That a suspicion harbored by some — perhaps many — veterans has been confirmed for the second time in two years should negate any more procrastination by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in resolving the issue once and for all.

The issue is the much-too-prevalent inability of veterans to get correct responses to questions they pose to employees at the department's regional offices.

In 2004, VA benefits experts called each of the agency's regional offices — they made a total of 1,089 calls — purportedly as relatives or friends of veterans inquiring about possible benefits. According to the results of the mystery-caller program, almost half the time they got answers that the VA said were either completely incorrect or minimally correct.

This nation's veterans deserve much better service than that. And, top VA officials should not rest until they do.

A similar survey of the offices in 2002 produced the same kind of dismal results.

VA officials can be faulted for not taking stern steps to improve service after the 2002 call results were compiled.

During the calls made last year, only 19 percent of the answers received were judged "completely correct," while 16 percent were categorized as "mostly correct." Meanwhile, 22 percent of the answers the callers received were said to be "completely incorrect," 23 percent were "minimally correct" and 20 percent were "partially correct."

As bad as the percentages are, there's more bad news. The program found that VA workers were dismissive of some callers and unhelpful or rude to others.

In the wake of reporting the results, VA officials acknowledged that they agency needs to get better.

No, it needs to get a lot better.

There can be no acceptable excuse for delay.