With many veterans from the past, they  can all agree that they are not getting the proper health care they are promised, Such as a story of a Veteran taking his life because he didn’t get proper care.  Sgt. Eric Thomsen, took his life in the early 2000s due to him not getting the proper care that he was promised (Root). Despite the existence of some successful VA facilities, many veterans are not getting the proper care that they need.  Therefore, veterans are dying constantly everyday due to improper or no health care. The VA, or, veterans administration is a organization formed in the Great Depression by a “independent government agency”(Kenton). The veterans administration is a organization that is too provide health care to people has served in the active duty military and have come out ether with PTSD, hearing loss, mentally retired, or medically retired. With this being said also it, the requirements will differ depending on when you did serve or the time period that the served. When a person has a “certificate of eligibility” (Kenton) can be required to receive a VA loan. When veterans are ether have, imprisonments or dishonorable discharges, they care not available to get the benefit that other veterans may be able to get. Imprisonments or dishonorable charged that discard you from getting VA benefits include, sexually assaulting a person in another country, caught with a drug substance, or more recently people with PTSD, because it’s causing them to act different and do horrible things. Across the United States there are “1,700 hospitals, as well as clinics, community living centers, domiciliaries, readjustment counseling centers and other facilities.”(Kenton).  

Donald trump, announced that he fired a lot of people from the VA. One of the people he did fire was Secretary David Shulkin, the reason to why he fired him was that he was “misusing public money”(Gordon). With Donald Trump firing Secretary Shulkin, there were many more people from the VA that we’re fired for reported being “drunk on the job”(Gordon), Meaning that a person that could have changed the VA for the future of veterans went to a store and bought drinks and got drunk on the job. News reporters we’re so ready to express this information to the world that the VA is failing and needs to be shut down, But, the VA in Phoenix Arizona had a inspector come in and the VA inspector said “uncovered that six, not forty, veterans had died after experiencing "clinically significant delays,"(Gordon). The media try’s and change up a lot about the VA and as you can tell from that quote, the Media said that forty people died! But from this inspection it shows that there on track and know what they need to do to help veterans, yes there are some that are gonna die, but six is better then forty.  

The media also shows us that the VA doesn’t answer calls at all, which in fact isn’t true. The VA has a “suicide crisis hotline that has fielded 3.3 million calls and initiated 93,000 rescues since 2007”(Gordon).  This quote shows that the VA is trying to fix its self! But the media will also “frequently single out VA care for its failure to prevent suicide”(Gordon).  Showing that the media is changing and making the VA look horrible from time to time.  Yes you can say that this facility in Phoenix is doing better then what the media is implying, but what about other places that are having scandals going on. There are three VA health care systems in Phoenix, and in 2010 to 2011, at least “nineteen veterans had died at VA hospitals”(issitt). These veterans did die in fact due to poor treatment and not really good diagnosis. In a personal interview, a just recent military personnel gave some information about how he felt about the VA. “ I really dislike the VA. Everyone there just passes the puck so to speak”(anonymous). From this just one statement that he made he is telling us from a personal view on how he feels about the VA and is saying that the VA passes people around like a hockey puck. 

Another response he gave was “ if you have a problem you will be pushed off on the next person so on and so forth”(anonymous). What he’s trying to say is that you could walk in to a VA facility and the veteran could say that he has PTSD and the doctor could say we are sorry you need to go to a Psychiatrist, because they don’t have the medical care they need.  A way to back up that quote and and this information behind it is this quote found in the article “Veterans Health Administration Scandal:Overview” (Issitt). “Funding and physician shortages have been linked to the failure of the VHA system”. This shows that it’s not the facility fault or just not one hundred percent its fault, it shows that it is also the faculty’s fault because they are short on staff for certain diseases. The second problem that this quote states is funding. The states don’t fund enough money to cover everything like said in a previous quote explanation, they can go to a psychiatrist but they can’t  fund for there PTSD, so the states and the government need to fund more money into the VA hospitals so they can afford the medical service people are looking for, or in other words don’t make promises that you can not keep especially when it comes to making promises for veterans to have free health care.  

With a interview with Active duty Army Officer, forty nine year old Greg Shepard, who has served the Army for nearly thirty years, he provided great information about the VA. Asking him the question “do you know any information regarding the VA”  he stated that “the Department of Veteran’s Affairs is multi-faced and diverse”(Shepard).  This quote from him he’s saying that he does believe that of what others are saying about the VA. But when asked another question “ if you could change how the VA is now, how would you change it?” He said, “Despite my positive experience with the VA, I have also heard negative stories.”(Shepard). Mister Shepard is saying that can agree with other people’s counter arguments that there are good and positive things about the VA, but also there are majority bad and negative things about the VA. Army Officer Greg Shepard, is from New York. And with what he said about this question when asked was really interesting. He said “in New York, I heard stories of disabled veterans being treated poorly along with extensive wait times”(Shepard). As said, he does hear stories of the VA miss treating veterans and giving them poorly health care in general-which can be backed up with facts about other VA systems.  Call to action would be pretty hard, but not impossible. A way to fix the VA System is that you can find a VA hospital that is doing really well, doesn’t have a long wait time, and knows what and how they run there operations, and have them make a website of guidelines to fix there hospital. “The VA has great website with resources, contacts, and extensive information regarding their programs”(Shepard). Even when these hospitals are failing to keep the veterans healthy or provide Great health care,doesn’t mean that they can’t change. Despite the media changing up how good VA hospitals are doing and the horror story’s around the World Wide Web, this argument is very complex, it may be hard to change the VA and the health care that is given, but it is not impossible to change.

Work Cited 

Wayne Allyn Root,  “Veteran suicide: A personal story of our great national disgrace” Fox News. 23. May 2017. 

Kenton,will “veterans administration .” Investopedia. 18. July 2018. 6 feb. 2019

Gordon, S. and Jasper Craven. “Unhealthy Skepticism: HOW THE MEDIA GETS THE STORY WRONG ON THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION.” Washington Monthly, no. 7–8, 2018, p. 23. EBSCOhost.

Issitt, M. Veterans Health Administration Scandal: Overview. Points of View: Veterans Health Administration Scandal, [s. l.], p. 1, 2016. Disponível em. 7 jan. 2019. 

(Anonymous) personal interview February 6, 2019 

(Greg Shepard) personal interview February 4, 2019