“The District Manager and his District Medical Officer need no introduction to you. You are all familiar with their responsibilities. They are the representatives of the Veterans’ Bureau with whom you come in contact most frequently. The office of District Manager was created by the Director, Colonel Forbes, when he assumed direct control of District organizations. The District Manager is charged with the responsibility for all phases of the work of the Veterans’ Bureau in his district. The Director also appointed a District Medical Officer who, through the District Manager, is responsible for all phases of medical work of the District—the examination, treatment, hospitalization, dispensary, convalescent and follow-up care—in fact the entire physical rehabilitation of patients of the Veterans’ Bureau. And only recently the additional responsibility of the determination and rating of disability has been added. The medical organization of the District Office has been developed primarily for the purpose of establishing claimants of the Veterans’ Bureau as patients entitled to treatment, and the furnishing of proper treatment, under regulations, orders and instructions issued by the Central Office. The District Manager and his District Medical Officer are charged execution of these instructions. They are charged with hospitalization of patients in your hospitals and during such hospitalization, they must look to you to assume the burden of responsibility. In order to prevent misunderstanding and to define the relation of the Veterans’ Bureau and its District Manager to the Service hospitals and their Commanding Officers, Field Order #23 was issued which states in Paragraph #2 and #3 as follows: You will note that one of the duties of the District Manager is to keep you informed of the general aims and policies of the Bureau. This means contact—close personal contact, if possible, with the Commanding Officers of the hospital, working together, keeping informed—the District Manager with the work and problems of the Commanding Officers informed of instructions through the official channels of the Service to which he belongs.