By Lee Webber
As a veteran it is easy to understand how you can become disillusioned with how our government deals with veteran issues.
On an average I am told that 22 veterans commit suicide each day across our nation and that is a very sad commentary on how veterans are treated.
It is also easy to see how politicians attempt to use veterans and their families to gain votes to either remain in office or get re-elected to public office.
One of the more interesting things to me is how, in general, politicians only turn up to veteran events right around elections or on Veterans Day – this, in my opinion, to help them garner the veteran vote.
However, during the balance of the year they essentially turn a blind eye to veteran needs.
This holds true for the vast majority of politicians both in the U.S. mainland as well as here on Guam.
As a member and past president of the U.S. Navy League, Guam Chapter and a disabled veteran, I attend veteran’s commission meetings each month.
This is a government of Guam commission and quite honestly, I can only recall seeing local elected officials attend when there was a visiting VA representative on Island (who was also attending as well) or on the off chance it was an election year. Or, if they needed support for something.
Politicians, unless they were veterans (and even then, sometimes this is not true) generally have very little serious interest in veteran issues, needs and affairs (other than getting our votes).
Over the years, this communication disconnection has also held true with the Veterans Administration in Washington and by connection with Hawaii as they are the VA adjudication center for Guam.
Doctors have regularly rotated through our Guam VA center (the CEBOC), where telephones either do not answer or they refer you to a number in Hawaii that – many times – in turn ends in a recording or asks you to leave a message.
Also, the Guam CEBOC is far too small to handle the number of veterans who live or pass through our island and region.
Take for instances the reality that disabled veterans on Guam and in Micronesia have to file claims for assistance and compensation that are adjudicated (decided upon) through the Hawaii office.
This while at the same time disabled veterans in the Philippines can get their claims adjudicated there at home.
My understanding is that the reason behind the Philippines having an adjudication center was originally planned for the Philippine Scouts who fought side-by-side with Americans during WWII.
However, there are veterans on Guam who went to the P.I. set up residency, made their claims there and were granted 100% disability and then returned to Guam.
In my own experience, doctors have told me that Hawaii VA officials concentrate on Hawaii and Guam is little more than an unwanted stepchild.
Thereby making Guam and Micronesian veterans’ ability to gain proper, fair and prompt adjudication far more difficult than their Philippine or mainland counter-parts.
My recommendation would be to move the Philippine adjudication center to Guam, establish a Guam, CNMI and Micronesian VA District to handle our veterans.
An area that covers a 2.5-million square miles (the size of the U.S. mainland) of this Great Blue Nation in the Pacific.
This could be accomplished with the establishment of proper fund diversion to maintain adequate funding, care and communications for the estimated tens of thousands of veterans in this region.
This would also put better use to the money currently spent on travel between Guam and Hawaii (literally millions of dollars annually). Additionally, establish an agreement with a private hospital organization such as GRMC (who happens to have interest in such an arrangement) to treat our veterans.
Possibly following a similar leasing pattern to the one done with the establishment of the Guam Federal Court building.
Additionally, keep the government of Guam and Guam politicians out of the veteran’s hospital business.
They have proven for more than 50 years that they are incapable of properly, efficiently and effectively operating our local hospital let alone an organization as complicated as the one proposed here.
Such a public private partnership would not only afford disabled and other regional veterans better care but could also provide specialty care for active-duty members on Guam as well as members of the civilian community.
With the addition of Marine Corps Base Guam and the reality that U.S. Naval Hospital Guam or Andersen Air Force Base Clinic cannot afford to maintain the variety of specialist needed, this type of joint facility would be of benefit to everyone on Guam.
It is election time; ask candidates you are thinking about voting to give you their opinion of such an idea to improve medicine for everyone on Guam.
Guam is the perfect location to establish such a public/private partnership that could provide a broader based medical care for our veterans while at the same time assist with providing improved specialty care for the entire island and even the region as a whole.
Esta.
Lee P. Webber is a businessman and civic advocate, the former publisher of the Pacific Daily News, a former president and publisher of the Honolulu Advertiser, and a former director of operations for USA Today International/Asia
