A vet buddy out in Guam sent me this pearl:

(CNSNews.com) – The United States Agency for International Development is planning to spend $24.5 million to circumcise an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 male infants and males aged 10 to 49 in the kingdom of Swaziland by 2018.

Let me try to wrap my old Vietnam Vet brain around this: The medical system established by the United States of America back in 1930, the Veterans Administration, is so overwhelmed by demand for services by those who have worn the uniform and dutifully served this nation, that we are witnessing a daily unfolding of new scandals all across this nation where VA bureaucrats have manipulated the system to deny coverage to deserving veterans.

I’ll confess up front to never being a fan of the Veterans Administration Medical System. For a couple of decades back in in the last quarter of the 20^th Century, I managed a team of regional government sales managers whose primary function was selling pharmaceuticals to the military, with VA hospitals being a secondary market. To a man, my guys hated calling on VA facilities because of the entrenched, and generally intransigent, bureaucracy. Before the VA began modernizing in the 80’s, most of the physical facilities were worn-down backwaters of medical care, a stark contrast to the vibrant, service-oriented atmosphere of most military medical facilities. I damn near had to horse whip my guys to call on the VA facilities in their regions.

You should understand that with that background, I’m not surprised in the least at the revelations coming now regarding the systemic corruption that likely permeates the entire system, not just the few locations exposed thus far. I spoke recently with another Vietnam veteran who is a nationally-known investigator of military fraud and deception. What he told me regarding rampant corruption in the VA system actually sent me into a depressed funk for a couple of days. After our talk I couldn’t help but think of the Veterans Administration health system as a huge wooden ship of state whose hull has been bored into and weakened to the point of destruction by the bureaucratic worms whose mission is job-preservation, salary and retirement.

Not patient care.

Yet, rather than authorizing a commission with a $25 million budget to investigate this broken corrupt system and provide recommendations as to how we save this worm-eaten, rotten-hulled ship and make it the institution needed to serve our veterans medical needs, we send that same amount of our taxpayer provided funds offshore to Africa to circumcise the male infants of Swaziland.

Just where is the justice in this yet another Obama folly? Just who is truly getting clipped here?