Showing posts with label Veterans United For Truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Veterans United For Truth. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Federal Court won't help veterans?

UPDATE Veterans For Common Sense is taking this to the Supreme Court!
9th Circuit Court Reverses itself. Next Stop Supreme Court

Dear Supporter,

As you may have heard, this week the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued their En Banc decision regarding our lawsuit ruling against VCS and VUFT. While the majority decision once again confirmed that serious problems exists within the Department of Veteran's Affairs, they disagreed that the courts were the proper venue for the veterans to seek redress. We respectfully disagree and will be appealing this case to the Supreme Court of the United States. Our veterans are not second class citizens and should not be subject to an arbitrary and capricious system with special rules exempt from normal due process protections that other Americans enjoy. As it stands the VA can effectively do what it wants forcing veterans to languish for years This is just a set back, it is not the end of our 5 year struggle, to ensure veterans have timely access to the quality care that they need and deserve. The recent IG report quanitfying the serious problesms that persist at VA shows that our veterans need everyone's help. We need your support to keep up the fight. The 9th Circuit Court may have turned their back but we will never turn our back on veterans. You can sign on to be a part of our historic court case by donating today.

I was always taught our Constitution trumps statutes and that our Courts were our last bastions to preserve our rights and liberties;now that promise has proved hollow, and all I hear is the continuing echoes of men and woman in distress. We should all feel their pain. This day will be remembered as the day our country turned its back on our veterans. VCS vows to fight this heartbreaking decision all the way to the end, because 18 of our veterans commit suicide every day.”

Sincerely,
Patrick Bellon,MPA
Iraq Veteran
Executive Director


The government gave veterans excuses. The charities around the country spread out and sprung up. They watched the 99% protests while they wondered who the hell would fight for this part of the 1% serving today along with the less than 10% that served yesterday. Groups ended up showing exactly what they value. Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth decided to try to legally force the government to honor their side of the deal only to discover the court says they have no authority? So where are you on this? Are you willing to fight for them? Protest for them? Call your senator or congressman? Call the media to make sure everyone knows how bad things are for them?

Fed court reverses order for VA system overhaul
PAUL ELIAS May 7, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on Monday reversed its demand that the Veterans Affairs Department dramatically overhaul its mental health care system.

A special 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that any such changes need to be ordered by Congress or the president.

The 10-1 ruling reversed an earlier decision by a three-judge panel of the same court.

The May 2011 ruling had ordered the VA to ensure that suicidal vets are seen immediately, among other changes. It found the VA's "unchecked incompetence" in handling the flood of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health claims was unconstitutional.

The new decision said courts are powerless to implement the fixes sought by two veterans groups that filed the lawsuit against the VA in 2007. The lawsuits alleged that hundreds of thousands of veterans had to wait an average of four years to fully receive the mental health benefits owed them.

"There can be no doubt that securing exemplary care for our nation's veterans is a moral imperative," Judge Jay Bybee wrote for the majority. "But Congress and the president are in far better position" to decide whether and what changes need to be done.

The court said veterans are free to file individual legal claims, but courts had no business ordering systemic overhauls.

"If the courts don't have jurisdiction, then the veteran is left without a remedy," Erspamer said.

Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth filed the lawsuit at the heart of the ruling in San Francisco federal court in 2007.

During the two-week trial without a jury in April 2008, lawyers for the groups showed the judge emails between high-ranking VA officials that the attorneys said confirmed high suicide rates among veterans and a desire to keep quiet the number of vets under VA care who attempt suicide.

"Shhh!" began a Feb. 13, 2008, email from Dr. Ira Katz, a VA deputy chief. "Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?"
read more here

Monday, August 24, 2009

Judge tells VA Law Suit Lawyer, work it out

Veterans groups urge court to force the VA to speed up handling of disability claims and appeals
One judge has said the problem is beyond the court's power to correct, while another has given the two sides until Sept. 1 to mediate the issue.

By Carol J. Williams

August 24, 2009


Suicides among veterans average 18 a day, by the government's estimation, and a backlog of disability claims for post-traumatic stress disorder and other untreated ailments approaches 1 million.

With a massive military drawdown from Iraq and Afghanistan potentially on the horizon, lawyers for the veterans want a federal appeals court to order the Department of Veterans Affairs to make good on the nation's commitment to take care of those wounded in mind as well as body.

It is an onerous task that a lower court has already deemed beyond the power of the judiciary to correct. And the latest appeal, to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has also been met with reluctance by the judges to tell a government bureaucracy how it should conduct its affairs.
read more here
Veterans groups urge court to force the VA to speed up

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Veterans United for Truth steps up to support PTSD documentary


Staff Hits the Road to Record Interviews and Footage for PTSD Documentary
Tim King Salem-News.com
The trip precedes the upcoming 500 Mile March for PTSD in September.


(SALEM, Ore.) - For the next ten days, Salem-News.com is on the road as we gather elements for our upcoming documentary on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

PTSD as it is commonly known, is a serious problem affecting hundreds of thousands of combat veterans and their families. A great deal of education needs to take place for all Americans on this subject.

When you work in this area, you learn that there are many approaches to treating PTSD and there are success stories and absolute horror stories also.

Our goal in this hour long program is to show and evaluate a wide range of treatment and therapy options, and we are going right to the heart of the matter.

The documentary will be formed around a series of interviews that I recorded in Iraq last summer with soldiers and Marines who are still actively engaged in the war.

We are told this is the first time in history that PTSD has been studied in this manner.

It seems clear that part of the education needs to start before troops enter the war. For those who are deploying for the first time, the insight from these combat theater interviews is a particularly valuable aspect of the program.

The group Veterans United for Truth, has already stepped forward with a donation to assist in the production of the documentary.

The group's Vice Chair, Sanford "Sandy" Cook in San Luis Obispo, California, explains that VUFT found our documentary to be the type of project that will benefit many veterans and their families, and VUFT's board made individual donations as well as a contribution from the group itself.
read more here
PTSD Documentary

Monday, August 10, 2009

Impact of VCS-VUFT Lawsuit against the VA

This was part of the reason I resigned from the NAMI Veterans Council. They gave Dr. Katz an award for what he was forced to do when it came to the suicides of our veterans.

This is from an online report about the NAMI Convention
Veterans Affairs Mental Health Program

by
Cole Buxbaum
There has been an increase in homelessness, criminalization, and suicide among veterans. 14% of service members are now suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) During the last few years 1.6 million veterans have had a psychiatric diagnosis. The Veterans Affairs Department has called for post-deployment periodic evaluations for all combat veterans.

Since 2006 the VA has hired over 4,000 new mental health practitioners to deal with the growing demands, and more new hires are planned. In late 2008, the VA issued a directive to all VA health care facilities to significantly restructure their mental health programs, establishing scores of new approaches to help veterans transition, reintegrate and recover.

The key speaker at this workshop was Ira Katz, M.D., director, Office of VA Mental Health, Washington, D. C.



This is from the convention
NAMI VETERANS COUNCIL DEDICATION TO VETERANS MENATL HEALTH CARE AWARD

Ira Katz, MD

Dr, Ira Katz left a comfortable position at the University of Pennsylvania and the VA Medical Center to join the Department of Veterans Affairs. Within two years of his arrival, members of Congress and the press were calling for his resignation or termination over the issues of rising suicides among veterans-especially veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In spite of blistering criticism, Dr. Katz worked tirelessly behind the scenes to launch the VA's first ever suicide prevention initiative, including a nationwide crisis call line in conjunction with SAMHSA that has intervened in thousands of potential suicides by veterans. While managing this delicate task and fending off critics, Dr. Katz spearheaded VA-wide approval of a dramatic reform of its mental health programs to embrace recovery principles. All veterans receiving mental health care in the VA are better served today because of the work of Dr. Ira Katz. We are proud to honor him for his dedication to improving the mental health and the mental health care of veterans.

"Proud" is what they were but the fact is, none of what happened with the VA and steps taking would have happened without these law suits and Congress getting invovled. If the NAMI Veteran's Council is so uninformed on what the facts were behind all of this they awarded one of the people responsible for the harm done, then we have to ask what else they have gotten wrong. What excuse can they have for not knowing? What can they say to the families of our veterans when they were so hopeless they committed suicide at the same time Katz was denying it was happening on national TV? These are not average citizens unable to know what's going on. They are supposed to be experts on what they are talking about. So how is it they didn't know what was behind all of this? How is it that they gave an award to Katz after all of this?

I cannot tell you how truly disgusted I am with this. I had such high hopes for the Veterans Council believing they were putting veterans first and knew as much about what was going on as I did. After all, they are the "experts" and were supposed to know. Yet given the fact I would receive emails with links to reports days after I had read them and posted them, as if it was big news and they never seemed to manage to send out links to the really big stories, that should have given me a clue they didn't really know much of what they should have know and been informing others on.

Again, I still believe in NAMI but after this award to Katz, I don't believe the Veteran's Council is about doing what is best for the veterans. If they were really interested in the truth then they would have given an award to Veterans for Common Sense or Veterans United for truth instead because their efforts were behind all of it.


Impact of VCS-VUFT Lawsuit
Two years ago Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth made history with our lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs.
We are tired of the endless delays caused by VA, including the fact that VA medical centers turned away suicidal veterans seeking mental healthcare - a dire moral outrage during a time our Nation fights two wars.While some at VA called our suit a nuisance, and VA tried in vain to have the suit dismissed, our lawsuit provided several victories for veterans.
The court ruled VA was harming our veterans with unreasonable delays in healthcare and benefits.

The court forced VA to release internal documents showing VA concealed a terrible and tragic suicide epidemic and even sought to block access to healthcare and disability benefits for veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.Your contributions makes a difference!

Please set up a monthly gift to VCS today so we can keep the heat on VA to improve access to timely services for our veterans.


Be a Part of History - Watch Hearing and Support VCS
This Wednesday at 9:30 AM, our attorneys in our case, Gordon Erspamer and Morrison & Foerster and Sid Wolinsky at Disability Rights Advocates, appear before the Ninth District Court of Appeals in San Francisco. C-SPAN will carry the case live.

Read our appeal brief here. How important is this lawsuit? Two widely respected veterans organizations, the Vietnam Veterans of America and Swords to Plowshares, wrote the Appeals Court and agreed that VCS and VUFT were right and that the current crisis demands court intervention to overhaul and reform VA.

How historic is this case?

Last week, Gordon Erspamer was presented with the prestigious pro bono attorney of the year award by the American Bar Association.

You can view a video about Gordon here.

After VCS and VUFT filed our lawsuit, VA set up a toll-free suicide prevention hotline at 800-273-TALK. So far, 150,000 distraught veterans have called, and VA performed more than 3,200 rescues, including a soldier on active duty in Iraq.

Your support keeps the needs of veterans front and center in the news.

Please donate to VCS today so we can improve how VA takes care of our veterans. Sincerely,

Paul Sullivan

Executive Director

Veterans for Common Sense

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Groups Ask Court to Expedite PTSD Care

July 29, Lawsuit Update: Groups Ask Court to Expedite PTSD Care
Audrey Hudson


The Washington Times

Jul 29, 2008

July 29, 2008 - Two veterans groups have asked a federal appeals court to force the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to expedite disability claims and treat troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The groups - Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth Inc. - filed a notice Monday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to overturn a lower court ruling in their lawsuit. Filed in July 2007, their lawsuit claims that the VA system that identifies and processes sufferers of PTSD has collapsed.

Judge Samuel Conti, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, rejected the lawsuit on June 25, saying the claims were outside of the court's jurisdiction and would require a complete overhaul of the VA by Congress.

The veterans groups contend that the VA and Congress do not have the exclusive right to decide due-process issues and that the courts have a pivotal role to help improve the lives of veterans suffering from the mental disorder.

"We think the judge's ruling is wrong, and where there is a wrong, there is some remedy," said the groups' attorney, Gordon P. Erspamer of the law firm Morrison & Foerster. "Look at all these soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with horrible psychic wounds getting turned away from VA facilities."
go here for more
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/10774

Again, all you have to do is think about the fact the suicide and attempted suicide rate has gone up in order to know someone else has to be the authority in this and make sure what needs to be done is done instead of someone just saying it is being done.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Veterans United for Truth Responds to Court Ruling

Editorial Column: Veterans United for Truth Responds to Court Ruling

Bob Handy


Veterans United for Truth

Jul 01, 2008

July 1, 2008 - Recently Federal District Judge Samuel Conti decided in the class action lawsuit in which we (Veterans United For Truth and Veterans for Common Sense) were plaintiffs, that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was failing in many cases in providing mental health services to returning veterans. Unfortunately he also decided that he did not have jurisdiction at his level to compel changes in the VA’s procedures.

While we are disappointed with Judge Conti's decision that he lacked jurisdiction, and do not agree that we did not prove the “systemic” nature of these problems, this outcome is far from being all bad. We knew that it was a crap shoot going in, but we were sure that he had the necessary jurisdiction. We also knew that no matter how he decided, the case would most likely end up before the Supreme Court. Of course we had hoped to be defending Judge Conti's decision against an appeal by the DVA; now we will be appealing his decision in the Ninth Circuit.

When we started out, we knew that we were in it for the long haul. We won round one, just by getting the case heard in federal court, since the DVA and the Department of Justice both attempted multiple times to have us disqualified as plaintiffs, and denied that the federal court had any right even to examine DVA procedures and policies..

We lost part of round two. It may be a setback, but it succeeded in large part since Judge Conti’s ruling expressed agreement with much of our complaint. Additionally The DVA has been exposed not only to the Congress, but also to the national and international media, who have stepped up their reporting on the shoddy treatment that the VA has been providing to returning veterans, and to the repeated delay and denial of service by the DVA..

America’s veterans will be forever in the debt of Morrison & Foerster and Disability Rights Advocates, the two law firms that took on the DVA pro bono.
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/10553

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

When it comes to PTSD help heal it or get out of the way!

One more case of "but"

Military Update: Treating mental combat wounds
BY TOM PHILPOTT Daily Press
June 16, 2008

Rep. Bob Filner, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, alleged on Wednesday that Bush administration officials were continuing to downplay the mental trauma and brain injuries suffered by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Filner, D-Calif., said an April RAND Corp. study — "Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery" — justified a 10-fold jump in the U.S. casualty count, compared with the figure of 33,000 American dead and wounded used by the Pentagon.

RAND researchers extrapolated from a survey they conducted of 1,965 vets to conclude that nearly 300,000 service members and vets of Iraq and Afghanistan were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder — PTSD — or major depression. Filner told the pair of researchers, who summarized their findings for his committee, that their work probably understated the problem.

"I personally think these are low estimates, just from my own studies," Filner said. "But if you take even the 300,000, (it's) 10 times the official casualty statistics from the Pentagon. Shouldn't this 300,000 be included?"

Lisa H. Jaycox, a senior behavioral scientist and clinical psychologist who co-directed the RAND study, embraced Filner's argument.

"Well, they are (suffering) an injury condition resulting from combat deployment, and so it's a different kind of casualty," Jaycox said, "but, yes, they are very important numbers."

The three-hour hearing also included testimony from retired Navy Rear Adm. Patrick W. Dunne, assistant secretary for policy and planning for the Veterans Benefits Administration.

At the same hearing, Michael L. Dominguez — principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness — said RAND gathered solid data from its survey but drew the wrong conclusions. The study, Dominguez said, "did not, and cannot, definitively say that there are 300,000 cases of clinically diagnosed cases" of PTSD or depression among vets who served in the two theaters.

Filner angrily interrupted him, telling Dominguez that RAND didn't say it showed 300,000 clinically diagnosed cases of PTSD or depression.

"It was an extrapolation to the possibility" of 300,000 cases, Filner said.

With more than 1.6 million U.S. service members having served in Iraq or Afghanistan, Dominguez said, a finding that 300,000 vets "have experienced some kind of mental health stress is very consistent with our data. And those people do need to be discovered (and) to get help."
go here for more
http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/military/dp-local_milupdatenew_0616jun16,0,6743686.story



Over 30 years ago, when people who got into this before I did, there was very little known about PTSD and it had just received that title because Vietnam Veterans fought for it. Five years later, I got into this because of my husband. By then a lot more was known. One of the things was that there were 500,000 with PTSD and this came from a study funded by the DAV. This study was published in 1978 before most of the people being quoted as "experts" today were even born. This is not a new illness. This is not a changing illness because humans are pretty much still made up of all the same parts of their original design.

At the NAMI convention in Orlando this weekend, we heard a lot about a lot of people suffering. A great deal of the people attending were consumers, otherwise known as patients and their families. They sat in the conference rooms right next to people who have working on helping them ranging from simple advocates like me all the way up to psychiatrists and psychologist. Why would people like us get together for 4 days of talking? Simply to provide understanding, knowledge and support to keep trying to fight for all of them. I heard a lot of heartbreak from some of the families dealing with PTSD in their own families.

Every time there was a denial of what is going on, people got up and walked out of the room. Frankly I was wondering why some of them were there are all at the head of the room instead of sitting in back and listening. No one is such an expert they have nothing to learn about this. This is why having conferences is so important for anyone living with or working in mental health needs to participate in events like this whenever and wherever possible.

Throughout the years I've come up on many articles trying to diminish the magnitude of the suffering. Whenever this happened the only question in my mind was focused on why anyone would try to do this instead of listening, learning and being quiet until they knew the answers.

While I post about medications taken totally out of the report I read, I never discuss medication when helping veterans other than to tell them they may need it, to stop self-medicating and to talk to their doctor if they feel like their medication is not working. I have very little to offer on this subject because I am not a doctor and I just don't have enough knowledge to know I am helping instead of harming with the limited knowledge I do have on this subject. In other words, a little knowledge can do a lot of harm so I keep my mouth shut on this and won't step over the line using guess work.

Why can't "experts" do the same when it comes to PTSD? If they are experts with other issues, then they should stay where they are, focus on what they know and stop pretending to be experts on what they know very little about. Why can't they except history for what it is and stop trying to stand in the way of new data drawn from history? The numbers from the Rand Study did not shock me or surprise me at all because all I had to do was pay attention in the first place to the data from Vietnam veterans to know the Rand Study is a lot closer to reality than the VA and DOD numbers are. One more thing jumping out from all of this is the fact the VA and the DAV are jumping around like their hair is on fire trying to cope with all of this. If the numbers are only about 30,000, they would be fully capable of dealing with them otherwise. They are not so inept that 30,000 would totally overwhelm them.

Just open your eyes and know what real is and what an illusion is. If you don't know what the hell you are talking about then go sit in the back of the room and open your ears as well as your mind. Otherwise, you are standing in the way of healing and that is not helping!

The following are in response to some of the things I heard during the conference which caused me to walk out of the room.

FACT: Dr. Katz did conceal the numbers of suicides and attempted suicides. The emails did not just suddenly show up on Senator Akaka's desk. The Katz emails were discovered because of the law suit brought about by Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth. The emails were what he sent because he was trying to cover up the data CBS found with their own research work. The emails were about harmful conditions attempting to be covered up after we already saw too many suicides.

FACT: Norma Perez email about not doing a diagnosis of PTSD, was what it was. No it was not a poor choice of words because of what she followed up this with and mentioned cost cutting and how they "didn't have time" to do a thorough diagnosis. This email did not suddenly show up but was discovered because of a Freedom Of Information Act filed by CREW and VoteVets.

While we are reading horrible stories about suicides and suffering of our troops and veterans, we would not be reading them if they were not happening. This is obvious! How could any of the service organizations be taking on the VA and the DOD if there were not problems that enabled them to be taken on? The DOD and the VA heads will defend everything they are doing no matter what harm is being done as long as they can get away with it. It's all as simple as that. If they were just simply mistaken on what they did, then why were they not willing to correct the harm done and leave it at that instead of defending what they did and their right to keep doing it?

Folks, this is really simple. If there is damage being done and no one is addressing it, the damage will continue and nothing will be fixed. We will keep reading more and more stories about suffering instead of less and less. This blog alone has over 2,000 posts on it and I doubt there are two hundred good stories on it. That's really sad when you consider that PTSD has been known for over 30 years and reported in humans since King David's time.




You can read more about NAMI here.
NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness
The mission of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill is "to eradicate mental illness and improve the quality of life

Monday, May 12, 2008

Point Man to interview Paul Sullivan VCS on Stardust radio


From Mike Harris
I will be hosting the upcoming SVR Internet Radio Show:

WHEN: Wednesday May 14th from 6:30 to 8:00 PM Eastern Time

GUESTS:

* First 30 minutes - Mr. Paul Sullivan - Executive Director of "Veterans for Common Sense" -

* Last 30 minutes - Mr. Sid Wolinsky - Attorney and co-founder of "Disability Rights Advocates" - http://www.dralegal.org/

Both individuals are active in a major class action lawsuit against the Veterans Administration for mistreatment of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Plaintiffs in the suit are "Veterans for Common Sense" and "Veterans United for Truth". Here is a May 11, 2008 article that explains the situation:

http://tinyurl.com/6aodwr

I may have another speaker for the middle portion of the show, but if not then we will simply continue our discussion on the topic.

TOPIC: Mistreatment of Veterans by the VA and the high Veteran Suicide rate

WHERE: http://www.stardustent.com/svr.htm


Thursday, April 3, 2008

Veterans United for Truth at War


Photo: Don Katz

Veterans United for Truth at War
Still Fighting


Thursday, April 3, 2008
By John McReynolds

More than a third of veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), yet only a tiny number of veterans’ hospitals treat the problem. In 2005, the Veterans Administration acknowledged a backlog of 350,000 disability claims. It is now estimated to be almost 600,000. What possible impact could be made on a national scandal like that by a handful of aging Korea and Vietnam vets on the Central Coast?

Last summer, led by three salty old guys from Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, and San Luis Obispo, they filed suit. In January, they won their first victory.

“Our average age is 75,” guffawed Bob Handy, U.S. Navy (Ret.), of Santa Barbara. “We’re not afraid of the bastards. For a group of old farts like us to take on something like this is pretty unique. A lot of guys our age would be out vegetating.” Handy, 75, is chairman of the Santa Barbara-based Veterans United for Truth (VUFT). Sandy Cook of San Luis Obispo, 72, is vice chairman, and Russ Weed of Santa Maria, 75, is treasurer.

In a sitcom, Handy would be cast as an Irish bartender. His thatch of white hair spilling down to his gold-rimmed glasses, his plump rosy cheeks, and his jovial manner raise the suspicion that his mother was born in Ireland. She was. Treasurer Weed was a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force. He resembles Handy so closely that people confuse the two. Cook was a Lt. Colonel in the Army. His receding hairline and lantern chin give his face an aerodynamic look that, together with darkened lenses in his glasses, suggest an aging Uncle Duke of Doonesbury. All together, the trio looks like two Wilford Brimleys and a Jack Nicholson, and they are just as cantankerous. “We are war veterans who have come to believe that both serving military and veterans are being treated shamefully,” they thunder in their basic flyer. VUFT takes no stand on Iraq but pointedly calls for “truth in justification for war” along with truth in delivery of benefits. VUFT assembled in 2005 to lobby for veterans and to document reports of increasing strain on a military called to fight long-term foreign wars.

Group leaders met one another earlier in an unlikely venue for vets — the veterans caucus of the California Democratic Party. Handy is a party director representing the Central Coast. “In 2004, we started talking to officers and NCOs in all branches,” he explained. The vets heard heart-wrenching accounts of reservists’ difficulty in returning to their jobs after their tours, backlogs in approval of disability claims, delays in medical treatment, and PTSD cases misclassified as preexisting personality problems (a condition ineligible for Veterans Administration assistance), not to mention multiplying reports of suicides.

go here for the rest
http://www.independent.com/news/2008/apr/03/veterans-united-truth-war/

Friday, March 21, 2008

Help change the way veterans are treated with PTSD

MSC has received a request to pass along the information below from our friends at VUFT. Please read their message and pass along to other's who you feel may be in need of help with VA claims involving PTSD. All of us together may someday see some great changes within the VA system if we work together to make those changes.

www.militaryspousesforchange.com
Involve. Inform. Inspire.
URGENT REQUEST
I am writing to update you about our class action lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. We are challenging the VA's failure to provide prompt mental health care to veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and VA's failure to promptly and accurately process disability compensation claims for PTSD. The week of March 3, the judge held a hearing about the quality and timeliness of mental health care given to suicidal veterans. After four days of testimony, the judge ordered a full trial on all of our issues to start on April 21, 2008. This is a very quick timeline, and we hope this means that we will receive a final decision from the judge in the next few months.

In order to put on our strongest case, VUFT and our attorneys need your help in the next few days. The attorneys for VA AND THE Department of Justice have challenged our right as a group to sue VA. It will make it very much easier for them if they can drive us out of this class action suit. We need to prove to them that VUFT belongs in this suit as there is a fairly large number of our members who have had serious problems with the VA on mental health issues.

If you are a VUFT member who has been diagnosed with PTSD and have experienced problems getting timely mental health care for their PTSD or for potential suicide, please send us an email. We are also looking for VUFT members who are having problems getting their PTSD disability compensation claim approved. If you are a veteran with these specific types of problems, then please send VUFT a new email in the next several days, even if you already sent one in the past.
Please send your email to
contact@www.vuft.org, with a "CC" copy to kcorbit@dralegal.org.
EVEN IF YOU HAVE ALREADY SENT US AN EMAIL AND/OR HAVE ALREADY TALKED TO THE LAWYERS ABOUT YOUR COMPLAINT, PLEASE DO IT AGAIN.

If you are willing to talk to our attorneys about your problems with the VA, then I strongly encourage you to contact our attorneys directly. Our attorneys need to show the judge that the problems we are complaining about are system-wide problems and not just isolated to a few veterans. You can reach them at (510) 665-8644.

Your participation could make a huge difference in the lives of the hundreds of thousands of veterans fighting with the VA. For information about our lawsuit, please go to this web site: www.veteransPTSDclassaction.org

So, if you want to in help our fellow veterans by winning this landmark case, then please e-mail and/or call our attorneys in the next few days. Our attorneys have been working on this case for more than a year. I have met them all, and they are friendly and understanding when it comes to speaking with veterans and families about confidential issues:

The specific group working at this time to compile the information on the VUFT portion of this case are:
Danny Brome, dbrome@dralegal.org
Kasey Corbit, kcorbit@dralegal.org
Disability Rights AdvocatesPhone: (510) 665-8644Fax: (510) 665-8511TTY: (510) 665-8716www.dralegal.org
Thank you for your continued support of our critically important lawsuit.
Sanford (Sandy) CookVice Chair, VUFT, Inc.

-- Carissa Picard
PresidentMilitary Spouses for Change
406.498.2134 (c)www.militaryspousesforchange.com
Involve. Inform. Inspire."Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest,' but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is." Sydney J. Harris

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Minnesota Marine veteran Jonathan Schulze suicide back in news


Minnesota Marine's case is part of lawsuit against VA
The suicide of Jonathan Schulze is cited in the class-action suit filed by two national veterans groups.

By KEVIN GILES, Star Tribune

Last update: February 22, 2008 - 9:23 PM
A class-action lawsuit filed by two national veterans organizations accusing the U.S. Veterans Administration of neglecting psychological fallout from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars cites the suicide of Minnesota Marine veteran Jonathan Schulze.

Schulze is one of several deceased veterans named in the suit, which a judge last month allowed to proceed and is headed for a hearing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in March. Schulze, 25, committed suicide in January 2007 in New Prague, Minn., five days after he allegedly was turned away from the VA hospital in St. Cloud when seeking psychiatric help.

He had fought in Iraq. Medical records showed that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

His father, Jim Schulze of the Stewart, Minn., area, said Friday that attorneys for Veterans for Common Sense and a second group, Veterans United for Truth, asked his wife, Marianne, to file a declaration in support of the case.

go here for the rest

These are just a few of the names from B. There are over 100 of their stories in my video Death Because They Served. If you want to read more about some of the lives lost you can go to my other blog, Screaming In An Empty Room and look for non-combat deaths. Go to www.namguardianangel.blogspot.com
















Friday, January 11, 2008

Veterans For Common Sense Wins For Veterans In Court

I'm sure most of you remember Paul Rieckhoff of IAVA showing up on various cable stations talking about the troops and our veterans. Paul Sullivan of Veterans For Common Sense was on some of these shows but not nearly as often as he should have been. What most of you have not noticed is that neither of them have been appearing much at all in the last few months. Why is that? Why has the media suddenly found their appearances not worth the time? Does the media think there is no longer an issue with our veterans or the troops?

While Rieckhoff is primarily concerned Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans who need a strong advocate fighting for them and brining their issues front and center, Paul Sullivan is focused on all veterans. Neither one of them should be forgotten about.

If you need to understand why you need look no further than this court case the VCS organization won. You would think the work these two organizations do would be of interest to the American people, but the media apparently disagree. They've been too busy providing the public with who they think should replace Bush instead of what has been happening to our troops and our veterans.

Jan. 11: Victory for Veterans - Judge Rules in Favor of VCS in Case Against VA
Veterans for Common Sense
Jan 11, 2008
January 10, 2008, Washington, DC – The U.S. District Court in San Francisco today handed an enormous victory to veterans who sued the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) over lengthy delays for medical care and disability benefits. The Judge’s ruling means our class action lawsuit against VA will move forward, with the first court hearing scheduled for next month.

“We won this round against VA. Veterans will have our day in court. The VA must now release documents under discovery about their deliberate attempts to deny and delay medical care and disability benefits for all veterans, especially our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans,” said Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense (VCS), the lead plaintiff organization that filed suit against VA.

On July 23, 2007, VCS and Veterans United for Truth (VUFT) filed a class action lawsuit against VA in order to force VA to provide prompt and high-quality medical care and disability benefits to veterans, especially those with mental health conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “Our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are committing suicide while waiting for VA to answer their pleas for medical care. VA must make sure all our veterans receive prompt and high-quality medical care and disability benefits. The long waits at VA must end,” added Sullivan.
go here for the rest

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/9109


Call the cable station you watch and ask them why they have been avoiding the troops and the veterans of this nation. I bet they don't have a good answer.

This is what Veterans For Truth is all about.

VUFT’s Five -Point Philosophy
War only if our nation or its true allies are in grave danger
Strict adherence to Article I, Section 8 - “The Congress shall have power … To declare war ...”
A decision for war is a decision for immediate and meaningful national sacrifice which must include relief, wherever possible, of the grave burden on the troops and their families
Affirm the Powell Doctrine - troops must be totally prepared, must be sent in overwhelming numbers, and must know the truth of what they are fighting for, what constitutes success, and how they will exit
Perpetual, timely, quality care for those who have borne the direct burden - the troops and their families - inclusion of these costs in the initial cost of war as part of the continuing national sacrifice

http://www.vuft.org/