Dying from Agent Orange Exposure, the VA Denied this Vietnam Vet His Last Wish — A Wheelchair

By Matt Agorist on February 24, 2016

Las Vegas, NV — The Department of Veterans Affairs still has a massive backlog of nearly 900,000 healthcare applications ‒ including more than 300,000 from veterans who died waiting for their benefits to be approved.

The VA’s internal watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General, released a report last year that looked into a whistleblower’s claims of extensive, persistent problems in the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Health Eligibility Center enrollment records.

The OIG found that the VHA’s enrollment system had about 867,000 pending records as of September 30, 2014. On top of that, at least 307,000 applications ‒ or about 35 percent of all pending records ‒ were associated with individuals who had died waiting for care.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that nearly 50,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Another 140,000 are currently in jail, many of them for victimless crimes like drug possession.

As if the numbers aren’t bad enough, veterans are often the target of unjust attention from law enforcement. On multiple occasions, the Department of Homeland Security has referred to veterans as potential terrorists and noted that they pose a threat to national security.

The Free Thought Project has reported on case after case of veterans returning home only to be beaten and locked up for speaking out, or killed by police during a PTSD triggered episode.

It is no secret — the US government couldn’t care less about those who put their lives on the line to fight wars for them.

In the latest example of their cruel treatment of US veterans, Vietnam vet David McKinney-Smith was denied his last wish from the VA — a wheelchair.

McKinney-Smith’s body is is riddled with cancer, and his dying wish of mobility was torn from him by a bureaucratic agency rife with complacency and corruption.

McKinney-Smith says he knows exactly what caused his cancer too.

“We were over in the Gulf of Tonkin and this huge tanker was flying from the coast of Vietnam over the water spraying orange substance. It turned out it was Agent Orange,” McKinney-Smith recalled to Action 13 News.

Sadly, McKinney-Smith still supports the country that is treating him like a piece of trash. “I think we have the greatest country in the world. And I would do it again. I would do it again,” he said.

According to Action 13 News,

    That makes it all the more difficult to understand why the VA would deny him his freedom in the form of an electric wheelchair.

    “If I can’t move around, I know that I will die earlier than the five months,” David said through tears.

    The VA approved him for home hospice, but told the dying vet he’d have to cancel that care to get an electric wheelchair.

    He did that, but then the VA denied his request, leaving him with no hospice, no wheelchair and no faith.

After covering his story, Darcy Spears, with KTNV called the VA to investigate the matter, and two days later, only after being ousted as horrible people, the VA got McKinney-Smith his wheelchair.

The VA is predictably calling this an accident and said it was due to a misinterpretation of policy.

“Our entire team out at the VA was kind of taken back by this case,” said VA Public Affairs Chief Chuck Ramey. “We’re going to go back and look at this and see what we can do to make sure that if this comes up and happens again that we’re taking care of our people and our patients accordingly.”


In the meantime, despite being treated like garbage by the very people he fought for, this veteran remains sanguine. “This is like heaven now,” he said. ” I can go out, go up the street, come back and get my sunshine. This feels so good.  Wow.”

---

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world.

Follow @MattAgorist

Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/dying-agent-orange-exposure-va-denied-vietnam-vet-wheelchair/

@Mozilla @Firefox #support

I get annoyed by "tech people". You know the ones - 17 to 28 years old, think that everyone is an idiot compared to their own staggering IQ. When I notify them of a bug in their software they are kind enough to send me a link to their rudimentary help pages created for folks who don't understand it's a bug. I was writing code before most of their parents were out of puberty! And they offer me that crap. I don't even BOTHER to notify an organization of a bug unless it is indeed a BUG, or in some cases a useless feature that is bound to break the whole! FML. They are insufferable.

Government Admits Vaccines Can Be Harmful To Children!!!

So can polio, diphtheria, small pox, and a host of other preventable crippling and deadly diseases.

And, as for the Bush Administration (as the stated source of this revelation), they silenced government funded studies that proved that abstinence only treatment and prevention in health care and substance abuse was an abject failure and that education and harm reduction beat that approach exponentially and hands down in health outcomes. They did this censorship because the truth was contrary to their faith/belief. I know this because I was there. I was part of the team that did the studies. It was done in conjunction with several universities across the country with tens of hundreds of participants. So, it was a valid study. All abstinence only research sites closed before the end of the study due to relapse and dropping out of patient/participants.

So, yeah. Take this youtube sensation with a grain of salt.

https://youtu.be/l-4skYMhNsg

 

"Abstinence Only" was an abject failure

I worked in prevention and recovery under the Clinton Administration.

When Bush and Ashcroft took over Washington, one of the first things they did was to defund any and all "harm reduction" approaches because, in spite of government studies which showed an exponential difference in success rates between them, they simply didn't fit into their narrow world views.

That is the moment that I realized that the TRUE AND PRESENT DANGER to Americans was the enemy within.

I applaud President Obama's initiative to defund abstinence only and to shift that funding toward education. Too bad it took over 15 years of dismal failure for them to realize that the truth was staring them in the face in the guise of an extensive cost study program that I was a part of, and that they buried as an inconvenient truth.

And though I am glad to see the slumbering morons awake, I have little doubt that there will be an onslaught of criticism of this move and likely unrelenting efforts to reverse it by any means necessary.

The TRUTH is CONSERVATIVISM is the real ever present threat to human life within the boarders of the United States of America.

New Rule

... accurately. 

Personal Attacks

Know this:
I am not on social media to become a target for ridicule from stay-at-home do nothings who have little else to do than belittle others so they may feel marginally better about themselves.

I have served my country as a Marine, my state, and my community in health care over a span of 25 years. I have also built many public works projects and played in bands from the East Coast to the Far East.

I have also done hard time for protecting my family from an out of control crack head. And I am well liked by local authorities.

I have no time nor inclination to tolerate personal attacks from ass wipes in pajammas. I've been coding since before most of you were even born.

So, think long and hard before you attack me. I'll debate, but I won't tolerate abuse. And I can reach out if I so desire. Count yourself lucky if I choose to ignore you.

Another Loser, SBL

The #NationalChickenCouncil reports that enough chicken wings have been bought for #SBL to feed every man, woman, and child in the United States - yet thousands will go to sleep #hungry. Well played, #ChristianNation. #gluttony 

#SuperBowl L-for loser

Riot police cleared the arena center area of homeless people, forcing them to find another bench, box, or corner to sleep in so folks who spent $5000 a seat on tickets to see over grown, over paid men roll in the grass, slapping each other on the ass, over a little misshapen ball so as not have to consider the inherent injustice in it all and possibly consider their own gluttony and indifference toward their fellow man. Well played, #ChristianNation.