The VA (Veterans Administration) was set up to help the men
and women who have served and are having both physical and mental problems.
Their mandate is to help the veterans through hospitals, disability claims, and
even getting a house. What they are is a bureaucracy of people who treat the
vets as second class citizens. I was in the military for 27 years and have two
volumes of medical records, few of the pages in my medical records are
sickness, and they are almost completely injuries. The VA has failed me on so
many level, but I am only one of the many stories, but I will tell you what I
have seen.
The first part begins with the military and what use to be
the norm. When you deploy, after coming back you have to fill out a
questionnaire which is designed to check you out mentally, but if you answer
certain questions the wrong way, you can lose your career, booting you to the
VA. “Have you seen a dead body?” is one of the questions which we were told, by
leadership, to say no to if you were not in direct documented action. Now many
Veterans have trouble sleeping but are denied PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)
because it is nowhere in our record; when you are a Soldier or Troop, however
you want to label the military, you just follow orders. You do not realize at
the time that all you have sacrificed for your country will be denied at the VA
because you followed orders.
I have been deployed for six and one half years to different
places, some which I am still not allowed to talk about. I wake up with
nightmares when I do sleep, and day scares when I don’t. When I retired, I was
lucky; I had enough time to retire instead of being booted on a Medical
Discharge, as many of my friends were. I had to endure three knee surgeries,
with an arm and hand surgery to try and put one side of my body back together,
but at least I still had all my appendages, many of my brothers and sisters
don’t. At this time I did not know just how wrong, for the way they treat
Veterans, the VA was; I found out quickly. With my damage, during my Medical
Discharge Appointment, the doctor ensured me that I was close to 100% disable, due
main to bulging discs, compressed vertebrae, hearing damage, and of course all
the surgeries to put me back together.
My first visit at the VA was not encouraging, as I tried to
keep up with the very grumpy doctor walking down the hall, hard after three
knee surgeries, he turned and stated, “Quit faking it, it won’t help”, I was
dumbfounded. He asked me where all the scares came from and I told him about
the all the different surgeries I had went through to put me back together over
my career; he stated, they were not in my Military Medical Records; luckily, I
kept copies of most of them. He took me in a room and turned out the lights; I
hit the floor, I did not know that if you can’t feel your legs, your eye sight
will maintain your balance as a reference point. When he turned the light off,
I had no second reference point, hence the reason I hit the floor. He did a
strength test on the arm that was operated on stating I needed to try; I was
trying, I had lost a quarter of the muscles in my arm; I didn’t then or now,
have any gripping strength in my arm. He kept trying to force me to bend more,
squeeze harder, turn better, but my body was not able to do his requests. Then
I went to get my hearing test which the operator basically told me I was deaf,
I said “What” as a joke. I asked about hearing aids because my wife keeps
saying I am ignoring her; I just can’t hear her. She said I didn’t quality for
them and it would be best if I went to a private doctor. So much for the VA
helping me there. Next, I went to an independent psychiatrist,
because apparently the VA had a law suit filed against them. He said I was mild
to moderate PTSD but that I handled it better than most. Well, at least there
was one bright spot; or I thought it was a bright spot.
I was in so much pain when I left the VA, I never wanted to
go back; I think they do this on purpose. When I received my disability letter
from the VA, it stated I was at 40%, just below the amount to get a separate
check for disabilities. You see, if you are 40% or lower, they take the amount
you would receive out of your retirement check and makes it tax exempt; you do
not get anything extra as the civilian world does. I have watched as people
more screwed up then me are still listed at below 40%, making you go back to fight
the VA system again and again and again, most of us just give up; that is what
they want. I was denied Agent Orange which was kind of ironic since I was in
the Gulf Wars, not Vietnam which tells me they are just cutting and pasting,
instead of doing their job. My hearing loss was granted on my left side as
military related but denied on my right side; was my ears on two separate
heads; No. So how, with major hearing loss, can one be military related and the
other not? The VA does not want to help you; they want you to go away. For all
you who want Socialized Healthcare, this is what it is like. I left the VA and
went to a private doctor, the only thing the VA wanted to do was make my pain
worse, give me Viagra, and push me out the door; not the way you should treat
your Veterans, and I have only one story out of millions.
After about 10 years, I started having more Military related
problems, so I went back to the VA after a friend told me it had gotten much
better. When I walked in, I met two people there who were 100% disabled yet
nothing was wrong with them. One bragged about the fact he never made it out of
basic yet had 100% disability; I could not believe my ears. The other was in
for less than six months and was kicked out under what he said was an “Entry
Level Discharge”. Neither man sacrificed anything for their country. They never
deployed, never were injured, never saw the dead, and never lost people sitting
next to you, but they were 100%, yet I was stuck at 40%. What is wrong with
this picture? This is our “Great VA System”, the ones who sacrificed have to
deal with, and the ones who scam get away with a payment. I thought for a brief
second that maybe they were ruminants from the old system, so I stuck it out.
Next I decided to pay out of my pocket with an accredited VA
Approved Vender; all they do is help Veterans navigate the VA system. I did
this because the VA said it would take up to three years to get all my
appointments done and upgraded, if I paid, it would take a couple of month. I
was examined by the VA approved doctor, went to submit everything on line, but
the system had a problem. After three months of me calling them almost daily,
the VA finally fixed the system. The man on the phone informed me at this time,
I could have faxed them in, I asked if there was an email box, he said no. I do
not know anyone who has a fax, most everything is done by email or FTP (File
Transfer Protocol) site; talk about out dated. Why are they still using such an
antiquated system that the common person does not have access to? It was another
VA blonder. During this time, I went for a hearing test at the VA; the private
company didn’t have the hearing equipment. I went for the hearing test and I am
still deaf. When I asked the lady about hearing aids, she said I had been
qualified from my first VA visit; once again, what you have to deal with at the
VA. The first lady lied. The second lady gave me an address to go to, they did
not take care of hearing aids there, so I went, only to find out that VA center
did not deal with hearing aids either. So where do I get my approved hearing
aids? If the VA cannot tell you where to get VA hearing aids, that is pretty
bad.
I finally uploaded all the doctors’ reports, it was hard
because the instructions from the VA did not match the site, and they too were
outdated. The VA called to schedule me for doctor appointments, I told them I
had already uploaded them in the system, they said they did not see them. I
called the VA Regional people, the man found them right away but couldn’t
understand why I the local VA was trying to schedule me. He said everything
looked good, even the hearing test and it shouldn’t take long to be upgraded. I
had already been fighting with the VA for over a year. At this point I was happy;
I forgot I was dealing with the VA. After paying out of my pocket, being poked
and prodded, submitting all the paperwork, the VA now is trying to send me to another
accredited VA Approved Vender to get poked and prodded again; what is wrong
with this picture. The VA is the biggest waste
I called the VA Regional center again, to try and find out
what had went wrong, this time I was connected to a very vile nasty person named
Carlos; he did not care about helping me at all. He said he needed to validate
me through my DD214; I have never seen that before. He asked me for the month
and year I either entered service or left service. I, with my DD214 in front of
me, gave him the answer where he basically yelled at me, told me I had one more
chance. I told him I was looking at my DD214, my wife asked if he wanted the
date I went on terminal leave, she said the date, where he said, “YOU ARE WRONG
AGAIN!” I cannot help you. I ask for his supervisor, he said his supervisor
would have to call me back; three days later, not a peep. So I called the VA
Regional center again, this time I talked to Jonathan, the polar opposite of
Carlos. He was nice and polite; he answered every question I needed answered
within 10 minutes. This is how it should be; I requested a Supervisor callback
where Jonathan informed me it would be within 48 hours; Carlos never put it
into the system. I am still fighting the system that was supposed to help
disabled Veterans. I am only one out of 18.2 million Veterans, with 4.7 million
of us over 25% disabled before the VA games began.
I have watched my friends die of curable problems, waiting
for appointments at the VA. I have watched my friends kill themselves because
they need help and could not get it from the VA. I have seen doctors at the VA
who worried more about if they would make their Tee Time than the patient who
needed them. They have a monopoly because you, as a Veteran, cannot go anywhere
else without paying out of your pocket. When I came in, the Military pay sucked
but we were promised, if we retired, free medical and dental for life. In 1998,
the Clinton administration started making Veterans pay for the health care and
dental they were promised. In 2012, it was changed again under the Obama
administration so at the age of 65, you must go on Medicaid and Medicare, once
again sticking it to the ones who sacrifice so much. The politicians vote
themselves massive pay raises every chance they get but give the active duty,
and especially the retired Veterans very little.
After 20 years retired, your pay check will mean very little;
the cost of living and inflation has destroyed it. Worse, the VA has a bunch of
bureaucrats who do not care one bit for our Veterans, they no longer carry the
medicine you need, to pay for it the bureaucrats would lose a portion of their
bonus, so you have to pay out of your pocket. Higher bonuses are all they care
about, the news has shown you where the VA fudges the numbers to look good for
higher bonuses, while the retired and wounded War Fighters suffer. We, the “Veterans”,
who were the protectors are now the Forgotten.
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