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Ask veterans a question about the performance of the Department of Veterans Affairs and prepare yourself to be overwhelmed with replies both good and bad, but most being just plain ugly. That was the result experienced when we asked the military community about experiences with that governmental agency. The woeful responses of many veterans were difficult to read.

The anger expressed by some veterans is understandable. Plain bitterness and disgust were also noted in the many email responses. When everything was sorted out rating the VA as a bumbling bureaucratic agency lost in a governmental maze seemed to be to general view. However, sprinkled in among those who ranted and raged, were other voices that offered nothing but praise for how they had been treated.

Tony Nathe is a retired Army Sergeant Major and Past President of the Uniformed Services Disabled Retirees. He claims his life has been filled with negative experiences dealing with the Department of Veterans Affairs. At the top of his list is dealing with his local VA in St Cloud, MN seeking some "government healthcare".

"Every time I go back", says Nathe, "my wife asks me why I continue to expose myself to such harassment and punishment? Several years ago she quit her pharmacy technician job at the same VA because every time she tried to put a veteran first, her supervisor told her to 'Get back in your box. You are here to do what we tell you to do.' The VA is a typical federal bureaucracy, overburdened with too many leaders and not enough workers. It also has too few military retirees and veterans in its ranks. Consequently, it is incapable of serving veterans, of 'Putting Veterans First'. It also appears to b the future of all healthcare in the United States".

Kathy Champion is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel residing in Gulfport, FL. She says, "I have been going to the Bay Pines VA for three years. I was wounded in Iraq and needed follow-up treatment. My process to even get seen was a nightmare. They gave me a team of individuals to follow my case, but then it stopped. My case was closed with a rating. I am 100% disabled with the VA and 90% with the Army. Twice my doctors left to go to another VA and they never told me. Now by the grapevine I hear my third doctor has left...and did they tell me. NO! I have spent three years trying to get the mental and physical help I need from the VA. Everyone talks the good talk but actions will speak louder to me. I am a Lieutenant Colonel, but I worry most about the enlisted guys who have no pull to make things happen. Case workers do not exist like they claim."

From Liberty, MO Vietnam veteran Larry Stephens writes, "The VA is a politician run healthcare system. It is subject to the will and the whims of the President, as exercised by the Secretary of Veteran Affairs, who serves at the pleasure of the President and a complicit Congress...none of whom are in the system they oversee." He continues saying, "The problems I have experienced with the VA stem from myself and other Vietnam veterans being denied information. Trust me, one small 'glitch' or a doctor who doesn't like you and you will be thrown into a black hole that is very difficult to climb out of."

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