What help for veterans when VA drops the ball?

This is regarding the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and how they do not assist past or current veterans of those who have proudly served our country.

My husband is a proud veteran of the Gulf War. Almost two years ago, he was diagnosed with COPD and sleep apnea by the VA.

He filed a claim with the VA, went to all of his scheduled appointments, follow-ups, etc. He logged onto the VA portal to view the progress of his claim after his June 2023 doctor’s appointment and there was no record of his appointment or any appointment on file.

He reached out to the local office here in Fort Smith. They called the VA office together and were given the same information. The gentleman, in our local VA Office, could see my husband’s information had been uploaded to their system, but evidently, it was never transferred to the correct file by the VA. The young lady said she was going to escalate it immediately.

About a month later, my husband logged back in to see if any progress had been made. The portal showed that his claim had been closed.

Once again, another call had been made and the agent on the other end said that it was still pending.

A few days later, a letter was received that there had been a mistake on his claim and that it would be sent to another department to be investigated as to what had happened.

A few more months had gone by and we reached out to our senators, both Boozeman and Cotton. Boozeman responded with the same information we already had and well, Mr. Cotton, we never heard or received anything from his office.

Both of these two senators talk about how much they respect our veterans and how they are willing to assist them, but when you do ask for help, they are doing nothing more than what we already do.

I believe it’s a crying shame that these men and women sacrifice their lives so that we, as a country, can rest easy, sleep at night, and have the freedoms we do have left, just to be forgotten about or fall through the cracks when help is needed.

Yes, it’s a choice they make to serve, but if it wasn’t for them, none of us would have the liberties that we have today. Let that sink in, won’t you?

Wendy Wiseman, Greenwood