The mantra since this nation attacked Iraq more than two years ago has been "Support our troops." A fine line does exist between using this phrase to mean showing concern for their welfare and using it to mean be in favor of the war because our troops are fighting it. In either case, support for this nation's troops begins at home.

Someone should tell that to Senate Republicans.

The issues deserving Republicans' attention in the Senate seem to include trying to change long-standing rules so a handful of suspect nominees for judicial posts can be jammed down people's throats; working to ensure that the estate tax, which affected only slightly more than 30,000 people in 2003, is either abolished or at least the exemption is raised; and calling extraordinary sessions to placate the Christian right in the Terry Schiavo case.

But when it comes to giving additional funding to Veterans Affairs hospitals, Senate Republicans can't be bothered.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., proposed providing $1.98 billion in additional funding for the care of veterans. She called VA hospitals underfunded, overcrowded and a train wreck waiting to happen. The money would have been included in an emergency spending bill for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars being debated in the Senate.

In largely a party line vote — 54-46, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn, former chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, and James Jeffords, I-Vermont, sided with Democrats — the proposal was defeated. Why?

"In my opinion," Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, current chairman of the veterans committee, "there is not an emergency in the VA."

Considering this nation has troops in harm's way, considering that more than 240,000 servicemen and women have left the military since the beginning of the war in Iraq, considering the fact that more than 50,000 have already applied for VA benefits and considering that at lease 15,000 members of the military have been wounded and injured in Iraq, wouldn't the Republicans rather err on the side of humanity?

The bulk of the spending bill will go for new weapons, body armor, medical supplies and raising benefits to families of those killed in combat zones. If the Senate prevails, the bill also will include about $658 million to build a U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, $210 million to reward nations that participated in Iraq and Afghanistan and several hundred million for tsunami relief.

When the Senate passes this spending bill and differences between it and a House version are ironed out, the United States will have spent about $300 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan. The nearly $2 billion for the VA that Murray wanted would have been 0.67 percent of the the money spent so far for the wars and only 22 percent of the $9 billion that somehow went missing from the sale of Iraqi oil when the U.S. controlled Iraq's oil profits from May 2003 until June 2004.

This nation owes a duty to those who put themselves into harm's way in defense of freedom or are thrust into harm's way for reasons not yet satisfactorily explained. Republican senators would do well to remember the duty they owe to America's military.