Have you ever personally worked for the VA? Seems to me that people always have "friends" whose experience supports their views. I have no first hand knowledge of how people in the trades do working for the government - however, considering how some of the trades people work around here, from my first hand knowledge, I'd say he was well trained for his "government experience".
Secondly, usually when you hear about someone's "idiot" boss it means one of two things - either that they have a personal dislike of that person (usually do to having been reprimanded by the "idiot" boss) or there are sour grapes that they themselves did not get the job. But before we start badmouthing the VA, let's consider the fact that it is clearly overwhelmed by the number of veterans needing it's services. The people are likely overworked with the shear number of cases. I'm not making excuses for the VA, but anyone can see that they are going to have to make some rule changes about when and how veterans can get the care they so deservedly should be getting. My father's girlfriend is a veteran and has to use the Veterans Hospital in Florida and she's not often happy about the care she gets because the rules do not allow her to see a private physician. You can only overwork people for so long until they just submerge.