In the same month that our nation celebrated its veterans, a new federal investigation found that VA officials broke the rules by keeping extensive off-the-books waiting lists for patients seeking mental-health therapy.

This is depressing news, and difficult to accept following the bruising lessons the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs should have learned after the discovery in 2014 of past wait-list violations in which 35 veterans died waiting for care.

The VA Office of Inspector General found that at facilities in Denver, Golden and Colorado Springs, officials didn’t follow protocol. The exact number of cases isn’t known, a result of improper record-keeping, but investigators found at least 3,775 individual entries on the unofficial list for group therapy. Investigators studied care at the facilities between October 2015 and September 2016.The news comes as especially hurtful in Colorado, where the latest violations were discovered, although the problem likely was widespread.

Read more at The Denver Post.