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Vet Centers Under Attack: Exclusive Report

By VVAW

Before Commander Nemmo hit the dust as top dog at the VA recently, he made his rounds to the press and the veterans' "establishment" with assurances that all was well with the vet centers ("Operation Outreach"). His understanding of the problems confronting the vets centers had as much depth as his future with the VA.

Nemmo was criticized, after his demise, as being "insensitive on veterans issues, with particular regard to Vietnam veterans' and running a downright crappy VA administration with a "weak" relationship to the Office of Management and Budget. OMB, run by our boy Davey Stockman, holds the purse strings for the VA among other federal agencies.

For all his failings—and they were many—Nemmo got right to the point on his perspective on improvement in the vets centers. He felt that things were looking better due to "major personnel changes within Operation Outreach." From the perspective of the Vietnam veteran clientele of the vets centers, this movement Nemmo talks about shows one of the major crises; it is certainly not a solution. Across the country, vets' center leaders are quitting their jobs, either being forced off the job by the VA or giving up after years of beating their heads against the stone wall of VA bureaucracy. All too often these are the individuals whose attitude of vets helping vets, of caring about the vets and the programs for the vets, were what made the vets centers worthwhile.

Operation Outreach, long a thorn in the side of the VA bureaucrats is being slowly but increasingly brought under control with an iron fist. Competent people in the program are being driven out wholesale to be replaced with others who will toe the VA line. A program of planned neglect existed from the onset of operation outreach which never allowed the dream to became a reality. Many of the centers have been winging it from day one. Sustaining their momentum only form the hard work and enthusiasm of the people working in the centers. That precious resource of service is not wearing thin.

Some of the rumblings within the Operation Outreach program became public in October of 1981 at hearings before a sub-committee on government operations of the U.S. Congress. Testifying for the VA were such heavies as Donald Custis, Chief Medical Director, Donald T. Crawford, Chief of Outreach Services, and Jack Ewalt, Director of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences among others. They were sent to the wall around the issue of $16 million appropriated by Congress for the contract-fees service program (to aid outreach and services in areas not having vet centers as well as existing centers).

Based on testimony, the $16 million never made it to Operation Outreach. Apparently Custis channeled the money back into the general medical pork barrel. Crawford, who claimed never to have requested the funds, was left to twist slowly in the wind, was later to get the ax as Outreach Director and was relegated to some other VA cubbyhole.

Other interesting "facts" surfaced during the hearings. There was "a structural defect from the beginning" which placed the control of vets centers under the VA mental professionals who "were unable to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder" from the outset.

Arising from tensions between the staff at the vets centers and their clients as a result of Reagan's attempt to budget the program out of existence (an attempt which was beaten back by vets around the country), the Reagan Administration, with the help of VA administrators, "have decided to administer the outreach program out of existence." (This come from William Mahedy, former team leader of the San Diego vet center.)

The finding and conclusions of the hearing were, in part:

1. Management of the program by the VA Central Office has been inadequate (no surprises there!).
2. Two years after the program's inauguration, no standards of performance and program guidelines were published.
3. Fiscal controls are weak or absent. The VA cannot account for as much as 40% of the funds for the program.
4. Vets centers are made subordinate to VA hospitals in their areas for operational administrative matters and that while hospitals have a support obligation on request from the vets centers, they have no authority to extend this into operational decision making over the vets centers.

Following the hearings, the VA, in order to solve some of the problems which were publicized, issued VA circular 10-82-101. However, not only has the new circular not been implemented in any meaningful way across the country, but some vets center personnel believe that the proper VA officials have not even read the circular. There seems little doubt, however, that centers are in an administrative mess and the VA issuing this situation against the centers.

And the vets who've been using the centers? Prior to the 1981 hearings, 95% of the vets using the centers were satisfied with the services, a great tribute to the people who were staffing the centers and keeping them going in spite of the VA.

These are the individuals now leaving—for whatever reason—and the vets centers will be poorer as a result. Vets who use the centers should be asking a lot of questions: why is there a large turnover of personnel in some areas? Why are needed services being eliminated in some places? Have the vet rap groups stopped? Why does it seem to take forever for new vets centers to open? Why are the great majority of the vet center jobs temporary with no employment security?

The questions can be almost endless. VVAW will be conducting investigations in cities around the country—based on the vets who are the clientele of the vets centers and on the vets and others who have been making the centers work. And we are looking for input from whomever has something to add. We hope to see a coherent picture of vets centers across the country, a picture that we can use to help give the vets centers back to the vets for whom there were originally intended.

Vets centers were set up on the principle of help without hassle—and because they were just independent enough, the VA bureaucrats and the administration have been trying to do them in ever since. So we see things like the VA hospital which serves 4-5 mental health walk-in patients a week work to crush a vets center which deals with a hundred in the same period of time.

The vets centers were created for us, the Vietnam veteran. Their continued existence is our responsibility. VVAW wants to join with other vets to take up the fight to save and preserve the vets centers.

From Washington, DC:

Of our two original centers one, in a riot-torn corridor, has 3 staff members, only one of whom is a Vietnam vet. They now have one group session, mostly for walk-ins who are severely troubled. The other center has one full-time staff member who is not a Vietnam veteran (they fired a dedicated combat Vietnam vet, a real knife-in-the-back job). They are having no sessions. I hear from people who've gone down there that absolutely no services are available. Neither of these centers are in areas attractive for driving to or parking at night. The suburbs here have no vets centers.

Physically, they are in horrifying shape. The one on Capitol Hill has no working bathroom, no ramp for wheelchairs, unsafe and erratic electric wiring, and no routine maintenance (promised by the VA medical center, but never done.) A pilot program to set up rap groups at Lorton Prison died when the vet staffer was fired.

In fact, at present the only rap group anyone knows about in the entire DC area (that's 2 million people) is the one VVAW members set up at a local community college.

From Lincoln, Nebraska:

"Our vet center had a resignation of a team leader back in mid-September. And, of course, the VA is moving right along at a snail's pace to replace this man. In the meantime, the Vietnam veterans in the community become the victims again. I guess this is now becoming a standard policy of the government: we'll staff it with remfs and let it fall on its ass, and then turn around and say but we had a vets center for those guys..." Jerry Kinney, VVAW, Lincoln, NB.

As readers for THE VETERAN know from the last issue, in Alabama, the government attack has been different, with vets centers leaders being indicted for drug violation. But, as pointed out in the "Alabama Veteran Services Newsletter" (Box 123, Mulga, AL 35118), the drug violations "were only a smoke screen covering a federal assault of Vietnam veterans programs and leadership."

For more information or to help with the defense of our vet brothers in Alabama, contact the Vietnam Veterans of Alabama Defense Fund at the address given above.