San Francisco War Memorial Veteran's Commission celebrates annual POW Commemoration Day, 2004

May 20, 2003 - In keeping with the call of the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) of New York City, N.Y. to block rehabilitation assistance for disabled in service and prisoner of war military veterans (SDV), Congressman Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) attacked the House of Representative Committee on Veterans Affairs (HVAC) supported Legislation (HR 1460) that assists SDV to pursue self employment as a rehabilitation goal.

Mr. Udall first challenged the need and right of SDV to obtain assistance. This brought an immediate response from the Chairman of the HVAC Chris Smith (R-NJ) reciting data from federal government reports showing three years of bad and worsening performance of agencies to assist SDV.

Receiving no support from other members of the HVAC, Udall switched his attack to implications of racism, charging that the Hispanic citizens of New Mexico would not be supportive of assisting this rehabilitation program to assist service disabled and prisoner of war veterans. Udall also cautioned Rick Renzi (R-AZ) that there were many Hispanics in Arizona that would not be pleased with a rehabilitation program for SDV.

This evoked an sharp response from Buyer (R-IN) that many brave Hispanics had served this nation in the armed services and were now service disabled veterans. Renzi (R-AZ) also shot back at Udall that Renzi could not imagine that Hispanic citizens of Arizona, thousands of which had fought and become disabled for this nation, would be upset by assisting their comrades to overcome their service incurred disability.

However, Udall persisted in his attack and attempted to stop action on HR 1460 and have the legislation referred to the House Small Business Committee, where his colleague Ranking Minority Member Nydia Velasquez (D-NY) had filed a letter in opposition to this rehabilitation program for SDV (see NMSDC release May 1, 2003). Prompting a remark that New York City politicians are now telling the people of New Mexico how to vote!

Mr. Udall received no support for his attacks and both Mr. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) and Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) joined a unanimous motion to send the legislation to the full U.S. Congress for passage.