This is Jocko Podcast number 507 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

Good evening.

A veteran committed suicide by setting himself on fire in front of a New Jersey VA clinic

after staff at the clinic repeatedly failed to ensure he received adequate mental health care

and investigation of the death found.

Department of Veterans Affairs staff canceled an appointment charles ingram had in fall 2015 because a provider was unavailable

didn't follow up to reschedule and when he walked into the clinic to ask for an appointment

they didn't schedule it until three months later, the VA Inspector General found.

Ingram, a 51-year-old Gulf War veteran had been approved to receive treatment at a non-VA

facility, but no one at VA contacted him or scheduled an appointment.

In March 2016, shortly before his VA appointment, Ingram went into the

clinic in Northfield, New Jersey, doused himself in gasoline, and lit himself on fire.

The clinic was closed at the time. Staff failed to show up on no-shows, clinic cancellations, termination of services, and non-VA care coordination consults as required, the Inspector General wrote in a report released Wednesday.

This led to a lack of ordered mental health therapy and necessary medications and may have contributed to his distress.

Now right there is from a USA Today article from 2017 and the article goes on to say that after

the death, the VA, quote, allocated more clinical resources to the clinic, removed the hospital

director overseeing the facility and insinued,

and instituted same-day mental health services for urgent cases, end quote. And so some lessons were learned, but clearly at a devastating cost.

And the VA is a massive organization with massive responsibilities, first and

foremost, obviously supporting our veterans. And here's another quote, and this one is from an interview

from August 6, 2025, from a YouTube channel called About Face Veterans. And it says this quote,

I sent the VA an email they said they

...