Houston Chronicle
February 3, 2007
By Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A portable hard drive that may contain the personal information of up to 48,000 veterans may have been stolen, the Department of Veterans Affairs and a lawmaker said Friday.
An employee at the VA medical center in Birmingham, Ala. reported the external hard drive missing on Jan. 22. The drive was used to back up information on the employee's office computer. It may have contained data from research projects, the department said.
The employee also said the hard drive may have had personal information on some veterans, although portions of the data were protected. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson said that the VA and the FBI are investigating.
Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., said that the personal information of up to 48,000 veterans was on the hard drive and the records of up to 20,000 of them were not encrypted.
Pending results of the investigation, VA is planning to send individual notifications and to provide a year of free credit monitoring to anyone whose information is compromised.

My tax dollars at work... kudos to the VA.

Again???

Originally Posted by The Cooler King

Again???

Yeah, like they don't have enough problems serving us vets.

If the VA was given adaquate funding and facilities these problems wouldn't keep happening, as it is the understaffed, underfunded VA is being constantly strained to fulfill its obligations to the veterans of this country.

And also if the people who staff the VA, particularly the VA hospital I am familiar with in Indianapolis, took more care in serving those veterans rather than treating them as another number or some pain in the ass that they wish would just die so they could enjoy longer coffee breaks it would go a long damn way.

I accompanied a close friend and mentor of mine who served three tours in Vietnam with the US Army SF. Retired MSG, awared a silver star with V and two bronze stars with V among numerous other accolades, instructor for the SERE course, etc etc who was treated with open contempt and verbal disrespect from two nurses, a receptionist and a doctor who acted as though having to see this man, who had shrapnel still working itself out of his torso and legs some 20 odd years after the events, was an extreme burden akin to having a root canal sans anesthesia.

I was boiling but he told me to not saying anything because it would make things worse on his subsequent visits. He told me to store it in my memory and remember how those who are employed specifically to serve those who risked everything for their country treated our veterans.

It makes me shake with anger even now.

During another visit one man, an in-patient veteran, died in the hallway in his bed while waiting to be seen by the specialist. They wheeled him down from his room and left him there. No one would have even noticed if we hadn't been there. And this was as recent as 1992. By all accounts I am told things have not improved in the years since.

Unbelievable. Vets deserve better

I accompanied a close friend and mentor of mine who served three tours in Vietnam with the US Army SF. Retired MSG, awared a silver star with V and two bronze stars with V among numerous other accolades, instructor for the SERE course, etc etc who was treated with open contempt and verbal disrespect from two nurses, a receptionist and a doctor who acted as though having to see this man, who had shrapnel still working itself out of his torso and legs some 20 odd years after the events, was an extreme burden akin to having a root canal sans anesthesia.

I was boiling but he told me to not saying anything because it would make things worse on his subsequent visits. He told me to store it in my memory and remember how those who are employed specifically to serve those who risked everything for their country treated our veterans.

It makes me shake with anger even now.

Why can't the Va Administration weed out these animals?

Originally Posted by tomtom22

Why can't the Va Administration weed out these animals?

Because people do not report such things, end of story, Colonel.

With M*A*S*H as my main source of information on this, does the US Army still have "section 8's" and do they still get panned off to work for the VA Dept?