How detached is the federal government from our history and tradions and what is most important and meaningful to patriotic Americans?
Posted on 07/03/2014 4:06:48 AM PDT by Iron Munro
Attention, veterans: Ignore your 2014 Department of Veterans Affairs calendar.
Independence Day does not fall on July 3 this year.
About 357,000 VA calendars given to veterans across most of Florida, southern Georgia and Puerto Rico mistakenly label Thursday, July 3, as Independence Day and remind veterans that VA outpatient clinics are closed today for the holiday.
Apologies to the Founding Fathers. The Fourth of July still falls on July 4. So VA clinics actually will be closed Friday, not today.
A VA spokeswoman said the error was not noticed by agency proofreaders before the calendar went to the printer in late 2013, and regional VA officials decided to distribute the calendars rather than reprint them at great cost.
The calendar contains monthly "wellness messages" for veterans on maintaining good health.
"I don't know who made the mistake," Mary Kay Hollingsworth, a VA regional spokeswoman in Florida, said Wednesday. "We had a number of different people look at it. But we were focused on the wellness messages. It was an honest mistake."
The president of the American Institute for Preventive Medicine in Farmington Hills, Mich., which produced the calendar under a $210,000 contract for the VA, said he was unaware of the error until the Tampa Bay Times told him about it.
The president, Don Powell, said any printing error was ultimately his responsibility, even if VA proofreaders missed it.
"I am the president of the company, and I obviously take responsibility for everything we do," Powell said. "I feel somewhat red-faced about it."
Powell later called back the Times and said the institute had spotted the mistake before the calendar was printed. But he said the company that was hired by the institute to print the calendar failed to fix the error.
Powell said he did not know the name of the printer.
The institute's contract with the VA includes the printing of an annual report for regional VA leaders and a quarterly wellness magazine for veterans. The cost of just the calendar, which contains monthly tips for veterans on maintaining good health, was not immediately available.
Powell said he would have ordered a reprint of the calendar at no extra cost to the VA had the agency asked, but it didn't.
Of all the federal holidays to get wrong in a calendar for veterans, a patriotic holiday is one to avoid, said Dan Cruser, 66, of New Port Richey.
Cruser said he picked up a copy of the calendar at the VA's New Port Richey clinic and quickly noticed the error while waiting for an appointment.
"That's kind of an embarrassment," he said. "When I saw it, I thought, 'Who's the … idiot who did this?' "
The calendar has all of the other holidays correct. Christmas still falls on Dec. 25.
How detached is the federal government from our history and tradions and what is most important and meaningful to patriotic Americans?
Eh, they split the difference between Independence Day and Canada Day.
They are not Americans. They are pretenders.
The Air Force calendar didn’t even show the word Easter on its calendar either.
Must have come from the office of Corrine Brown who still declares there is nothing wrong with he VA.
This somehow seems appropriate.
from the same group of people that will be managing all our healthcare in the future
This article is filled with so much incompetence, inconsistency, and oxymoronic statements it’s hard to figure which comes from the “reporter” and which comes from the lying bureaucrats of the federal kakistocracy.
Makes perfect sense. Fourth of July has become a joke. George III was a wild-eyed libertarian compared to what we have today. Even without Obama.
I don’t believe for a minute it was a mistake.
What a boondoggle!
I get free calendars if I want every year from my dentist, my bank, my everything. Computers have calendars that can be referred to or printed out. Calendars are available at Dollar Stores for a buck if you need one. VA hospitals can get donations of calendars if they ask.
The VA printing cute, one-line "wellness tips" on these calendars is laughable. Why not just ask your doctor if you need a "wellness tip".
I'm sure the vets would prefer a Playboy pin-up calendar to a "wellness tips" calendar, anyhow...but now that would be a REAL waste of taxpayer money, wouldn't it.
Leni
My work’s vacation calendar had the same mistake.
So is the VA actually closed today? Probably.
Was the calendar is made in China?
Rouge agents in Cincinnati.
Friggin boneheads!
Thanks for the screen shot.
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again.
Every person within the VA system who holds a position of ‘Senior Executive Service’ needs to be fired (with out pension.
This will send such a shock wave through ALL career bureaucrats, that some change may actually take place.
So what if the calendar sent to veterans got a wrong date for this month?
None of the veterans will likely need a calendar to record their earliest appointments to VA hospitals for at least a year or two.
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