As a Vet Returning From Vietnam ...

(This article by then-Executive Vice President Cliff Guffey appeared in the September/October 2004 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

If you elected to serve your country during the Vietnam Era or were drafted in the 1960s or early 1970s, you should read the following letter that I recently wrote to John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona. You may fall into the same category that I describe below. If you do, please let me know.

Senator John McCain:

I am a fellow Vietnam Veteran – thank you for your service and sacrifice.

I am writing to solicit support for those of us who were in the lowest ranks and performed what were arguably the worst duties during the Vietnam Era.

I signed up with the Marine Corps for two years: boot camp, advanced infantry training, and then Vietnam. There were no special schools to achieve greater rank and higher pay. Tens of thousands who enlisted or were drafted for two years of military service were in the same situation, whether they served on flightlines, in the jungles, or on the lower decks of ships.

It turns out that our jobs were in keeping with our earnings. Our salaries were so low that the income we received at the time is not considered “substantial” Social Security earnings. (I did not know this until recently.) I suspect that upwards of 100,000 Vietnam Era veterans now approaching retirement age will awaken to this fact very soon.

In 1983, Congress passed the Windfall Benefit Reduction Act. In theory, individuals serving in the military paid into a Social Security fund so that they later would receive a retirement annuity for their years in uniform. The law also was intended to reward veterans who entered another form of government service: Their years of military service would be credited towards a Civil Service retirement.

In fairness, it should be pointed out that the government act was written to say that to receive credit twice you had to have paid twice. I agreed with this. I am an American who was taught by my father to be proud to pay my share of taxes. So I paid by buying back my military time for Civil Service purposes to keep my Federal Civil Service Retirement from being reduced at age 62. I have paid twice – with each paycheck during my time in the service and when I did the “windfall buyback” – to receive both benefits for the same years.

Now I find out that because my combined Social Security substantial-earnings-years are less than 30 years, I was never going to get a windfall. The reality is that the pay I received while in service to my country for two years was not considered “substantial” Social Security earnings, and I will lose 5 percent of the formula for my Social Security benefit for each year,which means a total loss of 10 percent of my Social Security computation formula.

Congress set my salary while I was in the service and Congress set the “substantial” rates – well above the low-level military wages of the Vietnam Era.

I suggest amending the Social Security Act to provide:

For the substantial earnings test of the Social Security Administration, any year a veteran served honorably will meet the requirement, regardless of earnings.

Please, for your fellow veterans, introduce and support a bill to correct this injustice.

[Signed,]

C.J. Guffey

I hope Sen. McCain recognizes that I feel I was doubly taxed for the time spent serving my country! This is just the latest example of the kind of typically shoddy treatment that I and other veterans have experienced and grown accustomed to.

Other Examples

Recently I have been diagnosed with a disease that promises to shorten my life, a disease that the Veterans Administration acknowledges was caused by my exposure to Agent Orange during my tour in Vietnam. My claim was submitted to the VA more than a year ago, and during my latest attempt to get a status update I was told that my file had not yet been moved to the rating board. I was told that it could be another three months or so before that happens.

This is yet another way in which our country really thanks our vets – by under-funding the Veterans Administration so that claims such as mine cannot be processed in a timely fashion.

The rights of veterans are virtually ignored by the Merit Systems Protection Board. Most postal workers who served in the military recognize that the MSPB has changed over the years from an institution created to support veterans’ rights to a management tool used to suppress veterans’ rights.

You don’t have to look beyond the Postal Service itself for an example of how the government works to deny jobs to deserving veterans. Many USPS custodial positions traditionally were earmarked for veterans. Nowadays, however, management contracts out such jobs whenever it can, denying thousands of veterans decent-paying entry-level jobs.

Which reminds me: I would like to tell all politicians that it’s nice to honor veterans in speeches, but it’s better to honor your commitments!

Democratic Convention

Good news! I attended the Democratic Convention in Boston for a few days in July and am pleased to report that veterans issues were being discussed. Speaker after speaker mentioned the obligation of America to support veterans and protect their rights, and many specified that this commitment requires increased funding for veterans programs.

Among Democrats at least, it looks like our leaders will be taking our issues to heart.