For over six years I have been advocating for Veterans to have this one, single privilege. I started this campaign when I was still on staff as a VA chaplain at Tucson's VA Medical Center. When I was threatened with a Letter of Admonishment from my supervisor and his supervisor if I continued to advocate for Veterans in the area of chapel access I backed off knowing that I would retire in 2020. Since then I have written the VA OIG, Office of Special Counsel, Congressman Grijalva, Senators Kelly and Sinema, and the Vice President and President of the United States. Nothing has changed. Veterans and their families are still treated like they are less important than upper management — and that is not how I understand the mission of the VA in any way, shape, or form.



The director of the VA Medical Center (VAMC) in Tucson, Arizona, has mandated that all conference rooms be reserved by authorized VA staff members. This policy essentially bans all Non-Christian Veterans from using the "Chapel and Conference Room" since there are only Christian VA chaplains on staff who can reserve this room for religious purposes. VHA Directive 1111 (July 21, 2021), Chapter 9, a. (6), clearly states that: "Chapels must remain available at all times for use by Veterans and their families.” Unfortunately, Tucson VAMC's upper management justifies disregarding this federal mandate because they consider the chapel a conference room. There is no mention in VHA Directive 1111 about a dual purpose role for the chapel.



I use the phrase "Chapel and Conference Room'' because that is the description this room was given on the official 2015 Southern Arizona VA Healthcare System or SAVAHCS’s blueprint. When the "Chapel and Conference Room'' is not being used for worship, this room is locked up or used by other VA staff members for their meetings. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution mandates that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …" The religious needs of Veterans who are enrolled at this VAMC in Tucson are not being accommodated by Congress, the governmental body that sets the budget for the VA and therefore ostensibly condones this, restrictive at best and prejudicial at worst, conference room reservation policy. The other VAMCs in Arizona, which are in Phoenix and Prescott, allow Veterans and their families to have complete access to their chapel at all times.



This “Chapel and Conference Room” is used for less than four hours on Sunday mornings as a chapel. Four hours equates to 2.4 % of a week. In the other 97.6 % of the week, this room is treated as a conference room by VA staff. Why do Christian Veterans and their families get the extremely short end of the stick in this so-called "dual purpose" deal, a justification given by this VAMC director for using the chapel as a conference room? Worse still, why do Non-Christian Veterans and their families get absolutely no access to their chapel?



The "Chapel and Conference Room" at the Tucson VAMC has a vestry, an altar, a massive church organ, and a chancel, which makes this space distinctively a chapel and not a conference room. Why relegate Veterans to “meditation rooms” when there is a perfectly good chapel on this VAMC campus? I know there is no conference room shortage because I worked at this VAMC for ten years as a VA staff chaplain. In fact, some conference rooms get very little use at this VAMC. This top-tier VA Medical Center receives over half a billion dollars of taxpayer money annually in order to provide healthcare for over 170,000 Veterans and yet they miss the mark on this particular issue by following this conference room reservation policy.



During my entire military career as a USAF chaplain, my commanders never let their staff or anyone else use the chapel as anything but as a chapel, for all faiths. Even in Afghanistan, when we only had a tent as a chapel, that tent was treated as sacrosanct. Meeting the spiritual needs of those who “...have borne the battle…” (President Lincoln’s 1865 Second Inaugural Address) should not be relegated to “meditation rooms,” not when there is a chapel that could be made available, if VA upper management would serve Veterans instead of shafting them.



This Southern Arizona VA Healthcare System (SAVAHCS) conference room policy: 1) violates a VHA Directive by restricting Christians from having access to their VA chapel and, 2) worse still, prohibiting Non-Christian Veterans and their families from having any access to their VA chapel; 3) contradicts the VA mission of being Veteran-centric in light of its self-serving upper management style) makes Tucson's VAMC an outlier among all the other Arizona VAMCs as far as chapel access is concerned; 5) promotes Christian Nationalism because Non-Christian Veterans have no access to their chapel whatsoever; 6) relegates Veterans and their families to “meditation rooms” when there is absolutely no need for this draconian policy, not when there is no shortage of conference rooms on campus; and 7) deliberately and disingenuously posits “dual usage” of the “Chapel and Conference Room” as a legitimate practice when that practice clearly shortchanges Veterans and their families, especially when there is no legitimate logistical rationale for relegating Veterans and their families to “meditation rooms.”



Another issue: There are six inch steps in the chancel and vestry areas of the Tucson VA Medical Center that make it unsafe for those who have ambulatory challenges. This violation is covered in multiple, federally mandated regulations for VA hospitals. I have complained repeatedly to the Congressional Oversight Committee, the VA OIG, and the Office of Special Counsel. Nothing has been done so far to make the chancel and vestry areas safe for those with ambulatory challenges. VHA Directive 1111 (July 21, 2021), Chapter 9, a. (4 ) states that “All spaces to be used for spiritual purposes must be fully accessible to persons with disabilities.” What upper management, the VA OIG, and the Office of Special Counsel doesn’t understand is that Veterans and their families set up, participate in, and neutralize worship services, by walking back and forth from both the chancel and the vestry area with items of worship like a Bible or a cross or a statue of the Lady of Guadalupa.