VA deserves at least as much concern as a tank

Last year the Pentagon was in a pitched battle with Congress over the Army's hulking Abrams tank, only this time it wasn't the military brass assaulting Capitol Hill to beg for more money and warning of threats to the nation if it wasn't forthcoming.
Nope, it was a bipartisan Congress pushing to spend an extra $436 million on a weapon the experts explicitly say is not needed. In fact, the military planned no more Abrams purchases until at least 2016. The Pentagon has all the 70-ton monsters it needs, especially since the Abrams was designed specifically to thwart an attack in Europe by the then Soviet Union. The chance of that is considerably less it was 20 or 30 years ago.
Why, then, did 173 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, want the government to buy more tanks? Because it protects jobs and businesses in congressional districts where the tank's many suppliers are located, never mind that 2,000 of the tanks are currently mothballed in the desert north of Reno.


M1A1 Abrams tank is a heavy weight in Congress

Congress's insistence on spending money on what's not needed seems in marked contrast to the miserly way it is willing to spend money on those broken and injured Americans we send off to war.That sad irony was underscored again this week when Veterans Affairs head Eric Shinseki was hauled before Congress to answer allegations the VA has been delaying treatment and falsifying patient scheduling reports at facilities across the nation.
Problems at the VA are not new, of course. In 2007, The Washington Post published a disturbing series of articles about problems at what's arguably the VA's premier facility, Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Walter Reed, where generals go for treatment, became shorthand for scandal. In the wake of the stories, some commanders were dismissed and the VA announced a review of all its medical facilities as then-VA Secretary Jim Nicholson put it, "to make sure veterans are receiving access to the best possible care and environment."
How's that worked out? You don't have to read Shinski's testimony before Congress on Thursday to find out. Just drive to the area around San Joaquin General Hospital in French Camp, CA. You'll see an empty field where the VA says it will build a 150,000 square foot multi-specialty outpatient clinic and a 150,000 square foot community living center.
But, the VA has been making that promise for years and years and years. Each year, the construction start date changes. Last month a VA official told a Stockton town hall meeting held by two congressmen that approval is two to five years away.
"Funding, funding, funding," grumbled Richard Campos, 62, a veteran of the Vietnam and Iraqi wars. "Why was it not an issue when we funded this war (in Iraq and Afghanistan)? We are spending trillions of dollars on these wars. Why is it a problem now to serve these veterans?"
Why indeed?
Why is it so much easier for this nation to spend money on weapons and wars than on fulfilling the promises made to the men and women fighting those wars?
How can health care not be the nation's highest priority for the men and women who are sometimes shattered by their military service?
The concern members of Congress expressed as they grilled Shinseki would seem more impressive if it was backed up by action -- and that means money -- and had it not come just one year after some of those same members pushed so hard to buy an expensive weapon even the Pentagon didn't want.