Late vets' family members to have their say about VA care USA TODAY
Donovan Slack
March 29, 2015
He checked him into Tomah for severe anxiety and a painkiller addiction last summer. But in late August, Jason texted him to say the medications were making him crazy. He asked his father for help. So Marv Simcakoski set up a meeting with his son, a patient advocate and his son's doctor, who consulted with Houlihan on adding another opiate to his son's regimen.
WASHINGTON — A construction contractor will relive the "most painful day" of his life when his veteran son died at a Wisconsin Veterans Affairs' center.
A widow will recount receiving bags of pills in the mail for a husband who hadn't been home for months.
A daughter will chronicle the final lucid hours of her veteran father as he waited hours for care, then slumped over limp and unresponsive.
And a pharmacist will raise questions about three more "unexplained" veteran deaths — all patients like the others who received treatment at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
All are set to testify at what promises to be an emotional congressional hearing in Tomah, Wis., Monday. It will be their first chance to publicly face VA officials overseeing the facility since news reports drew national attention to their struggles and triggered investigations by several state and federal agencies, including the VA and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Five months after Daigh declined to release his findings, 35-year-old Marine veteran Jason Simcakoski died from an overdose as an inpatient in Tomah. It was just days after Houlihan agreed that another opiate should be added to the 14 drugs he was already prescribed.
When you hear news reports about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, there are some things you need to know.
America’s homeless veterans have served in World War II, the Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq (OEF/OIF), and the military’s anti-drug cultivation efforts in South America. Nearly half of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam era.
Two-thirds served our country for at least three years, and one-third were stationed in a war zone.
About 1.4 million other veterans, meanwhile, are considered at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks, and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing.
Before there were Veterans Courts, this was life looked like for some our veterans
There were an estimated 140,000 veterans held in state and federal prisons. State prisons held 127,500 of these veterans, and federal prisons held 12,500.
Male veterans were half as likely as other men to be held in prison (630 prisoners per 100,000 veterans, compared to 1,390 prisoners per 100,000 non-veteran U.S. residents). This gap had been increasing since the 1980s.
Veterans in both state and federal prison were almost exclusively male (99 percent).
The median age (45) of veterans in state prison was 12 years older than that of non-veterans (33). Non-veteran inmates (55%) were nearly four times more likely than veterans (14%) to be under the age of 35.
Veterans were much better educated than other prisoners. Nearly all veterans in state prison (91%) reported at least a high school diploma or GED, while an estimated 40% of non-veterans lacked either.
Vietnam veterans had been kicked out when they needed help, much like the newer veterans today still find as repayment for their sacrifices. It took a lawsuit before their records were reviewed.
“This decision will not be a blanket approval for every upgrade request, but it does open an avenue for those veterans who may have been diagnosed with PTSD years after separation to submit new evidence and hopefully correct an injustice from the past,” said John W. Stroud, the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States organization.
Still as Vietnam veterans returned home, turned away from the major veterans organizations, they started their own group. Vietnam Veterans of America. Unlike the other groups though, they understood what it was like to be thought of as less than the other generations.
VVA'S FOUNDING PRINCIPLE "Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another."
Suicides are another subject that shows they have been left behind. While the false reports of 22 a day were supposed to be about all veterans, most folks thought it only meant the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Here's the truth on that one.
Veteran suicide numbers have gone up in recent years with much of the attention focused on veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan killing themselves. However, almost seven out of 10 veterans who have committed suicide were over the age of 50, according to a Department of Veterans Affairs study.
There were no wounds Vietnam veterans came home with that were different other than battlefield medicine had more surviving. There is no wound the newer generation suffers from today that is new, other than yet again, battlefield medicine has helped more survive.
The only difference between Vietnam veterans is they decided to fight for the wounds no one could see to be treated. They pushed for all the research done on PTSD. What was done to the was wrong and it is still going on.
When you watch this new video on Vietnam Veterans Remembered, ask yourself why they have been forgotten about then ask yourself what you can do to make sure they are not last of the list of veterans needing help.
Care assistant charged with stealing from disabled veteran
WCBV News Boston
Mar 28, 2015
$128,500 stolen from a disabled Vietnam War veteran
BOSTON —A grand jury in Boston has indicted a personal care assistant on charges she stole nearly $128,500 from a disabled Vietnam War veteran for whom she was caring.
The Suffolk County grand jury Thursday indicted 48-year-old Michelle Allix of South Boston on eight larceny charges. Arraignment was set for April 16. read more here
Combat veterans face ‘cruel’ struggle to prove their service to VA, amid missing records
FOX News
By Ruth Ravve
Published March 27, 201
"I have a huge box of letters that he sent to the VA over the years in his attempt to get benefits," said Friedman's wife of 61 years, Minna Rae. "He tried over and over and over again to get help, but they just kept turning him down."
Friedman -- who, as he would later learn, suffered from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder -- was not alone.
Garrett said he was stunned to learn that six decades after the war ended, a soldier was still locked in battle.
Once he got benefits, Friedman had greater access to care, which included long-awaited therapy for PTSD.
"We're very fortunate he lived long enough to get verification for his service because many other World War II vets died before that happened," Minna Rae said.
In the final years of his life, Stanley Friedman was eventually able to move to a veterans' residence not far from his suburban Chicago home, called the Green House homes at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center.
He found peace among the caring staff and his fellow veterans.
Vet who asked to be arrested gets help finding home
Cincinnati.com
DeMio
March 29, 2015
"Nobody wanted me," McKenney explained simply. "I'd been to the hospitals. Everything. The only thing I had left was to have them arrest me."
Michelle McKenney, of Hebron, helps her father, Eugene McKenney, to a chair in his room at Atria Highland Crossing, Fort Wright. McKenney, 63, a Vietnam War veteran who was homeless and went to the Elsmere Police Department and asked to be arrested for vagrancy so he could get shelter. Several social service agencies and family members have worked to get him help and shelter.
(Photo: The Enquirer/Patrick Reddy)
ELSMERE – The rail-thin man wore a cap that stood out to Elsmere Police Sgt. Todd Cummins. This was a Vietnam veteran.
The man had slowly pushed himself with a walker to the door of the Elsmere Police Department on March 12 and quietly demanded to be arrested, but Cummins wasn't about to do that.
The man had done nothing wrong. He just had no place else to turn.
The officer sought help from nearby homeless ministries for Eugene McKenney, starting a turn of events in the veteran's life that would lead to a future potentially more promising than he'd had since before he went to Vietnam in 1970.
"I was a door gunner,"
McKenney offered last week, sitting with his daughter, Michelle McKenney of Hebron, and two advocates from Northern Kentucky homeless ministries who've been helping him.
McKenney speaks little these days. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson's disease and has had multiple strokes. He sat back Wednesday as his daughter relayed one of his most vivid memories of Vietnam. read more here
Vietnam Vets Dealing With Effects of War Decades Later
KDLT News
Caiti Blase, KDLT News Reporter
Mar 28, 2015
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -
Thousands of South Dakotans served during the Vietnam War with hundreds making the ultimate sacrifice.
Many returned home, but are still dealing with the effects of war decades later.
An event to remember those who served during the Vietnam era was held in Sioux Falls Saturday.
Ritchie Wilson said, "I went to Vietnam in the spring of 1970."
It's been over 40 years since Wilson served in the Vietnam War.
"I was with the 25th Infantry Division. I was an infantry squad leader,” said Wilson.
But the scars of battle are still with Wilson many years later. read more here
On the back of a horse at a farm in Yelm, Mike Buccieri began letting go of the psychological wounds he carried after an Afghan insurgent’s bullet tore into his back and ripped him from the Army life he loved.
He found the equine-based therapy that worked for him when the Army sent him to a Warrior Transition Battalion, a medical unit he had once disparaged as a purgatory for “broken soldiers” on their way to being “kicked out” of the military.
Yet as Congress claims to be investigating the facts discovered by The Dallas News and NBC joint effort to bring the suffering of the wounded to our attention, it has been going on right under their nose and they just didn't care enough to do the right thing before they were forced to even take a look at it.
Remember the scandal at Walter Reed Hospital?
Embarrassed by allegations of mistreated wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2007, the Army spent more than $1.2 billion building facilities for its severely injured troops at large posts around the world.
So Congress did "something" about it.
Col. Chris Toner, chief of the Army Warrior Transition Command, told the House Armed Services Committee last month that 4,196 soldiers are enrolled in the program – down from a peak of 12,451 seven years ago.
Despite the falling numbers, Army leaders insist they want to maintain the warrior transition model rather than reuse the costly facilities for a different purpose.
“We’ve come a long way since the days of medical holding companies and long wait times for injured soldiers,” Toner told lawmakers. “We will not return to that setting.”
Yet, when reporters were not watching, this is what happened over and over again across the country to wounded servicemen and women.
Recently, The Dallas Morning News and KXAS-TV documented examples of mistreated patients and verbal abuse at warrior units at Army hospitals in Texas. Their investigation prompted the Army to issue new training guidelines for the soldiers who volunteer to work in warrior transition battalion.
A 2013 Defense Department Inspector General audit of JBLM’s Warrior Transition Battalion documented similar concerns from soldiers and staff members. It spelled out the systemic flaws that have dogged warrior transition battalions since the program launched, such as:
• Inconsistent training for staff members.
• High turnover among the active-duty and Reserve soldiers who oversee patients.
• Frustration among patients who felt stuck in a program of indeterminate length. Some could be enrolled in a battalion for two years or more.
• Barriers to connecting patients with job-training programs in the civilian sector that could prepare them for opportunities after they leave the military.
The report, based on site visits in the summer of 2011, included several revealing comments from anonymous patients and staff members about the pressures they felt inside the battalion.
The Warrior Transition Battalion “steals your soul and puts you in a deeper depression,” one National Guard soldier told the auditors. “They tell me to plan for the future, but they cannot tell me when I can leave.”
So now they'll have empty buildings but it isn't as if they overplanned for the wounded. It is more that the wounded soldiers are no longer in the military.
So what happens to them now? It isn't as if their wounds have vanished. The DOD doesn't have to count them anymore. They don't have to count the number of veterans committing suicide or needing care for PTSD any more than they have to account for the physical needs.
The VA has had trouble for decades as reported by veterans going back to the 70's. Congress has not had to answer for what they failed to do on that end either.
Their latest answer is, "Hey we'll just privatize it" hand out cards so veterans could go see a doctor charging a lot more money for the same work the VA is supposed to be providing. Sure, no wait times in a private office or at hospitals. At least that is what Congress wants us to envision. Guess they never had to rely on what the rest of experience on a daily basis.
This is really simple. Congress has had since 1946 to get it right for our veterans and even longer to get it right for the wounded yet what veterans got were more problems than solutions.
Guess who is to blame? Us. We vote for folks to do a job (both sides) yet never bother to make sure they're doing it. It takes reporters to tell the stories they live with on a daily bases, so God love them for that, however, they forget that we need to be reminded about what happened before that made it this bad. It is for sure that Congress won't blame themselves but veterans do.
Any idea what members of Congress are up to knowing that more and more disabled veterans are heading home from combat? They show no indication of learning from the past about anything so just expect more of the same excuses and a longer line of veterans suffering.
They plan, as in the past, to have communities step up and take care of them. Sounds good until you ask about where all the billions a year spent to "care for them" went. Also sounds good until you wonder what happened to all the money folks donated to huge charities using professional fundraisers to gain millions a year while Congress refuses to hold them accountable.
When it comes to veterans, it seems they can't really count on anyone for very long.
Medal of Honor recipient recalls the ‘battle’
Tampa Bay News
By BOB McCLURE
March 25, 2015
“I look at it as honoring the men and women in uniform, present and past. It just shows the patriotism the citizens of Florida have toward our men in uniform.”
Photo by BOB McCLURE
Retired U.S. Army Command Sgt. Major Gary Littrell of St. Pete Beach wears the Congressional Medal of Honor he was awarded in 1973 following his heroic actions during a 1970 battle in Vietnam.
ST. PETE BEACH – Winston Churchill once said success is not final and failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.
That phrase sums up the actions of retired U.S. Army Command Sgt. Major Gary Littrell of St. Pete Beach who for four days in early April 1970 took command of a South Vietnamese Ranger battalion under siege by more than 5,000 North Vietnamese troops. Out of an original group of 477, Littrell was among 41 walking and wounded to safely leave the hill they gallantly defended.
His actions and decisions led him to receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1973.
He is the only Medal of Honor recipient in the area, one of three in Florida and one of 79 currently alive in the U.S.
read more here
Police surprise 84-year-old veteran with replacement wheelchair
ABC 4 News Utah
Rick Aaron
03/24/2015
"I'll never forget it," Officer Wersland said while choking back a sob. "I've been doing this for 20 years and I've never experienced anything like this."
TAYLORSVILLE (ABC4 News) - A U.S. Navy Veteran who thought he would be homebound after his motorized wheelchair was stolen got a big surprise Tuesday thanks to the Salt Lake Unified Police Department, the City of Taylorsville and Overstock.com.
Roy Feragen can walk but at 84 years old not very far or very steadily. So what did he say when his wheelchair was stolen from the front of a Savers store in Taylorsville last week?
"I ain't gonna use that kind of language," Mr. Feragen said.
Officer Mike Wersland started working on getting Roy a replacement chair and Overstock dot com donated a top of the line Drive Medical model they surprised him with at Taylorsville City Hall. Mayor Larry Johnson presented Feragen with the device.
read more here
Disabled veteran’s long wait could be over
WIVB News
By Al Vaughters, News 4 Reporter
Published: March 24, 2015
"Chris Krieger, co-founder of Western New York Heroes, a veterans self-help outfit, said the VA’s program of adapting homes and vehicles for disabled veterans is overrun with regulations."
HAMBURG, N.Y. (WIVB) — Disabled veteran Dale Dart’s quest for a more independent life could soon be within reach.
Dart turned to the government to re-work his home to accommodate his wheelchair, but it got bogged down in government paperwork, so he contacted Call 4 Action.
The Army veteran of Operation Desert Storm (1991) does have a bedroom and bathroom in his family’s Hamburg home that are wheelchair accessible, but they are in the basement.
Dart vented his frustration earlier this week, “I just sit in my room, and sit in my room.”
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs came up with a way to retrofit the Dart’s ranch style house with a first floor bedroom and bathroom that would be fully accessible, and the planning and permits have taken nearly two years to complete. But just as the contractor was about to break ground on the room addition, the VA threw more red tape at the project, which could delay the job enough to send it back to the drawing board.
Dale’s sister-in-law, Pamela Dart said the VA cited regulations which require a second contractor for the project.
read more here
Decorated Boston cop, Iraq veteran in coma after being shot in face
South Coast Daily News
March 28, 2015
The suspect in the shooting hopped out of the stopped car on Friday evening and opened fire on officers, striking Officer John Moynihan just below his right eye and an apparent bystander in her arm, police Commissioner William Evans said
BOSTON (AP) — A police officer who was honored for his role in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing was in an induced coma fighting for his life early Saturday after being shot in the face during a traffic stop, authorities said.
The suspect in the shooting hopped out of the stopped car on Friday evening and opened fire on officers, striking Officer John Moynihan just below his right eye and an apparent bystander in her arm, police Commissioner William Evans said.
Other officers returned fire and killed the suspect at the scene, Evans said. The woman suffered a flesh wound and was in good spirits, and three other officers were taken to a hospital with stress-related problems, he said.
The names of the suspect and wounded woman weren't immediately released.
Moynihan, 34, is on the police Youth Violence Task Force and is a highly decorated military veteran, Evans said.
He is a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and was honored at the White House in May with the National Association of Police Organizations TOP COPS award.
Moynihan received the award for being one of the first responders in Watertown following the April 2013 gunbattle with the Boston Marathon bombers.
Moynihan had helped transit police Officer Richard Donohue, who was shot in the leg and nearly bled to death when police tried to apprehend Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Lieutenant Michael McCarthy said.
read more here
I am not a Democrat and this is one reason why I will never be a Republican. Under their "leadership" we had sequestration. That cut fund to the military as well as what they and their families need. They had years to fix it but didn't. They spent billions a year on programs that don't work as we've seen with the rise of military suicides.
Well folks, here we go again. The USO had to step up at Fort Bragg to fill in for what got cut.
"When deep budget cuts hit Fort Bragg, one of the casualties was an Army program meant to promote resiliency and reduce suicides."
USO of N.C. helps fill gaps for Army programs affected by budget cuts
FayObserver.com
By Drew Brooks
Military editor
Posted: Friday, March 27, 2015
Fort Bragg's commander, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, has praised the partnership. He said the USO stepped forward to continue important training that otherwise would have been cut.Speaking to community leaders earlier this year, he cited the partnership as an example of ways the community can help Fort Bragg.
USO of N.C. helps fill gaps for Army programs affected by budget cuts
Staff photo by Andrew Craft
Along with yoga, the program included a juggling lesson and classes on stress management, suicide, substance abuse, leadership and financial literacy.
When deep budget cuts hit Fort Bragg, one of the casualties was an Army program meant to promote resiliency and reduce suicides.
But Fort Bragg leaders didn't give up.
Instead, they turned to community partners to fill the gaps created by tighter purse strings.
The result is Warrior Reset, a three-day gathering at Cape Fear Botanical Garden that is serving Fort Bragg soldiers as well as members of the North Carolina National Guard, Marines from Camp Lejeune and soldiers from Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
The program, which ends today, has brought together about 70 people - including servicemembers and their wives - for hands-on activities designed to help troops cope with stress and open up about their problems.
Kelli Davis, troop and family programs director for the USO of North Carolina, said the troops are leaders who are expected to take the lessons learned back to those who serve with and under them.
Davis said the USO will host similar programs on a quarterly basis, rotating across the state to other military communities, Raleigh and Charlotte.
It is the latest step in a partnership that has continually evolved.
read more here
Pendleton, K-Bay Marines to deploy to Australia
Marine Corps Times
By Joshua Stewart, Staff writer
March 27, 2015
In 2016, Corps officials hope to send 2,500 Marines — a full Marine air-ground task force — to Australia.
Members of Marine Rotational Force-Darwin conduct a helicopter insert during a live-fire exercise at Bradshaw Field Training Area during Exercise Koolendong in Australia. About 1,170 Marines will deploy to Australia’s Northern Territory in April.
(Photo: Cpl. Scott Reel/Marine Corps)
The Corps has identified the third group of Marines to head to Australia for a six month deployment.
In mid-April, about 1,170 California- and Hawaii-based Marines will deploy Down Under. They'll form Marine Rotational Force-Darwin, and will train alongside the Australian army in the Northern Territory.
Units include 1st Battalion, 4th Marines and a detachment from Combat Logistics Battalion 1 from Camp Pendleton, California, as well as Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463 from Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, said 2nd Lt. Natalie Poggemeyer, a spokeswoman for Marine Corps Forces Pacific. It's the second time HMH-463 will be a part of the rotation — the squadron was the Corps' first aviation unit to deploy to Darwin during last year's rotation.
read more here
Body found in St. Joseph River identified as missing Iraq veteran Jason Holland
The Elkhart Truth
Tabitha Waggoner
Posted on March 26, 2015
A body found in the St. Joseph River has been identified as a missing Mishawaka man, 33-year-old Jason Holland.
MISHAWAKA — A body found Wednesday afternoon in the St. Joseph River has been identified as that of missing Iraq veteran Jason Holland, our reporting partner WNDU reports.
Holland was a 33-year-old former Marine who was first reported missing on Oct. 26, 2014.
He was a student at Indiana University South Bend.
read more here
Passing On Living Years With PTSD
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 28, 2015
Generations of veterans are still living in this country, ready and willing to help the younger ones but they have not been ready to learn. We're in this battle to defeat PTSD the same as them but forgotten.
That is the saddest part of all because as you hear about younger veterans committing suicide, we remember the others no one ever talked about.
Jake Tapper of CNN put up a stunning picture "At the service for Iraq war veteran SGT Richard Miles, who took his own life last month."
I read the comments on his Twitter feed with most saying how sad it was. It is even sadder for folks paying attention all along. It isn't one family a day.
It isn't even the much publicized 22 a day. It is happening to veterans double the civilian population in state after state all over the country. The majority of those veterans are over 50. Veterans of the past wars no one really paid attention to. After all, when they came home, they came home to vanish into the general population. Reporters were not interested in what was happening to them.
What makes this even sadder is that for the last decade, Congress has been pushing bills faster than they research what is causing the increase. In other words, they are recycling failures. The result is newer veterans are committing suicide triple their peer rate after all the years of efforts.
Every generation Blames the one before And all of their frustrations Come beating on your door
I know that I'm a prisoner To all my Father held so dear I know that I'm a hostage To all his hopes and fears I just wish I could have told him in the living years
Every generation blames the one before because they refused to learn from them. Learn what worked as well as what failed so they wouldn't repeat the same mistakes or gain opportunities to avoid lost time learning the hard way on their own.
The older generation of veterans came home just as the other come home now, however while this generation uses the social media and the internet to spread the word about what is going on, the older veterans learned from the younger ones how to use what they have to help themselves. Too bad it didn't work the other way around.
It is almost as if the OEF OIF generation was appointed to be the only veterans suffering. After all, considering they are the only generation to receive mass attention from new charities popping up all over the country, reporters spread the word about how to donate to them and Congress passing bills just for them, it is hard to have the time to notice the others.
Accounts of psychological symptoms following military trauma date back to ancient times. The American Civil War (1861-1865) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) mark the start of formal medical attempts to address the problems of military Veterans exposed to combat.
"In September 1914, at the very outset of the great war, a dreadful rumor arose. It was said that at the Battle of the Marne, east of Paris, soldiers on the front line had been discovered standing at their posts in all the dutiful military postures—but not alive. “Every normal attitude of life was imitated by these dead men,” according to the patriotic serial The Times History of the War, published in 1916." WORLD WAR I: 100 YEARS LATER
But you can read even more online about the WAR and Military Mental Health The US Psychiatric Response in the 20th Century, if you are not convinced that every generation suffered the same things that break your heart today.
They committed suicide but families didn't talk about it. They used drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, but no one talked about it. They were supposed to be ashamed of themselves and families didn't know any better, so they were ashamed as well.
Vietnam veterans and families like mine learned from the generation before. We used the buildings with a lot of books in them we could hold in our hands. The library was our safe haven where we could touch history learning from what others didn't talk about. We had to learn the hard way because it was the only way.
Wives like me were fighting for their lives, just as our parents did but we were not ready to simply suffer in silence. We were not just fighting for our own husbands. We found a way to discover others and ended up fighting for their families side by side. It was all one huge family writing letters by hand or typing letters to members of Congress in the 70's.
As more and more research was being done, we learned. We passed on what we learned to our parents so they would understand what all the "living years" with their veterans were caused by.
In the 80's the Department of Veterans Affairs finally honored these veterans. Not just Vietnam veterans, but all generations.
In 1980, APA added PTSD to DSM-III, which stemmed from research involving returning Vietnam War Veterans, Holocaust survivors, sexual trauma victims, and others. Links between the trauma of war and post-military civilian life were established.
"So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It's the bitterness that lasts"
Our heartaches even more for the newer generation because they are getting the attention. They are getting more help than we ever did because everyone seems to want to do "something" to help. Yet as the result produces more and more suffering, it is clear to us that "something" is not what is needed. It is not what we fought so long and so hard for. It is not what worked for us and what was discovered by our generation has been forgotten.
While everyone seems to be able to shed a tear pretending there are not a million reasons to cry a river, we only sacrifice the future and let the bitterness last. It doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to end this way for thousand of veterans a year. The new generation has an obligation to learn from older veterans, not just for their own sake but for the generation coming after them. Our generation will be gone by then.
