On Friday, the VFW and ten other major veteran and military organizations had already contacted President Obama to voice their objections to one of the budget proposals concerning billing private insurance companies for service-connected injuries.

And the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs promptly answered with his ‘Open Letter To All Veterans’ highlighted in my blog yesterday.

So, for all those being bombarded with all the numerous panic-filled Internet blogs and messages about our new President and the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs being ‘anti-veteran,’ I believe that proposal is probably already ‘dead.’

"It would be unconscionable to pass along the costs of war to wounded and disabled veterans," said the VFW's Glen M. Gardner Jr., a Vietnam veteran from Round Rock, Texas. "This is one policy proposal that the VFW will defeat, because it breaks a sacred trust that veterans have with their government."

The Obama administration also proposed last week that the Department of Veterans Affairs receive $55.9 billion in discretionary funding in fiscal year 2010, an amount that exceeds the prior Bush administration’s VA budget by $5.5 billion.

Gardner also said their proposal includes some good initiatives, such as additional funding to enable more veterans to enroll in the VA system, expanding the concurrent receipt of disability compensation and retirement pay for medically-retired veterans, and targeting access to care issues, especially for rural veterans.

And Gardner also said the administration's new budget proposals for the VA will get an even much closer examination, once all the details are released in April.

As a vet, I applaud both our numerous veteran service organizations for their never ending efforts on behalf of all of our veterans, and this new administration, for their willingness to receive and respect criticism.

 Transparency and Debate and Constructive Criticism, I believe, are all essential in all government actions, especially today; and all three were very sadly lacking in the prior administration.

It wouldn’t hurt to contact your Congressmen and the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs about all of this either; it’s also way past time for far more citizen participation, in all governmental decisions.