Ryan
Hart, poses for a photo in Jackson, Mich. Hart, 14, found a piece of
finger in his Arby's sandwich. Jackson police and the county health
department say an Arby's employee cut her finger on a meat slicer.
Health officials believe the employee then left her station, and other
workers continued to fill orders before they became aware of what
happened. (AP Photo/Jackson Citizen Patriot, Danielle
Salisbury) (Danielle Salisbury)
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that
President Bush broke faith with veterans who have been promised medical
care even as he sent thousands of men and women into harm's way in Iraq.
"Here
we are with an administration that is busy creating a whole new
generation of veterans," Kerry said during a flag-draped forum at a
center for aging associated with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"Veterans earned their health care ... it was a promise made by a
nation. People who served their country, I believe, above all have a
right to have that promise kept."
The Massachusetts senator, concluding a four-day ,
contended that Mr. Bush has cut funding for VA health programs and left
hundreds of thousands of veterans without care. He called for mandatory
funding for veterans health care and a series of cost-cutting measures
to assist veterans and their families.
Prominent Kerry
supporters, including former rival and fellow Vietnam veteran Wesley
Clark, criticized Mr. Bush's own military record. After comparing
Kerry's public service to his detractors, Clark said, "Some of them put
on their cowboy boots and put their feet up on the desk."
Hershel
Gober, who served as secretary of Veterans Affairs under President
Clinton, said far too little attention is being given to military
personnel serving in the war on terror.
"This war is worse than Vietnam," Gober said. "These troops have the highest suicide rate of any war we've had."
Veterans
at the forum told Kerry about their struggles to find help after they
came home and complimented Kerry for his service in the Navy.
"It
feels great to have somebody who has been in Vietnam and who has been
to war," said one of the veterans, David Smith. "I've never had that
before."
Clark and others contrasted Kerry's experience as a
swiftboat commander in Vietnam to the National Guard service of
President Bush, who served stateside during the war.
"Can you
imagine having a president who actually answered the country's call and
went to war when our country needed him as a young man?" Clark asked
during an airport rally.
"John Kerry, when he was a young man, he
could have had an easy life, he could have worn cowboy boots," said
Clark, a retired four-star general who, like Kerry, was wounded in
Vietnam. "He didn't manage a professional sports team using some of his
daddy's name. John Kerry took tough assignments."
In another
reference to Mr. Bush, Clark said Kerry "could have chosen an easy life.
Some people who went to Yale did." Both the president and Sen. Kerry
graduated from Yale University during the Vietnam era.
The Bush
campaign responded to the criticism by noting that former Sen. Bob Dole
of Kansas and 49 Medal of Honor recipients had endorsed the president
"because of his steady leadership and winning the war on terror."
Mr.
Bush was continuing his weeklong focus on education Thursday with a
visit to a high school in West Virginia, where he is in a close race for
the state's five electoral votes.
The country's high schools
need to "raise the bar" with the goal of "educating children that have
got the capacity to take over the jobs of the 21st century,'' said Mr.
Bush, appearing at Parkersburg South High in Parkersburg, W. Va.
As
he has for the past two days, Mr. Bush defended the education reform
law called No Child Left Behind, which requires federally funded school
systems to demonstrate that their students can meet a set of learning
standards.
"There needs to be a rigorous focus on English and
math and science," the president said before a banner that read, "Better
Education, Better Jobs."
Mr. Bush has been competitive on the
education issue since the 2000 campaign, when his proposals helped him
win support from women voters. But he and Kerry are now running close
nationally on the question of who would do a better job on education,
with Kerry ahead in some polls and the two closely matched in others.
Kerry,
who voted for No Child Left Behind in the Senate, has criticized Mr.
Bush for what he says is the failure to give schools enough money. Kerry
has touted his own plan to reduce the number of school dropouts and
hire more teachers.
"Thirty percent of high school students
aren't finishing high school, but this president is failing to enforce
the provisions of his own education law that address this crisis," said
Kerry spokesman Phil Singer.
الإثنين مايو 06, 2024 9:48 am من طرف nadaroyal
موضوع: Kerry: Bush Broke Faith With Vets 
