Category: Veterans’ Affairs Department

Jonp sends a link from Stars & Stripes which reports that the Department of Veterans’ Affairs responded to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Executive Director Allison Jaslow when she complained about an Abraham Lincoln quote that the agency uses as a motto;

The VA has had the same motto for 59 years: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.” The quote came from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address in 1865, the same year that he created the first-ever government institution for volunteer soldiers.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America called on VA Secretary David Shulkin in November to change the motto, describing it as sexist and outdated. The VA responded Jan. 26 that the motto was representative of “the heart of our noble mission.”

IAVA Executive Director Allison Jaslow felt the response brushed off her group’s request and was dismissive of larger, cultural obstacles for women veterans.

“They’re missing the point that women don’t feel comfortable at the VA,” she said. “We want to be respected and appreciated as much as male veterans are, and the motto is symbolic of overall challenges.”

Typical IAVA focused on the really important things in dealing with veterans and the care they deserve. I was surprised that the responding VA agent was Kayla Williams, director of the VA Center for Women Veterans, who did a fairly good job answering the concerns of IAVA, such as they are;

In Williams’ letter to Jaslow, she emphasized improvements the VA has made regarding care for women veterans. About 500,000 women veterans use VA health care, and they get screened for cervical cancer and breast cancer at higher rates than women do in the private sector or the Department of Defense. They also have access to prenatal and maternity care.

Williams noted each VA hospital has a military sexual trauma coordinator and at least one primary care provider for women’s health.

Jaslow acknowledged once women veterans get into the VA, they generally receive good care. The problem, she said, is making women veterans feel comfortable enough to seek VA treatment.

My doctors at the VA have generally been women. The folks who come to my home and manage my care are all women. They don’t seem to mind the motto at all.

It’s pretty gutsy of the IAVA to demand a motto change at the VA when their CEO is a valor thief.

According to the Justice Department, Ralph Tillman, a 58-year-old contract officer for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs in Los Angeles, California, has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators and filing a false federal tax return. He was taking bribes from Richard Scott, the owner of Westside Services LLC (WSS), which for years had a contract to operate parking lots across the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (VA GLAHS). Tillman delivered over $11 million in bribes to Scott and pocketed a quarter million bucks for himself.

As part of his duties at the VA, Tillman was responsible for managing contracts with “sharing partners,” such as WSS, which were required to perform services for the VA and share revenues with the agency. In his plea agreement, Tillman admitted that he approached Scott in late 2003 and solicited a bribe to pay for a family matter. One to two years later, Scott began making monthly cash payments to Tillman, with Scott personally delivering the bribes in sealed FedEx envelopes, according to the plea agreement.

In return for the cash bribes, Tillman admitted in the plea agreement that he failed to scrutinize annual statements from WSS that Tillman knew contained inaccurately reported revenues and expenses. Tillman also admitted that he knew Scott was defrauding the VA out of millions of dollars, and that he entered into a contract extension with WSS in 2011 to continue the fraud and bribery scheme.

During an interview with special agents with VA’s Office of Inspector General in September 2014, Tillman denied accepting money or anything of value from Scott. This conduct forms the basis of the false statements charge.

Tillman specifically admitted that he took $286,250 from Scott from 2003 through last year. According to the plea agreement, Tillman continue to receive money from Scott after his retirement and these payments constituted “hush money.”

Tillman failed to report the bribe payments on his federal tax returns, and he agreed to plead guilty to subscribing to a false tax return for the 2014 tax year.

Scott pleaded not guilty and faces a trial in early February, while Tillman pleaded guilty and faces a mandatory minimum sentence of eight years.

In Canada Free Press, Robert L. Rosebrock, the Director of Veterans Revolution and the Old Veterans Guard, says he’s fighting against Tillman for more than a decade and that Tillman deserves a life sentence.

One of our ninjas send us a link to the story of Phillip Hill, a Department of Veterans’ Affairs employee who was arrested for selling the personally identifiable information (PII) of veterans to an undercover federal informant.

Cody Hiland, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, said in the news release that Hill tried to sell the personal data of veterans, their family members and Veterans Affairs employees for $10,000 to an informant working with law enforcement agencies.

Hill, a database manager, was fired from his job on Dec. 6, but later said he could still access veterans’ personal information remotely by using a Veterans Affairs computer he’d kept or by stealing a server, according to the release.

Authorities reportedly arrested Hill outside a data center at a Veterans Affairs office on Dec. 17.

From Arkansas Online;

A news release said Hill was arrested outside a secure area where the data he was offering for sale was housed, and officers later found a VA computer in his home.

Hiland said officers arrested Hill before he could sell the data, and investigators also discovered that he had used the personal information of another person and illegally possessed blank identification cards.

I know for a fact that VA employees generally have little regard for your PII, since there’s a VA employee who gave my PII to a podcast yammering crank who in turn announced my PII to his audience. The VA OIG has been painfully slow reacting, but I have Lifelock because I don’t trust the government with my information.

Military Times reports that firings at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs are on the rise since the President signed the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 last summer. Critics (read that as “union thugs at the American Federation of Government Employees”) aren’t happy with the firings, but it’s having an impact;

From February to the end of July — before the new rules were put in place — 566 VA workers were fired (an average of about 94 a month). From August to mid-December, that figure rose to 756, or about 168 a month.

VA officials called that a sign of progress.

Military Times says that the firings are in line with firings in previous years, the difference being that the appeal time for employees contesting their dismissal is shortened.

In 2015, then VA Secretary Bob McDonald said about 1,500 employees were fired from the department, an average of about 125 individuals a month. In fiscal 2013 (which ran from October 2013 to September 2014, including the VA wait time scandal of spring 2014) department records indicated that more than 2,200 employees were fired, an average around 183 a month.

Eight senior VA leaders were dismissed in 2017, four before the new law was put into effect and four after. On the year, 38 physicians were fired, with 23 of those coming after the new law.

Last week, the Veterans’ Affairs Department unveiled their system to issue ID cards to veterans who didn’t have other ways to prove their veteran status. The online system promptly became overloaded with requests and quit working, according to Stars & Stripes.

The website that veterans were instructed to apply for them, vets.gov, contained a message Tuesday that it had temporarily stopped the online application process.

The VA was attempting to fix the problem as of Tuesday afternoon, said Curt Cashour, the agency’s press secretary. The VA did not provide an estimate of when the problems would be remedied.

“We are aware some veterans have experienced issues with the application process, but leaders of VA’s Office of Information and Technology are actively engaged in fixing them,” Cashour said.

Stars & Stripes reports that Elizabeth Hayes Cox was indicted by a North Carolina grand jury for claiming veterans’ benefits for her son. She claimed that she had a child with Randall Cox, a veteran who was killed in his High Point, NC apartment in 2006 in an unsolved murder case. She collected benefits from 2000 until May, 2017;

According to a High Point Police Department report, the investigation started in 2006 when Elizabeth Cox lived in High Point. She later moved to Fort Bragg where she was arrested in Oct. 23 by Army officials and the State Bureau of Investigation.

When authorities arrested Cox, she had her bags packed at the door, $500 cash and tickets to go on a cruise, according to court documents. Records stated Cox also had $20,000 in a savings account.

A grand jury on Nov. 13 found there was enough evidence to support prosecution and issued a true bill of indictment on a charge of felony obtaining property by false pretenses for more than $100,000. She was given a $1 million bond and is being held in the Guilford County Jail in High Point.

It makes me wonder how many fakes and phonies are getting checks from the VA. The article doesn’t say whether there was actually a child, or what relationship Cox had with the deceased.

From Fox8;

An arrest warrant says Cox presented the Federal Government, the US Social Security Administration and the VA false paperwork “claiming she had given birth to Oliver McCain Cox and that he was the son of a military veteran Randall Cox.” Randall Cox was receiving VA benefits at that time, and Elizabeth Cox filed paperwork to give a portion of those benefits to her son for child support, according to the paperwork. Investigators say Cox “falsified the birth of her son.”