I know I’ve written about this before, but I’ve been recently made aware of a movement in Congress to end this travesty. We’re always discussing waste, fraud and abuse at the VA and this is the most easily solved case. The Department of Defense lists 545 living Vietnam POWs and 20 living POWs from the first Gulf War based on the stuff that you and I know to be credible information and personnel accountability reports from the eras. <\/p>\n
However, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs pays benefits to 966 claimants from Vietnam and 286 claimants from Desert Storm. That’s a total of 687 phonies collecting VA benefits designated for POWs. The problem is easy enough to fix…all it takes is for the DVA to compare the list from the DoD with a list of their claimants. But for the last ten years, the DVA has stonewalled any private or congressional investigation blaming their computers for being so outdated that they’re unable to generate a list of veterans who claim to be POWs. Isn’t that what computers are for?<\/p>\n
In an email last night, Navy Captain James McGrath, an actual Vietnam POW and former two-term president of NAM-POWS wrote to us;<\/p>\n
One VA administrator admitted to me that “the VA would rather error on the side of the POW claimant than to error against him by denying his claim that he was a POW.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Seein’s how there is an actual list of POWs from DoD, that’s just ridiculous.<\/p>\n
With all of the talk about slashing veterans’ benefits to balance the budget, this is a no-brainer place to start.<\/p>\n
The DVA ought to announce an amnesty program to all of the claimants and then after a reasonable period, start investigating and i volunteer to compare the lists. But initially, we should announce an amnesty period for the DVA, and then start investigating and prosecuting at the DVA for a decade of inaction.<\/p>\n
Just trust me when I tell you that the person influencing this new attack on the problem is someone most of you know and someone who won’t let go of this issue, like a pitbull on a mailman. Stay tuned for updates and things you can do to help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"