Did veterans ever really matter enough?

Did veterans ever really matter enough?
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 15, 2014

There seems to be a lot of reports coming out on how bad things are for our veterans but few seem to acknowledge how things got this bad in the first place. The disgraceful conditions did not happen last year or the last decade. Veterans have suffered for generations.

Concerned Veterans For America did a press release on veterans waiting for claims to be processed.

"In Nevada, at the VA Reno Regional Benefit Office, roughly 6,396 veterans are awaiting for their Veterans Affairs disability compensation claims, with 66.5 percent backlogged for more than 125 days. It also takes an average of 392 days to complete the claim. Nationally, this number is even more staggering with 660,580 veterans waiting and 57.2 percent backlogged 125 days. Veterans' waiting in line for claims—sometimes for years—is utterly unacceptable."

While this sounds like a great thing to do, it does not come close to telling the whole story on how things got this bad or how long it has been going on. It is "utterly unacceptable" that none of the problems veterans faced actually mattered enough to fix the system once and for all veterans.

Staff Sgt. Ezekiel Crozier was on his second tour in Afghanistan when his helicopter went down in 2011. in January of 2014 he received a Purple Heart but still had not received compensation from the VA. He retired from the military in 2013. "Now I've got to suck up my pride and ask for help at times and who wants to do that, you know? It's been a struggle," he said.

In Alabama “Since 2006, the number of claims has grown 15 percent. The amount of time it takes to make decisions on disability claims is two to three year. On an average, it takes four years to get an appeals decision.” The VA reported 879,291 claims were in backlog. By 2008 8,763 veterans died before their cases could be reviewed for retroactive payments"

In 2004, a Vietnam veteran from Minnesota filed a claim for cancer connected to Agent Orange but it was not until 2013 that a “Clear and Unmistakable Error” had occurred nine years ago, and in late October issued a check to this veteran, for $306,962 in back pay."

For Bettye McNutt it has been a struggle that has lasted 23 years. “I have been forced to live in poverty, sometimes without heat and electricity, as a widow raising a son orphaned by the Vietnam War,” McNutt says in her prepared statement to the committee. “I am here seeking justice for the other widows and orphans of our Vietnam War veterans, as I am well aware that there are many like me.”

How did it get this bad? It was never fixed and politicians managed to pretend they were taking care of the problems veterans faced.

The Denver Post reported in 2013 that the VA system was not prepared for OEF and OIF veterans flooding into the system. The problem is, they were never really ready. VA Secretary "wants to reduce wait times from roughly 180 days to 145 days by the start of next year. He cited aggressive efforts to hire staff" since they did not have enough working for the VA. "VA also is working to get greater online access to Pentagon medical information that he said will allow staff to process claims faster and move toward a system of electronic filing of claims." That VA Secretary was James Peake and the year was 2008.

If you search Wounded Times for VA claims, you can see how long all of this has been going on. So why isn't any of this brought up by the people doing the talking today? Where were all the politicians back when Vietnam veterans came home? When Gulf War veterans came home? Why haven't the members of the press reminded folks that none of these problems were corrected when promises were made to veterans so many years ago? Do they actually think that veterans are not worthy of reporting facts that will really get the American publics' blood pressure boiling?

If no one is actually held accountable, then we will keep putting veterans through hell right here after they survived the hell of the wars we sent them to fight. They should never, ever have to fight for what they need from us in return.