The VA is not the only problem. Veterans service organizations are failing us, too

By Julie Ferland. Read it in the Washington Examiner.

Those of us acquainted with military life know that Veterans Service Organizations are supposed to help us when we get out of service. 

I spent years as the Ombudsman for my husband’s ship. There, I spent countless hours helping military families with everything from getting families in touch with their service member, to finding babysitters, to setting up and advocating families transition out of the military and into the adventure that is veterans’ affairs. There, I also witnessed the ways that VSOs and the VA in general are failing these families of veterans. 

It is common knowledge that the Department of Veterans Affairs has many shortcomings, but what hurts these families even more is the failure of the VSOs’ advocacy.

The Veterans for Foreign Wars is one of the most prominent VSOs, created to help those veterans who fought valiantly to protect American interests overseas. They represent those who proudly wear the brown hats of Vietnam and the First Gulf War. When the VA failed these brave men, the VFW was supposed to be there to help them. Instead, they more often act as a barrier to real change for veterans and end up hurting the ones they are supposed to help. 

Wanting what is best for our veterans is no longer enough when, in action, these organizations are failing our veterans at every turn. Most recently, the VFW and its lobbyists made moves to stop the “Take Care of Veterans Act” in the House of Representatives. This bill is now stalled due to their actions speaking against it. However, this bill represented a real possibility for change for veterans. While not perfect, it would improve veteran care across dozens of mental and physical categories. Not only that, but it represented real change in the right direction toward improving the broken system and actually providing our veterans with the care and honor they deserve. But because the VFW unilaterally decided that this bill was not good enough, they stopped it in its tracks, and with it all progress that was trying to be made for veterans. 

Even worse than that, the way in which this organization approached trying to stop this bill made enemies of those in Congress by accusing them, through a T-shirt campaign, of wanting to kill veterans. Rather than actually helping veterans, they have halted the bill and alienated those trying to do right by our service members by accusing them through an article of clothing. There are many who genuinely support our troops and do not deserve this criticism. Is it healthy to criticize those in power? Yes, but this goes beyond healthy criticism. Our service members are not puppets for satire, as this cartoon suggests, and yet here the VFW is using them in that very way.

This bill aimed to add new benefits for our veterans, and rather than taking the win, the VFW chose political satire of our lawmakers putting veterans in front of a firing squad. This does not address the issue nor does it do anything to point out all the benefits of the bill.

Examples such as this show that it is not only the VA that is broken, but that the service organizations designed to help them also need reform. They represent a part of the system of the VA that is not serving veterans well, and they have proven time and time again that they do not have our veterans’ best interests at heart.

Reforming the system and doing what is best for veterans means reforming EVERY part of the system, not just the VA, but the groups that are supposed to be advocating service members and their families. It means looking from every angle and asking if these groups really are serving our heroes’ best interests or their own. Sadly, the answer is too often the latter.

Our service members deserve better. Their families deserve better. Nothing Congress does is perfect, but they shouldn’t be villainized and made out to be murderers for simply trying to push the bar forward for our veterans. We, as a country, owe so much to the men and women who have risked their lives for our freedom. The least we can give them is the best care and advocacy possible.

Julie Ferland is a military spouse and former military ombudsman who has spent years helping military families navigate the Department of Veterans Affairs. As her own family approaches retirement from military service, she worries that the broken VA system will fail them just as it has failed so many others.