Who is really standing up for the disabled veterans?

VA Official Scolded for Ties to Advocacy Group



"Washington Watchdogs," a periodic feature of the Post's Investigations blog, looks at the findings of the federal government's official investigators.

(Updated at 3:49 p.m. to include information from Disabled American Veterans)

A top Department of Veterans Affairs official has been scolded by the government agency for his involvement with a prominent lobbying organization, a group that helps disabled veterans get benefits that the official is charged with dispersing.

The official, Robert T. Reynolds, became a member of the Cold Spring, Ky.-based Disabled American Veterans before he began working for the Veterans Affairs Department, he said. But audtiors said the situation is "fraught with possibilities for running afoul" of department ethics policies and he will have his activities "closely monitored" and be instructed on what "matters may require his recusal," according to a government audit obtained by Watchdogs this week through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The audit, while redacted, references Disabled American Veterans (DAV), which has 1.4 million members, on page five of the report and, indirectly, Reynolds, the organization's national commander who also serves as the executive management officer for the Veterans Benefits Administration in Washington, D.C.

A photo of Reynolds is prominently displayed on the organization's Web site. Reynolds was elected national commander during the organization's national convention in August 2006 in New Orleans.

During his introductory speech, Reynolds "proclaimed the DAV the undisputed service organization for veterans and reaffirmed the organization's mission to build better lives for America's disabled veterans and their families through the finest advocacy and service programs in existence."

Reynolds, 42, a disabled veteran from Arlington, Va., served in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division from 1984 to 1990. He was injured in a parachute accident while assigned to a U.S. Army Special Forces unit; the injury required two years years of multiple surgeries before he was honorably discharged.

Larry Scott, founder and editor of VA Watchdog, an online magazine that focuses on veterans issues, said top positions at so-called veterans services organizations are often reserved for government workers such as Reynolds.

"What we find is that people who are politically motivated, not partisan per se, but politcally motivated, use VSOs as a stepping stone to Washington," said Scott, referencing politicians like Gordon H. Mansfield, the deputy sectetary of Veterans Affairs and a Bush appointee who served as executive director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

A former executive director of DAV, the late Jesse Brown, served as secretary of Veterans Affairs in the Clinton administration.

Scott, who is also a member of DAV, said he asked members of the national disabled veterans organization about Reynolds' potential conflict of interest when the government worker was elected president of the disability organization nearly two years ago.

"They said that, 'We don't see him doing anything wrong. He's very careful,'" Scott said. "This is how things have been done. This how things will be done. This is the way business is done.'"

Reynolds, reached at his Washington office this morning, said he had yet to read the report. David W. Gorman, executive director of DAV, read a copy of the report provided by Watchdogs, calling it a "waste of valuable government resources"

"We're in this game together, the game being how do we best take care of disabled veterans," Gorman said. "Personally, I don't see any conflict."

Gorman added that officials are aware of the sensitive nature of Reynolds' dual roles and that Reynolds had been "kept clean" from advising or influencing DAV's positions and policies.

Investigators did not find specific examples of wrongdoing but Reynolds told auditors he "stood for both VA and DAV and that the missions were one and the same."

"He clearly could not distinguish between these two distinct organizations which, at times, have adversarial or opposing viewpoints," the audit said.

-- Derek Kravitz

By Derek Kravitz | July 7, 2008; 1:10 PM ET Washington Watchdogs
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Heaven forbid that anyone with some level of knowledge about the strengths and weaknesses of government programs and who has some empathy for the people those programs are created to serve goes to work for that agency. If you really want to scold someone for a conflict of interest, why not all those government contractors and industry executives who are appointed by politicians to high posts in agencies that regulate those industries and award billion of dollars in contracts their former employers?

Posted by: David Autry | July 7, 2008 2:21 PM

Thank you David, but please don't forget the VA officials (Principi, McPeake) and more who came from industry and are illegally using their power and influence to contract with their former employers (QTC). And please don't forget their research projects in which the experiment on veterans with drugs (Chantix)and unauthorized treatments, or the undue influence on the NAS/IOM to change protocols, withhold information, or stop avenues of research in order to deny veterans nexus to disease, service connection, and benefits. THE DVA should be under investigation for violation of the Rico Act, and numerous other acts and Congressional passed public laws.

Instead the media just lets them get away with it.

Posted by: K9USAFRET | July 7, 2008 5:33 PM
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DAV Service Officers refuse to return phone calls to veterans who have compensation claims pending, they have a tendency to let deadline dates come and go without filing the correct forms, this is not only the DAV, I have fired them, the American Legion and the PVA in the past 6 years, I have now hired an attorney, because of their mishandling of my compensation claim, due to severe medical probelsm I contend that are related to the chemical weapons and drug experiments the Army used me in during 1974 at Edgewood Arsenal Maryland. It was a classified program that ran from 1955 thru 1975 and used 7120 enlisted men, they used 254 different substances, from Sarin, Mustard Agents, Scopolomine, LSD, Ecstacy, and untold other substances, the EPA reports on the environment shows that there are 77 toxic substances in the drinking water and soil of the bases training areas, where we worked.

The Army has sent letters stating that I was mistaken, like many soldiers who felt they were used in so called "secret experiments" I was having fantasy moments. The trouble with their theory is I have a copy of the Medical volunteer file from Edgewood Arsenal and it has statements from DRs, Van Sim and Frederick Siddell, our nations foremost authority on chemical weapons and the civilians in charge of the human experimentation program, they were also the liasion to the CIA agent DR Sidney Gottlieb of Fort Detricks Special Operations Division (SOD) these men also worked with the British scientists at Porton Downs, England doing similar experiments on British volunteers, who thought they were working on the cure for the "common cold".

The American Legion, the DAV and the PVA have been totally useless in my compensation claims with the VA, they refuse to address the exposure incidents, they demand information the volunteers were never given, the names of the researchers, the dosage of the substances and what the substance was, we were never told, then they want dates and times, who can remember what date and time you did something 34 years ago? I can't, so they claim there is insufficient evidence to process the claim.

Of the 7120 men used, the last health study in FY 2000 published in march 2003 shows that 3098 men are assumed dead, and of the 4022 survivors, 54% of them are disabled, which combines for a 74.43% death and disability rate. The VA and the Army still maintain there is no relationship to the experiments and these high death and disability rates. They ignore health studies done by independent agencies such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) that show damage caused by low level exposures.

Instead of being a revolving door from veterans agencies and the VA and QTC and other private Contractors, there needs to be some lines drawn to make it impossible for veterans to even have to question exactly who are the Service Officers really working for, the veterans or the VA, right now most of us can't tell the difference.

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