United States Department of Veterans Affairs

Chautauqua ~ Scandal Eyes

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AugureyeExpress  May 23 2014

VetHospitalAs Memorial day draws near I can well imagine those souls it honors spinning in their graves in unified outrage; as the list of scandals at Veterans Administration hospitals grows ever deeper with the latest in a long list of disgraces.

In a recent post I made reference to the current ever-deepening VA scandal involved with VA personnel cooking the books so it would appear they were setting appointments in a timely and efficient manner; while veterans died waiting to be seen by their doctor. I didn’t want to write about it in any depth because of the great negativity and frustration it generates, what with me being a disabled Vietnam Vet.

I really tried to take the advice of Joseph Campbellwhen he said “We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” It goes hand in hand with another nugget of wisdom I assimilated along the way: True wealth is measured by how many things you can just leave be. Far from ignoring the problem, one may elect to instead focus their energy&thoughts on more positive pursuits, and that felt fine to me.

Unfortunately, this current debacle just keeps mutating into a deliberate bureaucratic failure of monstrous proportions by the day. What began as “A few isolated incidents” is now at 28 states, 40 deaths … and growing. That’s right, I said deliberate, as intentional & willful. Unfortunately the government of this country has a disgraceful historical habit of turning on it’s veterans. So I am cornered between Memorial day and the Muse, and find I have something of a duty to write about this subject.

This is something I can write about from personal experience with the VA system; and it’s not a pretty picture. When I came home from Vietnamwith an honorable discharge and all my parts intact; my dad picked me up at the airport. It was hard to spot him at first thru the buzzing crowd of protestors harassing any man departing the plane in uniform. Lucky for me I was dressed in street clothes so nobody bothered me directly as I stood there in disbelief, the anger welling up inside me…suddenly a vice like hand grabbed my elbow just as I heard my old man’s voice saying, “I’ve seen that look on your face before – time for us to go.” We claimed my bags and made it to the car in silence, and I needed that time to calm down after seeing people spitting on returning servicemen. Continue reading →

US Government Ran Chemical Experiments On Military Veterans Under Operations MK-Ultra, Bluebird And Artichoke

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Natural News | July 26 2012

Natural News ~ The United States, for its warts, has achieved much in its short 230-plus year history. It is a benevolent world superpower, for the most part, that serves as a beacon of hope and freedom for an increasingly oppressed world, even as it serves as a guardian against tyranny for as many as half of the world’s nearly seven billion people.

But a few chapters in our history – slavery, oppression of the Native American tribes, causes of the civil rights movement, and moments of unconstitutionality on the part of our elected leaders – serve as more than simple blemishes on an otherwise admirable record of defending liberty and freedom. One such stain is the way we’ve treated some of our nation’s military veterans.

The maltreatment is summed up in a recent federal case. In late July, a group of veterans managed to win a court order forcing the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to hand over a trove of documents detailing the department’s alleged Cold War-era drug experiments on Vietnam vets. What’s problematic about this case isn’t the decision – the VA owes these veterans any answers they are seeking – but the fact that the case had to be filed at all.

‘Project Paperclip’

According to court documents, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, in Oakland, Calif., said in her ruling that the documents requested by the veteran-plaintiffs were “squarely relevant” to their claim that the government, through the VA, did not adequately notify veterans of chemicals they were purposely exposed to during experimentation, and – perhaps more importantly – what effects that exposure might have had on their physical and mental health.

Details of this sad episode in our history were contained in a 2009 class action suit. Filed by the Vietnam Veterans of America and individual soldiers, the suit charges the U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency, with the help of former Nazi scientists, of using at least 7,800 vets as guinea pigs to test the effects of as many as 400 different types of drugs and chemicals. They included mescaline (psychedelic alkaloid), LSD (psychedelic drug), amphetamines, barbiturates, nerve agents and mustard gas.

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