VA Resurrects Veteran, Strips Him Of Benefits

by JASmius



....except when (1) they haven't succeeded in killing him or her, and (2) they think he or she is pushing up daisies anyway.  Which means that they can't even keep track of their own negligent incompetence:

Imagine opening the mail to find a letter from Veterans Affairs with the first sentence sending sympathies for your death.

That's exactly what happened to one veteran in the Wilmington area who says his life has been turned upside down because of it.

Just last week, Robert Pressley's family received letters from both the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense claiming he was dead, plus two checks to help fund his burial.

"To prove that I am alive is just insane and it scares me to death,” Pressley said. “That at a touch of a button or because of someone's clerical error my whole life can be taken away from me and it is."

We reached out to each agency involved. So far, there is no clear explanation to what happened, but a mistake somewhere has now canceled Pressley's disability payment, VA healthcare and other medical insurance.

"I mean what do I do?” Pressley questioned. “I am not getting any answers, I am not getting any help, I am scared."

No kidding.  My guess is that mere bureaucratic neglect wasn't getting the job of putting Mr. Pressley in the ground done, so the VA just decided to "officially" off him in order to get him off their books,  Kind of like how your benefits shrink if you go "outside the network".  Or in this case, disappear altogether.

And no, Mr. Pressley isn't the only veteran to suffer a Mark Twain "death":

This disabled veteran is not alone. Being mistakenly declared dead by the VA has happened to others.

“Gentleman have to wait one, two, three years to get their benefits back," he said. "I don't have that time span.”

So the VA wasn't wrong in its declaration of Mr. Pressley's death; just premature.

Exit question: Will the publicity now generated about this outrageous fiasco speed up the process of restoring Mr. Pressley's benefits, which he can't live with out?  Or will they stall and wait until it all blows over and he kicks the bucket?  And does it not speak to Obamunist brutality that those are legitimate questions?