Alaskan Senate hopeful and semi-bearded teabagger Joe Miller literally ran away from a question about his disabled-veteran status during last night's "Meet and Greet" session in Anchorage. In a roomful of 50 people -- most supporters and well wishers -- Miller was asked to identify his service-connected disability and his official "percentage disabled." Panic swept over Miller's sweaty face.
Looking away from your correspondent, Miller yelped to no one in particular, "We've gotta go!" He then pointed to his wife and said, "Let's move!" The Millers hustled to the back of the vacant strip mall office next to the pizza place and surrounded themselves with campaign staffers.
This time, Miller's phalanx of creepy skinheads dressed as Secret Service agents -- last seen assaulting and restraining a local journalist -- were nowhere around. Your correspondent was able to escape unscathed.
A West Point graduate who served in the first Gulf War, Miller boasts of his military record in his radio and teevee ads, yet refuses to discuss the nature or the degree of his service-connected disabilities; he receives monthly tax-free payments for life as compensation. If Miller is classified as 30% or more disabled, he receives additional payments for each of his nine dependents. This Veterans Administration benefits chart shows that Miller could conceivably be bringing in over $4,000 a month, tax free, depending on his disability rating.
He needn't report or declare this income. What are the disabilities for which Joe Miller receives tax-free payments? A Post Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnosis should concern voters more than say, hearing loss.
Yet when asked, Joe Miller froze for a moment and then fled like a guilty child.
A Personality Disorder generally invalidates other psychiatric disabilities in the DOD system, I believe. It's probably the most apt diagnosis, but the least likely.
My guess is that he's either "disabled" for some humiliating condition -- like something else psychiatric that would make him look like a pussy instead of a rugged Mr. Brawny lumberjack veteran -- or it's just a high percentage of disability (100% disabled and unemployable!) that illustrates what a sham military pensions can be, especially for officers.
Stay away from the Alaska Highway Patrol.
One "TrooperGate" in our lifetime is already one too many!