Editorial: Veterans Need Our Help

The commemoration of Veterans’ Day yesterday drew attention to the difficulties soldiers face as they reintegrate into civilian society. It also reminded us of the fact that government bureaucracy is incapable of providing basic medical care for the people who took arms to defend our country.

The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA,) which employs 340,000 people, has been overwhelmed with a surge in cases, a lack of medical personnel, low morale and scandals involving employees tampering with lists to make waiting times appear shorter.

This led to Secretary Eric Shinseki’s resignation in 2014 and his replacement with former CEO of Procter & Gamble Robert McDonald, brought in under the premise that having dealt with large corporations may be more useful than military experience in this case.

The main challenge is to handle the serious problems faced by returning soldiers reinserting into civilian life. Unemployment tends to be higher in this group, which may lead to homelessness. Additionally, the high suicide rate among ex-soldiers is upsetting because it does not seem to be necessarily linked to the traumatic experience of going to war.

In other health matters, currently most war veterans are seniors who require a host of additional specialized services. Even though medical advances drastically reduced the number of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a large population of wounded soldiers in need of lengthy rehabilitation.

During election season, proposals to reform the system abound. Most Republican candidates recommend privatization, while Democrat Hillary Clinton supports broadening the participation of private providers to make services more accessible to the beneficiaries and shorten waiting time.

The ideal system would be the combination of both. Privatization would signify a goldmine for corporations, which ‒ created to generate earnings and pay million-dollar salaries to their executives ‒ may fail to make providing services to veterans a priority. And while bureaucracy has also failed the beneficiaries, this reveals the need for a solid regulatory presence. The successful incorporation of soldiers to civilian life is a valuable investment that benefits society as a whole.