When will Congress hold themselves accountable for veterans?

When will they take responsibility? Here's an update. Looks like never.

Calls for Eric Shinseki’s resignation grow among Republicans, Democrats In rapid succession, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- a leading GOP voice on military and foreign affairs -- and Sens. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and John Walsh (D-Mont.) called on Shinseki to step down just hours after the Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General released a report confirming some allegations that have rocked the beleaguered department in recent weeks.

When I read the following article, I had to leave this comment. I don't know if they will approve it or not, but after 30 years of tracking all of this, no one seems to have the answer for it.

The problem is members of Congress have never taken responsibility for their lack of attention on the VA and the DOD. With so many committees and subcommittees, you'd think they would have fixed all the issues veterans have faced for decades but they didn't. They hold hearings on the results listening to veterans and families falling apart but didn't hold hearings on who caused the problems in the first place. They don't hold hearings on what has worked and what other solutions have been created by the public.

Boehner said he's been pushing to privatize the VA for "decades" but the only way that can be done is to destroy the VA instead of fix it. We've read the results of decades of neglect. When will Congress hold themselves accountable?

When It Comes to America's Veterans' Crisis, "Thank You For Your Service" Is Not Enough
Huffington Post
by Congressman Jim McDermott, Sebastian Junger and Karl Marlantes
Posted: 05/28/2014

Historian David W. Blight has written that the first Memorial Day took place in Charleston, South Carolina. On May 1, 1865, a crowd of African-Americans -- recently freed from slavery -- honored the Union soldiers entombed in the rocky ground of the Charleston Race Course.

Twenty-nine days later, William Tecumseh Sherman concluded his farewell order from the United States Army with the words, "Your general now bids you farewell, with the full belief that, as in war you have been good soldiers, so in peace you will make good citizens."

On this Memorial Day 2014, we must acknowledge, not as a member of Congress, a veteran of the Vietnam War and a journalist-filmmaker, but as one nation indivisible, that Sherman's hope for American soldiers is not being realized today.

According to current Veterans Administration estimates, 22 American veterans take their lives every single day.

High rates of unemployment, homelessness, alcoholism, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress are decimating our community of veterans. With the wars of the past 13 years in Iraq and Afghanistan coming to a close, we are seeing too many casualties among American soldiers in this transition to peace.

In light of this crisis, we need a new kind of Memorial Day.
read more here