Once Again, Ho, Hum and Betrayal

Another town hall meeting from the VA. The head honchos, Steve DiStasio and Janet Murphy, director of VISN 23, conducted the meeting. It is all supposed to be about listening to veterans and their concerns and answering their questions. Well, no surprise to those of us who have been at previous such meetings, most questions were dodged or brought refusals to answer.

The National Historic Preservation Trust is opposed to the closure of our VA, as well as all of our representatives in Washington from four of our states, the veterans who use this facility, the taxpayers, and we townspeople who are part of this veteran' town.

On the other side, in favor of closure of the highest quality health care VA, are the few, the closed-minded and the self-seeking. Frustrating? Perhaps a veteran who emails me on a regular basis has expressed himself better than I, in the following email I received from him after the meeting yesterday that he did not attend:

I thought that it would be more redundant as most stories are the same and they all seem to fall on deaf ears. I simply couldn't take any more of the rhetoric from DiStasio without getting more agitated than I already am. After the comments I made last meeting the residual effects stayed with me for several days.

It is so hard for many of our veterans to stay calm when faced with all that is going on. When comments are made to turn our VAMC into storage units, it is nearly impossible to keep out PTSD symptoms in check. We (veterans) have found peace of mind here (in Hot Springs) and now the VA is going to take that away. Once again we feel betrayed and abandoned.

What are they doing to those who served? Will other young citizens enlist when they realize how they will be betrayed by the government they might serve? Will taxpayers revolt when they discover the insult to them?

I don't have answers to the questions at this time. I can only surmise. What I do know is that the veteran who sent me this email this morning has expressed his feelings, feelings shared by many veterans, and his words speak volumes and more eloquently than anything I could ever say.