By Daniel P. Cortez, GUEST OPINION
In late August, the nation’s finest United States Marines were on ceremonial display at the final parade of their season at Marine Barracks 8th & I Street in Washington, D.C.
Like the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps stationed at Fort Myer, their military symmetry and precision remains unmatched in a region known for its pomp and circumstance. It is the same expectations we have across the military, especially for active duty warfighters and our veterans who expect responsible benefits and medical care in both war and peace.
Unfortunately, not everyone agrees, and sometimes the standards of professionalism come expected rather than worked for as a team. I remain disheartened and dismayed that Steve Watkins—the editor in chief of this publication—decided to opt for criticism in the face of a request for accuracy from Quinn Slaven, the press secretary for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, regarding a recent FXBG Advance commentary by a columnist Phil Huber.
Watkins’ August 31 post was titled “Veterans Affairs Top Press Secretary Has a Cow, Says He Wants Advance Commentary Taken Down.”
Huber, a Vietnam veteran, took issue with the staffing levels and wait times of Fredericksburg’s new Veterans Affairs medical center where I, also a wounded, totally-disabled veteran, receive treatment.
As a fellow Vietnam veteran who served more than 20 years on active duty and received a combat promotion to sergeant, and as someone who served on both Democratic and Republican Virginia state veterans commissions, I have fixed opinions regarding service and loyalty.
Huber disagrees regarding staffing levels and expediency of effort in serving the large veteran community in this region, citing numbers from two Democrats: U.S. Senator Tim Kaine and Rep. Eugene Vindman. Vindman is running for reelection this fall.
The attempt to frame the present administration as lacking with respect to veterans’ service is purely political, and more importantly, when faced with countervailing facts, absolutely wrong.
That the editor of this publication is willing to quibble with the actual numbers demonstrates not just that this publication printed information in error, but that the object of this disinformation was certainly not to serve the veterans utilizing the new Veterans Administration hospital in Spotsylvania, but rather a cheap and tawdry effort to attack President Trump during the mid-term elections.
As a veteran, I have found the new Fredericksburg region VA hospital to be exceptional. Surely every new public facility—much like new publications—requires some tinkering on the edges. Surely there are other issues in the Fredericksburg region such as public schools, test scores, the collapsing Renwick Courthouse, and other pet projects of the political left in which patience is urged and results judged by intentions and not impact. Yet put a Republican in charge of the government and all of a sudden hard questions become the norm.
Case in point? Forgive me for being a little jaded, but I’m a 50-plus-year independent writer/broadcaster, and I found the extensive diatribe of gotcha questions in the response to the pushback from the Veterans Affairs bent not just on finding fault rather than common ground, but a mask for one salient point: Huber got his numbers wrong.
What I did find positive was according to statistics provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 250,000 new vets have chosen to use VA healthcare in Trump’s second administration. This has led to 1.4 million completed or scheduled appointments with these veterans this year.
One might even point out the fact that Veterans Affairs has permanently housed 51,936 homeless vets in FY25 and will invest another $5 billion to modernize and improve health care facilities. These are both record setting numbers.
Certainly there is the need to expand and better utilize the Mission Act to expedite the approval of needed dental or medical services in the private sector when VA clinicians are backed up. This remains an issue I personally presented to VA Secretary Collins and officials during a recent White House function.
I have total confidence that both Collins and Rep. Rob Wittman are working to solve problems rather than assign blame.
The question Huber perhaps wants to ask is something a bit less politically slanted and a bit more human. Are we moving fast enough to meet the needs of our veterans? Surely this should be a question that rises above politics.
According to the math provided by the VA, veterans waiting for their benefits are down more than 70 percent since 2025. During the Biden Administration it had increased by a whopping 24 percent.
Yet if Kaine and Vindman seek to collaborate in the praise, they should have the maturity to take their fair share of their own criticism. After all, Kaine and Vindman are in power. For 18 months we have heard and seen little from Vindman. Why now does he seek to fob the blame on others when the VA hospital and the veterans served are right here at home?
The fact of the matter is that there remain too many individuals willing to cash out the public trust just to make a temporary political point. All of us should be working to make our VA hospitals better. Those who attempt to point out failures while getting the basic facts wrong aren’t making anything better.
In fact, it is the shallow politics of theater that continue to make Virginia worse. Shame on those who participate in it.
Good order and discipline are military hallmarks. Dare we even use the word virtues? Thus the military doctrine promoting good order and discipline—whether active duty or veteran—should be looked at as teaching tools for state officials and members of U.S. Congress.
Vindman’s volcanic temper during town halls, combined with his refusal to engage in debates, signals just how deep entitlement and self-serving has become. His Republican challenger—Doug Ollivant—has campaigned both as an officer and gentleman. Some of us still value these qualities as the core of one’s character, not a stepping stone to something else.
Shame on those who sacrifice truth and accuracy for cheap political talking points. And shame on this publication if it willfully chooses to become a partisan mouthpiece willing to sacrifice truth and accuracy for political position.
That is not what the founders of the Fredericksburg Advance envisioned when this publication was begun. It is not what the readers of this publication should come to expect in the future.
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Daniel P. Cortez is a presidential and gubernatorial appointee, political writer, and broadcaster who lives in Stafford County.
Daniel, I remember you as an interesting character with character from our long ago days chatting in the seats at Spotsylvania BOS meetings.
Arguments centered in those days around such heated issues as whether black stories should be told pictorially on the mural on the wall behind the supervisors’ seats, and about whether and how to make developers pay their fair share of the cost of residential sprawl. National politics was about spin, and not yet about rampant lies. Folks complained about the federal government but they believed strongly in our foundations of freedom (Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights) and the importance of the principle known as the separation of powers.
Times have changed and the gloves are off. Trump and MAGA have led that change, and you’ve many times previously made clear your alliance with that truth-challenged duo. So, please forgive me if your use of the “officer and a gentleman” facade doesn’t pass the sniff test; especially when you claim it applies to the fervent Trump supporting candidate running against Rep. Vindman; especially when he flew that MAGA flag and donned that silly red hat so fervently during the Republican primary, yet now downplays that allegiance as the general election nears.
Steve Watkins has the guts to go toe to toe with threatening forces on big issues. He also has the integrity to publish the responses of those calling him out. I’ve read all those articles and I’m satisfied that Phil Huber and Steve occupy the moral and journalistic high ground. That’s hallowed territory, a place never yet visited by the likes of folks named Trump, or RFK jr, or Hegseth, or Vance, or so many other unqualified amateur political operatives and appointees. And if Rep. Vindman blows his top in frustration while talking about these fools, it is with purposeful intent. Good men stand up to evil. And they stand up for the truth, and for the voiceless and victims of discrimination.
Meanwhile, you’re standing up for liars and haters and the too many billionaires who think politicians are there for their bidding and purchase.
I am a 76 year old US citizen & have always had faith & trust in my government, even if I did not always agree with the policies of the party in office. That belief & trust has been crushed by our current administration, that is destroying this country. As I recall in the first months of his current term & with the influence of DOGE, a freeze was put on the hiring for employees of a brand new veterans’ facility preparing to open in our area. What a waste was all I could think at the time. Is that the actions of a President giving consideration to the needs of veterans? You ask people to trust the statistics of a government headed by a man who constantly lies. And he heads his agencies with individuals who will bend to his narcissistic will. I can no longer trust “research” and policies of CDC, FDA, or about any government agency. So whose “numbers” am I going to believe, a government official or Mr. Huber, whose articles have been top notch and very professional. You accuse the Advance of being partisan, yet your response reeks of partisanship.