December 5, 2007
Dear Senator Sheldon Whitehouse:
I am asking you as a constituent not to vote for James Peake as the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Because of his dismal Record as the Surgeon General of the Army and the continued scandals that have plagued Walter Reed Army Medical Center since our wounded have been coming home in 2003 from this war in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a user of the VA medical System for the past thirty years and I have seen many Secretaries of Veterans Affairs over that thirty years the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should be neither a Democrat nor a Republican while he serves the veterans in that office.
Those veterans that have given just about that they can give this country except there life on the Battlefield should have the best of care with no strings attached. A veteran that needs services in one clinic other than his/her primary care clinic should not have to wait six months or more in order to get an appointment or be served. That veteran should be able to always see a doctor in whatever clinic they go to within 30 days or less especially the Mental Health Clinics and PTSD Clinics. If a veteran comes into a VA Facility and needs to be seen by those staff members for PTSD he should be never turned away but brought in and evaluated right away and treated as a dire emergency just like someone is having a heart attack, stroke, or seizure.
Jim Nicholson did not do that in fact he returned several million dollars that the congress allotted for the VA to treat PTSD victims back into the government that should have been used by the VA to hire more staff at the VA facilities where the most veterans were coming in for treatment for this disorder. He told the Administration that the VA did not need any additional money for this while many veterans were in dire straights and needed help immediately.
Seeing what went on at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from the start of this war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the type of injuries that these heroes were receiving from the IED’s and the resulting explosions besides the loss of legs, arms, and other wounds from shrapnel burns etc. The Brain injuries are the worst because these veterans have to learn to speak again; walk again; get there memory back if possible plus cope with the reminder of the scars and loss of limbs they have to live with the rest of there lives.
The cost to these brave soldiers families is even going to be greater and this country because of the divorce rate amongst these families of these severely wounded heroes because there wives cannot cope with have to take care of the kids and her husband all the time without some kind of respite from all these responsibilities she will have to endure for the short and long time future. We cannot afford another Secretary of Veterans Affairs Like Jim Nicholson was.
What we need is someone that will go in there and take charge and stand up to be called on and stop these scandals at the VA and Military Medical Facilities and take care of the patients
whether or not that patient is in house or an outpatient.
Sincerely,
Craig Close
P.S. There are still a lot of WWII and Korean War veterans that were never treated for PTSD nor for Brain injuries along with the Vietnam veterans and were either misdiagnosed or were not diagnosed at all. One of the best parts of the VA Medical Treatment Systems is the fact that everyone is in a computer data bank and when you go to a clinic you may not see the same doctor as you did the last time you was there as things change from time to time but everything about your medical history cane brought up a looked at along with whatever medications you are taking and the pharmacy can prevent the interaction of certain drugs to keep one from having a medical emergency from that interaction.
