Do you know veterans who have experienced frustratingly long waits for medical appointments at VA facilities? If so, current allegations in the press won't surprise you.
Many veterans are hurt, angry and feel rejected by what they consider shabby treatment and a lack of respect for their service to their country.
New patients are supposed to see a doctor 14 days after the paperwork is processed. Yet due to an influx of new veterans entering the system there is a strain on resources and appointments got backlogged.
Now we hear the waits go on for months and records are being falsified.There are allegations about two sets of appointment records being kept. One ER doc who tried to address it was transferred.
There are claims being made that dozens have died while waiting. Hard to know for sure how many of these deaths are actually tied to the long waits. But disturbing none the less.
It would be hard not to feel betrayed by the country you have served with your life. And now veterans are being asked to sacrifice their life and heath all over again in their long wait for medical attention.
Some of you have heard me write and speak about my "Diss List" – words that start with 'dis' and mean rejection. For example, "disloyalty" is another word for betrayal. However, of all the diss words I identify, "dishonor" is surely front and center as this story unfolds.
Just in time for Memorial Day, a time to honor the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have died serving our country.
How quickly honor can morph into dishonor where treatment of our veterans is concerned.
And could it be that the list of dead may even be growing because of these long waits for medical and psychiatric attention.
"Each Death Leaves a Hole in the World"
The loss of these lives leaves a huge empty space in the community, family and friends.
I am touched by this quote from writer Susie Madrak: "each soldier has a reason for being caught in a war . . . And when they die in the war, each death leaves a hole in the world . . . No loss is acceptable. Ask the parents, the spouses, the children."
Last Memorial day I wrote about the Field of Crosses on a hillside in Lafayette, CA.
I took a photo of the hillside sign announcing the number of dead in Iraq and Afghanistan. A year ago it read: 6749.
Again this year on Memorial Day I drove to the hillside. The sign reads 6837 now. When will the numbers stop climbing?
Memorial Day 2014 A portion of the Field of Crosses, Lafayette, CA Photo: Elayne Savage
I've written in the past how Memorial Day has been blurry and confusing for me since my childhood when we did a family ritual of making the long drive every year to the cemetery where my mother and grandmother were buried after the plane crash.
My childhood feeling of dread intruded into Memorial Day every year.
Now it seems I'm finally developing a grown up ritual – by visiting the Hill of Crosses every year to welcome Memorial Day.
© Elayne Savage, PhD
Until next month,
Elayne
Elayne Savage is the author of ground-breaking relationship books published in 9 languages.
You can order books and CDs directly from my website:
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