By Joe Pinchot
HERMITAGE — Local veterans advocates say they are frustrated with a U.S. House committee that has yet to act on a bill that would name the Mercer County Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic in honor of Sgt. Michael A. Marzano, the first Mercer County soldier to die in the Iraq war.
Actually, frustrated is a mild descriptive term.
Gary Solander, Mercer County director of veterans affairs, speaks of the “lunacy” and “idiocy” of the members of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
“It’s bipartisanship of the lowest manner,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the committee who was contacted Tuesday said she had passed on a request for comment to committee Chairman Robert Filner, D-Calif. As of Thursday, Filner had not called.
Advocates say they have jumped through every hurdle the committee has put in front of them, and the bill still languishes. Local politicians and veterans groups are solidly behind the request, and the two U.S. congressmen who serve Mercer County have done their parts in Washington.
“We’re just trying to do something simple for our guy,” said local veterans advocate Wayne Stratos. “I can’t see the problem.”
U.S. Rep. Phil English, R-3rd District, Erie, introduced a bill in March that is supported by U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-4th District, McCandless, and every other Pennsylvania representative to name the Hermitage clinic the Michael A. Marzano Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic.
Marzano, 28, of Greenville, was killed May 7, 2006, in a suicide bomber attack in Haditha.
“The Marzano bill is being held up in the committee process,” said Julia Wanzco, spokeswoman for English, noting that a number of bills to rename VA clinics also are pending.
English and Altmire sent letters to Filner and ranking member Steven Buyer, R-Ind., asking for “favorable consideration” of the bill, known as HR 1594.
“The VA’s Mercer County outpatient health care clinic belongs to the veterans the clinic is designed to serve,” the letter says. “The men and women who visit this clinic have demanded that we rename the facility to honor Sergeant Marzano. It is in their name that we are asking the Veterans’ Affairs committee to approve this request.”
Filner and Buyer are said to be feuding, and that animosity has held up another renaming bill in Albuquerque, according to a story in the May 25 Albuquerque Tribune.
One possible procedural stumbling block is a committee policy that says the committee will not consider renaming requests unless the person to be honored served for at least 25 years in the military or as a government employee, and received the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The policy also states that someone who does not meet that criteria should have performed “outstanding or unique service” that can be documented.
Solander and Stratos said clinics have been named for people who do not meet that criteria.
“Those rules are totally BS,” Stratos said, adding that the Marzano bill is supported by the families of the other Mercer County servicemen killed in Iraq.
A letter signed by Mercer County and Pennsylvania politicians and vets organization officials noted the solid support for the bill.
“We wanted them to know in no uncertain terms that we are serious about this,” Solander said.
