Lone senator holds up veterans bill

UPDATE
Coburn named as senator holding up vets bill

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Nov 3, 2009 17:23:29 EST

Thirteen major military and veterans groups have joined forces to try to force one senator — Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma — to release a hold that he has placed on a major veterans benefits bill.

Coburn has been identified by Senate aides as the lawmaker preventing consideration of S 1963, the Veterans’ Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act of 2009, by using an informal but legal practice of putting a hold on a bill.

Coburn’s staff did not respond to questions, but Senate aides said the first-term senator has expressed concern about creating new and unfunded benefits and wants the opportunity to amend the measure.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/military_veteransbill_coburnhold_110309w/

Lone senator holds up veterans bill

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 2, 2009 17:01:59 EST

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is trying to bring pressure on the Senate to ignore tradition and bring a veterans health care bill up for debate despite the anonymous hold on the bill placed by a senator.

The bill in question is S 1963, the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009, which includes three top priorities of the veterans group.

It contains a package of improvements for female veterans, including more training for mental health providers in treating sexual trauma, a pilot program to offer child care so that veterans who have children find it easier make appointments, and a trial counseling program in which newly separated female veterans would be treated in retreat-like settings.

It also would expand mental health programs for veterans in rural areas by contracting with local community mental health centers, and expand mental health services for the immediate families of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
read more here
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/military_veteransbill_delayed_110209w/

Seattle authorities vow arrests in police officer's slaying

Seattle authorities vow arrests in police officer's slaying
November 2, 2009 9:58 a.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Police officer killed, student officer injured in shooting Saturday
Authorities: Officers were in parked car when shooting happened
Field training officer Timothy Brenton was married with two children, 11 and 8
Mayor: Slaying is first intentional homicide of Seattle police officer since 1994


(CNN) -- Law enforcement officials in Seattle, Washington, vowed Sunday to catch whoever is responsible for fatally shooting a police officer and injuring a student officer as they sat in a parked patrol car.

Field training officer Timothy Brenton, 39, was reviewing details of a traffic stop with student officer Brit Sweeney when a vehicle rolled up next to the squad car shortly after 10 p.m., authorities said

People inside the vehicle fired several shots into the squad car, killing Brenton and injuring Sweeney, according to police.

A shot grazed Sweeney, tearing through her uniform and protective vest, Police Chief John Diaz said at a news conference Sunday. She fired at the attackers' vehicle, but police didn't know whether any of her bullets struck it, Assistant Chief Jim Pugel said.
read more here
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/01/washington.cop.killed/index.html

Civilian killed in an explosion at Fort Bragg

What was he looking for and how did he get on the post with the other wounded man? Scrap metal? Scrap metal with the ability to explode? Something is missing in this report.

Officials: Man killed while scavenging at Bragg

The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Nov 2, 2009 13:13:34 EST

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Fort Bragg officials say a civilian killed in an explosion at the post was scavenging for scrap metal when he stepped on a round and it exploded.

Officials identified the man killed Friday as 47-year-old Ronnie Blue of Hamlet. Another man was injured in the explosion, officials said Monday. The blast occurred in an area that overlooks the range where soldiers practice firing artillery, tank shells and smaller weapons.

The post said the men were not Army employees.

Fort Bragg law enforcement officials are investigating.

The post is home to the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and Special Operations Command.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/ap_bragg_death_civilian_110209/

Heart of a Patriot

A veteran's 'Heart': Cleland book covers more than politics
By Press-Register Correspondent
November 01, 2009, 2:01PM
Heart of a Patriot: How I Found the Courage to Survive Vietnam, Walter Reed and Karl Rove

By Max Cleland with Ben Raines; Simon and Schuster, $26

Reviewed by SCOTTY E. KIRKLAND/Special to the Press-Register
The intoxicating lure of politics caught Max Cleland at an early age. In 1952, when he was only 10 years old, Cleland watched the televised Democratic National Convention and decided to campaign for Adlai Stevenson. He recruited the girl next door, and the two fashioned signs out of sticks and old pieces of cardboard. As cars drove past, the young politicos would run along side, shouting, “Adlai for President!” Before he even knew what it meant, Max Cleland was a Yellow Dog Democrat.


Cleland’s new book, “Heart of a Patriot,” tells a much more complex story than the typical political autobiography. Co-authored by award-winning Press-Register reporter Ben Raines, it is clearly more than simple campaign literature. “Heart of a Patriot” explores some of the darker periods in the senator’s life, from his near-fatal injuries in Vietnam and his bouts with depression, to the vicious 2002 campaign waged against him in his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate.

Max Cleland arrived in Vietnam in June 1967 as a second lieutenant in the First Air Calvary Division, and he was awarded a Bronze and a Silver Star for heroic service and gallantry in combat. In the spring of 1968, shortly after fighting in the battle of Khe Sahn, he was horribly injured, losing both legs and his right arm in a grenade explosion. Cleland recounts the weeks following the accident with vivid detail, including his first meeting with his parents. He spent the next year in Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., recovering from his injuries.

Even though all other veterans from past wars suffered the same kind of

When Georgia native Jimmy Carter was elected president, he named the 34-year-old Cleland head of the Veterans Administration. Cleland brought to his new position a personal knowledge of the needs of returning soldiers. During his four-year tenure at the VA, Cleland lobbied for the expansion of benefits to cover emotional as well as physical trauma.

eternal/internal wound, it took Vietnam veterans like Max Cleland to come home and fight for this wound to be treated. Don't be startled by use of the word "eternal" because it will never be cured, but what is most important is that it can be healed with help. Veterans can find peace with what has been so they can live lives instead of just existing in a body and suffering. They were the first to fight for this, but the last to be acknowledged for it.

Cleland writes frankly about his experiences following his defeat. He sank into a deep depression that only worsened with the beginning of the Iraq War in April 2003. The war brought back painful memories for Cleland and, for the first time, he sought the assistance of professional counselors. Ironically, such help might have been unavailable if he had not lobbied to expand the VA’s counseling program in the late 1970s. Now he benefited from the very program he had helped create.

read more here

http://blog.al.com/entertainment-press-register/2009/11/a_veterans_heart_cleland_book.html

A soldier's injuries cripple body and mind

How many more? How long will it take before we get this right once and for all? I've been reading stories like this since 1982 and they don't get any easier to read. I can also assure you, they don't get any easier to live with after either.

I want every family to still have their veteran with them and not bury them. I want every wife (or husband) to still have the person they wanted to spend the rest of their life with still by their side. I want every child to grow up with them knowing they are loved by them and for every parent to stop having to bury a son or daughter needlessly. I want every veteran to know nothing about PTSD is their fault unless they think it is no longer a gift to be compassionate. To know that the person they were before is still inside of them trying to get out from behind the pain and the walls their mind has built fortified by drugs and alcohol. This I want them to know so they may heal and live. When we read about PTSD numbers we need to remember behind every number is a family that is just as much war wounded as their family member is.

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

"He served in the Persian Gulf War, and after he returned home he joined the Los Angeles Police Department and the Army Reserves. In December 2003, he was called up for another tour in Iraq. A first lieutenant, he was assigned to an ordnance company at Ft. Buchanan in Puerto Rico."

Jennifer Sinclair weeps during a memorial service for her brother in June. Army Capt. Peter Sinclair had spent years on a regimen of painkillers, muscle relaxers and anti-anxiety medications to cope with debilitating back pain and severe post-traumatic stress after returning from Iraq in 2005. (Benjamin Reed / Los Angles Times / June 21, 2008)

A soldier's injuries cripple body and mind
Capt. Peter Sinclair returned from Iraq with debilitating back pain and haunting memories of war and death -- dogged enemies in his fight to rebuild his life.
By Jia-Rui Chong
Peter Sinclair rummaged through the closet and found what he was looking for.

His roommate, drawn to the commotion, saw Pete raise a gun to his head. Daniel Jennings managed to yank it away. He locked up all of Pete's guns.

"You can't stop me," Pete said.

Jennings and Pete had served together in Iraq from 2004 to 2005, but this was a year later and Pete was struggling.

Daniel encouraged him to lie down and left to get help once Pete seemed calmer.

"You're a good man," Pete said.

But he could not shake the images of war: dismembered children, mutilated bodies. Alone in his house, Pete called his parents. His sister Jennifer answered.

All he could do was scream, "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!"

He found a 7-inch knife and plunged it into his wrist.

As the blood spread across the floor, Daniel returned with an Army friend. They took the knife away and stopped the bleeding. Paramedics and police officers soon swarmed the house in Garden Grove.

As an officer in Iraq, Pete had won praise and promotions. His commander had called him "one of the finest, if not the finest young officer in the 298th Corps Support Battalion."

But Pete had come back from war with a broken body, suffering from back injuries and painful memories. Doctors, nurses, psychologists and physical therapists treated him, but few were able to help.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are challenging, if not taxing, veterans medical services. So far, nearly 36,000 troops have been wounded, many returning with injuries that in previous conflicts would have killed them. Some, like Pete, endure complications from physical and emotional trauma that neither surgery nor therapy nor medication can easily resolve.

read more here
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pete2-2009nov02,0,4375826.story