Tag: Veterans Issues

Saturday, 18Aug18

I have finally read about a program that I feel could help returning troops and veterans adjust to civilian life.

In my case when I returned from Vietnam there was a 24 hour lag between rice paddy and downtown San Francisco….definitely not enough time to leave the war behind……

I wish there had been a program that helped me handle my return….and today there are those that attempt to help……a new program…..

A partnership between a crowdsourced archaeology organization and a veterans recovery program has opened up new possibilities for American military veterans in a field that may once have seemed like a stretch: archaeology.

DigVentures, a company based in the United Kingdom, aims to change the way archaeology is done by expanding it beyond academic research settings. They crowdfund financial support, crowdsource site locations, and use real-time digitization technology to create collaborative digs that are accessible to experts and enthusiastic novices alike.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture-exploration/2018/08/military-veterans-archaeology-shaker-dig-explorer-digventures/

What better way to help the adjustment than giving the veterans something to do and think other than his/her war experiences….plus assisting the world to learn more about history.

I am looking forward to my day…will be a little cooler this early morn so I will take advantage and spend some time in the garden until the heat makes it uncomfortable.

Hoping all my visitors have a great Saturday…..chuq

The VA Needs Saving!

Every American veteran should be concerned in what is happening to the institution that tasked with their care…..

The institution that is there to aid all veterans with their health and entitlements (and yes if one uses the VA then they are using entitlements) and in years past there has been scandal after scandal…..but it soldier on….and then we elected a dude who was always harping about Vets and behind the scenes is screwing them……

“On any veterans issue, the first person the president calls is Ike,” says a former administration official. If the name Ike doesn’t ring a bell, at least in relation to Veterans Affairs, that’s appropriate. A ProPublica expose by Isaac Arnsdorf explains he’s “reclusive” Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter, one third of “a previously unknown triumvirate” that has clandestinely been exerting influence over the VA—never mind that none of them have served in the military or worked in government. Palm Beach doctor Bruce Moskowitz and lawyer Marc Sherman round out the trio, which is referred to within the VA as “the Mar-a-Lago Crowd,” as that location serves as their informal HQ. Arnsdorf ran into some walls on the interviewing front: the men, a VA rep, and a White House spokeswoman declined to answer questions.

His reporting is therefore based on hundreds of documents he got using the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with former administration officials. The story he has pieced together is one of significant power: The men have the president’s ear and influence over personnel, with those who “were at odds with the Mar-A-Lago crowd,” including those in a slew of top positions (secretary, deputy secretary, chief of staff, director of electronic health records modernization), “pushed out or passed over.” Arnsdorf alleges that decisions have to be run by them, officials fly to consult with them on taxpayers’ dime, and initiatives pushed by the men in some cases have benefited their own interests. Read the full piece for much more on an “arrangement … without parallel in modern presidential history.”

This does not surprise me at all……as usual he, Dear Leader, was all talk and action is questionable where the veterans are concerned…….once again someone that is big talk that has never served…there ought to be a law!

Time for veterans to take control of their benefits (watch for a Veterans Day march)…..something on the line of the Bonus Army from the past….(dammit Google it!)

So I Have Written!

Turn The Page!

It’s Veterans Again!

Closing Thought–18Jul18

I have said and witnessed just how little our politicians care about our veterans……basically they, veterans, are nothing more than a political prop…the true concern evaporates when the cameras fall silent.

Our Dear Leader has just signed a veterans bill……

Trump’s habit of exploiting our military and veterans is exceeded only by his talent for letting them down, as his recent actions regarding the so-called “VA Mission Act” demonstrate.

Last Wednesday, Trump signed the bill into law during an elaborately staged ceremony in the Rose Garden at the White House. But hours after the cameras were shut off and the cast of grateful vets and politicians had dispersed, Trump began working against the law he had just signed.

The night of the bill signing, Trump quietly released a statement objecting to three oversight provisions of the law, saying he would not treat them as mandatory. Several veterans’ groups expressed concern about the statement.

Trump’s White House also circulated a memo to Congress objecting to a Senate plan to pay for the Mission Act, arguing the law ought to be funded by spending cuts to other programs.

“It’s just like Donald Trump to sign a deal, and then not pay for it,” said Will Fischer, Iraq war veteran and director of government relations for VoteVets, in a statement to Shareblue Media. “So, as he’s done many times in his life, Donald Trump has made a big production, but when it comes to paying, he’s going to leave us high and dry.”

Trump’s concern for veterans runs about as deep as last Wednesday’s photo op. When the cameras are off, Trump shows the true colors of a leader who has consistently disrespected our bravest and lets them down at every turn.

(shareblue.com)

The Trump administration demanded that lawmakers fund a popular veterans’ health-care program — which allows former troops to spend public funds on private doctors and hospitals — with cuts to other parts of the budget. Democrats, and some top Senate Republicans, prefer to raise the current caps on discretionary spending instead.

I have called for a new “Bonus Army”……the vets need to come together and show the nation that they deserve all the benefits that have been promised for years that always seem to fall flat in application.

To not fund these programs is a disrespect of the men and women that have done their duty toward their country while the rest of us have done little to nothing.

As a veteran I have watched painfully as veterans get the shaft with every administration and every president that prays on the veterans like a predator……again….time for another Bonus Army (look it up, do something for yourself)

The Big Lie

That is a good one.  Just about everything coming out of a politician’s mouth is a big lie….but there are some that are bigger than others…..and one of the biggest is the support for Veterans.

Pick an election….any election and the candidate is always going on about how he supports the troops and especially those brave souls that have served with honor, our veterans.

The House of Representatives have just proved how little they care about veterans…in this case the widows of fallen service people…….

Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky) discovered that today and is voicing his anger because Republicans voted against his plan to eliminate the “military widow’s tax.”

Yarmuth was one of the sponsors of a bill to fix what he calls “an egregious penalty that prevents approximately 64,000 surviving military spouses from receiving full death benefits.”

This is wonky, but here is what this was about.

Under the current law, family of fallen military members lose part or all of their Defense Department Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) when they also receive Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As one constituent wrote to Yarmuth, it reduces the surviving spouse’s benefits by an average of $1,250 a month or about $15,000 annually.

The Republicans may love vets but they probably didn’t like Yarmuth’s plan to “offset” the cost, which is political speak for how to pay for it.

He wanted to reduce the tax break Trump passed last December, which helps only the wealthiest Americans. Yarmuth’s plan would have taken one percent back from the corporations that benefited from the overhaul. 

Unsurprisingly, Republicans sided with corporations over veterans. “The fact that they could not bring themselves to set aside less than 1 percent of the trillions of dollars in tax cuts they just gave to millionaires and big corporations to protect survivors of military service members is a disgrace,” Yarmuth wrote on Thursday.

(Washington Press)

Why would the MSM ignore this travesty?  When will the morons learn that these toads care nothing for our veterans…..they are only useful at election time as a political prop….like the Constitution.

The veterans need to come together and give these spineless pigs in Washington something to fear….another “Bonus Army”.  (Use Google I am too weary to explain the thing)

Plus the so-called Republicans are to blame for allowing the vets to be used as a prop and for lying to them to get an endorsement and then for the abandonment….and it will only get worse (sorry I have to bring that news to my fellow veteran)

A Viet Vet–About Time

Closing Thought–26Apr18

A Viet vet has finally been awarded the medal that he richly deserves……

With a Marine down and several dozen heavily-armed enemy fighters approaching his location, 1st Lt. Philip H. Sauer grabbed his .45-cal pistol and ordered his other three men off the hill outside Khe Sanh.

Just a few hours earlier, the five-man artillery observer team had organized and set out to recon Hill 861 and potentially set up an observation post. But enemy bunkers and trenches teeming with North Vietnamese troops dotted the key, high terrain northwest of the Khe Sanh combat base.

When his point man was cut down by enemy fire, Sauer, used his own .45 pistol to provide covering fire as the Marines dove for cover and scrambled out of the kill zone.

Only one Marine survived that April 24, 1967, ambush, the first major fight with NVA in the area. It would mark the start of what became known as the “Hill Fights” during the siege of Khe Sanh the following year.

https://news.usni.org/2018/04/24/51-years-later-fallen-vietnam-marine-honored-silver-star

About time!

VA Makes The Headlines Again

As usual the VA is making the news….this time it is because Trump has Twitted the replacement of the head of the VA……many think it was because Shulkin got a couple of freebies….but in reality it is because of his objection to the privatization of the VA…..

In hindsight, the only thing surprising about last week’s ouster of Department of Veterans Affairs chief David Shulkin was that President Trump fired him via Twitter. The agency’s size (360,000 employees, $186 billion annual budget) is second only to that of the Pentagon. Its internal turf wars may be just as epic. Consequently, Shulkin’s downfall had less to do with a European travel junket than with a bureaucratic brawl regarding the scope and pacing of VA reform.

Shulkin’s replacement—Trump’s official physician, Rear Admiral Ronny L. Jackson—has his work cut out for him. “As a job, [VA chief] may very well be several orders of magnitude more difficult than dealing with President Trump,” writes Independent Institute Research Fellow Craig Eyermann, creator of the Government Cost Calculator at MyGovCost.org.

Since the VA became a cabinet-level agency almost 30 years ago, seven of its nine chiefs have left office before their term expired. The agency’s culture of corruption goes back decades further, as the late historian and Independent Institute Research Fellow Ronald Hamowy has explained. Making the VA an effective and efficient servant of the nation’s veterans must therefore go hand in hand with ridding the agency of its toxic culture. “And so it must go,” Eyermann writes, “whether the VA wants it to be, or not.” For a sound approach to reforming the VA and many other government agencies, see Better Than Government: A New Way of Managing Life’s Risks, by Independent Institute Senior Fellow John C. Goodman.

Reform Coming to the VA, Whether It Wants This or Not, by Craig Eyermann (MyGovCost News & Blog, 4/2/18)

Failure to Provide: Healthcare at the Veterans Administration, by Ronald Hamowy (3/18/10)

Better Than Government: A New Way of Managing Life’s Risks, by John C. Goodman (10/6/16)

It is sad that the vets are nothing more than a tool to be used during a campaign and then thrown aside once the election is won.

Our veterans have been asked to do a lot and have never been given the respect they deserve….we owe the vets more than we could ever pay and yet they are lied to daily and they hope for the best….and they NEVER get it.

Oh By The Way…You’re Dead

A wonderful Sunday……

As a veteran I have thought about using the VA….but I have refrained because I feel that vets of Iraq and Afghanistan need their services more than me…..that aside there have been many stories of how the VA has made mistakes and some are not so funny…..

A North Carolina man was notified that he was dead…….

Federal officials have discovered a North Carolina veteran isn’t dead yet. The Fayetteville Observer reported that 81-year-old Charles Covell of Fayetteville was surprised to learn that he had been declared dead by the Veterans Affairs Department last month. Covell’s wife realized something was wrong when a monthly disabilities payment was not deposited in their account, and the couple then learned that a death certificate for a Charles Covell was filed in January. A spokeswoman from US Rep. Richard Hudson’s office said Tuesday the VA has fixed the mistake, per the AP.

Covell spent 12 years in the Army, serving with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. The Observer notes that this is not the first time Covell has been the victim of a red-tape gaffe over his service. The military tried to honor him for 1965 heroics on the battlefield in Vietnam, but the paperwork got lost for more than 40 years. Covell finally received his Bronze Star Medal for Valor in 2006.the SS office sent her a letter, addressed to her, notifying her that she was dead

This made me think of a letter we received after the death of my mother so many years ago…..she was on Social Security and Medicare and after she died a letter was sent informing her that she was indeed dead and if she had any problems she was to notify the Social Security office nearest her.  The letter was addressed to her……she was dead!

Sad to say that the letter and so many of my mementos were lost during Katrina or I would put a copy here for all to see and read…..

Enjoy your Sunday…..TTFN……chuq

Screw The Vet As Usual

All the vets that have put their trust in the Trump admin need to step back and prepare for the screwing that is coming…..

Trump told a massive lie to America’s veterans on Monday as he promised them great healthcare as he is moving behind the scenes to privatize the VA.

The President tweeted:

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

We will not rest until all of America’s GREAT VETERANS can receive the care they so richly deserve. Tremendous progress has been made in a short period of time. Keep up the great work @SecShulkin@DeptVetAffairs! https://instagram.com/p/BddOPJfAngh/ 

Here is what is really going on according to The Wall Street Journal:

David Shulkin said in an interview that he wants to make the VA’s hospital system compete with private-sector providers for military veteran customers, which he said would give veterans greater choice over their health care.

….

“The direction I’m taking this is to give veterans more choice in their care,” Dr. Shulkin said, speaking from his office, “and be the decision maker for their care, which I fundamentally believe is a concept that has to be implemented.”

Trump is trying to take away healthcare from veterans who have risked their lives and their health for their country. The Trump tweet should sound familiar because it is the same language that he used before he tried to take healthcare away from 32 million Americans by repealing Obamacare. The Republican dream has been to privatize the VA and replace free healthcare for veterans with a capped voucher that they can use at private medical facilities.

Veterans were promised health care in exchange for their service, but Donald Trump is trying to break that promise with a privatization scheme to benefit the wealthy.

Our vets deserve better, and they should stand up, speak out, and let Trump know that they won’t allow him to steal their healthcare.

(politicususa.com

I do not understand the loyalty that wets show this lying toad that has NEVER cared one iota about their health or the families……they still slither along with the head reptile.

 

An Old Killer Arises

Most everyone knows of the problems Viet vets had upon their return from the war zone….PTSD and those damn symptoms of Agent Orange….well a new killer has been discovered after all these years….

A half a century after serving in Vietnam, hundreds of veterans have a new reason to believe they may be dying from a silent bullet—test results show some men may have been infected by a slow-killing parasite while fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia. The Department of Veterans Affairs this spring commissioned a small pilot study to look into the link between liver flukes ingested through raw or undercooked fish and a rare bile duct cancer, per the AP. It can take decades for symptoms to appear. By then, patients are often in tremendous pain, with just a few months to live. Of the 50 blood samples submitted, more than 20% came back positive or bordering positive for liver fluke antibodies, said Sung-Tae Hong, the tropical medicine specialist who carried out the tests at Seoul National University in South Korea.

“It was surprising,” he said, stressing the preliminary results could include false positives and that the research is ongoing. Though rarely found in Americans, the parasites infect an estimated 25 million people worldwide. Endemic in the rivers of Vietnam, the worms can easily be wiped out with a handful of pills early on, but left untreated they can live for decades without making their hosts sick. Over time, swelling and inflammation of the bile duct can lead to cancer. Jaundice, itchy skin, weight loss, and other symptoms appear only when the disease is in its final stages. The VA study, along with a call by Sen. Chuck Schumer for broader research into liver flukes and vets stricken with the cancer known as cholangiocarcinoma, began after the AP raised the issue last year. About 700 veterans with cholangiocarcinoma have been seen by the VA in the past 15 years.

Just great!  As if these vets did not have enough on their shoulders…..now this….

May you all have a good Sunday…..be well, be safe…..chuq

America’s (Dis) Regard for its Soldiers and Veterans

We have just celebrated Veterans Day…..a day when we hold our veterans in high regard……think about that statement for a moment……

We thank them for their service…..but do Americans really care?  Do we as a society really give a sh*t?  My thought is that we do or say these things because it is expected of us….not because we really care…..

I believe that if we had a shared experience our concern would be more real…..how real can the concern be when about 1% of the country actually experiences military service and the horrors of war?

I recently read an article on this subject in the American Conservative (yes, the old professor finds some worth in a conservative publication)…….

The American people and their leaders have been swooning for years over the boys and girls in uniform. Our national crush on the armed forces reflects in part symptoms of lingering collective post-9/11 traumatic stress syndrome. The al Qaeda attacks represented the deadliest terrorist strike in American history, and that incongruous bolt of death and destruction from the blue skies of an otherwise lovely fall day compounded our terror. Our armed forces rushed to protect us after the attack and then quickly visited righteous retribution on the perpetrators and their Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

In addition to our gratitude for the military’s protection after 9/11, the public’s affection for our military is reinforced by the fact that we now regard it as one of the few truly functional sectors of our society. In a recent Gallup poll, 73 percent of respondents demonstrated confidence in the armed forces, compared with only 41 percent for organized religion, 18 percent for big business, and 9 percent for Congress. Another polling organization finds that 78 percent of the public holds our soldiers’ contributions in high regard, above the share that feels the same of teachers (72 percent), doctors (66 percent), and even scientists (65 percent). Not surprisingly, Pew detects a general, if diffuse, sense of gratitude among the 91 percent of respondents who declare they are “proud” of the military.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-dis-regard-for-its-veterans-soldiers/

Ask yourself if you regard for the soldiers and veterans is genuine or is just something that is expected of you…..