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Dishonoring Our Veterans Published in Lebanon Daily Record May 8, 2014

I will never forget the day a young Lebanon business owner came up to me with tears in his eyes to confess that for some time he had “harbored resentment” against the people of Lebanon, his home town, after returning from Viet Nam because no one, other than family members, had acknowledged his service in any way.

He went on to say that “Today, for the first time the load is lifted and I feel a peace in my heart which I never had before.”

That “day” was July 21, 1984,and we had just concluded a special service remembering those still held Prisoner of War or Missing in Action, while also honoring our local Viet Nam veterans, those who had returned as well as those who had made the ultimate sacrifice.

I had been working with Rusty Carmichael for several months prior to that time with regard to our MIAs and POWs.  Rusty was the Commander of District 8 VFW State POW/MIA Awareness Chairman at the time.

So I approached leaders in the local VFW, American Legion, and Disabled American Vets, and we put together a special ceremony which was held on July 21 in front of the American Legion hall here in Lebanon, followed by a balloon release representing the Missouri servicemen who had still not been accounted for at that time in our history.

In recent months we have had several discussions on the “Memories of Laclede County” Facebook page about how the Viet Nam veterans were treated upon their return to the states.

Many of the members on that Facebook site either were actually deployed to Viet Nam or had a family member who was, and the memories of being spit upon and heckled and taunted as they deplaned at various large airports across the country are still very vivid and hurtful.

I don’t understand why, in a nation as great as ours, we keep staffed recruitment offices in every town, and we encourage both men and women to sign up to serve our country, and yet we ignore, neglect or even mistreat our veterans after they return from service.

I use the corporate “we” when I say that and I fully recognize that the problem exists among a minority of our vets when you look at the entire picture.  But even one veteran who ends up homeless, or unable to find work, or unable to receive adequate medical care, is one too many.

What bothers me is that this neglect or mistreatment is often government sponsored in one way or another.  We provide the most minimal of benefits for our veterans  and their families, yet we pay our elected officials from the President on down outrageous salaries and benefits and provide them with the finest in health care.  Our priorities in America in this regard are greatly misplaced.

I have followed the news stories over the years about this very critical and troubling flaw in our government so, although I hate to say it, I was not totally shocked when the news broke this week about the VA hospital in Phoenix and the administrator’s efforts there to deceive the Veterans and their families, by committing  fraud in her  record keeping.  As a result at least 40 veterans there have died while waiting for health care.

After all, it was only a few months ago when we watched with tears in our eyes as our elderly veterans in wheelchairs and walkers physically tore down the metal barriers which had been placed around “their” memorial in Washington D.C. by politicians who were more concerned about their own political agendas than by meeting the needs of those who had served our country so faithfully and so well.

The situation at the VA in Phoenix is about as bad as it gets but I fear it may not be the only story.

According to the CNN Health website, there was a deliberate effort by keeping a secret list to hide the fact that 1400 to 1600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor.

This was an elaborate scheme cooked up by managers at the hospital which involved instructing the appointment setters to enter information into the computer but instead of “saving” the record into the computer database, they were to do a “screen capture hard copy printout”.  After the information was transferred to a secret digital file, the hard copy was shredded.  The end result was that there was no record in the VA computer that the veteran had ever been there.

One of the whistle blowers, a physician, estimates right now the number of veterans waiting on the “secret list” is somewhere between 1400 and 1500.  When veterans waiting on the secret list die, they are simply removed and there is no record left of their having been there.

Meanwhile Sharon Helman, the VA director at Phoenix, who according to allegations had full knowledge of the secret list scheme, received a  bonus in excess of $9000 in 2013 in addition to her annual salary of $169,900.00.

But wait, there is more, and this is what makes all of us so angry because it happens over and over again in government agencies, continuing to this very day as you read this.

Helman was previously director at the VA in Spokane where she falsified the number of suicides, reporting to the government many less than the actual number.

But they didn’t fire her.  After it was revealed she had falsified records in Spokane, they moved her to Hines, IL.  We don’t know what happened there, but from there they moved her to Phoenix.  Three different VA establishments in 6 years, drawing more salary in one year than many of us could earn over a five to six year period.

This makes my blood boil.  It’s the reason why I just have to turn off the news occasionally so I don’t explode.

Some time ago I ran across a picture someone had posted on Facebook showing an American eagle with bowed head standing over a flag draped casket.  The symbolism was so very real to me that I immediately composed a poem called “Why The Eagle Cries”.  You can find it and the photo on my Facebook page “Hart Felt Thoughts” or on my blog at www.straightfromthehart.blogspot.com.

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