For general interest, written a couple of years ago. Honouring the Military Covenant A spokesman for the MoD recently mentioned: “Fulfilling our part of the deal (the Covenant) is not always easy – it takes time and money” As far as I can discern that ‘time and money’ is coming directly from military charities on a whole range of pressing Covenant connected issues, and not from the state as many people would sometimes believe. While our dedicated military charities are absolutely invaluable in caring for the needs of our estimated 5.5 million veterans, I feel it is only right for the state, in the first instance, to ensure that those in service of their country now are served in return by the people of our country through the state without being reliant on charity. A British ‘GI’s Bill’ A retiring or disabled US serviceperson has by congressional right access to a superb range of federally supported educational skills that continues for at least 10 years with life long specialist medical care after leaving the services. This type of extended state funded care has been the envy of British servicepersons since 1945. Indeed, many past and serving British politicians have wondered why we can’t do the same here or even do it better! How would a British GI’s Bill look? Utilising the MoD’s Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (and not a profit making private contractor) this country could: • Allow leaving servicepersons to remain on 80% of last rate of service pay for 1 year, or until achieving civilian employment with equal or better full rate of previous service pay. (veterans and their dependants are at their financially most vulnerable in the first year after leaving) • To have continued access to service accommodation, or where not available, housing location choice at same service rental rates until permanent housing is sourced. (Due to low pay, many service leavers are unable to buy houses or afford rent in their chosen areas. Many are known to go homeless directly after leaving the services) • To provide funded access to higher education programmes, university degrees, and skills for life based transition courses for up to 3 years after leaving. (complete free re-training for civilian employment in return for reckonable service) • Open and continued access to Armed Forces base area medical professionals for regular physical and psychiatric checks and treatment. (many veterans start to suffer physically and emotionally after they leave and have great difficulty explaining this to the NHS or even their GP, increasing the anguish they endure) Indeed prior to release, many would have commenced effective medical treatment whilst in service before being passed on the NHS after discharge) Would this ‘British GI’s Bill’ be cost effective? Here we need to consider the cost of the following - letting you decide: Homelessness. It is estimated that about a quarter of all the UK’s homeless are veterans, many of them suffering from severe combat related trauma. By continuing to house service leavers, whether married, in partnership or not, just makes plain economic sense and would hugely assist toward less stress free independent living. Joblessness. Around half of all service leavers will be without a decent job for about a year or more. Keeping them 80% paid for a year is a firm investment in making sure that essential career transition is less problematic and off the dole. Education. Most servicepersons join up young, straight after school, college or university and consequently have no civilian job related skill that can be easily transferred back into a very competitive job market. Providing long term free job related education towards achieving nationally acknowledged skills accreditations would bring hugely experienced team leaders effectively into the market to the benefit of us all. Health care. About 5000 servicemen and women are expected to be medically discharged over the next 2 years. Add that number to 19,000 who leave each year, many whom will later develop psychiatric illnesses as a result of their combat service, and anyone can see the problem. The NHS along with the fantastic assistance provided by our military charities currently takes this on, but for how long can this be sustained? We must ask this question, as many of our veterans will need life long care. Life long specialist care for our veterans is best provided, in every respect, by the Armed Forces at our existing main service establishments all around the country. Again, investment here just makes plain sense and must surely be cost effective in the long run. Why? Because we don’t want our brave young men and women to go through what we went through after hanging up our uniforms and also to let them know – they will never be alone and deserve the very best this country can offer as described in the Military Covenant. John Mc Dermott.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 17:54:42 +0000
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