The way the government treats soldiers returning from Washington’s wars of imperial conquest indicates its priorities.

There have been many reports of failures to treat adequately all the cases of mental illnesses resulting from the wars of occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq. High levels of alcoholism, drug use, depression and suicide have been reported by veterans and their families.

The latest scandal first erupted in the Phoenix, Arizona Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care system. CNN reporters wrote at the end of April, “At least 40 US veterans died waiting for appointments … many of whom were placed on a secret waiting list.

“The secret list was part of an elaborate scheme designed by …. managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide [the fact] that 1,400 to 1,500 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor.”

Dr Sam Foote, recently retired after 24 years in the VA system, reported that there is a fake “official list” for public consumption, which shows VA providing timely appointments, and another list hidden from outsiders. Wait times on this secret list can extend more than a year.

Foote said officials instruct their staff not to make appointments within the VA computer system. Instead, when a veteran comes in seeking an appointment, “they enter information into the computer and do a screen capture hard copy printout. They then do not save what was put into the computer so there’s no record that you were ever even there.

“That hard copy that has the patient demographic information is then taken and placed onto a secret electronic waiting list” and the hard copy is shredded.

When an appointment was made months later, the patient would be taken off the secret list, and a record on the public list would appear.

One case was that of 71-year-old Navy veteran Thomas Breen. His son and daughter-in-law noticed he had blood in his urine, and brought into the emergency room at the facility on 28 September, 2013.

The doctors there noted his history of cancer and wrote on his chart that he should see a primary care doctor “urgently”. He was sent home.

Placed on the secret list, he was not given an appointment. He or his daughter-in-law called “numerous times”, she later said. She was told “Well, you know, we have other patients that are critical as well. It’s a seven month waiting list. And you’re gonna have to have patience.”

Finally, she got a call on 6 December. “We have a primary [care doctor] for him”. But Breen had died a week earlier.

Foote says that when veterans on the secret list die, they are simply removed. He puts the number of such cases resulting in death in Phoenix as at least 40.

Whistleblowers have reported the same system operating at VA facilities in Colorado, Texas and Wyoming.

It is clear that the problem is system-wide and known at the top.

Under pressure, VA Secretary General Eric Shinseki has promised an investigation. That is, the VA will investigate itself.

On 16 May, Shinseki accepted the resignation of Robert Petzel, Undersecretary for Health in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Pretzel was scheduled to retire sometime this year, so this move to deflect public attention from the scandal was a little too obvious.

It was met with derision by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “We don’t need the VA to find a scapegoat”, the organisation said. “We need an actual plan to restore a culture of accountability throughout the VA.”

VA hospitals are understaffed and underfunded.

According to a former top administrator of the system in Southeast Texas, “patients faced denials or long delays in getting routine [tests] … This was done because of dollars and cents.”

In World War I, the term “cannon fodder” was used to explain the fundamental attitude of the war makers towards the grunts who fought at the front: disposable tools.

The same attitude prevails today. Those at the top cut costs not by slashing the war machine – they cut costs by cutting care for the veterans who are victims, alongside the occupied populations, of Washington’s imperialist wars.