Patient Abuse At Dayton VA Medical Center

DARRELL HAMPTON------blog (dhampton100.blogspot.com)

February 10, 2010

　The Honorable Eric Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Washington D C

Dear Secretary Shinseki: (updated 2/11/11)

In this morning’s Dayton Daily News Paper a detailed report of the investigation of the Dayton VA Dental Clinic is being reported.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/va-dental-service-chief-aware-dentist-failed-to-sterilize-tools-1077574.html CNN is also running this story. It claims that the Medical Center Director, Guy B. Richardson had no knowledge of the plethora of violations committed by this dentist, Dwight M. Pemberton, who at 81 years old was still being allowed to practice on America’s Veterans and paid over $3000 a week to expose Veterans to blood born pathogens.

I find this information wanting.

Every morning at the Dayton VA the very first thing that happens is the “Morning Report” where Service Chiefs and their assistants meet with the Director to discuss any urgent or pending issues. For Mr. Guy Richardson to expect America’s Veterans to believe that he held these meetings daily for over five years (over 1400 meetings) and he was not made aware of what was happening in this instance is a disrespect of our intellect. I make the charge that he is lying sir and I do not make this charge lightly. He is lying to the Veterans, he is lying to the American people and he is lying to you Sir.

This Dentist was so negligent that most VA employees warned Veterans not to be seen by him. The entire dental staff talked about his malfeasance regularly. In fact, according to this newspaper report virtually everybody at the Dayton VA knew about this “except” Guy Richardson. His stunning ignorance is proof that he is unfit to lead this facility.

I have written your office on many occasions that Mr. Richardson is apathetic to the service that America’s Veterans receive. His arrogant statement to me, when I reported that Veterans come to the VA for appointments hungry and leave in the same condition, “I’m not here to feed hungry Veterans” displayed an example of indifference I have not witnessed in many individuals.

Mr. Richardson is either lying or he is too incompetent to lead. Whatever the case, he should be removed from leadership at this Medical Center. I will be making this identical recommendation to members of the US Senate Veterans Service Committee.

Sincerely Yours,

Darrell Hampton

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2011/02/10/nr.vets.hiv.exposure.cnn?iref=allsearch

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/va-dental-service-chief-aware-dentist-failed-to-sterilize-tools-1077574.html

(dhampton100.blogspot.com)

DARRELL HAMPTON

March 10, 2010

The Honorable Eric Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Washington D C

Dear Mr. Secretary:

As a result of my October 7, 2009 letter to your office the Dayton VA Medical Center Director, Mr. Guy B. Richardson, met with me to discuss my concerns about the services I have failed to receive as well as my inability to obtain full-time employment at the Medical Center.

I met with Mr. Richardson (my 4^th meeting) on February 4, 2010 where we discussed how we could find resolution to my ongoing concerns. During our meeting he mentioned that I had been asking for positions for over four years and implied he couldn‘t understand why I had not moved on by now. As with my previous experience, most VA employee’s questions are normally aimed at why the Veteran still needs the services while obfuscating the fact that services have not yet been provided…… the actual agenda for the meeting. The facts that these services have not been delivered over this identical length of time is never broached and is treated as immaterial. It’s a common strategy for some executives, in controlling the conversation, make the complainant feel that he is guilty for his very own predicament. In this instance he was projecting that I was not really trying to help myself since no progress had been made since our last meeting. This takes the onus off the agency for failing to provide services and places the blame on my own lack of ingenuity to find ways to repair my dilemma. Now, it is my fault. Clever strategy, but specious.

I will assume that the eleven months I took Interferon shots (chemo therapy) and the one year of medically normal recuperation can be eliminated from his measure of how long I have been requesting these benefits. I was very sick. A more interesting question would be: what does it say about his administration that I have been applying for the same rehabilitative CWT position for real time- two years and I’m yet to receive an uninterrupted assignment? He was very polite and cogent. Mr. Richardson is actually a very intelligent nice guy in my opinion but we part ways on these major issues. He laid out a detailed comprehensive plan to repair my concerns. Then, before the meeting ended he issued a weighty proviso: “I’m not committing.”. By this caveat he effectively deleted every word he had spoken during the entire 30 minutes. I departed, convinced that no change would come. True to my assessment, four weeks have passed since this meeting and nothing has changed because “he wasn’t committing”. It was another superficial meeting about the last inconsequential meeting, lacking tangible results. We’re playing bureaucratic games here. This meeting could best be entitled, Chapter 4, “calm down the ex-drug addict Veteran and get him to stop writing letters”. Well, it didn’t work and I am not placated.

One thing I do find very puzzling, while I do not insinuate that I possess knowledge on how to run a Medical Center, I have managed a sales force on over one-hundred people before, so I do know a bit about managing. If I were the head of any organization I cannot imagine allowing infinitesimal problems like these to gain such traction under my watch. These problems should never have made it across the street, much less to your office in Washington DC. I would have ordered , three years ago, that this Veteran be given his benefits, without

vacillation and this matter be removed from my desk forthwith. But…... that’s me. Why Mr. Richardson permits this plethora of cancerous complaints to metastasize is beyond me. After all, we are not talking about anything

major here. It’s not as if I’ve demanded a cubicle inside his office. Instead of putting out this small fire he has allowed his staff to continually douse it with jet fuel and fan it into a World Trade Center raging inferno. This problem has morphed into a fierce intellectual fencing contest (on their part) where the Veteran (me) is forced to starve while they feign ignorance to my denial of benefits. It is obvious that the strategy is to smack me down and deny enough times until all the fight has been drained out of me and I relapse into a past life of drug abuse or simply go away or die. They are mistaken on at least two counts. I don’t know when I’m going to die but I am not going away and I am not relapsing. I should not be forced to meeting after meeting to explain “why” I want that which I’ve already earned! There is no box labeled “NO” in policy that VA employees get to check at their discretion. Neither is liking the Veteran or the Veteran shutting up in the face of patient abuse a prerequisite to receive Veterans benefits. I don’t violate VHA policy but they certainly do, all the time. Their choices are very simple, plainly laid out by legislative precedent and mandate. They do not get to exercise personal rejections on these matters.

Sir, for pellucidity, it is imperative that you know how we got here. Why am I so controversial and how I became a target of VA employees at the Dayton Medical Center? When I came here on 09/10/ 2003 they were calling WWII African American Veterans “@!$%#s” to their faces. They were not calling them the N-word, either. They were calling them Mississippi circa 1865 cotton picking, slave reminiscent “yes suh” Massa black @!$%#s” and I heard them! These old warriors, with their heads bowed, were terrified of them and suffered in silence. As an African American Veteran I was quite repulsed by the horror I was forced to witness and experience on a daily basis. I made a conscious decision that America should not have a federally financed “racial terror center” for African American Veterans. I decided to end this atrocity. As a result I was labeled a rabble-rouser and targeted for certain annihilation. Some employees decided to battle over my positions, saying I didn’t know my place, “whatever that means”, while others defended my position. The effort to defend patient abuse, while providing services for Veterans engendered a cognitive dissonance amongst the staff resulting in a bifurcated skirmish within the Dayton VA. For no other reason than the fact that I refused to concede and insisted policy be followed, I am now denied a CWT position, branded pernicious, maligned and totally verboten a full time position by those in decision making capacity. How is that fair? The only constant in this behavior is “ Darrell Hampton gets nothing but physical medical care, a handshake and a smile from us“. Absolutely no services from Voc Industries are for me. They have taken the discretionary authority, vicariously awarded to them to make decisions and manipulated it to deny benefits, create deprivation and fully intend to produce misery and pain. Webster’s defines actions with these results as torture. Torture is against the law in this country. For two years I have labored under this seemingly insurmountable burden and I am psychologically washed out, suffering crippling depression and I am desperately in need of my Veterans benefits while they are elated ( pay back) by their repudiation of me through the denial of these same benefits.

Here’s the thing: suppose we posit, provisionally, that I’m suffering delusions and certain VA staff aren’t the main villains in this story. But, when you consider their spiraling career endings, it makes nonsense of all the main arguments supporting their positions. While they exhaust themselves, each one convincing the other, that I am somehow suffering some psychological break, needing my intelligence validated, for some very strange reason, they keep getting found guilty of serious VHA policy violations. The overall strangeness of their mental diagnosis of me aside, let’s look at the substantive data and walk this through Sir. Here are the facts:

Mr. Richardson prefers to approach my concerns as isolated incidents, without connecting these incredible dots. That’s unrealistic. They must be dealt with wholly, including the history on how all of this began. I didn’t simply appear, start requesting benefits and they denied me. Patient abuse and significant psychological damage happened to me along the way. If you Google my name you will find an entire history of these events online. I have appeared at three Board of Investigations, painfully choking through emotional testimony. Each time guilty verdicts were reached. He knows what they did to me, half the Center knows! These things were not done in a corner nor in the dark. How they maltreated Darrell Hampton is common folklore around here. The entire experience was mentally devastating and physiologically eviscerating. I quietly suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown where I would regularly awake trembling with cold sweats in the middle of the night! This all has taken a great toll and I still can’t re-tell these experiences without hyperventilating. Having to tolerate these wrongs and respond appropriately while taking weekly Interferon shots and 40 Ribavirin pills a week was thoroughly enervating for my equilibrium. American Citizens from all over this country have called me or sent emails to offer sympathy for how I was treated by the VA, but the Director acts as if it was no big deal. It was a huge deal! Honestly, I have not recovered well and I continue to awake 3-4 nights a week, in the middle of the night in a full blown rage of excruciating psychological suffering. Where we are now is quite simple: These employees were very unsavory and had irrevocably spoiled past their ethical expiration dates long before my arrival. Some of them had over 30 years of service and now their peers are paying me back. They can’t do that! Some of their peers were actually “on” the Boards but the evidence of patient abuse, violations of HYPPA and lying under oath was so prodigious they had no choice but to render a finding of Guilty! They’re blaming me because their buddies got busted! I didn’t commit the offenses, their buddies did! This is a prima fascia case of retaliation and retribution. And they know it! They currently justify their denials under the disingenuous premise that they are now “scared“ of me. They’re not afraid to acquiesce in abuse nor too anxious to appear at three Boards and gallantly tell malicious lies under oath nor to brazenly, mendaciously write statements to the VA Police. Nor to corner me (while I was very ill) and subject me to fulminating demands that I drop the charges against their friends. They howled to wake the dead and blocked out the sun. They were not successful. Now, all of a sudden, they are afraid to be anywhere near me…… .Really? I find this rationale deficient and I reject this hypothesis. They are not afraid. Instead, they are livid that I stood up to

them. I am kind, polite and a gentleman, I simply don’t countenance the beating up on sick and weak vulnerable Veterans. I suggest anyone who veto’s my opinions should first, get sick and be mistreated, opposed to superciliously pontificating and I will debate their painful ”experienced” attitudes. For that matter, I don’t particularly care for child abusers or sexual predators either.

I don’t know if some of these people have been doing this so long that they have lost the ability to distinguish candid sincerity or not. Some seem hopelessly unable to stop adjudicating America’s Veterans as no more than tax-dollar exploiting lazy Hoboes. They may just be simply burnt out.

In spite of the mental health injuries I have endured at their hands, I would do it again! I realize that decisions have consequences but enough is enough. They have lied about CWT positions for two years. I have approximately 10 letters of denial from HR for positions I’m qualified to fill, citing benign generic reasons. For all intent and purposes, they have effectively issued a Constitutionally shredding, furtive “Bill of Attainder” against me to deny opportunities on this Center. This type of conspicuous retaliation and manifest retribution is specifically prohibited by Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, and they know it! They can not collude to privately try, convict and deny me benefits. This statue represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they don’t like them. They can’t pretend to be obtuse while “fortuitously” penalizing my First Amendment free speech rights. Like it or not, we have rules in this country. This type of behavior is the antithesis to what the United States of America represents. Creating outrageously illegal strategies like these, then feigning ignorance and innocence while simultaneously advancing these depredating tactical maneuvers should not be sanctioned at an American Government Taxpayer funded facility that is emblazoned with banners of “Veterans First”.

Mr. Secretary: With all of the respect that a Four Star General has earned, I say to you: It is revolting enough that I am consistently made to feel like a rape victim who is repeatedly molested because I reported the sadistic rapist to the proper authorities. Like you, I wore my uniform and I served our country. I carried our blood stained banner! I have never been in combat but I have spent many cold, wet, pitched black sleepless nights bravely guarding my country with an M-16 slung over my shoulder, peeping at dark shadows, while they were warm and cozy in their beds and I refuse to be blacklisted by the very same people I have risked my life to protect! Because I’m not obsequious and denounce patient abuse I get treated as if I am Osama bin Laden or Khalid Sheikh Muhammad!? With all due respect, Sir, I am not a foreign terrorist. I am an American Citizen, I was an Army soldier and I am an Honorably Discharged Veteran !

They are entrenched in their positions and they will not stop unless they are ordered to do so. I honestly believe some of these people, suffering delusions of grandeur, think authority has been conveyed to them by title deed and they answer to no one. How else could Frank Value, the Asst. Service Chief of EMS, have the unmitigated audacity to utter the words; “Darrell Hampton will never get a job here if I have anything to do with it“! I heard him say it, Sir. Immediately after he was promoted in Dec 08 I was “laid off” from my CWT assignment due to “lack of funds”. This was the first time in the Dayton VA’s 140 year history that a Veteran has been laid off from a CWT position for “lack of funds“. Other Veterans were hired in my same position. He can’t do that! Apparently, when Mr. Value isn’t too busy getting convicted for publicly disgracing the VA via soliciting paid sex acts from local undercover Dayton police officers, he must envision that he is the Asst. Service Chief of a Swastika marked, Adolf Hitler Brown Shirted “Fuhrer’s Party“. That’s Un-American!

The statue of limitations on their specious opinions and unscrupulous Machiavellian games has expired. I’m writing because it is my hope that you will get into the weeds on these matters.

Contrary to popular opinion many, many VA employees thank me for the positions I’ve taken and want to shake my hand or pat my shoulder for surviving these horrible experiences. I am not alone in my opinions about the people who abuse their authority here. We certainly can’t all be crazy.

I must admit Sir, the physical medicine here is excellent. I don’t think I have ever been dissatisfied with the physical medicine until the MHCL interferes with medicine or Surgery. Dr. Florence Coleman often demands that patients, with a drug history, not be given pain meds after surgery. Evidently, she thinks that if a recovering addict has pain from surgery relieved, a relapse is imminent. This is an incredible discretionary enabled authority but……. they make the rules.

Well, there you have it Sir. The hour is late and the time is now. Please end this madness.

My Very Best Regards,

Darrell Hampton

August 11, 2010

The Honorable Eric Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Washington D. C.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I want to thank you for any input you made as a result of my last letter to your office. Since then I have been to two (2) interviews for positions at the Dayton VA. The first one I mistakenly thought was a full-time posting and had to decline the interview. The latest was on Wednesday August 4, 2010. After submitting applications for over four (4) years it was nice to finally be considered.

The reason for this letter is that the last position I applied and was interviewed for was the MyhealtheVet Communications Specialist. This position, per the KSA’s required a background in Sales, Advertising and Marketing. My work history includes all three, several years in advertising and over 25 years in the Insurance Industry, the last 10 years as a General Agent running my own Agency. Plus, I have actively used the “MyhealtheVet” site for service for at least three (3) months for Vet services. In short, this position is tailor-made for a person with my background.

My interview was great. During the interviewing process those doing the screening continually gave rave reviews. I cannot imagine that they gave the Director, Mr. Richardson, anything less. My competition for the position was a current VA employee, who is a young female Patient Advocate and another Veteran. Since the initial interview Mr. Richardson has called the other Veteran and the young female in for a second interview but he is yet to contact me. He interviewed the VA employee and gave her the job on Friday and shipped her off to training already! This was nothing less than another deliberate decision to block me from employment and to choose, before even interviewing, who he had decided to give this position to. He can’t do that! Worse yet, he told the other Veteran that a decision would be made within the next two weeks when he knew he had already determined who would get the job! Now, not only have I been cheated out of a job I’m eminently qualified to hold, he has the other Veteran sitting in the Residential Program praying and hoping for a position he already knew he had no intention of rewarding him. What kind of person operates in this manner? Mr. Richardson appears to think he is “entitled” to award positions to whomever he wants while denying opportunity to Vets or the “most qualified candidate“ for the position. As he so boldly told me, when I demanded the benefits I was entitled to “Nobody is entitled to anything, Mr. Hampton”. Well that same rules applies to him: He is not ”entitled” to makes decisions of this sort! This is breathtaking, to say the least! Guy B. Richardson is attempting to make it appear he has conducted a fair, thorough evaluation while advancing his diabolical goal of “putting me in my place” via denying me a position at the Dayton VA. I told you, previously, that these people think they answer to no one. I thought they at least respected your office. I was mistaken. His deceptive appearance of fairness will not suffice in this matter. It is time for him to move on to his next duty assignment!

Mr. Richardson has lined up strategy to justify NOT hiring me and being able to say “I hired the most qualified person who was not Darrell Hampton“. That is a lie! This move would extend the past stratagem of Constitutional violations, per Article 1, Section 9, forbidding Bill of Attainders against American citizens, which is the factual history of his office. I do not believe that your office is uninitiated in sophisticated thought and is ignorant of this bureaucratic scheme.

First, the Veteran who is being considered is “homeless” and I have been living independently for the past four (4) years. Secondly, I have more successful experience in sales, advertising, marketing and “communicating” than the young female employee has existed on this earth! Thirdly, I would respectfully remind you the position is titled “Communications Specialist” and I would put my “proven” communication skills up against any persons currently applying for this position nationwide, let alone at the Dayton VA. This is an atrocious unfair decision!

I don’t remember when I have witnessed another Veteran, currently located within the VA’s homeless Domiciliary being seriously considered for anything more than a janitorial position much less a GS-11 position. Mr. Richardson, like his other VA employees, appears to have a history of considering America’s Veterans not worth more than cleaning toilets or mopping floors at the VA Centers so this specious GS-11 move is definitely out of the norm for him. Even for a Veteran with my history of professional business acumen he prefers that I walk around the Center, with a heat index of over 100 degrees, picking up cigarette butts and going home with soaking wet underwear than to provide a way forward to redeem my life and restoration as a productive member of society.

What does it profit a Veteran to expend energy and time learning the VA policies and benefits if staff only become angry when you request them? I am simply trying to obtain my rights and my benefits while they seem obsessed with making sure I don’t think I’m smarter than they are. This is puerile!

For example: Mr. Secretary, had you been the Director of the Dayton VA during the 2005-2006 year and a patient wrote you at least once every two weeks (like I did Guy Richardson) that I was being tortured by your staff while taking weekly Interferon shots and 40 Ribavirin pills; would you have done NOTHING?! Mr. Richardson watched me weekly as I walked into the Medical Tower, he saw my emaciated condition, he waved and he smiled but he adamantly refused to exercise his executive authority to put a stop to my suffering at the hands of his staff. It was only “after” I began to bring formal charges and he was placed in an untenable position of having to respond that he ordered Boards and they were found guilty by a jury of their peers. Is that what you would have done, Sir?

Is that considered blatant “Dereliction of Duty” or “Conduct Unbecoming of a Federal Employee“?

I am requesting your office intervene here because I believe he has violated my Constitutional rights, VHA policy and discriminated against me, searching for a ways to deny me employment. The fact that we are both African Americans is irrelevant, it is what it is! Like the employees before him who have previously been found guilty of violating my rights he is personalizing my experience here and has joined the side of those employees who are determined to deny me opportunity on this Center. Each and every one of his responses have been spurious and I have lost confidence in any words that proceed from his mouth. He’s a nice guy, I just don’t believe anything he says anymore. When he speaks, even his own staff disregards any veracity. I have lost count of the number of VA employees who have asked me to type letters for them against Mr. Richardson. Each time I have declined because that is simply not something I want to become involved with and I realize there are two sides to every story. It is time for Mr. Richardson to move on to his next duty station. Military equivalent of a One-Star General or not he needs to be removed from service here and sent home!

Mr. Secretary I have questions for you: Sir, do you agree with the way I have been treated by “Your” Veterans Health Administration? Are you going to write my life off and deny me the opportunity to redeem my life and provide for my family? Do you also believe that ‘once an addict, always an addict“ and recovery is a delusion? Do you co-sign the actions of these employees?

If you do, then I need to know your answer now so that I can go another direction and seek remedies elsewhere. I need to know your answer, Sir. I’m writing you Sir and I need an answer from you, not from Mr. Guy B. Richardson, Sir. He has already arrogantly told me, to my face, he is not going to do “anything” to change his direction towards me! His determination to deny employment and treat me like some derelict mental patient is a direct attack on me and my family’s survival. His recent moves confirm his words. What are you going to do Sir?

My Very Best regards,

Darrell Hampton

August 16,2010

The Honorable Eric Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Washington D. C.

Dear Sir,

This letter is a continuation of my last correspondence to you dated August 11, 2010.

After I received the “Qualified, forwarded for consideration but another person was selected” letter from the Dayton VA I wrote you my perception as to what exactly I perceived Guy B. Richardson had done. That was my opinion and I assume, like any intelligent person, you would assess it as no more than “my opinion” until additional details are revealed.

Let me relate to you what has transpired since my last missive to you.

On Friday, August 13, 2010, at approximately 2:00 pm I was at the Dayton VA doing my CWT job, picking up cigarette butts outside and around the Medical Center. It was at least a 105 degree- heat indexed day. After doing my job and feeling completely overwhelmed by the temperature and the blazing sun, dripping with perspiration, I walked into the Medical Center for a badly needed cool air respite and drink of cold water.

As I entered the building I saw the Director, Guy Richardson walking towards the entrance, heading towards his office. I intentionally stopped, not wanting to interact with him (remember I have just been overlooked, in my opinion, for a position I feel I was the most qualified person to receive) and I always protect my emotions, sooooo I stopped dead in my tracks. I also desperately needed to gather myself; I was sweating profusely and in dire need of a cool drink of water. Mr. Richardson, not seeing me at first, rounded the corner toward his office.

Upon doing so he caught eyesight of me in his peripheral vision. He made a deliberate “U” turn and walked towards me until he reached six (6) inches from my face and he said “Mr., Hampton, you look a lot different today. The last time I saw you, you were all “suited up”! Then, he burst out laughing and walked away to his office. He was making fun of the contrast of how I looked (suited up) when I appeared for the interview and antagonizing me with the fact that he had intentionally denied me the job and I was still outside burning up, picking up cigarette butts. How despicable!

I was immediately offended as I felt this was his way of slapping me in the face with the fact he had cunningly denied me a position I should have received and I had no recourse and I was literally dumbstruck that a “Center Director‘ would conduct himself in this manner! I mean, I knew he didn’t particularly care for me but this was the most blatant derision I have ever encountered.

Sir, I operate from a position that I do not know everything, neither do I consider myself the sharpest knife in the drawer. Fifty-seven (57) years on this earth has taught me there are many sharp knives in the drawer. That said, before I ascertain my position on any particular matter I run my experiences past about ten (10) people who have intelligence, formal education and the life experience I consider worthy of ethical and valuable non-cynical descriptions of what I perceive to be clearly inappropriate behaviors. Some are current high-ranking VA employees. After all that I have been through it is not unrealistic to expect me to develop a cynical attitude so I caution myself “before” I ascertain my experiences. What follows is an honest, non embellished, non-exaggerated moment by moment description of what has happened.

I reversed my direction and left the Medical Tower. Not willing to believe what had just transpired I embarked on a mission to see what the perception of “uninterested parties” might be on this experience. I called or physically spoke to about 8-10 people to hear what their opinion might be about my recent experience. The majority consensus was “he is taunting you and attempting to create an inappropriate response from you in order to degrade your creditability “. Others said he was “rubbing your face” in the fact he has hurt you by denying you a job and that there is NOTHING you could do about it. Incredulous! I don’t remember ever being so humiliated and demeaned in my entire life. I felt more pride as a homeless heroin addict, eight (8) years ago, than I did in the midst of this experience and I fear that without your immediate intervention, this will not end well.

What does it profit a Veteran to work so hard to redeem his life if employees, Mr. Richardson specifically, continue to treat the Veteran as if he just stopped using illegal drugs last night? He has ZERO respect for the men and women who have hazarded their lives for this country and he insists on judging them as if their only self worth is determined by their last failure, never leaving room for redemption on any level. His dedication does not appear to be towards this country nor to the men and women who have served. Instead his arrogance and superiority has become his dominating character and that person is the recipient of his allegiance. Mr. Guy B. Richardson is the exact type of person who was atypical of why I refused to come to the VA for treatment eight (8) years ago. Edith Darden, the homeless Vets Social Worker, would sit next to me in the homeless shelter and plead with me to allow her to help me. I would tell her “no, those people treat Vets like dogs”. After she finally convinced me to come I was assaulted by the MHCL but I received excellent physical medicine so it was six in one hand and half dozen in the other. The rest is history as I’ve written in my March 10, 2010 letter.

I have previously stated that I thought Mr. Richardson was a nice guy, I now disabuse myself of any and all previous statements. What kind of Director of VA Medical Center treats Honorably Discharged Veterans in this way? As I mentioned before, he has cheated me out of a position and he currently has another Honorably Discharged Veteran in the Domiciliary praying for his decision on a job he has already awarded to one of his favorite Black female employees. As an African American I personally resent Mr. Richardson placing me in this adversarial position but I refuse to give him a pass simply because we share the same melanin. That is not the test, Sir! The test is “whether his actions were intentionally purposed to harm me”. I have concluded they were! His arrogance was breathtaking and I exaggerate NOT! My description does not include one sentence of hyperbole! This is an accurate factual account of the events as they transpired. I’ve added or left out Nothing!

Sir, I have enormous respect for your service to our country and I remember how you stood up

during the hearings on the run up to war with Iraq, on the cost and what it would take to win. I know the price you paid for telling the truth. I’ve had a microcosmic experience here of what it feels like to be the only person in the room willing to speak truth to power. I would never disrespect your office nor waste your time with minuscule issues or dishonest allegations. I’m telling you the truth!

Guy B. Richardson is out of control and has allowed his arrogant propensity for nefarious conduct to dominate his entire behavior. This is incredible and had I not been the intended victim of his actions, I would not believe this happened. Seventy-two hours has passed and I remain incredulously in shock. But, I was there and I saw it and I heard it.

Will you PLEASE address this situation? I have to see this man every single week day which provides hourly opportunities for him to insult and abuse me. I am a CWT Patient!

When the offender is the “Director” I have no choice but to bring these matters to your office.

It is past time to reassign Mr. Richardson, retire Mr. Richardson or do whatever it is that your office does when the leading executive looses complete control.

Need I remind you, Sir, I am a United States Citizen, an Honorably Discharged Veteran and a VA Patient. Nothing less than, Psychologically speaking, this Director is emotionally and mentally assaulting me and is guilty of “Patient Abuse” per your own VHA policies!

What would have happened if I were a lesser man who had less control of my emotions? This incident could have resulted in an act of violence or worse. Not only have I earned better than this, according to Article 1 Section 9 of our Constitution, Title 38 and VHA policy, I should NEVER be denied benefits, denied employment, forced to be traumatized, insulted, humiliated nor provoked into an inappropriate response in this manner. According to VHA policy, it is “my perception” that is the controlling feeling here and I perceive this as “hostile harassment“ requiring urgent intervention! How much more mortification, deep shame and dishonor am I expected to tolerate? I am running on fumes, Sir! I am only a man. At least now I know “why” Mr. Richardson allowed his staff to torture me for four years. I don’t think he likes me very much, which was on pellucid display August 13, 2010 at about 2:00 pm! Well, let’s be brutally honest: He demands obsequious sycophantic behavior, which is ultimately why he choose the black female for the GS-11position and I adamantly refuse to oblige or accommodate him so he makes sure I am denied a job or appropriate treatment in return!

My reputation for veracity and an eidetic “documentation” of personal events proceed me.

In closing, my family is very upset. I have begged them not to get involved here but they have told me they will no longer sit on the sidelines and watch this transparent spectacle of abuse to continue. I am positive, if not already, you will hear from members of my family very soon.

I am requesting your immediate EMERGENCY interposition in this matter, SIR!

My Very Best Regards,

Darrell Hampton