Open Letter to the Veterans Affairs Department
Honorable Robert Wilkie, Secretary US Department of Veterans Affairs 810 Vermont Ave Washington, DC 20420
November 29, 2018
Secretary Wilkie:
The news just broke, that you shorted a bunch of veterans’ newly legislated educational benefits, finances that those veterans depended on to cover their costs. And now, we are told you are unable to “fix” those mistakes, because if you do, you have to audit the entire program. Auditing the program will slow benefits to future veterans, so rather than make your first mistake right, you’re going to leave the veterans who were shorted, short.
We are also told that you are unable to implement a new program, the “Forever GI Bill,” supposed to go into effect this year. You are saying that you can’t do this until December of 2019.
This is from the same agency that seems unable to fix their medical programs, leaving veterans in long lines waiting for treatment.
So here’s some suggestions on what you can do.
I’m no IT guy, but I can give you a possible fix for your educational benefit screw-up. It’s called mirror programs. Take the computer program that you have to audit, mirror it onto another system, then hire some people to go and audit and fix the mistakes. This way you can go on with the new applicants, without leaving the others hanging out to dry. Yes, it will cost money, and time, and personnel. Looks like you don’t have the folks to deal with it, so you’ll need to find some more. I know that doesn’t fit the President’s “small government” goals, but this is for our veterans.
I guess the same goes for the new program that you somehow can’t figure out. I know we have people in the US government who have the knowledge and skills to build the program you need – and it shouldn’t take more than two years to do it. You don’t need to find “contractors” to suck up all of the funds, you should search the government for the skills you need. There are folks available who want to help our warfighters, especially those who sacrificed their well-being for our country. This isn’t just “some program,” this deserves “emergency action” to get it going.
You have an awesome responsibility: caring for those who made the sacrifice of serving their nation. We know the transition from military service to civilian life is tough — what the Hell is wrong with you that you would jerk these folks around. “Here’s the money for your classes – oops we don’t have it?”
Unless, this is some great “plot to prove” the VA is ridiculously incompetent. If that’s what you want to do, you’re doing a great job!!!!! The “plot” goes like this: let’s be completely incompetent, unable to do what we’re supposed to do, and the case for privatizing the VA is strengthened. We’ll follow the Conservative-Right-Republican agenda of giving the VA services over to the private sector. Just a bet (I don’t know for sure) but I bet you’ve already done that with your computer services, the very thing that’s screwing up.
You know, this country is already pretty divided. Right and Left, Trump and Anti-Trump, urban and rural. There isn’t a whole lot we all agree on. But taking care of veterans is one on them. After seventeen years fighting a war in Afghanistan, and with our young men and women in Syria, and Korea, and spread throughout the world; there’s lots of arguments about our policy. But there’s no argument about our need to take care of the vets.
So get it together. Failure, especially failing the vets, is not an option. Turning this over to someone to make a profit shouldn’t be an option either. Get the people together, spend some money to do it and do what Americans do when it’s crunch time. Get this done, fix the problem; no political agenda, no point to make, except making things right for those who have sacrificed for us. It the most important problem, and the least we can do.
Sincerely,
Martin Dahlman
Retired Teacher/Coach, Pataskala, Ohio
