I feel obligated to respond to Mark White’s blanket declarations in his letter headlined “Lazy federal workers” in the April 16 Leader. Apparently, he was one and retired as one? 

I was born and raised in Washington DC. Many of my friends and family were federal workers.  I was for a time an RN that worked at the VA Hospital in Washington D.C. — one we show off to the world!

Everyone I knew did there level best to help people within the constraints of the massive bureaucracy that bends to whims of politics and lobbyists.

When I started working at the VA Hospital in the ICU, everything was purchased in bulk.  People forgot that nurses were females who served in the Vietnam War and they were our customers too. Everything we had was designed for men, such as large sized catheters that went into bladders, large size tubes that went down throats and into lungs. Large size IV needles that went into veins.  

You cannot get those purchase orders changed overnight or even over years.  The staff set up an exchange with other hospitals to trade disposable equipment of equal value to get properly sized equipment for these tiny brave women who served in the Front Line War theatre in Vietnam. We just wanted to take care of our patients.

There are so many examples of this I know of in every area of government and there isn’t room to expound here. 

I am so sorry you never found your job to be useful or a valuable contribution to society but you are a rare example in the federal workforce.

You should have left and found a calling that inspired you, then your bitterness would not have accompanied you into retirement. 

Karen Easterly-Behrens

Port Ludlow