Weary, sunburned panhandlers populate every major intersection in Denver. Many of them hold roughly lettered signs saying, "Homeless. Hungry. Vietnam Vet. God Bless." They remind us that our country still neglects many veterans whose physical, mental and emotional scars testify to their service on our behalf. Will we soon be seeing another generation of veterans, those returning from the brutal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wasting their lives on the street corners of Denver and other American cities?

My friends who fought in Vietnam tell me that many of their troops got through the horror of war by stupefying themselves on heroin. They returned to an angrily divided nation not as heroes, but as drug addicts, with few resources to help them return to some level of normalcy. Will we soon be seeing young Iraq veterans coming home to the devastation of drug addiction because we failed to provide treatment for this cruel residue of war?

The Washington Post's recent article on the Veterans' Administration's huge backlog of unprocessed benefits claims should make us cringe. Our troops, who are sent off with such lofty praise for their service to our country, are getting the budget shaft when they return maimed and ill. The Post noted the current VA backlog of 300,000 claims, pointing out that it takes more than 5 months to process an average claim. Through April, the article added, 16% of returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets had filed benefit claims for physical and mental illnesses resulting from their service. As this destructive war continues, the VA expects these numbers to increase.

Yet, the Bush Administration proposes cutting 500 positions from the VA's benefits processing staff in 2005. Right now, desperately injured soldiers often wait six months or more to get their claims approved, forcing them to support themselves and their families on small incomes or savings. Frequently, they have to battle medical review boards to get any benefits at all, despite having horrific, permanent injuries or mental illnesses.

Let's get real. When we hear about American soldiers injured by a roadside bomb outside Baghdad or a car bomb explosion in Fallujah, we're not talking about a little scratch or a few stitches. These are young men and women who lose limbs or eyes or their ability to move. They are permanently disabled. When we hear about young soldiers horrified by seeing mounds of dismembered babies killed by a missile, we shouldn't expect them to just walk away and shake it off. These are young Americans who will carry the emotional and mental scars the rest of their lives, sometimes with debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder, which may permanently disable them.

A nation's gratitude doesn't house or feed your kids or send them to school. A president's high-minded rhetoric doesn't heal the mental anguish of dealing with the loss of arms and legs or of seeing mutilated children. A thank you and a medal don't cure drug addiction. All this grand verbiage sounds pretty hollow when you need, instead, a nation that fulfills its promises to care for its badly wounded veterans.

Most veterans say they are getting excellent medical care from the military. But, when they leave that system and require life-sustaining benefits from the Veterans' Administration, they are facing a legal tangle, woefully inadequate staffing, and the frightening prospect being unable to support themselves and their families. If we are, indeed, a grateful nation, as I believe we are, we need to increase, not reduce, the number of VA staff dedicated to helping our veterans rebuild their lives. We cannot give paralyzed vets normal lives again, but we most certainly can help them get the financial, educational, and medical benefits they've been promised and which they so deserve.

Congress needs to fully fund the Veterans' Administration, particularly in a time of war. If Congress doesn't act honorably, and if we don't insist that they do so, we face a new shame as Americans. We face seeing, every day, a new generation of vets on our street corners. Only this time their roughly lettered signs will say, "Homeless. Hungry. Iraq Vet. God Bless."