Can We Get Some Changes in Management at DVA? Please! This century!

by Tom Barnes, Staff Writer

Can we get some movement on a major management shift at the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA)?

I am an IU disabled veteran. Long story concerning my problems with the DVA. Suffice it to say, the story is long, the taste in my mouth is bitter and there is always a code of federal regulation or an executive order signed by the President or some obscure operating procedure followed by the DVA which either would not, could not or disallowed whatever it was that I was asking for.

I eventually went to the Board of Appeals and was declared IU totally disabled at about eight years after the initial time that I filed a claim. It was a maddening experience.

I have never been able to figure out why so many roadblocks were placed into my path by otherwise nice people. I talked on the phone with hundreds of people from Congressional staffers, to agents of the DVA and the Disabled American Veterans and the American Legion and the various Congressional committees, etc. Everyone was nice.

Damned near no one ever really knew exactly what to do to get me my benefits at the full level. If the story was a movie you would fall asleep from boredom and wake up eight years later just as confused as when you started watching. But the same theme was running through all the conversations with all the people over those eight years. "You have to wait your turn". Luckily, I did not die before I was declared IU.

To state this simply, this is immoral. This is unethical. This is wrong and something in the back of my mind tells me that this sort of obstructionist behavior on the part of government agencies and agents is probably vaguely illegal. I don’t think that this is what Congress implied when it set up the funding for a Veterans agency. Something is terribly wrong at DVA and I don’t think it is the people.

I think it is the system. I think the system is broken. Completely. Utterly and eternally. An entirely new system needs to come on line. Now.  Before we have an armed revolt.

When benefits are denied to people like us, then the whole idea of "nation" is mocked. It really IS that simple.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)