WELCOME HOME! Community Event
Supporting our Veterans through Festivity & Camaraderie
SAVE THE DATE
MAY 28, 2011 5pm to 9pm @ University Blvd/4th Ave
Hosted by Trinity Presbyterian Church
400 E. University Blvd, Tucson AZ 85705
BBQ & Pies~Live Music~Comaraderie~Prizes
~Kids Activities~ Silent Auction
To benefit the non-profit organization, Comin’ Home,
and their veterans’ services and veterans’ housing fund.
In the fun and festive 4th Avenue area, come celebrate our veterans, active duty and military family members along with
various other veteran organizations and businesses who support our heroes. Enjoy BBQ vendors, pie & dessert vendors,
live music and guest speakers including State Senator Frank Antenori & City of Tucson Councilman Steve Kozachik!
“The importance of this event is shown by the fact that Dave Croteau of Veterans For Peace
and Arizona State Senator Frank Antenori (R-LD30),
while at different ends of the political spectrum, can come together to agree on taking care of
our veterans.” – Dave Ewoldt, Event Project Leader
MC – Comedian Walt Maxam
Music Lineup includes:
Brian Dean Trio
The Chet Gardiner Band
Pablo Perigrino and Friends
Category Archives: Veterans Benefits
Memorial Day Weekend Community Event
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
East Lawn Palms Cemetery Hosts
Memorial Day Weekend Community Activities
TUCSON, Ariz. – (May 19, 2011) – In observance of Memorial Day, East Lawn Palms Cemetery will host a weekend of activities May 28-30, at the cemetery, 5801 East Grant Road in Tucson. The events are free and open to the public. Call 520-886-5561 for more information.
The activities for the weekend include:
- From May 28-30, the Vietnam Veterans of America Tucson Chapter 106 will display Vietnam memorabilia in a Memorial Museum.
- From 7 to 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 28, the Boy Scouts from the Papago Chapter Order of the Arrow will place flags on veterans’ graves along with various Veteran organizations.
- At 7 p.m. on Sunday, May 29, the cemetery will provide candles for a candlelight service.
- Beginning at 9 a.m. on Monday, May 30, the VFW Post 4903 will conduct a Memorial Day ceremony featuring guest speaker U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Vincent J. Hnat, music by Sons of Orpheus and presentation of colors by the Tucson Fire Department. Flyover courtesy of the Arizona Air National Guard 162nd Fighter Wing.
East Lawn Palms Cemetery is a proud Dignity Memorial® provider in Tucson. The Dignity Memorial network of providers has several initiatives to honor and support our nation’s veterans and active military. The initiatives and programs include the Veterans Planning Guide, the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall, the Dignity Memorial Forgotten Veterans Burial Program, educational veterans seminars and special pricing for members of veterans service organizations.
The Dignity Memorial network of more than 1,800 funeral, cremation and cemetery service providers is North America’s most trusted resource for funeral and memorialization services. Dignity Memorial providers offer an unmatched combination of products and locations serving families with care, integrity, respect and service excellence. For more information, visit www.EastLawnPalms.com.
Requiem For The Huey
| This speech was forwarded by my pal Col. Joe Abodeely a Company Commander of a Combat Unit with 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam. Joe is also the Chairman of Board of the Arizona Military Museum.
Short of the literary talent of the likes of Walt Whitman, I am not sure I can capture the near totem worship that came with the arrival of a Huey on our stage of daily battle. For us grunts in the bush it meant food, ammo, medical support, guns, power, salvation, evacuation, hope. The Huey was our trump card….or so we thought. As Col. Joe so aptly states, “it was our umbilical cord to the non-hostile place, we called the World.” The speech follows in full. |
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This is the speech given at Ft Rucker when they retired the last Huey: CW4 Lawrence Castagneto, 17 May 2011
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Are Expectations For VA Mental Health Care Achievable?
Recently a federal appeals court scolded the Veterans Administration for failing to care for the returning veterans who are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder at alarming rates that are not leveling, even with all the Outreach programs.
The U.S 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stated in a 2-1 ruling that the delays are so “egregious” that they “violate a veterans constitutional rights.”
I do not see it that way. There is little doubt that the approximately 6500 suicides a year must be addressed with urgency and budget allocations. Yet I do not see that it is the sole job of the VA to ameliorate a seeming intractable problem that is owned by the entire war making machine.
The data is showing that an average of 18 returning Armed Service members commit suicide each day. Most folks cannot even allow this to seep into their own activities of daily living, let alone a national psyche.
The genesis of the problem is not the VA. While the Courts tried to no avail to get the VA to “work faster” in providing mental health care, I do not see how one provides “fast” mental health care. And I do not quite grasp what the fraternal veterans organizations that filed suit two years ago are going to achieve with more pressure piled on a system that is already maxed with personnel shortages and adequately trained staff that can deal with PTSD.
PTSD is not like the flu. This syndrome begs for a degree of bonding between the therapist and client that does not suit itself to “fast” therapy. If the ruling from Judge Steven Reinhardt and Judge Procter Hug is intended to speed up the disability claim process, I am on their side. If the intent is to speed up mental health care, I am in opposition. Insensitive “check list” therapy can well be the cause of suicides. Many of the staff Psychiatrists and Psychologists in the nations VA Mental Health clinics have resigned prematurely and in quiet protest over the mandated 45 minutes allowed with each veteran. The VA monitors the time spent with each suffering soul. Time In, Time Out. I suggest that herein lies some of the problem with suicide prevention programs.
The slam bam thank you mam atmosphere that is created in a crisis of care and with political voyeurs looking on for their own gain of popularity is part of the zeitgeist that exacerbates the problem. This decision by the 9th Court is like sending a pregnant woman to Weight Wathchers.
The ruling goes on to state, “the VA’s unchecked incompetence has gone on long enough; no more veterans should be compelled to agonize or perish while the government fails to perfom its obligations.” Might I simply transpose that sentence to state that the incompetence of corporate America to take up the mantle of responsibility, in the context of ungodly war profiteering, and provide the funding for private sector outreach clinics in every neighborhood and library in America.
Where is the chorus of Tea Party patriots on this, “support the troops,” issue? Michele Bachman wants the Government out of our daily lives. Does she have a non-federalist solution to this epidemic?
The dissenting Judge Kozinski stated, “much as the VA’s failure to meet the needs of returning veterans with PTSD might shock and outrage us, we may not step in and boss it around.” Why are we as a nation not shocked and outraged at the 4 and 5 tours these troops are serving? Never since the days of Continental Army have our combatants served 5 tours in defense of the country. The Department of Defense in its back door draft, coupled with the intense ongoing need to provide bodies for the war on terror, have created a hybrid human being that is not amenable to “speeded up,” treatment regimens.
With all of the siren cries for more private sector involvement in the operation of our government, how about some tax breaks for the Halliburton Suicide Prevention Centers? Or the Blackwater Center For Transition Warriors. They are making hundreds of millions of dollars on the backs of these suicides. This is not the VA’s problem. They are not the sole culpable party. War has many accomplices. Most as unseen as the interiority of PTSD itself. Lets bring them into the light with some fiscal responsibility for a ten year long war, that is not ending soon. Maybe even a few of the Swiss bank accounts for offshore corporations could be tapped when Johnnie comes marching home.
When Veterans For Common Sense and Veterans United For Truth filed suit four years ago alleging systematic failures in the processing of disability claims, they were on track. Like I said earlier, if the focus is the processing of claims, they have my undying support. I was a volunteer Veteran Service Officer, and know well the ramifications of the delays and the the unbearable burden of the soldier and their families. The Mental Health Stategic Plan that was submitted in 2004,(seven more years of war have passed), mandated deadlines for treatment requests and benefit claims. General Shinseki was not the head of the VA then. Those mandates have taken root.
I return to my thesis. The co-mingling of mental health treatment and the claims process is not good problem solving.
Since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln we have afforded the legal guarantee to veterans that they will receive treatment for war wounds. Why does all that treatment have to be conducted on the grounds of Veterans Administration? If we can farm out the work of private mercenaries, why not dole out some cotracts for mental health care?
There are 25 million veterans in the United States. 1.8 million have served in Iraq or Afghanistan in the last 11 years. And the show ain’t over. The Rand Institute study that was competed in 2008 estimated that 300,000 plus returning veterans suffer from PTSD. Think that is a big enough risk pool for a private contractor? Throw in the residual Vietnam Veterans and the lingering population of Korean War veterans who are still under Doctors orders and you have a business plan.
I travel alot. I have visited many VA Hospitals and Vet Centers. I do not see an open wound in the offering of mental health care in these facilities. Is it possible that this crisis of care is arranged so as to privatize? Naomi Klein’s theory in her book, “The Shock Doctrine,” may apply.
Concussions, Mild Brain Injury May Land You A Purple Heart
Since the Trojan Wars soldiers have been getting clocked in combat. I suspect that thousands of the men who fought in the trenches in World War l and ll were knocked silly with blast injuries from which they never recovered nor were ever known for the permanent damage done to the neurological system.
If Grampa sat in his rocking chair a bit long, sipping whiskey and staring into space, he was very likely the victim of a serious concussion.
Now, both the Army and Marine Corps have adopted criteria to give consideration for the awarding of a Purple Heart if a soldier/Marine experience a concussion on the battlefield.
Mild traumatic brain injuries caused by a blast or blow to the head can now qualify for a Purple Heart if the Medical Officer in charge determines that the combatant is not fit for duty for more than 48 hours as a result of lingering symptoms. The decision must be made withing seven days of the battlefield occurrence.
The Marine Corps announced the criteria in Marine Administrative Message 245/11 on April 15th. The revised memorandum states that no longer is a loss of consciousness the sole criteria.
This change is retroactive to the beginning of the Global War on Terrorism that began on September 11.2001
Marines, including veterans, whose medical records show that a prior mild traumatic brain injury was caused by enemy action since September 11, 2001 may submit a claim via the administrative chain of command.
The award criteria can be found at “http://www.marines.mil/news/messages/Pages/MARADMIN245-11.aspx/. “
Submit your request to “Commandant of the Marine Corps (MMMA) Headquarters Marine Corps, 3280 Russel Road, Quantico, Va. 22134-5103
Members of the U.S. Army can call 888-276-9472
The advances that have been made by way of military medicine are stunning. This decision to award a Purple Heart for TBI is the right thing to do, as the complications from head injuries are for life and often much more intrusive than a scar from a bullet or shrapnel.
I know, I had two of them, and always felt sad and a bit isolated by the fact that my injuries never seemed to count, even though I have been compromised by them for 42 years.
VA Disability Claims and Bin Laden
Bin Laden has been killed by American assets. It has a nice ring to it. The bells of justice are tolling for thee. It is a damn good thing we killed him, otherwise our current Attorney General would have tried him in traffic court.
So now who gets his bank accounts? Cannot some odd brand of RICO seize them and give the money to the VA to treat our disabled soldiers? I am serious. Why not? Seized drug money buys all kinds of collateral junk for law enforcement. Why not locate those accounts and apply it directly to the backlog of disability claims that are rolling in at a rate twice as high as last year?
The number of claims that take more than 125 days to rule on have blossomed from 200,000 to 450.000 according to VA officials. Many veterans are not employed due to their physical service connected disabilities. The VA also states that the complexity of the claims is slowing down the process. Add to that the declaration from the VA boss; retired General Shinseki, that we are going to handle and care for the Agent Orange victims of Vietnam, “once and for all,” and you have a real administrative mountain to climb.
Many complain that the waiting time will expand from six to eight months next year.
I take issue with this complaint and lend my support to the Veteran Administration’s unprecedented workload by using my own claim and that of my brothers as a benchmark. It was only 5 years ago that many were waiting a bare minimum of two years, and that was after your paper work was in order. Some were as long as 5-7 years. I say the VA is dancing as fast as they can.
The total number of pending claims for compensation has jumped from 448.ooo last April to 756,ooo this month. The VA added 3000 rating officers and staff to the existing 14,000. Given that these claims are lifetime awards, they require immense due diligence and a standard of care that is not easy nor quick to train. Who planned for 13 years of war? Or better yet, how do you plan for 13 years of war?
But I digress. Bin Laden is dead, but his bank accounts are alive. How do we get our hands on them? Some more Special Forces? Lets get the loot and use it for the veterans of war who lost their lives looking for the him.
Mortality Rates Of Vietnam Veterans
Thank you Patrick Brady for shedding some truth to the rapidly circulating rumors that we are passing on to glory at an accelerated rate. Some good news for Vietnam Veterans is always welcomed. I for one intend to be staring into the camera on the History Channel one day when they introduce me as the, “oldest living Vietnam Veteran! I am a Life Member of VVA and a past president. I have nothing but the utmost respect for this fraternal organization and the purity of their advocacy. The VVA motto of never leaving another veteran behind is taken seriously.
Go to VVA.org to see their award winning publication, “The Veteran.”
Not Dead Yet
Patrick S. Brady
Mortality Rates Among Vietnam Veterans
Recently, the Internet has beena wash with dire predictions of the imminent demise of all Vietnam veterans. Both alarmed and suspicious, Vietnam veteran Pat Brady did some investigating.Here’s what he found.
“If you’re alive and reading this, how does it feel to be among the last one-third of all the U. S. Vets who served in Vietnam?” Like a ritual salute, this question has passed from one veteran website to another in the past 18 months, accompanied by a drumbeat of numbers: 711,000Vietnam veterans died between 1995 and 2000, or 142,000 deaths every year, 390 every day; no more than 850,000 Vietnam veterans remain out of 2.7 million, meaning at least 1.8 million have fallen to the swift scythe of the Grim Reaper; and “only the few” will still be around by 2015. “We died in ’Nam,” reckoned one veteran, “just haven’t fallen over yet.”
This actuarial cadence-count went viral on “Before They Go,” a nine-minute video posted on YouTube by Veterans Appreciation Alliance, a group seeking sponsors and contributions for its Grateful Red, White & Blue Appreciation Tour. One website hailed the video as a “warning that our Vietnam vets are dying off rapidly, and we need to give them a proper ‘Welcome Home’ before they are gone.” Many veterans proved quite ready to believe that their comrades were falling fast to Agent Orange, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide.
But others were skeptical. Passing through the blogosphere, the supposed daily death toll of 390 Vietnam veterans sprouted a spurious pedigree, with several websites attributing it to the Naval Health Research Center. This was news to the Center, whose Public Affairs Office called on the makers of “Before They Go” to remove the bogus attribution. The nine minute video disappeared from You Tube by mid-April 2010, replaced by a four-minute version cleansed of the offending mortality figures.
Yet the mournful numbers still pop up all over the Internet. Are they true? Where did they come from? First, we must face the limits of our knowledge: No one knows for sure how many in-country Vietnam veterans are alive. So anyone who tells you he is sure is making it up.
The number living must be measured against a baseline of those who were there in the first place. But no one is sure of that number either, despite a surfeit of surveys and estimates. The Department of Defense kept a consolidated file of those who died in the Vietnam War but not of those who fought it. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and almanacs of thewar are conspicuously silent about how many actually saw duty in Vietnam.
To make up for the lack of an in-country master list, estimates and surveys have started with figures for those who served worldwide during the Vietnam era, and for those who served in the Vietnam theater, a term that includes Vietnam, its coastal waters, Laos, Cambodia, and sometimes Thailand.
Defining the era presents problems of its own, with Section 101(29) of the U.S. Code for Veterans offering two definitions of the Vietnam era: 1) February 28, 1961, to May 7, 1975, for veterans who served in Vietnam; and 2) August 5, 1964, to May 7, 1975, for those who served elsewhere. These are the same parameters used to determine eligibility for membership in VVA.Adding to the confusion, some estimates treat the Vietnam era as ending not in 1975, but in 1973, the year of the Paris Peace Accords. So different estimates of those who served and those who survive produce different results, varying according to the location of service (Vietnam itself or the Vietnam theater) and time covered (usually starting in 1961, 1964, or even 1965, and ending in 1973 or 1975).
A survey of surveys appeared in the first volume (1994) of the Institute of Medicine’s semiannual studies, Veterans and Agent Orange. Estimates of in-country Vietnam service, the Institute found, ranged from 2. 6 to 3.8 million, with most falling between 2.6 and 2. 9. Estimates for the Vietnam theater ranged from 2.7 to 4.3 million, with 3.4 million the most widely cited figure.
These numbers must be seen against the larger total of those who served worldwide during the Vietnam era, 8.75 million from 1964-73, and 9.2 million from 1964-75. Depending on the estimate, one out of three Vietnam-era veterans served in the Vietnam theater, and four out of five Vietnam theater veterans served in Vietnam itself.
With these estimates in mind, we can start closing in on what can be said about the number of living in country Vietnam veterans. Better figures are available for era veterans than for in-country veterans. The 2000 Census long form, for example, asked about period of service but not place. Estimates for living in-country veterans can be extrapolated from figures for living era veterans.
Setting a benchmark for the year 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated there were 8,380,356 living Vietnam-era (here defined as 1964-75) veterans, about 90 percent of the original 9.2 million, with the death toll near 800,000. The Centers for Disease Control reached a like finding in a Post-Service Mortality Study of 18,313Vietnam-era veterans, half of whom served in country. By the end of 2000, the CDC found, about 91 percent of era veterans were living, aged 46 to 67 in the sample, with a mean of 53; death rates for veterans were lower than for all men in the U.S. through 1998; and in-country veterans suffered 7 percent higher mortality than other veterans. That difference, the CDC said, was “not statistically significant,” was confined to the first five years after discharge from active duty, and was limited to “external causes”—mostly traffic accidents, suicides, homicides, and unintentional poisonings, many of them drug-related.
If in-country Vietnam veterans accounted for about a third of all Vietnam-era veterans, and if they were Dying only slightly faster than the others, then the 800,000 era veterans who died from the 1960s through 2000 should have included fewer than 300,000 in-country veterans. That fact rules out the supposed passing of 711,000 of them between 1995 and 2000 alone, a figure that forms one verse of the Internet litany.
Reaching a comparable estimate for the Vietnam theater, the VA Office of Environmental Epidemiology keeps an incomplete list of 3,056,000 Vietnam theater veterans, and counts 349,000 theater veteran deaths through 2001, a count the Office considers 95 percent complete. If four out of five theater veterans served in country and if they were dying only slightly faster than other veterans, then the 349,000 theater deaths should have included 280,000 to 300,000 in country veteran deaths through 2001, an estimate in line with the CDC and Census figures through 2000.
The VA’s Veteran Population Model for 2007 estimates that 8,448,000 Vietnam-era (1964-75) veterans were living in 2000, and 7,526,000 living on September 30, 2010. While 47,000 leaving the military joined the ranks of Vietnam-era veterans during the decade, 969,000 deaths thinned those ranks.Again, if a third of era veterans were in-country veterans who were dying only slightly faster than other veterans through 2000, they should account for 325,000 to 350,000 of the 969,000 Vietnam-era deaths from 2000 to 2010, unless their mortality rate skyrocketed far above the rate for other veterans after 2000.
There is no evidence that it did, and some that it did not. A Current Population Survey by the Census Bureau for August 2009 estimated 7,183,000 living Vietnam-era veterans, including 3,566,000 living Vietnam theater veterans. Compared to other estimates, the era figure seems low, while the theater figure seems high, but the high number may cover a longer period—1961 to 1975—and may reflect inflated self-reporting of Vietnam service. But even allowing for such complications, the survey weighs against any soaring death rate for in-country Vietnam veterans. If three million or more theater veterans are alive, and four out of five of them are in-country veterans, then 2.4 million or more in-country Vietnam veterans should still live, triple the 800,000 rumored on the Internet.
Origins Of A Myth
So, thank God, most in-country veterans are not dead yet. But who started the story that they were? Doomsday dirges do not need footnotes, but mortality statistics do, and the sources cited for these Internet numbers are few and mystifying.One of them, “the Public Information Office,” likely leads to the American War Library.As one blogger warned: “The false number of 850,000 originates from the phony website of the American War Museum, which disseminates much false information for reasons only its manager (it is a one-man operation) might know.”
The blogger misidentified the site. Otis Willie and Roger Simpson of the Public Information Office of the American War Library (not Museum) disseminated the number in a June 7, 2009, posting on alt.genealogy: “The official estimate of Vietnam War ‘survivors’ as of 25May2009 is 831,000.The number of Americans who served in Vietnam between 1945 and 1975 is 3.2 mil. To 2. 7 mil. 2.7 mil. Is the number counted by DoD in 1984 when producing ‘The Vietnam War Service Index.’” Whilemost cyberspace chats have rounded off the number of living Vietnam veterans to 800,000 or 850,000, the American War Library’s more precise number is echoed in a posting by “Stillhere” on Veterans Benefits Network that regrets “there are only 831,000 of our brothers/ sisters still alive.”
Calling itself “The World’s Largest On-Line Military, Veteran and Military Family Registry,” the American War Library asks: “If you are a Vietnam vet, have you verified that your name is listed in the Department of Defense’s Official Vietnam Veteran War Service Index?”This “official” index, the same one cited in the Library’s posting about 831,000 survivors, is often cited on the Internet as “officially provided by the War Library.”As far as I can tell, this Index is nowhere to be found.
The American War Library seems to be a home business run by Phillip R. Coleman in Gardena, California.Various web postings have warned that “Roger Simpson” and “OtisWillie” are two of dozens of names used by Coleman; that the Library solicits personal information from veterans but does not provide free information about veterans; and that the Library and its many related websites post myriad military stories to attract attention and gain legitimacy. For examples of the warnings, Google “AmericanWar Library–exposed” or “American War Library scam,” or seewww.armchairgeneral.com/ forums/showthread.php?t=96622
Statistics are hard enough without phony numbers thrown in. But in the available statistics, we find no evidence that the number of living in-country Vietnam veterans is only 800,000, and strong evidence that it is much higher.Again, bymy own amateur extrapolations, fewer than 300,000 in-country veterans likely died before 2000, and a slightly larger number since, adding up to 600,000 or more dead, leaving two million or more alive. So if you’re a Vietnam veteran reading this, how does it feel to stand with the three out of four who are still here and mean to stay for a while?
For information used in this article, I thank Mike Wells of the VA Office of Policy and Planning, National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics, and James Messinger, the treasurer of the National VietnamWar Museum.
Heal My PTSD Telephone Support Group
Dear Mike,
Wow, yesterday’s support groups were HEATED, literally! The major topic of the day was how to deal with anger. As you can imagine there was much to discuss, including the tip below.
But first, other subjects we covered included:
- what to do when your family gets in the way of your recovery
- how to move through emotions without being overwhelmed
- the importance of balancing the work of recovery with something playful and fun
- how to develop a practice of checking in with yourself — and why you need to
- how to develop trust
This week’s PTSD Recovery Tip: Give yourself a plan to manage anger.
Think back to the last time you got really, really angry. How did you feel afterward? For most of us, the feeling of regret, shame, grief and embarassment is keen as we rage and then have to clean up the mess afterward.
How would it change things if you could better control that anger process? The truth is, with a simple process you can develop the muscle to muscle down that angry feeling.
For one more moment, think back to the last time you got angry.
Step One: I bet you could feel it coming on. I bet there were sensations in your body (your breathing, your pulse, your stomach, your chest, your body heat) that alerted you to the fact that a huge wave of emotion was rising.
Identify what happened in your body and your mind just before the anger really surged. Make a list of the things you noticed. This is your alarm system. It’s letting you know what’s coming: Pay attention to it!
Step Two: As you think back to that moment, what could you have done differently so that you spared the person you raged at? Make a list of alternative actions.
Step Three: Based on your answer to Step One, added to your answer to Step Two, write out a plan for how you will manage future anger.
A plan might look like this:
Step One: Notice a tightening in my stomach, feel my heart beat faster, notice my breath is shallow.
Step Two: Take a deep breath. Step away from the situation (including removing myself from the entire environment). Take some time to think through what is bothering me, what I want to say, and how to say it.
Learning to have appropriate reactions to anger is an important step in organizing and affecting your PTSD recovery. Having a strategy about how to implement a plan for this and other PTSD recovery processes is the focus of every Heal My PTSD Telephone Support Group meeting.
If you are ready to (at your own pace) become more proactive in your PTSD recovery, sign up for a Heal My PTSD Telephone Support today.
Got questions? Let’s set up a complimentary phone call to discuss!
You have enormous healing potential. The goal is learning to access it. That’s what the Heal My PTSD Virtual Support groups are designed to help you do.
Joyfully,
Michele
Michele Rosenthal, PTSD Coach
Founder, www.healmyptsd.com
Veterans For Change
While I am not in agreement with all that is stated here, I do think that some of what is said is helpful for the common good of veterans. MB
Veterans-For-Change
11901 Samuel Drive
Garden Grove, California 92840
MEDIA RELEASE
Written by: Jim Davis IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Edited by: Barbie Perkins-Cooper
Date:
Contact: Jim Davis, Founder & CEO – Veterans for Change – Jdavis92840@sbcglobal.net
Veterans Still Affected by Increasing Problems, Often Ignored
Garden Grove, CA – April 5, 2011 – Veterans-for-Change would like to bring to your attention the ever-increasing problems affecting veterans and their families every day.
President Obama has clearly stated, “Whether you left the service in 2009 or 1949, we will fulfill our responsibility to deliver the benefits and care that you earned. That’s why I’ve pledged to build nothing less than a 21st-century VA”.
Among the issues we would like to address are the following:
Herbicide, TCE/PCE, Benzene, JP-4, JP-8 and a host of other chemicals causing Contamination (CONUS, Including Alaska, HI, and Canada, Panama Canal):
- · Every day, thousands of veterans who served in Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and CONUS are denied benefits they are entitled to for exposure to dioxin from herbicides and other defoliants, TCE/PCE, JP-4, JP-8, Benzene and many other chemicals.
- · In addition to service overseas, we have countless thousands of veterans who served on many military bases stateside who were exposed to TCE, PCE, Benzene and approximately 35-45 more harmful chemicals, never provided safety and use instruction or equipment, and are now just as equally ill. Failure to provide safety and use instructions led to health problems that will remain for the remainder of the Veterans life.
- · In both S.E. Asia and CONUS Agent Orange was used as a defoliant. In S.E. Asia, the chemicals were used to protect our troops and prevent the enemy from hiding in the foliage to kill many more of our fighting men and women. (Est. time frame of 1962-1975)
- · In the CONUS, these harmful, debilitating herbicides and other chemicals were used to keep surroundings of various military buildings free from unwanted vegetation growth and keep it clean and neat looking.
- · On all military bases, on board ships, everywhere mechanical components were cleaned and re-used TCE was the chemical of choice as a degreaser. PCE is the chemical of choice for dry cleaners, again never used with any protective gear.
- · Veterans who served in Korea and on the DMZ are denied benefits due to erroneous reports about where these chemicals were deployed and that there is no “residual life” of Agent Orange Dioxin which if it were true then why are we in Viet Nam helping the Vietnamese government to clean up the land that was contaminated some 40 years ago?
Veterans-For-Change believes exposure to Agent Orange is truly exposure to a deadly chemical, regardless of the location where it was deployed. There have been far too many reports of illness, including cancers, Diabetes, heart disease, and many, many more – all related to service or tour of duty in a combat zone, or in a contaminated zone!
One of the chemicals in the Agent Orange herbicide combination contained contaminating traces of TCDD (dioxin). Dioxin has been shown to cause a variety of illnesses in laboratory animals. http://veteransinfo.tripod.com/Background_on_Agent_Orange.pdf. Studies also suggest that the chemical may be related to a number of cancers and other health effects in humans. http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/health_effects.asp The research data speaks for itself – Agent Orange was and is a deadly, toxic chemical, destroying the health and lives of many Veterans, including those who served in Korea and on the DMZ.
Many of these Veterans are continuously denied as the missions they served on were, and still to this day remain, classified by the DoD even though former President Bush signed executive order 13292 on March 28, 2003 directing classified missions beyond 25 years be declassified. Veterans-For-Change, as an advocacy group, has as its mission to broadcast and inform all veterans about their rights concerning Agent Orange, regardless of when and where the military veteran was exposed. You, the legislators of our proud and courageous country owe a debt of gratitude and benefits and care to our veterans. Please take a stand and help us to provide the best care for our veterans. Take action today!
We ask that you not only support any proposed legislation, but also be pro-active and introduce legislation to correct these problems!
No assignability and exempt status of benefits:
In title 38, Part IV, Chapter 53 §5301 the law is very clear on how Veterans disability benefits are protected:
Payments of benefits due or to become due under any law administered by the Secretary shall not be assignable except to the extent specifically authorized by law, and such payments made to, or on account of, a beneficiary shall be exempt from taxation, shall be exempt from the claim of creditors, and shall not be liable to attachment, levy, or seizure by or under any legal or equitable process whatever, either before or after receipt by the beneficiary. The preceding sentence shall not apply to claims of the United States arising under such laws nor shall the exemption therein contained as to taxation extend to any property purchased in part or wholly out of such payments. The provisions of this section shall not be construed to prohibit the assignment of insurance otherwise authorized under chapter 19 of this title, or of service members’ indemnity. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/38/usc_sec_38_00005301—-000-.html
Yet everyday judges across the country are tapping into, and forcing disabled veterans to use their VA disability benefit income to pay child support, spousal support and bad debts totally and completely ignoring the federal law.
In addition, when Veterans refuse, they are immediately thrown in jail for 20 days and as long as six months or more, thus unlawful imprisonment!
We do not know how much clearer the law can be, but Congress and the President need to step up to the plate and stop this abuse against Veterans.
With what little benefits Veterans receive as it is today, most are barely living at poverty level and many below poverty level.
We ask that you please be pro-active and introduce legislation to correct these problem and stop civil judges from taking a Veterans Benefits and using as “disposable” income.
President Obama has said: “We have a sacred trust with those who wear the uniform of the United States of America, a commitment that begins with enlistment and must never end”. This statement was published in April, 2009. Isn’t it time for Congress and our Government to make these strong, compelling words come true for our precious Veterans who are finding living with the difficulties, physical and emotional wounds of combat more than they can tolerate?
If our nation rescinds its promises and ignores its obligation to those who have fought to preserve freedom throughout the world, we compromise the right to ask our men and women to serve and defend our national principals. The choice is yours.
Take a stand to stop the endless spinning wheel of a hamster or guinea pig. Take a stand so our Veterans are treated as human beings, not pin cushions, or undeserving human beings. Veterans served our country with dedication to duty. Isn’t it time America and the VA treated our soldiers and veterans with the respect, and the benefits so promised.
Veterans-For-Change has been crying out to all 535 members of Congress now for four years as of April 2006, as President Wilson said, a leader’s ears must ring with the voices of the people! Do you hear us?
Veterans and their families are tired of campaign promises and yellow ribbons. We need politicians on Capitol Hill to take immediate action to truly support all Veterans.
Veterans And The Looming Bogus Budget Wars
This blog is intended for advocacy for veterans health and legislative issues. I am frequently asked to dip into the political fray and engage in the polemic. For the most part I have avoided that urge as the universal Tower of Babel is filled with plenty of commentary, most of which results in nothing more than a the proverbial pissing in the wind.
Enter the budget crisis, or at least the premeditated crafting of a staged event that has been rehearsed since the midterm elections.
I wonder what John and Abagail Adams and General George Washington would say about the crippling of our nation over subsidized pap smears!
In 1974 I was in Nursing School and working as an OR Tech in the Operating room at Tucson Medical Center, where they performed abortions on Saturdays. After assisting in two of these procedures I could no longer tolerate the work and and asked to not be assigned to that duty. I had to carry the dead babies in a bottle over to Histology after the procedure. I knew then my stance on abortion, and the hospital administration granted my wish. However, I knew from that day forward that this issue would one day cripple the nation and be more divisive than the Vietnam war, once it entered the political arena and became a hot potato for fund raising and party positioning. That day has arrived.
Not once since the passing of Roe vs Wade have I wavered in the belief that this one issue policy thinking would enfeeble our legislative process and may well even be used by outside forces to create a house divided in our nation. It is working to that end.
There was a time at the forming of our nation that the very existence of political parties and their rabid adherents posed a great deal of anxiety for the leaders of the day, including General George Washington who had strong beliefs that political parties undermined national unity. He frequently expressed his angst for what he termed, “the spirit of party.”
“It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments (incites),occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption…..” George Washinton farewell address 1796
Now, this is as prophetic as Isaiah in the Old Testament! Tell me how much we have evolved as a body politic?
“Who by taking up thought can add a cubit to their stature?’ And what may be the stature of the elected officials as we approach an impasse, in two hours, that is blatant in its red herring aspects of not addressing the budget deficit and serving solely as a megaphone for party politics. What an embarrassment to the youth of this nation and to our soldiers.
Abortion should be addressed outside the political spectrum as it will be an eternal black hole in the hands of the paid for electeds.
If we want to balance the budget, stop funding private mercenaries who number 1:1 for every member of the Armed Forces over seas. They are performing abortions of the natural democratic diplomatic process.
Coupled with the 11 billion a month for the cost of multiple wars and the lifetime care of disabled veterans we are going broke policing the world.
Planned Parenthood needs no guns.