Happy Labor Day/China; The Day After

As we  wander off to sleep tonight, having celebrated a Holiday dedicated to Labor in America, I just wanted to give a hearty thanks to the people of China who were awarded 31% of  our labor force over the past 9 years.

Thank  you China for my underwear, my new toilet seat, my new TV, my heart monitor for the gym, and  a special thanks to the  Bank of  Singapore, for bailing out our “free enterprise,”  Banking system.

I am ever so grateful for your Communist  charity. It is a pity our Tea Party citizens cannot lend us the same help that you do.

VA Blue Button Intiative

Does everyone remember that the Director of  Veterans Administration is a Cabinet Post? When did that happen?

And, for what it is worth, I think this Administration with the guidance of former General Shinsecki, is doing a stellar job with VA Health Care. It is one of the shining lights in these days of travail.

Blue Button Initiative

On August 2, 2010, President Obama announced the “Blue Button” capability that allows Veterans to download their personal health information from their MyHealtheVet account. VA developed the Blue Button in collaboration with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Department of Defense, along with the Markle Foundation’s Consumer Engagement Workgroup.

The MyHealtheVet Personal Health Record (PHR) is comprised of self-entered health metrics (blood pressure, weight, heart rate, etc.), emergency contact information, test results, family health history, military health history, and other health related information. The Blue Button extract that Veterans can download is a so-called “ASCII text file”, the easiest and simplest electronic text format (see a sample Blue Button file).

Blue Button PHRs can be printed, or saved on computers and portable storage devices. Having control of this information enables Veterans to share this data with health care providers, caregivers, or people they trust.

On August 29, 2010, VA will make the Blue Button available on our website. Throughout the month of September Veterans can login to their MyHealtheVet account and try out the Blue Button. In early October, VA and CMS will officially roll-out the Blue Button download feature at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

Additionally, the Markle Foundation has issued a Developer Challenge. VA looks forward to the innovative platforms, apps, and widgets that will result from this exciting competition. For more information, visit the Blue Button Challenge website or the CMS Blue Button website.

My HealtheVet is VA’s award–winning e–health Website, which offers Veterans, active duty service members, their dependents and caregivers anywhere, anytime Internet access to VA health care information and services. My HealtheVet is a free, online Personal Health Record that empowers Veterans to become informed partners in their health care. With My HealtheVet, America’s Veterans can access trusted, secure, and current health and benefits information as well as record, track and store important health and military history information at their convenience. Veterans who are enrolled in a VA facility can refill their VA prescriptions and more, so register today! Using My HealtheVet is easy and it’s for YOU!

God Bless
Jose M. Garcia
Deputy National Service Officer
Catholic War Veterans,USA
josegarcia4@sbcglobal.net
Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.
In God We Trust

First Chaplain Killed In War Zone Since 1970/ Associated Press/ Dan Elliott

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Dan Elliott AP

DENVER (Sept. 2) — A chaplain killed in Afghanistan this week was the first Army clergyman killed in action since the Vietnam War, the military said Thursday. Capt. Dale Goetz of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colo., was among five soldiers killed by an improvised bomb on Monday.

Cpt. Dale A. Goetz.

U.S. Army
Capt. Dale A. Goetz, 43, is the first Army chaplain to die in action since the Vietnam War.

Before Goetz, the last Army chaplain to die in action was Phillip Nichols, who was killed by a concealed enemy explosive in Vietnam in October of 1970, said Chaplain Carleton Birch, a spokesman for the Army chief of chaplains. The Air Force said none of its chaplains were killed later than 1970. A spokesman for the Navy Chaplain Corps, which also provides clergy to the Marines, didn’t immediately return a phone call. Goetz, 43, listed his hometown as White, S.D. He once served there as pastor of First Baptist Church, the Argus-Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D., reported. Goetz, his wife and their three sons recently joined High Country Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, where Fort Carson is located, the newspaper reported. A church spokeswoman referred questions to the Army on Thursday, and Army officials declined to comment, citing the family’s wishes. Officials said Goetz had hitched a ride on a resupply convoy when he was killed. Birch said chaplains are considered noncombatants and don’t carry weapons, but they are accompanied by a chaplain’s assistant, a soldier who is armed. A chaplain’s assistant, Staff Sgt. Christopher Stout of Worthville, Ky., was killed in Afghanistan in July, Birch said. Chaplains don’t go on combat patrols but do go onto battlefields to conduct services and counsel soldiers, Birch said. “Many of those places where they travel are very dangerous,” he said. The Army has more than 2,800 chaplains, including those in the Guard and Reserve. More than 400 are in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Alan Simpson Is One Lost Soul

I  had to take a half day to collect enough balance of mind to even speak of this man Simpson.

This dude who has been slamming Vietnam Veterans for forty years! Simpson now suggests that upon the announcement of true and compassionate care for men who were sprayed with chemicals; Agent Orange/Dioxin, that they may not being doing enough for their country by accepting disability benefits.  Holy crap, that is bold.  The emotion and enmity that wells up in response to this troll can only be released on a mountain top, not in polite company.

To join the siren cry of veterans across the nation who are asking for his ouster is way to cliche. I would like to see this cowardly man who  served only one year in the Army, a mystery to this day, be marched out in front of every victim of Agent Orange, who is living. That would be me. He could then sit in his local church auditorium while we host the families of all our warriors who died of  Agent Orange exposure. Chemicals folks, chemicals made and sprayed on us by our own Dow Chemical!

I would not ask him to resign, too light for this big wide Wyoming Worm.  I would mandate that his penance, which is never meted out for this smart aleck, be to wear an Orange Letter on his outer clothing for the next year.  His very own Scarlett letter of  shame.

Years ago, this Senator who is some odd form of GI Joe wanna-be, used to refer to the Vietnam Veteran as a “professional veterans.” He was peeved that we fought so hard for our health care rights and attention to disabling illnesses, including the diagnosis of PTSD being officially included in the DSM, (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Psychiatry), in 1980.  He must be mad that they did not include his own psychiatric illness—interminable sick sarcasm, like last weeks comment about social security being a cow with 310  million tits.  Who is this man? How can he speak like this with impunity?

I wonder what he sacrificed in his generational Rosie the Riveter heart, for this last seven years of war in Iraq and ten in Afghanistan?  Is his lifetime free health care helping America balance the budget?  Maybe he should pay back his GI Bill benefits he used to get his JD.  Possibly the only reason for serving in the Army for one year?

This man has been about Corporate conquest and tax cuts for the top 2% his entire life. Are they sacrificing to pay for this war?

Maybe we could forgo paying for the disabilities and financial malfeasance of Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater, so as to have some chump change left over for a wheel chair for a veteran dying of Agent Orange.

Maybe the private contractors  making a quarter million each in tax free dollars could tithe, so as to pay for some medication for the veteran dying of lymphoma and leukemia.

Maybe Boeing and Dow Chemical could set up a fund to pay for the hospital visits at the VA. Just like the way you want to privatize Social Security.

With the exception of his most bizzare and shocking support for gays in the Military in 2007, he has been no friend of veterans. Makes you wonder why he lent his support for the gays? May have something to do with his dislike for tits.

Patriots support soldiers, Simpson supports the Military Industrial Complex, not the warrior. Shameful.

Since the man never saw a day of combat, I am suggesting that his service on the Armed Services Committee was some form of  compensatory guilt that  leaks out periodically with his very macabre brand of  “Freudian slips.” One thing is for sure, when he leaks, he lets us know his true self— a lost sad soul.

See you at Christmas Senator Simpson, we will hand deliver your Orange Sweater.