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Flashback: Obama in 2008 on 'Keeping Our Faith With Veterans'

August 25, 2016

In a 2008 speech in Charleston, West Virginia, then-Sen. Barack Obama told a story of an 89-year-old World War II veteran who committed suicide in the parking lot of a Veterans Affairs hospital after he was constantly denied help.

Obama called it a betrayal of the ideals for which troops that risk their lives.

"We've all heard what it is like to navigate the broken bureaucracy of the VA. The impossibly long lines, the repeated calls for help that get you nothing more than an answering machine," Obama said at the 7:45 mark of the video above.

Fast-forwarding to this week, the New York Times reported on the suicide of a veteran who was denied care at a VA center when President Obama has touted the progress his administration has made in turning around the veterans health care system.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been plagued with issues during the Obama administration, including the scandal that VA hospitals had secret waiting lists that delayed care for months, which ultimately led to the 2014 resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

"We’ve hired thousands more doctors, nurses, staff," Obama said at a conference of the Disabled American Veterans in the beginning of August. "When we really put our sweat and tears and put our shoulder to the wheel, we can make things better."

On Thursday, a 76-year-old veteran, Peter Kaisen, committed suicide in the parking lot of the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Long Island. Kaisen had gone to the hospital seeking treatment related to mental health problems but was denied services.

Data that was released in July on the VA revealed that an average of 20 veterans will commit suicide each day. A majority of those veterans are over the age of 50 and six of those who commit suicide use VA services.