Friday, May 13, 2011

VA Hires Biggest Critic to Be Official Blogger

Source: The Retired Enlisted Association (TREA) Washington Update

VA Hires Biggest Critic to Spur Change From Within the Bureaucracy-VA Hires Biggest Critic to Spur Change From Within the Bureaucracy-The VA has hired Alex Horton, a blogger from Austin, TX, who began ranting about the VA on his war blog in 2009. He was in his fourth semester at community college, and VA was holding up money he needed for rent and schoolbooks under the new GI Bill.

He wrote on his blog, “Army of Dude” that his VA counselor “provides the same level of care you would expect from a Tijuana back alley vasectomy.” That’s not how most people go about catching a prospective employer’s attention.

Horton’s new blog is called VAntage Point. It launched last Veterans Day. It has taken on some fundamental issues: The claims backlog, VA’s paper-driven culture, the wave of mental health problems confronting returning troops, access to health care, how civilians should talk to veterans, suicide and homelessness.

The goal is not just to answer veterans’ questions faster and in real time but also to open the bureaucracy to scrutiny. Although they’ve gotten a slower start than the private sector, federal agencies are interacting with citizens on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, a big change for many used to more-controlled communication.

For more information, read the article here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-va-a-blogger-criticizes-from-the-inside/2011/04/20/AF96tAdG_story.html

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