VA’s stunning conclusion; bad soldiers become homeless civilians
Reuters reports that Dr. Adi V. Gundlapalli of the Salt Lake City VA authored a report which revealed that bad soldiers make bad civilians and become homeless more often than good soldiers;
The researchers used data on 448,290 U.S. active-duty military service members who were separated from the military between 2001 and 2011, deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq, and who subsequently used Veterans Health Administration services.
Service members who separate from the military have Department of Defense codes attributing the separation to misconduct including drugs, alcoholism, offenses and infraction, disability, early release, disqualified, normal, or unknown.
Almost 25,000 of the people in the database had been separated for misconduct, less than six percent of the total group.
According to the report 26% of folks discharged for misconduct are homeless when they first show up at the VA. Of course, in my opinion, they get it all exactly backwards. The military gives bad conduct discharges to people who exhibit anti-social behavior, so yeah, they’re probably going to exhibit anti-social behavior when they hit the streets, too. It’s not the type of discharge that causes the behavior, it’s the type of person that gets those discharges.
The study goes on to blame PTSD and combat experiences for the anti-social behavior, but they don’t mention how many of the separated service members actually participated in a PTSD-producing event. Additionally, as we’ve seen several times, the VA has done a piss-poor job of separating pretend veterans from the actual veterans, so what safe guards did the good doctor use in this study? Some of our friends have jobs in the private sector for helping veterans and they’ve lost their jobs for scrutinizing these pretend veterans too closely.
I could have told Doctor Gundlapalli how his study would end before it started. Rather than focus on the 10% of his sampling who are still homeless after 10 years, he should be looking at how the other 90% are beating those odds.
Category: Veterans Issues
Finally, some common sense.
I know many a liberal social worker who is not going to like this.
Can’t the frigging VA get any American Doctors?
Is this news?
Didn’t you also hear the other stunning developments in the news? The sky is blue and water is wet.
Maybe we need to apply for a USG Research Grant to do a study to confirm that? While we’re at it, we can get another grant to concurrently study to prove that fire is hot and shit stinks! Maybe we could do each for say, a cool million and a half apiece, but I have a conscience.
THE SKY IS BLUE ! ! !
WHAAAT ! ! !
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So, if he’s such a smart guy, what’s his recommendation to fix the issue?
I know, we’ll put each of them up in a rich liberal’s house!
His first recommendation?
He’s going to ask for more money to study this issue. Then more money to develop solutions. Then more money to implement the solution.
Additional money to build facilities. then more money when there are cost over runs.
After that, he’ll be promoted and nothing will be solved.
VA SOP 101
I have another stunning report from a VA Mental Health Professional: Civilians who join the military with existing problems usually leave the military with the same problems because they did nothing to improve themselves or get the appropriate help. Bergdahl and Manning are representative of that. Unfortunately, the military keeps them around way too long rather than discharging them for unsuitability.
PTSD exists and there are those who do have problems relating to their military experience. However, people who join the military voluntarily come from the same cross section in the general population. Don’t lump pre-existing in with everyone else. The numbers don’t match up.
Bergdahl actually had been pitched once by the military as unsuitable – if I recall correctly, the Coast Guard threw him out after a very short time on active duty for exactly that reason.
Unfortunately, either someone at USAREC made a spectacularly bad call or he successfully hid his prior military service when he later enlisted in the Army.
Speaking of Bergdahl….
Birddog probably tap danced through the sleeping quarters at night, thats why the C.G. dumped his worthless ass!
To quote a great sage: “No sh!t.” A loser wearing a uniform is hardly likely to magically become a sterling citizen when he changes clothes. That’s true regardless of the uniform in question.
Clothes don’t “make the man”. They merely cover his nakedness.
I wonder how much was spent on that study, when he could have talked to any SNCO/CPO to get that info… could have saved the taxpayers a bunch of cash.
. . . and gotten the proper results (i.e., the horse before the cart).
While stating the obvious, it is not a bad study. The issue is, was the misconduct due to an undiagnosed mental health issue brought on by their service? Or was it due to the fact the soldier was a piece of shit regardless of when and where they served.
Though the outcome of the study is common sense regarding homelessness. They really need to look more at was the Vet discharged with an undiagnosed mental health issue that contributed to their misconduct. TBI would be one, as well as vaccines like the Malaria vaccine that has been shown to produce violent rages.
Good point
So Vets that were dirtballs in the Military typically become dirtballs in civilian life after their discharge, GOSH GOLLY GEE WHIZ, WALLY, who’d a’ thunk of that? I wholeheartedly agree with HMCS, but why should the Gub’mint do something that makes sense when they can give a few buckets of money to a brainiac like Gunapalli to say that and let him feel special about it?
I have been screaming this for years.
I could bring up the fact that sexual harassment in the military has not increased since the 1960s.
It’s just about the same level of stupidity and activity, and the military’s SHARP programs have all the effectiveness of scolding kids when you find them with their hands in the cookie jar. And that’s based on what YOU all say here.
There you go: my brief survey and study cost the taxpayers nothing and produced valid results.
Right there’s the issue, you didn’t hit the Government up for a dump truck full of money to say that, thus they’ll ignore it.
You are missing out on the gravy train. Beat your face.
You needed a study WTF…
In other news the VA has reported that after a 5 million dollar study they’ve discovered that drug and alcohol addicts often lie to family members…..
I think their are a number of issues that can cause a veteran to be homeless. I come across some of these homeless vets from time to time as a VA Volunteer. They are not all anti-social.
Something interesting that some of our hospitalized veterans say to me when I mention that I am a computer consultant with two degrees, “how did you make it as a veteran?” I tell them it was long-term planning and that I never gave up even when I hit a few roadblocks. (see website)
I was under the impression the bad vets were immediately hired by the VA to blue falcon the good vets.
HEY, there’s another issue to be “studied”!
between this comment and stacy0311’s (see above) it seems the Marine Infantryman has the VA’s SOPs down to a tee!
I don’t know what to say to that, ‘keep up the good work’, maybe?
And be interviewed by breathless, gullible television and newspaper reporters who publicize their phony heroic exploits as highly decorated, multiply-wounded members of secret special operations units to include stints as POW’s.
In other words, perfect, Democrat war heroes.
All the while physically disabled and mentally unstable Veterans get screwed over on their claims, McDonald and his boys are throwing tons of money at the Veteran homeless problem.
Only problem, a lot of that money is going to dirtbags but no one wants to mention it for fear of losing their job or being “un-PC”.
Furthermore, in reading some of the grants, 25% of the allotment from the VA can go to the non-Veteran homeless population.
That is how they are doing it, in aggregate. That is what the social workers that love all of our Veterans will not tell you. So in essence, a shitbag with a DD can get VA money to stay at a shelter. it is just classified under a different use.
Thank you, Dr. Obvious.
I don’t know where Reuters dug up that guy Taylor but he’s the source of the gobbly gook, not Gundlapalli. As far as I can tell, he wasn’t involved in the study at all. Here’s a link to the abstract. I really don’t see a problem with it. Of course, my eyes rolled up in my head but that’s what happens to me when I look at numbers. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0132664
Really? This data really doesn’t tell me squat. Some veterans don’t bother listing their service on their resume, because for some reason they experienced some kind of thing that would cause some kind of prejudice on the part of potential employers or landlords.
And I am speculating, but in certain cases, I would expect this may be true. However, if I am mistaken, please let me know. I would prefer to learn from any mistakes please.
WTF is all this about anyway? No offense to people from India, but never in RVN do I remember anyone from India serving in any branch. This guy trying to get another gub grant to keep him with the VA as a much-needed source???
Blaming PTSD and combat for anti-social behavior, who gives an American rat’s ass? If veterans with PTSD prefer to stay out of the public’s eye and occasional chaos, how is that a problem to society?
Hey Doc, do a study on something meaningful and of interest to the public. Such as: The value to society of former long-time politicians! Better yet: How do people such as Lois Lerner and Shillery Clinton add to society’s meaningful values?
I’m stunned and speechless. Except for BULLSHIT.
At least I see now how the number of “homeless” Veterans are obtained: it’s glorified guesswork using info compiled by multiple gov’t agencies and includes those who have a roof over their head but whose continued stay under that roof is in jeopardy, for one reason or another, including that the wife through their shit out on the lawn last week when she found hubby accessed the Ashley Madison website. In other words, homeless doesn’t mean homeless so, for the most part, you can toss the image conjured when you hear or see the word homeless.
Subject-verb agreement: -10
Spelling: -5
Grade: C
Reminds me of a conversation I had with an ultr-lieral Austinite back during the height of the Iraq war when the “evil” GWB was still in office. She said that 60% of Austin’s homeless population were Iraq vets, so I asked her who had checked all of their DD214s. She asked “What is a DD214?”. I was not surprised, so I asked her quite simply how she verified the 60% number, and she told me that the homeless shelter passed out a written survey and 60% checked the block “Yes” when asked if they were an Iraq Veteran.