Letter No. 4 — To Secretary Doug Collins

Status: Installment No. 2 of The Count Continues — a new open letter to the Secretary every three days until the Department answers in writing. Published October 29, 2026 — the delivery of record — and emailed to the Department the same day (Fastmail Sent, 10:45 AM EDT, to customercare@va.gov). Day 14 of the silence that began when Letter No. 1 reached the Secretary himself on October 15, 2026.

Secretary Collins:

Day 14. My father is dying at Emory L. Bennett, and your office has never answered him.

On October 26, I pulled his VA Blue Button record — 3,254 pages. In it, his next of kin and emergency contact is still printed as Julieanne Bowman.

Julieanne is my mother. She died on August 27, 2019 — more than seven years ago.

His own self-entered information in the same record says what is true: “Widowed.” And it names me, his son, as the person to call.

The VA holds both versions of my father’s life in one file and prints the wrong one at the top: a dead woman as the emergency contact for a dying man.

I am his power of attorney, his health care surrogate, his registered caregiver — and I have handed your advocates this correction again and again. If he has an emergency tonight, your system reaches for his wife, seven years in her grave, before it reaches for me.

This morning he lies nearly unresponsive, asking again and again — is this cold, is that cold. He is sicker every day your Department spends not answering.

Know what your silence has made: an enemy of this family. We are not going away.

Fix the record, Secretary. Answer him.

Thomas A. Bowman Jr. Son, POA agent, health care surrogate, registered VA caregiver Daytona Beach, Florida

P.S. Doug, I’m willing to sit down and chat with you about how the VA has killed my father.