A typical visit to a Veterans Affairs hospital highlighted with a tour and brief speech by a U.S. senator is usually a quiet affair.

But Hilary Rodham Clinton – New York’s junior senator, former first lady and a 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful – is not any typical U.S. senator and she no longer participates in anything mundane.

Clinton visited the Syracuse VA Medical Center just off Syracuse University property on Tuesday. The senator took in the facility and spoke to publicize three pieces of legislation she recently introduced, which are intended to improve the quality of care for American veterans when they return home from combat.

‘It really does matter how our country treats those who have served us,’ Clinton said. ‘If you served your country, your country should always serve you. That’s the promise we make to the men and women who wear the uniform of our country,’ she added before receiving a rousing applause.

The ground-level auditorium of the Irving Avenue medical center, located at the bottom of University Place, was packed to capacity with only standing room available. Of the more than 100 in attendance, there was a mix of VA workers, veterans and local supporters as well as the cumbersome entourage and press troupe that follow Clinton. There appeared to be no SU students in attendance.

Her speech was mix of anecdotes, statistics and policy initiatives she supports to improve veterans’ care. Clinton serves on the Senate Armed Services committee, and her proposed legislative package aims to require mandatory funding for VA programs, eliminate predatory lending practices aimed at military members, increase awareness for Traumatic Brain Injury, establish pre-combat mental screenings, provide more telephone counseling, reduce the denial rate for disability claims and introduce a more modern GI Bill of Rights.

‘Even though I am very determined to get this passed and get the services we need, it shouldn’t take a senator, it shouldn’t take legislation,’ Clinton said. ‘We should just be doing this as a matter of course.’

Clinton’s entrance was filled with anticipation and the crowd rose to its feet when she made her way into the small auditorium. She wore a crisp black pantsuit with a pink turtleneck and shook hands along the roped-off entrance to the podium. The senator made small talk with the crowd and looked at pictures of loved ones, clearly in the role of state senator and not presidential candidate.

Clinton’s proposals were wide ranging and geared more toward veterans of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as opposed to the Vietnam War and Cold War conflict veterans.

One lesser known issue championed by Clinton was Traumatic Brain Injury. She explained that one out of every 10 returning service members returns home with TBI, which she alluded to as the brother of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. TBI keeps them from returning to normal civilian life, Clinton said.

In a style she carried throughout the speech, Clinton backed up this statistic with a personal and emotional story.

She recalled meeting a solider recovering at the Walter Reed VA facility in Washington, D.C., who had lost his right arm and a finger on his left hand in Iraq. He was satisfied with the medical treatment he’d received but told the senator that his biggest problem was ‘Who’s going to fix my brain?’

‘We’ve got to have an answer for that,’ Clinton said.

Her answer appears to be the legislative package she introduced to help veterans returning from current U.S. conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each bill calls for a range of programs that will benefit veterans, their families and VA facilities.

While her tour featured veterans of wars both old and new, VA hospital employees formed the largest group within the audience at her speech. And in a pitch aimed at that demographic, Clinton expressed her intent to change the Department of Defense’s policy that ceased the sending of veterans’ records to VA centers. Because VA facilities use electronic record keeping and the DOD does not, there were complications with record sharing. Clinton called the decision to stop sending records: ‘indefensible.’

The crowd responded to this portion of the speech with its loudest applause of the 30-minute address.

‘Well, we’re going to get to the bottom of that on Thursday. We are going to get an answer,’ Clinton said of Senate hearings scheduled for later this week.

Mayor Matthew Driscoll, Director of the Medical Center Jim Cody, local Congressional candidate Dan Maffei and New York state Senator David Valesky were all on hand to support Clinton.

Cody and Driscoll both spoke before Clinton, with the director praising his more than 1,000 VA employees for their service to the 40,000 veterans in the Syracuse area and the mayor reiterating the city’s commitment to veterans. A downtown Veterans’ Day parade was re-launched this year after 10 years of dormancy.

John Lamanna, commander of the Onondaga County Veterans Council, said he thought Clinton said all the right things. For his group, mandatory funding for VA has been on the agenda for years and is very important to them, he said.

‘The legislation has been fought over for a long time, politicians were against it,’ Lamanna said. ‘Now is prime time for us to get it passed.’

Maffei, a Democrat who challenged Congressman Jim Walsh in the 2006 midterm elections, said he thought it was one of the best speeches he has heard Clinton deliver. He endorses Clinton’s candidacy for president.

‘It had everything a speech needs. It had evidence, both statistical and anecdotal. It had what she’s going to do about it,’ Maffei said. ‘If elected president, I really believe that’ll happen.’

But Maffei recognizes the difficulty her legislation will face in the Congress.

‘I think it’s going to real tough,’ he said. ‘It’s also going to be tough right now with Bush, because he’ll probably veto it.’

Maffei noted the likelihood of concerns with the national deficit and increased spending on VA, but still strongly supports Clinton’s legislation.

‘I believe we are already in deficit to our veterans.’

Clinton’s trip was part of a weeklong focus on troop and veterans’ issues. Following the visit to the Syracuse VA center, Clinton also visited the Canandaigua VA Medical Center and Fort Drum.

The culmination of the week will be Thursday’s joint hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Clinton serves on, and the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee to hear testimony from Department of Defense and VA officials regarding inadequate facilities and practices in the veterans’ care system in the wake of the Walter Reed scandal in Washington, D.C. The entire veterans’ health care system received heightened media attention following an article in The Washington Post.

Published on April 10, 2007 at 12:00 pm