Former Marine and current employee of the Department Veterans Affairs Brandon Coleman says that while the VA talks a good game about respecting whistleblowers, the troubled department routinely retaliates against them in an effort to keep them quiet.
Coleman joined the VA in 2009, and by 2012 he was specializing in helping suicidal veterans. But he said it quickly became clear that the VA wasn’t doing enough to help these patients. He also said he doubts that the VA has an accurate count on how many veterans kill themselves every month.
“I think the number of 22 per day is completely fabricated,” he told the Washington Examiner.
In late 2014 he approached his superiors about the poor treatment of veterans, and complained that people were going through his own medical records.
“I was told by one when I was going to come forward that that’s how people get fired,” he said.
In February of 2015, he got a letter saying he was being put on paid administrative leave. He was later cleared, which to him showed that he was punished for “nothing more than being a whistleblower.”
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