DARRELL HAMPTON
Mr. Guy B. Richardson, Director
Dayton VA Medical Center
4100 West Third Street
Dayton, Ohio 45418
Dear Mr. Richardson, August 23, 2010
The first time I met you, in August 2005, the very first words you said to me were “ Mr. Hampton, my motto is Veterans first”. My eidetic memory continues to serve me well. Your conduct, since that day, have proven your words to be factually false. My very best observation is that you deceived me from the very first day I met you. Now, finally, my entire experience here makes perfect sense and clearly explains why you allowed Bill O’Brien and his staff to continue torturing me for eleven months when I was taking chemo therapy and writing you, detailing their abusive behaviors: You don’t particularly care for Veterans, especially this one. You did nothing until I brought “Formal Charges” which placed you in an untenable position where your own career was being jeopardized. Now, I see that you had no problem with the way I was treated. This also explains why, even though guilty verdicts were reached, you have never even offered an apology for my traumatic suffering under your watch. When Patient Abuse happens, a jaundiced eye towards potential liability and your career exposure are not the only concerns a Director should have. There is also a “Victim” involved. I was that victim.
On Friday August 13, 2010, I walked into the Medical Tower, thirsty and soaking wet with sweat from being outside, picking up cigarette butts, my CWT job. You were headed to your office when you saw me out of your peripheral vision and you deliberately made an about face to interact with me. You walked up to me, until you were about six (6) inches from my face and you said “Mr. Hampton, you look a lot different from the last time I saw you” (speaking of the day of my interview for the full-time position), you continued, “the last time I saw you, you were all suited up”. Then you laughed out loud and walked away. This was your way of making fun of the fact that you defrauded me out of a position I was eminently qualified to obtain. It was a premeditated slap in my face and I felt the sting. Your behavior was as reprehensible as it was irresponsibly stunningly unprofessional.
To insure I was not cynically misreading your behavior I sought the opinions of 10 people on what transpired that day. From my personal Clergy to a regular homemaker, all reasonable persons, the conclusions were unanimous. The words they choose to describe your behavior were: intentionally disrespectful, outrageous, offensive, rude, and degrading. One person, a VA staff member, expressed concern for my safety and said your words were “filled with such contempt” for me as a person they were afraid for me. You certainly don’t get to treat a Veteran in this manner. I hope you got the catharsis you needed Friday, August 13, 2010 because you will never get another opportunity to humiliate me. There will be no future issues that will rise to the level of your participation in my treatment at the Dayton VA so no additional communication between you and I will be necessary.
Your palpable opinion that anyone who lacks a formal education is beneath you is not one that I share. A cursory look at America’s story reveals a history of able intelligent leaders who lacked formal education from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas to Bill Gates and Louis Farrakhan. The essential diversity of American life seems to have escaped you. While you may dislike, you have no right to treat other people, who have chosen a different path to intellect, as if they are less than you and you certainly have no right to disrespect America‘s Veterans in this contemptuous manner. You also have no right to continue discounting the veracity of my past allegations once they were proven true. Whether or not you like the fact that I have chosen to refer my concerns to Secretary Shinseki does not authorize you to penalize me nor single me out for derisive Patient Abuse! Your conduct is unpardonable. One year ago I decided it was unprofitable to meet with you again as you’ve proven you had no interest in righting any wrongs. You even told me, to my face, that you had no intention on doing anything to correct these wrongs. It is your performance that engendered my letters to Washington. It is your deceitful conduct that created this mess. You are the person who mislead me into believing you were interested in doing what was right and fair when your real goals are deceptions, trickery and revenge. You are 100% responsible for my letters and this debacle! For five (5) years it has been your choice to “say” the right things while never lifting a finger to “do the right things”. Like Bill O’Brien, before you, you are the one who choose to feverishly search for ways to meet the letter of the regulation while intentionally violating the spirit of policy and fair play.
You do remember that you make your living providing services to “Honorably Discharged Veterans”, don‘t you? Well, I am an Honorably Discharged Veteran! As an American Citizen and a Veteran you had no right to furtively steal a full-time opportunity from me then to double down by demeaning me to my face. Your supercilious attitude has blinded you to the very reason the American people fund this agency with their precious tax dollars: to provide a redemptive healing way forward for America’s Veterans. You are intellectually detached from the real “Veteran’s world” where we do get better and the fact that our Veterans benefits are actually important to us. Instead, you are consumed with executing revenge against anyone who dares disagree with you. This Center belongs to the American people and they lent it to the Veterans, not to you! You violate laws and policy and incredulously believe you are so exceptional your actions are invisible and you will escape the consequences. Like most duplicitous people, you believe you can receive good results while doing bad things to others. You only get out of life what you put into it. You will reap what you sow and there will be appropriate compensation for you hurting America’s vulnerable Veterans.
Congratulations, Mr. Guy B. Richardson! You hurt me and your mission is accomplished. Please tell me, Sir: What did you win? I would say that I am sorry for exasperating you, over the years, by surviving your attempted murder but I try not to lie and I “really” am not ! No matter how many times you depict me as a unhinged mental patient and attempt to dismiss my accounts of what you and your staff do, the truth will surface, it always does. Even your own VAOIG has written that my integrity is beyond reproach. You know what your staff did and you know what you did! I would think a person in your position would have more self control but amazingly, you just couldn‘t resist letting me know you defrauded and damaged me on purpose. Did you forget I was a Patient or did that not even enter into your calculations? Either way, any vague feigned innocuous explanation of your actions will not suffice, this time. My reputation for veracity proceeds all of my documents. You were humiliating me, smugly smirking in my face that you had successfully defrauded me and you were attempting to antagonize me by insulting me that I was “still in a heat indexed 100 degree temperature picking up cigarette butts“. Not only were your actions unprofessional and vacant, that is “Patient Abuse”! According to VHA policy my perception is the controlling factor in determining whether or not I felt you abused me. That is my perception and the conclusion of other reasonable persons who would quickly adjudicate you as guilty, Mr. Richardson.
I get it, now. Your desire is that I remain indigent, suffer, and that I never have success, provide for my family or live a decent life on your watch! And, that makes sense to you? I used to wonder why you always smiled and repeatedly stated, to me, how grateful you were just to have a job in this economy. I thought you were just oblivious to the pain I felt, applying for but not receiving a job. I was wrong there, too. You were intentionally rubbing my face in my suffering and delighting in my pain. Jesus Christ! These are the attributes of a sociopath and you have provided irrefutable evidence. You win, but you are sick, Sir. I hope nobody ever treats your loved ones in this cruel manner.
I’m certainly not the only one who sees through your obfuscations, many people see through your disingenuous conduct and tens of people are eager to hold you accountable. Over the past five (5) years many of your employees have recounted stories of you disrespecting them, asking me to assist them in writing charges against you. I have refused, always saying you needed more time to get acclimated to the Center. I was your biggest fan. I now disabuse myself of all past affirmations of your character. I have actually spent the past week apologizing to some for not seeing your true distinctive person, being naïve and exhibiting faith in you. I’ll concede, you’re good, you had me, but now all the lights are on, your true personality has been revealed and your tendency towards immoral corruption is no longer secret. I, personally, don’t believe you have ever said an honest word to me.
As a direct response to this missive, like you successfully defrauded me out of the full-time position, I anticipate that you will design some depredating bureaucratic scheme to end my meager CWT position soon and justify it with some deceptive stratagem that will disguise your real motives.
The Dayton VA needs leadership that can bring our various cultures together and not divide us with puerile administrative philosophies of “Us against Them”. Hubris and Arrogance have never been defined nor highlighted as qualities that described any positive professional leadership trait.
I am now asking that you oblige my final patient centered request of you: I desperately need you to find another “Toy” to play with so please do not ever speak to me again. I will no longer acknowledge your presence and I am politely asking that you do the same for me. If you attempt to approach me, for any reason, I will walk away from you. I have zero desire to know you, we have nothing to talk about and I am completely embarrassed that you are the Director here. Friday, August 13, 2010 was your curtain call opportunity to humiliate, intimidate and commit acts of “Patient Abuse” against me.
Per the VHA policy, that you routinely rebuff, that is also a right that I have, as a patient. I need you to abandon your reckless ambition and cease and desist from distressing my life through your denying, tormenting, antagonizing, harassing, torturing and stop bullying me! You don’t like me. I get it. PLEASE exercise some self discipline and LEAVE ME ALONE !
Impassionedly and Emphatically Yours,
Darrell Hampton
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