Over the years, the Veterans Affairs Hospitals have experienced a plethora of issues, from careless employees and ignorant VA Hospital Police to improper care causing deaths and doctors who don’t give a damn about healthy treatment. It’s like the people & government only use the military and veterans when it’s convenient for them. For example, when most of those white people ignored why Colin Kaepernick was really kneeling and then brought the military into it, when police brutality was the issue, not patriotism. I barely ever hear those same white people advocating for Veterans healthcare or keeping that same energy when a Female Soldier gets raped by a fellow Male soldier or a Marine commits suicide because of toxic leadership.
My other concern with the VA is the fact that Veterans have to pay for food. I’m very passionate about this, especially when I consider all of the homeless, hungry Veterans that are all over the country that they sacrificed their time & mental health for. The VA Hospitals should give all of its Veterans one free, fresh, hot or cold meal a day. Why the fuck not? Full fledged VA Hospitals always have a fully functioning kitchen with all kinds of amazing food and Veterans have to pay for it. I'm tired of us Free People submitting to the idea that we deserve very little from the establishment/government or whatever they feel we should have. Especially the same Veterans who wore the uniform and sacrificed years and years of their lives for wars, lies, and bullshit. I mean who gave the people in the government the power to have power over everyone?
Veterans do receive free health care from these very hospitals and we still have to pay for any additional medications that aren't directly related to anything in our medical records, such as cold and allergy medicine. Honestly, I feel like Veterans shouldn’t have to pay for anything coming out of that hospital. We are also compensated for traveling to the VA for any appointments. However, they started taxing that and you have to get it direct deposited into your account when there is a fully functioning cashier right next to the window where you confirm your appointment to receive the funds. My issue with this process is that they did not tax the travel compensation or require it to be direct deposited before about 2014. Also, due to the fact that the direct deposit system sometimes gets severely backed up, funds take as far as two weeks from the actual time of your appointment to be deposited. You know, it never used to get backed up before, because they were giving out cash at the window. While any deposit is a blessing, the VA does not have to complicate these simple little blessings that Veterans worked hard and sacrificed for. Why do the powers that be constantly sit around conference tables and in board rooms messing things up? I always wonder what happens at these meetings and how they come up with such idiotic ideas. Like when they decided Women in the Army shoukdnt wear earrings or that time they tried to prevent Black Women from wearing braids. There’s so much more important business the military could be worried about.
While serving in the military, you can go to what is called the Defac/Dining Facility and one of the kitchen workers, a soldier on Defac duty or the soldier themselves will type in their social security number and receive a free meal three times a day. Imagine if shuttle buses went around the city and picked up as many homeless Veterans they could find, typed in their social security numbers prior to taking them to the hospital to determine if they served and then that Veteran gets a free meal? That's a brilliant idea. Every VA system should have a record of every person that has served and then once that Veteran goes to the VA for the first time, they can receive their ID card, and when the shuttles come to do their free meal sweep, that Veteran will have an id and can eat. They can do a SSN search via a nice, transportable ipad to confirm that Veteran. Too easy, in my opinion. That at least takes care of the hungry Veterans and while those uninformed Veterans are at the hospital getting their free meal, there are other social workers or Veterans Advocates providing them with other pertinent information. On Veterans Day with the right identification, we get all kinds of free meals. Why doesn’t the VA Hospital do the same thing? Everyday, there is a new fast food restaurant or some corporate poison added to a neighborhood, I'm sure they could collaborate and allocate some of those or any funds for Americas beloved Veterans to eat for free at their safe haven; the VA Hospital. I'm sure every Veteran that isn't homless wouldn't even use the service, but it would be there, just in case.
As a Veteran, I am grateful for all of the things that the VA does to try to give back to us for sacrificing a portion of our lives and for some, their whole life for any absurd reason this country has for creating wars. I just feel like the richest, most grandest country in the world, shouldn't have a problem returning as much of the favor as possible to the people that choose that lifestyle. We as Free People, need to stop being negatively concerned about who is on welfare and foodstamps and be more concerned with why we feel like the government/establishment shouldn't serve tax paying, economy boosting people? Like I said earlier, who gave them the power to regulate us and who gave them all the money?
I was in the active U.S. Army from 2007 to 2011 and the U.S. Army Reserves in 2011 and 2014. My first duty station was Camp Casey/Dongduchon, Korea and my first combat deployment was to COB (Centralized Operating Base) Speicher/Tikrit, Iraq. Shout out to all of the people that decided to join the United States military, especially Black people. If you don't know why Black People get a special shout out, then you are confused about the United States and his malevolent history. As Neely Fuller Jr. said, if you don't understand white supremacy, everything else will confuse you.
With Love...