400,000 veterans in Central Florida deserve better

I still have the shovel with 10-24-08 on it. That's the date they had a huge ground breaking event at where the Lake Nona VA was promised to be built. News came later it wouldn't be ready until 2012. Now it looks like 2014. Now it seems very appropriate to have been given a shovel at the event filled with promises.

VA hospital delays hurt veterans
Beth Kassab, Local News Columnist
June 4, 2012

The real loss from the delayed opening of the new VA Medical Center in Lake Nona isn't in the multimillion dollar disputes over construction contracts.

It's in the disappointment of men such as Earle Denton, Joe Kittinger and Jerry Pierce. The veterans fought for their country and then fought government bureaucracy and obstinacy to finally win a VA hospital in Orlando — the largest city in the nation without one.

Now the delays could mean some of them won't be around to see it open.

"I'm probably one of them," said Denton, 82, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served in Korea and Vietnam.

The construction disputes on the $656 million hospital could delay the opening by 18 months from October of this year to spring of 2014, according to the project's main contractor, Brasfield & Gorrie.

The VA says it will be done sooner, about a year from now.

Either way, the delay is the latest broken promise for local veterans.

"It's an absolute disgrace," said hall-of-fame aviator Kittinger, who was held captive during the Vietnam War. "It's because our politicians were not keeping the VA in gear. The people who suffer are the veterans."

Pierce, who served as an Army first lieutenant in Korea during Vietnam, said there are 400,000 veterans in Central Florida. And 90,000 are enrolled in the VA system for medical care.
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