Finneran: A Disservice to Those Who Served
Friday, October 16, 2015
A story from the Boston Globe caught my eye and ramped up my blood pressure. Stupidity makes my blood boil.
The story involves the Veterans Administration, the agency charged with the care of our nation’s soldiers. In a nation where less than one percent of the population serves the country’s needs, one would think that the civilian ninety-nine percent would be grateful for their sacrifice. You would be right.
Those civilian ninety-nine percenters are, for the most part, generous and supportive. Veterans and their families are held in high regard across the land. There seems to be no taxpayer resentment or resistance to generously responding to those who wore our nation’s uniform. In fact I’d venture to say that a doubling or tripling of the resources committed to veterans’ needs would be supported by people of all political stripes. Thus the fury about the scandals…………
Patient wait times are inexcusable. Veterans wait for months and months on end to simply see a doctor. Then they wait for months and months more to begin medical treatment. We’re talking about post-traumatic stress disorder, cancer, brain injuries, and amputated limbs. For veterans. For those who fought. For us.
Apparently the Jenner and the Kardashians’ nips and tucks hold more interest for the media. Yes, we know how “courageous” M. Jenner and all the Kardashians are, having faced Hollywood cameras with their publicists. Put me on the side of the privates and corporals, the sergeants and the lieutenants, the captains and colonels, the medics and majors, and all those whose bodies were smashed in deserts and jungles and mountains far far away. If you sense that the media are morally warped you would be right……………
Beyond the wait times for veterans comes another more recent insult and injury. We learn that those wait time statistics and reports have been fudged and falsified. We learn that there are internal cover-ups about these falsifications. We learn that bonuses are paid for “reducing patient wait times” when in fact wait times get worse and worse.
So wait times are horrific, the quality of care is spotty, reports are manipulated, veterans’ families are stressed to the breaking point, and veterans’ suicides climb higher. And now for the frosting on this ugly cake……..
The Globe story reports that the VA is spending millions of dollars on “public art” such as rock sculptures and Morse Code “murals”. I kid you not.
The rock sculpture is apparently designed to evoke a “sense of transformation, rebuilding, and self-investigation”. Well a soldier might “self-investigate” long enough to remember that his legs were blown off and he needs to see a doctor rather than a rock sculpture. The “art installation” on the side of a parking garage displays quotations from Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt. The quotes are in Morse Code! How utterly “creative”. Rather, how utterly stupid. The cost-$ 285,000.00. Are you kidding me? Just this one VA campus in Palo Alto has spent 6.3 million dollars on “art and consulting services”. My math tells me that you could hire a lot of talented doctors and nurses for that kind of money. And my brain tells me veterans’ families would be grateful for some timely medical attention. After all, it has been earned, paid for in blood.
Might we the civilians, the ninety-nine percent, go to war for our brothers and sisters in uniform? It’s a war for decency and respect, for kindness and fair play, for giving the nation’s fighters some rest from their labors. It’s the right war to fight and it’s the right time to fight it.
Morse Code murals don’t heal. Doctors do.
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