This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
In less than a year, Donald Trump's second term as president has seen spectacular improvements in many areas of government, including notably in the U.S. military. However, at least one major area of support for America's armed forces – the Department of Veterans Affairs – is reportedly failing in its commitment to veterans. Case in point: Howard "Buck" Sheward, an 80-year-old Vietnam vet suffering from leukemia, who many believe deserves much better treatment than he is receiving from the VA.
WorldNetDaily spoke to retired Army Lt. Col. Francesca Graham, who currently serves as chief operating officer of Walk the Talk Foundation, an advocacy organization for members of the U.S. military. As Graham put it, "The Oklahoma VA system lacks connectivity between the systems in place to help Buck, a veteran who is undergoing chemotherapy and has almost died a couple of times."
For example, she said, "At the end of 2023, he unexpectedly spent nearly a month in a non-VA hospital in and out of lucidity fighting leukemia. While there, the VA kept calling to tell him he was missing pre-scheduled VA cancer treatment appointments."
In the rare moments that Sheward was lucid and able to talk, Graham said, he told the VA representatives where he was, but the calls to him did not cease. "According to Buck," she told WND, "he was berated for missing the VA appointments and was told that the VA would cancel his referrals if he continued to no-show his appointments."
"He's been asked why he was at a community care facility without a referral when he was actually taken there by ambulance," she shared. "Where's the common sense and connectivity?"
When it comes to community care facilities and the VA, she said, "These systems need to be talking to each other."
Not only is the lack of communication problematic, but so is the bureaucracy itself, Graham argued. "When a veteran travels to an appointment outside of the VA hospital, the veteran is supposed to receive travel reimbursement for that appointment," she said. Yet Sheward has not been reimbursed for the last six months. "He's submitted the paperwork," Graham said, "and then he hears nothing."
"There are also days where he'll submit paperwork for two different trips on the same day and only get reimbursed for one," Graham added. "Given his sickness and his age, is the VA not capable of helping him navigate getting his reimbursements and the ever-changing forms, or is the bureaucratic machine too large to really care about his health?"
Between February 2023 to May 2025, Graham said Sheward submitted 113 travel claims for cancer treatment and routine care. Out of these, 46 were approved for payment, while 67 claims, or 59%, were denied. Another 18 are still awaiting a decision. Interestingly, some trips that received approval one day were denied the following day.
In addition to the "bureaucracy and apathy" issue, the Walk the Talk Foundation's executive offered this shocker: "Buck discovered that a behavioral health provider, assigned to help veterans, including him, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, had been tried and convicted of a federal crime but still continued to see patients until it was time for him to report to prison."
"Just think about the implications of trusting your mental health to the VA, only to learn that your therapist has a criminal record," she said. "Buck brought up the issue, but it was swept under the rug."
"Buck is very frustrated because his concerns are not being acknowledged in any sort of meaningful way," Graham told WND. In fact, he is beginning to think the gradual accumulation of his problems and the indifference toward his health is retaliatory.
"Is this the position an 80-year-old Vietnam vet should find himself in?" she questioned. "I can assure you that he's not the only one facing these kinds of struggles."
Buck Sheward has reached out to several congressional offices in Oklahoma, including that of GOP Sen. James Lankford, regarding his concerns. "Unfortunately," Graham told WND, "those efforts have been hampered by a combination of bureaucratic inertia and a limited understanding of the complexity of his case within the state's VA system."
WND asked Sen. Lankford's office what steps, if any, his office is taking to address the lack of record integration between the VA and community care providers in Sheward's case. The office did not reply to request for comment by publication time.
