Blatant racism is alive and well in the VA system, and I’ve lived long enough inside of it to say this without hesitation. Throughout my rocky career I watched soldiers who didn’t look like me get rewarded with promotions, be forgiven for failures, and slide into retirement with disability pay for “injuries” picked up behind a desk – while those of us who stood in real combat zones were treated as disposable. The data supports what I and many others experience: Black veterans’ claims are denied at higher rates than white veterans. [U.S. Government Accountability Office – Jul 26, 2023 VA Disability Benefits: Actions Needed to Further Examine…]

There are civilians behind the curtains – people who never wore the uniform but who sit on panels, run contracted medical exams, and pull the strings that decide whether a veteran’s life is validated or buried. Today almost all Compensation & Pension (C&P) exams that determine disability awards are done by contractors, not by the men and women who served alongside us – and numerous reports and complaints show this outsourcing can lower exam quality and disadvantage veterans. When civilians who never been to war, never faced combat, nor lived as a Black soldier assess our trauma, the outcome is predictable: too many of our injuries and PTSD claims are either missed or minimized. [warren.senate.gov – Apr 24, 2024 Warren Calls Out Ineffectiveness of VA’s Privatized…]

I have the proof – stacks of records and contradictions showing suppression, missing service entries, altered timelines. For too many Black soldiers, the medical system diagnoses us differently. Research shows examiner differences produced more denials for Black veterans with PTSD and more awards for white veterans who didn’t meet full criteria – a disparity that gets worse when evaluations are informal and lacking standardized psychometric testing. That isn’t just an anecdote: it’s science pointing at bias inside the diagnostic process. [ VA ptsd.va.gov – Racial and Ethnic Disparities in PTSD]

The result is predictable and cruel. soldiers are routinely assessed by civilians who don’t understand the extremity of our experiences. My biggest fear in combat wasn’t the formal enemy – it was some of the white soldiers next to me who carried hidden agendas. To be surrounded and alone at the same time was its own battlefield. Then, when you’re no longer “useful” for deployments, the isolation repeats: grounds for dismissal, stalled careers, benefits denied. This pattern of denial is not new – the denial of benefits that began the moment the country needed Black soldiers in the first war, still casts a long shadow over how Black veterans are treated today. Courts and clinics are only recently pushing that history into the light. [ Yale Law School – Apr 1, 2024 First-of-Its-Kind Challenge to Racial Discrimination in…]

I served in a war that too many say was immoral as well as unethical. I watched many cowards hide behind their rank inside the wire while giving directives to send lower ranking soldiers into the danger. I watched officers in comfortable positions receive tax-free bonuses and inflated pay while frontline soldiers suffered – and then, when many of us came home broken, the same administrative machine that rewarded them tried to erase our service. I was retaliated against calling out abuses of rank and denied promotion. I was punished for being soldier enough to say, “This is wrong.” Then between the military and the VA, I had to prove I was ever in the war because somehow my medical records were misplaced, including damaging my reputation, labeling me a troublemaker. Only after relentless pressure and help from a few who actually cared did they admit my injuries and PTSD were real – and then still refuse to make me whole by denying the backpay from my stolen benefits I’m owed. Make it make sense. (This is not an isolated story; it mirrors the experiences reported by veterans across the country.) [The American Prospect – Nov 11, 2024 The Contracting Gold Mine That Hurts Veterans]

We are clearly reminded that we swore an oath to protect this country. I gave my body and mind for that vow. Yet the nation I served refuses to keep its side of the bargain. It has no problem sending billions overseas to support wars and foreign agendas, yet it balks at fully compensating the soldiers who paid the price. If we speak publicly about specific missions we will be charged with treason – silenced for telling the truth about what happened to you – while some participants in the January 6 insurrection received public sympathy, legal maneuvering, and or leniency. I’m not an expert on every courtroom outcome, but the contrast in who gets justice and who gets punishment stings like salt in a fresh wound. This hypocrisy is part of the betrayal. [ABC News – Mar 1, 2024 Some Jan. 6 rioters received improper sentences...]

This is a call to attention: the people who decide our fates – the civilians on boards, the private contractors doing C&P exams, the administrators who can edit a file and change a life – must be held accountable. Transparency is not charity; it’s democracy. The VA must be forced to standardize objective testing, to stop letting informal subjective exams decide futures, and to address the long, documented racial disparities in claims decisions. The agency and the nation must stop treating Black veterans as an afterthought. [U.S. Government Accountability Office – Jul 26, 2023 VA Disability Benefits: Actions Needed to Further Examine…]

I am a broken soldier and a shamed citizen for a reason: I saw things no one should have to see, I was injured for life, and then I was made to fight for the simple promise of care and recompense. They admitted to a CUE = Clear Unmistakable Error, but still refused to make me whole. Meanwhile, the officials and contractors who sit behind the scenes keep collecting bonuses and sleep comfortably, I imagine, at night. I no longer remember such rest; nightmares arrive as soon as I close my eyes.

If you read this and feel the injustice in your bones, as much as I experience the pain in mine, help us do more than feel. Demand independent audits of C&P contractors and exam practices. Demand that the VA follow the GAO and RAND recommendations to reduce racial disparities and standardize examinations. Demand that records be protected from tampering and that veterans who prove service-connected injuries be paid what they’re owed without years of stonewalling. The nation we served promised to care for us – it’s time it fulfilled that promise.

– A soldier who still remembers what it costs to ask for justice.

This is my American experience, while too many cowardly remain in the shadows refusing to do the right thing.

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