Review: A revealing look at the corruption and ineptitude of our government
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 29, 2014
The powerful story of Eddie Livingston is, all at once, heart-rending, inspiring, and completely enraging. After heroically serving his country in World War II as a member of the U.S. Army’s elite airborne infantry, and then enduring the brutal and horrific nightmare of being imprisoned in a Nazi POW camp, Eddie found that his war was not over when he returned home. Unfortunately, Eddie would have to wage another 20-year war with the Veteran’s Administration; the very organization that should have been the MOST welcoming and accommodating to its returning heroes.It is not without some irony that this book comes around at precisely the time that the Veteran’s Administration is, once again, under fire for dishonorable conduct in regard to Veteran’s health care. Eddie’s story shines a bright spotlight on the VA’s misconduct and ineptitude that exposes it as another government organization which is devoid of ethics. This story also shows that VA corruption has existed for a very long time. The scourge did not begin with the current administration, but it continues to grow and expand under its watch like the burgeoning tendrils of kudzu. This book unveils the Veteran’s Administration as another broken and corrupt organization that is so deeply entangled in a web of bureaucracy that it has lost sight of its core mission…to serve our veterans.With no real job skills and countless physical and emotional scars, it would have been easy for Eddie Livingston to surrender to defeat upon discovering that his country had turned its back to him. Instead, Eddie began a 20-year campaign against the VA, wielding a typewriter and a skillful command of the English language as his weapons. Eddie’s unmatched courage and relentless pursuit of justice shows us why his generation is referred to as "the greatest generation". I can only hope that some of today’s youth will emerge from the hypnotic screens of their iPhones long enough to learn the story of this American hero.Any freedom-loving American who is not mad enough to spit nails after reading the story of Eddie Livingston should darned well renounce his or her citizenship. This is more than a call to arms…it is a call to humanity!