AugureyeExpress  May 23 2014

As Memorial day draws near I can well imagine those souls it honors spinning in their graves in unified outrage; as the list of scandals at Veterans Administration hospitals grows ever deeper with the latest in a long list of disgraces.

In a recent post I made reference to the current ever-deepening VA scandal involved with VA personnel cooking the books so it would appear they were setting appointments in a timely and efficient manner; while veterans died waiting to be seen by their doctor. I didn’t want to write about it in any depth because of the great negativity and frustration it generates, what with me being a disabled Vietnam Vet.

I really tried to take the advice of Joseph Campbellwhen he said “We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” It goes hand in hand with another nugget of wisdom I assimilated along the way: True wealth is measured by how many things you can just leave be. Far from ignoring the problem, one may elect to instead focus their energy&thoughts on more positive pursuits, and that felt fine to me.

Unfortunately, this current debacle just keeps mutating into a deliberate bureaucratic failure of monstrous proportions by the day. What began as “A few isolated incidents” is now at 28 states, 40 deaths … and growing. That’s right, I said deliberate, as intentional & willful. Unfortunately the government of this country has a disgraceful historical habit of turning on it’s veterans. So I am cornered between Memorial day and the Muse, and find I have something of a duty to write about this subject.

This is something I can write about from personal experience with the VA system; and it’s not a pretty picture. When I came home from Vietnamwith an honorable discharge and all my parts intact; my dad picked me up at the airport. It was hard to spot him at first thru the buzzing crowd of protestors harassing any man departing the plane in uniform. Lucky for me I was dressed in street clothes so nobody bothered me directly as I stood there in disbelief, the anger welling up inside me…suddenly a vice like hand grabbed my elbow just as I heard my old man’s voice saying, “I’ve seen that look on your face before – time for us to go.” We claimed my bags and made it to the car in silence, and I needed that time to calm down after seeing people spitting on returning servicemen. Continue reading →