The Strata Sphere:
The above is the Veterans Administration mission statement. It is an oath to those who defended this nation by risking their lives. It was an oath given to this nation’s veterans – as noted- by President Abraham Lincoln.
But it turns out the Obama VA itself is nearly as deadly as all our recent war efforts:
More than 1,000 veterans have died over the last decade as a result of a failure to provide care or malpractice by the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to the findings of a new report authored by retiring Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK).
The report, “Friendly Fire: Death, Delay, and Dismay at the VA,” complies the findings of a number of government and media investigation and concludes that many more veterans lost their lives as a result of VA negligence than the 23 deaths to which the department has admitted.
“The problems at the VA are worse than anyone imagined,” Coburn said.
“Over the past decade, more than 1,000 veterans may have died as a result of VA malfeasance,” the senator added. “Poor management is costing the department billions of dollars more and compromising veterans’ access to medical care.”
Emphasis mine. This says more than 100 veterans died each year on average (which I would guess was low early on and has been rising in terms of actual deaths per year as more and more vets have been delayed medical assistance). How does that compare to Afghanistan and Iraq wars? Let’s see.
Per this DoD site the Afghan total KIA to date are 1816. If you average that over 13.5 years it comes to KIA 139 per year on average. That means abuse and neglect at the VA is almost as deadly as fighting in Afghanistan. For the Iraq war 2010 to 2011 (operation New Dawn) under Obama the KIA is 38 over one year. This means the death rate in Iraq was around one third that of the VA – clearly not good. Overall in Iraq the yearly rate was nearly 500/year, just to be clear.
