http://www.journalstar.com/news/local/article_8c39f7ce-e913-11de-b08f-001cc4c002\
e0.html
By JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Monday, December 14, 2009 7:55 pm
The Vietnam War veteran walks down a hallway at the VA clinic when he's stopped
by a woman in a red jacket.

Diane Walkowiak hands William "Keith" Rogers a brown paper sack nearly bursting
with socks, toiletries, playing cards and candy. His catcher's-mitt hands dwarf
the bag as a surprised expression crosses his face.

"It's a merry Christmas package from the Elks," she says.

The 66-year-old Lincoln man says he served two tours in the U.S. Navy and
Seabees from 1962 to 1967. The fact that he and his fellow Vietnam veterans were
either ignored or treated badly when they came home still bothers him.

So Monday's gesture was important.

"Somebody cares," he says.

The Lincoln Elks Lodge No. 80 has been giving away Christmas care packages to
military veterans for decades. On Monday, four volunteers distributed about 200
packages at the VA Outpatient Clinic in Lincoln.

Sam Carter, 72, and Vilis Berst, 89, both veterans themselves, co-chair the Elks
veterans committee. The roughly $10,000 cost of veterans appreciation activities
comes from the 310 members of the lodge, they said.

Carter saw firsthand how small gestures made big impressions for the 33 years he
worked at Lincoln's VA. It's why he got involved in the project after he
retired.

"The main thing is we never forget the veterans. That's our motto."

They go to the clinic because it's the easiest way to get packages into the
right hands, even if it's just a fraction of them.

Last year, the Lincoln clinic provided care to 12,200 patients, said Maggie
Oldham, spokeswoman with the VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System. The
highest percentage were Vietnam veterans, followed by those who served in Korea,
the first Gulf War and World War II.

Navy veteran Robert Jenkins of Lincoln served on the USS Reno in the Pacific
Theater of World War II. He's a member of a vanishing fraternity, which made
Monday's care package all the more valued.

"It means that we're remembered," he said, "and people are appreciative of what
we did."

Jim and Denore Shoup, a husband and wife who served in the Navy in the 1970s,
were in for appointments Monday when they got their packages. Denore Shoup said
it meant a lot more than the contents of the sack.

"Just a small gesture, a handshake, a 'thanks for serving,' it means the world."

Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@....


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
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Senate approves funding for service dogs for veterans
NEWS RELEASE

Washington, D.C. - By a vote of 57-35, the Senate yesterday gave its final
approval to the FY2010 Omnibus Appropriations Act, funding a key priority of
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), which is providing service dogs to veterans with
disabilities.

"We can never do too much for the men and women who risk everything to fight for
their country," said Sen. Franken. "I feel a real obligation to them for the
courage they show and the sacrifices they make. I'm glad that we've been able to
take this small step toward improving their lives when they come home."

The Appropriations Act directs the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to
immediately begin the process of assisting veterans with physical and, for the
first time, mental illnesses, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),
who would benefit from having a service dog. It also provides $2 million in
medical services for the program and additional funds for research and VA
Inspector General oversight. VA is also directed to expand its partnership with
accredited nonprofit service dog organizations where veterans with PTSD help
train service dogs.

"With the support of Sen. Tim Johnson (Chairman of the Military Construction/VA
appropriations subcommittee), and his House counterpart Rep. Chet Edwards, the
final version of the provision directs VA to include veterans with mental
disabilities among those eligible to receive a service dog," said Sen. Franken.
"I am also grateful to Rep. Steve Israel, who carried this effort in the House."

"I applaud Senator Franken for his efforts to expand VA's service dog program. 
These dogs have proven to not only expand our veterans' ability to live more
fully, they also seem to have the ability to increase veterans' morale and
quality of life as well.  I was happy to include this funding in the FY10 VA
Appropriations bill," said Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.Dak.), chairman of the Military
Construction/Veterans Affairs (VA) Appropriations Subcommittee.

"Our veterans put their lives on the line and too often return home with
physical injuries and PTSD. An expanded service dogs program for veterans will
bring more of our troops the comfort and rehabilitation they need.  Veterans
have told me they benefit greatly from having access to service dogs, so I'm
proud to join Senator Franken in increasing the scope of the service dogs for
veterans program," said Rep. Steve Israel (D - N.Y.), a member of the House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs who
requested increased funding for the program.

The Service Dogs for Veterans Act was the first piece of legislation authored by
Sen. Franken, with original co-sponsor Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). It passed
the Senate unanimously two weeks after he was sworn in as Minnesota's second
Senator. Sen. Franken visited the White House to see it signed in to law last
month. Sunday's approval of funding was the next step in making the provision of
service dogs to veterans with disabilities a reality.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.metro.us/us/article/2009/12/14/01/5558-72/index.xml

Veterans use yoga in war with PTSD
A year ago, Denise Moquin hit her breaking point. She'd returned from Iraq four
years earlier after serving as a medic, but acclimating back to her life in
Manchester, N.H., was extremely challenging both physically and emotionally. In
her words, she was in an "unhealthy place."


That was until a Veterans Affairs doctor suggested looking into a yoga studio in
Charlestown holding classes for veterans battling post-traumatic stress disorder
and other related issues. Run by Gulf War veteran Sue Lynch, the class focuses
on bringing veterans back to a peaceful place and helping them regain control of
their lives.


"I found myself a lot less stressed and coping with everyday situations," said
Moquin, 32.


The classes began four years ago as part of There & Back Again, a
Cambridge-based nonprofit that offers healing services to veterans. Lynch also
struggled with PTSD until she discovered yoga and wanted to share that
experience with other vets.


Last month, President Obama announced 30,000 more troops will head to
Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the emotional state of service members has received
greater scrutiny in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings. Lynch acknowledged
yoga has yet to fully catch on as a widely-accepted way for veterans to cope,
but she said it's critical for veterans to seek out whatever help they feel they
need.


"I know [yoga] worked for me, and to be able to share it and see the benefits
they're experiencing is just phenomenal," she said.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.star-telegram.com/238/story/1828023.html
Female veterans join ranks of homeless
Posted Sunday, Dec. 13, 2009

By KIMBERLY HEFLING

The Associated Press

LONG BEACH, Calif. - The $15,000 that former Army Pvt. Margaret Ortiz had in the
bank when she left Iraq is long gone, spent on alcohol and cocaine.

By the time she found her way to a program run by the nonprofit U.S. Vets for
homeless female veterans in Long Beach, she'd slept on the beach or anyplace she
could find after a night of partying. One morning, she woke up behind a trash
bin, her pants torn, with no memory of what happened.

Instead of helping her forget her six months in Iraq, where she said she faced
attacks on her compound and sexual harassment from fellow soldiers, the alcohol
and drugs brought flashbacks and blackouts. She tried to kill herself.

"You knew something was wrong with you, but you didn't know what was wrong with
you," said Ortiz, 27, from atop her twin bed in a plain dorm-style room, a black
4th Infantry Division cap on her head.

Ortiz is one of the new faces among America's homeless veterans.

They're younger than homeless male veterans and more likely to bring children.
Their number has doubled in the past decade, and there are an estimated 6,500
homeless female veterans on any given night - about 5 percent of the total
homeless veteran population.

But women-only programs such as the one in which Ortiz participates are few.

"Most of the VA facilities cater to men, and you can't take a mom with two
little kids and put her in the middle of a homeless center with 30 or 40 male
veterans," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the Senate Veterans'
Affairs Committee.

The distressed economy only made things worse.

"People think we're just coming out of the military and we should have our stuff
together," said Tiffany Belle, 33, a former Navy sailor who served in the
Philippines after 9-11 and lives with Ortiz at the U.S. Vets program. "It gets
really hard. Some people don't know where to go, what to do."

Like male veterans, many homeless female veterans face substance abuse and
mental health problems. Many also struggle with sexual trauma that occurred in
their childhood, in the military, or elsewhere.

Ortiz said she was the victim of childhood sexual trauma. In Iraq, she said she
dealt with harassment from male soldiers who talked to her as if she were a
prostitute. A driver, her convoys were regularly attacked, she said.

She said she's particularly bothered by an incident in which she was 40 feet
from a building destroyed by a mortar where she was living in Tikrit.

A few months after she returned to the U.S., she was back in California, with
plans to go to college, living with her parents and burning through her money on
drugs and alcohol. She eventually ended up in a psychiatric hospital after
attempting suicide, and later in inpatient treatment programs for drugs and
sexual trauma.

"I didn't know how to process it, and I didn't know what to process because
there was so much of it," she said.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfdec09/nf120309-5.htm
COMMENTARY: MURDER BY PTSD

by Jim Strickland

An attorney friend, Katrina Eagle, recently shared this with me
http://tinyurl.com/ybf8so5

If you'll take a moment to read and absorb that commentary you may feel a bit
like I did at first; somewhat conflicted.

I am not a combat veteran. I never came close to being shot at or having to
shoot at anyone. However, I was raised within the world of combat veterans. My
father has Purple Hearts from his meritorious actions in Korea and Saipan,
Tinian and Iwo Jima. He carries the scars and he still has shrapnel embedded in
his body that will go to his grave with him.

Dad is a Marine's Marine. He's of the "Old Corps" and retired after his 20 as an
E-9. During those years growing up in his world, I didn't understand exactly
what use anyone had for those "civilian" people. Every adult I knew was a combat
veteran from WWII. They were all very close. Some were rougher than others, they
drank a bit or maybe they exhibited a lot of anger. I didn't know then, and
neither did they, that they exhibited what we'd call PTSD today. The behavior
generally wasn't extreme and it was accepted so life went on.

I can't remember any of them asking for any particular concessions though. If
they were drunk and in a fight, my memory says they were confined to the brig.
My dad rarely spoke of his combat and when he did it was with regret that it had
to be done. He never drank though and such things as drugs weren't even thought
of. He had done his job with his weapons and he'd survived so it was over and
time to move on. That was the attitude I felt from all his friends and all his
friends had been there with him in combat.

The article, "Post-combat stress as a defense" bothers me a bit. While I
understand that combat isn't ever pleasant or easy, I'm not sure that it's a
reason to offer leniency to someone who murders others in what appears to be an
old fashioned lover's triangle. Murder among lovers isn't an unusual event and
it's pretty rare that a veteran is involved.

I replied to Katrina and I now share that reply with you.




from: Jim Strickland
to: Eagle
date: Tue, Dec 1, 2009
subject Re: Fw: Supreme Court on PTSD

Katrina,

That is interesting, thanks for sharing. I'm compelled to comment and to
reiterate a discussion that we had months ago.

This is one more action by government that points to the failings of the VA.
Once again, the VA didn't do the job it's chartered to do and in the report,
nobody noticed that obvious point.

You and I have talked of the push in San Diego, Buffalo and other cities to
establish special criminal court systems for felonious veterans.

I've gone on record to say that I believe that's a terrible idea for a number of
reasons.

Primarily, to see civilian authority treating veterans differently than the rest
of society absolves the VA of its responsibility. The reasons veterans commit
crimes are many; the veteran may be in the throes of depressive and manic PTSD
episodes or he might be overcome with pain and medications that distort his
sense of right and wrong. More often veterans are struggling financially to make
a life in the civilian world and subjected to years of waiting for their earned
benefits that would keep them out of the criminal justice system.

I'm currently working very closely with a 40 years young veteran who was a
member of an elite Special Forces Airborne unit. Five years ago, he was at the
top of his game in his environment. He held good rank and was a leader of men
who were as good as it gets in our Army. Over the years of his military tenure,
he'd suffered at least one and possibly 2 Traumatic Brain Injuries. His first
"Jump and Bump" was from a helicopter with a partially deployed parachute. He
was knocked unconscious on landing and spent days in a hospital recovering. That
event was well documented, another not so well.

He's also injured his back, shoulders and knees. That's not hard to imagine when
you consider that he had well over 100 documented jumps from aircraft all while
carrying the heavy weapons of war.

He wanted to stay in the military but it became apparent that his physical
condition would not allow it.

He came out of the Army without any disability rating. He waited 3 years until
he couldn't stand the pain before finally connecting to his VA. He'll tell you
today that he waited that long because he knew what a degrading, complex process
awaited him once he was snarled into the VA system. It's a common theme, vets do
not want to go to the VA.

But...he can't work. He wanted to be a trucker and leased a vehicle for hire.
That failed along with his knees and back. Today he and his wife have a
housecleaning business. They clean the homes of wealthier citizens. He helps her
when he's able, telling me; "I'm a pretty good duster but my back won't let me
handle a mop."

He applied for disability benefits and asked a Veterans Service Organization to
represent him. The VSO offered him a Life Membership and when he declined...he's
in the early stages of bankruptcy...he was told to return in a few days.

He did get help from the state run VSO office. His application for benefits
stated that he was filing for "Undiagnosed conditions of GW". The VA Form 21-526
was filed that way and he has not been contacted by anyone from that office
since then. His application has been received by VA and he's been subjected to
the usual onslaught of letters that he doesn't comprehend.

A mutual friend asked for me to intervene and I'm happy to say I was able to.
He's now in the VHA system and seeing caregivers I've chosen for him. I'm
advocating for him by attending each meeting with his VA providers. I'll work
with his claim as it goes along. An anonymous local contact was able to gift him
and his wife a small amount of money to make it through Christmas.

This veteran, just like tens of thousands of other young (and old) veterans is a
perfect storm waiting to happen. He is a prime example of a total and complete
failure of the VA to proactively pursue or reach out to veterans who will
predictably need help.

I found a young man who was as full of anger and confusion as anyone you'll ever
meet. He had fallen from his persona as one of the most elite of the elite, a
highly decorated and respected warrior to the unenviable position of house maid.
His ego was crushed and he openly asked the question, "Why did I do what I did
for 8 years?" He related to me that his buddies he'd left behind as civilians
had good jobs and had bought homes and they didn't have terrifying dreams that
woke them up at night.

He has very little to do to fill the long hours of each day that passes with no
goals, no job and no particular future on his horizon.

This daily opportunity to brood and think and become angrier is the cause of so
many of the ills that are befalling veterans today. It's a recipe for mischief
and that's being shown by the fact that you and others see it necessary to
champion special court systems for veterans and that SCOTUS would be sympathetic
to a PTSD afflicted murderer.

It all points to the failure of the Department of Veterans Affairs to complete
the mission.

In this young veterans case, if anyone had bothered to talk with him as he
exited the military, his benefits may have started years earlier. His TBI may
have been identified and treated appropriately. The PTSD that he obviously
suffers could have already been improved with counseling. The knees and other
orthopedic injuries should have been treated aggressively.

But VA failed once again. It's unfortunate that as you read this you recognize
that this veteran's story isn't at all unusual. This is the norm that we face
every day as advocates. The VA continues to place so many hoops to jump through
and roadblocks that must be maneuvered that many veterans can't or won't bother
with it all.

The system is degrading and there is little evidence of the respect that VA
writes about in their flowery press releases. The famed paternalism that is so
often written about is non-existent except in the marketing pieces written by
well paid VA employees.

The reality is that VA is a harsh and unfriendly system where the veteran is
made to feel guilty of using too many resources and too much time.

This forces you to have civilian systems trying to take up the slack created by
the VA. While the effort is appreciated, it seems obvious that it's far too
little and it comes far too late.

If you have any doubts about that last thought, ask George Porter, Jr. what he
thinks. I'd suggest you ask his girlfriend and her boyfriend but it's truly too
late to do that.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/06/bassuk-ending-homelessness-returning\
-war-veterans//print/
Sunday, December 6, 2009
SOLUTIONS/BASSUK: Ending homelessness among returning war veterans


Dr. Ellen L. Bassuk

In a country as affluent as ours, no one should be homeless. Yet veterans who
have served their country account for one-third of adult individuals who are
homeless in America.

On any night, more than 130,000 veterans find themselves with no place to call
home. Seven percent are women. Ending veteran homelessness starts with
understanding why they become homeless.

At its core, homelessness is caused by a gap between income and the cost of
housing. Given the diminished stock of affordable housing, people at the bottom
of the wage scale are at greatest risk for homelessness. A minimum-wage worker
cannot earn enough to pay for a two-bedroom dwelling anywhere in the United
States.

Despite greater opportunities for education and training that arise from their
military service, many veterans also struggle to make ends meet. Researchers
report that nearly half a million veterans pay more than 50 percent of their
income for rent.

TWT RELATED STORY:
. SOLUTIONS/DONOVAN: Ending homelessness among returning war veterans

While veterans overall earn higher-than-average wages, some have difficulty
translating military training and experience into civilian jobs. Others find
their wounds (both visible and invisible) an impediment.

Housing vouchers are a proven solution, as are investments in education and job
training. Such well-recognized supports are part of a five-year, $3.2 billion
initiative by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to end veteran
homelessness. The challenge is to ensure that vouchers fully pay for decent
housing and that funding is available for preventive measures such as rapid
rehousing.

Affordable housing is essential to the solution, but not sufficient. Social
networks, including services and supports, play a critical role in anchoring
people in housing and the community. This is especially important if a veteran
is struggling with medical, mental health or substance use issues.

Family, friends, service providers and community supports can buoy people up in
times of crisis, allowing them to survive until circumstances improve. Without
such a network, a person has nowhere to turn for financial or emotional support
that will help prevent a downward spiral.

Most returning veterans are able to re-engage in their lives and become
self-sustaining, often with help from family, friends and caretakers. Veterans
without social networks can find themselves isolated and overusing alcohol to
deal with their distress - factors that contribute to their higher risk for
homelessness. Strong social networks often make the difference between a
productive life in the community or being out on the streets.

Soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from high rates
of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). In
response, the military has provided extensive resources to address these issues.
Because a highly developed network of ongoing supports is available for veterans
with PTSD and TBI, these veterans are at substantially lower risk for becoming
homeless. This clearly illustrates how support networks can mitigate the risk
for homelessness.

Even though family, friends and caretakers are essential for supporting veterans
in the community, resources provided by the military and the Department of
Veterans Affairs may not extend beyond the veteran. Private and nonprofit
organizations are trying to bridge this gap, but the unmet need is great.

Given what we know about the significant role of social networks in protecting
against homelessness, and the success the military has had in supporting
veterans with PTSD and TBI, further resources should be allocated toward
bolstering veterans' supports. The private sector cannot do this alone.

The National Center on Family Homelessness is working with the Wal-Mart
Foundation to fill a gap in veterans' services by developing and implementing
Community Circles of Support for Veterans' Families.

This multisite program seeks to strengthen veterans' social networks by offering
a clinical intervention that pairs returning war veterans with a parent, sibling
or partner, and provides opportunities for peer-to-peer networking. This
initiative also builds capacity among community-based social service providers.
The knowledge gained from this program will guide us in establishing and
maintaining resilient networks to keep veterans stably housed.

The men and women who serve in our military give us all the chance to thrive in
our homes and communities. It is unconscionable that they should not also have
homes of their own.

As a nation, we must be committed to ensuring that each and every veteran is
provided with decent housing and the means to secure it. We owe them much more,
but certainly no less.

. Dr. Ellen L. Bassuk is the president and founder of the National Center on
Family Homelessness, which leads the effort to prevent and end homelessness for
children and families in America.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hc8qtQjB9Pg7OhmOkoQcKC12kB5wD9\
CCKU7G1
Obama tells vet he'll improve VA services
(AP) - Dec 4, 2009

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A military veteran who's now a college student in Pennsylvania
has taken his complaint about the Veterans Administration right to the top.

The veteran told President Barack Obama at a town hall meeting in Allentown on
Friday that he hadn't been able to get through to anyone who can answer his
questions about his benefits under the post-Sept. 11 GI bill.

Obama joked that someone would probably be calling the man "in about two
seconds" on his cell phone, now that he'd spoken to the president. But he added
that it's an example of the need to modernize the way the Veterans
Administration gets information to the people it serves. And he vowed to keep
boosting funding to help the VA improve.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www2.scnow.com/scp/news/local/article/life_after_service_a_look_at_proble\
ms_facing_american_veterans_today/89903/
Life After Service: A look at problems facing American veterans today - PART 1
By John Sweeney | Editor: The Weekly Observer
Published: December 2, 2009
Updated: December 8, 2009

With Veterans Day almost a month behind us, many have moved past thanking
veterans for the enormous service they have provided our country over the years.
In the midst of the holiday season, when charitable giving is often at its
highest, many veterans are in dire need of assistance. The veteran population is
a difficult one to overlook, as are the many troubles some of these former
fighting men and women face at the conclusion of their military service.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, there are nearly 23 million
veterans in the United States today. Of those 23 million, approximately 131,000
are or have been recently homeless. These veterans, the overwhelming majority of
which are men, have served in conflicts spanning from the Second World War to
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Remarkably, nearly half of the homeless veterans today served in Vietnam.

It has been said that the military consists of the "best of the best" in way of
men and women serving, yet statistics like these might raise questions regarding
how and why these same persons of excellence became plagued with so many
hardships when they left military life? Furthermore, what can be done to help
troubled veterans overcome difficult times?

Brig. Gen. Al Smith, currently a Hemingway resident, enjoyed a long
distinguished service in The United States Air Force In a career that spanned
roughly 30 years, the native Virginian worked in many capacities, first as an
enlisted man, then an officer. After retiring from active duty, having achieved
the rank of colonel, Smith continued his involvement in the military with the
Virginia National Guard, where he would achieve the rank of brigadier general
before retiring from that post in 1996.

During his career, the general was involved in a number of military operations,
including working in the Pentagon command post during Operation Desert
Shield/Desert Storm.

Smith now sits on the insurance board for Ventures, a group carried by insurance
provider ING, and works to provide insurance for men and women in the National
Guard in 38 states. He sat down for an interview the day after Veterans Day to
discuss his views on common problems facing some veterans today.

In an article that appeared in the New York Times on Veterans Day, statistics
show that on average veterans arriving back from the Vietnam War who are now
homeless or suffering from various other problems began a downward spiral within
five years of being released from duty. Shockingly, the article discussed, some
studies show veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan hitting "rock
bottom" in just 18 months following their tours. Smith said the large influx of
guardsmen and reservists being called to serve is a contributing factor to these
statistics.

"You're finding the ages of people that are being lost in combat are 40's,
50's," Smith said. "Even these folks at Fort Hood recently. One of them was 62.
You serve in the Guard until you're 65."

Smith said there are a number of factors that can lead to difficult times for
returning service men and women, especially for older members who might have
families waiting for them at home. He pointed out that since guardsmen and
reservists are serving at rates and lengths more common for career soldiers,
many changes associated with such commitments can be somewhat of a shock for
both them and their families.

"Not only do you have the stress of dealing with the mission, but you have the
stress of what's happening back home," Smith said. "Many times on the active
duty side, if you have multiple deployments, one right after the other, that's
what the active duty component has always been used to. For guardsmen and
reservists, they're having multiple deployments, too. They leave and they go out
for six months or nine months and they come back. They're no sooner back and
they are redeployed again."

For a person who is generally asked to serve only a few months out of the year,
some might not be totally prepared for the hardships that come with being a full
time soldier.

Some common scenarios the general recalls hearing over the years included
resentment issues from spouses who are left to deal with finances, raising
children and the possibility that their loved one might not make it back home.
As a result, whether on purpose or not, changes occur on the home front, the
personalities and behaviors of the people there altering in the process.

"People start looking for ways to (deal with stress) and they start changing,"
Smith said. "Not on purpose, but they just start changing. So, when the soldier
comes home he's faced with even more challenges, perhaps, in that part of his
life than he ever had on the battlefield, where he saw his buddies getting
killed.

"He's been dealing with that. now, he's coming home and his personal life with
his whole family, he's seeing things have changed. In some cases, it causes guys
to snap."

Common problems facing veterans include Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which
government studies have shown has lead some veterans to abuse drugs and alcohol
as a result.

Challenges can go beyond problems at home or readjusting to civilian life. Smith
said some are burdened by the fact that jobs they held at the beginning of their
deployment aren't waiting for them after their service is done. Smith said that
while federal law mandates employers give returning soldiers the position they
held before their tour of duty, sometimes employers are forced to make changes.

"They want to be patriotic, they want to support that," Smith said, speaking of
employers and honoring returning soldier's positions. "But after a while. You do
have employers that ultimately say 'I can't keep letting this person deploy and
redeploy, it's killing my business.' Patriotism sometimes flies out the window.
How long do you keep asking the (employer) to make the sacrifice?"

All of these factors, Smith said, can lead to veterans feeling unappreciated
when they return home and is often the first step in what can be a dangerous
downward spiral.


This is the first of three installments of "Life After Service," featuring
segments from the interview with Brig. Gen. Al Smith, discussing troubles facing
veterans today. Look for Part Two in an upcoming edition of The Weekly Observer.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm?shortname=infco20091201204
CHARLES v. SHINSEKI

EUGENE CHARLES, Claimant-Appellant,
v.
ERIC K. SHINSEKI, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 2009-7024.

United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit.

Decided: December 1, 2009.

John F. Cameron, Jr., of Montgomery, Alabama, argued for claimant-appellant.

Meredyth Cohen Havasy, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
Division, United States Department of Justice, of Washington, DC, argued for
respondent-appellee. On the brief were Michael F. Hertz, Deputy Assistant
Attorney General, Jeanne E. Davidson, Director, Martin F. Hockey, Jr., Assistant
Director, and Tara J. Kilfoyle, Trial Attorney. Of counsel on the brief were
David J. Barrans, Deputy Assistant General Counsel, and Martie S. Adelman,
Attorney, Office of the General Counsel, United States Department of Veterans
Affairs, of Washington, DC.

Before GAJARSA, DYK, and MOORE, Circuit Judges.

MOORE, Circuit Judge.

Eugene Charles appeals the decision of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
(Veterans Court) affirming the Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board) decision
denying Mr. Charles an earlier effective date for service-connected disability
benefits. For the reasons discussed below, we vacate and remand.

BACKGROUND
Mr. Charles served on active duty in the United States Navy from August 7, 1972
to August 30, 1974. On September 10, 1980, he filed a claim for
service-connected benefits for manic depression (1980 Claim). On October 28,
1980, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) regional office (RO) issued a
rating decision denying his claim (1980 Rating Decision). Mr. Charles submitted
additional medical evidence, in particular a VA medical certificate dated
September 1981 diagnosing him with a paranoid personality disorder. VA did not
issue a Supplemental Statement of the Case nor is there any assertion that VA
considered this supplemental evidence.

On March 1, 1982, Mr. Charles filed a second claim for benefits for a nerve
condition (1982 Claim). RO sent Mr. Charles a letter stating that "[s]ervice
connection for nervous condition was previously denied" and informing him that
in order to reopen his claim, he "would have to submit evidence not previously
considered showing that this condition was incurred in or aggravated by active
duty" (1982 Letter).

Thereafter, Mr. Charles submitted additional information to RO, including a
third claim[ 1 ] and additional medical evidence. On February 5, 1991, Mr.
Charles filed a fourth claim (1991 Claim), in which he stated he was filing for
service-connected disabilities for a "blood disease and nervous condition" and
that a doctor at a VA medical center said he should file this claim.

The record is unclear as to exactly what happened next. In 1995, the Board noted
that Mr. Charles' claim file had been lost and rebuilt, and it was "not possible
to tell whether [Mr. Charles] was properly notified of the denial" or "what
records might have been utilized in this purported denial." The Board further
noted that Mr. Charles appeared to have been awarded benefits by the Social
Security Administration (SSA). The Board remanded Mr. Charles' claim to RO for
further development and its remand order stated that RO should request copies of
Mr. Charles' medical records from the SSA. RO did not obtain Mr. Charles' SSA
medical records. Charles v. Peake, No. 06-0200, 2008 U.S. App. Vet. Claims LEXIS
626, *26-27 (May 14, 2008). On appeal from RO, in 1997, the Board reviewed the
evidence in Mr. Charles' file and determined that he had not submitted any new
and material evidence. The Board therefore denied his request to reopen his
claim for a psychiatric disorder.

Mr. Charles appealed to the Veterans Court. In 1998, we invalidated the test for
new and material evidence that had been applied by the Board in favor of the
standard set forth by VA in 38 C.F.R. § 3.156(a). Hodge v. West, 155 F.3d 1356,
1363-64 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Thus, upon a joint motion filed by the parties, the
Veterans Court vacated the Board's 1997 decision and remanded for a new
determination of whether Mr. Charles had submitted new and material evidence. On
remand, the Board found that "[c]ompetent evidence linking a current psychiatric
disability to an acquired in-service psychiatric disability has been presented."
On July 21, 2000, the Board remanded to RO with detailed instructions for
further development of Mr. Charles' claim, reminding RO that it should afford
the claim expeditious treatment. On February 21, 2003, RO issued a rating
decision granting Mr. Charles a 50% disability rating for his service-connected
psychiatric disorder dating back to February 5, 1991 (the date of Mr. Charles'
"Statement in Support of a Claim").

Mr. Charles timely submitted a Notice of Disagreement regarding the 2003 Rating
Decision, challenging both the rating and the effective date. RO sent Mr.
Charles a Statement of the Case dated June 21, 2004, which indicated that he had
been granted a 100% disability rating dating back to February 5, 1991. RO denied
Mr. Charles' request for an earlier effective date. RO explained that his
benefits could not date back any earlier because his original claim (the 1980
Claim) was final by virtue of the 1980 Rating Decision denying compensation, and
his request to reopen that claim was not received until February 5, 1991.

Mr. Charles appealed to the Board. In 2005, the Board denied his request for an
effective date earlier than 1991. The Board explained that the benefits could
not extend back before the date of a new claim or a claim to reopen. It then
determined that Mr. Charles did not have a pending claim or a claim to reopen
dated prior to February 5, 1991. With respect to his 1980 Claim, the Board
determined that the 1980 Rating Decision became final because Mr. Charles did
not appeal. As to the 1982 Claim, the Board interpreted it as a request to
reopen his 1980 Claim and concluded that Mr. Charles abandoned the 1982 Claim
when he failed to reply to RO's 1982 Letter requesting new evidence. Thus, the
Board found that the preponderance of the evidence weighed against Mr. Charles'
claim for an effective date earlier than February 5, 1991.

Mr. Charles appealed to the Veterans Court, which affirmed the Board's decision.
Charles, 2008 U.S. App. Vet. Claims LEXIS 626. Relevant to this appeal, the
Veterans Court agreed with the Board that Mr. Charles abandoned his 1982 Claim
by not supplying medical evidence within one year of the date it was requested.
Id. at *18-21. The Veterans Court also agreed with the Board that Mr. Charles'
1980 Claim was final. The Veterans Court held that Mr. Charles failed to appeal
the 1980 decision and that by abandoning his 1982 Claim he abandoned the 1980
Claim. The Veterans Court recognized that Mr. Charles asserted that he had
submitted new evidence within one year of the 1980 Claim, which would render the
1980 Rating Decision nonfinal, and the government had failed to address or
refute that assertion. Id. at *22. The Veterans Court, however, reasoned that
the abandonment of the 1982 Claim rendered his prior pending unadjudicated
claims final, citing our decision in Williams v. Peake, 521 F.3d 1348, 1350
(Fed. Cir. 2008). Thus, the Veterans Court concluded that there was no clear
error in the Board's determination that Mr. Charles was not entitled to an
effective date earlier than February 5, 1991. Id. at *24.

Mr. Charles timely appealed to our court. We have jurisdiction to review the
Veterans Court's decision under 38 U.S.C. § 7292.

DISCUSSION
We may review a decision of the Veterans Court to determine the validity of a
statute or regulation or any interpretation thereof that was relied on by the
Veterans Court in its decision. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(a). Absent a constitutional
issue, we cannot review factual determinations or "challenge[s] to a law or
regulation as applied to the facts of a particular case." Id. § 7292(d)(2).

Mr. Charles argues that the Veterans Court misinterpreted 38 U.S.C. § 5108 and
38 C.F.R. § 3.158(a) when it concluded that the 1980 Rating Decision was final.
38 U.S.C. § 5108 states that "[i]f new and material evidence is presented or
secured with respect to a claim which has been disallowed, the Secretary shall
reopen the claim and review the former disposition of the claim." 38 C.F.R. §
3.158(a) states in relevant part that "where evidence requested in connection
with an original claim, a claim for increase or to reopen or for the purpose of
determining continued entitlement is not furnished within 1 year after the date
of request, the claim will be considered abandoned." Mr. Charles asserts that
the 1980 Rating Decision was rendered nonfinal when he submitted new evidence
within his one-year period of appeal. Once RO renders a decision on a claim for
benefits, the claimant may appeal by filing a Notice of Disagreement within one
year of the mailing date of the decision. 38 U.S.C. § 7105(b)(1). "New and
material evidence received prior to the expiration of the appeal period . . .
will be considered as having been filed in connection with the claim which was
pending at the beginning of the appeal period." 38 C.F.R. § 3.156(b). RO must
notify the claimant in writing of decisions affecting the payment of benefits or
granting relief. 38 C.F.R. § 3.103(f). Among other things, this notice must
provide the reason for the decision, summarize the evidence considered, and
inform the claimant of the right to appeal. Id.

Mr. Charles asserted-and the government did not refute-that he submitted new
evidence within his one-year appeal period. The government never argued below
that the evidence was not submitted within the one-year appeal period. In fact,
the Veterans Court noted that it "could construe the Secretary's failure to
respond to these arguments as a concession of error." Charles, 2008 U.S. App.
Vet. Claims LEXIS 626, *22. The government cannot argue for the first time on
appeal that the new evidence was not submitted by Mr. Charles within the
one-year appeal period-such argument has been waived.[ 2 ]

As the government acknowledged, when new evidence is submitted within the appeal
period, RO must consider it and prepare a Supplemental Statement of the Case.
Oral Argument at 16:48-17:02, 18:41-18:50. It is undisputed that RO did not do
this with regard to the new evidence that was submitted following the 1980
Rating Decision. Because new evidence was submitted within one year of the 1980
Rating Decision, Mr. Charles' 1980 Rating Decision did not become final by his
failure to appeal within one year. See Muehl v. West, 13 Vet. App. 159, 161-62
(1999) (concluding that where new evidence was received within the appeal
period, RO's decision was not a final decision, and the new evidence should have
been considered in conjunction with the original claim).

The government asserts, and the Veterans Court found, that the 1980 Rating
Decision became final when Mr. Charles abandoned his 1982 Claim by failing to
present new evidence within one year of the VA request. The question of
interpretation presented in this case is whether a subsequent claim that is
abandoned renders an earlier pending claim also abandoned. This situation is
markedly different from that in which a later-filed claim is adjudicated on the
merits. As we explained in Williams v. Peake, "a reasonably raised claim remains
pending until there is either a recognition of the substance of the claim in an
RO decision from which a claimant could deduce that the claim was adjudicated or
an explicit adjudication of a subsequent `claim' for the same disability." 521
F.3d at 1350 (quoting Ingram v. Nicholson, 21 Vet. App. 232, 243 (2007)). Thus,
when the substance of a later-filed claim is addressed in an RO decision, the
claimant can infer that the earlier-filed claim based on the same disability has
also been adjudicated. Id. When a later-filed claim is abandoned, it does not
have the same effect. "[U]nlike an adjudicated claim, where a decision has been
rendered and notice of that decision has been provided to the claimant, an
abandoned claim has not been adjudicated and no specific notice has been
provided to the claimant that his claim might be or even has been considered
abandoned for failure to timely provide information." Charles v. Shinseki, No.
06-20, Order Denying Motion for Reconsideration (Kasold, J., dissenting) (Vet.
App. Aug. 29, 2008). We conclude that the Veterans Court misinterpreted 38
C.F.R. § 3.158 when it determined that Mr. Charles' 1980 claim was finally
denied. Abandonment of a non-final and non-appealable later claim cannot render
final an unadjudicated earlier claim in which the agency failed to act.[ 3 ]
Neither 38 U.S.C. § 5108 nor 38 C.F.R. § 3.158 can be interpreted as requiring a
veteran to submit new and material evidence in order to reopen a pending,
unadjudicated claim.

In view of our decision that a later abandoned claim cannot render final an
earlier-filed unadjudicated claim, we need not reach the issue of whether the
time limits under 38 U.S.C. §§ 5102 and 5103 and 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.109 and 3.158
are subject to equitable tolling. Because the 1980 claim was not final, all
subsequent claims, correspondence, and medical evidence are part of that claim
for consideration by VA. Oral Argument at 29:05-41 (government acknowledges that
all subsequent filings would be additional evidence to be considered part of the
1980 claim if it is still pending). Hence, Mr. Charles does not need to prevail
on his tolling argument in order to have the subsequent evidence considered by
VA. We also need not address whether VA breached its duty to assist Mr. Charles.

CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the decision of the Veterans Court and
remand to the Veterans Court with instructions to remand to the Board, and with
further instructions for the Board to remand to RO to determine whether Mr.
Charles is entitled to an effective date prior to February 5, 1991. On remand,
RO must consider all evidence of record dating back to Mr. Charles' original
claim. In addition, RO should request and consider Mr. Charles' SSA medical
records, as initially required by the Board's 1995 remand order.

VACATED and REMANDED

1. The RO interpreted Mr. Charles' third claim (filed June 2, 1983) as a request
for non-service connected benefits. In 1984, RO issued a rating decision
granting him pension dating back to July 1, 1983.
2. The government moves to supplement the joint appendix with evidence which it
claims would support its new argument that Mr. Charles may not have submitted
the new evidence within the one-year time period. As the government waived this
argument by failing to raise it in the proceedings below, we deny the motion to
supplement the joint appendix.
3. The government concedes that the 1982 claim was non-final and non-appealable.


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http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wounded-vets-career-counselors-gather-in\
-washington-as-obama-announces-afghanistan-troop-buildup-78311037.html
Wounded Vets, CAREER Counselors Gather in Washington as Obama Announces
Afghanistan Troop Buildup
Media Advisory for Thursday, Dec. 3

Head of Army's Warrior Transition Command to Speak at Luncheon Meeting of Army
Wounded Warriors; Army Embraces Reality of 'Unseen Injuries' and Helps Vets
Adjust

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following was released today
by the National Organization on Disability:

WHAT: Wounded veterans and career counselors from the Army Wounded Warrior (AW2)
program's National Organization on Disability's Career Demonstration Project
will be gathering in Washington for a previously-scheduled meeting this week,
right after President Obama announces plans to beef up troop strength in
Afghanistan. Advances in battlefield medicine mean more soldiers survive
injuries that could have killed them in the past, and the AW2/NOD program is
part of the Army's commitment to provide services to them after they separate
from the military.

Brigadier General Gary Cheeks, Assistant Surgeon General of Warrior Care and
commander of the Army's Warrior Transition Command, will speak to a luncheon
gathering on Thursday at the Liaison Capitol Hill Hotel across from the Capitol.
A number of veterans in the NOD program will be joining the annual meeting
assessing the program and looking to the future, including the likelihood that
beefing up troop strength in Afghanistan will increase the need for expanding
the services provided by the program.

More than 50 percent of the 5,600 soldiers and veterans in the AW2 program have
a primary diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disease (PTSD) or Traumatic Brain
Injury (TBI), as well as suffering a wide range of other injuries. The NOD
Career Demonstration Project serves about 200 of the most severely-injured of
those veterans in an intensive, high-touch one-on-one program aimed at helping
them adjust to civilian life, including seeking employment and education
opportunities, in three states -- Colorado, North Carolina and the
Dallas-Metroplex area of Texas.

WHO: Brig. Gen. Gary Cheeks, head of the Warrior Transition Command, speaks at
luncheon gathering of wounded veterans, career counselors, leaders of the Army
Wounded Warrior/National Organization on Disability Career Demonstration Project
in Washington

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/healthteam/story/6518064/
Military members at greater risk of developing ALS
Posted: Nov. 30, 2009
Three years ago, Dugan Smith was the picture-perfect Fort Bragg soldier -
strong, fit and muscular.

"I was in the best shape of my life," said Smith, who was in his early 30s at
the time.

That's before he was diagnosed in October 2007 with amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis, or ALS - a disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal
cord that control voluntary muscle movement. It eventually robs a patient of the
ability to move his or her body, including the abilities to swallow and breathe,
and leads to death within five years.

Smith's symptoms started showing up nearly two years before his diagnosis.

"Members of my unit started telling me that I was talking funny," Smith
recalled. "A few months later, I was doing pull-ups and slipped."

Today, Smith gets around mainly in a motorized wheel chair. He receives benefits
from the military, and the Department of Veterans Affairs is helping to defray
the costs of a new accessible home.

According to the ALS Association, a nonprofit group that advocates for patients
with the disease, evidence backed by a Harvard University study supports the
conclusion that members of the armed forces - regardless of where and when they
served - are twice as likely of developing and dying from the disease as those
with no history of military service.

As of October 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs, using a nationwide
registry to track ALS in veterans, has identified more than 2,090 veterans with
the disease.

"When I saw (the research), I thought it was the most amazing and most terrible
thing I had ever seen," said Dr. Rick Bedlack, a neurologist with the Department
of Veterans Affairs and director of the Duke ALS Clinic at Duke University
Medical Center.

Scientists do not know what causes ALS, but research is ongoing as to why people
in the military are much more likely to develop it. The illness is now
considered a service-connected disability, meaning those who suffer from it are
able to get compensation from the U.S. government.

Recent studies show that people with ALS are twice as likely to have lean bodies
and have participated in sports, which might be a clue as to why military
veterans and athletes, such as the late New York Yankees first baseman Lou
Gehrig, whose name is synonymous with ALS, develop the disease.

Right now, there are just theories.

"We think people have genetic susceptibility - a combination of genes that opens
the door to the disease - and then, they get hit with something in the
environment that triggers it," Bedlack said.

Researchers are developing a methodology of looking at gene interactions with
the environment, and a national registry is tracking all ALS patients to learn
more.

"Just because we don't know the cause doesn't mean that we can't find better and
better ways to treat people, both in terms of slowing the disease - which we
have been able to do - and in their quality of life," Bedlack said.

Technology has improved greatly over the years to help diagnose the disease - it
can take up to a year to diagnose accurately, Bedlack said. By that time, it's
possible for a patient to lose up to 50 percent of his or her motor neurons.

Veterans with ALS are among the first group of patients to test a
government-funded innovation that allows them to communicate after they have
lost their motor skills and ability to speak.

"We have learned of a way to tap into the brain's electrical activity, so that
we can now put a cap on someone's head and tap into those signals and get people
to interface directly from their brain to a computer without moving anything,"
Bedlack said. "So, someone who's basically locked in can now spell words on a
computer screen for us, and we can understand what they're thinking."

The ALS Association's Catfish Hunter Chapter - named after the late North
Carolina-born New York Yankees pitcher Jim "Catfish" Hunter - funds the Duke ALS
Clinic and others like it in the state.

"When they signed up for the military, they didn't sign up for ALS," chapter
President Jerry Dawson said. "So, they fought really hard for us, and now, it's
our turn to fight for them."

With the new house and a baby due in January, Smith and his wife, Autumn, are
not done fighting either.

"I'm real psyched. There's nothing I'd rather be than a father," he said. "Every
day I wake up, I know it's going to be a good day. I have a lot to look forward
to."

Reporter: Debra Morgan
Photographers: Pete James, Greg Clark
Web Editor: Kelly Gardner


Copyright 2009 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
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http://www.csindy.com/colorado/still-screwed/Content?oid=1540651
Still screwed
The Army's much-hyped repair job for wounded soldiers doesn't pass inspection
for everyone at Fort Carson
by Anthony Lane
The day before 13 people died in a Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, a
familiar routine was playing out at Army posts across the country: Get home from
war, prepare to go back.

At Fort Carson, Spc. James Bell carried his new orders over to join the 1st
Brigade Combat Team, which had moved to Colorado Springs from Fort Hood over the
summer. After three deployments to Iraq, Bell, 34, had spent a year in the
post's Warrior Transition Unit, getting treatment for post-traumatic stress
disorder. These orders were his third since leaving the WTU in August; he'd
begged out of a transfer to White Sands, N.M., and his old unit at Fort Carson
didn't want him back.

His greeting to his new unit came as a barked question from a sergeant major:
"ARE YOU READY TO FIGHT?"

Bell, given to leaping behind his living room sofa when gunplay broke out on
television, jumped before he choked out the obligatory "Yes, sir."

"They had no clue I was still on medication," Bell says. Or that he was still
getting treatment for PTSD, and had pending tests for traumatic brain injury.

The sergeant major later apologized for startling him. But in his new unit over
the next two weeks, Bell played a mental-health version of dodgeball as he tried
to avoid trips to the firing range and steered clear of weapons in the brigade's
motor pool. He worried one of his "freak-outs" at the wrong moment could prove
dangerous.

On Nov. 19, a psychologist with the post's mobile mental-health squad put Bell
back on a medical "profile," barring him from access to weapons and closing a
communication gap that had opened when Bell was sent to a new unit that had no
idea of his condition.

Says Bell, who is starting the process of going through a medical retirement:
"They were completely blindsided."

'The trigger mechanism'

Two years ago, the Army started Warrior Transition Units at 32 posts across the
country in an attempt to combat a flood of negative reports about injured
veterans returning to dismal conditions and bureaucratic bungling. The goal was
to guide soldiers and officers through the healing process in a space where
peers and superiors wouldn't regard them as "shitbags" or "dirtbags."

After completing treatment, some would go back to active duty; others would
transition to medical retirement.

Bell provides just one example of things not working out. More than a half-dozen
soldiers and officers - many of whom, fearing consequences, requested their
names not be printed - describe a pattern of tightening access to Fort Carson's
WTU, pressure to reduce numbers already in the program, and retaliation against
those who question either their care or the operations of the unit.

Seen in this light, the Army's solution to its wounded-soldier problem appears
less a shining success than a public-relations smokescreen, behind which the
Army continues breaking its promise to care for wounded soldiers. By shifting
the medical-care burden to the Veterans Administration, critics argue, the Army
is cheating soldiers who could return to active duty, and, worse, is ratcheting
up the pressures that lead soldiers to take their own lives, or the lives of
others.

Chief Warrant Officer Edward Quick, a pilot with 35 years of active and reserve
experience in the Army, was in Fort Carson's WTU for about 10 months before he
transferred to another WTU in Salt Lake City. He says he faced a hostile
environment after questioning a decision made by commanders.

"It's the most screwed-up mess I've seen in the Army," says the 53-year-old.

He met with WTU commanders in May to highlight what he saw as a pattern of
arbitrary and ill-considered decisions, fearing it was increasing pressure on
those least able to bear it. Quick recalls telling them, "I believe you are the
trigger mechanism for these young soldiers when they have nowhere else to turn."

Ironically, Quick says, the conversation was interrupted by a phone call that
another WTU soldier had committed suicide.

WTU commanders recall the conversation, but say that call was actually in regard
to an accidental death. In all, they report four suicides among members of Fort
Carson's WTU since its formation in June 2007. The post as a whole had eight
confirmed suicides in 2008, and six so far this year, with two more pending
investigation.

Quick, who's having a smoother time with the WTU in Salt Lake City, says he's
speaking out now because an officer still in the Fort Carson program is facing
retribution for questioning WTU commanders.

"If they don't change their ways," he says, "they're going to have more
suicides."

Closing an open door

Army Medical Command came under fire in November, when Nidal Malik Hasan, an
Army psychiatrist, was charged with killing 13 people at a Fort Hood soldier
readiness center. But the bad news actually started almost three years ago for
Medical Command, the branch of the service that has the mission of caring for
wounded and sick soldiers whether they are on American soil or deployed around
the world.

In February 2007, the Washington Post published a series of stories about the
nasty conditions and neglect facing wounded veterans getting care at Walter Reed
Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Amputees and brain-injured soldiers
languished in moldy, roach-infested buildings while struggling through a thorny,
bureaucratic maze to get care.

Public outrage followed, and the Army launched WTUs as a way of keeping tabs on
wounded soldiers and seeing that they received thorough and timely care. As one
Army Medical Command general put it in an October 2007 news release, "It's about
healing the entire soldier."

Over time, the new units were lauded for giving the soldiers a chance to recover
before having to decide whether to return to active duty or take a medical
retirement. Combat-oriented units benefited by having a place to unload their
wounded and sick members.

Fort Carson's WTU opened in June 2007. Lt. Col. Andrew Grantham, who took
command a year later, says the unit had about 950 soldiers spread among three
companies when he arrived, with plans to add a fourth company that August. The
Army's Warrior Transition Command, based in Arlington, Va., says the monthly
average in the unit never got above 750.

Either way, the unit has now been scaled back to about 450 soldiers. Fort
Carson's fourth company only existed for a few months before it was converted to
a headquarters unit for troops transitioning in and out of the WTU.

"We were basically taking anybody with any type of illness whatsoever," says
Grantham. "A lot of these soldiers really did not need to be in this particular
unit."

His statement reflects a quiet shift at Army Medical Command about how WTUs
would be used.

In June 2008, the same month Grantham arrived at Fort Carson, Fragmentary Order
3, referred to as "FRAGO 3," restricted WTU access to those who needed six
months or more of complex, comprehensive medical care. Between then and now,
national numbers have dropped from 12,500 participants to around 9,000,
according to Robert Moore, strategic communications chief for the Army's Warrior
Transition Command in Virginia.

"Prior to [FRAGO 3], we had opened the doors completely to soldiers," he says,
"many of whom had much less demanding requirements for care."

FRAGO 3 also established an impressive-sounding "triad of leadership," putting
control of each WTU in the hands of the unit's commander, and the commanders of
the hospital and military base where it resides. (Those commanders at Fort
Carson now are Grantham, Col. Jimmie Keenan and Maj. Gen. David Perkins.)

As the number of soldiers accepted into Fort Carson's WTU began declining,
though, another issue naturally arose. Army units, whether logistical or
combat-focused, only have a certain number of soldiers to accomplish their
objectives, and some commanders view wounded and sick soldiers as dead weight.

Valerie Lira, 33, says she hurt her back lifting heavy equipment during her
second deployment in Iraq. The pain intensified for the remainder of the
deployment, and kept getting worse after she returned to Fort Carson. She got
some treatment, but was denied entry into the WTU. When it came time for her
unit to deploy again, she says she got what she describes as an ultimatum:
Deploy, or get out of the Army.

Lira, who now walks with a cane, tested out what it would feel like hauling
around 40-plus pounds of gear and body armor, and figured there was no way.

Her options were limited. Denied a medical retirement that would have let her
keep drawing a paycheck, she took $18,000 severance pay for her 14 years of
service and limped off into civilian life.

"I feel like I got shafted," she says. "They didn't give me a chance."

That money is long gone, and she's now getting by on unemployment benefits.

Lira got a 20 percent disability rating from the VA, which in theory should pay
her about $230 a month to compensate for what she lost in Iraq. She's appealing
that rating, which is based on 10 percent for PTSD and 10 percent for knee
tendonitis, ignoring her back injury altogether.

One final surprise awaited Lira after getting her VA rating: She found out she
won't see a penny of her disability money until it adds up to what she got in
severance, which will take more than six years.

Soldier or veteran?

Tightening access to the Warrior Transition Units is just one part of the
equation. In June 2009, Policy 09-037 started whittling at the other end,
replacing the old standard for discharging someone from WTUs - reaching "optimal
medical benefit" - with the even more arcane-sounding "medical retention
determination point."

Lt. Col. Nick Piantanida, deputy commander for clinical services at Evans Army
Community Hospital, which oversees the WTU, keeps a copy of the policy in his
pocket so he can readily cite it.

"A Service member with one or more conditions failing to meet medical retention
standards will be referred into the [Disability Evaluation System] by competent
medical authority," Piantanida begins, speaking emphatically as he goes through
a list describing stabilizing medical conditions and predictable recovery
patterns.

The policy, which drew little if any media coverage, basically means that
soldiers in the WTU shouldn't expect all their medical needs to be met; instead,
their care should get them to the point where doctors can predict whether
they'll meet the physical requirements to stay in the Army. Those who don't look
like they'll meet those requirements will basically be taken to pasture, which
means getting their care from the VA and accepting medical retirement benefits
based on their disability rating.

That can be a difficult transition, given the physical and bureaucratic gulf
between the Army and VA. At least one part is supposed to be getting better: In
June, Fort Carson became part of a pilot program to unify the medical retirement
process so the Army and VA rate a soldier's disability at the same time. It's
supposed to shorten the process and eliminate a months-long wait that soldiers
who left the Army could face before getting disability checks from the VA.

But it's too early to know if it will work, and Col. Harold Emick, a WTU
participant, says that "what they are trying to do is shove everyone off to the
VA real quickly."

Emick joined the Army in 1972 and has been on either active or reserve duty
since then. He describes growing pressure from WTU commanders to retire even
when he believes that, with appropriate care, he can continue serving.

"Everything I have wrong with me should be fixable," says Emick, who traces hip,
neck and other injuries to a deployment in Iraq.

Another WTU officer, who asked that his name not be printed, gives a similar
account.

The Army's promise to fix soldiers before deciding their future still seems to
have gaps. Combined with a sour economy that has eased recruiting for the Army,
Emick says, the feeling is that everyone is disposable.

"They changed the rules," Emick says. "The Army is doing what's best for the
Army, not what's best for the soldier."

Two bad choices

Critics of Fort Carson's WTU who spoke with the Independent suggest a host of
problems; Bell's story points to general incompetence.

He enlisted in the Army in 2000, and received several Army Commendation Medals
for his work as a mechanic. He traces his PTSD to a handful of experiences
during his three deployments, especially one in which he helped rescue a woman
whose jaw got obliterated when a truck overturned in a convoy accident. Other
times, he says, his vehicle got peppered with bullets, or he narrowly avoided
explosions.

He also traces a possible brain injury to an embarrassing accident back during
his first deployment in 2003: He bonked his head when he slipped off a "water
buffalo," a tank trailer used to haul water.

In the WTU, Bell says, his PTSD was blunted through high levels of medication.
Though he comes across as quiet and reserved, his wife Sheila says he can be a
terror in the evening, after the meds wash out of his system. She points to
holes he has punched into wood paneling at the couple's home in eastern Colorado
Springs, and remembers times when he was startled and launched into a rage, one
time pummeling her cocker spaniel.

In July, James Bell says, he worried he could be a hazard to others if given a
weapon. But he still told his doctors he felt he could work as a mechanic or do
something useful.

"I always felt [in the WTU], 'I'm letting my fellow soldiers down,'" Bell says.

An Army medical appointment log shows multiple visits for Bell in late June and
early July, including two with Harry Rauch, a Fort Carson psychiatrist who took
flak earlier this year after the news Web site Salon reported that Rauch had
cleared one soldier for combat in 2006 despite of evidence he heard "voices" and
had "schizotypal personality disorder."

That soldier was Robert Hull Marko, now charged in the October 2008 rape and
murder of 19-year-old Judilianna Lawrence, whose body was found in the woods
near Old Stage Road, west of Colorado Springs. He is one of 10 soldiers from the
4th Brigade Combat Team charged with or convicted of murder since returning from
fighting in Iraq.

Rauch's assessments contributed to Bell's release from the WTU without
restrictions on Aug. 13.

It wasn't until Nov. 19, two weeks after the Fort Hood shootings, that a
psychologist finally thought better of that. Bell is still getting evaluated for
brain injury. Though he'd planned to stay in the Army, his path now seems
destined to lead him into medical retirement.

"I would like to have gotten more treatment before getting out of the unit," he
says.

Perhaps Bell could have fought for more treatment, but four other officers in
the program who talked with the Independent say commanders have penalized those
who've spoken out.

"They turn around and retaliate against anyone," Quick says. "They harass anyone
who questions what they do."

Quick, a reservist, is a commercial airline pilot when he's not on active duty.
In late 2007 and 2008, he served two short tours in Iraq helping a shorthanded
Texas-based unit by flying RC-7 spy planes. Though he'd injured his knee before
leaving while doing physical training with the Army, and pinched a nerve in his
neck in a car accident while deployed, he says neither injury interfered with
his ability to fly.

After returning, and in spite of the tightening entrance requirements, he
received orders to report to the reserve component of the WTU in October 2008
for treatment.

The first six months in the program went well, Quick says, but the atmosphere
soured in the spring, when he sought temporary leave from the unit. Improved
after months of physical therapy, he wanted 10 days of leave to join his
aviation unit flying missions with the RC-7, this time in the relative safety of
Colombia.

"It would keep me current and qualified," he says.

Basically, putting in the time would allow him to continue flying RC-7 planes
and to deploy during the holidays this year, as he did in 2007, allowing pilots
on long deployments to come home to see their families. But WTU commanders said
no, Quick says. So he went up the chain of command, as the Army allows. He asked
permission from the command staff at Fort Carson, and eventually received it.

But that decision was doomed.

In April, a flight surgeon from the Texas unit wrote an e-mail asking for
clarification on Quick's medical condition; his opinion was that Quick appeared
fit to fly. The response from Lt. Col. Joel Tanaka, the WTU's chief physician,
seems openly contradictory: At first, Tanaka questions the need for Quick to be
in the WTU, and suggests treatment in an aviation unit. But then Tanaka dives
into Quick's medical record, outlining his treatment for neck and knee pain, and
says, "From the orthopedic perspective, he doesn't sound like he's fit to fly to
me."

Though he'd flown without difficulty before joining the WTU, Quick says, the
e-mails and a phone call to the Texas unit closed an opportunity to stay current
with his flying hours.

Back at Fort Carson, he continues, the back-and-forth launched a period of
retaliation. He was transferred between companies in the WTU and shuffled
between doctors. Accustomed to doing much of his treatment from his home in the
Denver suburbs and commuting to Fort Carson when necessary, he started getting
last-minute orders to drive to the post to check in or attend less-than-vital
events.

"Allowing the Soldier to live and work in Denver has been counterproductive to
his Mission as a Warrior in Transition," a June message from Maj. Michael
Ciaramella reads. "That mission is, of course, to heal." Ciaramella goes on to
recommend that Quick be ordered to stay on post.

Driving home from Fort Carson one evening in July, Quick got a call requesting
he come back the next day just to attend an equal opportunity training session.
Though he complied with the order, he says, he bristled at its seeming
senselessness. He ended up receiving two counseling statements, for allegedly
disobeying an order and leaving without proper dismissal.

He believes those statements were meant to lay the groundwork to get him in
trouble, and he's now pushing for an official apology.

"It's setting me up for failure," Quick says. "In my case, all I was trying to
do was my job, and I got kicked in the face for it."

'Tough-love situation'

Two other reserve officers on active duty who went though the WTU describe
similar experiences, but request that their names not be printed for fear of
retaliation. They, along with Col. Emick, say the commanders are apt to withhold
medical treatments as punishment for those who step out of line, or to order
they undergo psychological evaluations on Evans Hospital's fourth floor.

Quick says they tried something similar with him, and he put his foot down.

"I didn't ask for any mental-health treatment, and I don't need any," he recalls
saying.

Grantham and Tanaka decline to discuss particular cases, but deny that any
decisions made in the WTU amount to retaliation.

"We don't want to make the mistake of assuming someone's OK," Tanaka says.

Grantham says the role of WTU commanders can be like that of parents.

"We wrap our arms around these guys," he says. "Sometimes it's a tough-love
situation."

Maj. Gen. Mark Graham, who joined U.S. Forces Command at Fort MacPherson, Ga.,
in August, was an outspoken advocate for improved care for soldiers while he led
Fort Carson from 2007 to mid-2009, particularly when it came to dealing with
PTSD and other mental-health issues. He did not respond to a request to discuss
his experience working with the WTU or his impression of changes to the program.

Nor did U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, an Armed Services Committee member, despite
repeated calls to his press secretary.

Last summer, a new policy went into effect requiring that the following groups
receive special permission from a general to get into the WTU: officers ranked
major or above, enlisted soldiers ranked master sergeant and higher, and chief
warrant officers grade three and higher.

The way Quick sees it, the burden placed on officers is similar to what junior
enlisted soldiers have to carry. The difference is that officers may raise more
questions, and they "know how to fight within the system."

He muses about what it would be like for a young injured soldier to face such
pressures alone: "They're basically pulling the trigger for these young kids."

- lane@...

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.kstatecollegian.com/opinion/recession-hits-veterans-disabled-hardest-\
1.2106941#5
Recession hits veterans, disabled hardest
By Bobby Gomez

Published: Monday, November 30, 2009


Money makes our world turn.

It is not a luxury but a necessity. Our basic needs for food, water and shelter
are all difficult to obtain without money. In order to earn money you need
employment, which is something millions struggle to find. Our lives are defined
by our ability to make money, and if you do not have a job, your world can
easily come to an abrupt halt.

Last Monday, more than 2,500 people stood in line with two things in common. All
were veterans and all were unemployed. Each veteran waited in hopes of finding
work at a New York City job fair, as reported by National Public Radio.

Unemployment for the state of New York is at 9 percent, but for veterans, the
statistics are nearly double, said the New York commissioner of labor, M.
Patricia Smith.

Many of these veterans enlisted in the armed forces because of their passion for
our country. For some, this passion was closely matched by their desire for a
post-secondary education. The financial support for college was a financial
opportunity too good to pass on. However, the reality of multiple wars
marginalized the opportunity for an education - the same education employers
desire.

"Every time I was in the Army, I had to drop my classes," explained Roberto
Alor, an unemployed veteran who has been searching for work since leaving the
Army nearly two years ago.

"It's like, 'Oh, they didn't go away to college. I went to college. I know more
than them.' They kind of sneer at you," said Joseph McDonough, a former Marine.
"The only people who actually see [service] as being anything glorious are
people like senior citizens, who know that somebody sacrificed something."

Veterans are not the only ones desperately searching for employment. The
unemployment rate for those with disabilities is about 17.5 percent, said
economist Andrew Houtenville of the Institute on Disability at the University of
New Hampshire.

Furthermore, this statistic does not tell the entire story as it does not
account for how many people with disabilities have become discouraged and
stopped looking for employment.

According to surveys done by the U.S. Department of Labor, 21 million out of the
26 million people with disabilities are either unemployed or have given up
searching for work.

It is not that these 21 million are unqualified, but rather employers often
underestimate someone's ability to work or fear being sued if things do not work
out.

Lenny Kepil has been a software engineer for more than 26 years and possesses an
impressive resume. Kepil is deaf and currently looking for work.

"It makes you nervous when you're laid off for a long period of time. And right
now, it's been seven months so far," Kepil said, as reported by National Public
Radio. "So I have to get ready for the reality that things are stacking up
against me."

This economic recession is more than a simple struggle to find work. Rather it
is a battle for millions to find a way to survive.

It is not compassion, kindness or love that makes our world turn - money does.
This reality is coupled with the struggle of millions to find work, but this
does not mean we cannot keep hope.

It is my hope that every citizen will have the opportunity to survive on an
affordable income. For this reason I aim to not only make money, but to help
make a difference.

- Bobby Gomez is a senior in elementary education. Please send comments to
opinion@....

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/06/AR2009120602397.\
html
A veteran's legal battle
The Supreme Court reverses a war hero's death sentence.

Monday, December 7, 2009



INMATES COMMONLY challenge convictions or sentences based on claims that they
were saddled with bad lawyers. Just as common are decisions by judges to deny
such claims. So it is extraordinary that last week a unanimous Supreme Court
tossed out a death sentence against a Florida inmate who made such an argument.
And no wonder.

George Porter Jr., a Korean War veteran with two Purple Hearts, pleaded guilty
to the murder of a former girlfriend and her new boyfriend and was sentenced to
death in 1988.

The justices did not overturn the convictions but lambasted the defense lawyer's
failure to introduce mitigating evidence -- including military service and
possible post-traumatic stress -- that could have led to a reduced sentence.

Had Mr. Porter's counsel been "effective," the justices wrote in the unsigned
Nov. 30 opinion, the trial judge and jury would have learned about the kind of
"troubled history" that the court has "declared relevant to assessing a
defendant's moral culpability. . . . They would have heard about (1) Porter's
heroic military service in two of the most critical -- and horrific -- battles
of the Korean War, (2) his struggles to regain normality upon his return from
war, (3) his childhood history of physical abuse, and (4) his brain abnormality,
difficulty reading and writing, and limited schooling."

The original lawyer for Mr. Porter either did not know of or failed to present
any of this information. The justices concluded that the lawyer "unquestionably"
failed his client and that "there is a reasonable probability that, but for
counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been
different."

The justices rightly excoriated lower courts, including the Florida Supreme
Court, that rejected Mr. Porter's appeals even after new lawyers presented such
evidence. "Our Nation has a long tradition of according leniency to veterans in
recognition of their service, especially for those who fought on the front lines
as Porter did," they concluded. Neither childhood traumas nor military service
can excuse crime, but they can help, as the justices wrote, "humanize" a person
so that a judge and jury can make an informed decision about the appropriate
punishment.

In a way, Mr. Porter is lucky: His case stuck out because of his military
record. That record deserves to be honored. But we wonder how many other
defendants with "troubled histories" but without Purple Hearts have been failed
by their lawyers and are still awaiting justice.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/1599111.html
Proposal to allow 'mentally defective' veterans buy guns triggers debate
By DAVE HELLING
The Kansas City Star
Legislation allowing veterans classified as "mentally defective" to buy firearms
is drawing sharp criticism from gun-control advocates, but proponents argue that
it is not as risky as it may sound.

Eighteen senators - including Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback of Kansas -
have endorsed the measure. It would require a legal authority to find a veteran
is a danger to himself or others before his name is put in the national criminal
background check system and he is prohibited from purchasing a gun.

"Our veterans took an oath to uphold the Constitution, and they deserve to enjoy
the rights they fought so hard to protect," said the bill's author, Sen. Richard
Burr, a North Carolina Republican.

The problem dates to the 1930s, after a series of reports about veterans losing
pension and other benefits to unscrupulous relatives and acquaintances. Congress
passed a law allowing Veterans Affairs field officers to determine if a veteran
was incompetent to handle his or her finances. If not, a third party known as a
fiduciary - a spouse or a legal custodian - would be appointed to oversee the
veteran's money.

But backers of the proposed legislation contend that the VA also improperly
sends the names of those involved in the program to the FBI's National Instant
Criminal Background Check System database, classifying them as mentally
defective and effectively barring them from purchasing a gun.

The VA forwards an average of about 12,000 veterans' names each year to the
FBI's list, which some lawmakers find ludicrous.

"It is wrong to take away veterans' right to bear arms simply because they
cannot manage their finances," said Rep. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican who
has offered a companion bill in the House.

Gun-control advocates, however, argue that the Burr bill would dangerously
expand gun ownership rights. In fact, the president of the Brady Campaign to
Prevent Gun Violence, Paul Helmke, recently urged Burr to withdraw the measure
"particularly in light of the Fort Hood shootings."

"Not only does your bill do nothing to address the serious unmet needs of our
veterans, but it puts them, their families and the general public at increased
risk of gun violence," Helmke wrote.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence made the same comparison.

"Sen. Burr's legislation would put veterans, their families, and the public in
danger," it said in a statement. "Researchers are predicting that the rate of
post traumatic stress disorder among veterans returning from Operation Iraqi
Freedom could be as high as 35 percent. . The (bill) is an affront to common
sense and the well-being of America's veterans and should be rejected strongly
by Congress."

But proponents noted that Burr's proposal would apply only to veterans - not
active duty military personnel such as suspected Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal
Hasan.

In a statement issued this month, Burr accused Helmke of exploiting the tragedy
that left 13 dead and 30 wounded.

Other supporters such as Brownback contend it is unfair to use the Fort Hood
shootings as an excuse to deny gun rights to thousands of veterans.

"I have always supported citizens' Second Amendment rights," Brownback said.
"The Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act safeguards our nations' veterans
from being stripped of their constitutional right to bear arms without due
process."

Neither the Senate nor the House has yet considered the measure.

Groups such as the National Rifle Association are backing Burr's proposal.

"No court has declared these veterans mentally incompetent," an NRA blog said
recently. "They've simply designated a family member or other representative to
handle their (financial) matters, which is resulting in them being found
mentally unfit to possess firearms. That's wrong and ought to be illegal."

Burr's office noted that the Veterans of Foreign Wars, headquartered in Kansas
City, has endorsed the measure. But a VFW spokesman said recently that he was
unaware of an official position on the proposal.

Randy Barnett of the Kansas City chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America said his
members wanted the bill to pass.

"They (veterans) should be able to have a hearing," Barnett said. "One of the
big problems with post traumatic stress disorder is your memory and
procrastination, and they put someone in charge of your money so you don't blow
it all or forget to do anything with it."

Barnett said he understood how the Fort Hood shootings might prompt a second
look at the proposal, but he said veterans who fought to protect constitutional
rights should have those rights protected.

"You're not going to stop them, either way," he said. "I know guys who have
arsenals, basically."

To reach Dave Helling, call 816-234-4656 or send e-mail to dhelling@....
© 2009 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.kansascity.com

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/undercover/fox-undercover-problems-with-hous\
ing-for-veterans
Problems with housing for Veterans
FOX Undercover
Wednesday, 02 Dec 2009, 8:35 AM EST


Mike
Beaudet

BOSTON (FOX25, myfoxboston) - A woman desperate to find care for her elderly
father thought she finally found a place at the Soldiers' Home in Chelsea, but
her hopes were dashed after she took a tour of the facility and found what she
said were residents in horrifying conditions.

"It was like 1, 1:30 in the afternoon, and they still had johnnies on," she
said. "They weren't dressed. They were dirty."

The woman, who asked that we not reveal her identity, toured the long-term care
facility at the Soldiers' Home, where more than 160 patients live.

"The images that mostly stuck with me were the fact that they were not being
attended to. They were laying in bed," she said. "One of them on one floor was
yelling, basically moaning, that he needed to be changed."

The woman said she would not place her father, a World War II veteran, there,
but she called FOX Undercover after seeing our story on the Soldiers' Home last
month.

"I wouldn't put my dog there. No. I couldn't. I left there crying because I
didn't know what I was going to do," she said.

In the original FOX Undercover report, our hidden cameras caught images of
shoddy building conditions inside another part of the home, where veterans live
independently. Some veterans who live there told us conditions were so bad they
would rather be homeless.

That report caught the attention of state Rep. Harold Naughton, D-Clinton, the
House chairman of the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs. He said
his committee is going to scrutinize the Chelsea Soldiers' Home and other
state-run veterans services during oversight hearings early next year.

"One complaint is one complaint too many. One veteran not cared for is one
veteran too many and the goal of my committee and the goal of this Legislature
and I think the goal of this administration to step up and address those
complaints," Naughton said.

Back at the Soldiers' Home, the original report has also gotten results.
Veterans complained about empty TV ounges, but now they're being renovated or
turned into living quarters. A bathroom featured in deplorable condition is
off-limits now, being demolished and repaired. Every bathroom in the home is
about to be evaluated, according to Michael Resca, Commandant of the Soldiers
Home.

On a tour of the residential and long-term care sections of the Soldiers' Home,
conditions seemed fine during our pre-planned tour.

"The men and women under this roof are well taken care of. Will be well taken
care of," said Resca.

Resca says care is so good he brought his own father to the Home to live out his
last years.

"The care he got was exemplary," he said.

As for the tipster who called us after her own tour, Resca said, "I cannot speak
to that. Without being part of the tour I don't know what she had. It is a long
term care facility. Things do happen on occasion."

Something did happen just a few weeks ago that left a nursing home resident
seriously injured. An 89-year-old resident in a wheelchair was able to get
through a door that was supposed to be locked.

Resca explained: "We were in the process of having our fire alarm system tested
on that particular day. Mistakes were made. The gentleman did get out of the
unit and did tumble down stairs."

After spending several days in a hospital, the resident has returned to the
home, reportedly with several broken bones.

Resca said the accident "absolutely" could have been prevented.

"There is no excuse for any injury to any of other veterans. It is our
responsibility to keep them safe."

It might become even more difficult to keep those residents safe and healthy.
The Soldiers' Home is closing an outpatient clinic in January even though it was
re-modeled only a few months ago.

Those are just one of the cuts in store as the home tries to slash $1 million
from its budget.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/dec/01/012120/decorated-veterans-remains-found-\
dump-site/c_4/#comments
By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 1, 2009

Updated: 12/01/2009 09:20 pm

TAMPA - Staff Sgt. Delbert E. Hahn survived the invasion of Normandy. He was a
two-time Purple Heart recipient, including one for his actions in the days
immediately following D-Day.

But when it came to a final resting place, the war hero wasn't treated with
honor or respect.

Hahn's cremated remains - along with those of his wife and a third person - were
found in a pile of trash dumped behind a vacant college on Busch Boulevard.

"I kind of decided that he shouldn't be out there in the trash," said Mike Colt,
19, who found the three urns. "Really nobody should. For somebody to do that to
a World War II vet is kind of ridiculous."

Hahn was a five-time Bronze Star recipient, including one for valor in the
Normandy invasion, police say.

It wasn't immediately clear when he died, although Colt said he believes
paperwork found along with the urns indicated Hahn retired in the 1960s and died
in the early 1980s.

A newspaper clip found in the trash says Hahn received a Bronze Star and Purple
Heart for "exemplary conduct in ground combat" while serving in the 26th
Infantry Regiment in Europe in 1944, Tampa police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said.

A military spokeswoman said it would take at least a week to find any service
records for Delbert Hahn.

On Saturday, Colt and his girlfriend, Carol Sturgell, were looking through
dumped items when they found details on Hahn's military retirement and medals
inside a green folder bearing a military stamp.

When it got dark, they left with the folder and tried researching Hahn on the
Internet - with no success. Colt and his girlfriend returned the next day.

"We moved this couch, and out from this couch fell this paint-can looking
container, and it said, 'temporary container,'" Colt said. "There was a note to
the bottom, and it had a death certificate. It said Barbara K. Hahn on it."

They then found a big bronze container that held Delbert Hahn's remains.

"I don't know why anybody would throw this out," Colt said. "It's kind of
mind-blowing that anybody would treat anybody like that."

Hahn's wife, Barbara, died Aug. 1, 2003. She was cremated Aug. 12, 2003, at
Southeastern Crematories in Clearwater. A Southeastern funeral director said
Tuesday that Barbara Hahn's paperwork wasn't immediately available.

The urns and paperwork were found behind Remington College, 2410 E. Busch Blvd.,
an area sometimes used for illegal dumping. Bills found there show the Hahns had
lived in Zephyrhills.

Nicki Sheran and her husband, Alan, of Tampa, befriended Barbara Hahn for 25
years. They regularly played canasta, had dinner, shared stories and admired
Barbara Hahn's oil paintings. They affectionately called her Betty, Nicki Sheran
said.

When Barbara Hahn died, she willed the Sherans her mobile home in Zephyrhills.
Property records on file with the Pasco County Property Appraiser's office show
the Sherans took ownership of the property for $10 from the Barbara Hahn
Revocable Trust in 2004.

The Sherans lived there until 2008. They had mortgaged the property, but the
economy got tight and they couldn't make the payments and the house was
foreclosed on, Nicki Sheran said.

She said they got some items out of the home but weren't able to get all of it
before they lost ownership of the mobile home. They left behind dishes and beds
that belonged to them and the urns, an American flag, photos and oil paintings
that belonged to the Hahns, Nicki Sheran said.

She said the third urn contains the remains of Barbara Hahn's mother, Barbara
Stahlhofen.

"I would rather have it returned to us rather than just have it trashed out
there in the middle of a field," Nicki Sheran said.

Police say a Department of Veterans Affairs liaison determined the Hahns had no
next of kin. VA officials said they were arranging with a Tampa funeral home to
have the remains transported to Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.


Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691.

Posted by ( welshiesdad ) on 12/01/2009 at 10:25 am.
Funeral home dumping ground...

Posted by ( FLAGAL102 ) on 12/01/2009 at 10:48 am.

What a disgrace.

Posted by ( Birddog123456 ) on 12/01/2009 at 10:52 am.

WHAT?! Horrible! People suck.

Posted by ( Desmo ) on 12/01/2009 at 10:54 am.

This probably happens more than people know. If someone doesn't have any
relatives and leaves no explicit instructions with a trusted person upon their
death, who knows what will happen to the remains. Proper estate planning is key.

Posted by ( RRR ) on 12/01/2009 at 11:07 am.

A terrible job with the remains. However, again, thank you so very much for your
service so that we can remain free. Thank you sir.

Posted by ( GF ) on 12/01/2009 at 11:19 am.

Start with the residents of the couple's old home. Sheesh, all they had to do
was make arrangements in Bushnell. He and his wife could be buried with dignity
for free. 5 time Bronze Star.....last of a breed.

Posted by ( sorry2notice ) on 12/01/2009 at 11:33 am.

Oh, what the h3ll. He was no use anymore. So dump him. My, what a recruiting
poster that would make.

"Hey kids, join today! Go to far off places and kill perfect strangers, to
protect wall street's sovereignty. Die and we will remember your brave
contributions. Always! Well, on the way to the dump anyway. Maybe?"

Posted by ( greensideup ) on 12/01/2009 at 11:38 am.

This is a fate that awaits many of us...

Posted by ( DH ) on 12/01/2009 at 11:42 am.

I have always told my wife that when I die put my decaying body in a plastic
garbage bag and put it out on the street for the garbage men to pick up and haul
away. I will not need this body and will not care what happens to it after I
die. It always amazes me how we care more about a dead body than an unborn baby.

Posted by ( patchvader ) on 12/01/2009 at 11:58 am.

thank you, Sgt. Hahn

Posted by ( GF ) on 12/01/2009 at 12:07 pm.

DH , speak for yourself. Respect for the dead is just something that has been in
civilized society for a very long time. But I guess it's like respect for
anything or anyone else, it's no longer necessary to have or pay respect
anymore, so nobody cares.

Remains have a place in our society, and behind a college on Busch isn't one of
them.

Posted by ( DH ) on 12/01/2009 at 12:14 pm.

GF I did speak for myself when I said my wife could carry my cold dead body out
to the curb. And I never said that we should not respect the dead. My meaning
was that we respect a dead body more than we respect a live one. And you call
that civilized.

Posted by ( joeking ) on 12/01/2009 at 12:25 pm.

patchvader its not SGT. its STAFF SGT. which is a rank higher than SGT..

Posted by ( GF ) on 12/01/2009 at 12:39 pm.

DH, No, "we" don't. I respect one just as much as the other.

Posted by ( cyngc ) on 12/01/2009 at 12:48 pm.

ashes to ashes & dust to dust.......

It wasn't a nice thing to do, but when ashes are scattered or released in the
wind, away they go. I'm not coldhearted & have the remains of my dog & cat in
urns because they mean something to me.

Posted by ( Desmo ) on 12/01/2009 at 12:56 pm.

I'm impressed to see a story with a 19 year old in it that has some class,
intelligence and respect. Thank you Mike Colt for doing the right thing! There
are a lot of younger people who could learn from you.

Posted by ( DH ) on 12/01/2009 at 01:17 pm.

joeking A Staff Sergeant is also a Sergeant and it is perfectly acceptable to
call them Sergeant.

Posted by ( chuckwalla ) on 12/01/2009 at 02:38 pm.

Disgraceful. St. Peter, I hope you were taking notes.

Posted by ( wishbone ) on 12/01/2009 at 02:52 pm.

I'm with you, DESMO. Way to go Mike Colt!

Posted by ( sowusay ) on 12/01/2009 at 03:21 pm.

Soon after I married and moved into my husbands home, I decided to clean out a
closet that had been packed full. I pulled out a beer stein and noticed a white
envelope inside it, I pulled out the envelope and shook it and smashed around on
it trying to guess what was in it, I couldn't so I ask my husband, what's in
this evelope, he replied: Pot, I said pot, you don't smoke pot what's it doing
in here, he said, Not Pot, Pop! but don't worry, I'm sure he enjoyed what you
were doing to him.

Posted by ( Diva1 ) on 12/01/2009 at 03:29 pm.

Thank you Sgt.Hahn for your service, & to the funeral home that is going to give
him the proper burial for which he deserves.

Posted by ( gene_pool_observer ) on 12/01/2009 at 03:37 pm.

DH, you really want your wife to throw your carcass on the trash pile in a bag?
Uhh, Mrs DH, don't listen to him unless you want to spend time in the pokey.

Posted by ( jeffer49 ) on 12/01/2009 at 03:43 pm.

I salute you sgt. hahn-screw my electric bill-i will pay for your
burial-jeff-813-966-2380-tell my dad hi!

Posted by ( americanlion ) on 12/01/2009 at 03:45 pm.

I didn't keep my husband's ashes around long. He liked the outdoors so I
scattered them in the State forest. I'm glad they sent those to Bushnell.

Posted by ( chnsin ) on 12/01/2009 at 03:47 pm.

Well if the wife died in 2003 TBO can research for her obituarary to find out a
next of kin.

Posted by ( gkowacz ) on 12/01/2009 at 03:51 pm.

Im proud of my niece and her boyfriend They had respect enough to turn in what
they found. They showed compassion and did the right thing.

Love,

Aunt Grace and Momo

Posted by ( patchvader ) on 12/01/2009 at 04:03 pm.

Frankly, it looks like the remains of a storage unit eviction that the manager
just paid a mysterious some one to haul off-

Posted by ( naturelover ) on 12/01/2009 at 04:55 pm.

Now I know why my mom has been on my case about my brother's ashes. My oldest
brother has them with him now but mom wants my husband to spread them in the bay
where my brother fished. The brother that has the ashes keeps making excuses why
he can't go. Mom was getting upset, I said maybe he wants to keep them & why
not? She said & what about when he dies & so forth. The point is, you should
have this determined & in writing BEFORE you die or you or a loved one could end
up anywhere. Those kids (teens) should be proud for what they did.

Posted by ( totally_confused ) on 12/01/2009 at 05:19 pm.

R I P SGT HAHN, to the individuals that did this.......DIE IN MISERY!!!!!!!! and
btw THANK YOU MIKE AND CAROL!!!!!!!

Posted by ( tallguy007 ) on 12/01/2009 at 05:32 pm.
SO SAD, Bring them to the VA so they can get teated the way the should!!!!

Posted by ( cyngc ) on 12/01/2009 at 09:46 pm.

Good grief people, make arrangements for your ashes so you don't end up in a
pile of trash (unless that is where you want to be) My mom has expressed her
wishes to be scattered in the Walmart parking lot. Hey, I just do as I'm told!

Posted by ( logicrules ) on 12/01/2009 at 10:38 pm.

I hope the police dept. is taking notes and intends to investigate who the idiot
was who illegally dumped! If they'd take the time to trace down this kind of
dumping (where there are records and easy for them to trace it back) there'd be
less dumping of this kind. But solving anything by capitol crimes is just not
"headline" material...why waste the manpower? BECAUSE IT IS WRONG!!! Fine them
about 500 times what the dump would have cost and people will quit this crap!

Posted by ( msracoon ) on 12/01/2009 at 10:59 pm.

Terrible. Thank you for serving the United States of America.




In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
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David K Winnett Jr sent a message to the members of Gulf War Illnesses.

--------------------
Subject: Please view and rate upcoming film; 'Trooper"

The National Gulf War Resource Center asks that all Veterans and their families
take the time to view scenes from Producer/Director Christopher Martini's
upcoming feature film, "Trooper".  This landmark film boldly addresses the human
cost of war on our Veterans and their families through a compelling storyline
that follows a soldier's return from Iraq, only to discover that both he and his
father, a Vietnam Veteran, face severe health problems resulting from their
service in two very different wars.

Most important - after viewing, we request that you take the time to "rate" the
film trailer by clicking on one of the five red stars located at the bottom left
of the video – hopefully the 5th star.  Also submit comments and feedback where
indicated.  You'll need to create a YouTube account in order to rate the film
and post comments, but your efforts in this regard will help Mr. Martini secure
funding necessary to complete and distribute the film.  This film is dedicated
to all Veterans and their families – let's help finish it.  A few keystrokes are
all it takes for you to help.

View and rate the film trailer here:
http://www.facebook.com/l/f373d;www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTE-NG7BBhQ

http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/1599111.html
Proposal to allow 'mentally defective' veterans buy guns triggers debate
By DAVE HELLING
The Kansas City Star
Legislation allowing veterans classified as "mentally defective" to buy firearms
is drawing sharp criticism from gun-control advocates, but proponents argue that
it is not as risky as it may sound.

Eighteen senators - including Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback of Kansas -
have endorsed the measure. It would require a legal authority to find a veteran
is a danger to himself or others before his name is put in the national criminal
background check system and he is prohibited from purchasing a gun.

"Our veterans took an oath to uphold the Constitution, and they deserve to enjoy
the rights they fought so hard to protect," said the bill's author, Sen. Richard
Burr, a North Carolina Republican.

The problem dates to the 1930s, after a series of reports about veterans losing
pension and other benefits to unscrupulous relatives and acquaintances. Congress
passed a law allowing Veterans Affairs field officers to determine if a veteran
was incompetent to handle his or her finances. If not, a third party known as a
fiduciary - a spouse or a legal custodian - would be appointed to oversee the
veteran's money.

But backers of the proposed legislation contend that the VA also improperly
sends the names of those involved in the program to the FBI's National Instant
Criminal Background Check System database, classifying them as mentally
defective and effectively barring them from purchasing a gun.

The VA forwards an average of about 12,000 veterans' names each year to the
FBI's list, which some lawmakers find ludicrous.

"It is wrong to take away veterans' right to bear arms simply because they
cannot manage their finances," said Rep. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican who
has offered a companion bill in the House.

Gun-control advocates, however, argue that the Burr bill would dangerously
expand gun ownership rights. In fact, the president of the Brady Campaign to
Prevent Gun Violence, Paul Helmke, recently urged Burr to withdraw the measure
"particularly in light of the Fort Hood shootings."

"Not only does your bill do nothing to address the serious unmet needs of our
veterans, but it puts them, their families and the general public at increased
risk of gun violence," Helmke wrote.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence made the same comparison.

"Sen. Burr's legislation would put veterans, their families, and the public in
danger," it said in a statement. "Researchers are predicting that the rate of
post traumatic stress disorder among veterans returning from Operation Iraqi
Freedom could be as high as 35 percent. . The (bill) is an affront to common
sense and the well-being of America's veterans and should be rejected strongly
by Congress."

But proponents noted that Burr's proposal would apply only to veterans - not
active duty military personnel such as suspected Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal
Hasan.

In a statement issued this month, Burr accused Helmke of exploiting the tragedy
that left 13 dead and 30 wounded.

Other supporters such as Brownback contend it is unfair to use the Fort Hood
shootings as an excuse to deny gun rights to thousands of veterans.

"I have always supported citizens' Second Amendment rights," Brownback said.
"The Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act safeguards our nations' veterans
from being stripped of their constitutional right to bear arms without due
process."

Neither the Senate nor the House has yet considered the measure.

Groups such as the National Rifle Association are backing Burr's proposal.

"No court has declared these veterans mentally incompetent," an NRA blog said
recently. "They've simply designated a family member or other representative to
handle their (financial) matters, which is resulting in them being found
mentally unfit to possess firearms. That's wrong and ought to be illegal."

Burr's office noted that the Veterans of Foreign Wars, headquartered in Kansas
City, has endorsed the measure. But a VFW spokesman said recently that he was
unaware of an official position on the proposal.

Randy Barnett of the Kansas City chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America said his
members wanted the bill to pass.

"They (veterans) should be able to have a hearing," Barnett said. "One of the
big problems with post traumatic stress disorder is your memory and
procrastination, and they put someone in charge of your money so you don't blow
it all or forget to do anything with it."

Barnett said he understood how the Fort Hood shootings might prompt a second
look at the proposal, but he said veterans who fought to protect constitutional
rights should have those rights protected.

"You're not going to stop them, either way," he said. "I know guys who have
arsenals, basically."

To reach Dave Helling, call 816-234-4656 or send e-mail to dhelling@....
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.adn.com/outdoors/fishing/story/1032544.html
Charter boat captains to offer veterans free halibut trips


Anchorage Daily News / adn.com

(11/28/09 20:54:29)
WHITTIER -- A Whittier charter boat fishing captain is organizing another Alaska
fishing tournament aimed at helping veterans who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and
during Desert Storm.

Charter boat captains from Homer, Whittier and Valdez will join forces in the
Alaskan Veterans Fishing Tournament next year to offer free halibut trips for
veterans. Organizer Jack Roskind of Knot Roughin' It Charters said 40 charters
have already pledged support. He expects others to join before the May 21 event.

Roskind and Kurt Schwab, national director of Veterans of Operation Iraqi
Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, hope more than 500 veterans will get a
free day on the water.

Earlier this year in Seward, Armed Services Combat Fishing Tournament attracted
nearly 400 veterans for a day of halibut fishing out of Resurrection Bay with
about 30 boats donating their services. That tournament, billed by organizers as
the biggest in the country of its kind, was in its third year. A 183-pound fish
earned the top spot.

"The fact was that one community, Seward, was doing something for the military,"
Roskind said. "We wanted to all join together."

Roskind said he hopes the similar tournaments will join forces in 2011.

In addition to the fishing, a benefit concert is planned for the night before
featuring Nashville musician Lucas Hoge and actress Laura Lynn. Both have toured
military installations in Iraq, Kuwait and Kosovo.

"Our goal is to provide help, support and direction for all returning veterans,"
Schwab said in a press release. "Today, we hear of veterans committing suicide
because they are unable to cope with their families, their friends, or general
living due to always being on edge. We want to help them cope."

Veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom is a
nonprofit that helps veterans with education, jobs, health care, domestic issues
and housing, among others. To register for a fishing trip or get more
information, see the organization's Web site at www.voief.org or contact Roskind
at 529-5174.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20091125_Claims_against_Phila__VA_up_t\
o__58_million.html
Claims against Phila. VA up to $58 million
By Josh Goldstein

Inquirer Staff Writer

Injured veterans and their spouses have filed 31 claims against the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs for botched prostate cancer care at the
Philadelphia VA Medical Center, internal records show.

Twenty-seven men who received prostate brachytherapy at the Philadelphia VA and
four veterans' wives are seeking a total $58 million in damages for radiation
errors at the hospital from 2002 to 2008, according to documents obtained by The
Inquirer through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The government - and taxpayers - could be on the hook for far more, as fewer
than a third of the 97 veterans who got incorrect radiation doses have filed
claims so far.

Former Green Beret Barry Lackro of Philadelphia, who suffered rectal bleeding
and had his prostate cancer return, said his $7 million claim was not about
money but holding the VA accountable.

"It infuriates me that the VA could watch the health condition of veterans,
knowing that their lives are made worse because of a botched surgery, and have
the unmitigated gall to . . . do nothing," he said.

Richard S. Citron, director of the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, said that
when the facility discovered the problems in June 2008, it notified all 114
veterans treated since the program opened in February 2002 that they could "file
an administrative tort claim and request VA benefits."

The VA has also sent eight veterans to Seattle to redo the implants.

"I am confident that we are doing the right thing for our veterans, whether in
terms of follow-up health care or helping them navigate the system," Citron
said.

The brachytherapy program was shut down in June 2008. Citron has said there are
no plans to restart it.

Prostate brachytherapy involves implanting dozens of tiny radioactive seeds into
the acorn-size gland to kill cancerous cells over several months. It is an
effective treatment when done correctly.

But records show the Philadelphia VA's program was deeply flawed from its
earliest patients, and that doctors and officials repeatedly missed chances to
correct it.

Lawmakers who have investigated the hospital have also faulted the VA's response
after the scandal broke. Despite an internal probe recommending sanctions, the
VA took more than a year to impose a three-day suspension on one doctor and send
a letter of reprimand to the hospital's radiation safety officer.

The documents obtained by The Inquirer are heavily redacted, with all names and
identifying information blacked out.

Still, the 31 claims represent a big number for a small program. The rest of the
hospital - which gets about 50,000 inpatient and outpatient visits a year - has
received a total of 44 malpractice claims since 2002, records show.

Such filings are the first step in pursuing malpractice suits against the VA. If
the agency denies the claim or does not respond in six months, the veteran can
file a lawsuit in federal court.

One man, seeking $10 million, wrote his claim, dated July 29, 2008, by hand. He
said he had not been told the extent of his physical injuries. The harm "remains
totally psychological and constant distress" from not knowing his prognosis, he
said.

Another veteran seeking $1.5 million in compensation stated that his PSA level -
a measure of blood protein that doctors use to identify prostate cancer - is
"back up." He said he has undergone additional treatment, his sex life has been
harmed, and he suffers stress, headaches, depression, and fatigue from the bad
care he got at the VA.

Lawyers representing several of the veterans say the VA is dragging its feet in
responding to the men.

W. Robb Graham, a lawyer in Cinnaminson, faulted the VA for failing to inform
veterans whether they can pursue separate legal action against the University of
Pennsylvania and Gary Kao, the Penn doctor who performed most of the substandard
procedures. Penn does not appear to have been sued.

Graham said the VA has still not responded to his Freedom of Information request
for the contracts with Penn, though he received assurances from a top VA
official in June that the agency would provide him the information.

"The VA is just delaying, delaying, and hoping it will go away," said Graham,
who represents several of the veterans including the Rev. Ricardo Flippin of
Charleston, W. Va., who developed rectal bleeding and digestive problems after
his May 2005 treatment at the Philadelphia VA.

A 68-year-old minister, teacher, and Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam,
Flippin has been diagnosed with a radiation injury to his rectum by a doctor
outside the VA system.

He underwent surgery to repair the damage, but he continues to have problems
with bowel control.

Flippin's claim seeks up to $7.5 million for his injuries and the VA's failure
to promptly report the mistakes and their effects.

The errors have spawned internal and external investigations, including an
ongoing probe by the VA's Office of Inspector General.

In an inspection report issued last week, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, which oversees the medical use of radioactive material, cited the VA
for eight apparent violations.

The NRC found that the Philadelphia VA staff failed to evaluate radiation doses
or know when to report a mistake. For example, the brachytherapy team failed to
check radiation doses in patients for more than a year because a computer was
unplugged from the hospital's network, the report said.

On Dec. 17, the NRC will hold a hearing before making a decision on what
official action, if any, to take against the VA Medical Center in West
Philadelphia. The VA could face sanctions ranging from a reprimand to a fine of
tens of thousands of dollars.

But any fine by another agency is likely to pale beside the malpractice payments
that the VA might face from injured veterans and their wives. The 31 claims so
far are seeking amounts ranging from $100,000 to $10 million.

And veterans have seven more months, at least, to initiate cases and stay within
the two-year statute of limitations because they weren't notified of the
mistakes until June 2008.

Lackro, whose second tour in Vietnam was cut short after he was shot in the hip,
got his implant in January 2005. By April, he was complaining of blood in his
urine and stools, constipation, rectal pain, and urinary urgency and frequency,
his records show.

Later, those complaints were referred to as "radiation proctitis and cystitis" -
radiation irritation of the rectum and bladder. But none of his VA health-care
doctors suggested his problems were caused by a bad implant, Lackro said.

He has since learned that his cancer has returned. He is taking medication to
suppress hormone production, causing him to suffer hot flashes.

He said he still has to go to the bathroom "all the time." And he said he
continues to bleed from his rectum, although hyperbaric treatment has reduced
the amount of blood.

But the mental toll could be worse.

"I feel that I have been psychologically . . . raped by the VA," Lackro said. He
is also "deeply offended as an officer" that the VA mistreated so many men who
served their country in war over such a long period.

"This is about a group of my brothers," he said, "We upheld our end of the
covenant."




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact staff writer Josh Goldstein at 215-854-4733 or
jgoldstein@....


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WomensHealth/study-examines-wars-effects-female-vet\
erans/story?id=9190638
Study Examines War's Effects on Female Vets
A $5 million study will examine health of women who served in Vietnam.
By EMILY P. WALKER
MedPage Today Washington Correspondent
Nov. 28, 2009-


WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is launching a four year,
$5.6 million study of women veterans who served in the Vietnam War to examine
their mental and physical health nearly 40 years later.

As female Vietnam vets reach their mid-60s it's important to understand how
wartime deployment has affected their health, a release from the VA said.

For the study, researchers will interview and review the medical records of
10,000 female veterans who served in Vietnam, elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and
in the U.S. during the Vietnam War.

It will assess the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), other
mental and physical problems and the relationship between PTSD and other
conditions.

The findings from the study will be used to shape future research and to provide
services for the aging veteran population, the agency said.

Women veterans are one of the fastest growing segments of the veteran
population. In 1988, women made up just 4 percent of the veteran population, but
now that percentage has nearly doubled. By 2020, one in ten veterans will be a
woman, according to the VA.

To focus on the issue, the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs held a hearing
in July on the unique health issues that female veterans face.

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) said the needs of female veterans are sometimes
overlooked in the VA system.

"Many women veterans in need of services fall through the cracks because VA
doesn't have a thoroughly gender-focused range of care set up to catch them,"
Akaka said at the hearing. "For too long, the approach to helping veterans avoid
obstacles to VA benefits and services has been predominately focused on men."

During the hearing, Kayla Williams, an Iraq War vet, said there are issues in
being a female soldier that male soldiers do not understand.

"They may be aware of, but not be able to fully empathize with, the challenges
of facing regular sexual harassment," Williams testified. "And they certainly do
not understand what it is like to feel invisible as a veteran, as many women
veterans do."

"It is therefore vital that the VA provide times or places where women veterans,
especially those who may have experienced military sexual trauma, can feel safe
and comfortable seeking help in a community of their peers," she said.

Eric Shinseki, secretary of Veterans Affairs at the VA, said that one of his top
priorities is to meet the needs of female vets.

"Our Veterans have earned the very best care," Shinseki said in the release. "VA
realizes that women veterans require specialized programs, and this study will
help VA provide high-quality care for women veterans of the Vietnam era."

On hearing of the VA's announcement, Akaka said he was pleased.

"I applaud VA for conducting this study. As VA prepares for the increasing
number of women veterans from the current wars, it is as important to better
understand the needs of women who served before them. More than three decades
after the war in Vietnam, this study is long overdue."



Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
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www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-veterans-horse-therapy-20091127,0,3612691.s\
tory
Horses help veterans break down barriers
Animal-assisted therapy used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder
By Mike Clary, Staff writer

November 28, 2009


After three tours of duty in Iraq, Marine Lance Cpl. Eugene Calonge came home to
Sunrise with a feeling common to many military veterans scarred by the horrors
of war: He didn't fit in.

"I was always on edge," said the 29-year-old security guard.

Then, in a paddock in Davie, Calonge met a horse. And the horse, named Blue,
helped him relax.

"I remember walking toward the horses and feeling scared," said Calonge, who saw
heavy fighting in Fallujah. "But pretty quickly I sensed that this horse had my
back, just as I had his. And that was comforting."

Animal-assisted therapy with horses - and with dogs, guinea pigs and even ducks
- is just one of the techniques being used to help veterans diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder.

Last month, President Obama signed into law a bill, co-sponsored by U.S. Rep.
Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, that will provide federal funds to furnish animals,
such as physical therapy dogs and guide dogs, to service members wounded in
action.

This legislation was inspired by Boca Raton resident Irwin Stovroff, 86, a
former World War II prisoner of war who started an organization to train guide
dogs for wounded veterans.

Calonge's work with Blue took place at the South Florida Veterans Multi-Purpose
Center, where therapists Lorisa Lewis and Shelley Green use horses to break down
barriers often hard to breach in sterile office settings.

"Guys often come back and feel they can't trust others," said Lewis. "Yet horses
are vulnerable prey animals, and they are still able to trust. So it's helpful
if veterans can draw those parallels."

The problem of stress in the U.S. military was highlighted recently by the mass
shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas, Army base. Thirteen people, all but one a
soldier, were slain and more than 40 were wounded when a man officials
identified as Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire.

At least three of those killed were therapists headed for Afghanistan, Army
officials said. Six of those wounded are part of the 1493rd Combat Stress
Control team to which Hasan was assigned.

But the problem of stress in the military - and a shortage of mental health
counselors -- has been recognized for years, by Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, among others.

Yet for those on active duty, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking for
help can be seen as a sign of weakness. That stigma can carry over to civilian
life, too.

Discharged in 2006, Calonge said it took years for him to seek help for
post-traumatic stress disorder, first at the Miami VA Hospital and then at the
Multi-Purpose Center.

"Being out here, with the horses, takes away some of that stigma," said Green, a
professor of family therapy at Nova Southeastern University.

Both she and Lewis, who runs a program called Equine Assisted Growth and
Development, said that although horses are instinctively wary, they can present
a reassuring sense of calm to equally wary veterans.

That is what Calonge picked up on with Blue.

"In the Marines, we all go around with attitudes," said Calonge, temporarily
living in New Jersey with his wife and 5-year-old daughter before a planned
return to South Florida. "So I was approaching people here with that attitude. I
think the horse gave me a perspective on how to introduce myself, to be more
aware of the attitude I'm portraying."

Near Davie's town center, the Multi-Purpose Center was opened 20 years ago by
Navy veteran Robert Bambury to assist indigent veterans with housing and
substance abuse counseling. The nonprofit organization's services are open to
any military veteran, said Bambury.

For more information, the center can be reached at 954-791-8603.


Copyright © 2009, South Florida Sun-Sentinel


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gjkgCj-9TsCDQIpZRHSgQ3Qaw9QQD9\
C83G280
By JAY LINDSAY (AP) - 16 hours ago

BOSTON - His father was a lifelong scalloper, his uncles are fishermen, and
23-year-old Chris Pinto realized as he got older that fishing is "in my blood."
It just didn't look like it was in his future.

His father, Paul, died in June in an accident on his boat, which was carrying
too much debt for his family to keep.

But a charity for military veterans, and a boat donated by a Westport
lobsterman, are giving Pinto a chance at a career he thought he'd never have.

On Friday, the Work Vessels for Veterans charity presented a 39-foot-long
fishing boat to Pinto, a veteran of two tours in Iraq as an infantryman. Pinto
is joining the National Guard - and expects to leave for Afghanistan next year -
so he can pay for a commercial lobsterman's license.

Having a career at sea to return to "means everything to me," said Pinto, a
married father of a 10-month-old daughter.

"We buried my father at sea," the Plymouth resident said. "I kind of feel I'm
with my father all the time."

Work Vessels for Vets was started by John Niekrash, a Groton, Conn., lobsterman,
and it got rolling with help from friends including Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
guitarist Dave Mason, whom he met several years ago in Las Vegas.

Niekrash got the idea for the charity in the summer of 2007, after hearing a
severely wounded Marine give an emotional speech about his military service
during a golf dinner. On his drive home, Niekrash wondered how he could help a
veteran. It struck him to donate his boat, which he had planned sell after
getting another one.

"I really don't care for the way our vets are treated when they come home," said
Niekrash, who is not a military veteran. "I think we can do more as a society."

Niekrash wrote a letter to the trade publication Commercial Fisheries News,
offering the boat to any service member returning from war who wanted to start a
fishing career.

He got a response from Richard Giguere, a Marine reservist from Exeter, R.I.,
who'd served two tours in Iraq, and the charity was born in April 2008.

Mason suggested Niekrash broaden the idea of "work vessels" to include a wider
variety of equipment to help veterans with small businesses.

"It just seemed a natural thing to sort of expand on this, and instead of just
making it boats, maybe we can use this word 'vessel' as meaning anything that's
sort of vessel for them to get from one place to another, to start a business,"
said Mason, a founder of the band Traffic, whose various credits include work
with Jimi Hendrix and Fleetwood Mac.

Ted Knapp, who ran a technology recycling company, donated 20 laptop computers
to be "vessels" toward new employment. The group set up a Web site, Mason began
talking up the charity at his shows, and Niekrash said he began getting calls
from donors, as well as veterans in every state.

"It's absolutely amazing and it restores your faith in people in this country,"
he said. "There are so many people that are good people that want to help."

The charity, which has no full time staff, has since donated items such as 100
laptops and 10 vehicles to help start businesses, including a truck given to a
mentally disabled vet who needed it for his blueberry jam business in Florida.
It also donated mechanics' tools.

After the donation to Pinto, by lobsterman Tim Field, the charity has another
fishing boat it's preparing to give away.

Giguere, the recipient of the first fishing boat, said it means a lot to him to
see the gratitude Niekrash and donors are expressing.

"As a veteran, all that we really ask for is for people to say thank you," he
said. "And he went way, way above and beyond that."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/1214/breakthroughs-mit-herr-robotics-step-beyo\
nd-human.html
Breakthroughs
A Step Beyond Human
Andy Greenberg, 12.14.09, 12:00 AM ET


On his way to a lunch meeting a few years ago Hugh Herr was running late. So he
parked his Honda Accord in a handicapped parking spot, sprang out of the car and
jogged down the sidewalk. Within seconds a policeman called out, asking to see
his disability permit. When Herr pointed it out on his dashboard, the cop eyed
him suspiciously. "What's your affliction?" he asked dryly.

Herr, a slim and unassuming 6-footer with dark, neatly parted hair, took a step
toward the officer and responded in an even tone: "I have no [expletive] legs."

Blurring the boundaries of disability is a trick that Herr, director of the
biomechatronics group at MIT's Media Lab, has spent the last 27 years
perfecting. At age 17 both of Herr's legs were amputated 6 inches below the knee
after a rock climbing trip ended in severe frostbite. Today he's one of the
world's preeminent prosthetics experts. His goal: to build artificial limbs that
are superior to natural ones. His favorite test subject: himself. "I like to say
that there are no disabled people," says Herr, 45. "Only disabled technology."

Herr swaps his feet out to suit his needs. He generally walks on flat
carbon-fiber springs inside his shoes but sometimes replaces them with longer
carbon bows for jogging. When he goes rock climbing--often scaling cliffs of
expert-level difficulty--he switches to one of multiple pairs of climbing legs
he's built himself, including small, rubber feet on aluminum poles that stretch
his height beyond 7 feet, spiked aluminum claws that replace crampons for ice
climbing or tapered polyethylene hatchets that wedge into crevices.

"The fact that I'm missing lower limbs is an opportunity," he says. "Between my
residual limb and the ground, I can create anything I want. The only limits are
physical laws and my imagination."

Over the last several years that imagination has been working overtime. Late
next year iWalk, a company Herr founded in 2006, plans to release the PowerFoot
One, the world's most advanced robotic ankle and foot.

Most prosthetic feet are fixed at a clumsy 90 degrees. The PowerFoot, equipped
with three internal microprocessors and 12 sensors that measure force, inertia
and position, automatically adjusts its angle, stiffness and damping 500 times a
second. Employing the same sort of sensory feedback loops that the human nervous
system uses, plus a library of known patterns, the PowerFoot adjusts for slopes,
dips its toe naturally when walking down stairs, even hangs casually when the
user crosses his or her legs.

The PowerFoot is the only foot and ankle in the world that doesn't depend on its
wearer's energy. With a system of passive springs and a half-pound rechargeable
lithium iron phosphate battery, the foot--made of aluminum, titanium, plastic
and carbon fiber--provides the same 20-joule push off the ground that human
muscles and tendons do. It automatically adjusts the power to the walker's
speed, but users can also dial that power up or down with a Bluetooth-enabled
phone. (And soon, Herr says, with an iPhone application.) One test subject told
Herr that his nonamputated leg often tires before his prosthetic-enhanced one.
"This is the first time that the prosthesis is driving the human, instead of the
other way around," says Herr.

To see more of Herr's devices under development see: "MIT's Next Bionic
Breakthroughs"

Herr frequently wears a pair of his new creations. The next to try the PowerFoot
will be the Department of Defense, which is looking for prostheses for the
nearly 1,000 soldiers who have lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Veterans
Administration and the Army are among the investors who funded his MIT research.
Veterans, he argues, also make the perfect early adopters, given their athletic,
active lifestyles. "These are remarkable people," says Herr. "If the PowerFoot
can work for them, it can work for anyone."

iWalk hopes to put the PowerFoot on the general market in 2010, priced in the
low five figures. The startup has raised $10.2 million from investors, including
General Catalyst Partners and WFD Ventures.

Herr's motives extend beyond profit. In 1982 he and a friend climbed Mount
Washington in New Hampshire, a place infamous for its unpredictable and nasty
weather. They were caught in a snowstorm, losing their way in a near-complete
whiteout and subzero temperatures. After three and a half days of crawling along
a frozen river, Herr's lower legs were practically destroyed by cold. A member
of the rescue team sent after them, 28-year-old Albert Dow, was killed in an
avalanche.

"I feel a responsibility to use my intellect and resources to do as much as I
can to help people. That's Albert Dow's legacy for me," says Herr.

Within three months of his amputations Herr was rock climbing with simple
prosthetics. Within six months he was in a machine shop, building new feet,
using the skills he'd learned at a vocational high school in Lancaster, Pa.,
where he grew up.

While he had previously focused on merely working a trade, Herr became a nearly
obsessive student, earning a master's in mechanical engineering at MIT and a
Ph.D. in biophysics at Harvard. Once, when his hands suffered from repetitive
stress disorder while he was writing his doctoral thesis, he attached a pencil
to a pair of sunglass frames and typed with his head. "He's driven to the point
of exhaustion, physical degradation," says Rodger Kram, a professor of
integrative physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who worked with
Herr at Harvard. "Every step he takes, he's forced to think about making
prosthetics better."

Herr wants to transform how people define disability. Last year he sat on a
panel of scientists that confirmed that Oscar Pistorius, a South African
sprinter with no legs below the knee, should be allowed to compete in the
Olympics. Herr helped discredit arguments that Pistorius got a metabolic
advantage from his carbon-fiber legs. (Pistorius missed qualifying by a fraction
of a second.)

Herr has tasted athletic discrimination, too. Because he uses special climbing
prosthetics, many dispute his claim to be the second in the world to free-climb
a famously challenging pitch near Index Mountain, Wash. "When amputees
participate in sports, they call it courageous," he says. "Once you become
competitive, they call it cheating."

Herr even believes that in the coming decades Paralympic athletes will regularly
outperform Olympic athletes. We may need special disability laws for humans who
decline to have their bodies mechanically enhanced, he says.

"Disabled people today are the test pilots for technology that will someday be
pervasive," Herr explains. "Eliminating disability and blurring man and machine
will be one of the great stories of this century."

To see more of Herr's devices under development see: "MIT's Next Bionic
Breakthroughs"


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2009/11/vas_spiffy_new_web_site_but.php?oref=late\
st_posts
VA's Spiffy New Web Site, But . . .
By Bob Brewin   11/23/09 05:47 pm ET

I really, really wanted to praise the slick design of the redone Web site
operated by the Veterans Affairs Department, which it launched on Monday. But,
alas, I instead need to put on, once again, my grump hat.

VA STILL (yes, I'm shouting) has not fixed the real problems with a truly
mystifying corner of its Web operation I visit frequently: the Veterans Benefits
Administration's Monday Morning Workload Report. This used to starkly delineate
in spreadsheets how far behind VA lags in one of its core missions, processing
disability and pension claims.

As I reported last month, starting the first week of October, VA redid its
Monday Morning Workload page to provide a "more meaningful and transparent look"
at all the data -- except it forgot to include any information AT ALL on pending
GI bill claims, including claims from vets going to school under the post-9/11
GI bill, a truly botched program.

VA did not manage to get education claims data back into new, improved Monday
Morning Workload reports until Oct. 26, but it sure looks far less meaningful
than the old way VA presented the data.

Until Sept. 28, the report offered mucho details on education claims pending --
the number of claims in the current week vs. the previous week, and the
percentage change from week to week, as well as the number of claims in the same
week last year.

The new more "meaningful" Monday Morning Workload Report pares that rich data
set back to its bones. Just the number of post-9/11 claims pending as of Nov.
23: 65,829. And all other educations claims pending: 217,936.

Want to know the week-to-week percentage change? You need to pop up the
spreadsheet from the previous week (Nov. 16, kin this case), copy down the
figures (which are 64,452 post-9/11 claims pending and 211,327 other GI bill
claims pending), and then figure out the percentage change.

I'm really bad at math, so I only did the percentage change for the post-9/11
bill claims, which shows over the past week the number of pending claims has
increased by 1,377, or just a shade more than 2 percent.

I'm still waiting for someone from VA to explain how the changes in the Monday
Morning Workload Report are more meaningful than the old way. And I'd also like
to get a handle on how it is doing on whittling away the post-9/11 claims, since
the backlog is going up, not down.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml


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http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/11/military_agentorange_112009w/
House bill could expand Agent Orange claims


By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Nov 20, 2009 17:47:20 EST

Legislation granting Air Force and Navy veterans a better shot at receiving
disability benefits for Agent Orange-related illness now has 204 co-sponsors in
the House of Representatives, 14 short of the number needed to guarantee
passage.

The bill, HR 2254, is the Agent Orange Equity Act. It would grant people who
served in the waters off Vietnam and the airspace above it the same presumptions
as people who set foot there: that certain diseases are the result of exposure
to the herbicide Agent Orange, widely used to defoliate jungle around U.S. bases
and outposts.

If enacted, the bill would cover veterans who had received a Vietnam Service
Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal or who served on Johnston Island, a Navy outpost,
beginning April 1, 1972, and ending Sept. 30, 1977.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., the House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman who is
the measure's chief sponsor, said the bill goes a long way toward providing
benefits to veterans whom the Veterans Affairs Department "illogically refuses
to acknowledge."

"Current law requires VA to provide care for service members exposed to Agent
Orange by virtue of their 'boots on the ground,' but ignores veterans that
served in the blue waters and the blue skies of Vietnam," Filner said. His bill
would provide the same presumptions "to all combat veterans of the Vietnam War,
regardless of where they served."

Filner said he hopes Congress acts soon. "Time is running out for these Vietnam
veterans. Many are dying from their Agent Orange-related diseases, uncompensated
for their sacrifice."

Achieving the 218 votes needed to guarantee passage of a bill through the House
does not guarantee the change will become law. There is a Senate version of the
bill, S 1939, sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., that has eight
co-sponsors, far short of the 51 needed to guarantee passage.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66216
       No butts about it: DOD wants you to quit
       By Charlie Reed, Stars and Stripes
       Pacific edition, Saturday, November 21, 2009


       CAMP ZAMA, Japan - Countless troops quit smoking Thursday. For the day
anyway.

       Military health workers were full of gimmicks for the 2009 Great American
Smokeout, an American Cancer Society campaign supported by bases around the
world. It aims to get people to stop using tobacco for at least 24 hours.

       Those who went cold turkey at Misawa Air Base, Japan, got a coupon for a
free turkey sub, while students at bases in Lakenheath and Mildenhall, England,
received flyers on the dangers of smoking in hopes they could convince their
parents to kick the habit.

       "The military tells us to be healthy, but the only way you can get a break
from the workday is if you're a smoker," said Lisa Berritella, an Army wife and
former soldier who participated in a smokeout walk at Camp Zama.

       "You get laughed at if you ask to go take a stretch break."

       Efforts to discourage tobacco use and help troops quit have become
commonplace in the last decade as the Defense Department grapples with
ballooning health care costs and ways to keep troops healthy in war time.

       While health care workers have stepped up anti-smoking outreach, some
commanders have taken a more forceful tack, such as banning troops from smoking
in base housing and while on duty.

       Misawa earlier this year banned smoking in all housing with communal
air-conditioning and heating systems and some others with independent systems.
Base health officials said it has contributed to more people trying to quit.

       "It's starting to get colder out now," making the trip outside to a
designated smoking area less attractive, said Capt. Jennifer Bradley, flight
commander for the Health and Wellness Center at Misawa.

       Military-wide efforts include the recently launched Web-based campaign
"Quit Tobacco - Make Everyone Proud;" a proposal to distribute free
over-the-counter quit-smoking aids, such as nicotine gum and patches; and a
24-hour telephone support line for those trying to quit.

       Still, anti-tobacco efforts remain piecemeal for the most part. But that
could change if the Pentagon adopts a proposed blanket ban on tobacco now under
consideration.

       Military health affairs officials are still digesting a study released
this summer by the Institute of Medicine that suggested banning both the
consumption and sale of tobacco within the military.

       Commissioned by the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, the study
drew instant fire from servicemembers who said it could negatively affect
recruiting and hurt troop morale, particularly for those serving in combat
zones.

       The Pentagon responded quickly, saying it would not prohibit tobacco use
downrange.

       But officials have yet to propose any new policies that would move the DOD
closer to a widespread ban on the consumption and sale of tobacco, which the
study said could take up to 20 years to fully implement.

       Eliminating smokers from the ranks could eventually save billions of
dollars spent to treat active-duty troops and retirees with smoking-related
illnesses, though the savings would likely take years to accumulate.

       However, the financial impact of banning the military's sale of tobacco
products would be almost instant.

       Tobacco is big business for the military, which funnels profits from the
sale of cigarettes and other goods to recreational activities for troops.
Tobacco sales at military exchanges worldwide generated $672 million in 2008
alone.

       The potential blow to the revenue stream is part of the reason the
Pentagon has been slow to adopt a drastic ban on tobacco, said Charles Connor,
president and CEO of the American Lung Association.

       "Merely because a revenue stream is profitable and funds a good outcome
does not mean we should be selling the product," said Connor, a retired Navy
captain.

       The American Lung Association is lobbying military leaders to start
focusing anti-tobacco efforts on junior noncommissioned officers in hopes it
would help reduce tobacco use in the enlisted ranks, which accounts for a
majority of military smokers.

       These impressionable young enlistees are likely to pick up the same habits
of their sergeants, Connor said.

       "They see the behavior and then model it," he said.

       Stars and Stripes reporter T.D. Flack contributed to this story.



© 2009 Stars and Stripes. All Rights Reserved
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hK7eOre64VZsnAiIrpkz3rpGHMSwD9\
C1H8A80
Army helps vets with `invisible wounds' find jobs
By MICHELLE ROBERTS (AP) - 4 days ago

SAN ANTONIO - Richard Martin keeps a rearview mirror on his desk to prevent
co-workers from startling him in his cubicle. The walls are papered with sticky
notes to help him remember things, and he wears noise-canceling headphones to
keep his easily distracted mind focused.

Martin, an Army veteran who was nearly blown up on three occasions in Iraq, once
feared that post-traumatic stress disorder and a brain injury would keep him
from holding down a civilian job, despite years of corporate experience and an
MBA.

"Here I am with this background and I'm having problems with my memory," said
Martin, a 48-year-old engineer and former National Guard major who now works for
Northrop Grumman, helping to devise ways to thwart remote-detonated bombs.

The defense contractor recruited him through its hiring program for severely
wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The company consulted occupational
nurses on how to help him do his job without becoming overly nervous when
someone, say, drops a heavy object. Martin figured out other tricks, like the
headphones, on his own.

But Martin is one of the lucky ones.

Army officials say many new veterans suffering from PTSD and brain injuries
struggle to find and keep a civilian job. Advocates say many employers don't
know how to accommodate veterans with these "invisible wounds" and worry that
they cannot do the job and might even "go postal" someday.

"There is a stigma attached to the invisible wounds, and it's largely borne out
of ignorance," said David Autry, a spokesman for Disabled American Veterans.
"There's a fear that somebody will go off the deep end."

The Army's Wounded Warrior Program, which helps veterans adjust to civilian
life, has been reaching out to employers to educate them and encourage them to
hire former soldiers with invisible wounds.

It conducts briefings to brace potential employers for soldiers who might not be
able to work regular hours or might startle too easily, suffer outbursts or
require time off for counseling.

About 90 severely wounded veterans have found work with the help of the Wounded
Warrior Program since it began offering job assistance last year, though the
Army does not break that down by injury type.

The severely wounded soldiers now returning from the wars suffer primarily from
PTSD and severe brain injuries rather than lost limbs. About a third, or 1,950,
of the 5,400 soldiers and veterans in the Wounded Warrior Program have PTSD as
their primary injury, while about 970 are in the program because of brain
injuries. About 770 are amputees.

For the invisibly wounded, the losses can be as minor as slight memory lapses
and as severe as debilitating flashbacks and a hair-trigger temper. Some have
blurred vision and difficulty concentrating.

Disabled soldiers qualify for disability payments, but those are often barely
enough to live on, and many want to work, if only for their self-respect. The
problem is that many employers are far less prepared to take on former military
personnel with mental and cognitive disabilities than those with burns or lost
limbs.

"Employers find it easier to accommodate those physical disabilities. They can
get special equipment," said Sue Maloney, who works with veterans in the Wounded
Warrior Program in the Seattle area. But "you can't always see the wounds or the
injuries."

Kyle Salisbury, 21, went to work shortly after he retired from the Army last
year with a brain injury caused by two large blasts in as many days.

His employer was excited about hiring a wounded Iraq veteran, but Salisbury
often could not work because of severe headaches. A second job driving a truck
did not work out either because of his occasional nausea and blurred vision. He
quit both jobs.

"Right now my job prospects are zero," said Salisbury, who lives with his wife
and 3-year-old nephew in Bellingham, Wash. He is attending community college
while he decides what to do next.

With less than $3,000 a month in disability payments, "the bills take up all the
money," he said. "I definitely don't live a worry-free life."

The transition for Martin, who works in Clearfield, Utah, appears to have been
easier. He said minor adjustments to his office, combined with a Blackberry,
rehab and medication, have allowed him to function well. He learned about the
noise-canceling headphones from a fellow passenger on an airplane.

Karen Stang, manager of Northrop Grumman's hiring program, said that adjustments
had to be made for veterans with PTSD or brain injuries, but company managers
are happy with the new hires.

The company consults with occupational nurses about what accommodations should
be made and encourages veterans to be honest about what they need.

"Give them a chance," Stang said she tells other employers. "Really, look at
what they bring as far as skills and help them manage their disability so they
can succeed in their job."

On the Net:
   a.. Army Wounded Warrior Program: http://www.aw2.army.mil
   b.. Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Operation Impact:
http://operationimpact.ms.northropgrumman.com/default.htm
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://media.www.theonlinerocket.com/media/storage/paper601/news/2009/11/20/Focu\
s/Disabilities.Program.Focuses.On.Ability-3838110.shtml
Disabilities program focuses on ability
By: Stefanie Weber
Posted: 11/20/09
After talking to volunteers who help with the adapted physical activity with
disabled veterans' recreational program at SRU, it becomes apparent that people
with disabilities encounter more limits due to the lack of adapted equipment and
environment than lack of actual ability.

The program focuses on ability, not disability, while working with in-house
patients from the Butler County Veterans Administration Hospital. All
participants share the same passion, motivation and goals as they learn and grow
throughout the program.

Every Friday from 1-2 p.m., 10 to 15 regular volunteers show up at the ARC to
greet an eager bus load of veterans who can't wait to see what the volunteers
have planned for them.

Jennifer Weaver, 23, an adapted physical activity (APA) graduate student, is the
disabled veterans program coordinator.

"The purpose of the disabled veterans program here at SRU is to raise awareness
to the public-to get the word out there that the veterans and anyone who is
disabled can do more than you would think, as long as they are given the chance
and the right equipment.much like any athlete," Weaver said.

Weaver said the APA's disabled veterans program is designed to allow the
veterans to adjust to the adapted equipment and simulated games so that they can
get the same experience and enjoyment out of the activities as those who are not
disabled.

Activities for disabled veterans are well planned in order to utilize adapted
equipment with the intent to maximize a person's abilities and minimize any
special challenges they may face, according to Weaver. Adjusting to a new game
or activity increases the opportunity for fun, skill development and
self-confidence. Learning how to adapt to a new sport or recreational activity
improves the quality of a person's life that has any sort of impairment and
creates a general sense of well being and competence.

Sheree Horvath, 21, a senior Exercise Science major and Adapted Physical
Activity minor helps with the veterans on a regular basis.

The group first breaks down into three stations to adapt to the activity planned
for that day. Horvath said sometimes veterans are taught different skills before
beginning a simulated game. Volunteers and veterans then break into teams and
play a variety of sports, including volleyball, basketball, hockey, corn hole,
ladder golf, football and frisbee to name a few, Horvath said.

"It's so rewarding to see their faces light up every week when they get off the
bus," Horvath said. "You can just tell how much they enjoy the program, because
it gives [the vets] a chance to get out of the hospital where they see the same
people and go through the same routine every day.

"It just gives them a change of pace in their days to be able to get on a bus
and travel to SRU to meet new people," Horvath said. "A lot of times, it's the
veterans' only chance during the week to get out and travel, and we can tell
they really enjoy seeing us."

Horvath said there are usually 10 to 15 veterans who come to SRU for APA. Some
are wheelchair users, some are ambulatory and some are amputees. The ages of the
veterans range from 40 to 90 years old.

Amanda Budzowski, 24, an adapted physical activity master's student said the APA
department serves over 350 adults and children ranging in age from two to 92 per
week. The Adapted Physical Activity department also holds an APA program in
conjunction with Allegheny Valley School (AVS), a community residential
environment and therapeutic center for children and adults with intellectual and
developmental disabilities. Friday morning programs with AVS are land and
aquatic programs for individuals living in the Allegheny Valley School Houses in
Slippery Rock.

On Wednesday nights, there are programs for the severely and profoundly
disabled, which are also land and aquatic-based. The APA department also manages
the Kids in Action group, an inclusive after-school physical activity and
recreation program for children with autism and related disorders ages five to
12, along with their siblings.

Another large program run by the APA department is the 'I Can Do It, You Can Do
It' program, which pairs 150 mentors and mentees for eight weeks to work on
physical activity and nutrition. The mentors are SRU students in the masters,
minor, and outside programs and the mentees are community members.

Budzowski said adapted physical activity is important because physical activity
is essential for a healthy lifestyle.

Many people think that, because someone has a disability, they are unable to
participate in sport and recreational activities-but this is wrong, she said.

Dr. Robert Arnhold, full professor of adapted physical activity for 23 years,
said that adapting equipment, materials, rules and boundaries makes the playing
field level for everyone, especially those with disabilities.

"[The APA with Veterans program] provides an outlet for veterans who have
disabilities," Arnhold said. "This opportunity allows them to leave the hospital
and socialize, participate in recreation activities and develop new friends. The
program also provides our students with hands-on experiences with adults with
neurological disorders, amputations, orthopedic disabilities and post-traumatic
stress disorder. Physical activity and health promotion is important for
everyone-especially for people with disabilities as they are at a higher risk
for secondary conditions due to inactivity and sedentary habits, such as
diabetes, obesity and cancers. "

Students of all majors are invited to participate in any of the APA programs.
Sign-up sheets and information is available through the APA office in the
basement of West Gym, or through any student who is involved with the Adapted
Physical Activity program.

"The great thing about the APA program at SRU is that we are multidisciplinary,
and we have students from all majors that are able to share information with
each other to make us all well-rounded professionals who promote inclusion,"
Budsowski said. "The program at SRU is the first Adapted Physical Activity
Masters program in the country-this is huge."

There is an upside for Budsowski.

"I love working with adults and children and seeing the joy and excitement in
their faces when they do things that they never dreamed were possible,"
Budsowski said.
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