Nov 8, 2014 2 min read

I’m becoming pretty weary with the public, members of Congress, and the media chastising veterans for what many call triple-dipping.

I am a veteran of 20 years service in the U.S. Marines. I am a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, having served two, one-year tours there. First of all, my retirement benefits are something I earned, just like a retired employee of General Motors or any other company which provided their employees with a retirement benefit. Second, the Associated Press ought to get its facts straight – I have a 20 percent disability through the Veterans Administration. For every dollar the VA pays me, a dollar is subtracted from my military retirement. Next, I paid into the Social Security system just like everyone else who receives benefits from that agency, so I earned that benefit, too.

I’d be willing to bet that on top of his generous congressional retirement, U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who has been critical of triple-dipping, will gladly accept his Social Security benefit. I’d also wager that his income at retirement will make 99 percent of us veterans look like mere paupers.

I also retired from a police department with a pension from them. So while I live in relative comfort, I am not by any stretch of the imagination wealthy from my retirement income. I earned every penny of my retirement. I paid all of my life into Social Security, and I would gladly do without the VA disability benefit if I could live without the disability.

LeRoy W. Bloom

Lawrence