Rowing Upstream

The unraveling of the VA scandal, much like the exposure of NSA spying, has been brought to us through journalists chronicling the stories brought to them by a special form of American hero: the whistleblower.

When we read these stories, our outrage boils up instantly: why wasn’t this obvious wrong corrected earlier? It’s sometimes easy to plug ourselves into the scenario: surely, that’s a whistle I would have blown, we say to ourselves, were I in that position. Would we, now?

As the recent Frontline series pointed out, Edward Snowden is only the most prominent in a long chain of those who tried to call attention to what was going on in the NSA. Snowden may well be considered a hero, especially historically. Not to take anything from his achievement, but he was a contractor. Many of those who blew earlier whistles were career employees of the agency, or at least in related government positions. Their actions resulted in their lives being ruined by those who didn’t want their boats rocked.

This isn’t the kind of heroism that brings instant adulation, like the passerby gets from the TV crew when he pulls a driver from the wreckage of a burning car. Whistleblowers usually are branded as traitors or turncoats. Those whom they thought to be friends shun them, and the negative consequences of their actions can persist for years in the form of psychological or even physical persecution. Whistleblowers’ stories make wonderful movie scripts, but their heroism is resolved in only two hours, and  a movie can’t make us fully appreciate the pressures they were under and the self-doubts they faced: wondering on a long string of mostly sleepless nights if they had really done the right thing.

It’s about rowing upstream against a fierce current. Those who blow whistles aren’t just exposing what needs fixing. They’re usually fighting powerful, entrenched systems and cultures with many players. Things had been done the wrong way for a long time by people who found it profitable – or at the very least, less stressful -- to go along. Performance bonuses, in the case of the VA, made it tempting for administrators to cook the books about wait times for veterans needing treatment.

In such cases, the CEO or the agency head is usually forced to fall on a sword. That individual knew or should have known, the story goes. But this individual may not be the villain of the piece. The transgressions are often committed by lower-level folks – the people in the middle who make the faulty system work for them. And it’s usually other people in the middle, or those at lower levels, who blow those whistles, because they have seen what’s happening on a daily basis.

Here’s to those upstream rowers, those light sleepers compelled to lead us, sometimes kicking and screaming – to the truth. The whistle-blowing, of course, is just the first step in the process. The rest of us, or those representing us in a position to right wrongs, have to hear the whistle and respond.