VA message to older vets "If you flip out call 911" not them

VA Capacity Crisis Hits California - Older Veterans Feel Forced Out of Counseling by Newer Veterans

Mark Muckenfuss


Press - Enterprise (California)

May 21, 2008
May 20, 2008 - A group of older military veterans in the Inland region says the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is pushing it out of counseling programs to make room for an expected influx of Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans.

Albert Cruz, 59, of Hesperia, said officials at the Victorville Veterans Center told him and other members of a post-traumatic stress disorder therapy group that "they have to bring (the group) to an end."

Cruz, a veteran of Vietnam and Desert Storm, and his colleagues are convinced that their government is abandoning them.

"It's like a slap in the face," he said.

When he asked the veterans officials what he should do about treatment, he said, "They said, 'Well, if you flip out again, call 911.' "

Lois Krawczik, a psychologist who oversees post-traumatic stress programs for the VA Medical Center in Loma Linda, said Cruz is mistaken. She said the VA has no plans to eliminate programs at the Victorville clinic. In fact, the clinic is expanding, she said.

"There may be some changes," Krawczik said, but "we're not discontinuing or cutting back services."

Budget figures provided by the Loma Linda medical center show that funding earmarked for mental health has increased dramatically in recent years, from $70,000 in 2004 to $3.1 million in 2007. During the same period, the number of patients seen each month for mental health went from 6,700 to 9,600.

Cruz, and others, insist they have been told they'll have to go. Whether it is a misunderstanding or not, there seems to be a pervasive suspicion among older veterans, particularly those with post-traumatic stress disorder, both locally and in other parts of the country, that the VA is interested in pushing them out.
go here for more
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/10180

If this shocks you, you have not been paying attention. The new veterans, well the media is focused on them so the older veterans can just fend for themselves, like they always did before. No one ever paid attention to them while they were being denied claims, turned away from the VA, ignored when they were becoming homeless and committing suicide. Had it not been for them fighting for what little they received, none of the newer veterans would stand a chance in hell of being treated for PTSD or any of the other conditions they managed to get put into law that they should be treated for as a price of war. They fought for the benefits and treatment for PTSD and too many paid the price with their own lives. They fought for the illnesses attached to Agent Orange, yet again, too many paid for with their lives. The older veterans, well, maybe the VA's attitude is their time has come and gone and it's the media's fault for not paying attention to any of them. After all, what's an older veteran's life worth these days? There are too many of them getting in the way of the new veterans the media has been winning awards for reporting about.