The Wait We Carry: Using Data Visualization To Capture America's Failure To Take Care Of Its Veterans

Some 600,000 veterans have seen their disability-benefit claims founder unanswered for more than 125 days.

To explore "The Wait We Carry," a new data-visualization project from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), is to confront bureaucratic failure writ large. Scroll through the graph charting more than 1,700 veterans; see their names, ages, the lengths of their deployments; and then see, highlighted in burnt orange, just how many days they've been waiting to receive there benefits -- an average of 558 days.

The backlog for veterans' benefits claims is a mounting, slow-moving tragedy. Some 600,000 claims are "backlogged," meaning they've sat around waiting, unanswered, literally in a pile somewhere, for more than 125 days. [...]