On your left rises a massive, curved wall of white limestone, featuring strict rows of identical rectangular windows stacked above a heavy dark granite base.
This is the headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs. It represents one of the most sacred obligations of the federal government, based on a promise made by Abraham Lincoln to care for him who shall have borne the battle. But if you look past the noble inscriptions, the history of this agency reveals how quickly the machinery of government can turn against the very people it was built to serve.
The agency’s troubles began almost immediately. In nineteen twenty-one, President Warren G. Harding appointed his acquaintance, Charles Forbes, to lead the newly created Veterans’ Bureau. It was a choice that proved catastrophic. Forbes saw the bureau not as a public service, but as a personal bank account. He embezzled approximately two million dollars-which is over thirty million dollars today-through kickbacks on hospital construction contracts and the illicit sale of medical supplies.
While Forbes was lining his pockets, he was simultaneously rejecting thousands of legitimate disability claims from wounded soldiers. The corruption was so brazen that it eventually consumed him. As investigators closed in, his legal counsel committed suicide. When President Harding finally learned the extent of the betrayal, the veneer of presidential decorum vanished. Harding reportedly grabbed Forbes by the throat in the White House, shaking him and shouting, quote, You double-crossing bastard.
Forbes went to prison, but the tension between veterans and the state was only just beginning.
In nineteen thirty-two, during the depths of the Great Depression, the invisible machinery of influence turned violent. Over seventeen thousand unemployed World War One veterans marched on Washington, demanding early payment of service bonuses. They set up a shantytown known as Hooverville on the Anacostia Flats. Instead of listening, President Herbert Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to clear the camps.
It is a dark irony that the man leading the troops against the veterans was General Douglas MacArthur. His soldiers used tear gas and bayonets to disperse the men they had once served alongside, burning their shelters to the ground. The sight of the American military attacking its own impoverished veterans shocked the nation.
That tragedy paved the way for the GI Bill in nineteen forty-four, but the struggle for recognition continued. For decades, the VA denied claims related to Agent Orange, a toxic herbicide used in Vietnam. It took until nineteen ninety-one for the government to finally codify a list of presumptive conditions, meaning illnesses the VA automatically assumes are service-connected.
Even in the modern era, the sheer size of the bureaucracy can be deadly. In two thousand fourteen, a scandal broke in Phoenix, Arizona, where veterans died while waiting for care. Investigations revealed that staff had created secret waiting lists to hide the delays, proving that the system was prioritizing metrics over lives.
Yet, despite the scandals, the agency remains a lifeline. During national emergencies, like the COVID pandemic or hurricane responses in Puerto Rico, the VA activates its Fourth Mission, opening its doors to care for civilians when the rest of the healthcare system collapses.
It is a complex legacy of high ideals and human failure.
Let us leave this heavy history behind. We are going to walk toward the oldest departmental building in Washington, the Department of the Treasury. It is an eight-minute walk from here
