This site is a public record. It publishes open letters to Doug Collins, Secretary of Veterans Affairs — one family's case at a time — documenting what the Department of Veterans Affairs promised its veterans, what it actually delivered, and how long it has stayed silent.
What this site is
Every story here runs on primary documents: dates, case numbers, and the VA’s own records. Every letter sent to the Secretary is published here in full, along with his answer — or, if no answer comes, a running count of the days of silence. Nothing is published that a family has not chosen to put on the record.
The founding case: Thomas Alan Bowman, Sr.
Thomas Alan Bowman, Sr., 84, served in the United States Navy from 1964 to 1970 as a Radioman Second Class aboard USS Arikara (ATF-98). He is rated 100% service-connected. He was promised that when he could no longer stand on his own, the VA would stand behind him.
Instead, after a December 2025 surgery left part of his gallbladder — with stones — inside him, the VA authorized a follow-up consult in March 2026 and never scheduled it. A lab test was ordered three times and never drawn. His VA.gov record carried his son’s birthday, his son’s email, a “Service connected percentage: 0,” and no record of his military service at all. The VA listed his wife — dead since 2019 — as his caretaker, while his actual caretaker, his son, spent two years as a registered VA caregiver in the unpaid tier, asking in writing for help that was never approved.
He is now in hospice at the Emory L. Bennett Veterans Nursing Home in Daytona Beach, Florida. Read the full Bowman case →
Pull your Blue Button. Whose birthday is on it?
The defect in the Bowman record is one any veteran or caretaker can check in about five minutes: download your VA Blue Button report and look at whose date of birth, whose email, and what disability percentage it shows. If your report is wrong the way his was, you are not alone — and this site is where that gets documented.
Letter No. 1
Status: Mailed October 15, 2026 — email to the VA (Executive Correspondence) with certified mail to follow. The silence counter runs from the mailing date.
Read Letter No. 1 in full →
Days of silence on Letter No. 1
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Letter No. 1 mailed 2026-10-15. The counter runs until a substantive reply arrives — and the reply, when it comes, will be published here too.
Is this your family’s story too?
If the VA has failed a veteran you care for — an unscheduled consult, a wrong record, a caregiver request that vanished — you can put it on the record here, under your name, anonymously, or for the record only. Tell your story →