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Saving West LA Veterans Grounds: Fight Continues |
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West LA
By Keith Jeffreys
Last week, Citizens for Veterans’ Rights (CFVR) received word from Congressman Henry Waxman’s office that the Real Property Exchange Program Manager ACSIM-Army Reserve Division announced “that phase 2 of the West LA Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will begin in the next few weeks
 … for the sale or transfer of the 10 Acre Army Reserve property.” The
notification concluded, “the public meeting dates have yet to be
scheduled, but are anticipated in the beginning of 2009.”
This means CFVR will again engage the federal government over a property issue we believe should have been settled long ago had VA and the Department of Defense fulfilled their moral obligation to veterans.
The land was part of the original 1888 grant to the federal government and while an argument could be made that it was needed during the Cold War, the usefulness of the property by the Army is obviously no longer necessary. It must be returned to the Veterans Administration to be administered as part of the West Los Angeles Medical Center.
As we prepare for next fight with the U.S. Army Reserve, it is useful to provide perspective on the overall fight with federal government and VA over services for veterans and how it relates to all veterans.
Last week the Los Angeles Times ran an article about a new Rand study that revealed 20% of the veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or suffered from depression.
As I write, we are following the news about the lawsuit brought against The Department of Veterans Affairs by Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth. Documents from the court proceedings show that Veterans Affairs officials know that nationwide, up to 18 veterans a day commit suicide while in VA care.
Covering the lawsuit, Jason Leopold, in an article from the Consortium News writes:
Senior officials at the Veterans Administration debated internally how to downplay evidence of a stunning number of suicides and suicide attempts among veterans who were treated or had sought help at VA hospitals around the country, according to newly disclosed internal VA e-mails.
On Feb. 13, 2008, Ira Katz, the VA’s mental health director, and Ev Chasen, the agency’s chief communications director, exchanged e-mails discussing P.R. strategy for handling this troubling news, according to evidence made public Monday in a federal court case in Northern California.
The exchange came in the context of how to handle inquiries from CBS News, which was reporting on the surge of suicides among U.S. veterans – reaching an average of 18 per day – with part of that rise attributed to soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In an e-mail headlined “Not for the CBS News Interview Request,” Katz notified Chasen that the VA had identified some 1,000 suicide attempts per month among war veterans treated by the VA.”
At Citizens for Veterans Rights (CFVR) we’ve been pointing out the problems regarding patient care for years. We have worked diligently to bring to light problems we have had with VA officials using deceptive figures and information to cover their tracks on a host of issues affecting veterans. To ensure that the general public and the media understood what has been happening, we have cited specific incidents at the WLA VA Medical Center as an indicator in Southern California of problems experienced by veterans nationally with VA.
Last year, we demonstrated in front of VA to call attention to the poor health care veterans were receiving last year after stories ran in the national media about the death of Justin Baily, a 27-year-old Iraq War Veteran with PTSD who died of a drug overdose of prescription drugs while at WLA VA. At the same time, we knew from a variety of sources at the hospital and clinics that in an eight-month period ending about the time of Bailey’s death, at least six other veterans at the WLA VAMC had either committed suicide or died of drug overdoses. One veteran killed himself with a handgun in front of the main hospital, another died by hanging himself on a fence on the North portion of the VA property.
The deaths of those veterans make it clear that the men and women returning from war zones with psychological injuries need a place dedicated solely to their recovery. This is why we at CFVR are working diligently with our local and national elected officials to protect the West LA VA property from commercial development. We believe that veterans need a place where they can heal and recover from their injuries, rehabilitate in peace and receive the kind of dedicated mental health care they need to attempt a transition back to civilian life.
We have not worked to protect the property so it can be turned into a public park as the Veterans Park Conservancy (VPC) believes it has the right to do.
We have not preserved the property to maintain the property values of the surrounding neighborhoods or to maintain a pleasant view for the community.
We worked to pass the legislation so the WLA VA property would be dedicated to services for veterans only and we believe that was the intent of protecting the property with the Federal Legislation passed by Congress within the omnibus 2008 budget bill signed by President Bush in December 2007.
Stopping the proposed development of a public park by the Veterans Park Conservancy is a moral issue. It is past time for our elected officials to do what is promised of veterans. It is time to act with the integrity we expect of them as they expected of us when we served in uniform.
We in the veterans’ community want veterans taken care of as promised when they agreed to serve their country and agreed to sacrifice their blood, sweat and tears for the values this country holds dear — namely truth and justice.
It is not only outrageous, it is a national disgrace that during a time of war, organizations like the Veterans Park Conservancy both compound and foster the problem in their own backyard by advocating the property be used for something other than its original purpose — helping veterans.
Furthermore, it is hypocritical for those local community leaders who like to proudly say they worked to protect to property from commercialization and to maintain it for veteran use, to now go along with the proposition that a portion of the property should be turned into a park for public use.
That means the land at the West LA VA must be dedicated to veterans services only as intended when the land was donated to the federal government in the 1880’s, with the proviso it be solely dedicated to veterans services. That is a covenant that must never again be forgotten or broken.
(Keith Jeffreys is President of the Citizens for Veteran’s Rights. More info at: www.cfvr.org. Story first published on Dick Price and Sharon Kyle’s LA Progressive.) _
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 36
Pub: May 2, 2008
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