On the 70th anniversary of D-Day, World War II veterans gathered for a commemoration ceremony at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Just a mile down the road, Congress hammered out proposals this week aimed at fixing a broken Veterans Affairs system.

“Between the troops, the message is clear that we need to take care of each other,” said Justin Roberts, who works with the U.S. Coast Guard and was visiting the World War II Monument. “That message sometimes gets lost in translation the higher you go.”

Senators came to a bipartisan deal Thursday, a week after former Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric E. Shinseki resigned after internal mismanagement resulted in veterans dying while waiting for care.

The deal proposes allocating $500 million to the VA to hire more doctors and nurses, and it would allow veterans living 40 miles away from a VA treatment center, or those who experienced long delays in care, to seek treatment from private facilities.

Other lawmakers sought emergency measures to allocate funds and fix the scheduling system.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., was part of a proposed plan that would allow private technology firms to help fix the VA’s scheduling system.

Many of the VA’s issues with scheduling stem from 13 years of war, said J. David Bailey, national president of Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge who worked on several of the VA budget committees under Shinseki.

“The VA has had a real problem, and a lot of it comes from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Bailey said. “They were not ready for all the soldiers that came back with post traumatic stress disorder.”

The Durango VA clinic had similar issues with long wait times for appointments, and many appointments were canceled for months, said Mike Hayward, of Veterans for Veterans in Archuleta County. Waiting times began to shorten a few months ago when the clinic signed a contract with a new health-service provider.

“People on the waiting list started to get appointments, but we still have issues that we have to resolve,” said Hayward. “We are hoping some of this new legislation will help us out.”

At the D-Day event in Washington, D-Day veterans and soldiers from each of the Allied nations which took part in the Normandy invasion laid wreaths at the Freedom Wall.

Bailey, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, said as one of the last veterans of World War II living, he hopes people can be proud of the VA soon.

“The VA has had problems in previous administrations also,” Bailey said. “We have to get in there and clean up their act.”

The Senate is expected to debate the bipartisan deal next week.

mbowerman@durangoherald.com. Mary Bowerman is a graduate student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald.