During a weekend in which we celebrated our nation’s independence, we are drawn back to a recent hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. For there a combat veteran representing an Illinois congressional district ripped into a man who’d gamed a dubious “disability” into fat federal contracts.
The congresswoman was Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth, a military veteran who became disabled after the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting was shot down in Iraq. Duckworth’s arm was severely damaged and both legs severed below the calf.
The witness was Braulio Castillo, who has a veterans-disability designation despite never having served in the military. It comes from a “foot injury” he sustained in 1984 at the US Military Academy Preparatory School. As Rep. Duckworth noted, the “disability” didn’t prevent him from playing football for the University of San Diego.
Even so, the Department of Veterans Affairs granted Castillo a 30 percent disability rating, the second-highest for injuries below the knee. By contrast, Duckworth’s arm, which was nearly blown off, was characterized as a 20 percent disability.
Castillo’s designation allowed him to promote the computer firm he headed as a small business operated by a disabled vet. In fact, an IRS officer at the same hearing pleaded the 5th rather than answer questions about his relationship with Castillo or the IRS contracts awarded to Castillo’s firm amounting to millions of dollars.
Here’s the topper: In acquiring this designation, Castillo broke no laws.
We Americans are a generous nation, and we must not stint our obligations to those disabled through their service to our nation. But as Tammy Duckworth brought to light, it becomes harder to meet our responsibilities to the deserving when an important benefit can be manipulated into an entitlement sweepstakes.