Veterans aide quitting, charging VA is broken
Veterans assistant Dick Stumbaugh finishes a phone call with one of his clients while working in his cubicle at the County Commissioners’ office. -- Chris Tucker/Peninsula Daily News
By Jim Casey, Peninsula Daily News
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"They either are incompetent to do their job or don't want to do their job," it said.
The e-mail's author, Dick Stumbaugh, was the Clallam County's veterans assistant, tasked with helping vets access the Veterans Relief Fund and other benefits programs.
He'll leave the job April 30, nearly staggering from his load of frustration.
Disabled veterans Stumbaugh has helped are almost reverential speaking of his willingness to help them penetrate the VA's maze of regulations and stacks of paperwork.
Lean, lanky and soft-spoken, he doesn't anger easily.
The VA, though, manages to madden him with regularity.
Sad stories to last lifetime
Asked for horror stories — claims lost in file cabinets (including one of his own), long delays in authorizing treatment, vets who lost their jobs while they waited for VA action — he said Thursday:
"I've got enough to last a lifetime, and that's why I'm getting out of this."
Asked if the system that cares for vets is broken, he said:
"Without a doubt. The system runs at the whim of the administration" that has no constitutional mandate to care for former soldiers, sailors and Marines.
Asked how it could be fixed, he said:
"It's a felony to say what ought to be done with [VA bureaucrats], and I'm not alone in this."
Stumbaugh and his boss, Veterans Coordinator, Tammy Davidson, thought they could replace Stumbaugh's 16 hours a week with a program that easily might have doubled those hours by transferring the job to Serenity House.
Vets turn down more hours
But at a Wednesday meeting of the county Veterans Association, vets overwhelmingly rejected the plan because it would share a few hours with a program to help released offenders find shelter.
"The reality of what happened at the meeting was that we lost a full-time position for veterans," Stumbaugh said.
"It's an incredible loss to the community not to have that position coordinated. I was very disappointed."
Instead, vets at the meeting voted to fill Stumbaugh's 16-hour position.
His replacement, he said, will continue to serve veterans — with some help.
"I'm not worried about the job not being done," he said, although the new veterans assistant no longer will work at the Clallam County Courthouse.
"The service officers [of veterans groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion] will continue to serve the vets."
Served in Air Force, Army
Still, they'll have to meet a mounting need with shrinking federal resources.
"It used to be the case when any vet could walk into a VA hospital and get care," Stumbaugh said.
"That isn't the case anymore."
Instead, a disabled vet confronts a system that places highest priority on people with service-incurred wounds and injuries, next on vets with low or no incomes, and last on persons who aren't impoverished.
The gaps in the safety net through which veterans can fall are many and large, he said.
Stumbaugh served four years in the Air Force beginning in 1964, training pilots on a flight simulator at a base in Arizona, then entering the Army Reserve.
He worked a variety of jobs, winding up at Olympic National Park as an industrial electrician.
Vets broke, dying
He was recalled to duty in 2002 to resupply a dry-docked logistics support vessel, a 273-foot-long landing ship, sailing it to Virginia, then serving aboard its sister ship in Kuwait.
By this time, Stumbaugh had sustained a hole in his retina, a damaged shoulder and a dislocated hip he walked on for months, thanks to heavy doses of ibuprofen.
He'll have the hip replaced in May.
Mike McEvoy, a specialist in helping vets find jobs, tipped him to the veterans assistant position.
"It's been fun," he said. "It's been a real challenge."
But his sunny remembrance lasted only until he recalled March 6, the day he announced his resignation.
It came after he tried to help a sergeant who hadn't been rehired on his return from Iraq, had run out of unemployment benefits and still was awaiting a decision on his disability claim.
'I have run out of tears'
That same day, a Vietnam vet stopped by to tell Stumbaugh his VA claim had languished, even though a private physician had diagnosed him as having chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
"Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense is broken and taking veterans down with it," he said in a message he sent that day to Sen. Murray, D-Freeland, and state Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam — both of whom represent the North Olympic Peninsula — and Clallam County Commissioner Mike Doherty, D-Port Angeles.
"The inability of the Department of Defense to handle wounded soldiers has cost the state unemployment program thousands [of dollars], the VFW of Sequim hundreds, and will burden the Veterans Relief Fund. . . .
"The upshot is that I can't take it anymore and have turned in my resignation effective April 30.
"This job requires eyes of steel," he concluded.
"I have run out of tears."
________
Reporter Jim Casey can be reached at 360-417-3538 or at jim.casey@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: April 13. 2008 9:00PM