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Veterans Benefits

Politics Punditry And Potents Of Doom Need Poets

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If I were the king of the forest,  I would send all the media home for 60 days right after the mid-term elections. We need some quiet in the house please.

As T.S Eliot once said, “how much reality can humankind handle?”  Do we really need to score these folks every minute of the day?

The whole concept of proportionality has gone down the drain. Politics is only the art of the possible it is not the end game. There are not just two sides either. The global economy and the paradigm shifts in our workforce are way to complicated to be pigeonholed into a false dichotomy of Red and Blue.  We have lost our moorings of civility and a lexicon for consensus building. If any of these current day political ranters were in the Armed Forces they would be getting office hours and Article 15’s for their impudent ways.  In fact, many are an embarrassment to our troops who are literally defending their right to be so intractably addicted to daily adolescent school yard diatribes. Lets try to make the soldiers proud of us.

Lets just all button up for 60 days. Give these nubile electeds a chance to find the mess hall and maybe some breathing room to accomplish something of value for all of us who are not so troubled as some imagine.

I declare that the “Untroubled,” are the true silent majority. And many have simply had their fill of the tripartite narcissism that is rampant in all media forms; print, telecast and broadcast.

Can you imagine Vince Lombardi in the halls of Congress?  The team comes first not the players and the strategists. Lets just stop listening to them and read some poetry and play some music.  It is we who fuel the feeding frenzy for pugnacity and polarity.

Lets have some quiet in the house please.

By Emily Dickinson

This World is not conclusion/ A Species stands beyond/ Invisible, as Music/ But positive as Sound/ It beckons, it baffles/ Philosophy–don’t know/ And through a riddle at the last/ Sagacity must go/ To guess it puzzles scholars? To gain it, Men have borne/ Contempt of Generations/ And Crucifixion shown/ Faith slips–laughs, and rallies/ Blushes if any see/ Plucks at a twig of  Evidence/ And asks a Vane, the way/ Much Gesture from the Pulpit/ Strong Hallelujahs roll/ Narcotics cannot still the Tooth/ That nibbles at the soul.

Tell the Truth but tell it slant/ Success in Circuit lies/ Too bright for our infirm Delight/ The Truth’s superb surprise/ As Lightning to the children eased/ With explanation kind/ The Truth must dazzle gradually/ Or every man be blind.

Veterans Benefits

Has War Become A Second Class Citizen?

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It never ceases to amaze myself and my combat veteran pals, how we as a nation have become so adept at marginalizing and distancing ourselves from war during mid-term elections. It is as if there are parallel nations.  The machinations of the Tea Party are serving as a marvelous distraction from the real reason we have such deficit spending…. it is called war folks.
Please note that I have no commentary on the necessity of the use of our Armed Forces. I simply want to drive home the point that speaking of budget deficits and blaming political parties is like sending a pregnant woman to weight watchers.  Lets start to get real after this election. Lets get as real as war, and stop all campaigning and use the the money to solve some intractable problems, like re-tooling for a global economy and designing an economic model that is not dictated by the greed of Wall Street. That would be the “real” way to support the troops. Give them something to come home to other than a nation overpaid lobbyists and professional whiners.  The soldiers want a democracy not an auction. MB
Mr. Wood is one of the best journalists out there lending real perspective sans the spins.
Chief Military Correspondent
In its coming session, Congress will decide whether to pay for another year of military operations in Afghanistan — with likely casualties of a thousand or more American battle dead — or cut war funding to force President Obama to start withdrawing troops.
Congress will decide how much treatment soldiers will get for blast injury and whether they deserve a pay raise. It will decide how many protective armored trucks the troops will get, and the quality of their body armor. It will repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell” or let the courts decide. It will judge how much compensation and other benefits a double-amputee veteran will receive. It will have to reconcile all this spending with its campaign promises to cut government and the deficit.
If there’s a major terror attack on the United States, the president may order retaliation or other actions. But Congress will decide whether to sustain military operations if they are ordered against, say, Iran, or inside Pakistan.
afghanistan warAs the nation goes about selecting its next Congress, are voters and the candidates (and their annoying campaign ads) pretty much ignoring all these issues?
Did the little piggy cry wee wee wee all the way home?
In the midst of hot conflicts engaging more than 150,000 deployed military personnel and simmering military crises in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere, nearly everybody’s giving war a big yawn.
Those yellow-ribbon car magnets boasting of support for the troops have faded. Fewer soldiers and Marines trudging home through airports get thanked for their service these days, and when they do get thanked, the troops say it’s just an awkward encounter they’d prefer to avoid.
Even the Code Pink protesters who used to disrupt war hearings on Capitol Hill have turned elsewhere, most recently to the Gulf oil spill.
One reason is that most of the public hasn’t had a personal stake in the war. Less than 1 percent of Americans agree to active-duty service and far fewer than that have actually seen combat.
No major war in American history has been fought with a smaller percentage of Americans in uniform. And less than a dozen members of Congress, at last count, had children serving in the military.
“For most Americans the wars remain an abstraction,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates mused recently. He said war has become “a distant and unpleasant series of news items that does not affect them personally,” and he added with a touch of bitterness that military service is seen as “something for other people to do.”
Ordinarily, though, at least some Americans get passionate about war and register their emotions on Election Day. In 1916 a strong antiwar movement, together with the suffragettes, isolationists and others, forced President Wilson to campaign on the slogan, “He Kept Us Out of War.”
Wilson won, but his victory may have laid the foundations for today’s massive cynicism about elections: Within 90 days of his re-election as an antiwar president, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war, and the United States leapt into the jaws of World War I. Of the 4.7 million Americans who served, 53,000 were killed in battle and 200,000 came home wounded (not counting those with post-traumatic stress syndrome, or as they dismissed it then, “shell shock.”)
Midterm elections generally turn more on domestic issues than on war. One exception was 1954. With Republicans in power, the country, weary of the Korean war which ended a year earlier, voted in the Democrats who seized both the House and Senate and held on for decades, relinquishing the House only in 1994. During the most heated antiwar passions of the Vietnam conflict, Republicans gained in the midterms of 1966 and Democrats did so in 1970, but the war ground on with little congressional interference. (Even the conventional wisdom that Congress eventually cut off funding for the war, abandoning the South Vietnamese to its enemies, has been exposed as a myth.)
This year, issues of war have been “swamped” by voter concerns about jobs, debt and health care, observed Richard Kohn, professor of history, peace, war and defense at the University of North Carolina. And those are domestic issues in which Congress has a more obvious role anyway, he added.
Where war makes itself felt in this midterm is “in the dog that didn’t bark,” Kohn said. President Obama’s West Point speech last December essentially plotted a withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan, with a temporary “surge” of forces in Afghanistan and a date to begin the withdrawal of troops.
“That satisfied both the right, that said you’ve got to prosecute the war — and the base of his party, which wants to withdraw,” Kohn said.
True enough: conservative columnist Fred Barnes, who can rarely find even a mild epithet for Democrats, sent Obama a “love bomb” in the Weekly Standard after the West Point speech, and even Sarah Palin endorsed the president’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. Liberals were slightly disappointed but supportive.
So thoroughly did Obama’s Afghanistan war strategy preempt protest that the GOP’s Pledge to America, which attacks the administration from every conceivable angle, fails to mention either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Finally, of course, most Americans seem to have given up on Afghanistan. Why get passionate about it if the war is a lost cause?
However invisible the war is for now, it may explode once the campaign is over and the winners begin to take their seats. Awaiting House members and senators is the $700 billion Pentagon budget bill, which may come up as early as the lame duck session in November (three new senators will be seated immediately because they are filling vacancies in Illinois, Delaware and West Virginia).
That will be the first test of the determination of many candidates actually to cut the federal budget, eliminate waste and reduce the budget deficit, as they have promised. But even among the budget-cutters there is disagreement: On one end of that spectrum is Rand Paul, GOP Senate candidate from Kentucky, a libertarian skeptic of foreign involvement who believes the great threat is on the U.S. borders. On the other: Sen. John McCain and other traditional Republicans who support a strong U.S. presence in the world and consistently vote to appropriate the money to support it.
Later next year Congress likely will grapple with potential troop reductions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. All American military personnel in Iraq are due to be withdrawn at the end of 2011, unless a joint U.S.-Iraq agreement is modified — a step Congress surely would want to review. In Afghanistan, Obama is likely to begin withdrawing some troops in July.
In both cases the decision belongs to the White House, but Congress could interfere, for instance, by tampering with the flow of money.
Either way, there’s no indication in this election year that the new Congress will take such an activist role, said John Isaacs, executive director of the Council for a Livable World, a liberal think tank in Washington.
“The mood on military issues is ambivalence,” he said. “I don’t think the public cares.”
Filed Under: Afghanistan, Iraq
Veterans Benefits

Today Is the Deadline For Back Pay For Stop-Loss Payments

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Last fall the Congress ordered the Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay program for eligible veterans and service members to receive up to $3500 of back pay. Only 38% of all those eligible have applied. October 21st is the deadline.

The formula for these payments is $500 for every month they were retained on active duty after 9/11 for national security reasons.

89,836 members of the Armed Forces were were forced to stay on active duty. 55,ooo have have filed claims and $212 million has been paid out.  There are no conditions attached to these claims other than the extended duty. If you know of someone who experienced this, and has not filed yet, please tell them to do so by midnight tonight with their respective military branches.

Veterans Benefits

Veterans Benefits Improve/ Marine Times

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Veterans bill improves benefits, protections

By Rick Maze – Staff writer
Posted : Friday Oct 15, 2010 13:27:03 EDT

An omnibus veterans benefits bill signed into law on Wednesday holds the promise of big changes for disabled veterans and their families, according to the two committee chairmen responsible for passing the compromise bill.

One example is an expansion of employment and re-employment legal protections and more financial protections for deployed and mobilized service members, including the opportunity for service members to sue people or businesses who violate the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act.

The bill, the Veterans’ Benefits Act of 2010, was passed by Congress before lawmakers took an election break and was signed by President Obama on Wednesday.

“Veterans across the country will see their benefits improve,” said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, highlighting programs to increase automotive grants for disabled veterans, provide childcare services for homeless veterans and expand life insurance for disabled veterans.

“Many of these provisions were pending for some time, and I am pleased that they have now become law,” said Akaka, referring to the fact that the bill took two years to pass as lawmakers grappled with what programs to include and what to leave out.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., the House Veterans’ Affairs committee chairman, said the bill “will make a big difference in the lives” of many veterans. He mentioned improvements in employment help, more research into health issues facing Gulf War veterans and expansion of financial and legal protections of deployed troops as key items.

Until now, violations of the legal or financial protections under the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act did not include penalties. Now, violators would face fines of up to $55,000 for a first offense and up to $110,000 for subsequent violations, and individuals whose rights are violated also may sue for civil damages and attorney fees.

Additionally, the law expands termination rights for residential and motor vehicle leases and for telephone service contracts.

On auto and residential leases, the new law requires unpaid balances to be pro-rated from the effective date of termination, rather than being charged through the end of the next billing period. And when residential leases are canceled because of mobilization or deployment, early termination fees may not be charged.

On telephone contracts, the law allows termination of a cell phone or telephone exchange service any time a military member receives notice of orders to relocate for 90 days or longer to a location not served by the current contract.

Additionally, family-plan cell phone contracts could be terminated if anyone on the plan is a service member who deploys or moves out of the service area. When phone service is terminated, a phone company would have to keep it available for up to three years for reuse by a service member, but getting the old number would require re-subscribing to the phone service within 90 days of returning.

Veterans Benefits

Veterans Weekly Legislative Update

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S
Stay tuned for some commentary on the notion of privatizing the VA Health Care System.  The idea alone tells me the fringes groups in America can keep on chuggin’ with Freedom of Speech rights, but maybe we can get them to share them in the bathroom!
National Association
for Uniformed Services®
Weekly Update

WASHINGTON REPORT

Confirmation

This morning, October 15, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index figures for September.  The news squashed any lingering hopes for a COLA for 2011.  Due to the rate of inflation remaining below the level needed to automatically trigger a Cost of Living Adjustment, Social Security, Military retired pay and VA Disability pay will not increase for 2011.  This is only the second year without an automatic adjustment since the COLA went into effect in 1975. Unfortunately, it’s two years in a row.

The Social Security Act spells out the formula that determines the annual living adjustment for federal retirees (including military) and Social Security payments.  It is determined by comparing the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from the third quarter of one year to the third quarter of the next.  This year’s calculation produced no increase.

NAUS Note: NAUS supports legislation to use a different calculation, called the CPI-S (Consumer Price index for Seniors), to calculate the Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments.  Using CPI-S, as proposed in the CPI for Seniors Act (HR 5305), would account for the different products and different expenses encountered by older Americans, including much higher health-care costs.  With retirees facing double-digit increases in medical health care, the revised formula would provide a fairer and more accurate Social Security COLA each year.

Doc Fix Remains a Major Concern

As a reminder, legislation preventing cuts in payments to doctors that accept TRICARE and Medicare patients expires at the end of November.  As it stands right now, payment rates will be cut by 23.5 percent on December 1, unless Congress intervenes.

Congress Daily, a major media outlet that monitors congressional activity, reported this week that Senate leaders are eyeing a temporary, one-month patch for a looming Medicare physician pay cut, hoping to buy time to work out a longer-term fix.  Other sources suggest a temporary fix could run as long as six months to a year.

Failing to fix the problem could cause many doctors to stop seeing TRICARE patients due to reduced reimbursement for treatment and care.  Clearly, NAUS-members need to continue to raise awareness about this massive challenge before, during and after the coming elections, until a correction is made.  You can get it started by letting your Representative and Senators hear your concerns.  NAUS urges you to let them know you want the fix in place well in advance of the November 30 deadline.

You can use the NAUS CapWiz System to send them a message.  Please share this link with your family, friends and neighbors.  Congress must fix this and must make it a high priority on their post-election return.

Air Force Chief Calls for Higher TRICARE Fees

In a Tuesday speech at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said, “The world has changed and the United States Air Force must change too.”  Apparently in his eyes, increasing the amount military beneficiaries pay for their healthcare benefits should be part of that change.

Asked, during a question and answer period that followed his address, if military families and retirees should pay a greater share than they are right now Gen. Schwartz responded, “The reality is that the co-pays for TRICARE, which is a very good program certainly on par with many others in the country, have not changed since 1985.  I think it is inescapable that a change will have to be made and clearly these are matters for the executive to propose and the legislative to dispose.  But we collectively as a family of actively serving and formerly serving members and families have to recognize that if we’re not careful these unbounded costs can force out military content elsewhere in the DOD portfolio.  That is worrisome and something that will have to be addressed. Do it compassionately, rationally, but it has to be addressed.”

General Schwartz clearly misspoke when he stated fees have not increased since 1985; TRICARE did not come into existence until 1996.  Overlooking his misstatement, the Air Force Chief of Staff joins a growing number of senior military leaders and others who publicly say that the costs of the earned TRICARE program holds the potential to harm national security.  It is clear that this unfortunate viewpoint is scripted within the administration to dent and diminish the gratitude Americans have for the proud service given by military retirees and to put the benefits retirees earned first-in-line to help pay for today’s defense needs.  It is obnoxious and outrageous.

NAUS continues to press members of Congress to keep the current moratorium on higher fees in place.  You need to remain involved too.  Contact your elected officials and let them know how this affects you.

South Carolina Stolen Valor Legislation

A South Carolina legislator and a Medal of Honor recipient both say politicians who lie about their military records should be required to pay a $10,000 fine to the state Ethics Commission.

Charleston Republican State Rep. Chip Limehouse says the bill he is filing today is very important.  Limehouse says veterans have pushed for the legislation in reaction to misstatements by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal about his service during the Vietnam War.

Retired Marine Major General and NAUS Board Member James Livingston, says such incidents are frustrating and an affront to people who serve.  The Medal of Honor recipient says a law is needed in South Carolina so a similar situation doesn’t play out there.

Navy Birthday

On Oct. 13, 1775, the U.S. Navy was born when the Continental Congress authorized the arming of two sailing vessels with 80 men and 10 carriage guns in order to intercept British supply and munitions transports. The Declaration of Independence came nine months later, followed by the creation of the Department of the Navy in 1798.  Today, our Navy remains the most powerful in the world.

On Wednesday, the Navy celebrated its 235th official birthday.  NAUS salutes the men and women of the Navy for their courage and dedication.

HEALTH CARE NEWS

Combat Related Special Compensation Medical Travel

Over 100,000 Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) veterans are eligible for a new CRSC travel benefit to receive follow-up specialty care such as provided at the Mayo Clinic.

Section 1632 of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act directs reimbursement for travel-related expenses when a member of the uniformed services who incurred a combat-related disability and is entitled to retired or retainer pay must travel more than 100 miles from the referring provider’s location to obtain medically necessary, nonemergency specialty care for a combat-related disability.  Reasonable actual-cost travel expenses (e.g., lodging, fuel, meals, parking, tolls) associated with receiving specialty care can be reimbursed.  And if the physician so indicates, a Non-Medical Attendant may accompany the veteran and have their expenses reimbursed as well.

Checking the website, NAUS found that the application, approval and reimbursement to be complicated and somewhat confusing.  We hope that DoD and TRICARE will work very hard to make the process much easier to navigate.

For more information on this benefit and how to apply for it, go to this TRICARE Website.  Please let NAUS know how we can help sort out and untangle any complications you may encounter.  We stand ready to assist.

NAUS will continue to monitor this benefit and will pass on any new developments as we find them.  We thank NAUS Board of Directors Advisor Win Reither for pointing out this benefit and website.

Finding the Right Provider for You

When using TRICARE Standard, you may receive care from any TRICARE-authorized provider without a referral.  TRICARE-authorized providers meet TRICARE licensing and certification requirements and are certified by TRICARE to provide care to TRICARE beneficiaries. TRICARE-authorized providers include doctors, hospitals, ancillary providers (laboratories and radiology centers) and pharmacies.

To find a TRICARE-authorized network provider in your region, allowing you to save money by using your TRICARE Extra benefit, use the provider directory located on your regional contractor’s Website or call your regional contractor.

ACTIVE DUTY NEWS

Navy Marks 10th Anniversary Of USS Cole Attack

Ten years ago, an explosives-laden boat approached the USS Cole as it was refueling in Aden Harbor, Yemen.  The explosives detonated, ripping a 40-by-60-foot hole in the Norfolk-based Cole.  Seventeen sailors died that day.

The Navy on Tuesday marked the 10-year anniversary of the attack on the Cole with a ceremony at Naval Station Norfolk led by Adm. J.C. Harvey Jr.  The public and members of the Cole’s extended family attended.

Recommended Mailing Dates for APO/FPO Destinations

Ensuring care packages arrive in time for the holiday season is a priority for friends and family members of military personnel serving around the world.  To help get packages on their way, the U.S. Postal Service offers a discount on its largest Priority Mail Flat Rate Box.

The recommended mailing date for the most economical postage to overseas military destinations, including Iraq and Afghanistan, is Nov. 12.

Mail sent to overseas military addresses is charged only domestic mail prices.  The domestic mail price for the Priority Mail Large Flat Rate Box is $14.50, but for packages to APO/FPO addresses overseas the price is reduced to $12.50.  Additional discounts are available for customers printing their Priority Mail postage labels online at Click-N-Ship.  Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes are available at no cost at any Post Office or can be ordered online at shop.usps.com.  Postage, labels and customs forms can be printed online anytime using Click-N-Ship.

The Postal Service continues to show support to those serving in the armed forces by offering free Military Care Kits, designed specifically for military families sending packages overseas.  The mailing kits can be ordered by phone by calling 1-800-610-8734 and asking for the Military Care Kit. Each kit includes two “America Supports You” large Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes, four medium-sized Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes, six Priority Mail labels, one roll of Priority Mail tape and six customs forms with envelopes.

For online ordering of the large Priority Mail APO/FPO Flat Rate boxes featuring the “America Supports You” logo and information about mailing letters and packages to military destinations, go to Supporting Our Troops.

To ensure delivery of Christmas cards and holiday packages by December 25 to military APO/FPO addresses overseas, the Postal Service recommends that mail for service members be sent no later than the mailing dates listed below.  Mail addressed to military Post Offices overseas is subject to certain conditions or restrictions regarding content, preparation and handling.  APO/FPO addresses generally require customs forms.  To see an online table of updated APO and FPO addresses and mailing restrictions by individual APO/FPO ZIP Codes, click here, select “Pull-Out Information” and click on “Other Information.”

MILITARY MAILING DEADLINES

Military Mail Addressed To Express Mail Military Service (EMMS)1/ First-Class Mail          Letters and Cards Priority Mail Parcel Airlift Mail (PAL) 2/ Space Available Mail (SAM)3/ Parcel Post
APO/FPO AE ZIPs 090-092 Dec-18 Dec-10 Dec-10 Dec-3 Nov-26 Nov-12
APO/FPO AE ZIP 093 N/A Dec-4 Dec-4 Dec-1 Nov-20 Nov-12
APO/FPO AE ZIPs 094-098 Dec-18 Dec-10 Dec-10 Dec-3 Nov-26 Nov-12
APO/FPO AA ZIP 340 Dec-18 Dec-10 Dec-10 Dec-3 Nov-26 Nov-12
APO/FPO AP ZIPs 962-966 Dec-18 Dec-10 Dec-10 Dec-3 Nov-26 Nov-12

1/ EMMS is available to selected military post offices. Check with your local Post Office to determine if this service is available to an APO/FPO address.
2/ PAL is a service that provides air transportation for parcels on a space-available basis. It is available for Parcel Post items not exceeding 30 pounds in weight or 60 inches in length and girth combined. The applicable PAL fee must be paid in addition to the regular surface rate of postage for each addressed piece sent by PAL service.
3/ SAM parcels are paid at Parcel Post postage rate of postage with maximum weight and size limits of 15 pounds and 60 inches in length and girth combined. SAM parcels are first transported domestically by surface and then to overseas destinations by air on a space-available basis.

Exchange ID Check Goes “Hi-Tech”

Implementation of an updated point-of-sale system that uses the technological advances available through “smart” Common Access Cards is streamlining the identification process for age-restricted items at Army and Air Force Exchanges.  Click here for more information.

VETERANS NEWS

Free Canes for Veterans

A national program, “Hugo Salutes Our Veterans,” will provide at no charge 36,000 state-of-the-art Hugo Folding Canes to any U.S. Military Veteran in need of mobility assistance.

The Hugo Folding Canes, which retail for $29.99, will be distributed at all Sam’s Clubs nationwide, November 10, 11, and 12.  This program was started several years ago by AMG Medical, based in Alpharetta, Georgia, in tribute to its employees who served in the military.

Additional information is available at the Hugo website.

New Ad Campaign Targets Veterans

This week VA launched a National Ad Campaign focusing on recently separated veterans.  Former Marine and Iraq Veteran Robert Kugler speaks to veterans about benefits they have earned through service.  Click here to watch the video and be sure to share it with veterans you may know.

Save the Date

In past years, NAUS Chapters and members across the country have participated in Wreaths Across America, a special program that honors deceased veterans by placing wreaths on their graves during the holiday season.  This year events are scheduled for December 11.   We hope you can join in this extremly  wothwhile endeavor in your local area and an early reminder so you can plan accordingly.  Check the Wreaths Across America site for details on being a participate in this year’s honor.

NAUS NEWS

NAUS on the Road

Tomorrow is a busy day for NAUS representatives across the country.

On Saturday, NAUS President MG Matz will be the keynote speaker at the Ft. Monmouth, NJ, Retired Activity Day (RAD).  MG Matz and his wife Linda will man the table.

Also Saturday, NAUS Senior Legislative Assistant Morgan Brown will be the keynote speaker at the New London, CT, Submarine Base, Retiree Seminar.

Also on Saturday, NAUS Regional Vice President Chuck Partridge, accompanied by his wife Nancy, mans a table at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, RAD.

NAUS encourages you to stop by and say Hello to our representatives … and bring a friend to share in the activities and find out more about NAUS.

Future RADs include:

Next Thursday, Oct. 21, President Matz will address retirees at the Wright-Patterson, AFB, RAD in Dayton, Ohio.

And on Saturday, Oct. 30, President Matz delivers the keynote at the Ft. Hood, TX, RAD.

The 2010 NAUS Directories have been Shipped

If you ordered a NAUS Directory back in the spring/summer (thank you!), the good news is they have shipped.  You should be receiving your order soon.  If you wish to return your order, you should send it back to Harris Connect unopened to avoid paying the shipping cost.  If you have any questions or problems with your Directory order, please call the publisher, Harris Connect, at 888-618-4227 (press 2 for Customer Service). 

NAUS Annual Membership Meeting

Make plans now to attend the NAUS Annual Membership Meeting and luncheon on Saturday, 6 November, at the Officers Club at Fort Belvoir, VA.  Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki will be the keynote speaker this year.  Cost to attend the meeting and luncheon is $20 per person.  Fill out the Reservation Form (also found on page 6 of your September/October Uniformed Services Journal) and mail in with your payment, or contact Mike Boone for more information.
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Our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen stand in harm’s way around the globe to defend our nation and our cherished liberties. NAUS asks you to please pray for their continued strength and protection—and pray as well for their families, who daily stand in support of their spouses, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters.

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

Politics

BP Or BS

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Veterans Veritas was formed primarily as a, “zocalo,” for advocacy, not editorial commentary. There is no dearth of that in the universe of bloggers.

Yet, when it comes to the really, really big picture of BP and the oil spill it makes one wonder who exactly our soldiers are defending.

Do we not supply oil to the British waning Empire? Do we not defend their interests world wide? Does it not seem a bit odd to the Tea Party folk, that we are now more beholden to the Brits then at the time of King George? Surely, there is more at stake here.

I like Leonard Pitt’s reference to the dictum, “there are no atheists in fox holes,” as it now pertains to the siren cry for the help of the Federal Government to perform salvific acts. Do the TV generation Tea Party devotees speak with forked tongue? And why is the British Government not helping? Do they not benefit from the taxes and the crude oil for their own consumption? Why does America always go it alone, when we are daddy to all?

Take it TC.com mavens!

Veterans Events, Veterans' Spouses, Partners & Families

The Daughters Of The American Revolution, El Presidio Chapter, Host Carden of Tucson Essay Contest Winners

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The Carden of Tucson is to be lauded for its educational focus on pivotal life changing events in American History, as was the development and construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad.

Railroads have been embedded in the American imagination since the early 1800’s. The proverbial iron horse traversed lands that horses and riverboats could not venture.

Our government knew well how vital the railroads were to the settlement of the West and the growth of a young economy. It was our government that made huge land grants and loans to entrepreneurs that were ultimately the force behind Manifest Destiny. You might say that these grants were one of the first “Stimulus Programs.”

No one beefed about government money in those days, at least not the rich.

This years Essay Contest, sponsored by the El Presidio Chapter of the Daughters Of The American Revolution, first organized in 1890, with a Tucson presence for 95 years, posed the following scenario to a group of middle school children.

Imagine you were living at the time of the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. Describe how you felt on May, 10th, 1869, when the golden spike was driven at the Promontory Summit, Utah, to celebrate the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. Pretend you are either settler planning to use the train to travel to your new home in the West, an Irish or Chinese worker who helped build the line, or a Native American whose way of life was greatly affected by the railroad.

The DAR ceremony began with great decorum including the posting of colors by the Flowing Wells Jr. ROTC.

As the children read their essays covering the time, travails and geography of the movement west, I could feel the romance that engaged a nation in the first long distance travel chock full of adventure and new starts for many Americans. These kids did a wonderful job capturing not just the romance and unpredictable tales of daily life, but also at what expense the railroad worker had to subject himself for a paycheck. Their lives were bleak and the conditions were harsh. The Central Pacific Railroad hired many thousands of Chinese would could otherwise not be employed, while the Union Pacific employed Irish immigrants, famished and starved from the Potato Famine, and desperate out-of-work Civil War Veterans to lay track across some incredibly dangerous terrain that was populated by hostile Indian warriors. Illness and injuries took the lives of nearly 20.000.

Our student essayists chronicled these history making laborers with their award winning narratives. I plan to attach the essays to this blog sometime this weekend.

The 2010 Carden Academy of Tucson winners of the DAR American History Essay Contest are:

Tatianna Sierra 5th grade

Kristiana Weaver 6th grade

Nathaniel Unruh 7th grade

Blake Tanner 8th grade

Congratulations young Americans! And, thank you to the teachers of the Carden of Tucson.

A special thank you to the Daughters of the American Revolution for keeping our history alive and meaningful to our youth.