Ron needs a doctor’s appointment. He has needed one for two and one half years!

He is an amputee who moved to our area after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. He has been in the Veteran’s Administration Health Care System for many years, in Texas. Ron needs a stump sock for his amputated leg. This is a special sock that fits over the stump of the amputated limb and buffers the flesh from the rubbing of the prosthetic (artificial limb). They are expensive but not covered by Ron’s health insurance because they are not considered “durable” — they wear out fairly quickly.

All Ron wants is a sock. He is a Vietnam Navy Veteran. He is not asking for money; not applying for any monthly benefit, he just needs a sock. Sounds like an easy thing, doesn’t it? But, before VA will issue a new stump sock to him, he was told he has to be seen by a local doctor. But before he will be seen by a local VA doctor he was told he had to apply to have his records transferred from Houston VA to Jackson VA. He had applied four or five times before I met him. Then I had carried an application, a copy of his VA Identification card (proving he is currently in the system) and a letter requesting an appointment as soon as possible to Jackson for him. We were still refused because he did not have a copy of his DD214 (we have requested a duplicate from the National Personnel Records Center, but it hasn’t come yet — and his original was lost in the Hurricane. Besides, VA already has a copy on file from when he was first admitted to the health care system, years ago. But he was told he could “come to Jackson and search through the archives if he wants to). Finally, today Ron was told “they were sorry” he just fell through a crack.

Quentin is 25 years old. He was a good conduct medal Marine. His picture in uniform looked like a recruiting poster. When we met, he had just been released from a civilian mental health inpatient facility after attempting suicide. The road from Iraq, where the spit and polish — good conduct medal — Marine was broken, to my kitchen table was a long one. He was not given the post deployment physical or mental evaluation that our soldiers are promised now. He began to suffer from terrible headaches, was depressed, his behavior changed. This cheerful Marine was slovenly, late and irritable. No one noticed. No one asked him any questions. No one sent him to a counselor, or even the chaplain. Everyone was busy, they were about to redeploy. The Marines didn’t medically separate him; they just didn’t let him reenlist. So he came home. He tried to work, but couldn’t hold a job. The headaches and depression became worse. He went to the VA but no one asked him questions, and he didn’t know what to tell them, unsolicited. When he finally got to the bottom, and his Dad took him to a local emergency room, the civilian doctors saw a healthy-looking young man; put two and two together and came up with five — he must be on dope. When the toxicology screen came back negative (this young warrior doesn’t even smoke cigarettes); the determination was that he had to be “schizophrenic.” Now he is being treated in both the trauma recovery (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury Clinics at the VA, in Jackson. He is finally getting the care he deserves. But it has been a long road, and one that he should not have had to travel. He didn’t fall through one crack, he fell through several!

Mark was sent home. Literally. He had surgery in another state in a civilian hospital. Something went terribly wrong, and he is now paralyzed. When his insurance ran out, he was transferred to the local VA hospital. They called his next of kin, his 82 year old widowed mother, and asked her if she would “accept him.” Of course she said yes, but had no idea what would happen next. A few days later a van drove up, and her son was deposited on her front porch like a UPS delivery. The van driver said, “someone from VA will contact you soon.” Three weeks later, she called me and ask, “What can I do, when is VA coming to take care of him?” I had no idea, but started making phone calls, and found that when the other VA hospital “sent him home,” they forgot to call Jackson and tell them he was coming. No one in the VA system in Mississippi even knew he existed! This decorated Vietnam combat veteran who has bled for this country, had fallen through a crack. We finally got an appointment for him with Dr. Downing, at the VA Outpatient Clinic in Meridian. She is probably one of the most dedicated physicians around, and is taking the correct steps to get him into the spinal cord injury clinic and — maybe a VA nursing home.

What these, and a lot of other veterans, are going through are very common occurrences. The cracks talked about today are in the health care system, but there are cracks just as big as the claims processing system. Folks, our brave veterans — who have given so much for us, and ask so little — are not falling through cracks; they are disappearing into canyons!



Bobby C. Jerone,

Independent Veterans

Advocate, and president, American Legion Auxiliary Unit No. 257, in Meridian. She can be reached at (601) 679-5055 or bvj1101@bellsouth.net.