The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
LCCC veteran weighs in on VA shakeup
As President Trump shuffles leadership at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, vets working in the Lorain County Community College Veterans Service Office have different opinions of the embattled department.
The shake-up follows years of headlines decrying the dysfunction in the department and its negative effects on the veterans they serve.
Bruce Weigl, 69, director of veterans’ services at LCCC who served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, said the medical facilities, commonly referred to as a VA, are regional.
“In our region, we have Cleveland, which is Wade Park(Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center), which is the biggest facility, and that’s where you have to go for most stuff,” Weigl said. “But we also have Parma, which is a new facility; very nice. It doesn’t have everything that Wade Park has, but it’s good for doctors’ visits and minor emergencies.
“Now we have the same thing right up the street in Sheffield Village on Abbe Road.”
Weigl said most of the veterans he and his staff work with generally have good things to say about the facilities.
“We have one of the better VA systems in the country,” he said. “Now, does that mean it’s
perfect? Absolutely not. Does that mean it doesn’t have problems? Absolutely not.
“But compared to other places, we’re a lot better off.”
Weigl said there are reports about people dying in Arizona because they couldn’t get an appointment fast enough.
He was referencing the widely reported discovery of multiple veterans dying while awaiting treatment at a center in Phoenix.
“That doesn’t happen here,” Weigl said.
Michael Weston, 29, of Elyria, works as a school certifying official in the VA office. He served in the Marine Corps and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Weston said he agrees with Weigl, when it comes to his own experiences.
“I’ve heard a lot of complaints over the years with the VA, but, astonishingly, most of my experiences have been pretty good,” he said. “Working here, I get to see some of the their problems where the VA messes up.
“But as far as initially getting my education benefits processed, everything went very smooth.”
Weston said he was prepared and started filing his paperwork about six months before leaving the service and he started at the school three days after his discharge.
He said he did run into a minor glitch, which he said was his fault.
But Weston said his enrollment in receiving health benefits and disability went “very smoothly.”
“Luckily, everything went well for me, but it does mess up occasionally for other students,” he said. “I hear students on hold with the VA for their education benefits for a minimum of an hour, up to three hours, which does happen.
“I hear people trying to get enrolled in VA health care where it’s just such a nightmare they just give up and end up not going back.”
Trump made promises to veterans during the 2016 campaign has attempted to follow through by signing a VA reform bill in June 2017.
“For many years, the government failed to keep its promises to our veterans,” Trump is quoted as saying in a CNN report on the bill. “We all remember the nightmare that veterans suffered during the VA scandals that were exposed a few years ago.”
Trump announced March 28 via Twitter he would replace Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin with current White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson.
While Jackson awaits confirmation, the department will be headed up by undersecretary for defense Robert Wilkie.
Weigl warns any new director of the VA will face an uphill battle.
“A friend of mine, who works at a very high national level in the VA, said, ‘You know, you could appoint Jesus Christ to that position and Jesus Christ would screw it up,’” he said. “It’s not the director’s problem; it’s a problem with the whole VA.”
Weigl said the issue is the VA is t just a line item on the Department of Defense budget and the annual debates on raising the budget usually end in defeat.
“I think, what bothers me more than anything else, is that I know for a fact, some of the same people who voted to go to war, vote against raising the Veterans Administration budget,” he said.