Gov. Walker proposes $43.3 million in veteran-related spending
Chippewa Herald
February 19, 2013
State Journal
On the eve of his biennial budget's unveiling, Gov. Scott Walker revealed $43.3 million in veteran-related spending proposals.
The proposals announced Tuesday would make permanent tax credits for hiring disabled veterans, expand the state's GI Bill, significantly increase staffing at the state's largest veterans' nursing home and add $5.3 million of taxpayer money to the Veterans Trust Fund.
The $5.3 million toward the Veterans Trust Fund would improve the fund's long-term solvency, said Cullen Werwie, a spokesman for the governor.
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Thursday, February 21, 2013
UK:A hero broken by war, the story of Jake Wood
A hero broken by war: Afghanistan veteran Jake Wood admits he's a walking timebomb - and there are hundreds more like him
Daily Mail UK
By TONY RENNELL
14 February 2013
Jake Wood is paranoid. To stand any chance of sleep at night, he must lie facing a closed bedroom door with a hammer close to hand under the bed, so he can kill any night intruders before they kill him.
And even then he may well wake up screaming and drenched in a sweat of terror.
Taking a shower in the morning, he never takes his eyes off the bathroom door, though he knows full well that it is locked and bolted.
Out in the street, the sound of a pneumatic drill sends him to the ground on one knee, arm raised, primed to fire.
‘Just the bang of a door and I am back in Afghanistan,’ the former soldier says.
Everyday life defeats a man whose courage under fire cannot be questioned, but who is haunted by what he has seen and done.
‘I cannot stand the sensation of anyone walking unseen behind me. On the Underground, I never take my eyes off anyone with a backpack in case their hands make a sudden movement towards a detonator.’
His senses deceive him. ‘I see blood in the blank canvas of snow, just as I saw blood in the pale sand of Helmand Province.
'I know I am hallucinating, but when I turn away and force myself to look again, it is still there.’
And, as he explains movingly in a new book, Wood knows the precise moment he finally lost control in Afghanistan.
As an experienced Territorial Army NCO, he was trying to stay alive under an enemy onslaught on forward operating base Inkerman — a makeshift outpost behind mud walls in the dangerous Sangin Valley — when a mortar eviscerated his respected, loved company commander.
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Daily Mail UK
By TONY RENNELL
14 February 2013
Jake Wood is paranoid. To stand any chance of sleep at night, he must lie facing a closed bedroom door with a hammer close to hand under the bed, so he can kill any night intruders before they kill him.And even then he may well wake up screaming and drenched in a sweat of terror.
Taking a shower in the morning, he never takes his eyes off the bathroom door, though he knows full well that it is locked and bolted.
Out in the street, the sound of a pneumatic drill sends him to the ground on one knee, arm raised, primed to fire.
‘Just the bang of a door and I am back in Afghanistan,’ the former soldier says.
Everyday life defeats a man whose courage under fire cannot be questioned, but who is haunted by what he has seen and done.
‘I cannot stand the sensation of anyone walking unseen behind me. On the Underground, I never take my eyes off anyone with a backpack in case their hands make a sudden movement towards a detonator.’
His senses deceive him. ‘I see blood in the blank canvas of snow, just as I saw blood in the pale sand of Helmand Province.
'I know I am hallucinating, but when I turn away and force myself to look again, it is still there.’
And, as he explains movingly in a new book, Wood knows the precise moment he finally lost control in Afghanistan.
As an experienced Territorial Army NCO, he was trying to stay alive under an enemy onslaught on forward operating base Inkerman — a makeshift outpost behind mud walls in the dangerous Sangin Valley — when a mortar eviscerated his respected, loved company commander.
read more here
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Daughter receives medals Dad earned in WWII
Long-missing WWII medal awarded in LA
By ROBERT JABLON
Associated Press
Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2013
LOS ANGELES — Hyla Merin grew up without a father and for a long time never knew why.
Her mother never spoke about the Army officer who died before Hyla was born. The scraps of information she gathered from other relatives were hazy: 2nd Lt. Hyman Markel was a rabbi’s son, brilliant at mathematics, the brave winner of a Purple Heart who died sometime in 1945.
Aside from wedding photos of Markel in uniform, Merin never glimpsed him.
But on Sunday, decades after he won it, Merin received her father’s Purple Heart, along with a Silver Star she never knew he’d won and a half-dozen other medals.
Merin wiped away tears as the Silver Star was pinned to her lapel during a short ceremony attended by friends and family at her home in Westlake Village, a community straddling the Ventura and Los Angeles county lines. The other medals were presented on a plaque.
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By ROBERT JABLON
Associated Press
Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2013
LOS ANGELES — Hyla Merin grew up without a father and for a long time never knew why.
Her mother never spoke about the Army officer who died before Hyla was born. The scraps of information she gathered from other relatives were hazy: 2nd Lt. Hyman Markel was a rabbi’s son, brilliant at mathematics, the brave winner of a Purple Heart who died sometime in 1945.
Aside from wedding photos of Markel in uniform, Merin never glimpsed him.
But on Sunday, decades after he won it, Merin received her father’s Purple Heart, along with a Silver Star she never knew he’d won and a half-dozen other medals.
Merin wiped away tears as the Silver Star was pinned to her lapel during a short ceremony attended by friends and family at her home in Westlake Village, a community straddling the Ventura and Los Angeles county lines. The other medals were presented on a plaque.
read more here
Governor Scott finally does right thing and takes Medicaid deal
Scott proposes three-year expansion of Medicaid to add 1 million uninsured
Orlando Sentinel
By Kathleen Hughes and William E. Gibson
6:08 p.m. EST, February 20, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – Gov. Rick Scott announced Wednesday a proposed three-year expansion of Florida's Medicaid program – enrolling an additional one million poor and disabled Floridians beginning next year – after the Obama administration gave the state tentative approval to privatize Medicaid services.
If the Legislature approves, Scott's announcement means the state will extend eligibility in the federal-state program to single people and families earning up to 138 percent of poverty. The state plans to enroll almost all of them, along with the 3.3 million people currently being served by Medicaid, in private HMOs or other doctor-operated networks.
"While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost of new people in Medicaid, I cannot, in good conscience, deny the uninsured access to care," Scott said at a press conference. He added that the expansion would have to be renewed in three years.
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Orlando Sentinel
By Kathleen Hughes and William E. Gibson
6:08 p.m. EST, February 20, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – Gov. Rick Scott announced Wednesday a proposed three-year expansion of Florida's Medicaid program – enrolling an additional one million poor and disabled Floridians beginning next year – after the Obama administration gave the state tentative approval to privatize Medicaid services.
If the Legislature approves, Scott's announcement means the state will extend eligibility in the federal-state program to single people and families earning up to 138 percent of poverty. The state plans to enroll almost all of them, along with the 3.3 million people currently being served by Medicaid, in private HMOs or other doctor-operated networks.
"While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost of new people in Medicaid, I cannot, in good conscience, deny the uninsured access to care," Scott said at a press conference. He added that the expansion would have to be renewed in three years.
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At least 20% empty chairs at military symposium
TRADOC commander stresses need for investment
Army Times
By Lance M. Bacon
Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 20, 2013
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — At least 20 percent of the chairs were empty when Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of Training and Doctrine Command, kicked off the AUSA winter symposium in Fort Lauderdale this morning. There also was a notable absence of uniformed soldiers.
AUSA president retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan, in welcoming foreign militaries, noted “there are more of them than there are of us.”
Cone addressed “The Transition to an Army of Preparation.” His presentation did not address the fiscal uncertainty with which the Army is wrestling. The four-star mentioned the budget only once, and that was to warn that cutbacks will have “a very serious, negative impact on retention.”
But the cutbacks are more severe than that. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno last week said soldiers may see Afghanistan tours extended next year because budget cuts will drastically limit training for brigades to replace them.
Roughly 80 percent of combat forces also will have significant cuts to training. Cone alluded to this with an upbeat assertion that the unspoken lack of training funds would provided the Army a chance to reassert the role of the unit commander in training with a focus on leadership skills.
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Army Times
By Lance M. Bacon
Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 20, 2013
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — At least 20 percent of the chairs were empty when Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of Training and Doctrine Command, kicked off the AUSA winter symposium in Fort Lauderdale this morning. There also was a notable absence of uniformed soldiers.
AUSA president retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan, in welcoming foreign militaries, noted “there are more of them than there are of us.”
Cone addressed “The Transition to an Army of Preparation.” His presentation did not address the fiscal uncertainty with which the Army is wrestling. The four-star mentioned the budget only once, and that was to warn that cutbacks will have “a very serious, negative impact on retention.”
But the cutbacks are more severe than that. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno last week said soldiers may see Afghanistan tours extended next year because budget cuts will drastically limit training for brigades to replace them.
Roughly 80 percent of combat forces also will have significant cuts to training. Cone alluded to this with an upbeat assertion that the unspoken lack of training funds would provided the Army a chance to reassert the role of the unit commander in training with a focus on leadership skills.
read more here
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