Sinise urges more funds for disabled vets

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By Audrey Hudson

Actor Gary Sinise, an advocate for American troops, urged the government and private sector on Memorial Day to spend more money on disabled veterans and to provide more counseling for those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or become suicidal.

"The issue is what happens when they leave the hospital. They are still struggling for benefits and still struggling to recover and get things that are owed to them and, quite frankly, we have just fallen down in certain areas where we need to do more," Mr. Sinise said.

"There are 3 million disabled veterans from World War II until now," he said. "We can never do enough for them in my opinion, but we can always try to do more."

In the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters, more than 35,000 American warriors have been wounded, Mr. Sinise said.

RELATED STORY: Young, old alike honor the fallen

"That's a lot of wounded. Times have changed and we're saving lives we never could have saved before; and that means we will have a lot more disabled veterans in this country," Mr. Sinise said.

"These guys are surviving these IED attacks because we can get to them very quickly and get them off the battlefield and get them into hospitals. But then what?"

In a wide-ranging interview with reporters and editors at The Washington Times, Mr. Sinise touched on the damage caused by the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, his work for veterans organizations and his political aspirations.

He said he doesn't have any political aspirations.