John T. Reed shared a link.
In writing about my incessant battles with my Army superiors after I graduated from West Point, I often use the phrase “play the game.” I was ordered to “play the game” by career officers who said THEY had to “play the game” and who the heck did I think I was that I was exempt and did NOT have to “play the game.” An honest man? A self-respecting man who refuses to kiss ass, like going to your damned “command performance” parties?
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“The game” is lying and kissing your superiors’ asses. I called it OPUM (http://www.johntreed.com/militaryhonor.html) and OVUM (http://www.johntreed.com/OVUM.html) This VA scandal sounds like the exact same thing and it is run by the exact same people. VA head Eric Shinseki was the Chief of Staff of the Army. And here is a quote from a WSJ story about the scandal on 5/24/14:
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“Earlier this month, the VA placed a nurse at the Cheyenne, WY VA Medical Center on leave after USA Today obtained a 2013 email in which he admitted to manipulating appointment dates to ensure they met the 14-day deadlines.
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“‘Yes, it is gaming the system a bit,’ the nurse wrote in the June 19, 2013, email that was reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. ‘But you have to know the rules of the game you are playing, and when we exceed the 14 day measure, the front office gets very upset, which doesn’t help us’.”
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I heard on the Wall Street Journal Editorial Report (Fox News) today that the VA is the second biggest employer in the federal government after the active-duty military with over 300,000 employees. Since we are currently reducing the size of the Army to 450,000, it appears we are heading for a point where we are paying more people to HELP, or neglect actually, former soldiers than we HAVE current soldiers. The number of employees in the Department of Agriculture exceeded the number of farmers in the US decades ago, so don’t expect the government to be embarrassed by the VA employees outnumbering the active-duty military some day.
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Also, note the reason why the Democrats, via socialist (literally) senator Bernie Sanders, just stopped a bill that would enable the VA head to fire bad employees. The Democrats are the party of UNIONS, especially government unions. The VA employees are heavily unionized. So the Democrats will take care of our veterans, but they will make sure the VA unions are taken care of FIRST and if there’s not enough to take care of both the vets and the VA unions, the UNIONS GET PRIORITY.
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Note the last phrase in the Cheyenne nurse’s email: “which doesn’t help us.” Playing games with the wait time reports doesn’t help vets. but it does help “us” meaning the union members. And unions always take care of “us” above all else.