Retiree Appreciation Days 08: Retiree Appreciation Days (RAD) and Military Retiree Seminars are a great source of the latest information for retirees and Family members in your area. RADs vary from installation to installation, but, in general, they provide an opportunity to renew acquaintances, listen to guest speakers, renew ID Cards, get medical checkups, and various other services. Some RADs include special events such as dinners or golf tournaments. Since the day's schedule of activities differ from location to location, it is best to check with the event's point of contact for specific details. The Army maintains a current listing of activities for 2012 at www.armyg1.army.mil/rso/rads.asp, the air force at www.retirees.af.mil/factsheets...tsheet.asp?id=11781, and the Navy at www.npc.navy.mil/ReferenceLibr...ications/ShiftColors . Many of these are Joint (JRAD) offering info to retirees and Family members from all services. The current Army schedule lists:
Clarkson Univ. Potsdam, NY Jun 16 (315) 393-0580
Wiesbaden, Germany Jun 22 0611-705-7668
Tobyhanna, PA Jul 28 (570) 615-7409
Des Moines, IA Aug 15 (515) 277-6113
Minneapolis, MN Aug 24 (507) 474-9297
Camp Ripley, MN Aug 25 (763) 441-2630
Augusta, ME Aug 25 (207) 430-5463
Ft. Leonard Wood, MO Sep 7-8 (573) 596-0947
Ft. McCoy, WI Sep 7 (608) 388-3716
Plattsburgh, NY Sep 8 (518) 563-9479
Duluth, MN Sep 14 (218) 590-3114
Ft. Drum, NY Sep 15 (315) 772-6434
Ft. Sill, OK Sep 20-22 (580) 442-2645
Ft. Belvoir, VA Sep 21 (703) 806-4551
Ft. Lee, VA Sep 22 (804) 734-6555
Selfridge, MI Sep 22 (586) 239-5580
Ft. Meade, MD Sep 28 (301) 667-9603
Redstone Arsenal, AL Sep 28-29 (256) 876-2022
Ft. Bliss, TX Sep 29 (915) 569-6233
Ft. Dix, NJ Sep 29 (609) 562-2666
JB Myer-Henderson Hall Oct 5 (703) 696-5948
Schofield Barracks, HI Oct 6 (808) 655-1585
BENELUX Oct 12 0032-65-44-6238
Carlisle Barracks, PA Oct 13 (717) 245-4501
Heidelberg, Germany Oct 13 0049-(0)6221-57-8399
Vicenza, Italy Oct 17 0039-46-443-7320
Grafenwoehr, Germany Oct 19 0049-(0)9641-83-8539
Camp Humphrey, Korea Oct 20 (315) 730-4133
Schweinfurt, Germany Oct 20 0049-(0)9721-96-8812
Ansbach, Germany Oct 24 0049-(0)981-183-3301
Stuttgart, Germany Oct 25 0049-(0)7031-15-2599
Aberdeen PG, MD Oct 27 (410) 306-2320
Ft. Campbell, KY Oct 27 (270) 789-5280
Ft. Hamilton, NY Oct 27 (718) 630-4552
Ft. Polk, LA Oct 27 (337) 531-0363/0402
Rock Island Arsenal, IL Oct 27 (563) 322-4823
Ft. Knox, KY Nov 2-3 (502) 624-1765
JB Elmendorf-Richardson, AK Nov 3 (907) 384-3500
San Diego, CA (Navy) Nov 3 (619) 556 -8987
Ft. Detrick, MD Nov 8 (301) 619-9948
Syracuse, NY Nov 11 (315) 772-6434
Yongsan, Korea Nov 17 (315) 730-4133
[Source: e-Echoes May-Aug 2012 ++]
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SBP Premium: In February 2012, over 70,000 Retired Soldiers (9.3% of all Retired Soldiers) couldn’t pay their Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) premiums by automatic deduction from their retired pay like other retirees do because their disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) completely offset their retired pay. When Retired Soldiers’ retired pay is less than their SBP premiums, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service – Cleveland (DFAS-CL) sends them a Retired Account Statement (RAS) informing them of the problem. It is important for these Retired Soldiers to address this problem because unpaid SBP premiums carried over into a new billing month will accrue a six percent interest fee. One way to resolve this problem is to pay SBP premiums directly to DFAS at: Defense Finance and Accounting Service, DFAS-CL SBP and RSFPP Remittance, P.O. Box 979013, St. Louis, MO 63197-9000.

Payments sent to any other location, including the Retired and Annuitant Pay offices at DFAS-CL, will not be received and credited to your account. Another way to resolve this problem is to submit a DD Form 2891, Authorization for RSFPP and/or SBP Costs Deductions, to the VA. The form authorizes the VA to deduct SBP premiums from VA disability compensation and pay the premiums directly to DFAS-CL. The VA automatically adjusts the payments to DFAS-CL when SBP premiums increase due to cost of living adjustments to retired pay. Retired Soldiers should not submit a DD Form 2891 to the VA before DFAS-CL informs them that their retired pay is offset by their VA disability or they may inadvertently make double SBP payments. [Source: e-Echoes Sgt. Maj. (Ret) Bill Hursh article 169 Jun 2012 ++]

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Army Retiree Council Update 04: Possible increases in TRICARE premiums and changes to military retired pay were the Chief of Staff, Army (CSA) Retiree Council’s top two concerns when Co-Chairmen, Lt. Gen. (Ret) Frederick E. Vollrath and Sgt. Maj. of the Army (Ret) Kenneth O. Preston briefed the CSA, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, at the conclusion of the Council’s annual meeting held at the Pentagon from April 23-27, 2012. The Council strongly recommended that future increases in TRICARE not be tied to the medical inflation rate and that TRICARE premiums not be means tested, two proposals that the Congress is now considering. While the Council agreed that future increases in TRICARE premiums were inevitable, they stressed that increases should not be more than increases in retired pay. The Council voiced strong opposition to possible changes in retired pay, citing the adverse impact the REDUX retirement plan had on recruiting and retention in the late 1980s. For the same reason, it was equally opposed to attempts to replace the current defined benefit retired pay plan with a civilian 401K-like plan that ties retired pay to stock market performance. Also of importance to the Council were:
Efforts to involve retirees more deeply in telling Americans the Army story. Noting that only 1% of Americans serve in the military in these post-draft days, the Council recognized retirees’ responsibility and unique ability to explain what the Army does in America’s towns and cities. They asked the CSA to likewise educate Soldiers, especially senior Army leaders, about retirees’ value and contributions to the Army, emphasizing that retirees “are not a corporate resource, but an integral part of the institutional fabric.”
Echoes, asking that the Army continue to publish it in hard copy for all retirees, but especially for the 33% of retirees who don’t own computers and cannot receive e-Echoes, the electronic edition. The CSA supported this recommendation, saying he recognized Echoes’ importance by writing to retirees on the front page of each edition. The Council recognized the need to conserve funds by transitioning more retirees to e-Echoes and asked for the resources to expand and maintain electronic delivery methods.

The Council’s full report to the CSA outlines their major concerns as well as the their recommendations for how the Army should address the 16 issues that were nominated by installation retiree councils for review. The complete Council report is available at http://www.armyg1.army.mil/rso...ireeCouncil_2012.pdf. The 14 members of the Council represent retirees from across the U.S., Europe, and Korea and include retired Soldiers from all three components. The 2012 Council includes seven NCOs ranging from Sergeant First Class to Sergeant Major of the Army and seven officers ranging from Chief Warrant Officer Five to Lieutenant General. For a list of all 14 Council members and the installations they represent, the history of the Council since its inception in 1971, and its reports since 2001, refer to the Army Retirement Services website at http://www.armyg1.army.mil/rso/RetireeCouncil.asp. [Source: e-Echoes Lt. Col. (Ret) Mark Overberg article 19 Jun 2012 ++]

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Army Smartcard: The Army recently extended its smartcard pilot for Army spouses and retirees through September after what officials called a very positive response to the pilot program, which began in October 2011. The Army is evaluating smartcard identity authentication as an alternative to username/password login to websites, such as Army OneSource, Army Family Readiness Group, milConnect, TRICARE Online and Army Knowledge Online. Army spouses and retirees living near Fort Belvoir, Va.; Fort Bragg, N.C.; and Fort Jackson, S.C., are being asked to register for a smartcard, or renew their card by visiting the Smartcard Pilot page on AKO. Non-FOUO users link to https://ako.us.army.mil/suite/page/650680. FOUO users link to https://www.us.army.mil/suite/page/650680. The pilot is part of a larger initiative to secure sensitive data on Army private web servers, Army G-6 officials said. The smartcard's public-key-infrastructure, or PKI-based authentication, provides a more secure and convenient way to access Army and DOD online resources that contain personally identifiable information, they said, adding that the Army is also considering other solutions for family and retiree logon. From October 2011 to March 2012, more than 700 smartcards were issued to Army spouses and active-duty, Reserve and National Guard retirees across five pilot installations. Surveys showed that 93 percent of respondents preferred using the smartcard over username/password and 64 percent used the smartcard at least once a day to access Army and DOD websites. [Source: e-Echoes May-Aug 2012 ++]

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Non-VA Facility Care: The Department of Veterans Affairs recently announced a change in regulations regarding payments for emergency care provided to eligible veterans in non-VA facilities. More than 100,000 Veterans are estimated to be affected by the new rules, at a cost of about $44 million annually "This provision helps ensure eligible Veterans continue to get the emergency care they need when VA facilities are not available," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. The new regulation extends VA's authority to pay for emergency care provided to eligible Veterans at non-VA facilities until the Veterans can be safely transferred to a VA medical facility. Non-VA Care is medical care provided to eligible Veterans outside of VA when VA facilities are not available. All VA medical centers can use this program when needed. The use of the Non-VA Care program is governed by federal laws containing eligibility criteria and other policies specifying when and why it can be used. A pre-authorization for treatment in the community is required for Non-VA Care -- unless the medical event is an emergency. Emergency events may be reimbursed on behalf of the Veteran in certain cases. Refer to the Emergency Non-VA Care brochure at http://www.nonvacare.va.gov/br...Veteran_Brochure.pdf for further elaboration. There are five categories of Non-VA Care Programs. Information on each is available at:
Pre-authorized Outpatient Care http://www.nonvacare.va.gov/preauthout.asp
Pre-authorized Inpatient Care http://www.nonvacare.va.gov/preauthinpt.asp
Emergency Care of Service-Connected Conditions http://www.nonvacare.va.gov/unauth.asp
Emergency Care of Non-Service-Connected Conditions http://www.nonvacare.va.gov/ecnsc.asp
State Home Per Diem Program http://www.nonvacare.va.gov/state-homes.asp

Non-VA Care is used when VA medical facilities are not “feasibly available.” The local VA medical facility has criteria to determine whether Non-VA Care may be used. If a Veteran is eligible for certain medical care, the VA hospital or clinic should provide it as the first option. If they can’t -- due to a lack of available specialists, long wait times, or extraordinary distances from the Veteran’s home -- the VA may consider Non-VA Care in the Veteran’s community. Non-VA Care is not an entitlement program or a permanent treatment option. VA operates 121 emergency departments across the country, which provide resuscitative therapy and stabilization in life-threatening situations. They operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. VA also has 46 urgent care units, which provide care for patients without scheduled appointments who need immediate medical or psychiatric attention. For more information about emergency care in non-VA facilities refer to http://www.nonvacare.va.gov. To locate the nearest VA medical center or clinic refer to http://www2.va.gov/directory/guide/home.asp. [Source: e-Echoes May-Aug & www.nonvacare.va.gov Jun 2012 ++]

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Vet Toxic Exposure~Diesel: The World Health Organization (WHO) raised the status of diesel exhaust from ‘probable carcinogen’ to carcinogen. The risk of getting cancer from diesel fumes is small, but since so many people breathe in the fumes in some way, the science panel said raising the status of diesel exhaust to carcinogen from "probable carcinogen" was an important shift. "It's on the same order of magnitude as passive smoking," said Kurt Straif, director of the IARC department that evaluates cancer risks. "This could be another big push for countries to clean up exhaust from diesel engines." Since so many people are exposed to exhaust, Straif said there could be many cases of lung cancer connected to the contaminant. He said the fumes affected groups including pedestrians on the street, ship passengers and crew, railroad workers, truck drivers, mechanics, miners and people operating heavy machinery. The new classification followed a weeklong discussion in Lyon, France, by an expert panel organized by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The panel's decision stands as the ruling for the IARC, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization.

The last time the agency considered the status of diesel exhaust was in 1989, when it was labeled a "probable" carcinogen. Reclassifying diesel exhaust as carcinogenic puts it into the same category as other known hazards such as asbestos, alcohol and ultraviolet radiation. The U.S. government, however, still classifies diesel exhaust as a likely carcinogen. Experts said new diesel engines spew out fewer fumes but further studies are needed to assess any potential dangers. "We don't have enough evidence to say these new engines are zero risk, but they are certainly lower risk than before," said Vincent Cogliano of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He added that the agency had not received any requests to reevaluate whether diesel definitely causes cancer but said their assessments tend to be in line with those made by IARC. Experts in Lyon had analyzed published studies, evidence from animals and limited research in humans. One of the biggest studies was published in March by the U.S. National Cancer Institute. That paper analyzed 12,300 miners for several decades starting in 1947. Researchers found that miners heavily exposed to diesel exhaust had a higher risk of dying from lung cancer. Lobbyists for the diesel industry argued the study wasn't credible because researchers didn't have exact data on how much exposure miners got in the early years of the study; they simply asked them to remember what their exposure was like.

Further restrictions on diesel fumes could force the industry to spend more on developing expensive new technology. Diesel engine makers and car companies were quick to point out emissions from trucks and buses have been slashed by more than 95 percent for nitrogen oxides, particulate and sulfur emissions. "Diesel exhaust is only a very small contributor to air pollution," the Diesel Technology Forum, a group representing companies including Mercedes, Ford and Chrysler, said in a statement. "In southern California, more fine particles come from brake and tire wear than from diesel engines." A person's risk for cancer depends on many variables, from genetic makeup to the amount and length of time of exposure to dangerous substances.

Some experts said the new cancer classification wasn't surprising. "It's pretty well known that if you get enough exposure to diesel, it's a carcinogen," said Ken Donaldson, a professor of respiratory toxicology at the University of Edinburgh who was not part of the IARC panel. He said the thousands of particles, including some harmful chemicals, in the exhaust could cause inflammation in the lungs and over time, that could lead to cancer. But Donaldson said lung cancer was caused by multiple factors and that other things like smoking were far more deadly. He said the people most at risk were those whose jobs exposed them to high levels of diesel exhaust, like truck drivers, mechanics or miners. "For the man on the street, nothing has changed," he said. "It's a known risk but a low one for the average person, so people should go about their business as normal … you could wear a mask if you want to, but who wants to walk around all the time with a mask on?" [Source: Associated Press Ben Margot article 13 Jun 2012 ++]

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Agent Orange Okinawa Update 04: The U.S. Marine Corps buried a massive stockpile of Agent Orange at the Futenma air station in Okinawa, possibly poisoning the base's former head of maintenance and potentially contaminating nearby residents and the ground beneath the base, The Japan Times recently learned from interviews with U.S. veterans.

The barrels were apparently abandoned in Okinawa at the end of the Vietnam War — when the U.S. government banned the dioxin-laden defoliant for health reasons — and were buried at the installation in the city of Ginowan after the Pentagon ignored requests to safely dispose of them, according to the veterans who served at the installation in the 1970s and 1980s. Closing down Futenma has been the center of a bitter 16-year struggle by Tokyo and Washington to realign U.S. forces on the island, but these allegations are likely to raise fears that even after its eventual shutdown, the land beneath the base will be too poisoned for civilian use for decades, as is the case with former U.S. installations that stored Agent Orange in the former South Vietnam. One of the veterans who made the claims of the burial is retired Lt. Col. Kris Roberts, 57, who was in overall charge of maintenance projects at U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. In summer 1981, after being notified by ranking officers that monitoring showed "unacceptably high readings" of chemicals in the wastewater flowing off the facility, Roberts said he and his construction crew began digging in an area near the end of the runway. "We unearthed over 100 barrels buried in rows. They were rusty and leaking and we could see orange markings around some of their middles," Roberts, now a state representative in New Hampshire, told The Japan Times in a recent interview.

The dangers of Agent Orange — which took its name from the color of the stripes around the drums in which it was stored — were still not widely known in the early 1980s. But Roberts said his suspicions were aroused when higher brass declared the construction site off-limits to other personnel, then ordered the barrels secretly loaded onto trucks by Okinawan workers and transported to an unknown location. Soon after the barrels were removed, a typhoon flooded the site of the burial. "The water had a chemical film on it from the leaking barrels. My men and me climbed down into it and eventually managed to drain the contaminated water off the base," Roberts said. Due to his contact with the barrels' contents, Roberts, a former champion marathon runner, said he fell sick with heart problems, prostate cancer and precursors of lung cancer — diseases that his doctor states are a result of exposure to Agent Orange. Concerned that his fellow crew members were also poisoned, Roberts has repeatedly urged the U.S. Marine Corps and Department of Veterans Affairs to contact them, but his requests have been ignored, he said.

During the past year, more than 30 U.S. veterans have told The Japan Times about the use of Agent Orange in Okinawa during the Vietnam War, when the island served as a major supply post for the American military. While some of the former service members have spoken about the use of Agent Orange in the period up to the mid-1970s, this is the first time its existence there has been alleged as recently as the 1980s. The Pentagon denies that the defoliant was ever present in Okinawa, but the Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded compensation to at least three veterans sickened by these chemicals on the island. Among those to go public is Carlos Garay, a former marine who was in the Headquarters and Maintenance Squadron at Futenma in 1975. Garay claims he saw 12 barrels of Agent Orange that had been left at the installation after the end of the Vietnam War. "Additionally, other squadrons were directing their leftover stocks to us for disposal, so I sent messages to the Department of Defense and Headquarters of the Marine Corps, but they never replied. The barrels were still there when I left in 1976," he said.

Garay's account and Roberts' discovery of the barrels suggest confusion among the top brass over how to remove the stocks of Agent Orange that were never officially supposed to have been present in Okinawa. Between 1961 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed 76 million liters of herbicides in Southeast Asia to rob its enemies of crops and jungle cover, but their use was halted after studies linked the chemicals to birth defects and serious illnesses. In 1972, the U.S. removed its stockpiles of Agent Orange from South Vietnam to Johnston Island in the North Pacific where, after a five-year debate over how to dispose of them safely, they were eventually incinerated at sea in 1977. Scientists researching the dangers of Agent Orange in South Vietnam have discovered that because its highly poisonous dioxin is not dissolved by rainwater, it can remain in the soil, poisoning people for decades. In southern Vietnam today, there are more than 20 dioxin hot spots at sites used by the U.S. military to store Agent Orange.

Near the Futenma base, which has been dubbed by some locals as "the world's most dangerous military base" because of its proximity to residential areas, there are 20 schools, including 10 elementary schools. Some are located close to the area where the barrels were found and the contaminated water was expelled. Yoichi Iha, mayor of Ginowan from 2003 to 2010, told The Japan Times that the U.S. Marine Corps failed to notify the Ginowan Municipal Government of the leak-age in 1981 and he worries that the area may still be poisoned by dioxin due to the topography beneath the base, which consists of many caves and natural springs. "If the dioxin is still in the soil, then we can confirm its presence with sampling. But the Japanese government won't grant permission to conduct such tests within U.S. installations in Okinawa," Iha said. The U.S. military — which under Japanese law is not responsible for cleaning up former bases returned to civilian usage — has an unenviable track record of polluting its installations in Okinawa.

In 1995, the Onna Communication Site was returned to civilian use, but it still hasn't been redeveloped due to contamination from pollutants, including mercury and highly toxic PCBs. In 1999, dangerous levels of lead and carcinogenic hexavalent chromium were found in the soil after the partial closure of the Kadena Ammunition Depot.
Last summer, a U.S. veteran's account of the 1969 burial of hundreds of barrels of Agent Orange in what is today a popular tourist area in Chatan Town alarmed local residents. Explaining why the army buried the barrels, the veteran, who did not want his name to be revealed due to fears of repercussions from the Department of Veterans Affairs, said: "It was cheaper to bury stuff than to ship it back to the States for proper disposal. It's what the military always did on Okinawa." [Source: Japan Times Jon Mitchell article 15 Jun 2012 ++]

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VA Claims Backlog Update 68: To hear wounded veterans tell it, there are few things more daunting, infuriating or soul-crushing than dealing with the Veterans Benefits Administration, the agency that decides whether they will receive disability benefits for injuries and illnesses incurred during war. As the inventory of unprocessed claims has grown — to more than 900,000 nationwide — so has anger with the agency. On 18 JUN, in what has become an annual ritual, Congress again held hearings on the V.B.A.’s chronically poor performance. But in one small pocket of the sprawling benefits agency, a branch of the Department of Veterans Affairs, front-line workers are taking the unusual step of going public about the dysfunction within their own bureaucracy, making common cause with some of their loudest critics. On 23 JUN, workers from the benefits agency’s regional office in Columbia, S.C., will picket outside their workplace, hoping to spotlight what they consider root causes of their system’s breakdown: lack of accountability, inadequate resources, hopelessly complex policies and demoralizing work conditions. “We want to take care of veterans; many of us are veterans,” said Ronald Robinson, a protest leader, president of the union local and an Army veteran. “We can’t sit any longer and be blamed for things that are beyond our control.”

The backlog in the disability compensation system has steadily worsened since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, having more than doubled in the last decade. The department defines its backlog as claims that have been awaiting decisions for more than 125 days, the department’s benchmark for timeliness. Almost no regional office has been immune from problems, with the office in Oakland, Calif., now sending new claims to other offices because its inventory has grown so large. Yet even the Columbia office, considered by some veterans advocates to be relatively good, had a backlog of about 15,000 claims last month and did not accurately process one out of three claims last year, according to a report by the department’s inspector general. Leaders of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the protesters in Columbia agree on some of the causes of the backlog: a flood of claims by recent Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans as well as aging Vietnam veterans seeking compensation for old injuries or Agent Orange-related illnesses; a weak economy; and the growing complexity and number of injuries and diseases now recognized as service-related.

But on the issue of how to fix the problem, the two sides sharply diverge. The department says its efforts to digitize records, update computer software, hire 4,000 workers, extend overtime to process claims and make changes intended to speed the processing of claims will begin shrinking inventory by next year. In a statement, the V.A. said those initiatives had put it on track to process all claims in less than 125 days by 2015. “Change can be challenging, and we recognize that our dedicated employees are critical to providing veterans with timely, quality benefits,” the statement said. In the trenches in Columbia, however, the protest leaders say those efforts had made little difference, and in some cases had made matters worse. One reason, they said, is that some new procedures have added complexity to an already complex process. For instance, they said:
A questionnaire created to allow veterans to use private health providers to do physical examinations is longer and more complicated than the forms used by government providers. When questionnaires are returned with mistakes or unchecked boxes, reviewers must return them, delaying decisions. “They’ve implemented so much stuff, no human can keep up with it all,” said Cindy Indof, a decision review officer who has been with the department for 20 years.
Processing a claim had become increasingly segmented, with files passing through several hands before being denied or approved. As a result, files are more likely to be misplaced, communications garbled and decisions slowed, they said. And no one is held accountable for mistakes because so many people are involved. “No one has ownership over anything,” said Mr. Robinson, a veterans service representative.
The performance review process used to measure their productivity reduced the quality of work and hurt morale. The process requires claims processors to complete a certain number of files per day. People who fall short can be denied promotions or fired. Those who meet or exceed quotas become eligible for bonuses. Those quotas encourage processors to take shortcuts that often lead to mistakes, or to focus on easier cases over complex ones. And when in doubt, processors tend to deny claims, the workers said, because denials are generally faster.

Though the Columbia protest might seem isolated, James Strickland, a Vietnam-era veteran and retired health care manager who runs a popular Web site, VAWatchdog.org, said he had heard similar complaints from V.A. offices across the country. The Columbia workers are different, however, because they have gone public. “They aren’t looking for more money or vacation,” said Mr. Strickland, who plans to attend the protest. “I heard them say, ‘I want the system to change so I’m allowed to do my job.’ And I hear that all the time.” Mr. Robinson said about 8,300 cases were ready to be processed in the Columbia office, which has about 100 claims raters, many of whom already have more than 140 cases on their desks. “Do the math,” he said. “There is nothing we can do to catch up.” [Source: The New York Times James Dao article 15 Jun 2012 ++

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VA Claims Backlog Update 69: The Veterans Affairs Department’s highly touted paperless benefits system has processed fewer than 800 benefits claims despite VA’s investment of $491 million. The news comes as the number of backlogged claims hit 913,690, representatives of veterans services organizations told lawmakers at a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on 19 JUN. Gerald Manar, deputy director of the National Veterans Service for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS) has been installed in only “four regional offices and, we are told, fewer than 800 cases have been processed to completion.” Richard Dumancas, deputy director of the American Legion’s Claims, Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission, said that while VA had promised systemwide rollout of VBMS this year, it has now been pushed back until the end of 2013. “Red flags have been raised about how soon we can expect an impact on reducing the backlog,” he said.

Dumancas said the department’s initial experience with VBMS shows some delays in opening files that cumulatively could create significant delays over the course of a workday. “These lag issues are showing up with a relatively small number of users in pilot sites, and when the whole system goes nationwide, system demands will presumably be far greater,” he said. The backlog at VA continues to grow as well as the number of claims pending for more than 125 days. As of this week, about 66 percent of claims (575,773) had not been processed after 125 days -- more than three times the number two years ago, Jeffrey Hall, assistant national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans, told lawmakers. Manar said the problems with VBMS are just the latest in a 20-year effort by VA to modernize its claims processing system “because VBA has lacked a coherent vision of what a 21st century claims processing system should be.” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki told the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee in March that by 2015, the department will process all claims in fewer than 125 days with a 98 percent accuracy rate. [Source: Next.Gov Bob Brewin article 19 Jun 2012 ++]

VA’s $491 million paperless benefits system struggles to keep pace

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CT Vet Discount Card: Connecticut's Department of Veterans' Affairs is partnering with a national program to offer the state's veterans and their families discounts at a network of retailers, restaurants and service providers. Interested Connecticut veterans, active duty military, National Guard, reservists and their families can enroll for the Veterans Advantage Inc. card through the state veteran's department website. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced the partnership on Friday. Veterans Advantage partners with private corporations that want to honor the military and offer discounts on their goods and services, ranging from rental cars to clothing. Funding from the program’s membership goes to the creation of a statewide scholarship program that will be awarded by the state Department of Veterans’ Affairs. The Department of Veterans' Affairs website is http://www.ct.gov/ctva . Visitors to the site can receive a 25 percent discount on the program's fees. Veterans Advantage, founded in 1999 by a group of high-ranking military veterans and headquartered in Connecticut, is the leading card membership program offering exclusive benefits for the more than 90 million qualifying Americans from a nationwide network of retailers and service providers across the U.S. The program’s mission is to deliver greater recognition, respect and rewards as a thank you for service to the country through the VetRewards Card, a universal military service ID card, and in its partnerships with patriotic companies. For more info on Veterans Advantage refer to http://www.VeteransAdvantage.com. [Source: The Hour Publishing Co article 17 Jun 2012 ++]

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VA Fiduciary Program Update 03: Across the country, disabled veterans' families are waging bitter battles with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, trying to remove VA-appointed fiduciaries from their lives and their bank accounts. Two activist attorneys, Doug Rosinski, of Columbia, S.C., and and Katrina Eagle, of San Diego, have taken on the VA in cases involving allegations of bureaucratic mistreatment. Both said regional program managers sometimes overlook the misdeeds of paid fiduciaries while coming down hard on veterans' relatives who do the work for nothing. The agency's policy is that family members get priority in fiduciary appointments, but it does not always work that way. And while many family members serve successfully -- and thanklessly -- as fiduciaries for disabled veterans, some get into trouble, often because of a lack of training or knowledge of the rules. In those cases, the family's situation often becomes nightmarish. R. Dean Slicer, a top regional program manager in Indiana, boasted in a November 2010 email to an Indianapolis bank official that they would have "fun" battling with a war veteran's daughter. Carolyn Stump, a registered nurse, was trying to free her seriously ailing 81-year-old dad, William Evans, from a fiduciary at the bank who had tangled with the family and had recently been slow paying some bills, according to court records. Slicer, who last year was promoted to oversee the fiduciary program in 13 states, declined to comment. "Obviously there are stories that we are going to look into," said VA spokesman Joshua Taylor when asked about that case and others.

Veterans are rarely successful in winning control of their finances back from the fiduciary program. The VA had long held that beneficiaries had no right of appeal. But in April 2011, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims agreed with Rosinski's argument that there is an appeal right. Armed with that ruling, he is trying to win release for his client, disabled Dallas veteran William Freeman, from a "complete stranger" appointed as his fiduciary. The judges chided Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki for his department's failure to explain its handling of Freeman. Joe Boatman, of Round Rock, Texas, also never got an explanation why James Andrews, a fiduciary program official based in Waco, showed up at his house last July to berate his wife for the way she had handled their finances as her husband's appointed fiduciary for 10 years, bringing her to tears. Andrews' follow-up report cited overdraft charges and questioned Boatman's access to the bank accounts. He also said "no questionable expenditures or misuse of funds were identified," though he added there was no way to tell because his funds were commingled with his wife's. His report described Boatman as an "alert" and cogent man. Eagle said the VA had previously allowed Boatman's wife, a retired social worker, to commingle their monies. In previous reports she was praised for her handling of their finances.

Andrews, who could not be reached for comment, had already appointed a new fiduciary to take over Boatman's financial affairs. Eagle said his criticisms seemed "pre-ordained" to justify his actions. After Eagle got involved, the VA backed away, taking the unusual step of releasing Boatman from the program. Eagle said it helped that his case was mentioned at a February congressional hearing. The VA also ordered an investigation of the case. It has not responded to a Hearst request for the report. Boatman, who was a Navy combat medic in Vietnam, chaired a committee of Vietnam veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. He challenged local Veterans Affairs officials over PTSD policies and at one point had a role in exposing an embarrassing department email. "I was blindsided out of nowhere," Boatman says of the fiduciary flap, but adds he does not think he was retaliated against.

In the Indiana case of William Evans, Eagle said, she's sure retaliation did occur. Slicer -- the recently promoted regional manager -- and others in his office have for more than two years been waging a nasty and unresolved battle, which has gone repeatedly to a special veterans appeals court, to prevent Evans and his family from wriggling free of the fiduciary program. Stump, the veteran's daughter, had nursed Evans for more than a decade when in July 2009 she inquired about a medical guardianship. She was persuaded by federal bureaucrats to apply for a financial one, records show. She had power of attorney for her father already, and didn't think the fiduciary program was necessary, but she accepted the role, according to documents. Upset from the beginning, she wrote to her congressman about it. Her relationship with Veterans Affairs deteriorated. Still, an agency field examination in July 2010 found "no questionable expenditures," a tidy home and a well-cared-for father. Behind the scenes, a wounded bureaucracy was preparing to come down on her, court records show. In October 2010, Stump was removed as fiduciary and an official at Greenfield Banking Co., Joana Springmier, was appointed. VA officials questioned Stump's failure to get prior permission to buy appliances and new flooring for her father's home, and her decision to take Evans on trips to get special medical treatment and to visit Army buddies before he slipped into the darkness of Alzheimer's. She was told the trips were "emotional spending" -- not allowed -- and the bank was instructed to save more money for emergencies. Stump said she saw no reason to hoard her ailing father's money with him so close to death.

In a Nov. 22, 2010 email to Springmier, Slicer mentioned the "many congressional and other complaints filed by Mrs. Stump." He told Springmier to "document any conversations you have." He cited a technical misstep: Stump's mother had refused to disclose her small Social Security allotment. "So this will be a fun one," wrote Slicer. Stump said her mother was afraid that Slicer would seize her income, too. In March, Rosinski and Eagle filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans' Claims, accusing the VA of "punitive if not retaliatory" behavior in the case. Two other Indiana families fought with Slicer's office and the bank, including Vicki Olson, of Fort Wayne, who won freedom from the program for her husband in a protracted battle that caused her to become a volunteer advocate for other veterans. [Source: Times Union Eric Nalder and Lise Olsen article 16 Jun 2012 ++]

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VA Fiduciary Program Update 04: They survived the Nazis, the Viet Cong and the Taliban. But hundreds of mentally disabled veterans suffered new wounds when the country they served put their checkbooks in the hands of scoundrels. Gambling addicts, psychiatric cases and convicted criminals are among the thieves that have been handed control of disabled veterans' finances by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, a Hearst Newspapers investigation has found. For decades, theft and fraud have plagued the fiduciary program, in which the VA appoints a family member or a stranger to manage money for veterans the government considers incapacitated. The magnitude and pace of those thefts has increased, despite VA promises of reform. Three of the largest scams – ranging from about $900,000 to $2 million – each persisted for 10 years or more before being discovered. In the last six years, the VA has removed 467 fiduciaries for misuse of funds, but only a fraction have faced criminal charges, a Hearst analysis of data from the VA's Office of the Inspector General shows.

The government has never adequately tracked fiduciaries' thefts from brain-damaged or memory-impaired veterans. The inspector general's office says it conducted 315 fiduciary fraud investigations from October 1998 to March 2010, resulting in 132 arrests for thefts amounting to $7.4 million. But a Hearst analysis of court records and documents obtained by freedom of information requests shows that the thieves' take since 1998 is more than $14.7 million – nearly twice the amount reported to Congress. VA spokesman Joshua Taylor says the program is being reorganized, and improvements are being ordered every year. "VA has taken significant efforts to protect veterans and other beneficiaries in its fiduciary program," said Taylor.

CASE FILE #1: The inside job.
Robert Morong Tabbutt was a VA field examiner, desperately in debt, who supervised fiduciary Jack Perry in Memphis. He used his authority to set up a dozen mentally disabled veterans as ATM machines so that he and Perry could steal from them, according to records obtained by Hearst under the Freedom of Information Act. They siphoned away nearly $900,000 with stunning ease, the records show. Over a decade, more than 1,000 illegal transactions were so obvious anyone doing a simple audit of bank records would have discovered them. Perry falsified records and moved veterans' money from account to account to cover their tracks. Meanwhile, the two began to gamble at Mississippi casinos, and Tabbutt, who filed bankruptcy petitions five times between 2001 and 2007, borrowed money from Perry hundreds of times. The stealing did not stop until Perry went to the FBI and confessed in 2008. Veterans and their families, meanwhile, were not told they'd been ripped off, even after the thieves were finally sent to prison. Until a Hearst reporter called him for this story, Henry Ashurst, 83, did not know that for a decade, he had unwittingly financed the lifestyle and gambling habits of Perry and Tabbutt. "I thought he was on the level," Ashurst, an Army veteran, said of Perry. "Things went wrong, and that should not have happened," said VA spokesman Taylor, adding that he could not discuss specific details of any cases.

A 2004 law requires victims like Ashurst to be reimbursed if the VA is partially at fault for their losses. Taylor told Hearst that since 2008 only 15 beneficiaries have been reimbursed a total of $652,685 under that law because of VA negligence. U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, said he has been trying to get information from VA on compensation for the Tennessee victims, without success. Attorneys who represent program participants said it is very difficult to get stolen money back from the VA. "It has to be pried out of them," said former combat medic Richard Weidman, executive director for policy and government affairs at Vietnam Veterans of America. He summed up the fiduciary program in four words: "The corporate culture stinks." Jim Vale, program director for Vietnam Veterans, said the program's lack of transparency is "appalling." Weidman describes the fiduciary program as one of the department's biggest problems, because its clientele "are among our most vulnerable." Thieving fiduciaries operate illegally for an average of 32 months before being caught, Hearst's analysis reveals. More than 70 cases are pending in the clogged federal system, or in state courts, since federal prosecutors frequently decline to handle the cases. Even when they do, it takes, on average, 29 months before charges are filed, according to Hearst's analysis.

CASE FILE NO. 2: The slow-motion prosecution
Joy Farmer eluded VA auditors for five years while juggling the books at a Tuskegee, Ala., law office before being caught in May 2004. Federal prosecutors didn't indict her for another six years. Finally, she was sentenced to federal prison in September 2011 for embezzling more than $620,000 from 25 vulnerable clients. "It just kind of got pushed from attorney to attorney," said Clark Morris, an assistant U.S. Attorney in Montgomery, Ala. Even when investigations yield convictions, many of the criminals receive probation in exchange for promises to repay some or all of what they stole. But they often fail to pay, and many victims die before receiving any restitution. After 10 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as veterans age, the number of mentally disabled veterans is growing rapidly. As of May, more than 127,000 veterans have fiduciaries who oversee more than $3.3 billion in assets. Fiduciary failures rank "pretty high up there" among the current VA problems, said U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, which is drafting reform legislation. "We are talking about the life savings of a veteran," said Miller, adding that the agency is too often "part of the problem."

Taylor said that under the Obama Administration, the VA has beefed up background checks of new appointees, added staff, consolidated scattered fiduciary offices into six regional hubs, and appointed the reorganized program's new leader, VA lawyer David McLenachen, last August. In direct response to fraud, the agency has also issued directives requiring that veterans' annual bank statements be sent directly to the VA, and now prohibits excessive compensation to fiduciaries when veterans receive large retroactive benefit checks. Yet audits repeatedly fault agency employees for failing to properly examine financial records, and for not coordinating with other agencies like Social Security to exclude known scofflaws from managing veterans' money. Staff turnover is high and training for fiduciaries is virtually nonexistent. Fiduciaries sign agreements, but not formal contracts. On-site inspections are often tardy or skipped, and field examiners are ill-prepared to deal with sophisticated would-be thieves.

CASE FILE NO. 3: The $2 million haul.
Roy Wilson Swirczynski, a disabled U.S. Army veteran in Houston, filed three written complaints to the Department of Veterans Affairs about his VA-approved fiduciary, attorney Joe Phillips, and requested an investigation years before the VA discovered nearly $2 million missing from 28 veterans' accounts. Phillips and his wife Dorothy have been charged with stealing the money in a pending Houston federal court case. The thefts were discovered when the VA audited Phillips' fiduciary work in 2007 – for the first time in 25 years. It is the largest theft total ever uncovered in fiduciary program. Dorothy Phillips pleaded guilty to conspiracy; Joe Phillips denies wrongdoing and is awaiting trial. Phillips and his attorney refused comment for this story. For years, Swirczynski has kept date-stamped copies of his own complaints against Phillips – faded from years of moving from place to place – in a suitcase alongside his mother's obituary, his U.S. Army service record and a faded snapshot of himself in his younger days. In one complaint, Swirczynski, a Beaumont native who suffers from schizophrenia, asked officials stop a "holdup." In another, he asked for Phililps' removal, saying: "This Joe Phillips fiduciary is not a 5-mile long freight train that takes 500 miles to stop." Swirczynski said the VA never formally responded and he learned of Phillips' indictment from the Houston Chronicle. The VA won't say whether or not any of his money was stolen. "That's what really galls me," said Swirczynski, who can get around and function most days despite his illness. "They need to be exposed. They always have the excuse that they're overworked and don't have enough people and all that crap."

The VA loses track of money and fiduciaries in part because of an ancient, Wang-based computer system, cobbled together by agency staff in 1989 and slightly upgraded in 1998. The system cannot interface with the department's other more modern computers. Slated for replacement many times, the computer system can track a fiduciary for only two months. Mandatory accounting reports that are two or three years late are shown in the system to be just one year late, records show. In March 2010, the agency's inspector general estimated that $161 million in the coffers of mentally disabled veterans was "at risk of misuse because of the volume of seriously delinquent accountings." An audit also faulted the computer system for VA's failure to list fiduciaries already removed for bad conduct. Replacement would cost an estimated $2 million – less than veterans lost in the Phillips case. McLenachen admitted during a February congressional hearing that the computer system and antiquated agency regulations are both obstacles. He promised new regulations by 2013 and a new computer system at an unspecified date. Current rules, for example, provide no professional standards or qualifications to be required of fiduciaries, and no limits on the number of veterans an individual fiduciary can handle. One out of four fiduciaries convicted of financial misuse over the past decade were found to have mental illness, gambling problems, substance abuse issues or some combination of them, Hearst's investigation shows.

CASE FILE NO. 4: The call of the casino.
Hazel Dianne Hill of Coppell, Texas, said she controlled 16 veterans' finances and was "very trusted" by the VA. She was as a Department of Labor investigator and a gambling addict. In January 2008, after the wagering had buried her in debt, she told Hearst it was too tempting to take "a little bit" at a time from veterans and easy to conceal it by shuffling money from account to account. A remorseful Hill turned herself in when she "got tired of crying" in July 2009, she said, but not before embezzling $62,000 from three veterans. Given VA's lax oversight, "frankly, she could have taken money until the day she died," said Hill's attorney Perry Hudson. In Fort Worth, fiduciary Patricia Ibrahim got five years in prison after she withdrew veteran Larry Rodgers from a nursing home and put him without permission into a "substandard" group facility so she could "use his money to go gambling," said prosecutor Lori Burks. "It is despicable." Rodgers died before Ibrahim was prosecuted. The most financially destructive of the many fiduciaries with gambling addictions was Connie Hanson, of Apple Valley, Minn., who stole $1,260,000 from veterans to feed her habit. She is in prison.

CASE FILE NO. 5: The violent felon.
Patrick Wayne Manning Jr. of Oklahoma had a rap sheet and a murder charge dismissed on a technicality before he was appointed to oversee his uncle's money, according to court documents. He went to prison for three years for stealing from the uncle, was re-incarcerated for a drug offense, then a week after his release in 2008 went on a three-month robbery spree that netted him another 160-year sentence. To keep bad actors out of the program, the department only last December mandated "instant background checks" on prospective fiduciaries. Checks were done in the past, but documents show authorities often required only a self-generated criminal history and a good credit report. Earlier this month, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas demanded that the VA report to him about why so many thefts keep occurring. Miller, the Florida congressman, also dislikes the pattern he sees. "My suspicion continues to be high that there may be more of this (theft) going on than any of us are aware of," he said. “Mainly because there is no way to tell.”
[Source: Times Union Eric Nalder and Lise Olsen article 17 Jun 2012 ++]

The grave of Grady Green, World War II veteran, buried at Houston National Cemetery, Tuesday, May 15, 2012, in Houston. Green had his money stolen by a Houston woman who was supposed to be his caregiver - she got $5,000 to buy him a grave and pay for his care, but instead blew it on her own bills, traffic tickets and plumbing repairs. He died before the VA investigated the case.
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VA Fiduciary Program Update 05: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs opposes many of the fixes proposed by Congress members to address flaws in the national fiduciary program, which serves more than 130,000 disabled veterans and oversees $3.3 billion in assets nationwide. The agency opposes requirements to provide annual progress reports to Congress or to inform vets promptly when their fiduciaries are convicted of crimes, according to testimony on a reform bill at a congressional hearing 20 JUN. Some improvements in the Veterans Fiduciary Reform Act of 2012 (H.R.5948) would cost too much, said Dave McLenachen, the VA's director of pension and fiduciary services. But U.S. Rep Bill Johnson, the Ohio Republican who chairs the House Veterans Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, countered that improvements would likely cost about $400 million less than the amount the VA paid last year in bonuses.

Increasing reports of fraud and theft among VA fiduciaries were the focus of a Houston Chronicle/Hearst investigation published 17 JUN. The investigation of more than 100 prosecutions and decades of audits revealed convicted thieves, problem gamblers, the mentally ill and the bankrupt had been handed control of disabled vets' disability checks - and estates - by the VA. Johnson and other Congressmen and Senators are calling on the VA to address problems documented in the Houston Chronicle as well as by auditors and veterans advocacy groups. "This legislation will require a credit and criminal background check every time a fiduciary is appointed, and allow veterans to petition to have their fiduciary removed if problems arise," Johnson said in a news release. [Source: Houston Chronicle Lise Olsen article 20 Jun 2012 ++]

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VA Disputed Claims Update 07: Nearly 70 years after he served in North Africa, Veterans Affairs approved benefits for Stanley Friedman for post-traumatic stress disorder. The war gave him flashbacks and nightmares. He flailed around in his sleep, bruising his arms. Memories of being bombed and rocketed seemed real, and painfully intense. Tech Sgt. Friedman was ultimately diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, the signature disability from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A few weeks ago, Friedman received his first 70 percent disability check for PTSD from the Department of Veterans Affairs. It wasn’t for service in Iraq or Afghanistan. It was for World War II. Stanley Friedman is 92. After fighting the VA for years, Friedman got help from lawyers who logged hundreds of hours digging up evidence not only of his World War II service but of his debilitating PTSD. The VA finally accepted their documentation, and now Friedman is being compensated for what was called shell shock or battle fatigue when he served nearly 70 years ago. “It’s like a miracle,” Friedman said last week from his home outside Chicago, his mind still sharp and his voice heavy with the Brooklyn accent of his youth.

Friedman is hardly the only World War II veteran to receive benefits because of PTSD, but his long path to approval is unusual and noteworthy for the time and effort involved. About 19,000 World War II veterans receive such benefits, the VA says (compared with 115,000 Iraq, Afghanistan and Persian Gulf War veterans). But most of those World War II veterans had an easier time of it because many, unlike Friedman, held on to their service and medical records. For years, Minna Rae Friedman suffered through her husband’s nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety and refusal to discuss the war. It came to a head a dozen years ago, she said, when his grandson interviewed Friedman for a school project on World War II. The boy asked: “Tell me the truth, Grandpa. Were you scared?” The old man replied: “I was scared to death.” Actually, he used a more pungent description, his wife recalled.“That’s when it all really started to come out,” she said. A VA doctor diagnosed Friedman’s PTSD in 2001. In 2004, Friedman applied for disability benefits but was denied; he could prove neither his combat service nor his disability. For similar reasons, his 1946 application for disability benefits for a back injury and sand fly fever he suffered in North Africa was rejected.

In 2009, the San Diego office of the law firm DLA Piper heard about Friedman’s case from a law school in Chicago. Lawyer James Garrett, and later Veronica Jackson and Oksana Koltko, began searching for documentation as part of the firm’s pro bono work for veterans. It would take them at least 350 work hours over more than two years. They scoured old newspapers and mountains of reproduced microfilm records supplied by the military. They also interviewed Friedman’s doctors, his wife and his children to obtain formal declarations about his PTSD symptoms. “I felt like a detective,” Jackson said. After months of searching Army records that turned up nothing about Friedman, Garrett realized that, because Friedman served in what was then the Army Air Corps, his records were kept by the Air Force. He pawed through Air Force microfilm and finally found a handwritten diary entry from an American captain in Tunisia in 1943 describing a certain “Sgt. Friedman.” From that clue, Garrett was able to establish Friedman’s service in North Africa from 1943 to 1945 and the name of his ordnance maintenance company. Other documents verified that Friedman’s troop ship was torpedoed and dive-bombed en route to Tunisia in 1943, and that members of his unit were killed in an attack on a truck in Tunisia in 1944.

The terror of being attacked on the ship, and of stumbling across a buddy’s corpse after the truck attack, clung to Friedman for years. He would keep his TV turned on late at night, he said, so he wouldn’t fall asleep and revisit recurring nightmares. “You’re always in fear for your life,” he said of the war memories that haunted him. His flashbacks terrified him and left him in a constant state of dread. He became depressed, anxious and uncommunicative, his wife said. Friedman had managed to work for years as a salesman for an aluminum foil company, but over the past decade he became increasingly debilitated by PTSD. One box of documentation the lawyers sent to the VA in February 2010 weighed in at 800 pages. A year later, the VA accepted the documentation and granted Friedman a 50 percent disability rating. The lawyers believed he deserved more, and they filed added documentation requesting a 70 percent rating. In April, the VA agreed. The first check at the higher rating arrived later that month. “I never, ever thought we’d get to where we are today,” Minna Rae Friedman said. Until a few years ago, she said, “I never knew anything about PTSD.” “This is wonderful,” she said. “It validates all Stanley has gone through.” Said Stanley: “It’s a marvelous thing they did for me.”

Garrett, who worked for the Peace Corps and as a firefighter before becoming a lawyer, said, “It’s just about the most significant thing I’ve ever done in my life.” Because the VA handles hundreds of thousands of cases and World War II records are difficult to trace, Jackson said, Friedman’s case was a remarkable example of patience by a man in his ninth decade. And it was immensely gratifying to help him persevere. “It makes you proud to be a lawyer,” she said. Friedman now makes regular visits from his home in Lake Bluff, Ill., to a VA facility in Chicago. He’s part of a PTSD therapy group that includes a few veterans from World War II and Vietnam, and younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. His doctor provides regular PTSD treatment. All that, and the successful conclusion of his decades-long battle for benefits, is bringing him out of his PTSD-induced depression. “It’s made a new man out of me,” Friedman said. [Source: Los Angeles Times David Zucchino article 17 Jun 2012 ++]

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FHA Streamline Refinancing Program: Military members who are not eligible for VA home loan benefits will often use FHA loans similar to VA loans for their low-money-down and government-backed features. Current FHA borrowers may be entitled to newly reduced FHA Streamline refinancing which can help cut the costs to refinance while taking advantage of today’s low interest rates. Price-cut FHA Streamlines help borrowers take advantage of today’s low interest rates. Historically low rates have made mortgage refinancing trendy, but some FHA borrowers have hesitated because they don’t want to pay increased mortgage insurance costs. Starting June 11, 2012, mortgage insurance discounts will be offered to certain borrowers through the FHA Streamline refinancing program. The price-cut FHA Streamline program features reduced-rate mortgage insurance including .01% for upfront mortgage insurance premium (UFMIP), and 0.55% for annual mortgage insurance premium (MIP). Reduced rates through FHA Streamline can save thousands of dollars upfront compared to regular FHA refinance. To qualify, borrowers must:
Have an FHA loan endorsed on or before May 31, 2009
Be current on their mortgage payments
Meet other FHA and lender qualifying guidelines for Streamlines

FHA borrowers who can’t qualify for the price-cut Streamline program will have to pay the going rate for upfront and annual mortgage insurance. UFMIP has recently jumped from 1% to 1.75%. And, annual MIP on a 30-year loan can be between 1.2% and 1.5% depending on the situation. Borrowers who qualify for price-cut FHA Streamline can avoid these increases. Streamlines require significantly less paperwork and have relatively easy income and credit qualifying. Most Streamlines close within two weeks. With price-cut FHA Streamlines, borrowers can enjoy immediate monthly savings on interest as a result of their refinance. Many who use this program will save a small fortune on interest over the lives of their loans. Look for FHA lenders that offer cost-free Streamlines with no origination, no appraisal and no closing costs. One place to look is at https://www.ifreedomdirect.com...streamline-refinance. [Source: Military.com Veteran Report 18 Jun 2012 ++]

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Vet Benefits: Not sure of your veteran benefits? The Military.com Benefit Calculator is designed to quickly and easily connect you with your benefits information based on service and status. Find Federal Benefits, State Benefits, National Guard State Benefits, Special Military Discounts, and more for active, prior service vets, retired, and disabled vets; National Guard and Reservist drilling/not drilling and activated vets; service member, retiree, and veteran spouse; and surviving spouse and family by going to http://benefits.military.com/r...fits.do?ESRC=mrvr.nl. If you fit into more than one category look at each separately. For example when I clicked on Retired USN it gave me the below. When I clicked on additional categories that were applicable to me it gave me the additional benefits:

Commissary and Exchange Privileges. Access to shopping at military commissaries and exchanges.
GI Bill Apprenticeships / Work Study / OJT. A GI Bill program designed to assist military members as they transition to civilian employment.
GI Bill For Active Duty Chapter 30 Up to 36 Months of Education benefits that can be used for education, training, certification, apprenticeship, and on-the-job training programs. *National Guard and Selected Reserve may be eligible under previous active duty enlistment.
Legal Assistance. Free legal assistance to help with issues like contracts, wills, and powers of attorney.
Military Medical/Dental. Access to military provided medical care facilities.
Military Pay and Allowances. Monthly pay and allowances for subsistence, housing and cost of living.
Military Recreation Facilities. Use of on base gyms, tennis courts, swimming pools, auto hobby shops, golf courses etc.
Retirement Pay. Monthly pay based on a percentage of pay at the time of retirement.
Service-Disabled Veterans Insurance (S-DVI). Up to $10,000 in additional life insurance coverage.
Social Security Benefits. Visit the Social Security Benefits Calculator to learn more.
Space Available Travel. Free travel on Military Transport aircraft on a space available basis.
Survivor Benefit Plan. An annuity plan to help provide a monthly payment to designated beneficiaries. Learn more.
TRICARE (medical/dental). The Department of Defense's health care program for members of the uniformed services, their families and survivors.
VA Disability. Compensation Programs You may be eligible for Disability Compensation if you have a service-related disability and you were discharged under other than dishonorable conditions. * Requires a VA service connected disability rating ** Eligible disabled military retirees normally have their retirement pay offset by the amount of VA compensation received.
VA Home Loans. Allows eligible veterans and servicemembers to purchase a home without making a down payment. Certain surviving spouses may also be eligible, under special criteria.
VA Memorial and Burial Benefits. A wide range of burial and memorial benefits ranging from Military Funeral Honors to burial reimbursement.
VGLI(veteran life insurance). VGLI is a life insurance program which allows servicemembers to convert their SGLI coverage to renewable term insurance.
Veteran Federal Employment Preference. Veterans have a couple of different tools that can give them an edge in getting a civil service (Federal) job: the Preference Points and Veteran's Recruitment Appointment rule.
Veteran's Health Care Programs. A VA provided health care coverage plan for veterans.
Veteran's Pension Programs You may qualify if you are a wartime veteran with a limited income and you are no longer able to work, you may qualify for a Veterans Disability Pension or the Veterans Pension for Veterans 65 or older.
Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment. Vocational rehabilitation & employment services under Chapter 31 of the GI Bill. These services include, but are not limited to, counseling, training, education and job placement assistance. * Requires a VA service connected disability rating
* Requires a VA service connected disability rating
[Source: Military.com article 18 Jun 2012 ++]

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Blood Thinners Update 05: For millions of heart patients, a pair of new blood thinners have been heralded as the first replacements in 60 years for warfarin, a pill whose hardships and risks have deterred many from using the stroke-prevention medicine. But growing complaints of risks and deaths tied to the new crop of drugs have made some top U.S. cardiologists hesitant to prescribe them. Some are proposing a more rigorous monitoring regimen for when they are used.
Most concerns revolve around Pradaxa, a twice daily pill from Boehringer Ingelheim that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in October 2010 to prevent strokes in patients with an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation. It was the first new oral treatment for that use since warfarin was introduced in the 1950s. "The good news is you now have an alternative to warfarin," said Dr. Alan Jacobson, director of anti-coagulation services at the Veterans Administration (VA) healthcare system in Loma Linda, California. "The bad news is you can kill a patient as easily with the new drug as you could with the old drug" if it is not handled properly. "The average patient doesn't understand anything about the new drug, or what the risks are, or what other medicines he can or can't take," said Jacobson, citing interactions with common painkillers and other drugs that can alter Pradaxa blood levels.
Xarelto, a once daily pill that Johnson & Johnson developed with Bayer AG, was approved last November for atrial fibrillation. The condition affects about 3 million Americans, causing blood to pool in a storage chamber of the heart, where it can clot and travel to the brain.

Both new drugs were designed to sidestep risks of warfarin, including brain hemorrhages and other dangerous bleeding, and become mainstays of a new therapeutic market worth at least $10 billion a year. Patients taking warfarin require close monitoring and regular blood tests as well as dietary and lifestyle changes. Doctors have less data and familiarity with Xarelto, which is still being rolled out. But Jacobson and another dozen physicians interviewed by Reuters expressed similar concerns about both Pradaxa and Xarelto. They say that real world use of Pradaxa and Xarelto, which do not require regular blood monitoring or frequent doctor follow-up, raises concerns about the risk of stroke, serious bleeding and blood clots if not taken properly, particularly in patients with poor kidney function. The nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices estimated last month that 542 reports of deaths associated with Pradaxa were reported to the FDA in 2011, topping all other medicines, including warfarin, with 72 deaths. Adverse event reports on Xarelto were not available.

The makers of Pradaxa and Xarelto say it takes time for doctors to get up to speed on new types of treatments and how to best administer them outside the controls of clinical trials. "This is a shift in medical practice," said Dr. John Smith, senior vice president for clinical development at Boehringer. "Individual physicians have to determine what the follow-up plan will be, to use common medical-sense judgment." Dr. Peter Wildgoose, a senior director of clinical development at J&J, said the company has not provided special advice on follow-up care for patients on Xarelto. "There's nothing more than for any other drug that people regularly take," he said, adding that most atrial fibrillation patients probably see their doctors on a regular basis. "These drugs have been tested long term, for several years at a time, with very good outcomes." Boehringer Ingelheim and Johnson & Johnson officials stressed there was far less evidence in trials of brain bleeding - the most worrisome side effect of anti-coagulants - in patients taking Pradaxa and Xarelto than those taking warfarin. In the meantime, warfarin is holding its own, with 33 million U.S. prescriptions filled for atrial fibrillation and other uses last year, according to IMS Health, a healthcare information and services company. Some 2.2 million prescriptions were filled for Pradaxa. About 130,000 U.S. prescriptions were written for Xarelto in the first three months of 2012. Pradaxa and Xarelto each cost about $3,000 a year, versus just $200 for generic warfarin.

Prominent U.S. heart doctors stress that neither new drug has a known antidote for a bleeding emergency, as warfarin does. They also say that patients using them should undergo testing ahead of time to ensure good kidney function, be carefully taught potential pitfalls of the drugs and be seen by doctors periodically, especially after a switch is made. "I have received a dozen phone calls from local colleagues in the last couple of months about bleeding on Pradaxa and have yet to find a single case where that bleeding was not related to improper use of the drug," said Dr. Sanjay Kaul, a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Kaul found that many of the doctors failed to test patient kidney function before prescribing Pradaxa, though 80 percent of the drug is excreted in that organ. Weak kidneys allow the medicine to build to unsafe levels in the bloodstream. About two-thirds of Xarelto is eliminated by the kidneys - including 36 percent of the active drug as well as drug that has already been rendered inactive by the liver. Other doctors failed to ask patients whether they had a history of gastrointestinal bleeding, which raises the risk for Pradaxa. "What really compounds the matter is the lack of a specific antidote to reverse life-threatening bleeding" from Pradaxa, said Kaul, who served on independent panels that advised the FDA on both new medications. Kaul said he had written only one prescription for Pradaxa and none for Xarelto. Boehringer Ingelheim said it is working on an antidote, but declined to elaborate. Johnson & Johnson said it is not developing an antidote, but is monitoring early efforts by other drugmakers to come up with one. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, which is developing a blood clot drug called Eliquis that is similar to Xarelto, declined to comment on the antidote issue.

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VA Suicide Prevention Update 12: Mental-health experts, the U.S. military, the groups that aid returning service members, their families are trying to provide a sense of support for veterans and active-duty troops in an attempt to prevent the growing number of suicides. American troops have been taking their own lives in alarmingly increasing numbers over this past decade at war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Veterans Affairs Department is looking to black women, the group in the U.S. population with the lowest suicide rate, to learn the factors behind that statistic and, hopefully, then determine how best to use that knowledge to help service members. We're taking a look at a cross section of the U.S. troops whose suicides have shaken the military and the nation as well as at some of the support offered to veterans and their families, all strained by repeated tours during a decade at war. [Source: National Journal Stephanie Czekalinski article 12 Jun 2012 ++]

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DoD Lawsuit ~ Colton Read: The U.S. government has asked a federal judge in Fort Worth to dismiss a lawsuit filed this spring on behalf of a retired Air Force airman who had both legs amputated when a routine surgical procedure went horribly wrong in a military hospital in California three years ago. Fort Worth attorney Darrell Keith sued the government on behalf of Colton Read and his wife, Jessica, both of whom grew up in Arlington, challenging a 60-year-old Supreme Court precedent that bars service members from collecting damages from the government for wrongful death, medical malpractice or any other typical tort claims. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, seeks tens of millions of dollars for the Reads for pain, impairment, disfigurement, loss of earning capacity and mental anguish. In a recently filed response, U.S. attorneys cite exactly that precedent — known as the Feres Doctrine after the name of the original case in 1950 — in arguing that the Reads' claims are a dead end. "This case involves a straightforward application of the Supreme Court's nearly sixty-year-old holding in Feres," the brief states. "This Court is without jurisdiction to entertain the Reads' claims, and this case should be dismissed."

If Judge John McBryde dismisses the claim, Keith hopes eventually to persuade the Supreme Court to review the case and overturn what he once called the extremely unjust, outmoded, universally criticized and judicially erroneous Feres Doctrine. "Colton and his wife and I were expecting the federal government's response and motion to dismiss," Keith said. "The government's motion is just the first step in the long run to the Supreme Court." The Feres Doctrine has withstood challenges over the years from military members and their families. The last challenge came from the family of an airman who died after a botched appendectomy at the same hospital where Read had his surgery, a case that ended last year when the Supreme Court declined to reverse a lower-court ruling that tossed out the suit. Although other government employees and citizens can sue the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the Supreme Court ruled in the 1950s that military personnel cannot. Instead, the government has said that military members who are injured, no matter the cause, can receive pension benefits and lifelong medical care from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The government attorneys said there is no disputing what the Supreme Court has ruled. "Simply put, the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity does not extend to injuries which arise incident to military service, which is broad enough to encompass the alleged injuries sustained by the Reads," the government brief states. Government attorneys also argued that the case should be dismissed because it was filed in the wrong venue. At the least, the attorneys said, the case should be transferred to a federal judge in the Western District of Texas or in the Eastern District of California. The Reads own a home in New Braunfels, and the surgery was performed at Travis Air Force Base in California, neither of which are in the federal system's Northern District of Texas, the brief states. Keith said that although the couple owns a house in New Braunfels, "as far they are concerned, it's still a temporary residence."

On July 9, 2009, Read went to the base hospital at Travis for laparoscopic, or minimally invasive, surgery to remove his gallbladder, an operation he needed before deploying overseas. The routine surgery turned nearly deadly when one of his doctors lacerated his aorta at the beginning of the procedure, according to court documents, and he started hemorrhaging. It took several hours for the doctors to determine what had happened and fix it. Keith's lawsuit alleges that the doctors sewed Read's aorta shut and prevented blood from reaching his legs for longer still. When Read was transferred to a civilian hospital later that day, physicians had to amputate both his legs, one all the way to the hip. The lawsuit accuses the government, the Air Force and the hospital of negligence and says they are liable for 23 different actions, or lack of actions, made by the two military surgeons that day. [Source: Stars & Stripes Chris Vaughn article 14 Jun 2012 ++]

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Army Day: Army Day should not be confused the Army's Birthday, which is celebrated on June 14. The origins once in 1925. Congress then disallowed any further observances of this day. In response, the Military Order of the World War under Colonel Thatcher Luquer established Army Day. Army Day was first celebrated on May 1, 1928. That date was chosen in hopes of dampening Communists' celebration of Workers' Day, which also occurs on May 1. But, starting in 1929, Army Day was changed to April 6, the anniversary date of the United States' entry into World War I. Army Day was established as a nationwide observance to draw public attention to national defense and to acquaint the public with Army activities. In addition, the day was used to stress the need for military preparedness, which the nation had lacked as it entered earlier major conflicts. "The failure to make adequate preparation for the inevitable struggle, the consequent suffering from disease and death entailed upon the armies which were hastily raised, the prolongation of the conflict far beyond the time which sufficient and equipped forces would have required for victory, and the heavy costs of reconstruction" were caused by the lack of preparation of the nation.

On April 4, 1936, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation that Army Day be recognized by Congress as April 6 and observed nationwide. On March 1, 1937, Congress passed Resolution #5-75 which officially recognized Army Day. Army Day was last observed nationally in the U.S. on April 6, 1949. Army Day is celebrated as a Chinese holiday on 1 AUG to commemorate the PLA's contribution to China. All Army veterans are honored on this day. Army Day is celebrated on 15 January every year in India, in recognition of Lieutenant General (later Field Marshal) K. M. Cariappa's taking over as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from Sir Francis Butcher, the last British commander, in 1948. [Source: Military.com article 6/15/12 ++]

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Medal of Honor Update 12: After the Philippine-America War (1899-1902) in General Order No. 64 issued on Nov. 25, 1912, the U.S. War Department honored Jose Nisperos with the medal for "most distinguished gallantry," after he repulsed a group of rebels who ambushed the 34th Company of the Philippine Scouts in Basilan on Sept. 24, 1911. "Having been badly wounded (his left arm was broken and lacerated and he had several spear wounds in the body so he could not stand), Private Nisperos continued to fire his rifle with one hand until the enemy was repulsed, thereby aiding materially in preventing the annihilation of his party and the mutilation of their bodies," read the citation. During rites at the Luneta Park on Feb. 5, 1913, Nisperos received the medal from Brig. Gen. Franklin Bell, the commanding general of the U.S. Army's Philippine Division. The US Army discharged Nisperos and gave him a pension of $55 a month. He died at age 34 in 1922 following an illness.

Maria Delilah Turzar, 40, a young girl had always been fascinated by the framed, faded magazine article displayed on the wall of her grandmother's house in San Fernando City in La Union (north Philippines). The Philippines Free Press article, written in 1957 by Primitivo Milan, was titled, "The First Filipino Awardee of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor," and talks about Turzar's great grandfather, Private Jose Nisperos, of the 34th Company of the Philippine Scouts. Nisperos was the first Filipino and Asian to receive the medal, the highest U.S. military honor. "I kept on reading the story about Lolo Jose and wondered where the medal was," Turzar said. When she was 10, she accompanied her Lola Guia (Nisperos' daughter) to Mass. After the Mass, her grandmother knelt down and started to cry. "I understood that deep in her heart there was no closure of that chapter in their life. I promised her then: 'When I grow up, I will exert my best effort to find what is rightfully due your father and our great grandfather.' I made the same promise to her sisters, Leonila and Concepcion," Turzar said.

Lolo Jose left behind his wife Potenciana and three young daughters Guia Esperanza, Leonila Flora and Concepcion. Turzar’s grandmother had told her that a relative took the medal days after Nisperos died in 1922, supposedly to help Nisperos' widow, Potenciana, claim benefits from the American government. But since that day, the family never saw the medal. The pension never came and Potenciana worked as a market vendor to support the family. Five years ago Turzar embarked on a mission to find the medal, meeting different people along the way, some of whom tried to take advantage of her search. "There were people coming even from the United States pretending to be writers and knowing about Lolo Jose. They said they could help us approach people to get it back, for a fee of $5,000. Of course, we did not have that money to give them," she said. But her effort and patience bore fruit. After 90 years, Nisperos' Medal of Honor is now with the family for safekeeping. San Fernando Mayor Pablo Ortega was instrumental in locating the medal, she said. Ortega appealed through the media to spread information on the missing medal and sought its return to the family.

Early in June 2012 , the mayor's friend, an antique dealer who runs a store in a shopping mall in Metro Manila, informed him that he knew the collector who bought Nisperos' medal at an auction of the Philippine Numismatic and Antiquarian Society in 2010. Turzar said the collector, who asked not to be identified, learned about the family search and appeal from media reports. A meeting for the medal's return was then set. "We finally met the collector on 7 JUN and he just gave it back to us, without asking for anything in return," Turzar said. Turzar was ecstatic when she read her great grandfather's name engraved on the medal. "My grandmother Guia, her sisters Leonila and Concepcion and even my mother Virginia never saw the medal in their lifetime. Now my promise to them had been fulfilled," Turzar said. According to Ortega, the collector wanted the medal to be placed in the custody of the city government and displayed in a museum. The medal, he said, would be kept in a vault of a government bank until the city sets up a museum. [Source: Asia News Network Yolanda Sotelo article 14 Jun 2012 ++]

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CRSC Update 41: Many men and women enlist in the military with the intention of making it a career. Some do so and walk away from their service unscathed. But others suffer injuries in combat-type situations that hinder – or eliminate – their ability to work after military retirement. Still, others are so badly injured in those situations that they are medically retired long before the normal retirement age. That’s where Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) can benefit a military retiree. CRSC eligibility can come from injuries suffered during armed conflict or training that simulates war, while on hazardous duty, or from an instrumentality of war, such as exposure to Agent Orange or while in a combat vehicle. To be eligible for non-taxable CRSC, applicants must:
Be entitled to and/or be receiving military retired pay
Be rated at least 10 percent by VA
Waive their taxable military retirement pay
File a CRSC application with their respective branch of service.

A veteran may be eligible for CRSC no matter when the veteran left active military service; it can be paid to a 60-year-old Vietnam veteran who was medically retired in 1973, a 72-year-old Vietnam veteran who retired in 1982 after 20 years of service, or to a 29-year-old veteran who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and was medically retired in 2006. However, for those retired due to longevity, the effective date for CRSC payments cannot be earlier than May 31, 2003 – the effective date established for the original CRSC statute. For those medically retired under Chapter 61 of Title 10, U.S. Code, the effective date for CRSC payments cannot be earlier than January 2008, when the bill authorizing CRSC for these veterans became law. If it sounds like a complicated process to you and you would like to have some assistance in submitting your CRSC claim, most of the national military fraternal organizations will provide it at no cost to the applicant:.
The American Legion, can help through its network of department service officers at <link deleted>
The Veterans of foreign Wars (VFW) organization will provide assistance through their network of service offices at <link deleted>
The Disabled American Veterans (DAV) organization will provide assistance through their network of service offices at <link deleted>
You can also contact your regional or local VA office which can be found at http://www.vba.va.gov/bln/21/ro/rocontacts.htm and http://www2.va.gov/directory/guide/home.asp?isFlash=1.
[Source: The American Legion Update 14 Jun 2012 ++]

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Stolen Valor Update 68: Veterans from the Military Order of the Purple Heart, the organization that helped put Michael Delos Hamilton, 69, in prison for falsely claiming to have been a highly decorated military veteran, expressed their discontent recently after hearing the fake colonel was being released early. Hamilton was sentenced in September to 16 months in federal prison after being convicted the previous April of wearing the medals and uniform of a highly decorated Marine colonel without authorization, making false statements to federal authorities and embezzling fraudulent disability payments totaling more than $37,000 from the Department of Veterans Affairs. He was released 17 JUN from the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner after having served only eight months of his 16-month sentence. At the time of his sentence, he had already served 141 days in jail, which added an additional four and a half months to his time served. In addition, he has currently earned 54 days of good conduct and as long as he maintains his good standing, he will have earned 62 days total of good conduct time, all of which was taken into consideration when his release date was calculated, according to Chris Burke, a spokesman from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

“This is ridiculous,” said retired Sgt. Maj. Grant Beck, president of the MOPH Beirut Chapter. “Not only did he steal the honor of legitimate heroes, but then he defrauded the government of $30,000 that could have certainly been used for veterans who honestly need that help ... and now (the help) is not available because of people like him.” Hamilton began receiving disability payments in 2009 for post-traumatic stress disorder allegedly triggered by his combat experiences in the Marine Corps. During Hamilton’s trial, his sister testified that he had served in the Marines for less than a year before being medically discharged. She added that Hamilton never deployed and military officials confirmed there was no record of Hamilton having participated in secret operations as he had claimed. “I am not pleased to hear that he’s getting out early,” said retired Master Sgt. John Cooney, adjutant for the MOPH Beirut Chapter who testified against Hamilton in his September trial. “I don’t know that he has learned his lesson and I don’t even know if he would have learned his lesson if he’d stayed in there the whole (16 months).” Hamilton was exposed as a phony in spring 2010 when he appeared at a Vietnam Veterans memorial service in Jacksonville wearing a colonel’s dress regalia and multiple combat decorations to include two Navy Crosses, four Silver Stars and eight Purple Hearts pinned to his chest. “The man is sick,” Cooney said. “There are so many phonies running around here and him being released isn’t doing anybody any justice.” Beck and Cooney said they believe Hamilton’s early release may have something to do with his health, since he appeared especially frail at his September trial after having spent in four months in jail. [Source: Jacksonville Daily News Amanda Wilcox article 17 Jun 2012 ++]

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Stolen Valor Update 69: The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a federal law making it a crime to lie about receiving the Medal of Honor and other prized military awards, with justices branding the false claim “contemptible” but nonetheless protected by the First Amendment. The court voted 6-3 in favor of Xavier Alvarez, a former local elected official in California who falsely said he was a decorated war veteran and had pleaded guilty to violating the 2006 law, known as the Stolen Valor Act. The law, enacted when the U.S. was at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, was aimed at people making phony claims of heroism in battle. The ruling, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, ordered that the conviction be thrown out. “Though few might find respondent’s statements anything but contemptible, his right to make those statements is protected by the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech and expression. The Stolen Valor Act infringes upon speech protected by the First Amendment,” Kennedy said.

The high court has in recent years rejected limits on speech. The justices struck down a federal ban on videos showing graphic violence against animals and rejected a state law intended to keep violent video games away from children. The court also turned aside the attempt by the father of a dead Marine to sue fundamentalist church members who staged a mocking protest at his son’s funeral. In 1989, the court said the Constitution protects the burning of the American flag. Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented in the Alvarez case. “These lies have no value in and of themselves, and proscribing them does not chill any valuable speech,” Alito said. “By holding that the First Amendment nevertheless shields these lies, the court breaks sharply from a long line of cases recognizing that the right to free speech does not protect false statements that inflict real harm and serve no legitimate interest.”

Alvarez made his claims by way of introducing himself as an elected member of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Pomona, Calif. There is nothing to suggest that he received anything in exchange or that listeners especially believed him. The government had defended the law as necessary to punish impostors to protect the integrity of military medals. But Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan said in a separate opinion that there were ways for the government to stop liars “in less restrictive ways.” One possibility would be to “insist upon a showing that the false statement caused a specific harm or at least was material, or focus its coverage on lies most likely to be harmful or on contexts where such lies are most likely to cause harm,” Breyer said. Civil liberties groups, writers, publishers and news media outlets, including The Associated Press, told the justices they worried that the law, and especially the administration’s defense of it, could lead to more attempts by government to regulate speech.

Then-Gen. George Washington established military decorations in 1782, seven years before he was elected as the first president. Washington also prescribed severe military punishment for soldiers who purported to be medal winners but weren’t. It long has been a federal crime to wear unearned medals, but mere claims of being decorated were beyond the reach of law enforcement. The Stolen Valor Act aimed to solve that problem, and won significant support in Congress during a time of war. Alvarez’s lawyers challenged the law by acknowledging their client’s lies, but also insisting that they harmed no one. “Statutes suppressing or restricting speech must be judged by the sometimes inconvenient principles of the First Amendment,” Kennedy said. “By this measure, the statutory provisions under which respondent was convicted must be held invalid, and his conviction must be set aside.”

In response to the Court decision, Congressman Joe Heck (R-NV) said, "Now that the Supreme Court has laid down this marker, I will be pushing for a vote on a version of the Stolen Valor Act that will pass constitutional scrutiny." Congressman Heck has introduced H.R.1775, a revised Stolen Valor Act, which would make it illegal for individuals to benefit from lying about their military service, record, or awards. According to the Nevada Republican his bill would pass constitutional review on the grounds that it does not attempt to limit speech basing the bill on whether an individual benefits from the lying. Rep. Heck's bill has 52 bipartisan co-sponsors. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) has introduced the Senate companion bill, S.1728. The National Association of Uniformed Services (NAUS) is asking for your help in contacting your elected officials to gain support for H.R.1775 by clicking on their CapWiz Alert at http://capwiz.com/naus/issues/alert/?alertid=61516361 to send an email. Ask your family, friends and neighbors to become involved too. Free speech is one thing but deliberately lying for gain or to impress others demeans the sacrifices made by all real veterans. [Source: Associated Press & NAUS articles 28 & 29 Jun 2012 ++]

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Vet Jobs Update 67: In an effort to help reduce Veteran unemployment, Health Net Federal Services, LLC, part of the Government Contracts segment of Health Net, Inc. on 14 JUN announced the launch of their Veteran and Military Spouse Employment Initiative, a comprehensive and progressive plan to recruit, hire, train and retain Veterans for the Health Net workforce. This initiative, as well as recent partnerships with Joining Forces and Hero Health Hire, is reflective of Health Net's commitment to the well-being of our nation's Veterans. Tom Carrato, president of Health Net Federal Services said, "Health Net has a deep appreciation for the service and sacrifices of military members, their families and Veterans. We have a long history and sound record of hiring Veterans and military spouses. This formal initiative is a natural progression of our mission of service to military members, their families and the Veteran community. We consider it good business to hire Veterans and are proud to be part of the Joining Forces and the Hero Health Hire efforts to ensure members of the military community successfully transition to civilian life…Leadership ability and the strong sense of mission that comes from military service are characteristics that are highly valued in a competitive business environment. Today's unacceptable high rate of Veterans' unemployment has led to robust efforts in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors to reverse this trend, and Health Net is committed to do its part." Key targets of the initiative include:
Increasing hiring of Veterans and spouses by 10 percent over the next three years;
Promoting and participating in recruitment opportunities such as military job fairs, conferences and online social media networks;
Continuing to develop strategic relationships with Veteran and military organizations that support and foster employment opportunities, such as Hero Health Hire and Department of Defense Military Spouse Employment Partnership, Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America, Joining Forces, Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), and Blue Star Families; and
Implementing a system to monitor and track Veteran employment objectives to ensure effectiveness and overall program success.

Health Net, Inc. is a publicly traded managed care organization that delivers managed health care services through health plans and government-sponsored managed care plans. Its mission is to help people be healthy, secure and comfortable. Health Net, through its subsidiaries, provides and administers health benefits to approximately 5.6 million individuals across the country through group, individual, Medicare (including the Medicare prescription drug benefit commonly referred to as "Part D"), Medicaid, U.S. Department of Defense, including TRICARE, and Veterans Affairs programs. Health Net's behavioral health services subsidiary, Managed Health Network, Inc., provides behavioral health, substance abuse and employee assistance programs to approximately 4.9 million individuals, including their own health plan members. Health Net's subsidiaries also offer managed health care products related to prescription drugs, and offer managed health care product coordination for multi-region employers and administrative services for medical groups and self-funded benefits programs. For more information on Health Net, Inc., refer to http://www.healthnet.com. [Source: Business Wire article 14 Jun 2012++]

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Vet Jobs Update 68: Industrial manufacturer Eaton Corporation, whose automotive business makes superchargers and many other parts, also supplies electric-car charging stations. Under a recent Federal contract, Eaton will provide those charging stations to various Federal locations--and the company is also working to train new installers for those stations. Among the future installers will be qualified U.S. military veterans. Eaton is working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (and the Community College of Baltimore County) to create the pilot "VetCars" program, which will instruct veterans how to install and service infrastructure for plug-in vehicles. Veterans who complete the program can also earn a certificate showing that they are qualified to maintain the advanced batteries used in plug-in vehicles.

Employment opportunities for returning veterans have been a challenge over the last few years, as the tough economy has made jobs at all levels more scarce. The intention, Eaton says, is to "provide returning veterans with jobs in communities across the country. The charging station contract is between the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and Autoflex, which will install Eaton's stations as part of the Electric Vehicle Pilot Program. That program is now expanding beyond its five original test cities: Washington, D.C., Detroit, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. More than 60 charging stations have already appeared at various Federal agencies and departments, with more on the way. The goal is to see how and when plug-in electric drivers take advantage of at-work charging in the near term. Range-extended electric cars like the Chevy Volt and pure battery electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf went on sale in December 2010, joined by plug-in hybrids like the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid just a few months ago. There will be more than 40,000 of them on U.S. roads by the end of this year. Electric cars may also be popular with veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, as those soldiers have experienced first-hand the costs of maintaining U.S. energy supplies and the associated geopolitical impacts. [Source: The Washington Post John Voelcker article 13 Jun 2012 ++]

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Vet Jobs Update 69: The 2012 Veterans Talent Index is a comprehensive analysis of transitioning military service members, veterans and their employers. The report shows the confidence level for both employers and veterans has dropped over the past six months. The three indices of the report follow:

The Veterans Career Confidence Index: A monitor of veterans' confidence in finding a job combined with the level of skills they acquired during and after their military service. The May 2012 report surveyed more than 900 veterans who revealed that while they believe their military skills are valuable, they're increasingly frustrated and show a lack of confidence in their ability to find an appropriate job due to the lack of preparation for their transition to civilian work. The May 2012 Index dipped to 54, compared to 56 in November 2011, on a scale of 0-100. May 2012 details:
75% of veterans, up from 73% in the prior report agree that their military skills are valuable in civilian careers.
Only 29% of respondents are confident about finding work that suits them, down from 44% in November 2011.
Less than half (47%) of respondents feel they are prepared for their career transition out of the military, down slightly from 52% in November 2011.

The Veterans Job Search Activity Index: A monitor of transitioning veterans' job search activity and the resources they use. The May 2012 Index rose to a 77 on a scale of 0-100 compared to 74 in November 2011, reflecting the increased base of veterans as well as their increased job search activity. May 2012 details:
Veterans likely to look for a job in the next 12 months is up from 69% in the prior report, with nearly three-quarters (74%) of respondents very or extremely likely to be looking for work within the year.
Top keywords searched by veterans reveal an interest in customer service, security and management positions; top keywords searched by employers reveal accounting, computer software engineers and computer systems analysts are in demand.
Each of the top five job search challenges listed in November 2011 increased in May 2012. The challenge of ‘finding opportunities for which I am qualified' jumped the most, rising as a concern from 45% to 53%.

The Employer Veterans Hiring Index: A monitor of how employers who have hired multiple veterans in the past year compare work performance to non-veteran employees. The May 2012 survey of over 900 employers revealed continued positive indications towards veterans, but also revealed a gap between veterans' and employers' views, and a sense that veterans need to do a better job of explaining their skills in order to more successfully compete with the national job seeker pool. The May 2012 Index dropped to a 71 on a scale of 0-100, compared to a 74 in November 2011. May 2012 Details:
An encouraging 74% of surveyed employers reported they had hired more than one veteran within the past year, up from 70% in the 2011 report.
Nearly all surveyed (99%) who had hired a veteran felt their work experience was about the same or much better than non-veteran workers; 99% would recommend hiring a veteran.
The May 2012 survey showed more respondents reported veterans were the best qualified candidate for the job, yet fewer saw a candidate's work and military experience as primary drivers to hire; down from 44% in November 2011, 32% of respondents reported veterans offer needed special skills and talents compared to non-veterans.

What veterans may lack in civilian experience, they more than make up for in military experience. The majority of veterans (83%) have more than five years of military experience compared to 55% who have more than five years of civilian work experience. Many of today's U.S. jobs (72%) feature requirements of less than five years of work experience; both employers and veterans will need to navigate the transference of military experience into today's workplace. "Veterans bring a wide range of skills and expertise into the mix of professionals seeking employment, but it's difficult shifting their mindset out of military culture and into civilian culture when talking to a hiring manager," said T McCreary, president of Military.com and vice president for Monster Worldwide. "The VTI provides actionable intelligence to assist employers in filling their talent needs and to provide veterans who want to make that transition into a civilian job, the feedback required to compete in, and acclimate to, the environment they're transitioning into." To access Monster's comprehensive May 2012 Veterans Talent Index report, and to learn more about hiring veterans and advice on how to bridge the communication gap, visit the Veterans Employment Center http://www.military.com/veteran-jobs. [Source: Military.com Benefits article 18 Jun 2012 ++]

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Vet Jobs Update 70: U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki today unveiled a new portal on their departments’ websites designed to help military veterans find jobs in the transportation industry. “Our transportation industry needs pilots, controllers, mechanics and drivers – the very kinds of skills that our military is known for developing,” Secretary LaHood said. “This new web link will help repay the debt we owe our veterans for their service to our country.” Secretary Shinseki said, “Veterans have the skills, knowledge and attributes that American businesses need to help rebuild an economy that will last. … These men and women bring exceptional leadership to any position. They are uniquely qualified for jobs as pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers, commercial drivers and emergency medical technicians because many of them have performed these roles in combat."

The portal on the U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs websites will link to the Veterans Transportation Career Center, where former members of the armed forces can enter their specific military work experience and see how it translates to jobs in the civilian working world. The site will guide veterans to jobs in five categories: aviation pilot, aviation maintenance technician, air traffic controller, commercial motor vehicle driver and emergency medical services. Job seekers can find what training and certification is needed for civilian jobs, determine what career fits best with their background, and search for available jobs in their field. The portals are available at http://www.dot.gov and http://www.va.gov. Secretaries LaHood and Shinseki announced the new portal at an aviation-workforce management conference held at DOT headquarters in Washington. The conference on labor-management relations was first formed in response to a recommendation made by the Future of Aviation Advisory Committee (FAAC), which was convened by Secretary LaHood in 2010. The FAAC recommended that DOT hold events like this to bolster labor-management relations. [Source: VA News Release 21 Jun 2012 ++]

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GI Bill Update 119: Another year, another major overhaul for veterans’ GI Bill benefits. Lawmakers and veterans groups are again pushing for improvements to the post-9/11 GI Bill, a 3-year-old benefit that was itself a dramatic update to the traditional post-military education offerings. The benefit allows any veteran with at least three years’ service since late 2001 to complete a four-year degree program at state public colleges free of charge. It also includes a monthly living stipend and provisions to transfer unused education funds to veterans’ spouses or children. Department of Veterans Affairs officials said more than 720,000 veterans and dependants have used the program to attend college over the last three years, at a cost of more than $18 billion. Roughly 590,000 post-9/11 GI Bill students are expected to be in university classrooms this fall.

Unlike past years, where the benefit changes have mainly focused on adjustments to the payout rates and rules, this summer’s proposals focus on providing better resources to veterans before classes start. Veterans advocates have lobbied for more pre-college counseling for veterans to inform them of schooling options and post-graduation job prospects. A measure by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) would require the VA to provide vocational counseling to any college-bound vet before they enroll, unless they opt out. Such counseling is currently available but few veterans have taken advantage of it. Curtis Coy, deputy VA undersecretary for economic opportunity, said department officials are concerned that mandating the counseling could overwhelm existing programs. Only about 6,500 veterans used those services last year. But officials advocates said the counseling is critical to help students make better decisions about where to attend school, especially in light of strong marketing pushes from for-profit colleges that can cost veterans thousands of dollars in tuition costs beyond what is offered by the GI Bill.

Other measures would establish a central clearinghouse for benefits complaints or abuses, provide more information on eligible programs and schools, and tighten controls over what courses can qualify for the veterans education benefit. House lawmakers have proposed similar measures, but it’s unlikely any will be passed before the November elections. Senate Veterans Affairs Committee chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., said she hopes a larger GI Bill overhaul package, including some of these initiatives, can be put together later this year, but lawmakers from both parties have been pessimistic about the possibility of any legislative action before the November elections. In April, President Barack Obama issued an executive order designed to offer more protection to veterans’ education benefits by limiting college recruiters’ access to military bases, forcing colleges to provide graduation rates and student debt information, and prohibiting institutions from using the term “GI Bill” in their veterans outreach efforts. [Source: Stars and Stripes Leo Shane article 13 Jun 2012 ++]

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GI Bill Update 120: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) said 18 JUN a change to the way GI Bill overpayments are reimbursed would benefit the veteran and cause no hardship for the Veterans Administration. A simple change to the collection procedure is sufficient, according to a report in Air Force Times. No change in law is required. Currently, a veteran who is paid too much for GI Bill benefits has 30 days to reach an agreement with the VA on how to make the repayment. If no agreement is made, the VA begins reducing payments to the school and to the student for living stipends. Bennet, who made his proposal in a letter, said the 30-day window to reach an agreement is too short. He proposed a procedure that would take the repayments from the end of the student's 36-month period of benefits. "Veteran students who are dependent on GI Bill benefits often have no other means of financial support," he wrote in the letter. "Suspending housing or tuition benefits can leave a veteran student in an untenable financial position and without the means to live or continue his or her education." [Source: NGAUS Washington Report 19 Jun 2012 ++]

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GI Bill Update 121: The marketing firm behind GIBill.com (http://www.gibill.com/) will shut down that website, scale back more than a dozen others and pay $2.5 million in penalties under terms of a settlement with state attorneys general over deceptive advertising practices aimed at student veterans. Veterans groups and Department of Veterans Affairs officials hailed the announcement as much-needed victory over the tactics of for-profit colleges, who they say have targeted those students as potential cash cows for their schools. Industry representatives called it smear campaign. The settlement is the result of a month long investigation into the practices of QuinStreet, an online marketing firm whose clients include a host of for-profit colleges. Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway said called the company and its use of the GIBill.com website "the most egregious example" he has seen of misinformation and greed directed at veterans. "This is a public trust issue," he said. "We have many publicly traded companiestaking a funnel of taxpayer money intended to educate veterans, and instead giving them credits they can't transfer, debt they can't discharge and putting them in a hole. That's unconscionable."

The website, which offered information on veteran education benefits and careers, consistently redirected visitors to a small group of for-profit schools as the best place to use their GI Bill tuition. State attorneys charged that the website managers did little to acknowledge their site was not an official government information page, or that those for-profit schools in many cases would cost them more money than public school options. Conway said the investigation included a review of 8,000 emails to QuinStreet through the GIBill.com site, many of which came from veterans who thought they were communicating with government officials. Under the settlement, the GIBill.com domain will be handed over to VA officials, who will use it to redirect web surfers to the VA's official GI Bill site at http://gibill.va.gov/. Social media accounts associated with the page will be shut down. In addition, QuinStreet agreed to put disclaimers on other military-themed sites clearly stating they are not connected with the government, and refrain from using the term "GI Bill" in the address of any future sites.

Conway would not say whether any of the schools that helped fund the site will also face future sanctions. Many of the officials at the settlement announcement used the event to take aim again at the for-profit industry. "Dollar signs in uniform, that's how the for-profits see our troops and veterans," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) "If we're going to continue to fund the GI Bill, we need to make sure those dollars are being well spent, and not being used for misleading advertising and recruiting." VA data shows that about one in four veterans using the post-9/11 GI Bill attenda for-profit school, but the industry accounts for 37 percent of the total tuition payouts.
Veterans of Foreign Wars Deputy Legislative Director Ryan Gallucci said veterans groups worry that lawmakers could see the education benefit as wasted money if it continues to flow to for-profit schools to fund questionable degrees with limited job prospects. He praised the settlement, saying it helps "ensure our veterans have access to the quality education they earned."

In a statement, Steve Gunderson, president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, condemned "any activity by companies that mislead veterans," and noted that industry officials are working on get rid of any such practices in the future. But Gunderson also noted that for-profit schools provide an important alternative for student veterans, and other industry officials grumbled that the settlement was used as a vehicle to unfairly attack the reputation of all such schools. Conway and other attorneys general said they aren't trying to shut down the for-profit industry, but are closely monitoring numerous reports of misleading and overly aggressive marketing by those schools. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said he believes the whole industry has been tainted by the problem. "This is about fraud," he said. "I know there are some good actors out there, but until they clean up, I tell people to call their community college, or a state college. I don't have faith in them." [Source: Stars & Stripes Leo Shane article 27 un 2012 ++]

Veteran Hearing/Mark-up Schedule: Following is the current schedule of Congressional hearings and markups pertaining to the veteran community. Congressional hearings are the principal formal method by which committees collect and analyze information in the early stages of legislative policymaking. Hearings usually include oral testimony from witnesses, and questioning of the witnesses by members of Congress. When a U.S. congressional committee meets to put a legislative bill into final form it is referred to as a mark-up. Veterans are encouraged to contact members of these committees prior to the event listed and provide input on what they want their legislator to do at the event. Membership of each committee and their contact info can be found at http://www.congress.org/congre...ees.tt?commid=svete:

July 25, 2012. The House Committee on Veterans Affairs and the House Armed Services Committee will hold a joint hearing regarding Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs collaboration and coordination. Time and Location TBD

[Source: Veterans Corner w/Michael Isam 14 Jun 2012 ++]

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PTSD Update 105: In observance of June as PTSD Awareness Month, the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has begun a new online initiative, AboutFace, focused on helping Veterans recognize PTSD symptoms and motivating them to seek treatment. “We must do all we can to help Veterans identify possible indicators that they may be suffering from PTSD,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “It requires a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to be effective. We hope that this initiative, while just one aspect of our program, will play an important role in that effort.” The AboutFace campaign introduces viewers to Veterans from all eras who have experienced PTSD and turned their lives around with treatment. Through personal videos, viewers will meet Veterans and hear how PTSD has affected them and their loved ones. Visitors will also learn the steps to take to gain control of their lives.

AboutFace, which is PTSD specific, was designed as a complementary campaign to VA’s current Make the Connection (www.MakeTheConnection.net) campaign. Make the Connection uses personal testimonials to illustrate true stories of Veterans who faced life events, experiences, physical ailments, or psychological symptoms; reached out for support; and found ways to overcome their challenges. “VA is committed to ensuring the men and women who bravely served our Nation can access the resources and services tailored for them that can lead to a more fulfilling life,” said Dr. Robert Petzel, VA’s under secretary for health. “We want Veterans to recognize themselves in these stories and to feel optimistic that they can overcome their challenges with proper treatment. We set aside this month of June to urge everyone to increase awareness of PTSD so those in need can get effective treatment that will enable them to lead productive, fulfilling and enjoyable lives.” AboutFace launched in June in time to help bring attention to PTSD Awareness Month. It is located on the National Center for PTSD website http://www.ptsd.va.gov. There viewers will watch as Veterans candidly describe how they knew they had PTSD; how PTSD affected the people they love; why they didn’t get help right away; what finally caused them to seek treatment; what treatment is like and how treatment helps.

VA provides effective PTSD treatment and conducts extensive research on PTSD, including prevention. Those interested in further information can go to www.ptsd.va.gov to find educational materials including courses for providers on the best practices in PTSD treatment and the award-winning VA/DoD PTSD Coach Mobile App for electronic devices, which provides symptom management strategies. These campaigns are part of VA’s overall mental health program. Last year, VA provided quality, specialty mental health services to 1.3 million Veterans. Since 2009, VA has increased the mental health care budget by 39 percent. Since 2007, VA has seen a 35 percent increase in the number of Veterans receiving mental health services, and a 41 percent increase in mental health staff. In April, as part of an ongoing review of mental health operations, Secretary Shinseki announced VA would add approximately 1,600 mental health clinicians as well as nearly 300 support staff to its existing workforce of 20,590 to help meet the increased demand for mental health services. The additional staff would include nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. For more information on AboutFace, visit http://www.ptsd.va.gov/aboutface or contact the National Center for PTSD at (802) 296-5132. [Source: VA Press Release 20 Jun 2012 ++]

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PTSD Update 106: With more than 2 million service members returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury have become the signature wounds of both conflicts. But while the Pentagon has decided TBI, or mild concussions received as a result of enemy action, qualify for the status of a Purple Heart, the military hasn’t yielded on PTSD. Thomas Bush Jr., 54, an Air Force combat veteran who has PTSD, thinks his comrades-in-arms’ invisible wounds qualify them for the medal. “That’s a very open discussion with a lot of vets,” said Bush, of Riverside. To receive the Purple Heart, a service member must have suffered an injury in combat. The language specifically disqualifies PTSD by name. “PTSD is an anxiety disorder caused by witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event; it is not a wound intentionally caused by the enemy from an ‘outside force or agent,’ but is a secondary effect caused by witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event,” Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez said in an email to the Dayton Daily News. Oftentimes, Bush said, if a service member has combat-related PTSD, he may be the only survivor of a traumatic event and carried out the mission under fire. “If it’s a true case of PTSD from combat, I think it should be awarded,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t just put a Band-Aid on a wound that’s in your head.”

Vietnam veteran Ricky A. York said he’s had combat-related PTSD, but isn’t sure a Purple Heart should be given to soldiers who carry wounds, as he did, inside them. For 43 years, the former cavalry soldier avoided talking about Vietnam to his family before he wrote a book about it. “I can tell you I have injuries, but they aren’t physical,” said York, 66, of Kettering, a retired General Motors autoworker. “That’s a pretty big distinction to actually be physically wounded. ... I don’t know if I’d agree it’s the same as being shot or stepping on a mine. “I just think personally if I said I deserve a Purple Heart and there’s a veteran there with one arm or a leg missing, I don’t know how he would look at it,” he said. “I sure don’t want to offend one of those guys.” The numbers of service members receiving Purple Hearts has risen by thousands since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Marine Corps, for example, has issued more than 8,700, said Navy Lt. Matt Allen at the Pentagon. The Navy, which has its own special forces and combat construction workers and provides support on the ground to Marines, has awarded 800 more. There are varied opinions on whether or not PTSD warrants the award of a Purple Heart as noted in the following comments on the subject:

The Military Order of the Purple Heart and the Veterans of Foreign Wars say post-traumatic stress doesn’t merit the award. “PTSD is not something new,” said John E. Bircher, a Military Order of the Purple Heart spokesman in Springfield, Va. “There’s hardly anyone who has ever been in combat, and certainly someone who has been wounded, who doesn’t suffer some form of PTSD.”

Medals aren’t awarded for illness or disease, but for “achievement and valor,” said Joseph E. Davis, a VFW national spokesman in Washington, D.C. “The Purple Heart is awarded for a physical wound received while engaged with an enemy force,” he said in an email to the JournalNews. “PTSD is considered an illness and not an injury.” He noted soldiers who suffered Gulf War syndrome, and Korean War veterans who had frostbite in the freezing depths of Korean winters, also didn’t qualify for the award. “Not to diminish the illness or effects of PTSD, but it is the VFW’s belief that awarding the (Purple Heart) for PTSD is not consistent with the original purpose and would denigrate the medal,” he wrote.

Larry C. James, director of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University, said some have concerns soldiers could fake PTSD to get the medal. The retired Army psychologist, however, believes few would try. “Ninety-nine percent of these young men and women are honest,” he said. “Integrity and character is part of the military.”

Charles R. Figley, director of the Traumatology Institute at Tulane University in New Orleans, said counselors can tell if someone has combat-related PTSD. The military and veterans should be the ones to decide to change the rules, said Figley, a Marine veteran who served in Vietnam.
[Source: Dayton Daily News Barrie Barber article 18 Jun 2012 ++]

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Veteran License Plates Arkansas: The state of Alabama offers 21 different specialty license plates/placards to its veterans. Refer to the attachment to this Bulletin titled, "Vet License Plates AR" or http://www.dfa.arkansas.gov/of...yPlates.aspx?pl_id=6 to view the available plates and access the appropriate guidelines for issuance of each plate. [Source: http://www.dfa.arkansas.gov/of...px?category=Military Jun 2012 ++]

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WWII Vets Update 22: Bill Morris learned about Pearl Harbor at a movie theater in Social Circle. He recalled, “Uncle Sam pointed a finger at us from the screen and said, ‘I need you!’ Well, when we turned 18 he got us.” Born in Bethlehem, GA in 1924, Morris, 4 of his brothers, plus 2 brothers-in-law, served in WWII. Morris said, "My twin brother and I were inseparable but the army sent me to Camp Crowder, MO and sent Jack to California. Our mother was seething." Mrs. Morris wrote President Roosevelt and Secretary of War Stimson demanding the twins be reunited. They were. Bill and Jack fought the entire war side by side.

The Morris twins learned the art of stringing communications wire and mastered heavy weapons at Fort Leonard Wood, MO. "It's not Missouri, it's the state of Misery, if you ask me," he said. In Feb '44 the twins boarded a Liberty ship for Birmingham, England. "We had a 2½ ton truck, our equipment, and I had a case of mumps," Morris said. "I didn't report to sick bay until we set sail. Jack and I were stayin' together!" After intense specialized training in England, the Morris twins boarded a LST and sailed across the English Channel on D-Day +1. "It was June 7, '44," he said. "We were among 5,000 ships at Omaha Beach and for some reason that night every gun in the fleet opened up. Jack and I had been taught to 'get low and get in a hole' but there ain't no foxholes on a ship! The firepower was awesome." June 8, early morning: the twins, their crew, and 2½ ton communications truck hit Omaha Beach. "We strung wire beyond the rocky bluffs," he said, "The bodies bothered us, hundreds of them, stacked like cords of wood." Army engineers suddenly told Morris and his crew to 'back off' to a safe area. "Land mines," he said. "We moved far enough, I suppose, before things got real ugly. A mine detonated, killing the engineers." At dusk lay danger. "I posted guards but the continuous gunfire kept us awake all night," he said. "We slept in foxholes with tents pitched over them. We were mavericks; stringing wire wherever needed. I guess we looked strange, too, since we'd cut our hair into Mohawks for the invasion."

Stringing wire from Omaha Beach to the Cherbourg Peninsula, dodging German 88mm artillery, returning north through France, Morris and crew eventually ended up in Belgium. "We'd slept in ditches, mud holes, hid behind trees, seldom even saw a town, but in Belgium they put us up in a castle that Kaiser Wilhelm used during WWI, our first dry floor in 3 months," Morris said with a smile. In Dec, '44 while stringing wire at the German border in freezing cold and heavy snow, Morris and crew heard frantic orders from an American officer, "Move out, move out, we're being overrun!" Approaching German Panzer tanks signaled the Battle of the Bulge.Morris recalled, "We hustled back, but recruits fresh out of basic were ordered to stay with ineffective bazookas to stop the Panzers. Those boys didn't make it out." Overcast skies, sub-zero cold; and thick snow worked to the Germans' advantage. "Our planes were grounded," Morris said. "But on Dec 23 we awoke to a beautiful blue sky. Then they came, thousands of them, filling the sky with contrails. Our flyboys got the job done; the Battle of the Bulge was over."

Morris recalled stringing wire on the German side of the Rhine River. "We were on the river bank," he said. "Suddenly bullets were 'pinging' off a brick wall behind us. Well, we got low and got in a hole!" American sharpshooters on the opposite bank were shooting at German mines floating down the Rhine River. "Those boys were either lousy shots or their bullets were ricocheting off the water. Let's hope it was ricochets!" Morris and his crew were with American forces when they liberated the infamous concentration camp at Buchenwald. Morris softly recalled, "From a mile away you could smell it. What looked to be humans stumbled around like skeletal zombies. We found the meat hook conveyor line that ran bodies to furnaces, trenches filled with…that's enough, I suppose. I've tried to forget Buchenwald, but it's impossible." After Hitler's demise, the twins and crew boarded a troop ship in Marseilles and set sail for the South Pacific island of Okinawa to train for the invasion of Japan. "We slept on the beach our first night," he said. "In the morning about 75 Jap soldiers walked out of the jungle and surrendered to us. They had American cigarettes, C-rations, even American hand grenades. We sure were glad they were in a mood to surrender!" The lives of the Morris twins and feasibly a million other American casualties were avoided by two atomic bombs. Morris said, "Both wars were over. My brother and I were ready to see Georgia again."

First Seattle; a train across America, a locomotive whistle blowing full blast from Chattanooga all the way into Atlanta in celebration, hitch-hiking a ride to Monroe Street in Social Circle, and home. Morris recalled, "I remember our mothers' welcoming words to this day, 'I'm so proud of you boys.'" Morris took advantage of the benefits he'd earned overseas, finishing high school before attending business school for accounting. His last job before retiring from Sunbelt Builders in 1989 was completion of the Ginn Motor Company in Covington. "I hope America never forgets the sacrifices," Morris said. "The stacks of bodies at Hurtgen Forest, the paratrooper that crawled out of flooded fields behind Omaha Beach where he died in place, a man's jet black hair turning white in 2 days, I saw too much and have too many memories, but the lord let me live, and I live for him." In 1998, 79 surviving veterans of Company B 32nd Signal Construction Battalion attended their reunion. In 2008, there were 7. [Source: Project 365 article 19 Mar 2012 ++]

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POW/MIA Update 22: "Keeping the Promise", "Fulfill their Trust" and "No one left behind" are several of many mottos that refer to the efforts of the Department of Defense to recover those who became missing while serving our nation. More than 83,000 Americans are missing from World War II (73,000+), the Korean War (7,900+), the Cold War (126), the Vietnam War (1,666), 1991 Gulf War (0), and OEF/OIF (6). Hundreds of Defense Department men and women -- both military and civilian -- work in organizations around the world as part of DoD's personnel recovery and personnel accounting communities. They are all dedicated to the single mission of finding and bringing our missing personnel home. For a listing of all personnel accounted for since 2007 refer to http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/accounted_for. For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1420. The remains of the following MIA/POW’s have been recovered, identified, and scheduled for burial since the publication of the last RAO Bulletin:

Vietnam

DPMO announced 12 JUN that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, were identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. Air Force Lt. Col. Charles M. Walling, 27, of Phoenix, will be buried June 15, at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C. There will be a group burial honoring Walling and fellow crew member, Maj. Aado Kommendant, 25, of Lakewood, N.J., at Arlington National Cemetery, on Aug. 8 – the 46th anniversary of the crash that took their lives. On Aug. 8, 1966, Walling and Kommendant were the crew of an F-4C aircraft that crashed while on a close air support mission over Song Be Province, Vietnam. Other Americans in the area reported seeing the aircraft crash and no parachutes were deployed. Search and rescue efforts were not successful in the days following the crash. In 1992, a joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) team investigated the crash site and interviewed a local Vietnamese citizen who had recovered aircraft pieces from the site. In 1994, a joint U.S./S.R.V. team excavated the site and recovered a metal identification tag, bearing Walling’s name, and other military equipment. In 2010, the site was excavated again, and human remains and additional evidence were recovered. Scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used circumstantial and material evidence, along with forensic identification tools including mitochondrial DNA – which matched Walling’s living sister – in the identification of the remains.

DPMO announced 19 JUN that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, were identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. Air Force Capt. Clyde W. Campbell, 24, of Longview, Texas, will be buried June 21, at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. On March 1, 1969, Campbell was a pilot aboard an A-1J Skyraider aircraft that crashed while carrying out a close air-support mission in Houaphan Province, Laos. American forward air controllers, directing the mission nearby, reported hearing an explosion—they believed to be Campbell’s bombs—later learned Campbell’s aircraft had crashed. No parachutes were seen in the area. In 1997, a joint U.S./Lao People’s Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) team investigated a crash site in Houaphan Province, Laos, within 100 meters of the last known location of Campbell. In addition to human remains, the team located aircraft wreckage and military equipment, which correlated with Campbell’s aircraft. From 2009 to 2010, additional joint U.S./L.P.D.R. recovery teams investigated and excavated the crash site three times. Teams recovered additional human remains, military equipment—including an aircraft data plate—and a .38-caliber pistol matching the serial number issued to Campbell. Scientists from the JPAC used circumstantial evidence and forensic identification tools in the identification of Campbell.

Korea

DPMO announced 18 JUN that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors. Army Cpl. Robert I. Wax, 21, of Detroit, will be buried June 20, at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C. In August 1950, Wax and Battery A, 555th Field Artillery Battalion, were fighting against North Korean forces in a battle known as the “Bloody Gulch,” near Pongam-ni, South Korea. After the battle, on Aug. 11, Wax was listed as missing in action. In late 1950, U.S. Army Graves Registration Service personnel recovered remains of service members from that battlefield, including nine men who were unidentified. These men were buried at the 25th Infantry Division Cemetery in South Korea. In 1951, the U.S. consolidated cemeteries on the peninsula. The unknown remains were re-interred in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. In 2011, due to advances in identification technology, the remains were exhumed for identification. Based on available evidence such as metal identification tags, military clothing, and wartime records, analysts from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) were able to conclude that the remains were a soldier who died at Pongam-ni. Scientists from JPAC used the circumstantial evidence and forensic identification tools including radiograph and dental comparisons in the identification of Wax.

World War II

DPMO announced 22 JUN that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Emil T. Wasilewski, 22, of Chicago, will be buried on June 26, at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. On Sept. 13, 1944, Wasilewski and eight other crew members were on a B-17G Flying Fortress that crashed near Neustaedt-on-the-Werra, Germany. Only one of the crewmen is known to have successfully parachuted out of the aircraft before it crashed. The remaining eight crewmen were buried by German forces in a cemetery in Neustaedt. Following the war, U.S. Army Graves Registration personnel attempted to recover the remains of the eight men, but were only able to move the remains of one man to a U.S. military cemetery in Holland. In 1953, with access to eastern Germany restricted by the Soviet Union, the remains of the seven remaining unaccounted-for crewmen—including Wasilewski—were declared non-recoverable. In 1991, a German national who was digging a grave in the cemetery in Neustaedt, discovered a metal U.S. military identification tag and notified officials. German burial law restricted further site investigation until 2007, when the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) surveyed the area. In 2008, the site was excavated and the team recovered human remains and military equipment. Scientists from the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, including dental comparisons and chromosome DNA—which matched that of Wasilewski’s nephew—in the identification of his remains.
[Source: http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/news/news_releases/ Jun 2012 +]

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Military History Anniversaries: Significant July events in U.S. Military History are:
Jul 01 1898 - Spanish-American War: The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba.
Jul 08 1948 - The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits into a program called Women in the Air Force (WAF)
Jul 01 1863 - Civil War: Battle of Gettysburg, Pa; Lee's northward advance halted
Jul 01 1907 - World's 1st air force established (US Army)
Jul 01 1970 - Vietnam: 23 day Siege of Fire Base Ripcord began
Jul 02 1926 - US Army Air Corps created; Distinguish Flying Cross authorized
Jul 03 1754 - French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.
Jul 03 1814 - Revolutionary War: Americans capture Fort Erie Canada.
Jul 03 1863 - Civil War: The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with Pickett's Charge.
Jul 03 1898 - Spanish American War: U.S. Navy defeats Spanish fleet in Santiago harbor Cuba
Jul 03 1915 - U.S. Marines landed in Haiti following the assassination of the Haitian president Vilbrun Guillaume. The Marines remained as occupation forces until 1934
Jul 03 1950 - Korean War: 1st time US & North Korean forces clash in Korean War
Jul 03 1988 - USS Vincennes in Strait of Hormoez shoots Iran Airbus A300, kills 290
Jul 04 1776 - Revolutionary War: Declaration of Independence - U.S. gains independence from Britain
Jul 04 1778 - Revolutionary War: Forces under George Clark capture Kaskaskia during the Illinois campaign.
Jul 04 1802 - At West Point, New York the United States Military Academy opens.
Jul 04 1863 - Civil War: Siege of Vicksburg - Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege. 150 miles up the Mississippi River, a Confederate Army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas.
Jul 04 1944 - WWII: 1st Japanese kamikaze attack U.S. fleet near Iwo Jima
Jul 05 1945 - WWII: Liberation of the Philippines declared.
Jul 06 1777 - Revolu tionary War: British Gen Burgoyne captures Fort Ticonderoga from Americans
Jul 06 1848 - Mexican-American War: Ended with the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo
Jul 07 1863 - Civil War: 1st military draft by US (exemptions cost $100)
Jul 07 1941 - WWII: U.S. forces land in Iceland to forestall Nazi invasion
Jul 08 1950 - Korean War: Gen Douglas MacArthur named commander-in-chief UN forces in Korea
Jul 09 1944 - WWII: The island of Saipan in the Marianas fell to U.S. troops following their defeat of Japanese defenders
Jul 09 1944 - WWII: Napalm was used for the first time during the American invasion of Tinian in the Marianas.
Jul 09 1951 - WWII: Operation Husky - U.S. & Britain invade Sicily.
Jul 11 1789 - U.S. Marine Corps WWII: Pres Truman asked Congress to formally end state of war with Germany
Jul 10 1943 -
created by an act of Congress
Jul 11 1864 - Civil War: Confederate forces led by Gen J Early begin invasion of Wash DC
Jul 12 1812 - War of 1812: U.S. forces led by Gen Hull invade Canada
Jul 13 1945 - WWII: 1st atom bomb explodes in New Mexico
Jul 14 1863 - Civil War: Confederate forces under GEN Robert E. Lee, defeated after three days of fighting at the battle of Gettysburg, began their withdrawal to the South.
Jul 14 1945 - Battleship USS South Dakota is 1st US ship to bombard Japan
Jul 15 1779 - Revolutionary War: U.S. troops under Gen A Wayne conquer Ft Stony Point, NY
Jul 15 1918 - WWII: Beginning of the Second Battle of the Marne between German forces on one side and French, American, British, and Italian troops on the other side. The battle ended on 4 AUG.
Jul 15 1958 - U.S. Marines deployed in Lebanon.
[Source: Various Jun 2012 ++]

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Military Trivia: PTSD was observed and noted in the Civil War, too. The illness was called, "Nostalgia". In October 1861 Alfred Lewis Castleman, a surgeon in the Fifth Regiment of the Wisconsin Volunteers, described the first death in his regiment. It was not from battle. “The poor fellow died of Nostalgia (home-sickness), raving to the last breath about wife and children,” he wrote. “Deaths from this cause are very frequent in the army.” While today “nostalgia” is used to describe the longing for a lost time, the word originally signified acute homesickness, a condition widely regarded as a dangerous and often deadly illness. Doctors maintained that it could kill, either by worsening existing maladies or by causing its own physical symptoms, which included heart palpitations, lesions, damage to internal organs, “hectic fever,” bowel problems and incontinence. A Civil War veteran described nostalgia’s effects in 1866, noting how it “fastens upon the breast of its prey, and sucks, vampyre-like, the breath of his nostrils. Many a heroic spirit after braving death at the cannon’s mouth … has at length succumbed unresistingly to this vampyre, Nostalgia.” During the Civil War, with close to three million men away from home and therefore potential victim to its ravages, Americans both on the battlefield and on the home front worried about nostalgia. To read an interesting article from the New York Times about it refer to the attachment to this Bulletin titled, “Civil War Nostalgia”. [Source: New York Times Susan J. Matt article 19 Apr 2012 ++]

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Veteran Legislation Status 27 June 2012: For a listing of Congressional bills of interest to the veteran community introduced in the 112th Congress refer to the Bulletin’s “House & Senate Veteran Legislation” attachment. Support of these bills through cosponsorship by other legislators is critical if they are ever going to move through the legislative process for a floor vote to become law. A good indication on that likelihood is the number of cosponsors who have signed onto the bill. Any number of members may cosponsor a bill in the House or Senate. At http://thomas.loc.gov you can review a copy of each bill’s content, determine its current status, the committee it has been assigned to, and if your legislator is a sponsor or cosponsor of it. To determine what bills, amendments your representative has sponsored, cosponsored, or dropped sponsorship on refer to http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d111/sponlst.html.

Grassroots lobbying is perhaps the most effective way to let your Representative and Senators know your opinion. Whether you are calling into a local or Washington, D.C. office; sending a letter or e-mail; signing a petition; or making a personal visit, Members of Congress are the most receptive and open to suggestions from their constituents. The key to increasing cosponsorship on veteran related bills and subsequent passage into law is letting legislators know of veteran’s feelings on issues. You can reach their Washington office via the Capital Operator direct at (866) 272-6622, (800) 828-0498, or (866) 340-9281 to express your views. Otherwise, you can locate on http://thomas.loc.gov your legislator’s phone number, mailing address, or email/website to communicate with a message or letter of your own making. Refer to http://www.thecapitol.net/FAQ/cong_schedule.html for dates that you can access your legislators on their home turf.

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Navy Term of the Day: “Binnacle List”. A binnacle is a waist-high case or stand on the deck of a ship, generally mounted in front of the helmsman, in which navigational instruments are placed for easy and quick reference as well as to protect the delicate instruments. Its traditional purpose was to hold the ship's magnetic compass, mounted in gimbals to keep it level while the ship pitched and rolled. The term binnacle list, in lieu of sick list, originated years ago when ship corpsmen used to place a list of sick on the binnacle for the use of the officer of the deck . After long practice, it came to be called binnacle list.

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"It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber."
— Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten author)
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FAIR USE NOTICE: This newsletter contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of veterans' issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this newsletter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed an interest in receiving the included information for educating themselves on veteran issues so they can better communicate with their legislators on issues affecting them. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this newsletter for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Lt. James “EMO” Tichacek, USN (Ret)
Associate Director, Retiree Assistance Office, U.S. Embassy Warden & IRS VITA Baguio City RP
PSC 517 Box RCB, FPO AP 96517

From Carl Price-Vterans Advocates: The Veteran Skills to Jobs Act is a new version of many other bills from the past. These include the Emergency Veterans’ Job Training Act (EVJTA) of the early 1980’s; the Service Members Occupational Classification and Training Act (SMOCTA) of the mid-80’s; Targeted Jobs Training Act (TJTC) which is still in place as tax credits to employers hiring specific classifications of veterans.

What made those programs work was the State Employment Security Agencies (SESA) which devolved over to the Work Force Investment Act (WIA) One Stop Centers.

Although we still have the One Stop Centers we no longer have the Job Service portion which incorporated professionals to assist veterans’ and non-veterans in their job hunts. The WIA and computers started placing the emphasis on job search and assistance on the individual job seeker. No longer did we have people who could assist those who were most in need at the One Stop Centers. No longer do we have the Employer Service Representatives who went out and recruited employers to employ those who were receiving Unemployment and/or who were under-employed.

Governor Kasich is creating an employer program but we need the SESA to help assist qualified applicants to find employers.

The wheel does not need to be reinvented. The structure is in place and it would not take long to put the Employment Services back in place. The WIA One-Stops emphasize training not placement or assistance in placement.


CONGRESSMAN JEFF DENHAM’S ‘VETERAN SKILLS TO JOBS ACT’ PASSES HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE WITH UNANIMOUS BIPARTISAN SUPPORT

June 27, 2012 - WASHINGTON, DC — Legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Turlock) and co-sponsored by Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN) to make it easier for veterans to find jobs using skills acquired through military training today passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee with unanimous bipartisan support. Denham’s legislation will now move to the House Floor for a vote.

Earlier this year, Rep. Denham introduced H.R. 4155, the Veteran Skills to Jobs Act, in the House to address the unacceptably high rate of veteran unemployment by streamlining the federal certification process and cutting through the bureaucratic red tape, making it easier for veterans to utilize the skills they acquired in the military to find work at home.

“With 200,000 servicemen and women transitioning to the civilian workforce each year, we must ensure that they are able to find jobs. This legislation will remove some of the obstacles in our veterans’ way by reforming the licensing and credentialing process to put our veterans to work here at home,” said Denham. “Helping our returning veterans find jobs is not the concern of one party or one body of Congress, and today’s effort moves us one step closer to enacting this bill into law.”

Rather than going through the process of redundant trainings for jobs they are already qualified for, Denham’s legislation directs the head of each federal department and agency to treat relevant military training as sufficient to satisfy training or certification requirements for federal license. Veterans with the relevant training would be eligible to receive a federal license and get back to work immediately.

“I personally have dealt with this problem as a crew chief in the Air Force,” Denham continued.
“Despite being trained to maintain some of the most complex aircraft in the world, when I left the military I was told I needed to go to school for three years in order to perform that same job in the private sector. It’s unacceptable that the federal government has still not reformed its licensing process, especially at a time when so many veterans are out of work. The Veteran Skills to Jobs Act would fix this problem, and I’m glad to see both Houses of Congress working together toward this important goal.”

Companion legislation was subsequently introduced by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) in the Senate as S. 2239, The Veterans Skills to Jobs Act of 2012. The U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs anticipates full Committee approval sometime today or tomorrow.

Rep. Denham has received widespread support and praise for his sponsorship of the Veteran Skills to Jobs Act, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Legion and several other Veteran Service Organizations.

“Matching qualified veterans with federal licenses which require their expertise is good for veterans, good for the economy and good for the country,” said Fang Wong, National Commander of the American Legion. “The American Legion fully supports enacting the ‘Veteran Skills to Jobs Act,’ and applauds the bipartisan leadership of Congressman Denham in addressing this critical issue facing our nation’s veterans and their families.”

From the VA

Joint VA/DOL Veterans Retraining Assistance Program Reaches Important Milestone - Over 25,000 Unemployed Veterans Have Applied
Online Site Opened May 15 for Veterans to Apply for Education Benefits

WASHINGTON – More than 25,000 unemployed Veterans between the ages of 35 and 60 have already applied for new benefits to cover education costs for up to one year through a joint Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Labor (DOL) program that focuses on retraining up to 99,000 Veterans for high-demand jobs.

“This important milestone demonstrates how meaningful this tool will be to help our Nation’s unemployed Veterans receive the education and training they need to find rewarding employment in a high-demand career field,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “Veterans realize this is a great opportunity to hone the skills they need to be competitive in the job market, and this program contributes directly to enhancing the strength of our Nation’s economy.”

Forty-five thousand Veterans can start receiving benefits during the current fiscal year. VA began accepting applications on May 15. A maximum of 54,000 billets will be available for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2012.

“No veteran should have to fight for a job at home after fighting to protect our nation," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “This training program focused on high-demand jobs will help unemployed Veterans expand their skills and compete for good jobs that need them," she added.

As part of a provision of the Veterans Opportunity to Work (VOW) to Hire Heroes Act of 2011, the Veteran Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP) allows qualifying Veterans to receive up to 12 months of assistance equal to the full-time Montgomery GI Bill – Active Duty rate, currently $1,473 per month.

Veterans can apply now on a first-come, first-serve basis for VRAP. Unemployed Veterans should act quickly and apply online to avoid missing out on this great opportunity. Assistance under this benefit program will end on March 31, 2014.

To complete the application, Veterans must know their direct deposit information (bank routing number and account number), the name and location of the school they will attend, the program they wish to pursue, and the high-demand occupation they are working toward

To qualify Veterans must:
• Be 35-60 years old, unemployed on the day of application, and not dishonorably discharged;
• Start education or training after July 1, 2012, in a VA-approved program of education offered by a community college or technical school leading to an associate degree, non-college degree or a certificate for a high-demand occupation as defined by DOL;
• Not be eligible for any other VA education benefit program, such as Post-9/11 GI Bill, Montgomery GI Bill, or Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment;
• Not be enrolled in a federal or state job-training program within the last 180 days;
• Not receive VA compensation at the 100 percent rate due to individual unemployability.

Upon completion, DOL will contact participants within 30 days after their training to help them find good jobs that use their newly learned skills.

“VA has many partners around the country who are helping us to spread the good news about this unique benefit, which provides our unemployed Veterans with the opportunity to obtain the skills they need to be competitive in the high-demand job market,” added Under Secretary for Benefits Allison A. Hickey.

“It is encouraging that we have reached this milestone; however, there are still nearly 20,000 slots to fill by September 30,” said Ismael “Junior” Ortiz, DOL’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Veterans Employment and Training Service. “It is critical to continue to spread the word about this program to unemployed Veterans or those who may know an unemployed Veteran,” Ortiz adds.

For more information on VOW, VRAP, the definition of “high-demand occupations,” and how to apply, Veterans may go to the website at www.benefits.va.gov/VOW, or call VA’s Call Centers toll free at 1-800-827-1000. Veterans may also access the VRAP application online at https://www.ebenefits.va.gov through eBenefits, a joint project of the Department of Defense and VA.

Veterans are also encouraged to visit the nearly 3,000 One-Stop Career Centers across the nation for assistance. To find the center near you visit www.servicelocator.org. For more information about DOL’s Veterans programs, go to http://www.dol.gov/vets/.

States’ Attorneys General Action A Victory for Veterans and the GI Bill
WASHINGTON (June 27, 2012) – Officials of the Department of Veterans Affairs applauded a decision by the attorneys general of several states to give VA the rights to use the GIBill.Com website, after the website’s original owners QuinStreet Inc. agreed to give up the internet site to settle a lawsuit by the states.

“This action is a victory for Veterans and a victory for the GI Bill. Veterans and VA applaud the great work by the states’ attorneys general, along with Holly Petraeus and her team,” said W. Scott Gould, Deputy Secretary for Veterans Affairs. “We all want Veterans to be informed consumers and for schools to meet their obligations in training this Nation’s next ‘Greatest Generation.’”

Holly Petraeus is assistant director for service member affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The attorneys general of several states had sued QuinStreet Inc., the owner of the GI Bill.com domain, charging it with deceptive practices by directing Veterans and Service Members on its website exclusively to for-profit schools that were clients of QuinStreet.

The announcement comes as VA is seeking legal authority to trademark the term GI Bill. An executive order by President Obama on April 26 directed VA and the Department of Defense to undertake a number of measures to “stop deceptive and misleading” promotional efforts that target the GI Bill educational benefits of Service members, Veterans, and eligible family members and survivors.

The Post-9/11 GI Bill, which was authorized by Congress in 2008, is the most extensive educational assistance program since the original GI Bill was signed into law in 1944. VA has issued nearly $20 billion in Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit payments to more than 759,000 people and their educational institutions.

All of VA's education benefits are designed to be flexible and give Veterans the power of choice by enabling them to pursue college degrees, technical certifications, or vocational training according to their preferences and needs, at public, private non-profit and private for-profit schools.

For-profit schools are held to the same approval standards as all other schools, and VA education programs at for-profit institutions are approved by the State Approving Agencies, which act independently on behalf of the federal government to ensure quality education and training is provided to Veterans within each state.

Gould said Veterans should not be recruited aggressively by institutions principally because of financial motives, and that VA’s and other federal and state agencies’ oversight activities provide strong monitoring. VA is engaging with other federal agencies to provide this oversight, including the departments of Defense, Education, and Justice, as well as the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“VA looks forward to helping Veterans make informed decisions by accepting this gift of the GIBill.com domain. We will continue to support our Veterans by helping them obtain the best education of their choosing—a right for which they have bravely served, and which they have rightly earned,” Gould said.

For more information on GI Bill programs, please visit www.GIBILL.va.gov or call 1-888-GI-Bill-1 (1-888-442-4551) to speak with a GI Bill representative.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VA Encourages HIV Tests for All Veterans
National HIV Testing Day Is June 27

WASHINGTON (June 26, 2012)- The Department of Veterans Affairs is encouraging all Veterans to be tested for HIV at least once in their lives.

VA offers HIV testing as part of its comprehensive, world-class care for the men and women who have served this Nation in uniform,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “Testing, regardless of age or risk factors, is an important step to healthier, longer lives.”

Some VA facilities offer HIV testing on a walk-in basis or through routine primary care appointments. Others offer testing as part of special health fairs. More information about the benefits of being tested is available at www.hiv.va.gov.

June 27 is National HIV Testing Day, designed to raise awareness of the importance of early detection, which can help prevent the spread of the virus, extend life expectancy and reduce overall medical expenses.

It is estimated that 1.2 million people in the United States are living with HIV, and one out of five are unaware they are infected.

VA operates one of the nation’s largest integrated health care systems in the country. With a health care budget of about $50 billion, VA expects to provide care to 6.3 million patients during 920,000 hospitalizations and nearly 90 million outpatient visits this year. VA’s health care network includes 152 major medical centers and more than 800 community-based outpatient clinics.

Reserve Officers Association Bulletin

NDAA 2013 Update 07: The White House threatened to veto the House’s National Defense Appropriations Act if it is not changed. The bill is expected to be voted on by the House next week. The Obama Administration had many objections to the Committee’s legislation but they particularly objected to the fact that the appropriators proposals include a 0.5 percent pay raise for DoD civilian employees and for rejecting its proposals to increase TRICARE fees. In May the House passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act included a 1.7% pay increase for service members that was included in the Administration’s budget. However, the House did not include the Administration’s numerous proposals to increase retirees’ present TRICARE Prime fees and create many new retiree TRICARE fees (for TRICARE for Life, Standard and Extra) as well as increasing deductibles and the catastrophic cap. The Administration claims that their proposed changes would “save Defense an estimated $12.9 billion in discretionary funding and generate $4.7 billion in mandatory savings on Medicare-eligible retiree health care over the next five years.” Since the House did not accept these proposals the projected savings are not included in their pending FY2013 budget. The Senate’s Appropriations Subcommittee says that they hope to take up their version of the NDAA before the August recess. This is obviously another attempt of the Administration to pressure Congress to adopt several of their retiree TRICARE proposals. They are trying not to take NO as an answer. [TREA News for the enlisted 13 Jul 2012 ++]

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Military Benefit Proposals Update 01: The CSBA Rebalancing Military Compensation study was released 12 JUL at the National Press Club. This groundbreaking study presents a new approach for optimizing the military compensation system. Rather than focusing exclusively on reducing costs, the study looks at options for getting better value from the compensation system by shifting funds from undervalued forms of compensation to more highly valued forms of compensation. The study draws on the results of a survey of more military personnel, retirees, and dependents to develop a quantitative understanding of how service members value different forms of compensation. The new survey results can be seen at <deleted link per owners rules>

It found that senior military officers place a high value on retirement benefits and health care for their families while junior enlisted personnel tend to favor increases in pay. Active-duty service members at the lower end of the pay scale would prefer higher basic pay over other forms of compensation, even if it meant shelling out more for their health care in retirement, the survey from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments found. The lure of a pay boost is much more enticing to junior personnel than to those in the senior ranks: Increasing basic pay for those with less time and experience in the military had six times more impact per dollar than raising it for senior officers. “This finding calls into question the wisdom of across-the-board pay raises,” the report said. Still, 89 percent of midcareer service members who participated in the survey said they would prefer a $350 boost in annual pay in exchange for higher TRICARE Prime fees once they retire.

Service members at all career levels did not value the free TRICARE for Life benefit commensurate to the program’s cost to the Defense Department, the survey found. TRICARE for Life beneficiaries do not pay enrollment fees but are responsible for Medicare Part B premiums. Those over 65 beneficiaries accounted for 48 percent of all Defense health care cost increases between 2000 and 2005. “DoD could rebalance the allocation of resources to move funding from undervalued forms of compensation, such as free TRICARE for Life, to more highly valued forms of compensation, such as basic pay,” the report stated. “Rebalancing the compensation system would reduce costs while maintaining or improving the perceived value for service members.”

CSBA looked at how respondents valued certain types of compensation rather than the costs associated with them. Defense should look at recalibrating compensation based on service members’ priorities and where they are in their military careers by surveying personnel and their families periodically, said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow for defense budget strategies at CSBA and author of the report. “I think military people are more open to change than people realize,” he said. “I think they are more open to it than even they realize.” Harrison said Defense should take a more comprehensive approach to overhauling military compensation rather than its traditional “piecemeal” approach. “It shouldn’t be just about cutting benefits or keeping faith [with service members] to maintain the status quo,” Harrison said. “It’s about getting better value.” Personnel costs account for one-third of the Defense budget, and reforming the pay and benefits of service members, particularly retirees, is a controversial topic. The Pentagon needs to save money while also attracting and retaining a strong military; its compensation system “has failed to adapt to the unique needs of an all-volunteer military,” the report said. According to the Pentagon, during the past 12 years, basic pay has increased 62 percent, retirement costs have risen 78 percent and health care costs have spiked a whopping 203 percent.

CSBA’s survey included 2,655 respondents, 54 percent of whom were active-duty personnel. Harrison said senior officers were overrepresented in the study sample compared to more junior personnel. Senior officers are 6 percent of the active-duty population, but comprised 32 percent of the survey. Junior enlisted personnel are 45 percent of active-duty troops but were only 5 percent of the survey’s respondents. So, the results of the study were not analyzed in the aggregate “because of clear differences in demographics between the study sample and actual active-duty population,” the report stated. Other findings from the survey included:
• Service members did not place a high premium on performance-based bonuses relative to the cost of implementing them. The latest Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation released in June recommended Defense make greater use of such incentive pay.
• Service members in all groups preferred maintaining the service requirement of 20 years for retirement benefits versus lowering it to 15 years.
• More than 80 percent of service members in all age groups preferred a 1 percent boost in basic pay in exchange for raising the age at which service members can collect their pensions to 50.
• The value respondents placed on military exchanges and commissaries outweighed the cost of those benefits to Defense.
• Of the additional benefits to military personnel, service members prized most highly their choice of duty station and length of tour.

The only significant proposal affecting military pay and benefits that the Obama administration has pushed so far relates to TRICARE. The recommendations in Obama’s fiscal 2013 proposal would increase fees for retirees under the family plan over the next five years, with those in the upper-income bracket seeing the biggest hike. The administration also supports requiring TRICARE for Life beneficiaries to pay an enrollment fee. Many concerns over changes to military compensation stem from fears that retirees or those close to retirement will lose out on the benefits promised to them over a lifetime of service. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has pledged not to break faith with service members over compensation, but his message has not always resonated. Harrison noted that while paying attention to service members’ priorities and behaviors when it comes to pay and benefits is crucial to making wise budget decisions, it’s also important for policymakers to judge the pros and cons of certain kinds of compensation on their own merits. For example, even if service members indicate they do not highly value free health care over other compensation, the country benefits from a fit military. [Source: GovExec.com Kellie Lunney article 12 Jul 2012 ++]

COLA 2013 Update 01: Veterans will receive a cost-of-living increase in their disability benefits if the bill passed 9 JUL in the House receives the same treatment in the Senate. The Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2012 passed the House on a voice vote. It would provide a cost-of-living boost equal to that given to Social Security recipients. Rep. Jon Runyan (R-N) introduced the bill. After it passed, he said, "Congress knows that veterans are dependent upon us acting in a timely manner with regards to their needs. By acting on the yearly COLA this summer instead of waiting until the last minute, we tell America's veterans that we remain dedicated to ensuring that they are given the benefits they were promised when they signed up to serve." If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, the law will go into effect 1 DRC 2012. A press release from the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs estimates the COLA for this year will be approximately 1.9 percent. Runyan has also introduced the American Heroes COLA Act, which would put in place a permanent COLA like that for Social Security recipients. That legislation has been passed out of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and is awaiting vote by the full House. [Source: NGAUS Washington Report 10 Jul 2012 ++]

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Vet Cremains Update 14: After sitting unclaimed for years in funeral homes in Billings, Kalispell and Whitefish, the cremated remains of seven military veterans from Montana will be buried in JULY. Missing in America Project volunteers in the state recently identified the remains after visiting funeral homes, taking inventory of unclaimed remains and authenticating death certificates with U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs records. The veterans are Jon William Ball of Kalispell; James Brodniak of Kalispell; Orville Clinton Hatch of Billings; Anthony Mills of Billings; Michael Lynn Shannon of Whitefish; Charles Shelton of Kalispell; and Charles Rollin Spears of Kalispell. Hatch’s remains had sat unclaimed and mostly forgotten on a shelf in a basement storage area at Dahl Funeral Chapel in Billings since October 1994, marked as “Cremation No. 4037.” For six years, the ashes of Mills, a former Marine, had sat next to those of Hatch.

“These men served their country and sacrificed their lives,” Marty Malone, Montana state coordinator for the Missing in America Project, told the Billings Gazette. “To have them sitting on a shelf in a box is tantamount to a crime.” On the morning of 13 JUL, motorcycle processions from Billings and Kalispell will meet and escort their remains for burial at Fort Harrison, west of Helena. Riders from Kalispell, Livingston, Bozeman, Belgrade, Missoula and Butte will join into one procession. The seven veterans will be interred with full military honors at 2:30 p.m. at the Montana State Veterans Cemetery at Fort Harrison. The Montana American Legion and Disabled American Veterans have contributed $880 to ensure that each of the seven men receives a burial vault and headstone.

John Dahl, owner of Dahl Funeral Chapel, praised the Missing in America Project, saying it gives funeral directors another option when repeated attempts to locate family and friends of a deceased veteran fail. “You can’t put the fault on the family,” Dahl said. “They’ve obviously signed a cremation authorization and the intent is there to do some type of interment, but they have not been able to follow through for whatever reason.” He and his staff have worked closely with the group, giving members the access they need to crematory records to identify veteran remains. This is the group’s second interment. The first was in 2009 when project members buried the remains of two veterans after discovering them in a Ronan funeral home. To date, Missing in America Project leaders nationally have visited 2,782 funeral homes and have found 16,100 cremains, 3,500 of them in one institution. Some 2,044 of the veterans’ cremains have been identified and 1,854 of them have been interred. [Source: AP article 10 Jul 2012 ++]

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Scam ~ Jury Duty: A classic scam is back in action. People across the country are receiving fake voicemails and text messages informing them they missed jury duty and need to pay $500 or face arrest. More than a dozen states have issued warnings about this scam, which tries to scare victims into parting with personal information. The scammers leave voicemails and text messages telling recipients they missed jury duty and must return the call immediately to avoid jail time. Scammers have used a variety of phone numbers with area codes originating in different states. When the victim calls back, the scammers then ask for personal information, including social security and/or credit card numbers. With enough details, scammers can assume a person's identity and drain his or her bank account. As a rule, jurors are not summoned via text message or phone. The court normally communicates through mail. Do not provide credit card or social security numbers to anyone claiming to represent the court system over the phone. If you ever question whether you need to appear for jury duty, call your local court system to check. For further information about jury duty scams, read the FBI's warning at http://www.fbi.gov/news/storie...cam&utm_medium=email. For more information about scams across the US and Canada. [Source: BBB Scam alert 12 Jul 2012 ++]

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Driver Safety Course: Cars have changed. So have traffic rules, driving conditions, and the roads you travel every day. Some drivers age 50+ have never looked back since they got their first driver's licenses, but even the most experienced drivers can benefit from brushing up on their driving skills. By taking a driver safety course you'll learn the current rules of the road, defensive driving techniques, and how to operate your vehicle more safely in today's increasingly challenging driving environment. You'll learn how you can manage and accommodate common age-related changes in vision, hearing and reaction time. In addition, you'll learn:
• How to minimize the effects of dangerous blind spots
• How to maintain the proper following distance behind another car
• The safest ways to change lanes and make turns at busy intersections
• Proper use of safety belts, air bags, anti-lock brakes, and new technologies used in cars
• Ways to monitor your own and others' driving skills and capabilities
• The effects of medications on driving
• The importance of eliminating distractions, such as eating, smoking, and cell-phone use

After completing the course, you will have a greater appreciation of driving challenges and of how you can avoid potential collisions and injuries to yourself and others. You may be eligible to receive an insurance discount upon completing the course, so consult your agent for details. You might also be eligible to receive a discount on roadside assistance plans. Courses can be taken locally or online. To locate one to your liking go to your search engine and enter ‘Driver Safety Course’. One such course is offered by AARP to both members and nonmembers. It is available in classroom and online settings. Go to <link deleted per owners rules> and enter your zip code to find the closest classroom location. Course times, dates and locations will be listed along with a phone number to call to register. Or call 888-227-7669. To register for the online course, visit aarpdriversafety.org.. Costs vary by provider. AARP charges $12 for AARP members and $14 for non-members for classroom course. The cost for their online course is $15.95 for AARP members and $19.95 for non-members except in New York which is a little higher to cover state fees. After attending the course you’ll receive a certificate of completion that can be presented to your insurance agent for a possible reduction in your auto insurance premiums. [Source: AARP article 1 Jan 2012 ++]

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SBP DIC Offset Update 35: The 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation (QRMC) has recommended that the Pentagon end its opposition to allowing any deduction of VA survivor benefits from military Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) annuities. That's the good news. Under current law, when an active duty or retired servicemember dies of a service-caused condition, the surviving spouse receives about $1,200 a month in Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) from the VA. If the survivor also qualifies for SBP, the DIC amount in most cases is deducted from SBP. For years, The Military Coalition (TMC) has fought to eliminate that offset, while Pentagon leaders have opposed that effort. The QRMC logic for changing that position is that retirees paid premiums for SBP coverage, and it's not right to just cancel most or all of the coverage and refund the premiums (without interest) if the survivor also qualifies for DIC.

The QRMC report acknowledges that SBP is heavily subsidized by the government. But since retiree premiums cover about 50% of SBP annuity payouts overall, the QRMC report recommends that SBP widows affected by the DIC offset should be allowed to keep 50% of their SBP annuity in addition to DIC. That is, they should get to keep the half that retiree premiums paid for. The QRMC proposal would apply that rule for all SBP-DIC survivors, including those whose sponsors died on active duty and never had a chance to pay any premiums. The Military Officers Association Of America (MOAA) appreciates the QRMC's effort to make an objective assessment and its acknowledgement that the current offset is inequitable. But they believe its proposal to "divide the SBP baby" misses the point. First, there are some categories of survivors who already have been exempted from the offset. Surviving spouses of members who died on active duty after 9/11 can avoid the offset by transferring the SBP annuity to their children. Second, a court decision several years ago ruled that SBP-DIC survivors who remarry after age 57 can retain both SBP and DIC. So current law is a hodge-podge of conflicting provisions that belie almost any single rationalization, and the most recent changes have been aimed at eliminating the offset for selected categories of survivors.

MOAA believes the answer is to recognize the reality that SBP is, by-and-large, a member-purchased annuity intended to replace 55% of earned retired pay in the event of the member's death (for any reason). Any caveat that members who died on active duty didn't pay premiums ignores the obvious – they paid the highest premium of all. Similarly, any argument that survivors should only get the portion of the benefit that retiree premiums funded would subvert the whole intent of SBP, which was expressly designed as a government-subsidized program to incentivize participation and maximize survivor protection. By enacting SBP, Congress acknowledged that the previous, unsubsidized survivor annuity program was inadequate. In contrast, VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation is a separate plan whose intent is to compensate survivors when uniformed service causes the member's death. That's what "indemnity" means. The law already recognizes that distinction by allowing some survivors to keep both payments. The route to consistency is to extend that logic to all SBP-DIC survivors, rather than applying tortured math to create a new class of "half-SBP-eligibles." [Source: MOAA Leg Up 6 Jul 2012 ++]

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BRAC Update 26: The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) study of the last completed round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) concluded that implementation costs have risen from the predicted $21 billion to $35 billion by 30 SEP 2011 when the latest round of BRAC was formally completed. (Not that there is not still fine tuning going on today). Many projects were much more expensive than predicted. These included:
• Closing the original Walter Reed in DC and moving it to Bethesda (now called Walter Reed Military Medical Center) and a newly built hospital on Ft. Belvoir to provide “world-class medical care.” It cost $1.7 billion more than originally budgeted.
• Closing Ft. Monmouth N.J. and moving its various missions to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Fort Meade, and Fort Belvoir cost 1.1 billion more than expected. The biggest increase when the Army realized that they needed 750,000 additional square feet of space constructed for the Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Center of Excellence at Aberdeen.
• Creating 12 joint bases across the country.
• Consolidating several National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) locations to one campus on Ft. Belvoir cost $1.5 billion more than the original estimate of $1.1 billion. The original estimate did not include a needed new technology center a data-storage warehouse of 200,000 square feet and information technology equipment and software, internal communication cabling, and furnishings to outfit the new buildings.” according to the GAO.

The complete BRAC exercise was expected to save the federal government $36 billion by 2025. However with these and other additional costs the GAO states that DoD will save less than $10 billion by 2025. And who knows what further additional costs will be discovered. When the Administration requested that Congress authorize 2 additional rounds of BRAC- there was deadly silence. With this new information it is clear that Congress will not be tempted to take up the proposal anytime in the near future. [Source: TREA News for the Enlisted 6 Jul 2012 ++]

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