Squidster sent me this disturbing article tonight. It brings back so many memories of friends who decided they couldn’t hack it back in the 70s and punched out. Sadly, we have the perfect storm once again brewing in Iraqistan. Soldiers come home and recieve the “get in line” briefing. After a few months in line they fix it themselves. Voila!. No more problem except for the widow or the bereaved family who thought the VA was supposed to be on this like white on rice.

America reminds me of  our erudite citizens who takes umbrage with another country attacking us. Witness Pearl Harbor. They respond in kind and after the war they minister to the injured. Eventually the fanfare and patriotism wears thin and it’s back to normal. A score of years later another incident flares up, we charge off once again and the injured pile up. This time, due to politically incorrect reasons, the war does not meet the criteria for acceptance. Witness Vietnam and its aftermath.

What we have now is an amalgam of both. Citizen outrage and plenty of political support would argue for a dramatically different outcome but the VA is simply not up to the task. Instead of mortar and bricks (hospitals), they have opted to create endless jobs and tools to measure how the jobs are being accomplished (VAOIG). Fewer and fewer medical personnel can be hired due to the top-heavy nature of administrative bloat. Rest assured that Human Resources counselors will have just the right panacea for underachieving problem workers but no solution for the 2000+ unfilled psychiatric medical workers so desperately needed to stem the PTSD tide at VAMCs. VA assures us this will be solved by 2016. It seems everything will eventually be resolved at some magic moment in the future so we just need to bear with them.

In the military we called this SOSDD (same old shit-different day). VA has elevated it to its present art form-an agency paralyzed from the neck up. Witness that nary a single jetgun decision has been granted at a VARO. Every one we’ve found and published has occurred at the BVA or CAVC. What does this tell you? Veterans Service Center managers are not empowered to grant these. The Extraordinary Awards Program (EAP) that Leroy Macklem ran afoul of is another example. Some actions just cannot be entrusted to the little guys at Fort Fumble.

VA has become so powercentric that virtually all policy questions have to be run by the Vermin Ave. poohbahs to get a political feel for how it will be viewed by the press.

It is now accomplished at a very high level (BVA and above)

It is only accomplished with a lot of bellowing and screaming (on the vet’s part)

It takes (or used to) 21 months to produce results. Unlike elephant gestation, that number continues to grow rather than remain static.

I felt sorry for all my brothers who couldn’t stand to be alive after Vietnam. I feel even more anger now when I see the same crime being perpetuated yet again and citizens act as though it is a unique event never before seen. VA, of course , is equally mystified and convinced it’s only a minor glitch. Repair Order? Why, hire more PR and HR guys and have  a training week in Vegas.  38 CFR rap Karaoke, dude!