--- title: America's Appalling Veterans Affairs Scandal: The 1970 Edition description: Five decades ago, LIFE magazine published a devastating story on the frightful conditions faced by wounded veterans in our VA hospitals. canonical: https://time.com/3880179/veterans-affairs-scandal-the-1970-edition/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-12T17:45:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:40.439Z og:title: America's Appalling Veterans Affairs Scandal: The 1970 Edition og:description: Five decades ago, LIFE magazine published a devastating story on the frightful conditions faced by wounded veterans in our VA hospitals. og:url: https://time.com/3880179/veterans-affairs-scandal-the-1970-edition/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd2c5f4bca896e3c/69884bfc55a85960e6a8b92e/140612-va-hospital-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: VA Hospital 1970 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: America's Appalling Veterans Affairs Scandal: The 1970 Edition twitter:description: Five decades ago, LIFE magazine published a devastating story on the frightful conditions faced by wounded veterans in our VA hospitals. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd2c5f4bca896e3c/69884bfc55a85960e6a8b92e/140612-va-hospital-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # America's Appalling Veterans Affairs Scandal: The 1970 Edition by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Jun 12, 2014 5:45 PM CUT  Caption from LIFE. "Quadriplegic Marke Dumpert, invalided out of the Marines as a lance corporal, waits helplessly to be dried in a veterans' hospital." Caption from LIFE. "Quadriplegic Marke Dumpert, invalided out of the Marines as a lance corporal, waits helplessly to be dried in a veterans' hospital."Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Jun 12, 2014 5:45 PM CUT The ongoing [Veterans Affairs scandal](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/us/fbi-has-begun-criminal-inquiry-in-va-scandal.html "undefined") that cost Secretary Eric Shinseki his job has cast a grim light on the VA’s appalling—and, in some cases, perhaps lethal—incompetencies. It comes as no surprise to anyone with a long memory, however, that this is hardly the first time the VA has failed to uphold the nation’s “[sacred trust](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/24/obama-veterans-scandal-shinseki "undefined"),” recently cited by President Obama, “to all who’ve served.” In May 1970, LIFE magazine published a devastating cover story on the frightful conditions faced by troops returning from Vietnam, and those wounded in earlier wars, who were “fated to pass into the bleak backwaters of our Veterans Administration hospitals.” (The Veterans Administration was transformed into the Cabinet-level [Department of Veterans Affairs](http://www.va.gov/ "undefined") in 1988.) “A man hit in Vietnam,” LIFE noted, “has twice as good a chance of surviving as he did in Korea and World War II, as support hospitals perform miraculous repairs on injuries that tend to be more devastating than ever before. But having been saved by the best field medicine in history,” one of every seven servicemen wounded in Vietnam entered the VA system—a landscape characterized by LIFE as a “medical slum.” --- > “” --- It’s worth noting that the head of the VA at the time, a World War II veteran named Donald E. Johnson, eventually resigned under pressure from veterans’ groups and members of Congress—in 1974, long after the LIFE article appeared—but that some in Washington felt he was simply a convenient scapegoat served up to the public by the thoroughly embattled Nixon administration. The pictures in the May 1970 LIFE article and in this gallery—powerfully illustrating the indignities faced by residents of the VA’s “medical slum”—were made by [Co Rentmeester](http://www.co-rentmeester.com/ "undefined"), a Dutch photojournalist (and Olympic rower, and eventual LIFE staffer) who in May 1968 was himself wounded while covering the war in Vietnam. It’s difficult, even all these years later, not to sense in Rentmeester’s photos some of the indignation he must have felt in the presence of these wounded warriors subjected to such squalor, such neglect, such astounding disrespect. --- _Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com_ --- ---  Caption from LIFE. "Quadriplegic Marke Dumpert, invalided out of the Marines as a lance corporal, waits helplessly to be dried in a veterans' hospital." Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. In an enema room of the Bronx VA Hospital in New York, disabled spinal injury patients wait up to four hours to be attended by a single aide, 1970. Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Scene from a VA hospital, The Bronx, 1970. Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Marke Dumpert speaks bitterly about his treatment." Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images ![Hospital aides strap \[Dumpert\] into a brace so he can stand. He is so helpless that he needs almost constant care, but the hospital cannot give it.](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt23965567fbe45c49/69884bfd55a8591a5fa8b932/140612-va-hospital-05.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp) Caption from LIFE. "Hospital aides strap \[Dumpert\] into a brace so he can stand. He is so helpless that he needs almost constant care, but the hospital cannot give it." Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Injured Vietnam veteran Marke Dumpert, The Bronx, 1970. Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "In a partitionless ward of the Bronx VA Hospital a disarray of dirty linen is allowed to pile up around a quadriplegic's bed while the patient himself lies naked, unable to clothe himself after a shower." Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "The Bronx hospital is so full of rodents that a trap set on any given evening usually produces a mouse or rat by morning. Marine veteran Parcel Wheeler of Scranton, Pa., a paraplegic who saw combat at Ducphu, hasn't yet awakened to see the trapped mouse next to his bed." Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "In the paraplegic wards, a totally crippled patient must depend on a buddy who still has the use of his arms to get a sheet thrown over him." Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "At the Bronx VA Hospital veteran Frank Stoppiello, wounded in the Ashau Valley in Vietnam, gives a cigarette to quadriplegic Andrew Kmetz, an Army veteran, as they wait for treatment. Because of overcrowding, they must share a corner with trash cans." Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Wounded veterans in a rare light mood at a VA hospital, 1970. Co Rentmeester—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images   LIFE magazine, May 22, 1970. LIFE Magazine  LIFE magazine, May 22, 1970. LIFE Magazine  LIFE magazine, May 22, 1970. LIFE Magazine  LIFE magazine, May 22, 1970. LIFE Magazine  LIFE magazine, May 22, 1970. 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