'A train wreck': Veterans haven't receive GI Bill benefits for months
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Shelley Roundtree departed the U.S. Army in 2013 after seeing friends and fellow soldiers die in combat during his tour in Afghanistan. He was committed to transitioning to civilian life, and one of his first steps was to enroll in college with tuition and housing benefits he'd earned under the GI Bill.
Roundtree, 29, began studying marketing at Berkeley College in Midtown Manhattan. He dreams of working in the fashion industry, and he's close to graduating — but now there's a serious obstacle.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is suffering from a series of information technology glitches that has caused GI Bill benefit payments covering education and housing to be delayed or — in the case of Roundtree — never be delivered.
"I'm about to lose everything that I own and become homeless," Roundtree said. "I don't want to be that veteran on the street begging for change because I haven't received what I was promised."
Without the GI Bill's housing stipend, Roundtree was kicked out of his apartment and is now living on his sister's couch, miles from school, where he feels like a burden on his family. The new living situation required him to move all his belongings into a storage container, which he can no longer afford. Now all of his possessions are in danger of being auctioned off by the storage facility.
Roundtree said that because of his extremely strained finances, he is forced to choose between spending money on public transportation to get to his marketing classes or buying food — not both. At the end of the day, the veteran said he often makes himself to go to sleep hungry.
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I remember the chest thumping that Trump did during his campaign, say only he could 'fix it'. Well it looks like they just exacerbated the problem and passed ANOTHER unfunded mandate that left the VA scrambling to deal with the fallout.
Here's another portion of the article:
45,000 vacant jobs and they wonder WHY shit can't get done. It's a fucking travesty.
BTW, I bet that the private contractor that they hired to upgrade the system got paid in full...
The above quote from the article is the basis for the entire problem, but it is buried in the middle of the article. The VA has outdated computer systems being asked to run a complex calculation and store the data for each GI Bill applicant. Then, this issue was exacerbated due to a contract dispute. Then, further exacerbated by the schools submitting their information all at the same time. Even a modern server farm with load balancing and redundant systems can struggle to handle the amount of data being input into the system. Considering the Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, told Congress that
should we really be surprised about what is going on at the VA. And, that quote was from June 7, 2017. Yes, we are in the 21st Century and the FAA is still using 1960s technology to handle thousands of flights per day.
I disagree. A major part of the problem is CONGRESS making the tweaks in the process that CAUSED the system to have to be reprogramed. Presumably they counted pennies and came up with a monetary savings for the government but it' fucking over far too many Vets.
From the article:
In short, the Congress set the VA up to fail. They created a mandate even though they KNEW the system was already struggling. THEN, instead of holding the contractor liable to address the issue, they let Vets take the brunt of the hit. Why not wait until the 'new' system is up and running RELIABLY before you scrap a system that was working?
I will bet that the contractor got paid ON TIME even thought the system they were contracted to upgrade STILL isn't up and running.
In short, Congress caused the problem by passing a bill without figuring out how to implement it without hurting those they allege to be helping.
But hey, Trump got his signing ceremony so there's that.
Did you bother reading my quote of Elaine Chao or read the article I linked? Congress has kept antiquated computer systems around, because they are busy spending money to either prop up their donors or on pet projects and it is rampant in both parties at the Congressional level. For the longest time, a Democrat had caused the FAA to only use vacuum tubed computers for air traffic control and it was a LAW in order to protect a Vacuum tube producer in his district from going out of business due to silicon chips. The change in the formula for calculating the money from the GI Bill is actually not that hard to change. Someone just has to go through the existing program code and tweak the variables to call on the right database location (ie change it from calling for the residence ZIP Code to calling for the school ZIP Code). The problem is that while they were changing that portion, they were also updating the computer systems and changing the database system, which required the schools to resubmit their previous entries along with new entries. And, because this all occurred at the same time, it caused the system to crash and delay even more.
Oh, and one way to check to see if the system could have handled this would be to conduct a load test on a test system/network. They didn't do that from the sounds of it.
Yes, I saw that irrelevant off topic reference. I let it slide. Would you like me to have it removed?
Which they farmed out to a contractor that FAILED to meet the deadline. So as simple as you claim it is, they were incapable of making it work and STILL haven't.
Where did you get that information? There is NO indication that the database system was changed.
Now you're just making shit up...
Again, more fabrication. The fact that you need to 'embellish' the facts merely shows that your posit lacks veracity.
I am pretty sure that the actual reason is the same reason that we still use large floppy's in our missile silos;
they are "almost " impervious to EMP, unlike modern circuitry, and they cannot be hacked.
Gee, that's an unusual statement from you since you copied and pasted the pertinent portion of the seeded article in your prior post.
That portion starts as follows:
Sadly, that statement is laughable if someone thought they could step right in and make a "quick fix" to a VA Fileman driven database.
DHCP, VisTa et al, the product of one Joe "P" (I will not say the full name here} took the simplest, extremely compact coding language and created a radiation mutant Godzilla.
If you have never popped the hood to look inside of VA Fileman, DON'T. Nothing but a bunch of indirects with constant reloading of variables to execute ungodly amounts of strings of code to do the simplest of things.
Ahhhh...reminiscing a contract where we too were forecd to use VA Fileman. We did an end run on them though. The only part Fileman we used was the data dictionary convention.
I took an 1,800 line assembler program and put it on to 1 page of mumps code. There were others but that is the one that sticks with me.
That was my welcome back to home surprise.
This situation is a disgrace.
Okay, it wasn't Joe, it was Neil. whatever.
dave, I won't even ask you to put that into layman's terms.
I worked with a Vet who owns a VOSB and specifically does systems and security upgrades. I'm pretty fucking sure that he could have handle this project and come in on budget and on deadline.
The government needs to STOP giving contracts to incompetent venders, STOP paying venders that don't meet deadlines and/or specs and START to hold them responsible for failing to meet the specs of their contracts by making them fix the issue and penalizing their bottom line.
How is pointing out that there are similar problems throughout government off-topic? I was highlighting that the VA is not the only governmental agency dealing with antiquated systems.
When you update your systems, you usually have to update your software and databases are primarily software. The reason you update your software is so it is compatible with your hardware and operating system. For instance, if you are updating to Windows 10 computers, you will not be able to run programs meant to run on Windows XP without first obtaining a copy of Windows XP and an emulator like VMWare to run the virtualized XP system on. The same holds true with various Windows Server Operating Systems and legacy software. The database being updated to new software should have been obvious, since schools were being told they would have to reenter their applicants data regardless of their having already been entered.
Dulay, it is not fabrication when this is my wheelhouse. I have a Bachelors degree in Game Software Development, which is mainly computer programming, and I am studying for a Bachelors in Information Technology and I am A+ Certified and preparing to take, in the next week or so, the Network+ exam from CompTIA.
Everything I stated is factual from not only a Network point of view, but from a Troubleshooting point of view. What ended up happening to the VA is an overloaded system that if it had been caused by malicious people would have been coined a DDOS (Directed Denial of Service) attack, because many computers were used to make various requests from the VA system at the same time in such numbers that they system could not handle them. A DOS (Denial of Service) attack is when a single user causes a computer to send requests of a system in such numbers that the system cannot handle them.
The stress test was on their actual system, which caused it to crash, not on a test system to see what might happen. Big difference there. A test system is an isolated system used to test software updates and simulated loads to see what can happen before things are changed in the actual system (aka production system).
I forgot that government doesn't use simple programming languages like C++, Python, etc. or even Oracle database software. If they were using an object-oriented programming language to create their databases, it would be simple to change the variables. Government tends to like using a Rube Goldberg machine to tighten a loose bolt.
It depends on the project. DMLSS has several different environments it works in, including Oracle databases and has 21st century features. So does CABIS/CAFIS.
I lost track of CHCS which was VA Fileman based like DHCP (not the one you are thinking of). I do not know what environment it works in anymore.
My comment wasn't directed at your post. It was directed at someone thinking they could just jump right in and make a "little fix" to a VA Fileman call.
Anybody can learn it, but there is a learning curve. Some applications make the curve steeper than others.
I am sure he is a smart tech, but he would need ramp up time to get a handle on the VA Fileman mumps environment. He isn't going to do it on the fly. Having been in the VA IT arena he may have some exposure. Which would help. Some of those systems even had a miis environment. Miis, like "I hate meeses to peaces".
That environment is nothing like the typical Unix flavor of the day environment. Backend and front end. Nothing.
I agree about how contracts are often handed out. Making matters worse, probably most of the VA Fileman experts have been long retired by now.
If C++ is considered simple, what would be an example of a complex programming language? Smalltalk? Common Lisp? Or by 'simple' do you mean 'high-level' (as opposed to a macro assembly language)?
I am an OO aficionado (and expert) but I do not understand why you think using an OO programming language to create a database is necessary to implement a flexible system. Most of the time an inflexible system is a result of poor design / implementation or years of maintenance. An elegant programming language for expressing abstraction is great but one can also produce a quite elegant system using C and a relational DBMS.
I hear that! Happens a lot in the private sector too. Tight schedules forcing technical debt, etc.
Is in itself a port of Fileman using a kernal developed specifically for the US Government during the Carter Administration. 1977 I believe was the year it went live. FileMan was designed to support the information processing needs of hospitals. It was based on an active data dictionary that was able to invoke the full power of the MUMPS language.
It was having issues during the Reagan Administration. Not surprised at all that it is having issues today.... And since it was written for the US government it is opensource by rule and has been ported both into other Government agencies and some private sector business. It is not fully RDBMS compliant. It can be used standalone or in the VA kernal environment. (a hardware independent environment)
I believe that the Indian Health Services use the same system. It is currently in version 22 which the systems were upgraded to during the last parts of the Clinton Administration.
So, blaming Trump is misplaced blame, if your going to blame him for a system he inherited you have to blame Obama and Bush II as well since the last serious look at it was during the Clinton era.
My understanding was that under the Bush administration, the VA took a look at replacing it, but it never got past study level.... (and wouldn't have been funded even if it did)
This is the fault of government in general and the lack of oversight on such critical infrastructure and yes software is just as critical as hardware.
If they had spent half the money they spent on the intelligence computer systems used to track the internet to keep track of every citizens communications, this wouldn't be a problem.
I mean government and computer systems, just look at the Obamacare roll out for an ideal of what to expect......... (unless it is CIA or military intelligence of course)
It is a monstrosity and is a self inflicted cause for performance issues/
That is why when we were required to use it, all we too was the data dictionary convention and tossed the rest.
The entire system is antiquated for today and can't be made compliant. There are much better solutions in the general marketplace today....
My only point was to answer all the T-rump haters with their blind accusations. an accusation against T-rump in this situation is an accusation of all that came before who ignored the situation....
Politics has nothing to do with it.....
Are you sure you intended to respond to my comment? I did not blame anyone for anything so why is your comment addressed to me?
I totally agree that there are tons of government systems that are absurdly obsolete. It is pathetic actually. And of course that is not the fault of Trump.
Anyway, maybe you should find the comment you intended to REPLY to since obviously this makes no sense relative to my comment.
Please point out in any of my words where I said anything about politics.
Maybe you have not noticed, but I HATE the state of our political situation.
How in the world did a NON political statement get turned into a political statement?
Maybe you you missed this as well.
I think VA Fileman sucks.
My comment wasn't directly about blaming T-rump it was about the inadequacies of VistA and the underlying VA Fileman. the T-rump reference was my feelings coming thru.... (concerning everyone who wants to blame without knowing the circumstances and was probably inappropriate in my response to you specifically.
Actually I was trying to support your position and I think you got that...
No I didn't miss it I think it sucks as well.
read my response to Tig. probably sums up my error better than anything else...
Too many people are posting here who know nothing about the systems at issue and are just blaming T-rump, you and tig are not cause you both understand how it came to pass. I shouldn't have placed that reference into my statement to either of you....
But they do apply to everyone else in the thread....
So, my apologies to you both....
I still do not see how your comment applies to mine in any way, but it does not matter. No worries.
I understand now.
Thank you.
Actually, I probably need to get off the computer, I have a dual Xeon server I need to finish building on the desk behind me, and this is taking up too much of my time...
Again, I shouldn't have mixed my references......
Later
NWM
I was the one pointing out that the programming should be easy to fix by changing where the variables call for data in the database (from the residence Zip Code to the school Zip Code).
In my head I was comparing C++ and Python to Assembly. There were two things I really disliked about my Game Software Development courses, and they were Assembly and Compilers but not in that order. Assembly was easier to understand than Compilers, at least how it was taught in my classes.
The inflexible system usually is a result of poor documentation within the code to explain what each part is supposed to do and then having someone else come in and rewrite entire sections of code without knowing what they are "fixing" and how it will affect it, thereby creating the poor design. In reality, I wish more programming was created using the various XP styles, particularly paired programming.
Got it. I agree, although one can produce a maintainable system using a macro assembly language it is never going to be as flexible (or productive) as a higher level language. Difficult to imagine a current requirement to use assembly language rather than C nowadays. But I personally know of a professional programmer who is maintaining an old system purely in assembly language. I suppose it beats machine code.
Certainly. Assembly language is, after all, just a language. Compiler theory, on the other hand, is definitely complex (but cool).
Documentation is critical to establish context, intent and dependencies. IMO code sans at least basic embedded documentation is unacceptable. Lack of understanding leads to redundant (and conflicting) code and that almost invariably leads to a brittle system.
When I was usually called to develop something in assembler were instances when the slowness and overhead of a higher level application language would result in unacceptable turn around times while at the same time consuming to much system resources.
Hardware of the time period does not compare to what is available today. Recalling the week I spent in Framingham running benchmark tests on the DG MV series which eventually got the MV8000 accepted for use in certain DoD applications. On fact that week I witnessed to setup of the MV10000 as DG prepped it for introduction to the press. Funny how things change over time.
Then again, some things don't. VA Fileman. "One size fits all" mentality right there.
Because it's fucking irrelevant and because the Congress was WARNED that there was an issue and passed the bill without addressing it.
It IS fabrication when you are basing your comment on 'facts not in evidence' so you just make assumptions about the event. In short, you made shit up...
Yup, that is the use case. The last time I designed a system that required assembler encoding was in the 80s. Out of probably 100 modules, the system had two modules which served as the core. These modules (these were rule evaluation modules for an expert system) were used so often that any inefficiency would have been amplified. So I decided to implement them in assembler and I personally wrote the code to hand optimize (e.g. heavy use of registers). In this case I remain fully convinced that was the correct design choice.
Legacy systems, however, are a nightmare. The technology is old, hard to find skilled developers, the languages typically suck and ultimately making changes is extremely inefficient. Yet our government is critically dependent upon these ancient beasts.
There is an open door to go down this path at any shop using VA Fileman.
In an odd way, VA Fileman has a similarity to assembler. As you know in assembler you set things up and then you do something. Whether it is a pass through or a loop, for example such as generating an LRC or CRC.
As ridiculous as this sounds, until we came along, with mumps these sorts of things had to happen at the application code level, which by the way had to pass through an interpreter every time a string of code was executed, at the time.
To add on top of that performance drain, within a strict VA Fileman environment you had to go through that monstrosity, I mean VA Fileman, in order to set things up before you could do something.
Maddening. Absolutely impossible to turn responses around quick enough to meet many performance requirements. Impossible.
We broke into the shell of Digitals mumps and made our own LRC system call to pass the performance tests. DEC got mad. The DoD submitted our change request to DEC and the first official $LRC system call became part of the mumps standard. It was later rename $CRC, though it still did the same thing.
Still yet on top of that and now focusing more directly to how the above relates to the self documentation issue, Fileman is written in mumps and any shop can tweak it any way they want. Takes a true expert to do it right though.
Unfortunately, those changes didn't always get fully documented either internally withing the code or externally in related system documentation.
This can create difficulties when trying to make "simple changes" to the functionality of an application. It can give you twice the love these ways.
I still come back to the fact that an contractor was hired to get the job done and THAT didn't happen.
As I said, I worked with an IT contractor and he is meticulous about reading the contract requirements, budget and deadline expectations before he bids for a contract. Since he has a team of subcontractors, he has to figure out who he needs to fulfill the requirements and who is available at the time. He also has to make sure that the budget allows for necessary travel/accommodations, software and/or hardware purchases [and it's availability within the timeline].
Once he bids for and receives the contract, he tries to BEAT the expectations of the contract by coming in under budget and finishing before the deadline. This is one of the reasons that he prefers to hire fellow vets since they are used to performing 'under fire'.
So what it comes down to for me with the contractor is that they KNEW the gig and KNEW what the system parameters were B4 they bid on the contract. They FAILED and WE need to STOP paying contractor who fail. We also need to stop allowing failed contractors from bidding on future contracts.
Of course, it would be great if the fucking Congress would LISTEN to the experts and STOP dumping unfunded mandates on agencies too. But the idea of that ever happening is pie in the sky.
Agreed. There are the rules as stated and the rules as practiced. Vendors quickly learn the rules as practiced and take advantage of same.
Unfortunately. Congress is all about party politics - that is their expertise. Management is not.
Yes, on all counts.
Good job, btw.
This is absolutely true and unfortunately not all understand all the challenges in these legacy systems.
Absolutely.
Yet contractors are supposed to be vetted on whether their expertise qualifies them to even bid for a contract in a given category.
I'd love to find out WHO got the contract and find out if they have violated the terms of prior contracts. There is a list somewhere that names all of the contractors that have done so and I think most would be surprised that names like Boeing and Halliburton are cited more than once. What's worse is that the government still signs NEW contracts with them...
They need only look at their own database to weed out 'waste, fraud and abuse'.
I found this. Maybe it can help. About 5/6th the way down is a section "Government ~"Contracts By Porduct/Service".
Might be worth researching.
Unfortunately, the VA isn't under the DOD so I doubt that contract would be on the list.
The VA has it's own "Aquisition and Contracting" section, It's the way the government does it....
No central clearinghouse or authority....
There IS a list of contractors that are disqualified for ANY government contract but it looks like they have to commit the equivalent of murder to get on that list.
agreed......
Here ar e a couple more sources which are VA specific
This one is of fy2017 VA spending
Thanks dave. I'll squirrel through and see what I can find.
Another disaster in a continuing string of disasters in the VA.
More lip service from the WH. pfffttt
But...but...Trump loves us vets. s/
More lip service from the left that Doesn't have a clue why the G.I. bill benefits are not being paid out.
If anything it has less to do about Trump than the piece of crap democrats stalling President Trumps appointments.
and WallyW
from the article..........
nothing to do with partisanship or Obama.
Another woefully uninformed comment. Well done.
The article cites were the actual 'lip service' came from and that is from Trump.
Really KD? Please site the name of the person who Trump nominated that would have remedies this issue had he/she been appointed. Or did you just pull that posit out of your nether regions?
Where is that love for Vets?
The answer you are looking for might be right there in the article.
""President Trump signed the Forever GI Bill in 2017. The landmark piece of legislation greatly expanded benefits for veterans and survivors'"
While failing to give the VA the TOOLS that they need to fulfill that mandate, causing Vets not to receive the benefits they already had.
Well done. /s
....
It's so sad to see our vets suffering like this. They give their lives to this country to get treated lousy when they need it the most.
Very true.
GET THE FUCKING FACTS, FOLKS!
Veterans Affairs is being shaped by Trump’s Mar-a-Lago cronies.
ProPublica is reporting that a trio of the President Donald Trump’s friends, who meet at his members-only Florida club, are acting as informal cabinet members helping shaping policy at Veteran’s Affairs. This shadow cabinet consists of Bruce Moskowitz, a doctor who specializes in rich patients, Marvel Entertainment CEOIke Perlmutter, and Marc Sherman, an attorney.
This group claims to only be offering informal advice. As ProPublica notes:
Access to VA policymaking allowed Perlmutter to use public events to promote his private interest. Thus in February 2017, David Shulkin, at the time secretary of the VA, participated in a Veterans Day event at the New York Stock Exchange that saw him “ standing near a preening and flexing Captain America , with Spider-Man waving from the trading pit, and Marvel swag distributed to some of the attendees.”
A head of a veterans advocacy group told ProPublica, “Generally the VA secretary or defense secretary don’t shill for companies.”
On another occasion, ProPublica notes, Moskowitz “wanted Apple and the VA to develop an app for veterans to find nearby medical services. Who did he bring in to advise them on the project? His son, Aaron, who had built a similar app. The proposal made Apple and VA officials uncomfortable, according to two people familiar with the matter, but Moskowitz’s clout kept it alive for months. The VA finally killed the project because Moskowitz was the only one who supported it.” Moskowitz has also worked to stall a $10 billion contract for the VA to buy new record-keeping software from a firm called Cerner “because he used a different Cerner product and didn’t like it.”
And to add injury to injury …
No Thanksgiving with family for troops serving in Trump's military border stunt
It will be a grim Thanksgiving for the troops Donald Trump is sending to the border in his unnecessary, nativistic, operation to prevent asylum-seekers coming to the United States from entering. The deployment, which officials in Trump's Pentagon say is "an expensive waste of time and resources, and a morale killer to boot," will last until December 15.
That means the 5,600 troops already there are trying to set up a base for the 15,000 troops Trump envisions, a deployment that could cost $200 million and for which the Pentagon does not have a budget allocation. They're there to do essentially nothing but provide logistical support to border agents. They can't enforce law, so they're there just to set up these massive camps for themselves and border patrol. They have no mission and they'll be there over Thanksgiving and that's a big problem says Rep. Anthony Brown (D-MD) who served as a helicopter pilot in Iraq. "When you give a soldier a real mission, you have less of a morale problem, even if it’s Christmas or Thanksgiving," he told the New York Times . "But when you send a soldier on a dubious mission, with no military value, over Thanksgiving, it doesn’t help morale at all."
It also doesn't help that military leadership does not support the missions and it's seen by many as a purely political action. The troops have the bare minimum of necessities in the camps set up. Just enough electricity for lights and communications—no entertainment. Because water is in short supply, they have a strict shower schedule and 7-minute limit. They have only the infamous MREs, pre-packaged "meals ready to eat." The 20-person tents they sleep in have no electricity and no air conditioning. Phones can only be charged at a few generators that provide lights.
Please stay on topic Mac.