The New VA Secretary and my opinion

I realize opinions are plentiful but this is my blog, so this is mine. I do not expect anything to change at the Department of Veteran Affairs, the veterans will continue to get messed over, waiting times for appointments will get worse rather than better, and claims processing will only take longer, not get shorter as all VA Secretaries prior to and including LTG Peake have promised. The White House does not see this as a priority, and refuses to fund the personnel to make it happen. They refuse to implement policies that help disabled veterans that enable them to financialy care for their families, while the claims process and appeals take anywhere from 6 months to five years to complete.



Veterans will continue to lose their homes, their cars and their families due to the financial stress the VA will make them endure due to medical problems incurred in service to this nation. All Americans should be ashamed that this is happening and has continued to happen since the Korean War, this is not exactly anything new.

One only has to look back at the way the VA has treated the veterans used in the nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s. the SHAD experiments, the biological weapons experiments known as Operation Whitecoat at Fort Detrick in the period from the arly 50s thru 1972, the 7120 enlisted men used in chemical weapons and drug experiments at Edgewood Arsenal from 1955 thru 1975, they have largely ignored these men and their families despite the tremendous out cry from Congress and veterans groups. DOD has effectively blocked any help for these men and their widows or families by just stating the experiments were safe and there is no proof anyone was harmed. The problem with this argument is DOD is sitting on all the evidence the veterans and their families need to prove their claims, DOD claims "national security" and the veterans claims are denied.

Secretary Peake has the ability to right many of these wrongs, the question is will he? Let us not forget he owes this position to the President and will his loyalty lay with the President or the veterans? As a veteran himself one would think he would stand by his troops, but then again we all thought the same of Colonel James Nicholson (he turned out to be a major disappointment) Secretary Principi at least was reachable by e mail by veterans and he communicated with veterans, either thru his administrative assistant Debi Bevins, or he was know to answer his own e mail.

He once replied to me on a day that Washington DC was snowed in, he made it to work and replied within 45 minutes, that tells me a lot about that man. I liked Secretary Prinicipi, he was not full of himself, he did help veterans. On the flip side he did well for himself when he left office and became the Chairman of QTC, the company that LTG Peake was working for when nominated by President Bush to be the new VA Secretary.

I do know the General has his hands full and a plate that is over flowing with problems, how will he handle them, will he be a mover or shaker or is he going to enjoy his status as a Cabinet Officer and to hell with the nations veterans, the next 16 months will show us, pretend I am from Missouri and "show me".

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