the exception, a time when soldiers were but a small minority of the population.  And if we don’t act swiftly and strongly to stop it, the worst impacts could last a long, long time (see NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe and Nature Geoscience: ocean dead zones “devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years”).

So when does this start to happen?

Thomas Fingar, “the U.S. intelligence community’s top analyst,” sees it happening by the mid-2020s:

By 2025, droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water will plague large swaths of the globe, from northern China to the Horn of Africa.

For poorer countries, climate change “could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Fingar said, while the United States will face “Dust Bowl” conditions in the parched Southwest“¦.

He said U.S. intelligence agencies accepted the consensual scientific view of global warming, including the conclusion that it is too late to avert significant disruption over the next two decades. The conclusions are in line with an intelligence assessment produced this summer that characterized global warming as a serious security threat for the coming decades.

Floods and droughts will trigger mass migrations and political upheaval in many parts of the developing world.

For the latest literature review and projections, see my May 13 post “Hansen Is Correct About Catastrophic Projections For U.S. Drought If We Don’t Act Now” as well as the 2011 study, Michael Wehner et al., “Projections of Future Drought in the Continental United States and Mexico,” and the 2010 piece, “Must-read NCAR analysis warns we risk multiple, devastating global droughts even on moderate emissions path.”

The 2010 NCAR is being revised, but the figure below (which had been his 2030s projection in his original version) is a rough representation of where his analysis projects things will be in mid-century — if we are so self-destructive as to let this happen:

The PDSI [Palmer Drought Severity Index] in the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl apparently spiked very briefly to -6, but otherwise rarely exceeded -3 for the decade (see here).

And, of course, we’ve seen that even in areas expected to become wetter, can experience an extreme heat wave so unprecedented that it forces the entire country to suspend grain exports:

• Russian Meteorological Center: “There was nothing similar to this on the territory of Russia during the last one thousand years in regard to the heat.”
• Russian President Medvedev: “What is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past.” NYT: “Russia Bans Grain Exports After Drought Shrivels Crop”

See also Nature Publishes My Piece on Dust-Bowlification and the Grave Threat It Poses to Food Security

Significantly, the UK government’s chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, laid out a scenario similar to Fingar’s in a 2009 speech to the government’s Sustainable Development UK conference in Westminster. He warned that by 2030, “A ‘perfect storm’ of food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration as people flee from the worst-affected regions,” as the UK’s Guardian put it.

You can see a five-minute BBC interview with Beddington here. The speech is online. Here are some excerpts:

We saw the food spike last year; prices going up by something in the order of 300%, rice went up by 400%, we saw food riots, we saw major issues for the poorest in the world, in the sense that the organisations like the World Food Programme did not have sufficient money to buy food on the open market and actually use it to feed the poorest of the poor.

So this is a major problem. You can see the catastrophic decline in those reserves, over the last five years or so, indicates that we actually have a problem; we’re not growing enough food, we’re not able to put stuff into the reserves”….

So, what are the drivers? I am going to go through them now very briefly.

First of all, population growth. World population grows by six million every month “” greater than the size of the UK population every year. Between now and”¦ I am going to focus on the year 2030 and the reason I am going to focus on 2030 is that I feel that some of the climate change discussions focusing on 2100 don’t actually grip”¦. I am going to look at 2030 because that’s when a whole series of events come together.

By 2030, looking at population terms, you are looking at the global population increasing from a little over six billion at the moment to about eight billion”…

… you are going to see major changes but particularly in the demand for livestock — meat and dairy….

… By 2030, the demand for food is going to be increased by about 50%. Can we do it? One of the questions. There is a major food security issue by 2030. We’ve got to somehow produce 50% more by that time.The second issue I want to focus on is the availability of fresh water”¦. The fresh water available per head of the world population is around 25% of what it was in 1960. To give you some idea of this; there are enormous potential shortages in certain parts of the world”¦ China has something like 23% of the world’s population and 11% of the world’s water.

… the massive use of water is in agriculture and particularly in developing world agriculture. Something of the order of 70% of that. One in three people are already facing water shortages and the total world demand for water is predicted to increase by 30% by 2030.

So, we’ve got food — expectation of demand increase of 50% by 2030, we’ve got water — expectation of demand increase of 30% by 2030. And in terms of what it looks like, we have real issues of global water security.

…. where there is genuine water stress [in 2025 is] China and also parts of India, but look at parts of southern Europe where by 2025 we are looking at serious issues of water stress”….

So, water is really enormously important. I am going to get onto the climate change interactions with it a little bit later but water is the one area that I feel is seriously threatening. It is so important because a shortage of water obviously interacts with a shortage of food, there are real potentials for driving significant international problems — what do you do if you have no water and you have no food? You migrate. So one can have a reasonable expectation that international migration will occur as these shortages come in.

Now, the third one I want to focus on is energy and, driven by the population increase that I talked about, the urbanisation I talked about and indeed the movement out of poverty”…. For the first time, the demand of the rest of the world exceeded the demand of energy of the OECD …. Energy demand is actually increasing and going to hit something of the order of a 50% increase, again by 2030.

Now, if that were not enough … those are three things that are coming together. What will the world be like when that happens? But we also have, of course, the issue of climate change. Now, this is a very familiar slide to you all but we are shooting for a target of two degrees centigrade, a perfectly sensible target. There is enormous uncertainty in the climate change models about that particular target. It is perfectly reasonable to say ‘shouldn’t we be shooting for one degrees centigrade or, oddly enough, it is perfectly reasonable to say ‘shouldn’t we be shooting for three degrees centigrade’, the only information we have is really enormously uncertain in terms of the climate change model.

Shooting for two seems a perfectly sensible and legitimate objective but there are enormous problems. You are talking about serious problems in tropical glaciers “” the Chinese government has recognised this and has actually announced about 10 days ago that it is going to build 59 new reservoirs to take the glacial melt in the Xinjiang province. 59 reservoirs. It is actually contemplating putting many of them underground. This is a recognition that water, which has hitherto been stored in glaciers, is going to be very scarce. We have to think about water in a major way….

The other area that really worries me in terms of climate change and the potential for positive feedbacks and also for interactions with food is ocean acidification….

As I say, it’s as acid today as it has been for 25 million years. When this occurred some 25 million years ago, this level of acidification in the ocean, you had major problems with it, problems of extinctions of large numbers of species in the ocean community. The areas which are going to be hit most severely by this are the coral reefs of the world and that is already starting to show. Coral reefs provide significant protein supplies to about a billion people. So it is not just that you can’t go snorkelling and see lots of pretty fish, it is that there are a billion people dependent on coral reefs for a very substantial portion of their high protein diet.

… we have got to deal with increased demand for energy, increased demand for food, increased demand for water, and we’ve got to do that while mitigating and adapting to climate change. And we have but 21 years to do it….

I will leave you with some key questions. Can nine billion people be fed? Can we cope with the demands in the future on water? Can we provide enough energy? Can we do it, all that, while mitigating and adapting to climate change? And can we do all that in 21 years time? That’s when these things are going to start hitting in a really big way. We need to act now. We need investment in science and technology, and all the other ways of treating very seriously these major problems. 2030 is not very far away.

Some of this can be avoid or minimized if we act now. Some of it can’t. But if we don’t act strongly now, then by Memorial Day 2030, many of the global conflicts will either be resource wars or wars driven by environmental degradation and dislocation (see “Warming Will Worsen Water Wars). Indeed that may already have started to happen (see “Report: Climate Change and Environmental Degradation Trigger Darfur Crisis).

For one discussion of the kind of wars we might be seeing, albeit for the year 2046, here is a three-part radio series on Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer, a Canadian journalist and historian of warfare.

For all of the above reasons, veterans and security experts and politicians of all parties have begun working together to avoid the worst.   A key leader on climate and energy security has been the conservative Virgina Republican, John Warner, who pushed hard to pass the clean energy bill — because he is a former Navy secretary and former Senate Armed Services Committee chair and because he is a former Forest Service firefighter now “just absolutely heartbroken” because “the old forest, the white pine forest in which I worked, was absolutely gone, devastated, standing there dead from the bark beetle” thanks in large part to global warming.

Warner has been “trying to build grass-roots support for congressional action to limit global warming,” as Politics Daily reported. “He is traveling the country to discuss military research that shows climate change is a threat to U.S. national security.” Here is part of PD‘s interview:

PD: Does the responsibility fall to us to respond to the consequences of climate change?

JW: Not exclusively, but we’re often in the forefront of response to these things. We’re the nation with the most sealift. The most airlift. We have more medical teams which are mobile, more storehouses of food and supplies to meet emergencies. And throughout our history, from the beginning of the republic, America’s always had to respond to certain humanitarian disasters.

PD: What are some examples of destabilization due to climate?

JW: One clear case of it is Somalia. [In the early 1990s] the prolonged drought began to tie up the economy, the food supplies. There was a certain amount of political and economic instability. Where you have fragile nations . . . a serious climactic problem will come along, with a shortage of food or water, and often those governments are toppled. And then they fall to the evils of . . . terrorism or others who try to exploit these fallen governments. You saw it in Darfur. You saw it in Somalia. This political instability and weakness is given the final tilt by a problem associated with climactic change.

Our choice today is clear. We can continue listening to the voices of denial and delay and disinformation, assuring that everyone ultimately becomes a veteran of the growing number of climate-related conflicts.

Or we can launch a WWII-scale effort and a WWII-style effort to address the problem as Hansen and I and many others have called for. That is our most necessary fight today.

This post is an update.

Related Posts:

• Nicholas Stern: Climate inaction risks a “global war”
• Scientific American asks “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?”
• Must have PPT #1: The narrow temperature window that gave us modern human civilization
• Steven Chu on climate change: “Wake up,” America, “we’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California”
• Sen. Barrasso (R-WY) seeks to block intelligence on the national security threat posed by climate change. He needs to see the Fingar.
• Juan Cole: The media’s failure to cover “the great Pakistani deluge” is “itself a security threat” to America

The unemployment rate for veterans between ages 18 and 24 is more than 17 percent, down from 29 percent, but Tim Tetz, legislative director of the American Legion, said that younger veterans are still facing a higher unemployment rate than their civilian counterparts, which stands at 15 percent. Older veterans are also struggling to find employment:

TETZ: [O]f the 780,000 veterans who are currently out of a job, two-thirds of them are between the ages of 35 and 64. And they might not have the resources like the GI Bill and many of the other things that these younger veterans have to use.

Watch his comments here:

Obama’s initiatives are helping to improve the jobs outlook for veterans. That’s more than can be said for Mitt Romney, who has no specific plans to address veterans issues, including unemployment.

Photo: Getty Images

Moreover, seeming to concede President Obama’s dominance of national security issues this campaign season, a Romney adviser told the Times that Romney isn’t interested in talking about foreign policy. “Romney doesn’t want to really engage these issues until he is in office,” the adviser said.

And there’s good reason. Romney’s inexperience on foreign policy and national security issues has dogged his campaign with confusion, ignorance and private and public disagreements among Romney’s campaign advisers and surrogates:

AFGHANISTAN

Romney has been “all over the map” on Afghanistan. As the Washington Post reported late last year, Romney “has not explained what he thinks the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is at this point and what would constitute success.” And keeping with his adviser’s above statement, Romney said in a major foreign policy speech that he’d wait until becomes president to “order a full review of our transition to the Afghan military.”

Romney also says that the U.S. should not be negotiating with the Taliban, a position that puts him at odds with his top national security campaign surrogate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), his own advisers and even former top Bush administration officials. “Romney’s supporters and foreign policy advisers argue that after a decade at war, the only option is a political settlement,” the Times noted.

IRAN

Romney said that if Obama is re-elected, Iran will get a nuclear weapon. “If you elect me as president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” he said. That line “caused some of his advisers to cringe” the Times reported this weekend. But overall, again, Romney has no real policy on Iran that differs much from the current administration’s approach. Romney has proposed much of what Obama is already doing. The Times noted that “when pressed on how, exactly, his strategy would differ from Mr. Obama’s, Mr. Romney had a hard time responding.”

But Romney does occasionally ramp up bellicose rhetoric on Iran which prompted a former Israeli Mossad director to say the former Massachusetts governor “is making the situation worse” with Iran. Romney has ignored what the IAEA, U.S. and Israeli intelligence think about Iran’s nuclear program and his campaign advisers even attacked the Obama administration for public discussion of the consequences of attacking Iran.

RUSSIA

Russia “is without question, our number one geopolitical foe,” Romney said in March. The Washington Post called the remark “a bit puzzling,” given Russia’s post-Cold War global standing and less adversarial relationship with the United States. Even McCain seemed a bit wary of endorsing that point of view.

And the co-chairman of the Romney campaign’s working group Russia, Leon Aron, disagrees with Romney’s contention that, as the Times put it, “natural resources could vault Russia to a position of global influence rivaling any nation by midcentury.” Aron wrote last month that “Russia’s most serious risk stems from a near-fatal dependence on the price of oil.”

CHINA

Romney’s regularly hypes the Chinese military threat and ignores the need for engaging China diplomatically and economically. In fact, former GOP presidential candidate and U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, who declared himself a Romney supporter, said that Romney’s China policy is “wrongheaded.” Even one of Romney’s top foreign policy advisers praised President Obama on China. “I think he has a good policy in Asia, particularly in dealing with China,” said Robert Kagan.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE/MIDDLE EAST

While Romney often throws out the baseless attack line that Obama has thrown Israel “under the bus,” the presumptive GOP nominee has offered no real plan to achieve peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In fact, Romney has said that the U.S. “should not play the role of leader” in the Middle East peace process. “My inclination is to follow the guidance of our ally Israel,” he said last October.

Romney criticized Newt Gingrich for saying Palestinians aren’t people, but again, he said he’d ask the Israelis what his position would be. “Before I made a statement of that nature, I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: ‘Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?’” Former U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration Martin Indyk said that statement implied that he would “subcontract Middle East policy to Israel.”

VETERANS

The Romney campaign has attacked President Obama for not doing enough for the nation’s veterans, yet Romney has no plan to address various issues affecting the U.S. military — for example, veterans’ health care and unemployment or servicemembers’ education.

TERRORISM

In 2007 and 2008, Romney based his national security policy during his failed presidential bid on the need to fight “radical jihad” and the threat from those wanting to unite the world “under a single Islamic caliphate.” During that campaign, Romney also said he does “not concur” with then Sen. Obama’s plan to go after “high-value intelligence targets” in Pakistan with or without permission. And referring to Osama bin Laden, Romney said, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”

But now, Romney barely mentions terrorism, jihadists or an Islamic caliphate and claims that “of course” he would have done what Obama did and ordered the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader last year. “Any thinking American” would have ordered the raid, Romney said. Apparently “any thinking American” does not include Vice President Biden and Robert Gates, who was Defense Secretary at the time of the raid.

The Times also reported this weekend that Romney’s foreign policy advisers — many of whom helped push for the Iraq war and are now doing the same with Iran — are themselves divided. “There are two very different worldviews in this campaign,” on adviser said. Some of the more mainstream views within the campaign have resulted from “the scar tissue they developed in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Bush-era experiments in the exercise of American power.” But there also remains the more hawkish “Bolton faction,” referring to former Bush administration ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.

So it’s clear why Romney doesn’t want to engage on foreign policy and national security issues in this year’s presidential campaign: his advisers don’t agree with him or each other. And Romney either doesn’t have any national security policies, they aren’t different from President Obama’s, or as recent polling has suggested, they aren’t very popular.

But this year, veterans are splitting for President Barack Obama.

According to a new poll by Reuters/Ipsos, “If the election were held today, Obama would win the veteran vote by as much as seven points over Romney, higher than his margin in the general population:”

Romney, along with his primary rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, had also accused Obama of “appeasement” toward U.S. enemies – a charge that drew a sharp Obama rebuttal. “Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al-Qaeda leaders who’ve been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement,” the president shot back. He has reproached GOP candidates: “Now is not the time for bluster.”

If the election were held today, Obama would win the veteran vote by as much as seven points over Romney, higher than his margin in the general population.

The shift in support could stem in part from the fact that Romney has no specific plan to address veterans’ issues. On top of that, Romney-backers are working hard to “swiftboat” the president and claim he does not support American troops.

But Obama has done his share to earn the support of veterans. He released a plan to help save the homes of foreclosed-on veterans, started an initiative to get soldiers into jobs when they return from wars, and the First Lady has started a series of programs to ensure job opportunities to military spouses.

Mitt Romney’s campaign tried to get out front of the news today by issuing press releases suggesting that the president hasn’t done enough for the nation’s veterans. Campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul said:

“Under President Obama, all Americans have suffered from one of the worst job markets in recorded history — and our nation’s veterans have been among the hardest hit. With more than twelve percent of our most recent veterans struggling to find work and nearly a million veterans unemployed, it’s clear that we need to do more to grow our economy and ensure that those who fight for America can find a job when they return home.”

Saul didn’t expand on the “do more” part of her critique. The other press release titled “Mitt Romney Will Give Veterans A Chance to Find Good Jobs” links to a page on the campaign website that makes no mention of any plan for veterans.

And it appears that no plan exists on Romney’s campaign website to address various issues affecting the U.S. military — for example, veterans’ health care and unemployment or, as Obama addressed today, servicemembers’ education. The “Issues” page lists 23 separate issues Mitt Romney has apparently chosen to focus on during his presidential campaign and none is “Veterans” or “Military.”

It seems like the only outline of any plan Romney has for veterans is to, as he said in a speech to the VFW last August, use “billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency and bureaucracy from the defense budget” and “spend it to ensure that veterans have the care they deserve.” He mentioned no specifics.

Romney announced a Veterans Policy Advisory group back in October to “help to formulate policies that will ensure America keeps its commitments” to veterans but it is unclear what those policies are.

Romney has even praised President Obama’s veterans initiative to encourage companies to hire veterans, saying last November that “it’s a good idea.”

On Veterans Day last year, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee did float a plan to privatize the veterans health care system but he was forced to back away from the proposal after swift condemnation from veterans groups.

Romney has also said he supports Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget proposal. That budget “would cut $11 billion from veterans spending.”

ThinkProgress asked the Romney campaign if the former Massachusetts governor has a detailed plan to address veterans issues but it did not respond before this post was published.

On the substance, it doesn’t seem like the Romney campaign has been paying much attention to what the Obama has been doing. CAP’s Lawrence Korb and Alex Rothman noted in February that “President Obama has made much progress in tackling veteran unemployment” while urging Congress to pass the president’s $6 billion vets jobs corps program. Last month, Obama announced a housing plan to help military vets who were victims of illegal foreclosures and First Lady Michelle Obama said earlier this month that companies had pledged 15,000 jobs for military spouses as part of the administration’s “Joining Forces” program.

Despite progress, there is more to be done. The unemployment rate for veterans was at 7.5 percent in March. The jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan war vets during the same month stood at 10.3 percent, “slightly better than in March 2011.”

Jerry Meekins

A spokesperson for the airline told the local NBC affiliate that they won’t be refunding Meekins’ ticket:

“Our reservations are non-refundable, which means we don’t do refunds and we are not going to issue Mr. Meekins a refund. We offer our customers affordable travel insurance to cover a variety of unexpected circumstances that may arise and many of our customers choose to take advantage of this option.

“We receive many requests for refunds every day for similar situations. It wouldn’t be fair to bend policy for one and not all. We will not make customers who follow the rules pay for those who don’t. It’s just not fair.”

Watch the report:

Meekins said that now it’s not about getting his money back. “My primary goal is to have them change their policy of a blanket coverage of no refund,” he said.

Duckworth, who served in Iraq and then at the VA, lost both legs and part of her arm in combat. Walsh’s response? Ehhh:

“I have so much respect for what she did in the fact that she sacrificed her body for this country,” said Walsh, simultaneously lowering his voice as he leaned forward before pausing for dramatic effect. “Ehhh. Now let’s move on.”

“What else has she done? Female, wounded veteran … ehhh,” he continued. “She is nothing more than a handpicked Washington bureaucrat. David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel just picked her up and dropped her into this district.”

Walsh has since tried to walk back his statement. “I often catch myself when I’m talking. I meant something other than how it came out,” he told Chicagomag.com, although he did not expound on what he meant. But Walsh’s insulting comment is just another instance in a long, long, long line of offensive behavior against a range of marginalized groups.

The last column of U.S. troops leaving Iraq crosses into Kuwait

In February 2002, George W. Bush adviser Kenneth Adelman infamously wrote that the invasion of Iraq would be a “cakewalk.” But wars come at a high financial cost and the Iraq war was no exception. Through FY2011, the war has required $806 billion in federal funding and and total costs have been estimated between $3 – $5 trillion. The humanitarian cost is even more striking. Of the 4,804 coalition military fatalities, the U.S. military suffered 4,486 deaths. The toll on Iraqi civilians has been even higher. Between 105,722 and 115,485 Iraqi civilian deaths have been recorded and 2.8 million Iraqis have found themselves internally displaced by the war.

While the withdrawal from Iraq means an end, or at least a decrease, in some of these costs, the end of the Iraq war permits the U.S. to turn to other security challenges such as: restoring U.S. military readiness; expanding options to deal with other military threats in the Middle East; reducing the financial burden of the U.S. caused by the war; freeing up military resources to fight the Al Qaeda network; and rebalancing overall U.S. national security strategy to deal with real security threats. The withdrawal reflects the administration’s efforts to refocus the country’s national security strategy on the long-term U.S. national security interests of countering nuclear proliferation, worldwide nuclear arsenal reductions and the security of regional partners in Asia and the Middle East.

Returning veterans, as well, find that the costs of war remain high even when their tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have come to an end. Veterans face: growing economic inequalities; a struggling national economy; and a difficult job market. And, according to a whistleblower lawsuit, some of the nation’s biggest banks “defrauded veterans and taxpayers out of hundreds of million of dollars by disguising illegal gees in veterans’ home refinancing loans.”

Veterans also face attacks on their benefits such as GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s proposal to privatize veterans benefits. “The [Veterans of Foreign Wars] doesn’t support privatization of veterans health care,” VFW spokesperson Jerry Newberry told TPM. “This is an issue that seems to come around every election cycle.”

Speaking today, Obama cited the sacrifices made by veterans and called on the country to support its veterans:

Now, our nation reaffirms our commitment to serve veterans of Iraq as well as they served us — to uphold the sacred trust we share with all who have worn the uniform. Our future is brighter for their service, and today, we express our gratitude by saying once more: Welcome home.

A longer version of this post can be viewed in today’s Progress Report.

The President visits troops in Iraq last year

Demonstrating unshakable fortitude and unwavering commitment to duty, our men and women in uniform served tour after tour, fighting block by block to help the Iraqi people seize the chance for a better future. And on December 18, 2011, their mission came to an end.

More than 2 million U.S. troops served in the Iraq war, many of them on multiple deployments. According to CAP analysts Matt Duss and Peter Juul’s updated Iraq War Ledger, nearly 5,000 of them lost their lives, and more than 30,000 suffered injuries. By some estimates, those numbers could be much higher. A Time magazine article highlighted one such toll, traumatic brain injuries:

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), co-chairman of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, has called Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) “the signature injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Though no clear statistics exist for TBI, it is estimated that there are between 115,000 and 400,000 veterans who now suffer from at least mild versions of it.

Obama, in his statement, cited the sacrifices made in “wounds not always seen, but forever felt.” He issued a call to support veterans and their families:

Now, our Nation reaffirms our commitment to serve veterans of Iraq as well as they served us — to uphold the sacred trust we share with all who have worn the uniform. Our future is brighter for their service, and today, we express our gratitude by saying once more: Welcome home.

Indeed, the Defense Department is aggressively working on issues around traumatic brain injuries.

The Obama administration is also pushing for other government programs that work toward alleviating the burdens of veterans. Even as the numbers ease, vets of the Iraq and Afghanistan war are disproportionately represented among the unemployed. So the Obama administration has measures specifically targeting them embedded in its wider proposal for a jobs program.

Veteran care has a long way to go — homelessness, for instance, remains rampant among veterans. Creating a National Day of Honor is a good start.

Miranda Norman (who is a VoteVets.org Senior Advisor), Kayla Williams, and Robin Eckstein, all Iraq War Veterans, and Katherine Scheirman, former chief of medical operations in the U.S. Air Forces, released the following statement:

Rush Limbaugh has a freedom of speech and can say what he wants, but in light of his horribly misogynistic comments, American Forces Radio should no longer give him a platform. Our entire military depends on troops respecting each other – women and men. There simply can be no place on military airwaves for sentiments that would undermine that respect. When many of our female troops use birth control, for Limbaugh to say they are “sluts” and “prostitutes” is beyond the pale. It isn’t just disrespectful to our women serving our country, but it’s language that goes against everything that makes our military work. Again, we swore to uphold our Constitution, including the freedom of speech, and would not take that away from anyone – even Limbaugh. But that does not mean AFN should broadcast him. In fact, it shouldn’t.

AFN is owned and operated by the Department of Defense, funded with taxpayer dollars, and accessible to troops serving overseas. Pentagon spokesman George Little says the military’s network will continue to air Rush Limbaugh’s radio program and is “unaware of any plans to review that decision.”

American Forces Network has a Facebook page here. AFN Europe and AFN Afghanistan are on Twitter.

Earlier today, President Obama unveiled his latest initiative to reduce veteran unemployment: a $6 billion jobs corps program which, if approved by Congress, will create opportunities for returning service members to serve their country in a new capacity — as policemen, firefighters, and employees of the National Park Service.

In addition, General Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs and himself a wounded war veteran, announced that the Small Business Administration will begin offering online entrepreneurial training courses to veterans and their families.

These initiatives are the latest example of the Obama administration’s deep and ongoing commitment to taking care of our men and women in uniform, even as they transition out of the service. Since coming into office, President Obama has substantially increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is the VA that assumes responsibility for service members as they leave the force and transition back to civilian life, and its programs will only become more essential as more men and women return from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last November, Obama signed the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, which provides companies with a substantial tax credit if they hire unemployed or disabled veterans. And the President has also used his executive authority to establish a national Veterans Job Bank, authorize 6-months of career counseling at locations across the country, and create My Next Move, an online database that helps connect veterans with jobs that build off their military experience.

Perhaps most importantly, President Obama, the first lady, and Dr. Jill Biden have brought public attention to the problem of veteran unemployment and the valuable skills that our service members possess. All the president and his administration have done to highlight this issue appears to have prompted employers to take a second look.

As a result of the President’s policy, the jobless rate among post-9/11 veterans — as this blog noted earlier today — fell four percent in January, from 13.1 percent in December to 9.1 percent today. This is a tremendous improvement from one year ago, when the unemployment rate for these veterans stood at about 15 percent. And the initiatives announced by President Obama today will continue to target veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who suffer from unemployment rates significantly higher than those facing the broader veteran population.

President Obama has made much progress in tackling veteran unemployment. But much work remains to be done. The unemployment rate for veterans under the age of 25 is nearly 30 percent, more than twice the rate of civilians their age.

Moreover, with the war in Iraq over and U.S. involvement in Afghanistan coming to a close, the Pentagon has announced that it plans to reduce the ground forces to near their pre-war levels. This process will entail shedding about 100,000 ground troops, a move that will further increase the number of service members looking for civilian jobs.

Over the past decade, in the name of supporting our troops, Congress has steadfastly passed war supplemental after war supplemental. But it is imperative that this support does not end when our men and women in uniform come home. Congress should approve President Obama’s veterans jobs corps and allow these men and women who have served so admirably overseas to reinvest their efforts at home.

The report also showed a big drop for the entire veteran population, as the unemployment rate fell from 9.9 percent to 7.5 percent, lower than the national average.

The news is surely a welcome relief to the veteran community that has been hit especially hard by the weak economy. Unemployment rates for post-9/11 veterans have consistently remained above the national average, and a recent report issued by the U.S Army shows that the impact on returning soldiers has been devastating.

With the backing of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an emphasis on hiring veterans was a key component of President Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act, which was blocked at every turn by congressional Republicans. After voting down the full jobs bill in the Senate and House, Congress passed the Vow to Hire Heroes Act as a standalone bill nearly unanimously in November. The law provides tax credits to employers who hire veterans.

Today, President Obama spoke in Arlington, Virginia to unveil further efforts to place an increasing number of returning veterans in jobs. He called for an additional $6 billion in spending to place as many as 20,000 veterans in jobs, and is asking Congress to increase funding in the next budget for programs that will place veterans in local police and fire departments.

Tracey Cooper Harris, Army Veterinarian

The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed suit on behalf of Iraq War Veteran Tracey Harris, who is fighting to obtain veterans’ disability benefits for her wife Maggie. Tracey continues to receive treatment for PTSD and multiple sclerosis, both of which the VA has determined are service-related, but Title 38 of the United States Code (veterans’ benefits) and the Defense of Marriage Act reject Maggie as a “spouse,” thus depriving them of the same spousal benefits as families with opposite-sex partners.

The inequities Tracey and Maggie face amount to thousands of dollars:

• As a single veteran rated as 80% disabled, Tracey receives compensation of $1,478 per month. As a married veteran, she should be entitled to $1,602 per month. This deprives her and Maggie of $1,488 every year — a full month’s worth of support.
• In the event of Tracey’s death, Maggie should be entitled to a minimum survivor’s benefits of $1,195. Because she is a same-sex spouse, she is entitled to no such benefit at all.
• Maggie would also not be eligible for burial benefits with Tracey, including a government headstone or marker, a burial flag, inscription of their names, burial together, and perpetual care of the burial site.

Tracey explains the importance of this suit:

I dedicated 12 years of my life to serving the country I love. I’m asking only for the same benefits the brave men and women who served beside me enjoy. By refusing to recognize our marriage, the federal government has deprived Maggie and me of the peace of mind that such benefits are meant to provide to veterans and their families.

An interesting twist in the suit involves Title 38, the code that limits benefits to spouses “of the opposite sex.” That language had little to do with the discriminating intent behind 1996′s Defense of Marriage Act, but was in fact the result of SPLC’s 1973 victory in the case, Frontiero v. Richardson. Before then, only wives of veterans could receive benefits — not husbands.