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UPDATE:
According to the White House, the President has met injured warrior Cory Remsburg six times “to be exact.”
Watch the video of the President’s tribute to Cory below.
Original post:
On Friday President Obama visited the Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Phoenix, the hospital that had been at the center of the scandal last year involving fake patient waiting lists used to hide extremely long times veterans had to wait to receive health care and other irregularities.
The Obama administration and the VA have taken many actions to fix the problems and improve veterans’ health care and administration officials claim that the overhaul President Obama ordered last summer has begun to show results.
However, problems still persist. Obama acknowledged on Friday that while the VA, under new leadership, is “chipping away” at the problems, the VA has “more work to do” to regain the trust of veterans, according to The Hill.
According to the Veterans of Foreign Wars , VFW National Inspector General Ray Thomas said in a newspaper interview that most of the veterans he has talked with seem pleased that patient wait times have improved substantially, but that there is still an issue with specialists, especially cancer specialists.
Republicans who attended the session with the president, including Mr. Obama’s one-time presidential rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona, are dismissive of the president’s claims. They say that reforms in the enormous veterans health care system have been sluggish, and that many of the leaders who presided over the scandal are still in place.
In his typical cantankerous manner, Obama’s “one-time presidential rival” went even one step further in pooh-poohing the president’s efforts claiming the meetings “served more as a photo-op for the president than it did a meaningful discussion of the challenges our veterans continue to face in getting the timely health care they have earned and deserve.”
Perhaps what McCain calls a “photo-op” is the president’s genuine concern for those who have been so cruelly wounded in wars so doggedly supported by the senator from Arizona.
Perhaps McCain is referring to the fourth time the commander in chief has met with Sgt. First Class Cory Remsburg, an Army Ranger who was severely wounded in Afghanistan, in a relationship which the New York times says “embodies the burden [the President] has carried as a wartime commander in chief.
The Times:
As detailed in a New York Times article in 2013, Mr. Obama first met Sergeant Remsburg on Omaha Beach in France in 2009, when the two were taking part in a D-Day commemoration. Less than a year later, they met again by chance at a military hospital outside of Washington, where the soldier was recovering from combat wounds — paralyzed and brain-damaged.
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A third time, in 2013, White House aides arranged a private meeting between the two men as Mr. Obama passed through Phoenix, Sergeant Remsburg’s hometown.
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On Friday, Mr. Obama again visited Sergeant Remsburg — who was walking and talking, though still struggling with his injuries — at his new home in Gilbert, a suburb of Phoenix, built and specially renovated by veterans’ organizations.”
The Times article describes how the president joined a backyard picnic with Sergeant Remsburg’s family and friends to celebrate his move into the new house and mentions that one of the president’s housewarming gifts was “some of the beer brewed in the White House.”
The new house for which Sergeant Remsburg received the keys on Friday was purchased by the “Army Ranger Lead the Way Fund,” and it was renovated for Sergeant Remsburg’s use with the help of “Homes for Wounded Warriors,” a group founded by the Chicago Bears football player Jared Allen, according to the Times.
Read more about the so-called photo-op here, a “photo-op” where President Obama says “The greatest honor of my life is serving as commander in chief of the greatest military the world’s ever known,” adding that Sergeant Remsburg’s “never give up, never give in” attitude was “the kind of thing that keeps me going.”
After taking a brief tour of Remsburg’s new house, the President said, according to the Times, “We know that there are a whole bunch of Corys out there and not all of their wounds are as easily seen…We’ve got to be just as vigilant, just as generous and just as focused in making sure that every single one of our men and women in uniform, that they’re getting what they’ve earned and what they deserve.”
More such “photo-ops,” please, Mr. President.
Lead photo: President Barack Obama visits with Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg and family members at his newly finished home in Gilbert, Arizona, March 13, 2015. Remsburg suffered a severe brain injury in Afghanistan several years ago and has made remarkable progress. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.