What are Veterans really facing with regards to the implementation of this letter?Īre Veterans really being given the benefit of the doubt concerning lost, shredded, withheld, and spoliated documents or is the Department doing something else? What begs to be answered is what exactly has been done at Regional Service Centers? The Veteran finally received an acknowledgement on February 18, 2009, after asking through the Inquiry Routing Information System (IRIS) on January 27, 2009, again on February 6, 2009, and finally on February 11, 2009. This Veteran received no acknowledgement, there was no indication of a need for a “Report of Contact” (Step1) there were no requests for any documentation (Step 2a), there was no VCAA letter as specified (Step 2b) nor was there anything from the Regional Service Center complying with Step 2c. Veterans ask you to consider what has really happened since Chairman Filner’s Roundtable Discussion on Wednesday, November 19, 2008, and Admiral Dunne’s mea culpa.Īs an example, this Veteran filed a claim on November 25, 2008, in accordance with the FAST Letter concerning the adjudication of a decision in which “the claim was considered by VA based on an incomplete record because the supporting evidence or information was not added to the record.” I sincerely ask you to consider that what you are experiencing here is an affront by the Department, not only to the Congress, but to all Veterans of the United States of America. But please know that to do nothing denigrates Veterans and their families, their service to the country, and this esteemed body. Professor Linda Bilmes of the Harvard School of Business and a Presidential Advisor made a brilliant suggestion in previous testimony as did several members of the most recent hearing of the improvement of the Appeals Process. You must begin to accept that the disability claims system is so severely broken that it must be simplified.
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Their trust, if there was any left, will not be restored by the testimony of these officials before these Subcommittees.Īnd so it is that Veterans across this nation are asking you, our elected representatives, to do more than ask piercing questions, to do more than accept pre-prepared excuses, to do more than write off the truth as “anecdotal stories”. Veterans wonder why the VAOIG Report was not forthcoming, and now, when finally it is published, will put almost no credence in its findings unless the Report puts the responsibility on what Veterans across the country believe is an extension of the “deny, deny, until they die” mentality of senior Department and Veterans Benefits Administration officials. The following amnesty period, while not well known, definitively showed that these were not misdeeds of a few “bad apples” they are not symptoms, they are the results of efforts by senior management and supervisors to “meet a quota” set by a very poor work credit system. These findings are egregious and are widespread. On behalf of all Veterans, we ask these Committees to comprehend the nature of these events and understand that Veterans are not willing to pass them off to be forgotten.
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Accordingly, when the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Benefits Administration generated FAST Letter 08-41, they admitted that something was seriously amiss with Veterans records and thus with rating decisions at Regional Service Centers across the country. Larry Scott of, whose published articles and information provided Veterans with the ability to determine from internal sources that the Veterans Administrations Office of Inspector General found evidence of spoliation and tampering of Veterans claims.
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I have previously provided testimony to this Subcommittee on the subject of the Backlog and the Claims Processing System. My name is Kurt Priessman, MSgt, USAF (Ret) from Vernon, Texas. I come before this esteemed body as a citizen, as a military retiree and former civil servant, as a disabled Vietnam Veteran and bearer of the Order of the Silver Rose, and as the proud father of an active duty military member. Honorable Chairmen and Members, I thank you for inviting me to testify before the joint session of the Subcommittees on Disability Assistance & Memorial Affairs and Oversight and Investigations today.