one or 2, but you also as the was done, those are the, the newest frame on the buildings systems to build a new do what i see these the buses, the little gear litigation says this done both of the are in the united states. we have a cultural practice of thinking, members of the armed forces for their service. the thanks is almost always genuine . not everybody decides to either commit themselves to protecting the country or to putting their lives on hold for several years to protect the country. so we think that in many cases that for person has spent 2025, even 30 years in the military. they decide to start 2nd careers and public service and often in the service of other members of the military. i'm not talking just about the pedagogy of course,

but also about the department of veterans affairs. so many of our active duty service members and retired veterans need help and they often go to veterans hospitals for that help. but what happens when you decide to dedicate your life to helping your fellow veterans? and you see evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. what happens when you see that the entire system is broken, that it's set up not to help people, but simply to check a bureaucratic box. people of with i'm john curiosity of welcome to the whistle blowers the . 2 2 we've spoken several times on the show about the us department of veterans affairs, that large governmental bureaucracy created to help and to serve the country as veterans. but for multiple reasons, the department that has never run the way it was supposed to. many veterans receive sub standard medical care,

many are denied medications necessary to live their lives as normally as possible. and in another terrible development. according to military veteran project dot org, 22 veterans commit suicide every single day. some even do so in the parking lots of the veterans hospitals where they've been denied care. our guest today is ted blick, wadel. he served his country for 27 years in the us marine corps, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. he decided upon retirement to consider serving his fellow veterans and he received counseling training and went to work in the department of veterans affairs hospital before then moving on to the vet centers. the centers are community based counseling clinics that were established in the wake of the vietnam war, connecting social workers and counselors with military or combat experience to other combat veterans. that way they spoke the same language, had similar experiences and could better understand the pressures of post military

life. ted begin providing counseling for vets centers in 2009, but by 2016, he realized that what was originally a people centered approach to helping veterans had simply become a numbers game where patients were rushed through appointments to meet veterans administration numbers, expectations to begin to feel burned out and you realize that other counselors were having the same experience. in 2018, he emailed nearly 1300 vet, center counselors across the country to learn how the v is expectations and bureaucratic demands were affecting them. the results were so stunning, the ted decided to blow the whistle, resulting in a government accountability office report that in 2020, revealed that the new productivity standards were leading to counselor burn out across the country of a bill to correct these wrongs is pending in the congress, but it has not yet been acted upon. in the meantime, ted has written a book called broken promises,

which chronicles his experience and provides insights into how to report problems in government agencies. ted blick way to welcome to the show we are so happy to have you. well, thank you for having the jobs. great to be here. ted. let's begin with the end of your military career and the beginning of your 2nd career as a counselor. what made you want to go into this line of work? was it that you saw a need based on your own experiences? well, yes, i have a history of p 2 is the exacerbated when i was in the military. i am a conduct veterans in the persian gulf war and you know, i saw a great need at that time for our military veterans and even active duty that really needed a lot of assistance. and i've always had an interest in the counseling field. and so when i retire from the military, i went back to school, got another master's degree in clinical social work from rhode island college where i then did an internship at the v. a medical center in providence, rhode island,

and subsequently worked at the the va that center in worth rhode island for 9 years in 2009 to 2018. honestly, i can't think of many more important programs than providing counseling to our veterans who may be dealing with things like moral injury, post traumatic stress disorder, depression, or other mental health issues. we owe it to them to provide the best possible services. and you decided that your 2nd act would be to help those veterans. when did you realize that there was a systemic problem? a while in 2016, a memorandum came out from subject from the da central office, basically increasing our clinical productivity expectations. and this policy was such that it's um, increased the visit, count with the standard visits of 50 to 60 minutes. seeing individuals um where

by we used to have to have i was referred to as 50 percent direct service time. so i have a 40 hour work week. we were to have face to face time with veterans or family members. out of those 20 hours out of those 40 hours. well by this increasing the way it did, one is 30 visits per week. what this meant was on a 50 to 60 minute session, this increase the face time that we are expected to have by, by 50 percent. so basically, 75 percent of our work week or 30 hours a week in $1.00 and $1.00 type situations was required to, to meet that requirements which did not allow enough time with all these additional administrative duties progress notes, treatment plans and such to be able to get everything done. so counselors were you know, not taking breaks, working through lunch and virtually put in an extra time that they weren't getting paid for just to get the administration of the administrative portion of the, of the job done. and it just became stressful to the point where counselors were,

were starting to burn out. picking fmla leave worried, they're going to lose their jobs because of a memorandum that came out that if you don't meet the requirements, you're subject to h r i you know, kind of interaction which basically is setting you up to get fire is what kind of boils down to so a lot of people were inside the written going on medication. um you know, seeing their own therapist and such. and so this put us in an ethical dilemma. do we meet these numbers? hor, offer the quality care that's a veterans and their family members deserve. and that was that the position we were put in and, and it just put a lot of pressure on people and, and, and that's, you know, this was around after a year 2016 going into 2017 where over that year this was a parent, like most whistle blowers, you went through your chain of command when you realize that there was

a problem. and you went armed with data. you had said this e mail to almost 1300 other counselors around the country. so you knew that you weren't alone in your conclusion that the department of veterans affairs was more interested in numbers than it wasn't actually helping individuals. what was the reaction to your revelations internally as well? actually, you know, a lot of us counselors were, were talking, we had to even get this a deputy district one director for the vet center program here in a ne, making rounds and doing clinical site visits. we unanimously were telling him at this site visit, you know, we got this problem that i was just describing. and, and, and he said, yes, i heard that every where i go. meaning other that's centers where he was doing clinical site visits. that was significant. and um, and he's still working at the va deal, we'll, as he's still in district one, somewhere in the, in his deputy uh, you know, clinicals director slot in,

in district one and in one of his zones. and you know, it's just unconscionable, you know, nothing got done about it. we, we raced and so at that point is when i went out with an e mail to the chief r c s vets center program officer in central office in washington at the v. a and describes problems where it was causing the, the compromise, quality, mental health care, the counselor burn out. uh, frankly, it is an ethical. i have research in a book i published about the whole thing, the backs up the fact that this in fact is, is on ethical and what they were asking was basically affecting your to be negative treatment outcomes. because of going over certain limit with, with visits per week and you know, it just, it just got out of control and, and basically when they failed to respond back to me when mike fisher,

they are as the as chief officer failed to respond to the after a week i went out with that same email with additional comments, but this time i cc'ed in phone, everybody in the program district directors, that center directors and about 1300 counselors across the country. and at that point, it got a response. and with what happened was within 48 hours after i had already received $57.00 responses from the $42.00 vet centers across $25.00 states. and they had shut down my computer. otherwise i would have had hundreds of responses fall escalating the very same thing. i was saying how this is excessive, it's hurting us as a business model. this, that's an ethical and you know, we can't keep going on like this and, and people just started, you know, looking for other work, a private practice and taken early retirement. and to this day, there's still an issue with a high turnover rate because of this,

it was then that you decided to go public with what you knew and you went to the government accountability office. that's exactly the place where you were supposed to go. that's the organization that's supposed to keep the honest people honest, so to speak in government, they confirmed your allegations and turn the capitol hill for a solution. so i guess my question is 2 fold. first, with a finding by g, a o that you were correct in your allegations. why didn't the department of veterans affairs just correct the situation? and 2nd, once a bill was written and introduced in congress to correct the deficiencies that you found, why wasn't action taken on it immediately? us. okay, well uh 1st of all, um, the reason action hasn't been taken based on the g o recommendations that came out on the report in september of 2020 is because it's easier for the v a and any bureaucracy. you know that this guilty of misconduct interviews, you know,

frankly decide when someone speaks up about is lot easier to do that and actually fix the problem. and then then them having to be comfortable and, and held accountable for that. so that's just, you know, basic uh, retaliation tactics. is this a pretty standard operating procedure? and so as things move forward and the ga, all you know, validate some allegations, this led to the vet center improvement at which they allowed me to edit the bill on before it went to the floor for a vote. and basically, this legislation was passed and signed into law just this past december as an amendment to the f y 23 national defense authorization act is h r 76. i'm sorry, h r 7776. section 5126 pages 819-2825 it lays out all the concerns and what the da's

required to do with g, a o, and congressional oversight. now, the bill now in the bill, what it says is the v a has one year to actually start compliance with the bill. so they have time to get their ducks lined up, which means now going into 2024. they should be taking steps to implement which, which uh, they're required to do with g on congressional oversight, which basically comes down to counselors having an opportunity to give feedback in an electronic database that cannot be altered by any party. and this is a non of as feedback. b where the da's required to establish an internal working group to review this 3rd party is very ever have access to this without being altered. so the a can't minimize things or trash things that they don't want to be known. and. and then the v a secretary based on that feedback is then require. 4 i or to submit a report to congress based on the findings of any corrective action that's being

taken. ted, please hang with us. we're going to take a short break and when we come back we're going to talk to 10 look wadel about who's continuing work to write these ones through a very well received book called broken promises stages. 2 2 the, [000:00:00;00]

the, [000:00:00;00] the 1934 france invaded algeria and straight away the french started inhabiting it to strengthen their position. the column is known as the new art to the best land. from day one,

the local population was put into an unequal position and was briefly exploited. this caused them as discontent. the people of l g area began their long term fight for independence. in 1954, the banner of freedom was raised by the national liberation front. a guerrilla war against the occupants broke out. the french tried to suppress, to rebuild you and using cruel measures. whole villages were wiped out acts of torture and executions of civil people, including pregnant women, children and old people took place more than 2000000 people were born into concentration camps. however, these punitive measures didn't help. cl, jerry and patriots managed to induce france to start seize negotiations in 1962 heavy and the cords were assigned 40 l. jerry on the bass wards independent. but

this was achieved at a colossal price. algeria by rights is considered to be a country of martyrs. according to the calculations of historians, the french colonists are responsible for the depths of one and a half 1000000 algerians. the welcome back to the whistle blowers. 2 i'm john carrie onto. we're speaking with us department of veterans affairs whistleblower ted, look wadel about his whistle blowing over the issue of counseling for american military veterans. ted, it's good to have you with us. thanks for hanging in there. thanks again, john. good to be back. can you wrote a book called broken promises that has been very well received? the reviews are universally positive and most for viewers. describe the book as important. did you originally set out to write a book or was it something that developed over time? well, this is actually something that developed. i never intended fact. i didn't want to

write a book. to be honest with you, then people kept telling me, no, you got to do this, you got to do this. so i, i had a lot of encouragement. you know that, that this could be very beneficial not only to the issue but other things. and so i decided to go ahead and start working on this, and i believe it was a 2021 is when i started putting things together from documents and things i had written already is part of the journal and and, and it's finally got published this past month in august of 2023. in the book, you talk about retaliation from superiors at that centers. you talk about abuse and misconduct that you encountered while you were there. tell us a little bit about that and knowing also that you are certainly not the 1st whistle blower to call out waste, fraud, abuse and illegality at the department of veterans affairs. why do you think it is that the department just can't seem to clean up its act?

well, like any bureaucracy is like an aircraft carrier. when you try to turn in aircraft here, you're around. you've got to go about 5 miles and it turns very slowly. so the wheels in, in a large bureaucracy like the va, which is the largest health care system in, in the world. and, you know, that's, that's something, unfortunately, to be expected because of all the red tape you gotta go through to make any changes . but more importantly, anything that does need to be changed, it's gotta get elevated to a level where they're going to be held accountable. and this is what happened when this legislation finally passed that i talked about in the last segment. that was important to that and but what was also important is, is the local and national media interviews i had done with nbc military times and p . r and other networks and getting political action galvanized behind this and

following through on the house in the senate side and with the veterans affairs committee through my congressional delegates in rhode island. it's centered reading, congressman sicily and, and so that's kind of what made the difference to elevate this thing to put the v in a position where they can no longer just disregard, minimize and, and, and, and try to make it go away. one of the important parts of this book is near the end, where you talk about lessons learned. one interviewer said that it is something of a manual for potential whistle blowers have other potential or would be whistle blowers come to you to discuss their own situations. and if so, what advice have you given them as well? absolutely, they have, but i 1st just want to do a quick caviar about the book and its value to that in the book was written to expose the issues with the recommendations and what needs to be done in the legislation as needed, which finally passed. so that's important also to raise awareness of to the

general public and politicians. what happens to people that speak truth to power? so i very visually and very in a very deep personal level, talked about the impact it had on me with the depression, the anger of being emotionally isolated, the impact that had in my family, my colleagues. it was absolutely horrific. legal and financial consequences that were, that were pretty dad and, and consequently, um, you know, exposing that and getting it means these are actually malicious tactics that are use like mobbing gas lighting silencing. um, you know, tower accusations, and one of the things they did with me was tried to paint me as a mentally unstable compact veteran, to discredit me and, and, you know, really my character is part of trying to sign with me. these are some of the things that the, that happened in the book details that and in a very, very graphic way. so people understand that. but then, you know, besides talking about the, the, the media and the political action that happened at the end of the book is you're

alluding to now, is it just people who whistle blowers hope because congressional legislation came out of this, which is very rare thing actually when people take all these kinds of causes, so it gives people hope to show the data can be july and then number 2 with my lessons learned, i have like a blueprint from my experience, listing all the elements and explaining what needs to happen when someone speaks choose the power what elements are important is part of the strategy in order to be maximally effective to have the most favorable outcome possible of and, and so that's what the, the book describes and into the. busy most important things, as course, having or few is evidence of, you know, backing up what you're saying, you know, with, with documents, with witnesses, with recordings, with whatever that might be a self care,

very important and make sure you get legal health upfront. number one before you march off, because you're going to fall into all kinds of traps if you don't, and it will not end well, as i found out in my experience, which is why i pointed that out in the book along with the importance of establishing a network of support, and that's where i, i give advice on not just these things, but going to people like in organizations like whistle blowers of america with jackie garrick who is the founder and ceo of that organization and, and also the, the national width of lower center because they help whistle blowers understand what's, what's happening and, and what's being done, you know, and helping them understand, you know, how, how this all in full. so they can develop a strategy in order to deal with this and counter doesn't have to support the needs and they realize they're not alone. and it just goes a whole lot more smooth or that way because you learn things and avoid pitfalls

that help you with, with your, your map, your well being and your health as well as you know, having more of an, of an effective app advocacy effort. finally, ted, tell us about the work that you're doing now with whistle blowers of america and where people can learn more about what you're up to as well. i am in my mentor from best employers of america, jackie, sense of, you know, contact information. we have people that need to touch base that are starting out with uh, you know, whistle blowing for one reason or another. um and so i'm involved in that sense because again, it's a peer to peer support kind of thing that helps to build a network of support. so people can be referred to the different services they need along the way in their journey that meets their specific needs. and you know that way they have a connection that kind of helps along the way. so they're not going it alone because you,

you cannot do it alone. and so to find out more about this and the importance is to get the word out about my book. and the reason for that is it is the source document that addresses all of this with, with the references for the book being so massive had to be instead of in the book on my website and the references tab and the menu bar bar for transparency and credibility, and that's important for people to understand these things outlined before the book is a great source for that. and it's of the title is broken promises it can be purchased on amazon as well as barnes and noble. and i have a website, w, w, w dot v, a breaking promises dot com. again, that's v a breaking promises dot com, which not only where you can go to, to order to book and, and share and spread the word you know,

on and social media platforms to raise awareness. because the focus now is to ensure that the compl. 9 is with the legislation now that is past and that's really my next step in this process. thanks for taking the time to speak with us ted. the grid c ologist, norman vincent, peale once said that quote, to be successful is to be helpful, caring and constructive. and to make everything and everyone you touch a little bit better. and martin luther king reminded us that flights most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others? sometimes there's a price to pay for doing the right thing for the world is a better place, thanks to people like ted blyth, wadel, and thanks to our viewers for joining us for another episode of a whistle blowers, i'm john kerry. aku,

we'll see you next time. 2 2 the the the the hi, i'm executive and i'm here to plan with you whatever you do. do not watch my new show . seriously. why watch something that's so different. whitelisted opinions that he won't get anywhere else. what of it please?

or do you have the state department c, i a weapons, bankers, multi 1000000000 dollar corporations. choose your fax for you. go ahead. i changed and whatever you do, don't want marshall state main street because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show is called stretching time, but again, it's not, we don't want to watch it because it might just change the waiting thing. i think the national has come home, not hopefully for a while by the task. the national law has been based on the balance of power and soft interest, but also poway, especially this balance of power to be out in the world into 19 nineties. and so there was no a one to balance to the american power. the

summations may be able to turn to atrocities, and other times the united states of america is different. wherever people longed to be free, they will find a friend in the united states. the seem to be of the automated about 80 volts in a very, very easy to sort of city and teach all the look at the end service of each skid 18 color revolutions is one among several means to reach the goal of conquering foreign lands and bringing them onto the help of us, the western economic interest. people inside it. i think that he did to everybody. democrats, yeah, we think portal active sol, suite of us

a little bit of time with them and he can finish the final goal. these seem revolutions to ensure that there are no independent players in the world anymore. the, the, or at least 18 people are killed and dozens more injured in an air strike on the oldest orthodox church in gaza, where displayed civilians were sheltering from intensive is rarely selling. the 2 american hostages are released by her moss as around 200 people. still remain in captivity after the latest 5 months broke out 2 weeks ago. we hear from the relatives of those who are yet to be free. i'm on the