Comments on: VA Hid Suicide Risk, Internal E-Mails Show

Follow-Up Reporting On Exclusive Investigation Reveals Officials Hid Numbers

[tibu987]

It is time for a complete overhaul of the VA.

From the lackadaisical employees who seem to have time for everything except taking care of the vets.
From the top, the decision makers who decide that a vet who has lost a quarter of his brain and head and is given a 10% disability.
And for the VA hospitals that have a higher death and MRSA rate than all other hospitals.
Etc., etc., etc.

Our vets deserve nothing less than the very best care that this Country can give, NOTHING LESS.
And, it is our duty as appreciative Americans to see that our vets get the very best of everything.
Write the President, your senator, your congressman and tell them. I do.

[bluebloggin]

BlueBloggin has followed the backward progress of how the VA has contributed to American Veteran neglect. Recruiters must lower the bar more and more to replenish the ranks, because the track record for supporting veterans has been disgusting. VA bureaucracy has its problems, and insulting our returning wounded is the most despicable. Questioning the veracity of injuries should not be the norm. Officers reports should be enough. Officers are not encouraged to shed light on the mental deconstruction of their soldiers. They have their own mental stress trying to justify some of the orders they must carry out. This broken system must be accountable at the very top of the US Administration. Recognizing the problem is not enough. How can this administration repair something when they refuse to engage it seriously? Where are the American protesters and Activists?

[hotpaulie]

Support out troops...but when they get back home they are on their own...
When my brother-n-law got back from Iraq, his commanding officer and two others committed suicide within 2 months of being back. Then, they got called back out, this time to Afghanistan, scheduled to be deployed in January. During a ten day period in late November till December, six more soldiers from his base took their lives. What was done??? The base was put on lockdown and no one could leave for fear of further suicides. There was no Christmas for those guys last year.

[ov442]

Posted by clintatl - hey thats not accurate - its not just republicans that Shout about Supporting the troops. Dems and Independants all support our troops. The Difference is that Conservatives are Lying Hypocrites using our Troops as a tool to advance an agenda of Republican Supporters making cash of our dead, maimed, harmed, hurt, used American soldiers for a Republican War, filled with American taxpayer dollars going to Republican Corporate supporters as rewards for helping them get elected.

[adaleo5579]

I was very interesed in your story on the suicides that the DAV keeps quite. Just to let you know that after Vietnam, they had a high rate of Vietnam Veterans that commented suicide. They have always kept it quite, the policition don''t want the puplic to know.

[clintatl]

I would remind all of you smug conservatives who are trying to deflect the issue away from Vet care and onto some random "public health care" system that will never happen... that it is conservatives who shout from the hilltops about supporting our troops and it is conservatives who are letting them take their own lives when they return from this horrific war. Why? Because the only thing conservatives know how to do is lie, cheat and steal... Just look at your leaders. This is what happens with conservatives in charge.

[Baumer]

It appears none of you are truly understanding the issue at hand & all have your own ajenda (Policially) - I have a father of 72 years of age who is a veteran of Korea (2 Tours) The Bay of pigs and Vietnam (1 Tour).

Recently, within the last 10 years he has had to be hospitalized at the VA in New Jersey on & off due to complications from Diabetes.

Thanks to the "PAIN RELIEF" presribed by the Veterans Administration, he is now an OXYCODONE addict.

Now mind you, what began as a relief for the pain brought on by the removal of 1st one & then both legs at the knees has become habitual to the point that he had to be taken to an emergency room - because the actual written prescription caused an overdose!

I can only imagine what the veteran administration is doing to our damaged soldiers when they return from Iraq, let alone those from the Vietnam or Desert Storm eras!

This is appauling for anyone to blame the type of individual who becomes a soldier - maybe they had no choice, much like those who were drafted years before you began making judgement on who is a soldier today!

[jersupporter]

It is regretable that are Veterans and soilders are suffering so much under this administration. But the American public and voters are also to blame for this tragedy. We as voters refuse to hold our elected officials feet to the fire. Ask the cureent candidates running for office, what are they going to do to change the VA?
I retired from the VA after 27 years as a manager.
I retired in 2002, and I am glad I did.
Congress and sitting Presidents have never fully supported the VA. VA budget has always been cut,but we certainly do not cut foriegn aid. We certainly can allocate pork barrel spending on wasteful projects in districts of congressnal members. Our congressnal members certainly defend vigorussly this wasteful spending, but get very defevensive when they are asked why the budget is cut for the VA, or when this kind of news comes to light. They shrug their shoulders and say they did not know this situation or others existed until now.
At the VA I worked at our CEO and five other management officials were caught in pharmacy kickback scheme. None of them were ever prosecuted, the assistant director was transfered to another VA at the same level and salary. The CEO was allowed to retire at $100,000 per year retirement, and the other four managers also retired at very good retirement pay. Posted by pasisk1
---------------------------
Sir - thank you for your service and you should write letters to the editor etc expressing this corruption.

[homespunlady]

I remember volunteering at a NY VA as a teen in the 70''s. It was strange and frightening then. It also was memorable because of how "average and Human" those people I up until then only knew about from TV shows and movies were.

WE WERE ALL "VETS" in one form or another back then.

Yes, the ELITE DID SCAM OUT and GET BETTER TREATMENTS ELSEWHERE more than the rest but due to the DRAFT there was a pretty wide cross section of society otherwise - EXCEPT for women which the VA back then DIDN''T EVEN have TREATMENT OR FACILITIES FOR.

Now as a VET looking back at the part of society I was in, I still see humanity for most and still see quite a bit of SYSTEM DISCRIMINATION based on CLASS and less often gender.

VA VETS have been the "forgotten" at the same time they are used to "flag wave" and the IRONY of that FACT is NOT lost on them.

They ARE your husbands, wives, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, grandparents and neighbors.

They ARE "the canary in the coal mine" as to what our nation plans for the REST of the Citizenry because they ARE a microcosm of America.

[bluebloggin]

BlueBloggin has followed the backward progress of how the VA has contributed to American Veteran neglect. Recruiters must lower the bar more and more to replenish the ranks, because the track record for supporting veterans has been disgusting. VA bureaucracy has its problems, and insulting our returning wounded is the most despicable. Questioning the veracity of injuries should not be the norm. Officers reports should be enough. Officers are not encouraged to shed light on the mental deconstruction of their soldiers. They have their own mental stress trying to justify some of the orders they must carry out. This broken system must be accountable at the very top of the US Administration. Recognizing the problem is not enough. How can this administration repair something when they refuse to engage it seriously? Where are the American protesters and Activists?