We’re rapidly reaching a breaking point very similar to what I encountered when I came home from Vietnam. We have engaged in a protracted war footing for twenty years (again) and now the chickens are coming home to roost. The powers that be (Congress) seem stupefied that we’ve run out of money (again) for our Veterans’ needs. VA Poohbahs, similarly mystified, are at a loss for words as to how this happened as well. Let me see if I can possibly shine any light on this paradox. The title above explains it.

After WW II, America went on a spending spree to build out the VHA (Veterans Health Administration) infrastructure to minister to all the wounded Vets coming home- and boy howdy were there a shit ton of them. Unfortunately, infrastructure doesn’t include personnel and penicillin- just brick and mortar edifices. The sad state of wage remuneration for bedpan changers and lowly Certified Nursing Assistants to augment actual, trained medical specialists was abysmally low. It simply didn’t attract enough warm bodies to accomplish the task. But… it worked after a fashion because the cost of living and inflation were changing at a glacial pace. Everyone had to make money and eat.

The Governor Waltz Medal Collection

This problem extended to the higher tiers of the system then- as it does now. Altruism and patriotism solved the problem for a few decades until Vietnam. America’s aversion to involving itself in every geopolitical firestorm (like WW I/II) once more raised its ugly head and the era of protest became the norm. Vietnam War protesters’ radical actions succeeded in getting us out of Southeast Asia- and dang near everywhere else- for decades until the 1990s. How quickly we forgot all that hard-won knowledge.

I came home in mid-1972 to anger and ennui. America was fed up with war and the patriotism and warm fuzzy emotions were gone. A fellow worker friend of mine from the Saugus, CA explosives factory we worked at (Bermite Powder Co.) decided over a bong or two one night to venture forth that weekend and go visit one of his buds who was recuperating at West LA VAMC. We loaded up on Fritos, a cool T-shirt and rolled a few joints for a goody bag to take to him. We figured it would cheer him up.

We sure didn’t have any trouble getting in. The place was a ghost town. We attributed it to being a weekend. What we found was criminal. Darrell was up on the third floor  amputation ward. He’d caught a 7.62 through the knee and they couldn’t save it. There were guys lying there in their own piss and shit. The ones who had any mobility whatsoever were busy hobbling around futiley attempting to take care of their buds as best they could. The one saving grace was there were plenty of clean sheets and towels- just no one to minister to the Vets. The few bedpan changers were all up at the front desk chewing bubblegum and busy reading comic books. The luxury of TV hadn’t filtered down to VA hospitals yet.

We spent most of the day making runs to a 7/11 store nearby grabbing more potato chips and pop. Most of these guys hadn’t even had a Pepsi since they got medivac’d back from the war months earlier. We joined in changing sheets and trying to give bed baths to the twelve Vets in his ward bay (built for ten).  The four of us didn’t even have the heart to venture further and look in on the other six rooms on his floor.

That evening we drove back up to Lancaster and the car was silent. Nobody felt like talking about the experience. We were numb. I could never bring myself to go back. It was just too damn depressing. It wasn’t the aroma of shit and piss. It was the utter futility of knowing things were not going to change or get better no matter what we did. SOS-DD.  This was waaay past potato chips and pop as a panacea or welcome distraction to their plight.

Fast forward to 2009, I found myself in the same predicament. Instead of twelve beds, it was six. There were bedpan changers and nurses this time but the apathy was still there. I had a colostomy bag on and the folks assigned to us had no idea how to change it or even empty it. The meals arrived late and colder than a mackerel. Alarms on IVs would beep for hours until the nurses could get there to change bags. I suffered that for 14 months and four operations. I was lucky. Before I escaped, I got a rip snorting killer case of MRSA, two heart attacks and a mega overdose of heparin that required a 2-pint transfusion to keep me from bleeding out.

The 9/11 attack on America once more invigorated that Yellow Ribbon around the old oak tree syndrome. That explained why the Seattle VAMC was standing room only. But, in spite of the post WW I/II buildout of infrastructure, they had to fly Vets down from Alaska to get serious medical procedures. How did Alaska get the dirty end of the punji stick? Or why? Apparently, apathy was even more prevalent up there and  available medical jobs went unfilled. What doctor in his right mind would sign on for 40% of what he could make in the civilian sector? Lather, rinse and repeat this and move forward from 1974 to 2009. America was no more prepared to serve the Vietnam Veterans effectively than they were the WW II and Korean troops. 9/11? Forget it.

So, where in Sam Hill is all this money going? VA compensation payments have always lagged behind anything you could hope to live on. Ditto VHA employee wages. Even throwing in SSA on top leaves you far short of survival. For the most severely injured, they’d need a wife or sig. other to work or be a full time caregiver to survive. In 2010, the nascent Wounded Warrior  Project pushed Obama hard to create a caregiver fund (PCAFC) to fill the financial gap. As admirable as it sounded, it created a two -tiered caste system. If you were post- 9/11, you were entitled to it. Vietnam, WW II and Korean Vets need not apply. Congress wouldn’t get around to dealing with that inequity for another 8 years and the repair order did little more than to 86 a bunch of the 9/11 guys and sub in the Vietnam and Afstan Vets in their stead.

PCAFC is so massively overburdened that it’s cutting into their (VHA’s) budget. This hopefully explains how VHA got into the compensation business. It had the added effect of draining financial resources from the medical side (read hiring doctors and nurses) to the PCAFC side to the point of… wait for it… running out of money. Currently, I’m doing a lot of  hamster wheel appeals to the BVA for it. The Judges keep kicking it back to VHA saying there’s a duty to assist error. Put simply, VHA “litigators” can’t find their asses with a methane detector. They have no legal training and here they are litigating instead of practicing medicine. WTF, over?

As for the VBA- the Veterans Benefits Administration- we’ve experienced not one, but three recent “hits” to the fisc. It began with the Procopio decision extending the Agent Orange exposure limit out to 12 miles off the coast. If you think Agent O could stay concentrated enough to get through a reverse osmosis water system and kill you when mixed with a gazillion trillion gallons of South China Sea water… then you must be a member of Congress. TCDD is a heavy metal. It sinks to the sea floor. Unless they were sucking water off the sea floor, the idea a sailor on the Constellation ingested AO is ludicrous. That’s right up there with immaculate conception.

The second hit was Camp Lejeune and the third was PACT. I’m not disparaging the Afstan guys but hey- Newsflash. We of the Vietnam War persuasion had burn barrels and were equally exposed to shit burning, napalm, White Phosphorus and God only knows what else they haven’t even told us about. Wait until the PFAS firefighting Foam Act comes down from on high. That shit makes Agent O look like suntan lotion.

The VA remuneration program -and I refer strictly to the VBA side- was not designed to take a hit of this magnitude. That’s not to say I don’t think we’re deserving of remuneration for all the shit we ate or inhaled. It’s just that America is going to go broke trying to make it right. The current predicament of running out of money for Vets is just beginning. This is going to be far worse than the Social Security well running dry in 2034.

To give you an idea of the enormity of it, who in their right mind is going to sign up to be a GI Joe and risk his life for chump change with the very real threat of cancer in the future? At a minimum, this is going to require reinstituting the draft to round up enough souls to man the battlements here- let alone overseas. Canada’s population is going to mushroom to untold levels if they do.

America cannot be great again if they don’t have anyone to defend it. Worse, even if we have enough warm bodies, how do we pay them when they get ill from all the condiments of mass destruction Dow Chemical and Monsanto created? We need to go on a diet and curb our appetite for war. Or other folks’ wars.

Until September 30th, VA is attempting to go on this “diet”. Their method is to simply quit adjudicating claims and let them sit in limbo. I personally have 35 cases of Vets with loss of use of lower or upper extremities who have been waiting almost six months (180 days) or more and nothing is moving. Where I used to see these things wrapped up in 90 days or less, I see no movement whatsoever. Crickets.  If it entails something as mundane as a bum knee, 257 days is nothing extraordinary. Mind you, the c&p exams are done. The doctors and nurses have opined on their DBQs. This should be like the In and Out Burger Stand drive thru lane.

And if you think this is some rare anomaly, hold on to your boonie hats, kids. This is just over a paltry $2.8 Billion dollar financial error. Next year portends a $15 billion dollar miscalculation. What happens when PFAS goes on the books? It’s unsustainable and VA et al are whistling merrily as they stroll past the VA cemetery.

Over the last 35 years, I’ve watched VA revamp the Part IV diagnostic ratings for all the shit we got into. Each time, they set the bar higher and higher to qualify. It certainly isn’t that the diseases or injuries have been ameliorated by advances in medical procedures. It’s because Congress, in their insane urge to garner votes, keep adding to the list of injuries which are service connected. That’s admirable but the repair order needs to be balanced against exposing us to same. If you don’t send us to war, we can’t very well get exposed to burn pits and Roundup® on steroids.

We’re rapidly reaching a financial cliff and VA just asks for more and more every time Congress approves more presumptives. What else can they do?  Veterans raised their right hands and promised to defend America. In return, they were given promises that they (America) had their backs. That promise rings more hollow each year regardless who sits in the Oval Office. Talk about DEI. Each and everyone of you who have served get an equal opportunity to get screwed regardless of your skin color or your pronouns. The Michigan and Pennsylvania VAROs now are registering Voters. The VA in Albuquerque is processing medical payments for illegal immigrants.  They’re turning into a veritable Swiss Army knife. One-stop shopping-just like a page out of Amazon™.