Army veteran Michael Grabski and his wife, Sandra, search real estate websites in their Napa apartment. The Department of Veterans Affairs expedited Grabski’s 2-year-old claim for post-traumatic stress disorder and a knee injury after his case received media attention.Michael Short/Center for Investigative Reporting Under fire for its growing backlog of disability benefits claims, the U.S. […]
Aaron Glantz
Senior Reporter
Aaron Glantz was a senior reporter at Reveal. He is the author of "Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream." Glantz produces journalism with impact. His work has sparked more than a dozen congressional hearings, numerous laws and criminal probes by the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, Pentagon and Federal Trade Commission. A two-time Peabody Award winner, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, multiple Emmy Award nominee and former John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University, Glantz has had his work has appear in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America and PBS NewsHour. His previous books include "The War Comes Home" and "How America Lost Iraq."
Posted inBenefits, Returning Home to Battle
Number of veterans who die waiting for benefits claims skyrockets
Long wait times are contributing to tens of thousands of veterans being approved for disability benefits and pensions only after it’s too late.
Posted inUncategorized
Ex-worker accuses VA of ‘callous indifference’ to veterans
Jamie Fox (center) stands with veteran Hosea Roundtree and former VA worker Ann Williams. Fox said she lost her job at the VA’s Oakland office after arguing that Roundtree’s benefits were wrongfully denied.Paul Chin/San Francisco Chronicle A former Department of Veterans Affairs employee accused the agency today of “cover-up after cover-up” and a “callous indifference” […]
Posted inBenefits, Health Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle
Accuracy isn’t priority as VA battles disability claims backlog
Video: Adithya Sambamurthy | Read full transcript U.S. Navy cook Hosea Roundtree watched the 1983 shelling of Beirut from the deck of a ship, feelings of helplessness washing over him as people perished onshore. That memory haunted him, resurrected in flashbacks eight years later after a tour in the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. But […]
Posted inBenefits, Health Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle
Video: Errors at the VA
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs denied Navy veteran Hosea Roundtree’s disability benefits claim for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, saying it could find no evidence that he was in combat. When a VA claims processor tried to intervene, she says she was forced out. Veterans’ advocates say Roundtree’s case illustrates the VA’s priorities: productivity […]
Posted inHealth Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle
Document: VA grills worker after CIR interview
The Department of Veterans Affairs wouldn’t talk to the Center for Investigative Reporting about why Jamie Fox lost her job. But in a sworn deposition, Assistant U.S. Attorney Victoria Carradero grilled Fox about our investigation, asking her about the time and place of our interview with her and the questions we asked.
Posted inBenefits, Returning Home to Battle
Disabled veterans stuck in backlog limbo
Veterans waiting for decisions on their disability claims wait longer than the VA has acknowledged, especially if they come from larger urban areas. Solutions tried in four locations have not helped so far, as the backlog continues to grow.
Posted inHealth Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle
Suicides highlight failures in veterans’ support system
The entrance at the Menlo Park Division of the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs campus.Jason Henry/For The Center for Investigative Reporting Francis Guilfoyle, a 55-year-old homeless veteran, drove his 1985 Toyota Camry to the Department of Veterans Affairs campus in Menlo Park early in the morning of Dec. 3, took a stepladder and a rope out […]
Posted inHealth Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle
New data reveals high death rates for Iraq, Afghanistan vets
This month, the Department of Veterans Affairs informed the parents of William Hamilton, an Iraq war veteran, that it was not responsible for his death. Hamilton had been admitted nine times to a V.A. psychiatric ward in Palo Alto. He saw demon women and talked to a man he had killed in Iraq. His parents […]