Posted on 09/06/2013 6:48:22 AM PDT by SLB
I know it is long, but I did not want to make an excerpt or post to the bloggers post so bear with it.
I have always felt that, despite my service in the Marines, I was financially able not to use any VA benefits that may have been due me so that others more worthy of those benefits would be treated first. While that may sound a tad altruistic, after this I can add that I don’t have to put up with them.
As for Master Sergeant Robert Thomas Bowman, thank you for your service.
Thank you for sharing this. I do believe that a high level of incompetency is nourished in these government agencies, in order to require many more employees, who no doubt have an enhanced degree of job security “to correct the problems”. The ineptitude also allows the agencies to complain that they do not have enough funding, and if they only had more money, things would improve.
Typical government employees, IOW. If you are a gov't employed FReeper and that shoe don't fit, please don't put it on!
MSG Bowman, thank you for your service to our country.
My wife & I are retired warrant officers. We did our initial signup with the local VA two years ago, in person. Our experience has been such that we will cling to our civilian care providers with a death grip. It is like the VA doesn’t exist except as a special needs jobsite for those on the opposite side of the counter.
Many do not like the VA in Denver. The VA at Cheyenne is completely different. I think part is the state the hospital is in. I talked to a disabled Marine that got his layoff notice with the Post Office. His boss was never in the military and she seemed to have little experience at anything. Military preference seems to be gone in the Post Office now. He called OPM and the woman there said “I can’t help you”
5.56mm
After hearing so many stories like this on FR, I am thankful for the outstanding care and service I receive from my VA clinic in Viera Florida. It’s a damn shame the high standards here do not prevail throughout the VA.
I remember when I was in the Navy they told us that if we contributed $1000 for VA education benefits, we could get $10,000 in tuition assistance upon separation, so I signed up for the program. When it came time to pay up, they rules were long complex and impossible to comply with. I didn’t see a dime of that money.
I also figured that maybe I could get a VA loan to help finance my first house. I figured that they would vouch for my previous eight years, but no. They told me I had to be in my current job for 2 years.
After that waste of time, I figured the VA was worse than nothing. It wasted my time with no benefits.
It is not possible to motivate somebody who’s wages are set, and who can NOT be fired.
The hard workers get the same raises as the slackers.
The libs like the sure votes, so they will never allow consequences for poor performance.
The VA initially called it a hiatal hernia (acid reflux). Not even close. So, after 6 YEARS of appeals, I finally got an appraisal I can live with. It still ain't right, but I am tired of the fight.
Thanks for posting this.
Several thoughts:
If you’re interested in a career with lots of exciting risk, the morbidity and mortality rates for mental health workers are off the charts compared to the military and law enforcement, AND compared to the military mental health workers have much better healthcare options post injury.
I’m a vet. I never have and never will consider using VA services. It’s a Federal bureaucracy. Bureaucracies evolve such that their stated mission is never their true mission: their true mission is the perpetuation of the bureaucracy, the expansion of the bureaucracy, and the acquisition of funding, benefits and power for their bureaucracy. The VA and its workers have your needs as a very, very distant concern, if at all, which it is not required to be. (And, of course, they can’t be fired.)
I’m also a doc working in a navy town rich in military and vets and their families. The VA here doesn’t seem to be geared up at all to get people well, and they are so obstructionistic towards the efforts of those of us who do strive to get people well that I simply have to turn down any patient who comes to me in the hope that I will coordinate my efforts with the VA’s docs/lab/pharmacy/etc.
Gee, what a surprise.
Slight correction. shackashevely or whatever the hell his name is has been in the position nearly 6 years not just over 4 years.
When he ran up the notion for troops to pay their own medical bills for wounds received in combat told the whole story about this horse’s butt.
How he got to be a general is baffling.
So what’s Shinseki going to do? Order the guy a new hat?
Great letter from an extremely gifted letter writer!!!
I believe the general was promoted under Clinton.
As for VA service I think this letter is from a whiner who has not adequately planned for his retirement.
At ETS he will receive his miliary pension, which apparently is just not good enough. So his ‘planning’ includes receiving VA benefits immediately at ETS when his case has not even been accepted or rated! And he’s a regular retirement, not a medical separation from Line of Duty injuries.
I’m getting really po-d at this drama queen. From his rant and level of self-centeredness it’s clear he’s a real piece of work. He laments the end of the Quick Start program which was probably the extent of his post-service financial planning. So in essence he believes he is still entitled to jump ahead of injured service members’ outstanding claims using THEM as a justification for his own accelerated processing!
The system is over-worked -as he acknowledges. Why then can he not realize and accept that an able-bodied retiree such as himself is a low priority claim? Aparently, judging by his obsessiveness, he has already spent the VA money -before even receiving the settlement percentage. Outstandingly short-sighted and irresponsible judgement.
He’d get better use of his time and energy at the base ACAP center looking for employment then harping on the VA in the name of injured veterans for his Kwik-Cash payouts for an able-bodied a-hole.
There sure are a lot of ASS umptions in your post.
The soldier was explaining the complete ineptness of the VA...an experience I and many others have gone through as well.
It’s not about “financial planning”, he was trying to do things according to the VA’s rules, rules they weren’t/aren’t following.
An extremely detailed account, names, dates, phone numbers, etc. An account that clearly demonstrates a level of patience and persistence, described by you as “whining”.
His pension will be offset by any VA benefits he receives. The only benefit to this is that he will see a reduced tax burden since VA disability isn’t taxable income.
I suppose that the many thousands of other vets who go through this purposeful maze should just suck it up? Quit their whining and be glad that they’re getting something at all?
Washington DC is an affirmative action quagmire. Total idiots hired too staff the VA and other agencies. Idiots who get their Federal job because they happen to be
It will only get worse because new hires are heavily drawn from the affirmative action (cess)pool of favored minorities and sexual orientations
I ran into a similar situation with the VA while trying to help a family member. It’s too long a story, but here’s the gist. The VA employee with whom I originally spoke was now unavailable because he was stationed to another part of the VA, and NOBODY could handle it but him.
After repeated calls and more shifting of the blame I wrote to the VA and included a letter I would write to the major local newspaper outlining the poor treatment of a man who had served his country with honor.
The next day I received a call from the VA and they had through some miracle fixed the problem. THEY HATE BAD PUBLICITY.
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