As many of my faithful readers know, I am a veteran. With that being the case, I always take politicians getting involved in veterans’ issues with a grain of salt because they have getting reelected in their windshield. For most of them that’s more important than anything. It’s called posturing.

Here in Montana, politicians know that a large voting block for them is veterans. With Montana having over 100,000 veterans living in the state, politically it is a smart move to give the veterans a little love.

Politics have been involved in Veterans issues for many years and that is the problem.

Some of us see through the smokescreen. Sometimes when politicians “demand” an investigation into something in the Veterans Administration (VA), it has more to do with getting votes than really helping veterans.

I have always thought that a major problem we veterans have with the elected officials in D.C. is that a majority of them did not serve, so they really don’t understand what it’s like to sign their name on the line and be sent anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately, that’s the case with Montana’s congressional delegation as not one of the three served. They lack the basic understanding of veterans’ issues. Personally, I believe they also lack an understanding of sacrifice, too, but that’s a story for another day.

I would be more inclined to vote for a candidate who is a veteran and not care if he/she was a Democrat or Republican. You can’t win me over by telling me that your dad, grandpa or brother served, either.

I did a little research and I believe that in the 435 member United States House of Representatives, there are around 90 veterans. In the 100 member United States Senate, there are about 29 veterans.

But what is really wrong is the House and Senate Veterans Committees have a small number of veterans serving on the committees. In the Senate, it looks like out of 15 members on the Veterans Committee, only six are veterans (two Democrats and four Republicans). On the House Veterans Affairs Committee, it looks like out of 29 members, only six are veterans (four Democrats and two Republicans). The Chairman of the Veterans Committee in the House is not even a veteran.

The House and Senate Veterans Appropriations committees (these committees actually fund the VA) should have a majority of veterans on them, too.

Until these committees have a majority of their seats occupied by veterans, we’ll continue to see politics with the funding and with the overall running of the Veterans Administration.

Until that is changed, veterans will never really be fully represented no matter how much the non-veterans representing us say they understand.