By Capt Joseph R. John, September 24, 2015 

On September 23, 2015, Cong Kerry Bentivolio, SFC/MI-ANG (R-MI-11) (Ret) (Disabled American Veteran), an endorsed Combat Veteran For Congress, who served combat tours in Vietnam and Iraq is now walking and biking 570 miles from Walled Lake, Michigan to Washington DC, in hopes of waking up the American people and Congress on the urgent need to help Veterans in the Republic, to support Veterans Issues, and to request that their Congressional representatives improve Veterans health benefits (23 Veterans/day are committing suicide).

“I saw it firsthand when I was in the service. A fellow Soldier died in a stateside military medical holding unit I was in and nobody noticed for four days,” Bentivolio said. “More than 300,000 American military Veterans likely died while waiting for healthcare, and nearly twice as many are still waiting, according to a new Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General Report.”

Cong Bentivolio, served as Congressman from 2013 through January 2015, said “talking about the issue has not gotten the Veterans any closer to getting the aid they need.  It is time for action”, he said.

“We have a lot of World War II Veterans who are dying at 80 or 90 years old, but we have Vietnam Veterans who can’t make it past 70 years old. We have Marines that were stationed in Camp Lejeune in the ’50s and ’60s and they found out all that water was contaminated,” Bentivolio said. “Congress said they were going to take care of these guys but they’re not.”

While at home in Michigan, Bentivolio said he realized he could not sit at home and do nothing while Veterans were not given an opportunity to receive the care they need.

“I started walking, and next thing I know I’m 21 miles from home and I said ‘I will walk to Washington (D.C.),’” he said.

While on the trip to D.C., which Bentivolio said he hopes to reach in 30 days, he is talking to people he meets along the way and urging them to speak to their Congressmen and women to spark change.

“Hopefully we’re going to have a lot of people gather and it’s is going to snowball,” Bentivolio said.

In Fremont on his sixth day of travel, Cong Bentivolio said he will try to walk between 15 and 20 miles and bike another 25 to 30.

Heading east, Bentivolio will pass through Clyde and Norwalk before heading for the Akron area, where he will meet with Rolling Thunder, an advocacy group for prisoners of war and service members who are missing in action.

“I’ve just went 20 miles so a lot of that aggression has drained from my body. Every day in the morning, I wake up angry as hell because Obama is more worried about “80,000 Muslim refugees coming from the Middle East” and all those illegal aliens flooding across the wide open Southern Border, and we’re going to take care of them, provide them with housing, provide them with the medical care that the Veteransaren’t being  provided with, and give them food stamps,” Bentivolio said. “We can’t even take care of Veterans who served our country. Many of those Veterans are homeless, when we are giving newly entering Muslim refugees homes.  I’m just fed up.”

Bentivolio wants to put his former House colleagues to task by asking for solutions to help Veterans.

“Everybody’s lives matter. We have to put our priorities right. Take care of the Veterans and Soldiers. If you can’t do that, don’t bother asking us to serve anymore,” Cong Bentivolio said. More Soldiers are dying from self-inflicted (wounds) or suicide than on the battlefield. It’s time to kick butt and take names.”

The below listed article is on Congressman Bentivolio please pass this on to those who would support his walk for Veterans issues.

Copyright 2015, Capt. Joseph R. John. All Rights Reserved. This material can only be posted on another Web site or distributed on the Internet by giving full credit to the author.  It may not be published, broadcast, or rewritten without permission from the author  
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THE DETROIT NEWS

Cong Bentivolio trekking nearly 600 miles for veteran issues
James David Dickson, The Detroit News 10:17 a.m. EDT September 21, 2015

As a congressman, Bentivolio put his focus on veterans issues. Now he’s trekking to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness.

Kerry Bentivolio may no longer be a member of Congress, but he’s using his legs and his name value to march to Washington, D.C., on behalf of America’s veterans.

The ex-congressman, 64, has embarked on an almost 600-mile trek from his Milford home to Washington, D.C., “to raise awareness of the abominable conditions that our veterans and their families are living under after giving their lives to protect and serve this country.”

Lobbying rules prevent Bentivolio from trying to persuade his former colleagues directly, so he’s trying to get the American people to speak on his behalf. That’s why, Bentivolio told The Detroit News, he’ll spend the next month “talking to anyone who will listen” about veterans issues on his approach to Washington.

His hope is that those people call their representatives in Congress to talk about veterans issues, though Bentivolio lamented that “many people don’t even know who their congressman is.”

Bentivolio, an Army veteran whose 27-year career included action in both Vietnam and Iraq and service in the Michigan National Guard, is chronicling his journey on his Facebook page, Congressman Kerry Bentivolio. Bentivolio is also in the process of creating a nonprofit organization, called “Justice For Our Veterans,” which will help veterans with legal and medical expenses they cannot manage.

Wrote Bentivolio on Friday when he started the journey: “300,000 veterans died waiting for promised VA healthcare (a government run healthcare system) and twice as many still waiting! 120 veterans commit suicide each week. 100,000 plus go homeless. Attention Democrats, Republicans and bureaucrats — I'm calling you out for the hypocrites you are!”

Bentivolio has walked and biked on his journey. As of Monday morning when he spoke to The News, he’d traveled about 60 miles, half-walking and half-biking, and was in Ida, just north of Toledo.

“When my butt gets sore, I walk. When my feet get sore, I bike,” Bentivolio said.

A trailer is traveling ahead of Bentivolio so he has somewhere to sleep at night, said Lynn Sturla, who handles media relations for the ex-congressman. In Ohio, Sturla said, Bentivolio plans to meet with that state’s chapter of Rolling Thunder, a nonprofit that focuses on issues involving American prisoners-of-war and fighters who went missing-in-action. Bentivolio said he wants to hit “every (Veterans of Foreign Wars) and American Legion hall I can” en route to Washington.

Every morning, the trailer will return Bentivolio to where the previous day’s journey ended, and he’ll start again.

The walk represents Bentivolio’s first foray back into public life after losing the primary election for his seat in Congress to Dave Trott of Birmingham.

“He was beaten up pretty well” during the 2014 election, Sturla said, and “he’s been gathering himself” ever since leaving office. The News reported.

“This is what happens when a regular guy gets an opportunity to come to Congress,” he said at the time.

Now out of office, Bentivolio is living on his 70 percent disability benefits from the Veterans Administration, he said.

The Veterans Administration has been hammered by reports of mismanagement of funds, ineffective medical aid to the veterans in its care, and difficulties maintaining records. According to a VA Inspector General report, more than 300,000 veterans died while waiting for care.

Some 100,000 veterans are homeless. Bentivolio says many veterans who deal with the VA are given the “verbal moonwalk” by an agency that’s “incompetent, irresponsible, and ineffective.” Veterans issues were the focus of Bentivolio’s brief tenure in Congress.

Bentivolio is also using the platform to rant against the crop of 2016 presidential candidates and President Barack Obama.

“Not one of the candidates now running on either side served a day in uniform nor will they ask any of us in the know how to improve medical services for our veterans,” Bentivolio wrote on his Facebook page. “Yet, the Commander in Chief hands out food stamps, a monthly check, free housing and a medical card to the Syrian transplants-most of them never vetted and some sure to be our former enemies that prepared or assisted in placement of the IED's and VBIEDS on our combat convoy missions in Iraq.”

Paperwork is being done to establish Justice For Our Veterans as a nonprofit, Sturla said. Donations that come in via kerrywalks4me@paypal.com will be used to defray the cost of the trip: the trailer, the food, possibly a pair of new shoes.

Any money left will go to Justice For Our Veterans, Bentivolio said.

What will happen when the journey ends, when the ex-congressman reaches Washington? Speaking to ex-colleagues is a no-no, and thus far no public rallies are in the plans.

“I’m going to come home,” Bentivolio said.