Just what is the story with the Department of Veterans Affairs?
Are they friend or foe?
By Tom Barnes STAFF WRITER
Before you read any further, I would ask that you take the time to read the excellent Wikipedia article on the History of the Department of Veterans Affairs
It will go a long way to explain the idiosyncrasies of the fourth largest bureaucracy in the U.S. government clans of related agencies.
Now once you have done that I think we can move into some really out-of-the-box discussion concerning the agency, its relationship with the roughly 26 million veterans that America currently has and especially, its always tense relationship with the approximately 2.5 million disabled veterans presently living in the USA.
I am a totally disabled veteran and a retired Coast Guard warrant officer (personnel administration). I have some experience with the various entities that handle disability claims for any particular veteran.
Let me lay down some caveats before we get into a serious discussion. I have only a handful but they are important before we get going. First, it is my personal opinion that when President Lincoln started paying pensions to Federal veterans of the War Between the States due to their injuries, he never foresaw the incredible need that would come of this.
Given the social consciousness paradigms of white Northerners in 1864 America, I feel comfortable in the belief that Lincoln almost certainly was speaking about combat wounded Federal soldiers only.
He almost certainly did not understand or appreciate the full panoply of physical and mental injuries that a veteran incurs simply by serving in the Army or Navy. Lincoln was talking about Union troops who had lost limbs to Confederate bullets in that war only. Considering that a huge number of those men would have died within hours of amputation on the battlefield or else by serious blood infection due to unsanitary surgery on the battlefield, that was a small number of men. The money would not have been great.
Let me tell you a story. I am the fifth Tom Barnes in my family to be born in this country. The first Tom Barnes born here in 1841. He is in my direct line. He was a butcher boy of Anglo-Irish descent who grew up outside of Philadelphia, was conscripted into the Federal Army when the war started and was shot twice. He was shot at Gettysburg and then again in Virginia while serving with Company A, 98th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. Civil War ammunition on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line routinely ran from .58 to .69 caliber balls.
That is a big enough ball to rip off a man’s arm, shatter a skull completely or easily tear off a leg. Old Tom Barnes (that is what my grandmother used to call him…and then she would laugh!) lived until 1925. Diabetes runs in my family. If you have diabetes and you are not treated your wounds will not close.
His wounds wept and did not completely close for the rest of his life. He stayed drunk constantly until the day of his death due to the pain. He walked with two canes. He wore his Union kepi constantly until the day he died. Now…now that you have all this background, this is what I wanted to tell you.
At that time, full pension was about four dollars a month.
That was a lot of money in 1925. The government was paying him about a dollar and a quarter a month because the government doctors did not believe that his wounds were severe enough to warrant full payment.
Old Tom Barnes had one topic of conversation and only one topic according to my late grandmother, his granddaughter-in-law, Kate Shea. All he ever talked about from 1865 when he was mustered out of the Union Army at the end of the war until the day he died was how the government was screwing him out of his full pension.
He was very bitter about it plus once a Union soldier was shot, he was routinely allowed to leave the Army.
This was not so in the case of Old Tom Barnes. He was required to serve until two weeks after Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. To add insult to injury, the regiment had to march home to Philadelphia from Virginia. That is roughly two hundred miles. He had been shot twice! Since he was now a Sergeant he had a troop to drill, all the way home to Philadelphia, with fragments of two Confederate balls in each leg. I am quite sure it did not help his condition.
When I was being considered for my total disability pension I thought constantly of Old Tom Barnes. I had a hard time getting rated TDIU, It took over seven years. But you know what? I had a cakewalk compared to what the government put Old Tom Barnes through about a hundred and forty years prior to me.
My second caveat is that the people that work at the Department of Veterans Affairs are people. They make mistakes, they get tired, they burn out, they are government bureaucrats just like any other agency and frankly there is no end to dealing with over 26 million veterans. It is a never ending job. The line never stops. If they work for the D.V.A. for fifty years, the last day that they are on the job will be as hectic and as nuts as the first day they were on the job.
There will always be an unending source of pain, grief and injustice for them to deal with every day. At some point any human being will simply turn off. All of the pain, all of the need, all of the injustice, all of the incredibly time consuming care that must go into one veteran must be overwhelming. In short, they are not fully up to the job.
No human being could be. It is obvious from looking at the results. They are overwhelmed in a sea of human misery and need. You and I would be too.
My third and last caveat is that the system is not ully working. It was not fully operational and just in 1864 when it started and it is not fully operational and just now in 2009. Why?
I am not sure. Maybe there are too many of us that have needs and the nation simply cannot afford to take care of all of us.
Maybe there is just not enough money and people and time to take care of us the way that we need care. If that is the case, we need to stop going to war for a couple of generations to let the problem die out.
War is the only thing that makes disabled veterans on a large scale.
If we cannot take care of our veterans then we either need to find a way to wage war without using people or we need to stop going to war. It is pretty simple actually. If we cannot afford to invest the time, resources and money into disabled veterans, then so be it. But basic American justice then demands that we stop making disabled veterans. Clear enough, eh? I mean this, I am not trying to be flip or sarcastic or obtuse.
We were not fully prepared as a nation to take care of Old Tom Barnes as far back as 1865 when they mustered him out of the Federal Army. We have not improved much since. Isn’t that a long enough time for a social experiment to run in order for us to draw conclusions?
Either invest the time and resources in our broken soldiers and sailors, airmen and marines, or stop sending them to war. I know damn right well from what I have been told about the guy, Old Tom Barnes would agree.
Tom Barnes, Author, "The McGurk"
http://www.themcgurk.vpweb.com/
This novel can be purchased at Amazon.com
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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