Wasn't Obama on the Veteran's committee, back in 2008, when he was still a Senator, when these problems were first coming to light? Shouldn't he have been aware of some of the problems back then, especially since he specifically mentioned 'horrible conditions' at a couple VA hospitals?
Published Friday, July 04, 2008
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Presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday he thinks he has a chance to win North Dakota, despite the state’s long record of voting Republican.
The Illinois senator made his second visit to North Dakota in three months on Thursday, wowing a crowd of more than 1,300 at the Children’s Museum at Yunker Farm in north Fargo.
Standing in a wooded yard with the barn-red museum behind him, Obama spoke for 17 minutes about veterans’ issues before taking questions from the crowd to fill out the hour.
Wearing a white shirt and red tie, Obama started his speech with a Fargo quip.
“It is fun to be in Fargo, although I have to say, it doesn’t look like it does in the movie,” he joked.
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On the day before the nation celebrates its independence, Obama thanked the 200 veterans in the crowd for their contributions and vowed to improve their services.
In the past eight years, the nation has fallen short of meeting veterans’ needs through the “horrible conditions” at Fort Bragg and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Obama said.
He criticized the “broken bureaucracy” of the Department of Veterans Affairs and that veterans live in cardboard boxes in the richest nation on earth.
“It does not have to be this way, not in this country,” he said.
Obama pledged to build a 21st-century VA system with electronic records and more veterans’ centers, particularly in rural areas. More also needs to be done to help veterans with mental health screenings and post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.
