In June of 2012, we planned a big surprise party for my father’s 80th birthday. When my mom convinced him that they should stop by Pioneer Park, the biggest park in Billings, for an AA picnic, he reluctantly agreed, and still didn’t have a clue what was going on as they approached a large group of us until he saw some familiar faces and we all shouted. As you can see from this photo, he was absolutely delighted. People had come from all over the country. I’ll always be grateful that it worked out so well because it turned out to be his last birthday. He spent much of the party in tears.

Six months later, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, the lung cancer that is caused by asbestos. Dad was a machinist’s mate in the Navy, with a specialty in welding, serving on three different ships, and as most of you probably know, the insulation on pipes in those days consisted almost entirely of asbestos, which can gather in a person’s lungs and stay dormant for decades before it suddenly takes hold. Three months after he got the news, he was gone. So what I always say is that it took a lot longer for him to die than it did some veterans, but it was still the service that killed him.

As a veteran myself, I’ve always been a little puzzled when I hear people complain about the VA. I have had nothing but positive experiences with the VA, going through two major surgeries, an appendectomy and prostatectomy, with fabulous care.

But when Dad was in the final stages of his treatment, I saw a different side of what the VA can look like. For one thing, I didn’t realize that, earlier in his life, he had tried to file a claim with the VA when he was diagnosed with melanoma. Dad was one of the sailors that was instructed to stand on deck and watch an atomic blast in the Pacific. He did this twice, and the second time, because he was also trained in diving, he was given the task of diving under the ship and cutting the anchor chain, which had become a tangled mess because of the blast. So when he contracted melanoma, he filed a claim, only to be told that there were no records of his ship being there for the blasts.

After his mesothelioma treatment, one of the doctors shoved a rubber tube down his throat for some reason, and it fucked up his vocal chords to the point where my dad, who had a smooth, melodious voice, spoke with a rasp for the final two months of his life. I also remember sitting with him for nearly two hours for one of his final appointments, when he was feeling like shit. I don’t blame the staff. I blame the system, which forces these people to march their patients through like chattel. My father deserved better treatment. So I find it incredibly disheartening that the VA is among the many government agencies that have been hit with budget cuts. The party that claims to be champions of the military does not live up to that claim when they’re talking about the men and women who served. They are much more interested in providing big contracts for their corporate friends than they are in the people who are on the ground. So for this Memorial Day, I salute my father and others like him, who truly did give their lives.