Double-amputee 82nd Airborne Division Sgt. Michael Verardo was at the White House on Friday to attest to the urgent need to hold Veterans Affairs Department employees more accountable for delayed or poor treatment.
With President Donald Trump and Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin looking on, Verardo told an audience of lawmakers and representatives of veterans service organizations of his struggles with the VA system after stepping on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2010.
Verardo said he was prepared for the risks and injuries of combat, but “what I was not prepared for was coming home to a broken VA system. I wasn’t prepared to wait 57 days for a signature on a piece of paper so that my prosthetic limb could be repaired.”
“I wasn’t prepared to make a three-hour round trip so that just last year they could check to see if I still had my serious combat injuries. I wasn’t prepared to watch my wife [Sarah] beg, plead and make countless phone calls so that I could receive what was often basic and necessary medical care.”
Verardo said he also had to wait three years for the VA to make the promised adaptations to his home in North Carolina to make it handicapped-accessible, “but today is a new day and this administration has fulfilled its promise — that the veteran is empowered and the veteran is in charge of his or her own care.”
Shulkin, noting Verardo went through 111 surgeries in his recovery, said, “It’s veterans like Michael who are the reason the VA exists. It was heartbreaking to me to hear his story. He had to jump through one bureaucratic hoop after another,” but “I’m pleased to say he’s waiting no longer.”
Following his own remarks, Trump signed the Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, empowering Shulkin to bypass existing civil service rules at the VA in the hiring, firing and promotion of employees. Trump then handed the pen to Verardo.