More than 500 bikers escort Vietnam Memorial replica through Florida
Herald Tribune
By Omar RodrÃguez Ortiz, Marco Eagle
Posted Feb 19, 2020
Marco Island is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall’s first stop of its 25th season, and the only stop it will make in Florida.
Over 500 bikers escorted a three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall from Fort Myers to Marco Island on Tuesday.
The Wall That Heals honors more than 3 million Americans who served in the U.S. Armed forces in the Vietnam War and it bears the names of the 58,276 men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Marco Island is the wall’s first stop of its 25th season and the only stop it will make in Florida.
Roger Spies, a Vietnam War veteran, was one of the first bikers to arrive at the Interstate 75 rest stop by exit 131 to escort the wall on his Harley Davidson Road King. read it here
ARE YOU OK WITH THIS? THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! FORCE THE SENATE TO DO THEIR JOBS OR REMEMBER WHAT THEY REFUSED TO DO WHEN YOU DECIDE TO VOTE!
Pentagon Awarded $876M in Contracts Meant for Disabled Vets to Ineligible Companies: IG
Military.com
By Richard Sisk
20 Feb 2020
The report also cited the case of "Contractor B," who had received three SDVOSB contracts worth $209.6 million. "However, we determined that evidence did not exist to support that a service-disabled veteran was the majority owner and highest ranking officer or in control of the company," the IG's report said.
This March 27, 2008, file photo, shows the Pentagon in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Small businesses owned or run by disabled veterans may have been cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars in Defense Department contracts by unscrupulous firms who were ineligible for the awards, the Pentagon's Inspector General reported Thursday.
The IG's audit found that the DoD "awarded $876.8 million in contracts to ineligible contractors and did not implement procedures to ensure compliance with the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) subcontracting requirements after the contracts were awarded."
At least 16 of the 29 contractors reviewed in the report who received business from the DoD on the basis that they met the disabled veteran requirements were found to be ineligible, the IG's office said.
Unless the DoD conducts better oversight, "service-disabled veterans may be in jeopardy of not receiving contract awards intended for them, and the DoD will be at risk of misreporting the amounts for SDVOSB participation," the 29-page report states. read it here
The recent news about the Department of Veterans Affairs joining forces with faith based groups is something wonderful, yet troubling at the same time.
While more and more groups have been popping up all over the country for over a decade, we have been wondering if any of them noticed what others had already begun long before these new leaders heard the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Wondering what else did they miss?
It is obvious they missed a group dedicated to delivering the awesome power of healing through peer support based on someone else who knew what it was like to be willing to sacrifice His life for the sake of others...Jesus.
If even the Son of God asked for help, there should be no stigma associated with needing your peers to help you. After all, none of you looked down on those you were sent to help. If you were willing to die for their sake, as well as the sake of those you served with, turning to them for your own sake makes sense.
So why is it that the stigma lives on, as strong as ever, while you were brave enough to serve, are afraid to communicate with those you served with?
Leaders in Point Man have been working with the Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals all over the country for years because it works. Yet, much like the 72 Jesus sent to care for others, no one knows their names.
Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
Luke 10:1-2 New International Version (NIV)
They did not want to glorify themselves, they just wanted to freely share what they had been given by Jesus. It did not matter that no one knew their names, but it was they joy they received in doing the work they were sent to do that mattered the most.
The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”
He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
We live with that joy everyday! There is nothing to compare to what we receive in return for our time than to see a veteran's life change from hopelessness to healing! To see you go from feeling abandoned by God, to knowing you are loved!
New Veterans Affairs rule helps religious organizations provide quality services
Washington Times
By Mike Berry
February 19, 2020
Illustration on veterans and suicide by Linas Garsys/The Washington Times
America faces a crisis of epidemic proportions. The number of Americans who take their own lives by suicide each day is staggering and sobering. Even one suicide is heartbreaking; a recent study estimated that 135 surviving people are affected by each suicide.
The latest data show that 17 veterans tragically take their own lives each day, and the rate shows no sign of slowing. Veterans comprise only 7.9 percent of the U.S. population, yet account for 13.5 percent of all suicides.
Americans know something has to be done to help the men and women who have selflessly served our nation, often resulting in terrible, unseen wounds. Thankfully, some Americans have answered the call to help those “who have borne the battle.” read it here
These military clinics will stop taking 200,000 non-active duty patients. Here’s the list.
Military Times
20 minutes ago
The plan includes a reduction of roughly 18,000 uniformed medical personnel, with those retained focusing on the medical readiness and treatment of active duty personnel.
In this file photo, a Navy corpsman assigned to Naval Health Clinic Corpus Christ, administers an influenza vaccine to a patient. The facility is among those slated for changes under a new Pentagon plan to shift the mission of some military health facilities to caring for only active duty personnel (U.S. Navy photo by Bill W. Love/Released)
More than 200,000 Tricare beneficiaries, including 80,000 active-duty family members, will no longer be seen at 37 military health clinics across the country in the coming years, according to a Department of Defense report sent to Congress Wednesday.
The Pentagon is planning major changes to 50 military health facilities that will force many beneficiaries to find civilian doctors in their communities over the course of two to four years.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Thomas McCaffery said Wednesday that the realignment supports the department’s effort to support the military health system’s return to focusing on troop health and military readiness.
According to the report Restructuring and Realignment of Military Medical Treatment Facilities, the clinics include Air Force, Army and Navy facilities. Two additional facilities will close and several others have already started transferring non-active duty beneficiaries to Tricare providers in surrounding communities.
read it here
Senator Jackie Rosen Visits Fire Station To Talk About HERO Act
KTVN 2 News
by Bryan Hofmann
February 18th 2020
"We don't want to secondarily traumatize our spouses or our children with the stories of the things that we see, which makes hard to offload," said Reid. "If we can get some help from the senators office, that would be a great assistance to us not watching our brothers and sisters take their own lives."
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is often talked about when it comes to members of the armed forces, but it also affects others -- like first responders.
Senator Jackie Rosen introduced a bill to extend assistance to first responders ahead of touring a firehouse today and speaking with local officials. First responders usually see people on their most traumatic days, and often carry that memory with them. Officials told us there is not a way to track PTSD and suicide rates, and that services for these first responders are scarce.
"We have had more suicides in the fire service than line of duty deaths," said Derek Reid, Fire Captain with Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District.
That isn’t even taking into account the full scale of PTSD and suicide rates for firefighters. 100 percent of deaths in the line of duty are recorded, but suicide numbers are not always put on the record.
“We are receiving about 30 to 40 percent of confirmed cases of suicide within the fire service, so we are not even capturing all the data to get the true number of what the suicide rate is within the firefighter community," said Reid. read it here
Helen Ubinas: Veteran’s final words show the true cost of war
Journal Star
By Helen Ubinas
Posted Feb 17, 2020
It’s been six weeks since Rosalind Williams’ 30-year-old son, Army veteran Michael Corey Hadley of Philadelphia, took his own life.
When grieving the death of a child, that’s a moment. A blink of an eye, a flip of a calendar. Barely enough time for Williams to pick herself up and return to the high school where she teaches science.
And yet in that small window, 900 other military parents have been dealt the same blow — left behind to try and find the rhythm of a life that they’ve lost after losing their children to suicide. According to the most recent data from the Department of Veterans Affairs, about 20 veterans, active-duty service members and members of the National Guard and Reserve die by their own hands every day.
In the quiet that followed the initial flurry of collective shock and grief after his death on Jan. 2, Williams sat with her anguish. She went through old photographs, collected new ones from his funeral and military interment. She read, and reread, the numerous news stories written about her son after the family spoke unsparingly about his death.
“His wounds were slow-acting and invisible, but nonetheless crippling and fatal,” the family said in a statement that spoke of his struggles with depression and PTSD after six years and three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Just as she did when she and the family struggled to find the right way and words to describe the loss of her son, Williams has continued to consider the cause of his death. His PTSD and the mental health issues that medicines and other interventions failed to help — those were merely symptoms, torturous as they were, of what really ailed him. Instead, his mother believed: What finally cost him his life was the traumatic brain injury he suffered after the Army sharpshooter’s multiple deployments. Even in his final letter to his family, which she read aloud to me at her dining room table, he spoke about it.
“I’m so sorry for doing this to you,” Hadley wrote. “I am so grateful to have been born into a loving, strong family. read it here
