For far too long veterans and their families have had to endure much more than most of your so called “average” citizens. These families are the people who go to War for this country. They suffer the most from separation, fear, anxiety, loneliness, death, life threatening injuries, and enormous responsibilities during and after the fact: the responsibilities of caring for families who have been left behind to worry, and the responsibility to care for veterans who return with clearly visible, dramatic changes in their mental and physical health.

Citizens who have not experienced being in the family of a military person have no idea what veterans and their families must go through, dealing with all of the “red tape” produced by the government agencies. Ideally those agencies should be making it a priority to take care of the families of soldiers while they serve their country and when they come home. But this doesn't happen. The system has become insensitive and corrupt. The system that was put in place to care for veterans and their families has stolen, delayed, caused massive backlogs, and displayed their personal attitudes when dealing with our veterans and their families.

I am talking about The Department of Veterans Affairs, in particular the Atlanta Department of Veterans Affairs, which has abused veterans in many ways, for many years. Ten million dollars was stolen from Georgia veterans between 1990 and 2001 by the Atlanta Regional office adjudication staff, who brought dead veterans back to life by submitting and approving false claims in their names, and giving each claim a retroactive date of many years. This shameless act of fraud resulted in the Treasury Department issuing checks for two and three hundred thousand dollars to fictitious individuals. The three adjudicators that were directly involved went to prison for just five years, but those staff members who worked for them still work for the Atlanta Regional office as adjudicators! During the ten years the money was being embezzled from our compensation and disability funds, they created a backlog of one million real claims! The Georgia Veterans Group went to Washington during this time and visited with high ranking VA officials and several members of Congress. As a result, Washington sent the Atlanta Regional office help to reduce the backlog, and they were successful in reducing the backlog to about 250,000 claims in the past few years.

There is also a bonus system adjudicators use which delays claims, but then allows the adjudicator who does finally approve the claim to receive bonus points for finalizing a claim that had previously been denied several times for trivial reasons, or for “lack of documentation” that the vet did not know he needed before hand. So months, or in some cases years pass before these claims are approved, if they are approved at all!

The hospital, the Atlanta VA Medical Center, provides no viable PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ) in house programs, and keeps the different eras of veterans separated at all times. Vietnam veterans who have experienced the horrors of war don't have PTSD groups with Desert Storm, or Enduring Freedom, or Iraq or Afghanistan veterans. Why? What is the VA afraid of ?? That too much knowledge would be passed between the older vets to the newer veterans on how the system works? Outside veterans organizations also stay separated. There is no veterans organization in America (except the Georgia Veterans Group, Inc.,)that deals with and helps veterans from all eras. We have helped and educated veterans from W.W. II, Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as veterans who were not in combat zones, but wore the same uniforms as those who were. They served in other areas around the world, working, serving, protecting and even dying, yet the VA keeps these veterans separated and ignorant. It's cost effective for the VA. It is their policy to make it as hard as possible for veterans, or members of their families, to get ANY government benefits that they have already earned by serving their country!

The Georgia Veterans Group, Inc. (GVG, inc.) is an organization dedicated to the Service Men and Woman of the Armed Forces of the United States, protecting their rights, as they protect and preserve the freedom of America. Our veterans are disrespected, abused and forgotten by the institutions of the same freedom loving nation. Warriors of great past generations were treated with much respect, admiration and loyalty, and were given riches as their rewards for battle. All we are looking for from our nation is respect and fairness… If you are a civilian and consider yourself a patriot of America, then you should be appalled by the way veterans are treated by the system that was supposed to take care of them!! Ask your Congressman why Congress is ignoring the problems with the VA system, allowing veterans and their families to suffer????..........