The FReeper Foxhole - One Vietnam Vets Battle with the VA - Dec.17th, 2002

[B4Ranch]

4. DO go to the Disabled American Veterans and Only Them .

Sam, this is where you and I strongly disagree! AmVets is an organization comprised of nothing but Veterans and they are the BEST assistance a Vet can get when fighting with the Bureau of Veteran's Affairs. These are all people who have been to the frontlines against the VA.

[Alain Chartier]

Thanks for the ping. I was USN for 7 years, have been USNR for 11. My experience with the DVA has been nothing like this vet's, but it's been enough that I want nothing to do with them.

[CIBvet]

Thank you Sam for your service, and I can only extend my sympathy for your sacrifice, and pray God may Bless you with continued patience in your interactions with a typical govt bureaucracy.

I too have spent the last couple years unexpectantly dealing with the VA, and as you stated, have thankfully discovered some wonderful dedicated people who do their job day in and day out, from the heart.

And then there are all of those slugs who shuffle around the building in their fuzzy slippers, knowing full-well they can NEVER be fired ... nothing more than Affirmative Action hires in all assorted flavors ... lost in dreamland while awaiting their next bureaucratic pay/welfare check.

Thank God for the sincere and dedicated VA workers, and I've met a few ... for they offer the compassion and hope that keep many suffering souls/Vets from simply feeling they have nothing left to lose.

[Darksheare]

If only the honest guys and gals in the VA were more the norm an din greater supply.

[SAMWolf]

I belong to AmVets too. I posted the article as written, apparently the author had the best luck with DAV.

I've seen the VFW do a pretty good job to. I think it depends on how active the POst is in VA Affairs on the ecperience you'll have.

[SAMWolf]

Let me clear something up. This is not my experience, it's the experience of a brother of a friend of mine.

My experiences were unpleasant and had more to do with dealing with the bureaucracy of the VA rather than with the MEdical staff.

I thank you for the sympathy, I've heard similiar stories from veterans as a memeber of AmVets and trying to get help for these veterans is sometimes like beating your head against the wall. Once you know which people at a particular VA Hospital to deal with the task gets a little easier.

[MistyCA]

I want to hear what you have to say about the VA. Go for it.

[MistyCA]

Thank you for that post.

[MistyCA]

It would appear that the vet in the profile did receive good medical care that was paid for by the VA, however, by not acknowledging the disability the Vet would have probably been homeless had he not been able to get employment. With regard to the employment, it appears that "the good jobs" which he was highly qualified for, were denied because of the disability. This is a VERY frustrating catch-22 situation. And then we ask, why are our vets on the street??? It's pure bull$hit, imo. No vet should have to beg. No vet should have to be humiliated. No vet deserves this from their country!

[Darksheare]

The VA hospital in my area (There's actually more than one,but offhand I can only thinkof teh one. Name withheld to protect the guilty.) wasn't doing their work in a sanitary fashion. They had vacuum bottles with mold growing in them. Got bad enough that there were guys dying from infections that they caught once they got to this particular hospital. (A specific incident, an elder soldier ended up there and died of severe pneumonia within two weeks or less. Can't offhand remember exact data on it. Try to find it later. But he was healthier than I am when he got there. Seems the room he was in had quite a few ventilation problems. Other places had paint chips on the floor.)
Not my idea of a good place. It's been a year or four since this particular garbage happened, so who knows. Maybe it's changed since. But that was enough to make me pray that i never have to go there. I hate the body and fender shop as it sits.
There were quite a few articles in our local newspaper. Admittedly, it's an anti-soldier communist rag, but they were right for once.

[Darksheare]

By the by, did you deplore my scribbling on that link?
(Yes, I say deplore because I rag on my own talent.)
:-)

[MistyCA]

B4...the statement was made by the Vet being highlighted, not Sam. Secondly, that particular Vet was only given help by the DAV and the help was effective. AmVets may also be a good organization, but in the highlighted vet's opinion, DAV in California is where help surfaced. :)

[MistyCA]

Are you speaking about the DVA or the DAV? DVA being, Department of Veteran's Affairs. DAV being, Disabled Veterans of America.

[Diver Dave]

Thanks for repeating this information that needs to be repeated over and over.

My only experience with the VA occurred in the early 80's. I was hired as a temp employee in the Maintenance Dept. at a NW VA Med Center on two occasions. The employment periods were for about 3 months each.

I received an injury to my hand which require some sewing - nothing serious. Treatment was excellent by the staff, so I have no personal gripes.

That being said, the individual in the above commentary was treated as poorly anyone could possibly be treated, IMHO. Our current prisoners at GITMO receive better care. I fear that it is not an isolated case and therefore reforms are needed. I have previously signed petitions circulated about these matters.

Thanks again for telling it like it is.

[SAMWolf]

I've also run into some wonderful individuals at the VA.
Most of them are just as frustrated as the Veterans seeking care. It's the "system" that needs to be fixed.

[MistyCA]

I know that some VA facilities are better than others. Some are bright and airy....some are gloomy and depressing. Some have a good, full staff and others are understaffed. I think it helps that they are connected to the Universities. My brother had open heart surgery at the VA and it was done by the very same doctor who performed surgery on Arnold Shwartzeneger. It was a very complicated surgery...a heart resection because of massive infection...and my brother could not have possibly had better care. I think the biggest problem with the VA is the same problem we have with any of the Government agencies....bureaucracy and redtape.

[MistyCA]

LOL! Yes! I saw it. Very good! :) Thanks for sharing that with me. :)

[MistyCA]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Dave. My sister was on the teaching staff at UCLA and was connected with the VA hospital...she did her internship there, in fact. She is a doctor. I know she will tell you that the docs and staffs at that facility cared a great deal. I believe that. And as I said earlier....I would love to be treated at the VA hospital in Palo Alto. It is connected to Stanford University. It's a beautiful facility.

[MistyCA]

Yes, you are right. It's the bureacracy and the fact that the VA itself has treated vets as advisaries. I also have to complain about the fact that our elder vets (at least in California) had no place to go in their old age when they were sick. The VA hospital was limited in what care they could provide and there were NO Old Vets Homes available to those guys who simply had no other place to go. That's a thread that needs to be done, imo. What happens to the old folks when they are sick, alone, and have no money?????

[PsyOp]

"No vet deserves this from their country!"

No they don't. But this country has a sad history of forgetting its vets after wars. WWII was probably the exception.

Do you remeber the movie Presidio with Sean Connery as an MP Col.? He had a great line in there about that which I feel hits the nail on the head concerning this country's schizo attitude towards the military. Kipling, too, wrote a number of poems about the same phenomena in Britain at the turn of the last century.