Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Vet groups seek update in combat definition

Vet groups seek update in combat definition
By Kimberly Hefling - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Mar 24, 2009 20:46:13 EDT

WASHINGTON — Veterans advocates told Congress on Tuesday that a World War II-era law requiring proof of participation in combat in order to receive certain benefits creates an unnecessary hurdle for veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not on the front lines.

There is particular concern, they said, that the rule interferes with disability benefits for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder whose trauma may not be documented by the military. PTSD can affect people who experience a traumatic event. Symptoms can include flashbacks and anxiety.

The mental disorder has affected service members in noninfantry roles such as truck drivers or cooks, who on today’s battlefields are vulnerable to roadside bombs or mortar attacks. They often lack a combat infantry badge or other documentation to prove their battlefield experience.

The VA has said that about half of all disability claims for PTSD are approved, and the majority of denials come because the veteran lacks evidence of injury related to their time in the service, according to a report last year from the Congressional Budget Office.

Female veterans, who are officially banned from infantry jobs but still experience combat in the current war zones, are among those having difficulty in obtaining the benefits, Carolyn Schapper, an Iraq War veteran, testified.

“The traditional understanding of female servicemembers’ military duties has been the biggest hurdle to getting them adequate compensation for their injury,” said Schapper, a member of the group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
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WWII Veteran Uncle Charlie needs help to come home

My husband's uncle was a Merchant Marine and his ship was hit by kamikaze pilots. He ended up living on a farm for the rest of his life, but his family was able to see him. I would like to think that if he had been like "Uncle Charlie" someone would want to help get him home to the rest of his family. Wouldn't you? We turn so many wounded veterans away from us because it's hard to live with some of them. When you have a family that is willing to do whatever it takes to keep them connected, it's the least we can do to help them out so they can.

Uncle Charlie's WarPosted by: Alan Wagmeister

Greensboro, NC -- This is the story of a World War II veteran and his family who is desperately trying to get him home. We have come to know him as Uncle Charlie. He was lost in the system for years. Now his family wants to bring him back to North Carolina, but no one can seem to help, not the Veterans Administration or even a US Congressman.

"I told him I would come and get him," says Laurica Oliver, "because it's family."

In fact, Charles Newkirk is Laurica's only living uncle, and the one sibling her mother has left.

Uncle Charlie's story begins during World War II, as he fought alongside others from the "Greatest Generation."

He came home in 1947 suffering from shell shock. Laurica says her grandmother talked about how "the war made my son crazy." Uncle Charlie wandered off into the woods and did other things that scared people. Laurica's grandmother contacted the Army who then came for Uncle Charlie. The family says he was placed in the care of the Army and the Veterans Administration.

Uncle Charlie was moved to a VA supervised group home in Tennessee. He stayed there for many years and in the 1960's, Uncle Charlie was moved to another supervised home in Ohio. In 1974, the VA determined that Mr. Newkirk was incompetent and an attorney, Richard Dimond, became legal guardian. Later, Uncle Charlie was diagnosed with schizophrenia by health care professionals. In 2002, Uncle Charlie was admitted to the VA in Chillicothe and has remained there since.
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http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=121278&catid=57

Possible contamination at VA facilities sparks call for inquiry

Possible contamination at VA facilities sparks call for inquiry
Story Highlights
Contaminated colonoscopy gear may have exposed Florida veterans to hepatitis, HIV

Florida lawmakers seek inquiry, raise concerns about other facilities

VA sent letters to people who may have had colonoscopies May 2004 to this month

Officials say tubing was rinsed but not disinfected, call risk of infection minimal
From Jennifer Pifer Bixler, Elizabeth Cohen and Sabriya Rice
CNN

(CNN) -- Thousands of veterans in South Florida may have been exposed to hepatitis and HIV because of contaminated equipment after getting colonoscopies at the Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, officials announced Monday.

Two Florida lawmakers are asking for an inspector general's inquiry.

"The VA is a model of the type of health care we provide our veterans, and when mistakes like this occur, it undermines the efficacy of the entire system," said Rep. Kendrick B. Meek, D-Florida, in a news release. Meek, along with Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, is requesting an official inquiry by the inspector general of the VA.

In a letter to retired Gen. Eric Shinseki, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, Nelson said he is also concerned about possible contaminated equipment at facilities in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and Augusta, Georgia.
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/24/florida.va.facilities/index.html

VA Ignored Growing Disability Claims Backlog, Now Nearly 900,000

The following is part of the testimony Veterans For Common Sense gave at a hearing. When I've been told I'm wrong in the past, reporters tend to use whatever they are told and they do not want to do the work to find out what is real instead of what the person they are speaking to is telling them. In other words, totally different figures depending on what the person they are speaking to believes is the truth.
This clears up any confusion. The main point to focus on after addressing the fact that fraudulent claims with the VA are not a problem, is the fact there are nearly 900,000 cases they have yet to honor. Understand when you are reading what was produced by VCS, these are not just a bunch of numbers but a veteran and usually a family waiting to have wounds treated and incomes they can no longer earn replaced by this nation priding itself on the term, "grateful nation" but finds it oh so easy to just forget about them.

VA Confirmed PTSD Claim Fraud is Not a Problem

During 2005, as the number of PTSD claims filed by veterans continued to increase, VA leaders tasked VA’s Office of the Inspector General to review PTSD claims that were already approved. According to a VA statement issued in 2005:

The problems with these files appear to be administrative in nature, such as missing documents, and not fraud…. In the absence of evidence of fraud, we're not going to put our veterans through the anxiety of a widespread review of their [approved PTSD] disability claims…. Instead, we're going to improve our training for VA personnel who handle disability claims and toughen administrative oversight.

VA confirmed fraud is not a problem. Rather, poor documentation, poor training, and poor administrative oversight by VA were the actual culprits. VA could and should have instituted better documentation, better training, and better administrative oversight.


VA Ignored Growing Disability Claims Backlog, Now Nearly 900,000

VA missed their third opportunity to issue improved PTSD regulations when the claim backlog ballooned over the past few years. The disability claims backlog has soared, from just over 600,000 in January 2004 to nearly 900,000 in March 2009.

VA’s current claims backlog nightmare includes more than 60,000 pending claims from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans for any type of medical condition. To date, more than 370,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have filed a disability claim against VA for any type of condition, overwhelming evidence that the two current wars are creating a sustained and significant hardship on VA’s already broken claims system.

VA could and should have issued new regulations to expedite PTSD claims in order to break the bottleneck of 900,000 claims awaiting adjudication.

Fort Bragg wounded feel worthless and abandoned

Injured prefer combat to recovery at Bragg

By Kevin Maurer - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Mar 24, 2009 14:37:55 EDT

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Soldiers in a recovery unit for wounded troops at Fort Bragg told the Secretary of the Army that they feel forgotten by the military and that combat duty would be better than the treatment they get now, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press.

The memo summarized the comments of soldiers who attended a closed-door meeting last week with Army Secretary Pete Geren. It was held after the service said it would look into complaints of overzealous discipline reported by The Associated Press.

Some of the soldiers told Geren they have “feelings of worthlessness and abandonment,” the memo states. They told Geren that low morale and suicides in the base’s Warrior Transition battalion are “pushed by (a) negative command climate” that is enforced by the unit’s squad leaders.

“If I had been in the (unit) after I was wounded the first time, I would not have fought so hard to stay in,” one soldier told Geren, according to the memo. “It is very demoralizing and a very different experience from my previous recuperation.”
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/03/ap_wounded_bragg_032409/

Police standoff with soldier ends near Bragg

Police standoff with soldier ends near Bragg
The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Mar 24, 2009 13:11:34 EDT

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A standoff with an armed Fort Bragg soldier who fired shots at police and barricaded himself in an apartment ended peacefully Tuesday when the man surrendered, a police spokeswoman said.

Fayetteville police spokeswoman Theresa Chance said authorities expect to file charges against Spc. Jason N. Johnson, 24, a dental specialist. He was taken to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center for treatment of a gunshot wound to his left hand, she said.
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Study may show how PTSD changes the brain

Study may show how PTSD changes the brain
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Mar 24, 2009 16:00:35 EDT

A new study shows that brain circuitry may actually change for people diagnosed with post traumatic stress symptoms, according to researchers from Duke University and the Durham, N.C., Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Beyond the symptoms most-associated with PTSD — nightmares, flashbacks and hyper-awareness — combat troops also often suffer from an inability to think clearly or remember things well, which makes performing basic daily tasks difficult. While these same symptoms have been connected to traumatic brain injuries as a result of amnesia and short-term memory loss, some researchers began to wonder if service members’ brains had reorganized themselves to respond immediately to potentially dangerous information. According to the study, printed in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging journal, all of a person’s attention goes to an immediate, life-or-death situation, rather than letting other information filter in.

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Thank you Sen. Burr and Sen. Webb!

This is a good first step but there is more to be done. The suicide prevention bill that was supposed to be about saving their lives, took away their gun rights and this has only taken away their desire to turn to the VA for help with PTSD. I've addressed this many times before. It has managed to keep PTSD veterans from going for help so they can keep their guns. Common sense dictates that it is far better to have a PTSD veteran with a gun and getting help than to have a PTSD veteran with a gun and getting no help. This needs to be fixed to make sure veterans are not discouraged from getting the help they need to heal.

Bill seeks to protect gun ownership for vets
Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Jim Webb, D-Va., have joined forces to try to prevent veterans from losing the right to own a gun if a fiduciary is appointed to handle their finances.

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Mar 24, 2009 13:16:01 EDT

Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Jim Webb, D-Va., have joined forces to try to prevent veterans from losing the right to own a gun if a fiduciary is appointed to handle their finances.

Burr and Webb, both members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, are trying to carve out a loophole for veterans in the Federal Gun Control Act that prohibits the sale of firearms to people who are, in the words of the law, “adjudicated as a mental defective.”

According to Burr, the names of about 116,000 veterans have been turned over to the FBI since 1999 because the Veterans Affairs Department assigned a fiduciary to manage their benefits. That is not the same thing as being a danger to themselves or others, Burr said in a statement included in Monday’s Congressional Record when he introduced a bill, S 669, to prevent the VA from reporting the names of veteran to the FBI.

“VA focuses on whether or not benefits paid by VA will be spent in the manner in which they were intended,” Burr said. “Nothing involved with VA’s appointment of a fiduciary even gets at the question of whether an individual is a danger to themselves or others, or whether the person should own a firearm.”

The bill, the Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act, was referred to the veterans committee for consideration.
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VA hires vets to go find comrades who need help

VA hires vets to go find comrades who need help
By LISA ORKIN EMMANUEL – 1 hour ago

MIAMI (AP) — Derek Graner can scan a crowd of veterans and pick out those needing help.

The former Army sergeant developed post traumatic stress disorder in Iraq and knows the signs — the withdrawal, the restlessness, the distrust.

"Sometimes there is a certain look in their eye," he said.

Graner is one of 100 former service members hired nationally by the Department of Veterans Affairs as outreach specialists to help get Iraq and Afghanistan veterans into programs aimed at easing their transition back to civilian life.

They frequent job fairs, welcome-home events and other places where troops back from the wars might congregate and look for those struggling to adjust. The goal is to persuade them to visit one of 230-plus vet centers nationwide, which are operated by the VA to offer free services from job hunting assistance to marriage and mental health counseling.

Experts applaud the effort to actively search for veterans who may need help, even if some advocates say the program should be much bigger.
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Yoga Helping Vets Cope After War

Helping Vets Cope After War


by Kesshia Peyton
Researchers are testing a new method for treating post-traumatic stress disorder, especially for troops that have been in war.
They hope soldiers dealing with troubling memories can get help before depression and other health problems set in.
Using meditation and yoga, this mindful stress reduction teaches vets how to be aware of the present, so the past doesn't haunt them.
"What we teach is a way of not trying to eliminate a stressor. For instance, not trying to avoid the fireworks on 4th of July, but to be able to tolerate that. And to have a different relationship to it." said counselor Kaye Coker.
About 7.7 million Americans 18 and older have post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.
Twenty percent of Iraq war vets and 11% of those who served in Afghanistan have some degree of PTSD.
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http://www.wkrg.com/medical/article/helping_vets_cope_after_war/24687/

Florida Vietnam Veterans could finally get diplomas

Fla. Vietnam vets could finally get diplomas/
By Jessica Gresko - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Mar 24, 2009 8:18:05 EDT

APALACHICOLA, Fla. — William “Charles” Wilson had already dropped out of school and was an 18-year-old iron worker when he was drafted and sent to Vietnam in 1967. Though he admits he was better at marbles and fighting than school, the army taught him to be a demolition expert and flew him all over Vietnam to blow up bridges and enemy tunnels. He was a quick learner he says, even though he never got a high school diploma.

A bill under consideration by Florida lawmakers Tuesday could change that and let Wilson and other veterans finally get a diploma, some nearly 50 years since they left school. Florida already grants diplomas to World War II and Korean War veterans who left high school to serve in the military, but the state has a far greater number of Vietnam veterans.

“I’ll be honest with you, I wouldn’t mind having one,” said Wilson, who is deaf in one ear and still hears a constant buzzing, the result of his time setting explosives. “I don’t know what good it’ll do me. I think it’s a good gesture as far as the state’s concerned.”
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Hard times, bad health behind murder-suicide



Delco couple a slay-suicide Note cites hard times
By STEPHANIE FARR
Philadelphia Daily News

farrs@phillynews.com 215-854-4225

HAVERTOWN, Pa. - A DISTURBING letter was waiting in the printer of the Herr Drive Line auto-parts store in Havertown when an employee opened the doors yesterday morning.

The computer-generated letter was printed in the apartment above the store, where the owner, Derrick Maylock, 66, and his wife, Suzy, 63, lived.

Derrick Maylock tried to explain in his note, police said, why he had shot his wife and then himself to death in the building on Edgewood Road near Brookline Boulevard where small, plastic crucifixes hung over every doorway.

The letter said that the business had fallen on hard times and that the couple had fallen into bad health, according to Haverford Township police, who have jurisdiction over Havertown.
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linked from CNN

Vietnam vet shares his story to help others


Bob Adams' play, "Place of Angels," details his year in Vietnam and the men he served with, including Jim Tucker, from left, Charles Peary, Dick Slade and Mick Zullo.

Vietnam vet shares his story to help others
By Kathy Slovik
Serving as a medic in Vietnam with a Marine combat unit in 1968 and 1969 left an indelible imprint on Winfield resident Bob Adams. He met some unforgettable characters in a place known as Con Thien, which, roughly translated, means "Place of Angels."

"We lost a lot of Marines and Corpsmen there at Con Thien," Adams said.

Those experiences inspired him to write a one-man play, "Place of Angels," which will be staged Monday, March 30, at College of DuPage's McAninch Art Center in Glen Ellyn to benefit the Midwest Shelter for Homeless Veterans.

"The play describes my war year," Adams said, "the year in Vietnam, and the aftermath of those experiences.

"But it's really the story of the men I served with."

Adams is co-founder of the shelter's program along with local veteran Dirk Enger. Adams is a licensed clinical social worker and donates about 25 hours a week to counsel at the Wheaton shelter, which serves as a much-needed lifeline for some veterans. The shelter has served more than 20 veterans since it opened in 2005.


If you go
What: "Place of Angels," a one-man show about a soldier's experience in Vietnam
Why: Proceeds benefit the Midwest Shelter for Homeless Veterans
When: 7 p.m. Monday, March 30
Where: McAninch Arts Center, Park Boulevard at Fawell Drive, Glen Ellyn
Tickets: $50
Info: (630) 942-4000 or helpaveteran.org

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http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=280480&src=2

Students at FGCU create their very own Shanty Town on Campus

Students at FGCU create their very own Shanty Town on Campus
Last updated: 5 hours ago
Ft. Myers Fl, has one of the worst foreclosure rates in the country. With the rising number of homes falling to foreclosure, families are being thrown onto the streets. Students at FGCU decided to take action and raise awareness by spending the night on campus in boxes in order to show thier support for the homeless.
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-234269