TO VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY SHENSIKI: TIME TAKE THE GLOVES OFF
July 15, 2009 by Gordon Duff · 42 Comments
"SOFT APPROACH" TO MANAGEMENT OF SCANDAL PLAGUED AGENCY
A HUMAN DISASTER
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
Veterans around the country are waiting for Secretary Eric Shensiki to come to grips with the fact, obvious to all of us in the "real world" that we are in a war.
I don’t mean Iraq and Afghanistan, I mean here at home. We have many times more veterans than we have serving military and many more people in harms way at the hands of rogue elements of the Department of Veterans Affairs than from any foreign enemy.
For every national veterans care scandal, whether "Shreddergate" or "Snoopgate" there is now one every day popping up at one medical center after another. The stories are treated as hundreds of "isolated incidents." The big ones, thousands risk death from infection or incompetent treatment get a day of news, hidden behind the endless circus of petty political bickering that has replaced government in America.
Medicine is only a small part. With an "activist" DVA without the will to police itself or adequately protect patients from "Mengele clones" that lurk among the tens of thousands of highly professional and dedicated employees, a "blame machine" has been put in motion and directed at reprisals against patients.
Only a few veterans have been jailed so far, those a victim of a "juggernaut" capable of manipulating the legal system with the same vigor used to bury scandals and obfuscate before Congress. For the dead and maimed due to medical abuses, taxpayers fund millions in legal fees while Federal Courts allow the VA to hide behind a web of administrative roadblocks which makes them immune to civil or criminal remedies. For every case of malpractice, we have one of willful gross negligence and these acts are crimes, not subjects for debate or lawsuits.
The victims are always the same, veterans, often old, usually poor and invariably unable to protect themselves from betrayal at the hands of a bureaucracy massively funded by taxpayers intent on honoring their obligation to the soldiers who have given so much for their country.
The story doesn’t stop with infected patients or ‘hounded whistleblowers,’ not even close. The DVA is trustee to thousands of acres of land, some of it, such as in Los Angeles, worth billions. Nursing homes, hospitals, golf courses and parks make up a land empire almost rivaling that of the Vatican.
Across the country, veteran land is being sold, leased or given away to enterprises, often seeming ‘non profit’ or altruistic that, under closer scrutiny represent powerful developers or narrow private interests. Instead of focusing on preserving parks and cemeteries or providing housing or needed services for returning veterans, veteran land is used by movie studios, "non profits" or sought by developers. What we allow to be "chipped away" will never be replaced.
One thing each of these projects currently assauting veteran land has in common is backing by a powerful politician in Washington.
Photo Courtesty of Robert Rosebrock
More recently, veterans have become victims of the sham ideological struggle that has created the "liberal vs. conservative" debate that keeps our "talking head" tv and radio filled with hyperbole and inanity. Think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, with tremendous influence over government policy, have labeled veterans services as "entitlements."
This makes veterans care a form of welfare and cutting services to veterans their thru "bait and switch" programs or intimidation, a "core value" for "conservatives." Supporting war as the root of foreign policy and defense spending, normally seen as economically disasterous, is new ground for conservatives whose values have always been based on isolationism, small government and ruralism.
Political labels are little but "spin" and nobody spins for veterans. Every cent spent treating wounded soldiers during wartime could better have been allocated toward building useless, unneeded or defective weapons systems or subidizing research into a better drugs for treating erectile dysfunction.
Why make this political? Politics, over the 8 years of the Bush administration, provided the excuse needed to instill a mean spirited management style even more destructive than the infamouse malaise which has plagued the DVA for decades.
Problems that were being slowly improved through massive and, yes, sometimes wasteful spending are now heading the other way while the massive and wasteful spending goes unabated.
The DVA hires, it trains, it builds and it can and does provide some of the best medical services in the world.
The best doctors and nurses and, to a much lesser extent, some of the best medical administrators in the world work, hand in hand, with the incompetent, the uncaring and and obstructionist management intent on putting patent treatment well behind ‘resource allocation.’
Holding all of this together is a dysfuctional system of complex federal regulations that has woven a net that allows veterans to fall into both economic and physical ruin while camoflaging a system of government, a nation within a nation, that has stripped veterans of even their basic right to legal due process.
Some DVA administrators have more power than judges and their "inspectors" wield more police power than any of our counter-terrorism agencies, even in the post 9/11 environment. Why are few Americans aware of this? Why does Congress do nothing? Why is our "new broom" still in the closet?
Why do mainstream veterans organizations say nothing about these serious problems, pretending they don’t exist. Why is any problem that challenges corruption at the root of our governemental system looked on as an "inconvenient truth?"
Some of the answers can be seen on the Streets of West Los Angeles every Sunday. After a year, the infamous "VA landgrab scandal" still gets only the same few demonstrators. Other than the Military Order of Purple Heart, no organization has done more than subscribe to signing protest letters. When the letters are ignored, most veterans groups act as though they could care less.
In a community with nearly half a million veterans within driving distance, only 5 show up to defend veterans rights. Do we blame veterans and their organizations for ignoring problems, lacking spirit or do we blame our government for being what we have allowed it to become?
Do we blame the delusional and incompetent fanatics within the vast bureaucracy of the VA who have managed to terrorize, not only veterans but their coworkers as well? Do we blame the ideologically twisted politicians who shephered vet hating obstructionists into positions of control in the DVA under a conservative agenda?
Every day, thousands of doctors and nurses, tens of thousands of patients give and receive, all within a sytem that simply requires open eyes, a firm moral foundation and a sense of decency from above to positively impact the lives of so many who suffer so much at the hands of so few.
During World War II, newspapers filled their front pages with news of the war every day. Every battle, every campaign was outlined in detail. Now we have the internet, we have TV and we have learned, as a nation, to simple give up, give in and look away.
If we are going to change as a people, this is a good place to start.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
you are so full of shit here, more nonsense from duff as the email chains say.
Good to see we have VA monitors here. Grow a name and "a pair."
You are a gutless piece of shit.
Hey, isn’t that your mama calling?
g
Next time you pull out onto River Valley Rd and head down into Potwin, Ks, say hi to the folks down there.
You aren’t anywhere as good a "watcher" as you think.
g
Hey Watcher, how you and Duff go a round for 60 seconds?
We all could go for a good laugh. What do you say?
I said it before, Ill say it again. Once you have snitches assigned to your comments section, you have officially “arrived”. If your takin flak, you must be over the target. Keep up the good work, Duff. And as for the snitch, I mean “watcher”, you are a cowardly rat fink.
Watcher: With “watchers” like you, is it any wonder that over half of Veterans land at the biggest VA in the nation has pillaged, plundered and confiscated for non-Veteran use.
Gordon is right on the MONEY! Yes, this is a war and we have found the enemy — it’s the VA and sell-outs like yourself.
Duff:
You are so right. If they are going to hurl insults without getting them back…they need to sign their names. Any man would do that. Only a coward throws an insult and then hides behind a psuedonym BUT I have come to expect this from the reactionary right and the utterly clueless extreme left. What a mess.
The D.V.A. is a mess mostly because the "government" has left all management for veterans affairs to these freaking sociopaths who run that organization. It has no effective oversight of its abuses as you correctly pointed out. A TEAM of investigators must be named under a Special Prosecutor and people need to be placed in jail for abusive official government behavior that far outstrips their mandate.
The major veterans organizations, the funny hat types, have been in bed with defense industry lobbyists for decades. The LAST thing that they want is for the billions of dollars that presently go to defense industry boondoggles to be reprogrammed for the needs of the 22.9 million veterans still alive in the summer of 2009. This would cut their funding by these same defense industry "sponsors" by a huge amount. The funny hat veterans organizations have done enormous harm to American veterans and they know it. They serve no useful purpose for American veterans. They are mere window dressing for a coverup of biblical porportions and I belong to two of the largest of those organizations. As far as veterans needs go, they are a sham.
Great article.
CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)
Tom,
I actually have a photo of his trailer. God, I love the internet. Kansas. Working for a damned satellite security company has some bene’s.
g
Gordon I hope you won’t tell everyone how often my pool is green rofl can you count the cats in the yard? Mike
The Iraq war was a way for George W. Bush to attack America’s infrastructure and continue the sell out of the United States using your tax money.
America is confised today because Americans don’t know if America belongs to them or hundreds of international corporation.
You should write an article exposing all the corporations that have a stake in VA and land Duff. If youre not invested yourself.
Bob,
Many Dems go down with the Republicans on this one.
We stand alone….
This is why even a few more bodies out in the streets in West LA can make a difference.
We are drawing the line there.
g
Hey Watcher, you one of those KKK pretend vets whining about the Viet memorial here?
Keep moving
Duff should send of a copy of this article to the VA and Shinseki.
His "palace guard" gets all our shit.
The gov has had to buy more shredders to deal with vets.
They have one with my name on it.
g
Our Husbands did not suffer and die in vain with such a precious Prophetic VOice as DUff. THis is why I left the DVA as the first Catholic Female Chaplain – CHrist is alive and well and heailng through His Prophetic Voice Duff “Greater works will you do than I for I go to My Father”
The War Widows
Veteransjustice@aol.com
ps we need a volunteer to help us update our web site – the young student has left
http://www.veteranschamberofcommerce.org
Chaplain Mary,
good hearing from u.
g
Bob,
I second your suggestion.
Gordon, great article and for those who want to defend and support the problem rather than demanding it be fixed, find another line to stand in.
We aren’t yet being heard. How can politicians who claim to be experts on veterans affairs know next to nothing about what is going on?
Don’t answer that.
g
Duff, I don’t know who spiked you oatmeal this morning, but I want some of what ever they put in it. SIMPER FI.
PTSD I suspect.
g
HOOYAH! DUFFSTER!
Never, and I mean just that; NEVER has anyone so adequately described and detailed the ongoing atrocities of the BEAST known as the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. Sadly though; there are far too many that will read your article Duff, that are without spine and of the same ill mind-set as “Watcher”.
What the hell is he watching anyway? It damn sure is not what the majority of our Brothers & Sisters-In-Arms see. It is not what I witness first hand at several VA Hospitals, VSOs and see in the eyes of my Brother & Sister Warriors whom I assist through the tangled web of shit you’ve properly written of.
Waste, fraud, abuse, theft, lack of ethics – these are minor problems when you view the entire picture. I have to witness a scumbag (my neighbor) every day as he carries on his “stolen life” and “stolen valor”. This pathetic cretin has actually bragged to me that he took his father’s identification when he died. Both have the same name – Vincent A. Barwick. My neighbor “was” Vincent A. Barwick Jr., until his father passed.
Jr.’s wife worked at the Social Security Administration. When V.A. Barwick (Sr.) was showing the signs that he would be in need of hospice, they began the dubious identity switch. Linda K. (sometimes uses S.) Barwick, changed the dying Mr. Barwick – Navy Veteran; to the “dying” NON-VETERAN; VINCENT A. BARWICK JR., and thus the swindle began and continues.
VINCENT A. BARWICK JR. took on ALL the HONOR that was EARNED by his father and made it his own. The 100% Service Connected – Totally & Permanently Disabled America Veteran: VINCENT A. BARWICK was buried as JR.! The checks and benefits never ceased beng sent to the suddenly healthy VINCENT A. BARWICK. Not the SSD, nor the VA Disability.
He even has gone to the extent of saying that he can not drive 15 miles to the VA in Muskogee Oklahoma, because he is so old and ill. I am sure it is in reality; due to the fact that he may be recognized, hell he moved to Oklahoma from Arkansas to avoid seeing his father’s WAR BUDDIES.
I have so much video of this CRIMINAL driving his BRAND NEW SILVER DODGE RAM 2500 HEAVY DUTY TRUCK, all over town and state. I have videos of him mowing his 2+ acre lakeside resort property lawn – in TRIPLE DIGIT HEAT! I called the VA Office of Inspector General – Criminal Investigations Unit to report this and enquire as to where they would like me to send the evidence. The answer; “Well, he has been receiving it for so long now; we better just leave him be.” I SHIT YOU NOT!!
I had lost all hope of this FELON and his FELON wife, of ever being caught and imprisoned for their body/name double switcharoo scandal. Just this month I received a phone call from a Special Agent that is young and ever eager to bring this unspeakable, unbelievable scam to an end. She (Special Agent) came to our home and spent a great deal of time with my wife and me. She comes from a MILITARY FAMILY and is a VETERAN. Also; she is married to a Lt. in the Marine Corps presently downrange in A-Ghan. (I guess the VA slipped and let a good one get in!)
While the Special Agent was here, LINDA BARWICK and her RECENTLY RELEASED FROM PRISON SON – ROBERT BARWICK (Imprisoned for selling drugs – VA PRESCRIPTION DRUGS!), were listening to our conversation. They were using one of those “Point And Listen” to the pretty bird devices, sold by many different companies – as well as on TV Infomercials. Whatever they heard must have shook them up; they have put into action – OPERATION: SURVIVAL, EVASION, RESISTANCE & ESCAPE! They are of the mistaken believe that; no one is aware of the 7 different households and addresses they maintain throughout Northeastern Oklahoma. WRONG!
I have supplied each and every one to this shining star of an Investigator. She will be placing the shackles on this month! HOOYAH!
Gunner
You are uncanny!
When I find myself at odds with VA OIG investigators, cases like this come to mind. However, they are clearly FBI, not DVA.
You have the makings of an interesting story here.
Much appreciated.
g
shit. i thought you were gone.
Good Evening Duff,
The only issue I have with what you said is the land grab, so lets just set that aside.
You make some good points but you are only complaining. Us with long standing relationships with and with in the VA have know this for ever, you are in short saying nothing new, you can get pi**ed off and express you self righteous outrage and rant all you like, I sincerely hope that it makes you emotionally and physically feel better, but it adds nothing to solving the problems of the VA.
With this web site you have an opportunity to make a difference and make things better for you fellow Veterans but you totally miss your own point the DVA is wanting for solutions, they can’t generate them themselves, they are to locked into a self preservation bureaucratic culture where their own career and job are more important the their mission as give by the American People.
Since you have failed to provide leadership and guidance on this, I will step up.
First step, get Veterans involved in the process. I’m not talking about the VSO’s who have their own agendas but the “customers” who use the VA. every time I step into a VAMC I see things that are not working but could work. For example I spent this afternoon in clinics and I saw an elderly Veteran in a companion wheel chair just parked net to a wall in area 1. I went over and asked if everything was OK he told me he had been waiting nearly an hour for someone to come and get him for his next clinic which he was already about 15 mim. late. I went up to the window and got a not my job answer for the clerk.
Instead of getting pi**ed off and pulling the a**hole over the counter and doing a number on him which, is my natural instinct. I went back over to the Vet asked him what clinic he had to be at, he showed me his paper. I took him down the hall to the lobby where the security office is, approached a security guard and said this Vet is late for an appointment and no one seems to give a sh**, in a voice loud enough where all in the lobby could hear me, and said, “Do something about it.” They did.
This is where it all starts and will end is with us. We let the DVA get this way and we have to take it back. The first thing I would think is to go after employees who don’t get it, and hide behind antiquated personal laws that the Veterans Advocates use to screen and protect them. Scrap the Advocate system and bring Veterans in on the process. Some staff from top to bottom will get fired or demoted, just like in the real world.
How can you make this happen Duff. Use your bully pulpit, you know how to make noise, you have shown that, make it mean something. People in the DVA do read this site as the do others, get something going in a positive direction and they will fallow.
ALLONS,
Byron SKinner
Barrie is here because I handled his VA claim over ten years ago. WE have been friends for many years. Many of the folks here have known me for years…people who are not INTERNET friends.
They are all dedicated..and do tons of work you never hear of.
I have been involved in Veterans issues for 40 years and have been running veterans sites for 16. The internet was a bit different then.
There are alot more of us here than you have any idea nor do you see much of what we do.
Figure a number of organizations, a moderate to large legal staff and many medical people.
I either have veterans here with me during the day or am getting suicide notes at night. In between I am working on a number of court cases and writing shit like you are reading.
OH…and I have a job.
Other than that, I talk to politicians.
Much of it, on a scale you were unaware of but know better, is going prettymuch as you would guess. I work with a local congressional office and, to the best of my ability, try to work with the VA also.
I am the person you see. There are alot more people here doing a ton of work you don’t see but that effects the lives of many. Some of them never write at all.
Your VAMC story is one I am familiar with. I could give you many similar stories and, i guess, probably should.
I have to get out of here in a couple of days. I can do only so much from Europe, where I spent much of my year but will do what I can.
Our real need is to build a legal referral system here, which we are in the process doing, open a non-profit and put several vet organizations under an umbrella.
In the interim, we have to keep readership up….and keep on message.
Try talking to congress about veteran issues. Much of what we write is for them. If you think we are stating the obvious, guess again.
What is obvious to us is ..prettymuch like from outer space to politicians, especially those who are veterans advocates.
Thus: we are stuck having to repackage the same message while murdering the ghost of George W Bush so that he will stay in his coffin.
I really wish you would see our collective in-boxes here.
You do understand how far we go to help readers. We had a guy picked up and driven to a hospital the other day….spent 2 hours on the phone going over medical records yesterday….
All..pettymuch what you are doing.
Nobody here is any different than you.
g
the “federal veterans home” we are sorta discussing, is legitimately a federal park. this puts it in another catagory, a property contolled by the federal dept of the interior. cabinet post? this is not strictly a VA fuk up. this is more involved than that. look up the committee members/leaders of that bunch of weirdos. as rob’t rosebrock can attest to, it ain’t going to be a quick fix.
Gordon:
This was a very insightful article. The VA system is broken in numerous ways. Although the usual dedicated and hardworking individuals that work in the system tend not to be the problem. It is how services are rendered or not which come from higher up authorities that are more of the problem. And a lot of that comes from congress.
Any political spin that states veterans benefits are an entitlement is totally wrong. The real entitlement stems from the American people expecting a defense to protect their endeavors. What veterans are given is a fulfilled promise for making that defense a reality. It’s part of the package for serving honorably, not an addition.
And Tom thanks for alerting us to the errors of the veteran organizations. I had always wondered where they were in the veteran’s time of need. I have no need for funny hats to shape my opinions on doing what is right for brave and deserving veterans.
(sorry to have commented to byron with his name in byline….was half asleep….not unusual)
Darryl,
Increasingly, state authority under sovereignty, licensing and criminal authority, will have to interact with the DVA on veterans issues.
We have no where else to turn under the current circumstances. Federal "insulation" against reform has made the VA impossible.
g
Your point, “this is where it all starts and will end with us” is well made. A very active local Veteran advocate says it best, “if not us, who? If not now, when?” Further, you manage to point out how some Veteran advocates work differently, some would regard your piece as “whining”. Still, and I can attest to their existence, there truly is a dedicated handful of Veterans who are over 80 years of age, they probably don’t write, as you point out, but they do show up at the corner of this “biggest and busiest” VA facility every Sunday.
So, I ask, why put “Land-grab” off to the side? Is it because it is so complex that the VA is acting more like real estate brokers than care givers? It constantly uses excuses like “offsetting” the budget but cannot explain why, for example, the Salvation Army has over 60 units collecting market rate rents from non-Veterans while it pays $1 a year for the “gifted” land (for Veteran patients) that it sits on.
I believe that there are times when a “bully pulpit” is needed and, as much as I try to “work with” bureaucrats and politicians, I don’t a “hat in hand” approach give any return for today’s and tomorrow’s Veteran patients that are being robbed of valuable resources.
The exchange of this different dialog is, in my opinion, healthy. However, it will not be effective until we speak as one loud voice and stop cutting the legs off of each other. I know the Secretary gets updates but he is in a position where he can pick and chose his battles. “Land-grab” is so dark and complex we ALL need to get him to understand that it is killing the very system that he represents.
Francisco,
Imagine having this obligation:
We are read on the hill a couple times a week. Several of us work, either with or for, members of congress.
Stories have a 24 to 48 hour life.
Much of our audience is, from our standpoint, activist vets, unsophisticated.
If we keep talking to each other, thus, "not whining" we may all be in agreement but ignored or worse.
We are forced to live in a continual ’spin’ mode.
Using a bully pulpit is fine. Do you know where I can get one? My background is defense contracting or oil and gas banking. I really don’t do this for a living.
I am a real combat vet, like Forrest Gump, but hardly anyone famous. I am exactly like all the people I served with….not one iota different than any of them other than not being dead.
I have a top lobbyist on our staff but he was arrested last year by the Bushies and now needs some help himself.
We have a bunch of DC friends including several ‘newsworthy’ big name people who are less than motivated or….ok…less than motivated.
The only option we have is to combine whining with screaming and keep good information out there in the process.
g
(correction)
Most of our audience is activist vets…….the rest are VERY unsophisticated when it comes to veterans issues.
Thus, we work under an assumption of minimal background.
Also…going after the DVA on a broad basis is not workable. I have too many friends there and it simply seems wrong.
I can’t think of any company as broken as this, not even Ford or GM.
g
Mr. Duff:
Interesting charges hurled, but your piece is long on rhetoric and short on fact.
What specific parcels of VA trust land are under threat, and from whom?
Name for us some veterans who have been jailed, maimed or hounded by this “juggernaut” of which you write.
Please specify the “police powers” wielded by DVA, those you claim now exceed any CT agency.
Outside the 666th Tinfoil Hat Brigade, you won’t get much respect as a journalist without doing the hard work of finding, establishing and reporting fact. Arm waving rants are more effective when backed by documentation. Otherwise, it’s just your opinion.
And we all know how common opinions are, eh?
Respectfully submitted,
Jack Lewis
Team Sergeant
OIF III
As for the "jailed" and hounded: Take Keith Roberts as one example. See http://uppitywis.org/national-va-director-pushed-us-atty-biskupic-to-indict-wisconsin. [uppitywis.org]
Roberts is federal prison for 48 monthes and was fined effectivly $400,000 because former VA General Counsel attorney and VA national Director of Compensation and Pension Services, Renee L. Szybala (ask Mike Bailey about her) teamed up with the Bush DOJ because Roberts was a pain in the DVA’s collective ass. They tried the same shit all over the country, and a few US attys did tell the DVA to in effect go fuck itself.
We went on national radio, Air America, as did Col Dan Cedusky (ret) and a lot of veterans just on those shows called in from all over the country and made similar complaints about the DVA pulling this shit.
"Tinfoil Hat Brigade…" Dude, that’s nuts.
You might want to ask Veterans’ Attorney, Robert Walsh [www.lawyers.com] the same question. Walsh is a former VA staff atty and Vietnam veteran who when he worked at the DVA found out that helping veterans get their benefits was not the job in the DVA "culture of ‘no.’"
So now Walsh works in private practice ensuring one veteran at a time that veterans get the respect they deserve.
Here are some more sources about the DVA targeting veterans writ large:
- http://www.epluribusmedia.org/features/20060206PTSD_intro.html [www.epluribusmedia.org]
- http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001124 [www.harpers.org]
- http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2007/07/ptsd-vets-file-class-action.html [malcontends.blogspot.com]
- http://www.angelfire.com/il2/VeteranIssues/ [www.angelfire.com]
- Veterans for Politics [vets4politics.blogspot.com]
- Veterans Legal Help [www.legalhelpforveterans.com]
- Economic Costs of the Military-Industrial Complex [seekingalpha.com]
- Vietnam War Resources [www.cc.gatech.edu]
- Vietnam Center and Archive [www.vietnam.ttu.edu]
- Veterans’ Post [www.veteranspostnews.com]
- Vets for Justice [www.vetsforjustice.com]
- The Veteran Voice [www.veteranvoice.com]
- Colonel Dan Cedusky’s Vets’ Issues [www.angelfire.com]
- VA Watchdog [www.vawatchdog.org]
- Veterans for Common Sense [www.veteransforcommonsense.org]
- IAVA – Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America [www.iava.org]
Shit, right now I’m working to keep a kid, Robert Anthon of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, out of federal prison because some crats at the IG’s office want to toss his ass.
What, are you sticking up for bureaucrats at the DVA? What the hell is your objective? Because veterans’ advocates like those at this site could use all the help that we can get, but ain’t no one getting rich here. Pick a side, man: veterans or ‘crats.
##
Hey, Leon:
Sorry to reply to my own post, but couldn’t figure out how else to reply to yours.
I picked my side a while ago, as I was first a vet in 1987. I’m pretty damned sure I’m on our side — your side, Duff’s side, my own side. Not a VA stooge, but I have been in (and am) in the system as a patient. So there’s that.
My comment was simply intended to point out that, as a fairly new reader of Veterans Today, I looked at this column and found the experience much like the tail end of a KBR DFAC line: lots of sauce with no meat under it. I would like to know more about the things that are hinted at but not documented. The facts aren’t in there; I looked pretty hard.
That having been said, I’ve done a certain amount of rhetorical ranting myself. There’s catharsis in it, and it may even help in some small way to wake up enough folks to turn the supertanker of VA funding around — but not if it’s only preaching to the converted. And the unconverted (i.e. people who have no specific, preexisting reason to give two shits in a bucket about veterans) are unlikely to be swayed by foamy rhetoric without factual, researchable documentation.
That’s my position. Charge it if you want to.
Cheers,
Jack
http://crosscut.com/blog/crosscut/19017/
Jack Lewis:
Gordon Duff knows precisely from whence he speaks and for whom he defends. However, when I read comments like yours, I can’t help but think that you are either working for the VA or applying for a job there and hope to score some points by throwing fellow Veterans under the bus — it’s a prerequisite to get hired by the VA.
You ask: “What parcels of land trust are under threat and from whom?” What rock have you been sleeping under? It’s happening at VA’s all across America, but let me give you some real specifics at the largest VA in the nation, the Los Angeles National Veterans Home. The list is long and I’ll only share a few. Regarding the “whoms,” the wealthy campaign donors of corrupt politicians in the neighboring communities that want this land for their own, and to eventually turn it into a “Central Park West” community public park.
This land was deeded in 1888 by two individuals, John P. Jones and Arcadia de Baker, “to be permanently maintained as a National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. There are an estimated 20,000 homeless Veterans in Los Angeles, even though this is their “rightful Home.” This a place for Veterans to heal from war and not a public park for the communities to turn into an amusement and entertainment center.
Following are only a few of the unscrupulous leases that the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center (WLA VAMC) has facilitated to benefit a few of the wealthy at the burden of the many Veterans, including 20,000 who are homeless in Los Angeles.
• The WLA VAMC entered into a 20-year agreement with Brentwood School, one of the wealthiest private schools in the nation, for 21 acres of Veterans land to build an athletic field that is off limits to Veterans. The sharing agreement expires in 2020
• The WLA VAMC entered into an agreement with Breitburn Energy. The land use agreement is for drilling oil on Veterans land and the Department of Interior controls the mineral rights agreement.
• The WLA VAMC entered into a 20-year enhanced sharing agreement with Richmark Entertainment Group, Hollywood / New York entertainment business, for the Wadsworth and Brentwood Theaters, the only two theaters at the National Veterans Home. They are no longer available for Veterans use but have become readily available for a “cultural community center” for the wealthy neighboring residents. The agreement expires in December 2025.
• The WLA VAMC entered into a 10-year enhanced sharing agreement with Sodexho Marriott on Building 224 for laundry services for their hotels. The agreement expires in March 2010.
• The WLA VAMC entered into a no-bid, rent-free enhanced sharing agreement with Veterans Park Conservancy, which is not a Veterans organization but a wealthy neighboring homeowners group, for a 16-acre billion-dollar parcel of Veterans land to build a public community park. The agreement was signed on August 24, 2007 and is a 20-year contract with a 10-year option.
• The WLA VAMC entered into a 10-year enhanced sharing agreement with UCLA for a baseball diamond and the agreement expires in 2011.
• The WLA VAMC has entered into a 20-year enhanced sharing agreement with the Salvation Army for Building 212. The agreement expires December 2025.
• The WLA VAMC has entered into a 10-year enhanced sharing agreement with the Salvation Army for building 207. The Agreement expires April 2015.
• The WLA VAMC entered into a 50-year federal lease agreement with New Directions for Building 116. The agreement expires August 2045.
• The WLA VAMC entered into a 5-year memorandum of agreement with a five-year option with New Directions for Building 257. The memorandum of agreement expires February 2012.
• The WLA VAMC is negotiating a 75-year lease on building 209 with a New York-based nonprofit developer (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Mr. Tillman chose Common Ground of NY and McCormack Baron Salazar, a national developer of mixed-income urban neighborhoods to operate a homeless housing service, with no guarantees that a resident has to be a Veteran.
• The WLA VAMC entered into a 20-year enhanced sharing agreement with Westside Services for parking lots on Veterans land that includes the Brentwood Village lot. The agreement expires in 2020.
• The WLA VAMC entered into a special agreement for Community Soccer Leagues to use MacArthur Field on Veterans land.
• The WLA VAMC has operated a Veterans nine-hole golf course that allows the public to play and more than $200,000 has been stolen / embezzled from employees working at the course. Now Mr. Tillman is negotiating an enhanced sharing agreement with a “non-profit” organization and the leader claims to be a family member of the original donor of this land in 1888, even though Arcadia de Baker died in 1912, had no children, and left no will.
Join the Veterans Revolution to “Save Our Veterans Land.”
Wow, is all I can say! Mr. Duff, if you ever need someone to back you I’d be more than happy to offer my assistance. I’m a life member of the dav living in Maine, what I read from you is so hard to comprehend. How can they be getting away with this shit? How? I don’t understand and maybe I never will but you have opened my eyes, I’m showing your article to my other vet friends and every other citizen I can, like you said, this is a good place to start!! Thank you!!
It’s hard to expect that the former executive, who was not elected and couldn’t even read a newspaper, peopled the VA with others like himself. He stood by and watched as John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam vet, and his Veep candidate, John Edwards, also a Vietnam vet, were mocked with Purple Heart Bandaids. You want respect from those sort of people? Never before have I felt so much that we veterans are just machines. Wear it out and throw it away.
Much of the current commentary I see on casualties and deaths from Iraq and Afghanistan is written by those willing to stand over the body and declare themselves patriots, having never been in harm’s way themselves.
When you see one of those yellow ribbon stickers, ask how much of the purchase price went to help a vet.
When I was in Australia, I met several veterans of our disaster in Vietnam.
If I understood them correctly, their Veterans department is run of, by, and for the veterans and their dependents. They make up a budget and go to Parliament and it is passed. They decide who needs what and how much it is going to cost. The government has NO say in the veterans affairs.
Since talking to them. That is my idea of the veterans department we should have. There have had conservatives in power off and on so this might have been changed.
By the way, does anyone else find it entertaining that the genius-wit that wrote this article can’t even spell Mr Shinseki’s name right?
Does it occur to YOU that; the OVERWHELMING majority of Veterans that have read and will read this article; DO NOT GIVE A SHIT? We understand the burdensome work that Duff has taken upon himself on behalf of Veterans everywhere. We are sure to see spelling errors in the future, we expect them actually. However; we overlook these and seem them for what they are – errors in spelling. (I can personally envision Duff, as he hammers the keys, after learning of an injustice done by the DVA or against and to a U.S. Veteran Warrior. Yeah, he is going to make more spelling errors.)
Has it occurred to you that even though Duff may and in fact does make spelling errors; HIS MESSAGE IS STILL UNDERSTOOD AS DELIVERED BY NOT ONLY THOSE THAT AGREE WITH HIM, BUT BY THOSE THAT DO NOT? Of course you do. Yet you choose to “enlighten” us to this HORRENDOUS OFFENSE committed by Duff. VA stooge.
Your chicken shit ass is lucky that you are reading Duff’s articles. It is because of Warriors as he, that you can.
What I find peculiar is; the ONLY thing you find worthy of effort to criticize is – Duff’s spelling of Shitzinkeeze name.
Go back and crawl into your DVA cubicle. Remember that if in the future, you are so inclined as to publish more of your idiocy; (and thereby leaving your header footprint) be very careful what you choose to hurl about in this forum. A lot here are PROFESSIONAL HUNTERS, very many are still EXTREMELY ACTIVE. Tick tock.
Gunner
Help my husband please? VA ( will not claim ) the Agent Orange / Melanoma Cancer. All his other problems are from AO Rffects, but won’t claim the Melanoma Cancer. Ralph worked on planes that flew the AO Chemicals while repairing equipment was cut on the arm had 30 some stitches, so who know it didn’t cause the cancer when all his other problems are from Effects of Agent Orange. He has asked me to get the Melanoma Cancer on the Agent Orange List at the Veterans Affairs, please help? If they claim some Cancers why not his cancer when everything else is from AO Chemicals? Make his Wish and Dream to have the Melanoma Cancer put on the VA List of AO Chemicals causes.
Thank you,
Jo Ann Stalter / Wife and Caregiver
litehousegrannie@aol.com