Our Sacred Obligations

  OUR SACRED OBLIGATIONS


I am writing this column on Memorial Day.

It is always a very moving experience for me to celebrate our fellow Americans who have paid the ultimate price to protect us as well as to thank those veterans who returned home from their service.

I am not unmindful that many of those who survived their years of service returned physically or mentally wounded. For some of them, the rest of their lives included wrestling with the road to recovery and for some wrestling with the bureaucracy charged with caring for them.

I am told that problems have existed in the Veterans Administration for many years. Our current president, during his campaign for the office, identified these problems and promised to solve them.

How many Americans know that the Veterans budget is second only to the Defense budget in size. If we are allocating huge financial resources to serving the needs of our veterans, why is it not working?

One paper recently talked about millions of dollars spent on redecorating a reception area at a Veterans hospital while needy veterans were waiting weeks for appointments.

It was not so long ago that we read stories that veterans were buried in the wrong graves at Arlington Cemetery, were buried on top of each other in the same grave, and that a lot of back-up information as to names of the dead was incorrect.

Now comes news that 26 hospitals throughout the country were cooking the books. Pretending to serve vets but leaving them for long periods of time without care. Some of them died from the delay. This isn’t one problem hospital. This is systemic.

It has been my pleasure to have been asked to speak on a number of occasions on Memorial Day or Veterans Day at the Massachusetts Veteran Cemetery in Winchendon, MA. This year I felt it important to acknowledge that we are falling short of what Americans want with reference to serving our veterans and honoring those who have died.


Let us not permit our country to fail in the important task of honoring those who died for our nation and those who returned from the wars with serious physical or mental problems or to say thank you for your service to every man or woman who put their lives at risk.

Obviously we have not performed well with reference to our veterans. With such a huge budget and such a large number of people who need treatment the problem is one of management.

My message to President Obama and Secretary Shinseki: you need to INSPECT what you EXPECT.