Dear Doug Collins

Open letters to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs — a public record of what the VA promised, what it delivered, and how long it has stayed silent.

The Bowman Case

Thomas Alan Bowman, Sr. did everything his country asked. This page is the documented record of what his country did back — told in dates, case numbers, and the VA's own files, by the son who carried the case.

The service, and the promise

Thomas Alan Bowman, Sr., 84, served in the United States Navy from 1964 to 1970 — Radioman Second Class (RM2), USS Arikara (ATF-98), honorable discharge, Vietnam era. He is rated 100% service-connected (330% combined) and has received Special Monthly Compensation since October 2022. He is a widower; his wife, Julieanne Bowman, died on August 27, 2019.

His son, Thomas Bowman, Jr., holds his father’s Durable Power of Attorney and Health Care Surrogate designation, is his registered VA Family Caregiver, and is the sole Personal Representative under his father’s will. Tom is not a veteran. He has run this case essentially alone for about ten months.

The promise made to men like Thomas Bowman, Sr. is simple: serve, and when you can no longer stand on your own, the Department of Veterans Affairs stands behind you. What follows is what standing behind him looked like.

Timeline

Date What happened
1964–1970 U.S. Navy service — RM2, USS Arikara (ATF-98), honorable discharge.
Oct 2022 Special Monthly Compensation in effect; rated 100% service-connected.
Jul 15, 2024 His son registers as his VA Family Caregiver through the Orlando VA Caregiver Support Program — in the general program (PGCSS), the unpaid tier.
Dec 7, 2025 Gallbladder surgery (cholecystectomy) at AdventHealth New Smyrna Beach, Dr. Tara Beth Wilson. The surgery leaves a gallbladder remnant with stones inside him (VA diagnosis K91.86). The operative report is never furnished — not to the family, not to the VA’s own surgeons.
Mar 11, 2026 VA General Surgery documents that they “still strongly feel” advanced endoscopy is needed and recommend transfer. GI overrules. He is discharged into the gap — repeatedly. In the months that follow he is hospitalized roughly nine to eleven times, with two hypotensive collapses.
Mar 2026 Community Care consult #9247778 is authorized. It is never scheduled. Not delayed — never scheduled.
Jul 23, 2026 Tom asks in writing for help placing his father, and for the caregiver supports the VA advertises: PCAFC (Form 10-10CG), Aid & Attendance (Form 21-2680), a HISA home-access grant, respite care.
Jul 25, 2026 Tom resends the placement inquiry marked urgent — his father is hospitalized with GI bleeding — and asks the VA to correct the dependency record that still names his dead mother as caretaker.
Jul 29, 2026 The VA confirms it: Julieanne Bowman, dead since August 27, 2019, is still his caretaker of record. Nothing was ever routed to the son who was actually doing the work.
Aug 7, 2026 His father is discharged from AdventHealth without his insulin — he is an insulin-dependent diabetic. Tom reports a suicide risk and requests an involuntary examination under Florida §394.463; sheriff’s deputies reach his father, who tells them he does not need his medication.
Aug 12, 2026 At midnight, Tom drives his father to the Shands emergency room in Gainesville himself — because that was the transport available.
Aug 14, 2026 The Blue Button report pulled from his father’s own VA.gov account returns the son’s identity instead of the veteran’s. See the exhibit below.
Aug 24–25, 2026 A chance, face-to-face meeting with Alan Hubert, who runs admissions at Emory Bennett. Hubert visits Tom’s father the next day and submits the admissions packet himself.
Aug 27–28, 2026 After the Secretary’s Rapid Response team asks for the case by email, Tom sends the full case to customercare@va.gov. On Aug 28 the Office of Client Relations acknowledges it, says it was forwarded to VHA leadership — and states that “this email address does not accept replies.” In the seven weeks since, no one from VHA has followed up.
Sep 2026 His father reaches the Emory L. Bennett Veterans Nursing Home — roughly six weeks after a 100% service-connected veteran’s family first asked for placement help.
Oct 11, 2026 His father tells his son he wants to die and be with his mother. He is in hospice, in place at Bennett.

The exhibit: a veteran the VA’s own system cannot see

On August 14, 2026, a Blue Button report was pulled from Thomas Bowman, Sr.’s own VA.gov account. Blue Button is the VA’s official health-records download — the document the VA itself generates about a veteran. Here is what the VA’s system said about a 100% service-connected Navy veteran:

  • Date of birth: his son’s — not his.
  • Email address: his son’s — not his.
  • “Service connected percentage: 0” — for a man rated 100%, with Special Monthly Compensation since 2022.
  • “Military Service: No data was found” — for six years of Navy service.
  • VA.gov separately told this 100%-rated veteran: “We don’t have a combined disability rating on file for you.”

And while the live record belonged to the wrong man, the VA’s caretaker of record was a woman six years dead — confirmed by the VA on July 29, 2026 — while the registered caregiver actually doing the work received nothing, and was routed nothing.

This is not a paperwork typo. Wrong identity data is how a March consult never gets scheduled, how authorizations vanish, how a VA refuses to speak to the son holding the power of attorney. One conflated record, upstream of everything — and every failure downstream of it lands on the family.

Any family can check for this in about five minutes. Take the Blue Button test →

The family ledger

The VA’s failures did not make the work disappear. They transferred it — unpaid, unrecognized, and without choice — to the family.

  • Registered caregiver since July 15, 2024 — enrolled through the Orlando VA’s Caregiver Support Program, in the general (PGCSS) tier. The unpaid tier.
  • Asked in writing, July 23 and July 25, 2026, for the supports the VA advertises to families like his: the comprehensive caregiver program (PCAFC, Form 10-10CG), Special Monthly Compensation — Aid & Attendance (21-2680), a HISA home-access grant, respite care, wheelchairs. The family’s archive contains no approval of any of them.
  • Power wheelchair: waited on for roughly six months.
  • A1c — a basic lab for an insulin-dependent diabetic — ordered three times. Never drawn.
  • In the worst month of this case, Tom worked 75 to 85 hours a week on his father’s care.
  • The case archive holds 141 emails from July 23 to October 12, 2026 (60 of them sent by Tom) — one slice of more than 200 emails sent into VA and oversight channels across the case.
  • Compensation received for two years of full-time caregiving: zero.

How he actually got into Bennett

Let the record be exact about the one thing that worked, because it was not the system.

None of the case numbers did it. Not the Senate casework, not the VA Hotline, not AskVA, not the patient advocates, not the oversight complaints, and not the two hundred emails. What got Thomas Bowman, Sr. into Emory Bennett was an accident: his son ended up face to face with Alan Hubert, the man running admissions at Bennett, laid his father’s condition on him in person — and Hubert visited the father the next day and put the packet through himself.

One man, reached by chance, did in days what the entire department would not do in six weeks. That is not a system working. That is a system rescued by luck and one decent human being — and a father should not need luck to receive what he was promised in writing.

Every office contacted — and what came back

Office / channel Reference What came back
VA Community Care (Orlando VAMC) Consult #9247778 Authorized March 2026. Never scheduled.
Secretary’s office / Office of Client Relations (Rapid Response referral) Full case emailed Aug 27, 2026 Acknowledged Aug 28, 2026: forwarded to VHA leadership; the address “does not accept replies.” No VHA follow-up in seven weeks.
White House VA Hotline Case 15115179 “Concern Received,” Aug 5, 2026; routed to patient advocacy.
AskVA A-20260727-3112888 No substantive resolution in the family’s record.
Sen. Rick Scott — casework IMA00361973 Agency response Aug 27, 2026; a later reply (Sep 26) redirected the family to a VA OIG form and never cited the case number.
Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs — oversight Sent Aug 14, 2026 No reply in the record. Launch notice with Letter No. 1 sent Oct 15, 2026.
VA Office of Inspector General — Hotline Complaint filed Oct 15, 2026 Filed via the OIG Hotline identified-complaint form. OIG states submissions are reviewed within six weeks and that it contacts complainants only if a case is opened; no case number was issued.
Rep. Randy Fine (FL-06) — casework — Casework open.
Acentra Health (Medicare QIO) Two cases Neither closed.
VFW / VBA St. Petersburg — Replied Jul 30, 2026.

Where things stand

Thomas Alan Bowman, Sr. is in hospice at Emory L. Bennett, Daytona Beach. On October 11, 2026, he told his son he wants to die and be with his mother. The family’s position is hospice in place — he stays where he is, comfortable, with no home discharge.

The treatment fight is over. The accountability record is not. Letter No. 1 to Secretary Collins was mailed and emailed to the VA on October 15, 2026, and is published here in full. The silence counter is running.

Facts on this page are drawn from the family's case file and the VA's own records as documented in it. Allegations are attributed; medical and legal identifiers are withheld by policy (see Legal).