Veterans Affairs Scandal Says Terrible Things—About Us
Even Secretary Eric Shinseki, a noble soldier, couldn't find and fix his agency's problems. It's time to re-evaluate our debt to those who serve, and suffer, for our security
by Getty Images and Bob Drury Published: Jun 2, 2014
The politicians got their scalp Friday, peeled right off the skull of General Eric Shinseki. This noble soldier had presided over a benighted agency—the Veterans Health Administration—that's trying, and too often failing, to tend to our country's 9 million military veterans. Even noble soldiers aren't always up to the job of running behemoth government agencies or companies. We learned this again with Shinseki, who resigned his post as the fallout from the VHA scandal—in which it was revealed that soldiers received substandard care and the agency falsified records—came to a head.
I had already watched a good many people die in both Afghanistan and Iraq—once even called upon to identify the broken and mutilated body of a colleague—by the time Shinseki, then the Army's Chief of Staff, took a seat before Congress in 2003 and called the bluff of those about to flummox us into war in the Mideast. At a time when most Americans, including those in the White House and Pentagon, wouldn't have known a Shiite from a Sunni from a spalpeen, Shinseki had the foresight to warn the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee of the "ethnic tensions" roiling so close to the surface of Saddam Hussein's piss pot. He also testified that, "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would be required to stabilize Iraq in the wake of major American combat operations.
This elevated—and correct—estimate of troop levels Shinseki said we would need to pacify a disputatious, sect-ravaged country did not sit well with the powers behind the war drums. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz in particular took exception to Shinseki's counter-narrative of their quick and easy in-and-out strategy, as if there is ever such a thing in war. Wolfowitz called Shinseki's estimate "wildly off the mark," and the long knives came out for the general. Villified and marginalized, he was soon "retired" from the service.
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No matter your feelings, pro or con, regarding our invasion of Iraq, there is no doubt that Shinseki was vindicated. His testimony predicted the need for 2007's vaunted Surge, and calls to mind his line about implementing "a 12-division strategy with a 10-division army." Despite his prescience, Shinseki refused to gloat. "I do not want to criticize while my soldiers are still bleeding and dying in Iraq," he said.
His soldiers, you'll notice. This, three years after he was veritably cashiered.
This is not to excuse Shinseki's failure as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs—his inability to watchdog the men and women serving under him who could not cope with the flood of casualties resulting from the meat-grinding foreign engagements he warned us about those 11 years ago. It is like something from an O. Henry short story. For now the soldier whose second infantry tour in Vietnam ended precipitously when he stepped on a landmine that blew apart his foot is gone, run out of town on a rail made of irony.
The politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, will continue to worry this VA bone to the marrow—not because they care in particular about the health and well-being of our veterans. But because it will play well with the voters back home. Or it will add grist to the anti-Obamacare argument. Or merely because highlighting the plight of those poor veterans who died for lack of timely medical care in the VA Center in Phoenix will enhance their presidential ambitions.
The Florida Senator Marco Rubio, for example, announced that he plans to introduce a bill in the Senate, hurriedly passed by the House on Friday, which will grease the skids for the immediate firing of VA employees. "Secretary Shinseki's resignation is just the first step in addressing the institutional neglect of veterans at the VA," Rubio said. "But that alone won't solve the problem. The systemic mismanagement will continue unless we bring reform to the VA and hold all of those accountable."
Perhaps Senator Rubio can start with himself. For as the Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders pointed out, Rubio was one of 41 Senators—including both Arizona Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake—who in 2013 voted against an appropriations bill (which later passed) that not only substantially increased funds to the Veterans Benefits Administration, but also allocated money for the construction of extended care facilities and released funding to both the Defense Department's and the VA's medical centers.
But for my money, the most interesting response to the VA scandal and the hunt for Shinseki's scalp comes out of Phoenix itself, where the state representative Ruben Gallego, an Iraq War veteran who is running for a House seat, vented a "frustration wholly different than that expressed by politicians from both sides since news broke of secret waiting lists and veterans dying while they wait for care."
"I'm mad because this has been an issue for years," Gallego continued. "And Presidents and members from both parties haven't done anything. I'm mad that politicians who have consistently voted against fully funding the VA are now acting like they're coming to our rescue by calling for a politically expedient resignation. And I'm mad that these same politicians sent us to war without funding for proper armor or health care when we came home."
Listen, I recognize that this is a hard subject to wrap your mind around. It is summer time and the beaches beckon and the Stanley Cup is up for grabs and you're rooting against Lebron getting another ring and you've got your own problems with your kids and your job and your life in this economy. Moreover, given that less than 1 percent of our country's population actually fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, you probably don't know any combat veterans, so what is this whole meshuganah to you, anyway?
But remember this: Dostoyevsky once remarked that you can judge the level of a nation's civilization by how it treats its prisoners. I might extend that a step—you can also take the measure of a country by how it treats its veterans.
I only met General Shinseki once, when I was researching a story about—yes—the horrors of the VA's hospital system. He struck me as an honorable man, albeit overwhelmed by the inadequacies of his responsibility. I've spoken to a dozen or so veterans since the general took the gaffe. The consensus is: he didn't do the job and he had to go.
But to a man and woman they also agreed—it was not General Shinseki's fault. It is ours.