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THERE HAS BEEN AN UPDATE SINCE
THIS BLOG WAS FIRST POSTED
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Rep. Lane Evans has announced
that he will not run for reelection
and is currently bearing the
medical burden of Parkinson's
Disease. In his statement he
has indicated that he plans to
finish out his current term
before the transition is made.


Sue Frasier, blog-author

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I was a little surprised to see
that noone had yet entered Lane
Evans into this block of our
Forum Page so I thought it to
be a good time to load him in.

Lane is a Democrat in Illinois
and a Vietnam era Marine. Readers
can retrieve his home page and
website at the main congressional
address: http://www.house.gov

For those of us who have been
in this arena awhile, and certainly
by the examples of George Bush
and Steve Buyer, just because
an elected guy is himself a
Veteran, this does not necessarily
mean that he is one of US when
it comes to the national issues
of Veterans priorities.

But Lane does emerge as the
proverbial exception and by
all indications that I have
seen from the news stories
floating in our Veterans Circuit,
Lane Evans really does "get it"
and he is one of us X 3.

The bad news is he is in
the Minority party of Dems,
in a Republican controlled
committee. Sitting on both
the House Veterans Affairs
Committee and the House
Armed Services Committee,
in all ways he measures up
as a guy who truly cares
about our platform.

From my own experience, I
was able to meet his top
aide, Len Sistek during a
December trip to Washington
and Len has graciously agreed
to probe our Fort McClellan
contamination zone issue
as well as do a field trip
to Camp Lejeune to sort out
the chemical exposure issues
there. We are grateful for
this small crumb of movement
on our goals, because if it
weren't for that, we would
have nothing at all after
several months and personal
expense made at trying to
get Service Connection status
for these non-war Veterans.

The national Veterans movement
needs many, many more types
like Lane Evans to get our
issues developed and heard.
We have been backburnered
for entire decades because
of everything from Monica
Lewinsky to Terry Schiavo and
it really is time that the
year of the Veteran comes
into a full reality, and it
is clearly Lane Evans who is
one of the VIP types who is
making that happen.

In the face of budget wars
for VA funding over the next
2 years, Lane had the courage
to go out on his own and
submit a Committee counterproposal
for an additional $4.5 Billion
for Veterans healthcare.
What a guy!!

You don't see THAT in Washington
everyday when a Lone Ranger
goes out on a limb for a national
constituency!

But he has apparently been
around long enough to know
how we cross state lines and
get things done in our own
rank and file come election time.
This is a congressman who is
in the know, and goes to Washington
with a Moses-like message:
"Let my people GO !"
Veterans living in Illinois need
to hear it from the rest of us
that you have a real champion
there, so hold onto him.

3 cheers for Lane Evans.
o-o-o-o-r-r-r-a-a-a-h-h-h !!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: McClellanVet,