In my hometown, we often saw a “character” who, according to local legend, was a World War II veteran with shell shock. He lived in a shack by the railroad tracks and all he did was walk, all over town, all day, every day. Because there was only one of him, he was locally famous. Now, thousands of versions of “Joe Walk” live all over America.
When people are inducted into the military, the contract is supposed to be mutually enforceable. When an enlisted member or an officer violates the agreement, the consequences of military justice can be dire. But who is to stop the other party from breaking the trust? When the U.S. government misbehaves, who can call it to account? Who can make it meet its obligations to homeless veterans, veterans at risk of becoming homeless, and homeless civilians?
VA Administrator Behaving Badly
DeWayne Hamlin was arrested in Florida for sitting in a car drunk in the middle of the night, refusing a breathalyzer, and not having a prescription for his oxycodone. Leaving aside the question of why the police bothered someone who was merely sitting in a car and not, apparently, breaking any law, it happened.
A mug shot is not a good look for the chief administrator of a Veterans Administration hospital, a man who had achieved the highest rank bestowed upon career civil service employees, with a paycheck of nearly $180,000 a year. But we all make mistakes. The worrisome thing is that when the Washington Examiner looked into Hamlin’s attendance records, they discovered that he was in the habit of only showing up for two out of three work days. In a one-year period he was absent 80 days. That is a lot of downtime for someone in charge of the health of a large number of America’s vets. Reporter Luke Rosiak notes:
Veterans Affairs leadership has seldom fired or disciplined its own. Under severe scrutiny recently from Congress and the news media, department leaders occasionally accept retirements by employees… instead of pursuing disciplinary action.
Hamlin is alleged to have done his share to maintain a culture of intimidation and retaliation. When a lower-level employee reported his arrest to VA headquarters, he tried to get the whistleblower fired, and when an investigator didn’t agree, he tried to get the investigator fired. Even before this incident, he had sent around a memo warning everyone who worked for the VA Caribbean Health Care System that any and all complaints must be kept inside the organization, and no outside snitching would be tolerated.
Gambling Away VA Funds
Right around the same time, in Nashville, Birdie Anderson was sentenced to two years in prison for defrauding the Veterans Administration. She had received grants to buy a house for veterans, then a specially fitted van and another house. The first building was actually purchased, but was foreclosed on two years later. The veterans housed there, who according to the contract were to have stayed at least seven years, had to leave after being there less than three years.
The second residence and the van were never purchased, and Anderson is said to have gambled away $364,000 that was supposed to have brought some homeless veterans in off the street. Maranda Faris reported for the Tennessean that the convicted woman is a retired Army Reservist. An even more interesting detail is that she…
…also made false statements that she was a CEO of an organization within the Veterans Administration as well as having spent time in covert operations in Afghanistan during Operation Desert Storm. Anderson never did a tour of duty in Afghanistan, but remained at Fort Bragg, N.C., as a desk clerk during that time.
The VA has all the might and power of the U.S. government at its disposal, but in this case it could have performed due diligence without even going outside the agency. All it had to do was look inside its own database. But the VA failed to determine that this person did not really run an organization within the VA itself. It couldn’t even figure out whether or not a member of the military had ever been in Afghanistan.
Who is in charge of verifying the information on grant proposals? Who blithely hands out taxpayers’ money without doing the most rudimentary background checks on the applicants? Who gave away more than a third of a million dollars to someone who should not have gotten a penny? Who was asleep at the wheel? Who colluded in robbing homeless veterans? Why are they not Ms. Anderson’s cellmates?
Reactions?
Source: “Veterans Affairs hospital chief draws $179k salary despite missing 80 days a year,” WashingtonExaminer.com, 03/30/15
Source: “Woman gets 2 years for misusing $364K for homeless vets,” Tennessean.com, 04/18/14
Image by OccupyDemocrats.com
