Zombie petty officer fights for his life
From the Fayetteville Observer, comes the story of Jeremy Walsh, who retired in 2014 from his career in the Navy. Apparently, the Veterans Affairs Department, with no evidence, has declared him dead;
Walsh, 45, was declared deceased by Department of Veterans Affairs on March 25. The mistake snowballed when it was reported to the federal Social Security Administration, which stopped his pay and froze his bank account for weeks.
“It’s been a trying time,” Walsh said. “It’s been frustrating.”
[…]
Walsh and his wife had just arrived to their North Carolina home from an out-of-state funeral. He retrieved the mail – and was perplexed by a letter addressed to his “estate.”
The letter, from the office of Defense Finance and Accounting Service under the Department of Defense, expressed sympathy to Shay Walsh for the death of her husband. She was standing next to him as he read the letter.
“Are you not telling me something,” she said she remembered asking him in a joking manner.
The VA had triggered Walsh’s death by computer and the other agencies followed suit. Even his bank account was frozen. The bank was smarter than the government, though. When confronted with the sailor’s personage, they freed his accounts. But, according to the article, the government is harder to convince of the living, breathing body in front of them. The 45-year-old was declared dead in late march and he’s still trying to breathe life into the VA and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
….Hmm. Second one in thirty days. Wonder if we’re going to see a lot more.
Mike
Typical government bullshyt! incompetent freaking clowns led by an even more incompetent freaking administration!!
The VA is more likely to provide adequate services to a dead person or Zombie rather than an un-dead Veteran.
PS: Jonn your writing in the above article cracked me up. I needed a good laugh today!
Step one: Visit your Senator’s or Congressman’s local office and get them to acknowledge you are indeed living.
Step two: Hand them the telephone and insist they have their D.C. staff member for veterans stuff call the VA and give them one day to correct their f-up.
Step three: Go to the local media if your friendly Senate or Congressional staffer refuses to help.
They ask for our votes and most usually don’t need any service in return. In Arkansas it would take about two hours to have something like this fixed. I know, I helped the son of an elderly veteran with a VA problem and just the mention of then Congressman, now Senator Cotton’s staff member’s name resulted in immediate resolution. I am not exaggerating, immediate. If your elected officials do not have responsive staffs, fire the elected official.
Excellent advice-make the congresscritters do their job. Constituent service is something that they are supposed to do, and they have staffed tasked particularly for that purpose. The bureaucracy is always inefficient and can be indifferent, but your elected representative is supposed to represent your interests-use them to leverage the system.
Bad enough that veterans are dying waiting on appointments.
Now the VA is killing them off?
It’s the VA way of telling everyone, stop messing with us, are you will be declared DEAD too. Then have fun getting everything straighten out. Since no one is held responsible at the VA.. Here’s the line. “We sorry to this veteran, it was a computer glitch”. We fixed it until the next time.
And that’s exactly what happens when unionized government employees use computers as a crutch instead of a tool.
The only fate worse than the VA prematurely declaring you dead is the VA knowing that you’re still alive and needing an appointment.
Oy vey, this was almost too much for my old worn out heart…
SNAP …
You start to chuckle and then think “hey…he’s right”.
Go to the nearest VA office or hospital. Find the nearest bureaucrat or administrator. SMACK them a good one across the face. If you’re “dead”, they can’t do anything to you, can they? I’m willing to bet they will quickly bring you back to “life”.
A number of VA Employees have gotten to the point that they’re in dire need of at least four beatings a day to straighten them out.
Even joking like that in the VA is a good way to get a restraining order slapped on you and your guns taken away. Seen it happen. It’s like joking about a bomb on an airplane. They don’t play.
Interesting that VA can communicate with a DoD entity over a matter like this, but medicals records from DoD can’t be transmitted to VA for Veterans’ care.
Noticed that too, did you?
Stupid is as stupid does.
Zombie, huh? Does he like hot sauce with his brains? – oh, bad joke, but that TV show fascinates me, and I don’t have a TV.
A – Get your congress critters in on it, ALL of them. I agree, go to the media if the CCs drag their heels on it.
B – Doesn’t the FBI keep those fingerprint records any more? I’m sure they still have mine from every ID card that was ever issued to me. I’ve been told (don’t know if it’s true or not) that you can’t fake fingerprints, but that could just be an urban legend.
C – Don’t take NO for an answer. And find out who pushed the ‘DEAD’ button and get his ass fired.
Good luck with step Charley. That “ass fired” part AIN’T gonna happen.
Unfortunately.
Well, their Ass might get fired, but in many cases their Ass is the only useful part of them. The rest of them would still be sitting there tagging people as dead.
Last weeks episode was particularly good, but of course Dr. Liv Moore (I love that name) is alive as far as the law is concerned-so she doesn’t have to deal with this sort of hassle.
Then again, she wasn’t a veteran so she didn’t have to deal with the VA.
There have been a couple of news stories (one on 60 minutes that I remember specifically) about people who have either been declared dead and had problems with the government that way or who have milked the system by hiding the death of a loved one (like for Social Security benefits). With the advances in technology it ought to be easy to determine one’s identity and proof of life, but this seems to be beyond our government.
The VA…always there to help.
“But, according to the article, the government is harder to convince of the living, breathing body in front of them.”
Unless of course, it is a phoney body, full of bull shit stories, from a bull shit DD-214. Then he’s a GO at that station for all the benefits they can hand him.
It makes you wonder if someone was using his Social Security number to get government benefits and died. Identity thieves are going whole hog these days. Not only do they steal money, they even use a stolen ID to work and avoid jail. A woman was caught out here recently with about 35 complete identities including drivers licenses and credit cards.
This is why I have taken to telling the unhelpful person on the other end of the phone, “If you can’t help me because of what the computer is telling you, then please connect me to the computer in charge.”
The sad thing is that the sarcasm is only rarely recognized.
Good Luck!
I hope its easier than having to jump thru all the hoops when you ID is stolen.
Well the VA Secretary did say they were going to clear the backlog of cases.
I guess this is their new procedure: declare all veterans dead. Sure frees up appointment spots
Isn’t it amazing how quickly and efficiently the gummint works when you owe them money, or when they don’t have to give you money anymore?
If they were even 25% as efficient paying you and making sure you have your money, people might actually trust the gummint. Caveat to that is those getting “free” money of course.
In this day in age of computer systems, this should be an easy couple of clicks and problem solved. However, I bet this poor guy will be fighting the bureaucracy for a long time.
In similar news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco IS still dead…
And Abe Vigoda is still alive!
Long live Lt Fish!
The problem with being declared alive after some stoopid ass declares you dead is that you have to deal with a bunch of lazy-assed humans who not only do not want to work or solve the problem, they also don’t want to be bothered with the living.
And I get it now: the VA/gov’t job thingy is the ultimate welfare system: you don’t have to actually work. You just have to show up and sit on your fat, slovenly ass for a few hours and you get a check.
Sorry it took me so long to figure that out.
You see, I was confused by the fact that when my mother died, the bank called me and asked for a copy of her death certificate so that they could close her accounts.
Add to your second paragraph that most of them are angry because they actually must show up occasionally to collect that check instead of sitting in front of their flat screen in their jammies.
Speaking of sheer stoopid, I took a look at my new VA ID card and realized that it has an expiration date: 2024.
If that means they cut me off in 2024, they’ll have to explain that to me in person.
My response to being declared dead by the Social Security people would be to get the IRS to pound on them. I pay my own taxes now, so if the revenooers want any money from me, they have to make sure that I get mine, too. 🙂
I would also hold a loud, noisy, abrasive press conference and give the VA a lot more really, really bad PR… but that’s just me.
If they really want to stand behind the “you’re dead” thing, they should literally put their money where their mouth is and pay him his VGLI.