Veterans News for Monday, April 11, 2011

•1.    Veteran visits charter school, thanks students for creating Valentine's Day cards.  Villages Daily Sun  Fuller of the Village of Calumet Grove was one of numerous veterans visiting The Villages Outpatient Clinic, a US Department of Veterans Affairs facility, in February to receive cards created by students in Angela Wilkerson's kindergarten class and Kim ...

•2.    VA Officials Try To Ease Disability Exam Backlog.  NPR  Many are eligible for disability benefits, but with a wait time that can last months or even years, the veterans are at risk of serious financial trouble. The US Department of Veterans Affairs has a backlog of thousands of disability claims, ...

•3.    Homeless veteran housing coming to Roseburg VA grounds.  NRToday.com  Jody Ahlstedt, Umpqua Community Action Network housing projects director, stands near land on the Roseburg VeteransAffairs Medical Center that may be the site of a housing complex on for homeless veterans. Organizers hope to begin construction in ...

•4.    Stolen Valor bill would punish impostors.  Las Vegas Review - Journal  In December, a US District Court judge sentenced Air Force veteran and former Veterans Affairs clerk David M. Perelman to a year in prison for fraudulently obtaining a Purple Heart medal, which he used to steal $180000 in disability benefits. ...

•5.    VA offers scaled-back mental health clinic.  Fort Wayne Journal Gazette  In 2004, the US Department of Veterans Affairs planned to close part of its Fort Wayne medical center. In 2009, the agency went the other direction, saying it would spend $60 million to build an outpatient clinic twice the size of the existing center, ...

•6.    The Record: After the war.  NorthJersey.com  Another program launched last week by the New Jersey Medical Society and the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs helps New Jersey National Guard members who have been deployed in the past 18 months. Doctors with military experience will ...

•7.    State may discourage overpass camp.  Corvallis Gazette Times  “Then when they service their addiction, we get disorderly conduct calls,” Carter said. Lee Beam, 63, is a Vietnam veteran from West Virginia living under the overpass. He said Veterans Affairs sent him from that state to Seattle for care. ...

•8.    Virtual reality helps vets.  Central Florida Future  According to the US Department of Veteran Affairs, 11 to 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have suffered from PTSD. "The first part of the treatment for all 60 veterans is five weeks of individual exposure sessions," said Dr. Sandra Neer, ...

•9.    Danielson vet struggled for years to get compensation for disease.  Norwich Bulletin
By MATTHEW L. BROWN Alan MacGeachie is but one example of a deep and ongoing problem with the US Department of Veterans Affairs claims process. Leonard Morganson, of Danielson, is a US Coast Guard veteran who served a one-year tour in Vietnam in 1967 ...

•10.                       Red tape tangles wounded veteran.  Norwich Bulletin  MacGeachie has been diagnosed by US Department of Veterans Affairs doctors with post traumatic stress disorder and a vision disorder. In a series of accidents and mortar attacks on his unit, he sustained injuries to his right foot, leg and head. ...

•11.                       Sussex County chapter for Vietnam veterans group seeks land to build new. 
The Star-Ledger - NJ.com  The US Department of Veterans Affairs provides a 12-inch-by-24-inch bronze plaque that is placed on all of the veterans' graves at no charge. The cost of a $900 concrete vault, which is required for all graves, is billed to the funeral home and paid ...

•12.                       Last-Minute Budget Deal Brings Relief, Disgust. AP  "a collective sense of relief resonated across the nation Saturday, now that a federal government shutdown is merely a thought of what could have been," "Widespread disgust, knowing that political bickering made them cringe in the first place."

•13.                       Michelle Obama, Jill Biden Coming To Colorado. AP "First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden...are coming to Denver and the Colorado Springs area as part of a five-city tour to showcase communities, businesses and nonprofits that support military families."

•14.                       VA Makes Progress To End Veteran Homelessness. American Forces Press Service VA Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould's remarks on the agency's efforts to end veterans' homelessness. Acknowledging that abolishing homelessness by 2015, announced by President Obama and Secretary Shinseki, is "a big goal," Gould said, "Veteran homelessness is not solved by VA alone, but with our HUD partners in federal government, our state governments' veterans administrations and nongovernmental organizations and local governments. It is everyone working together."

•15.                       Yellow Ribbon Program Helps Combat Soldiers Adjust. Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal The Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program seminar held Saturday in Louisville, where about 50 participants "listened to a chaplain and benefits specialists from the Veterans Administration, as well as reserve representatives offering help on issues such as combat stress, financial management, employment and healthcare for service people and their families before, after and during deployment."

•16.                       Female Veteran Fights An Invisible Injury. Los Angeles Times A female Army combat photographer who "returned from Afghanistan eight years ago carrying her unborn son and a case of PTSD." It took "more than six years to diagnose" the PTSD that Angel Harris experienced. Even after she was diagnosed with PTSD, the VA "would not cover the cost until she established that her injury was service-connected." The article cites a clinical psychologist with the National Center for PTSD and the VA Healthcare System in Boston, who says that the impact of combat settings on men and women is "pretty comparable." Approved for PTSD benefits in February 2010, seven years after returning from Afghanistan, Harris now seems to be benefitting from weekly treatment sessions.

•17.                       Forrest Gump's "Lt. Dan" To Host St. Louis Concert For Wounded Soldier. KMOX-TV   Actor Gary Sinise "will headline a Memorial Day Weekend Concert here to raise funds for the New York-based 'Stephen Stiller Tunnel to Towers Foundation,' which raises funds to build Smart Homes for severely wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. A local quadruple amputee will benefit from the May 27 concert."

•18.                       Wis. Veterans Affairs Secretary Would Be Appointed Under Proposed Legislation. AP "A Republican proposal would allow the governor" of Wisconsin to "appoint the Veterans Affairs secretary and would shake up the board overseeing the department.

•19.                       Veterans, Sen. Greg Ball Applaud State Funding For Montrose. Westchester (NY) Journal News "Local veterans are expressing relief that the state budget ax did not eliminate nursing beds for some of the frailest veterans and their spouses at a state-run facility in Montrose." If the facility had lost state funding, its 42 elderly residents might have had to find other housing.

•20.                       Work Is Moving Forward On VA Home. St. Clair (AL) Daily Home  "The Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home is well on its way to becoming a reality." Being built on a 27-acre tract, the $50 million veterans home will have 174 skilled nursing beds and 80 assisted living beds.

•21.                       Ill. Gov. Quinn Honors Former POWs. KFVS-TV   The Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs co-hosted the 2011 American Ex-Prisoners of War Recognition Day ceremony Saturday at the Governor's Mansion in Springfield.

•22.                       Auburn Memorial HospitalVA Clinic Rated Best In The State. Auburn (NY) Citizen "Auburn Memorial Hospital's Veterans Administration out-patient clinic was rated the top clinic in the state for the first quarter of 2011.

•23.                       Push On To Help Veterans Cope With Combat Stress. KOMO-TV "There's a push to get veterans the help they need, both locally and nationally, to deal with combat stress as they return home from overseas deployment." On the national level, the US Department of Veterans Affairs is "working to reach troubled soldiers with a public service announcement. It launched the campaign last month to get the word out that help is only a phone call away" and can be reached by dialing 800-273-8255, which is VA's crisis line.

•24.                       Instead Of Helping, Trustee Program Is Hurting Veterans, Families Say. New York Times  "Families of veterans," as well as beneficiaries of a Veterans Affairs trustee program, "say the system is badly flawed." The department's inspector general has "warned...that the department does not do enough to protect its veterans from the risks of faithless fiduciaries." Defending VA, though, is "Thomas J. Pamperin, deputy under secretary for disability assistance at the department's Veterans Benefits Administration," who said VA is "extremely cognizant of the need to look out for the veterans' best interest, and not to be capricious and arbitrary in our actions."

•25.                       Tales Of Heroism Mark POW Remembrance Day. Seattle Times George Vasil, a World War II crewman on a shut-down B-17 who escaped after two years from a Nazi prison camp, "was selected as this year's keynote speaker at the Prisoner of War Remembrance Day program Friday at Spokane's VA Medical Center."

•26.                       Salt Lake City VAMC Honors Local POWs. KTVX-TV   Salt Lake City VAMC honored about 70 former POWs living in Utah with a luncheon. 

•27.                       Troops Get Final Resting Place In Medical Lake. Tacoma (WA) News Tribune A project by Walla Walla coroner Richard Greenwood and a local VFW Post has obtained burial in the Washington State Veterans Cemetery in Medical Lake for the long-unclaimed remains of 11 veterans who bore arms in wars ranging from World War I to the Vietnam War.

•28.                       Foundation Mends Vietnamese Hearts That May Have Been Stricken By Wartime Use Of Agent Orange. Los Angeles Times  Spiral Foundation, which "has raised more than $1.6 million selling the handmade items to finance heart operations for Vietnamese suffering from congenital heart diseases and other genetic conditions believed to be tied to the spraying of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War." The Foundation, run by Marichia Simcik Arese, has "paid for 380 heart surgeries so far at a medical clinic in Hue."

•29.                       US-Vietnam Dialogue Group Work On Consequences Of AO/Dioxin. Voice of Vietnam News   A seminar held in southern Dong Nai province by the National Assembly Committee for Foreign Affairs and the Vietnam-US Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin to review recent activities. Over the next decade, the group plans to focus of removing dioxin from the worst-affected areas of Vietnam, remediating ecosystems and expanding services for the three million Vietnamese estimated to have Agent Orange-related disabilities and health problems.

•30.                       USMC General Back From Afghanistan: Enemy Is Desperate, Poor. San Diego Union-Tribune "Two weeks back from the war zone, the one-star general who commanded the Marine infantry in Afghanistan for the past year said America has done a good job armoring its troops against bullets." But, Marine Brig. Gen. Joseph Osterman "told members of the American Society of News Editors, the concussive injury - when a blast rattles the brain inside the skull - will be a significant problem for veterans returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 'I think those concussive injuries will probably be the hallmark injury of these two wars,' said" Osterman, "who spoke to a group of news industry conventioneers aboard the USS Midway Museum in San Diego Bay."

•31.                       Presentation Highlights Disparity Between Male, Female Veterans' Care. Rebel Yell   A student newspaper at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, notes that on Tuesday, the "Rebel VETS Lunch and Learn aimed to educate veterans about programs through the Department of Veterans Affairs that pertain to woman's health. Representatives from the VA health care and benefits programs, as well as from the Jean Nidetch Women's Center, spoke about their programs. 'The big thing is to get people to file a claim,' said VA Women's Program Benefits Coordinator Cynthia Wilson," who added, "There is nothing sadder than the day that a man and woman walk through my door and it's been decades since they got out of the service, and this whole time we could have been compensating them and providing for them treatment."