My purposes for making this journey were multi-fold. When I met folks along the way who asked me why I was riding, the answer I conditioned myself to offer first was that my intent was to say thank you to our solders and vets; and then, time permitting, I would explain my interest in personal fitness, cycling, and the Greenway issues.
As time goes on, I will continue to focus on all of these things; but, today, I want to briefly revisit my mission that focuses on veterans affairs. It is integral to everything that I set out to accomplish; and is related to cycling, as cycling has been demonstrated to be an excellent low-impact aerobic activity that can be enjoyed by almost everyone, and can be especially useful in verteran's rehab efforts. I like what I see being done by Ride 2 Recovery and the support afforded this charity by the American Legion and numerous cycling interests.
As a veteran who recently applied to be enrolled in the VA healthcare system, I am impressed with the quality of outreach and treatment provided by VA facilities to those veterans who apply for enrollment. However, the VA healthcare system can only help those who apply for treatment; and as I confirmed on my bike journey, there are untold numbers of veterans suffering from war-related injuries and illnesses who are either currently enrolled in the VA healthcare system, but not fully informed about treatments available to them, or completely unaware of the fact that they are entitled to enrollment in VA healthcare. I met many veterans on my trip who were either under-treated, or, completely left out of the system; because there does not appear to be any adequately comprehensive source of VA treatment options available to all vets, and especially those of the Vietnam era. I only found about my own personal eligibility for healthcare enrollment by accident in a casual conversation with a veteran friend. Since then, I've encouraged all of my other veteran friends who are suffering from obvious war-related health issues to apply to the VA for treatment. 100% of these veteran friends were either totally unaware of their eligibilty for treatment, or, they did not know how to apply for it.
None of this is intneded to be a negative comment about the VA's efforts. The VA can only outreach to, and treat those that it is funded and staffed to treat. Therein lies the crux of the problem. The VA may, in fact be overwhelmed by its current treatment workload; but that does not negate the responsibility we have to honor the committments we've made to our soldiers and veterans by willfully, albeit often irresponsibly dispatching our soldiers into the midst of unwinnable, thankless conflicts, serving ungrateful supposed-allies who hate America and everthing we stand for. And just because many of our soldiers are found to have served in conflicts later judged to be unpopular or non-PC does not ever justify turning our backs on them after they have laid everthing on the line for us.
The politicians who serve "us" today (spelled: "themselves") who are determined to "save money" by ignoring or breaking the committments made to our soldiers are dead wrong and need to be held to the highest level of accountability for their greed, insensitivity, and irresponsibility. The bottom line is that, if America is not willing to fairly and adequately treat our veterans' service-related health problems, we urgently need to get out of the business of treating our soldiers and veterans as expendable mercenaries.
By using cycling endeavors as public-awareness and fundraising opportunities to reach out to our soldiers and veterans, I intend to immerse myself in activities that will focus more and urgent attention upon soldiers' and veterans' issues. I believe it would be unconscionable and irresponsible to do otherwise.
Thanks to all of you who rallied to support this hastily-planned and executed cycling trip up and down Florida's East Coast. Regardless of which of my goals you supported, personal fitness, promoting Florida cycling opportunites, or calling attention to veterans's health issues by helping defray the expenses of my trip or making donations to the American Legion, I could not have accomplished this without you. I encountered many adverse conditions along the way that would have led me to give up several times, had it not been for your encouragement and support. I survived two years of combat in Vietnam only by the grace of God, and came home realtively unscathed. I confess the same about this bike trip. This effort was more difficult than any physical feat I ever attempted as a young soldier; and I endured some very dangerous conditions due to traffic (mainly other cyclists), road and bike trail construction, and discouraging headwinds for nine days that forced me to pedal for 10 - 12 hours per day at barely more than walking speed.
Thanks again for you calls, e-mails and bogs of encouragement.
Al
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