A tale of two kinds of veterans:

The New York Times recently documented a 6-year-old campaign by the Department of Defense to use retired senior military officers —- more than 75 of them over time —- as mouthpieces for Bush administration policy and practices. The Pentagon didn't hire them; it just created a way to co-opt their work as on-camera military analysts for Fox News, CNN, CBS, ABC, NPR, MSNBC and NBC —- and occasionally in print as outside contributors of newspaper opinion pieces.

The select group of analysts has received hundreds of private briefings by department officials and executives. They've been tended to by a special staff of Pentagon PR flacks. They've traveled, often at Pentagon expense, on carefully orchestrated trips to Iraq and the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They've been given administration talking points and position papers on which to base their analyses. Their on-air comments have been closely monitored, and those who stray from the administration line have lost their access. Many of the analysts have connections to businesses and industries that have lucrative defense contracts with the Pentagon —- or would like to.

The short-term gains of this program now are moot, given the shredded credibility of the operation and anyone associated with it. Little wonder that the Pentagon announced it has suspended contact with the analysts.

The solicitous —- albeit cynical —- treatment lavished on the retired generals and colonels stood in stark contrast to other military-related news recently.

In a federal court in San Francisco on April 21, lawyers for veterans' advocacy groups produced private e-mails of Department of Veterans Affairs officials in which they refer to much higher numbers of attempted suicides by veterans than the department had admitted publicly.

Two days later, at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) noted previous instances in which VA officials had hid data from the committee and the public. Addressing the deputy secretaries of the VA and the Defense Department who were there to testify, Murray could barely contain her anger.

"How do we trust what you're saying when every time we turn around," she said, "we find out that what you're saying publicly is different than what you know privately?"

Within days, Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) announced plans to introduce legislation to speed the training of additional mental health counselors for returning soldiers and to allow active-duty troops to receive treatment at VA facilities.

But the pattern of revelation, outrage and proposed and presumed remedy is all too familiar.

Three years ago, the Government Accountability Office released a report documenting the failure of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to receive adequate evaluations and treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

In May 2006, The Hartford (Conn.) Courant revealed that soldiers with clear signs of mental health problems were being shipped back to Iraq for combat duty.

In December 2006, National Public Radio aired a series of reports on soldiers who had returned from Iraq and were being harassed by superiors at Fort Carson in Colorado for seeking mental health treatment. In March 2007, The Nation revealed that soldiers suffering from mental health problems after combat in Iraq were being discharged and denied medical benefits because the government claimed their problems pre-dated their military service.

The Pentagon seems to have no trouble marshaling its resources to twist the truth to promote the administration's war agenda, dishonoring the combat realities of its troops. Dishonor, it appears, is the operative concept. It is a disgrace.

It's hardly surprising that the Pentagon's propaganda machine is capable of deceit and subterfuge.

> Eric Mink is commentary editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.