Just the other day, patriotic Americans were lowering their flags to half-staff of their own accord in honor of the seven sailors killed when a huge Philippine-flagged container ship crashed into their destroyer. No government agency had to tell these citizens that now was another time to mourn these honored dead.
Meanwhile, this state's own Department of Veterans Affairs was looking a dozen years ahead by considering how it can keep up with the growing number of older veterans in this state. That number is bound to increase--not because this country sets out to fight evil at home and abroad but because evil comes in search of us Americans, and our veterans have borne the brunt of the battle.
The results of a survey by a contingent of graduate students at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock indicate that over the next dozen years--by 2034--the number of older veterans in this state should increase dramatically: from 2,619 last year to 3,276 by 2034. After every war, Americans tend to say there's nothing too good for our veterans, and yet in the midst of today's ever-continuing war against terror, those same Americans tend to forget about those who have borne the brunt of all those battles. It won't happen this time, let's hope. And let's do more than hope. Let's plan ahead, beginning with a wide-open discussion of how best to meet the needs of the state's growing population of aging vets.
Why is that population growing and sure to grow even more? For good reasons--like the long, sad war in Vietnam for one and, for another, the military's having opened its ranks to those who have proven to be some of our best troopers: women. All of which means, according to this report out of UA Little Rock, the state's VA will need some 657 more beds for these men and women who have served their country. Now it's time, past time, for their state to serve them.
The director of Arkansas' department of veterans' affairs, which is not to be confused with the national one, is Nate Todd, and he's not a man to act without forethought--or without consulting the widest number of Concerned Citizens he can gather around him. His is an old, well-established practice among carpenters, surgeons, and other master craftsmen: Measure twice, cut once. So he's assembled a force of experienced bureaucrats, advocates of better treatment for veterans, and experts in long-term medical care to advise him before he takes any action that might be quicker than it is thoughtful. Happily, Director Todd observed, "We don't have an immediate problem. We're strategically planning for the future." For as he well knows, "Effective government is government that prepares." Forewarned, as the saying goes, is forearmed.
Mr. Todd has his plate full as director of Arkansas' VA, for its mission is threefold: (1) to provide vets with the long-term care they may need, (2) to manage two veterans' cemeteries within the state's borders, and (3) to identify services and benefits that may be available for these, the best of us. And then decide how best to fulfill the VA's considerable mission.
Should the state build more veterans homes? That option can prove expensive. The new Arkansas State Veterans Home in North Little Rock came in at about $24 million, including the $8.6 million that was needed in state money alone. But the report out of UA Little Rock says the state could avoid spending all of that money by leveraging existing resources, whatever that means. On the other hand, such an approach--however vaguely it's described--might just broaden veterans' use of the services available to them in their home or community.
"People want to be in their homes; they want to be with their families," notes Carol Shockley, director of long-term care for the state's Department of Human Services. "Anything we can do to bolster that is a good thing." Unfortunately, as this report notes, some outfits that serve veterans find that the VA on the federal level may be a slow-pay or even no-pay operation, and have to be dunned. At least one such provider of health services, Carelink, stopped serving vets who depend on payments from the VA because of "habitual delays" when it comes to the national VA's picking up the cost. Trying to get what the national VA owes its clients in a state like Arkansas can be as long and trying and, in the end, as futile as trying to wring blood out of a turnip.
Still, there might be light at the end of this tunnel. Mark Diggs of Veterans Villages of America suggests remodeling old hospitals in rural parts of the country to serve the country's veterans in those parts, which would benefit both the vets and those communities out in the country by providing jobs for the folks who would work there. Not a bad idea, but only one out of so many possibilities.
Joy Leapheart, who's a colonel (Ret.), has remodeled her career and become a strong advocate of veterans' causes. She's a member of the Military Officers Association of America, and, in the interest of full disclosure, let it be known that I'm a member in good and proud standing of this same organization-cum-interest group.
I see no conflict between my advocating better care for veterans and the possibility that I might benefit from such a policy someday, for our vets' cause is the country's. Not that I might agree with every policy advocated by every veterans' group, but sheer gratitude for the opportunity to serve in the armed forces of this country compelled me to join the Military Officers Association of America as soon as I could. Being in uniform had to be the second most educational experience of my life--next only to helping raise a couple of teenagers, who taught this father more than anything he might have taught them.
I had to be one of the worst soldiers ever to make it through the Army, yet each failure was a new lesson if only I had the wit to learn from it. One phrase of my Army days has stuck with me, and proven relevant whenever I've goofed up--which has been often. It was a phrase employed by an officer who was delivering a withering critique of my sorry performance as a pretend Battery Commander back in ROTC summer camp: "And that's when Cadet Greenberg made his fatal error . . . ." His words have haunted me ever since, for they apply to so many decisions I've made since.
I'm still grateful to that sharp-tongued officer whose name now escapes me. For no one benefits by recalling his successes. But only the incorrigibly dense may not learn from their mistakes. Which is one more reason for me to be grateful to the U.S. Army and to all those who served in it or with its sister branches. They are not just my comrades-in-arms but my teachers, and deserve so much better than the treatment our federal Veterans Administration may give them. In spades.
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Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 06/28/2017