VA Taking Another Look at Agent Orange Casualties

VA might add more 'presumptive' illnesses for Vietnam veterans
Stars and Stripes
By Tom Philpott
Special to Stars and Stripes
Published: March 17, 2016

The IOM concludes that the research supports changing the strength of association to herbicide exposure for several ailments. For bladder cancer and hypothyroidism, it found “limited or suggestive” evidence of an association, an upgrade from previous “inadequate or insufficient” evidence.

By August this year many more thousands of Vietnam War veterans, those suffering from bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, Parkinson’s-like symptoms and even high blood pressure, could learn they will be eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs health benefits and disability compensation. Or perhaps not.

Difficult months of study lie ahead for a working group of senior scientists and health experts that VA Secretary Bob McDonald convened last week, following release of a 10th and final biennial review of evidence of health problems linked to Agent Orange and other herbicide exposures.

Every review in the series, going back two decades, has been conducted, as Congress mandated, by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a division of the National Academies of Sciences. Its latest review, Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2014, takes into account medical and scientific literature published from Oct. 1, 2012, through Sept. 30, 2014.

For only the second time, the IOM withdrew an earlier finding of that herbicide exposure may have caused an ailment, in this case spina bifida in children born to Vietnam veterans. For 20 years VA has used a preliminary finding of an association to grant children benefits. The IOM says it no longer believes the evidence merits retaining spina bifida in that category.
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Warren Air Force Base:14 Removed From Duty Suspected of Drug Activity

Air Force personnel at US nuclear missile base suspected of drug activity
Stars and Stripes
By Corey Dickstein
Published: March 18, 2016
33 minutes ago

A static display of intercontinental ballistic missiles at the F.E. Warren

Air Force Base, Wyo., front gate the evening of April 4, 2012.

R.J. ORIEZ/U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO

WASHINGTON – Fourteen United States airmen have been removed from duty at a Wyoming nuclear missile facility under suspicion they were involved in illegal drug activity, an Air Force general said Friday.

An investigation was launched Tuesday at F.E. Warren Air Force Base into the alleged activity of the airmen, all security force personnel ranging in rank from airman to senior airman, after it was reported by another member of their unit, said Air Force Gen. Robin Rand, the commander of Air Force Global Strike Command.

Rand called the allegations “credible,” but he declined to detail what the activity might have involved.

“We will wait for the investigation to be complete before I will comment on the specifics,” he said.
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Prince Harry "I Was Broken" After Having to Leave Afghanistan

'I was broken': Prince Harry reveals his devastation after he was withdrawn from Afghanistan... and how sharing an evacuation flight with amputees inspired him to launch the Invictus Games
Daily Mail UK
By KHALEDA RAHMAN
PUBLISHED: 08:36 EST, 17 March 2016

The 31-year-old Prince served for ten years in the British Army until 2015
He revealed his feelings after being withdrawn from the front line in 2008
He is now perfectly positioned to give wounded veterans a voice, he says
Harry launched the Invictus Games in 2014 after seeing how sport helped injured veterans at Colorado Warrior Games

Prince Harry was withdrawn after just ten weeks in Afghanistan amid safety concerns when news of his secret deployment was leaked in the media. Pictured above, he is pictured in Helmand Province in January 2008

Prince Harry revealed the poignant moment that 'broke him' in a television interview on Thursday – but also how it inspired him to become a champion for wounded veterans.

The 31-year-old, who served for ten years in the British Army, described his devastation after he was withdrawn from the front line during his first tour of duty in Afghanistan in early 2008.

Harry had been removed after just ten weeks in the Helmand Province amid safety concerns when news of his secret deployment was leaked in the media.

But it was only when he boarded his flight back to Britain that he saw the 'unbelievably traumatic injuries' his fellow soldiers had suffered, he told ABC's Good Morning America.
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Over 615,000 Veterans Got Bad Paper Discharges Since 1990

2 words on a vet's discharge papers can be the difference between hope and homelessness
KPPC 89.3
John Ismay
March 16, 2016


As the push to find housing for all of L.A.’s homeless military veterans hurls towards a summer deadline, service providers say they’re running into one type of vet over and over again: someone who’s been discharged with “bad papers.”

Translation: they got kicked out of the military without an Honorable Discharge.

According to data obtained by KPCC from the Defense Manpower Data Center, more than 615,000 Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force veterans were discharged with less-than-honorable discharges from 1990-2015.

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Co.) is a retired Marine officer and said that high a number is “very alarming.”

Coffman says in his day, a servicemember caught for a minor offense might’ve been denied the chance to reenlist, but would not have been kicked out with bad paperwork that denied them benefits afterwards.

There’s a range of discharges below the level of honorable— and they can be awarded after conviction by a courts-martial for felonies as well as by non-judicial administrative boards for misdemeanor-level misconduct.

Among other things, bad paper can be a pathway to homelessness, according to a recent study by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Researchers attempting to find factors that contribute to veteran homelessness discovered that bad paper makes a veteran five to seven times more likely to fall into homelessness.
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Seems really high especially when you consider the New York Times report that came out in February had the number at 300,000 from 2001.

Congress created military review boards after World War II to correct wartime missteps, but observers say this has rarely happened in recent years. In 2013, the Army Board for Correction of Military Records, the supreme authority in the Army’s review agency, ruled against veterans in about 96 percent of PTSD-related cases, according to an analysis done by Yale Law School’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic.

“The boards are broken,” said Michael Wishnie, a Yale professor who oversees the clinic. “They are not functioning the way Congress has intended.”

Yet in 2015 the Pentagon said it was just 140,000.

But none of that is new either.

If Vietnam Vets Had PTSD, They Deserve Benefits
Hartfor Courant
EDITORIAL
Veterans lawsuit seeks redress on discharges
December 11, 2012

John Shepherd Jr. enlisted in the Army and earned a Bronze Star for valor fighting with the Ninth Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta in 1969. But after his platoon leader was killed while trying to help him out of a canal, Mr. Shepherd appeared to come undone, eventually refusing to go out on patrol.

He was court-martialed and given an other-than-honorable discharge, making him ineligible for most veterans' benefits. He believes his behavior was the result of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. His immediate problem: PTSD wasn't recognized as a medical condition until 1980.

Mr. Shepherd and the veterans organization Vietnam Veterans of America have filed a lawsuit in federal court in New Haven on behalf of Vietnam veterans who were given other-than-honorable discharges for conduct they say was caused by undiagnosed PTSD. The suit, brought by the activist Veterans Legal Clinic at Yale Law School, seeks to have their discharges upgraded, something the military has thus far been reluctant to do.

The legal action, which could affect tens of thousands of veterans, raises a novel question: Can a soldier be given a retroactive diagnosis for a condition that was not then recognized as an ailment?
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Jarrid Starks, another Army veteran with a Bronze Star for Valor did have his discharge overturned in 2012.

Canadian Soldiers Stabbed at Recruitment Center

Police allege soldier stabbing suspect said 'Allah told me to come and kill people'
NATIONAL
THE CANADIAN PRESS
by COLIN PERKEL AND DIANA MEHTA
Posted Mar 15, 2016

Ali was charged with a total of nine counts, according to court documents: three attempted murder, two aggravated assault, three assault with a weapon and possession of a dangerous weapon.

Ayanle Hassan Ali arrives in a police car at a Toronto court house on Tuesday, March 15, 2016. A man who allegedly said Allah instructed him to kill was charged Tuesday with stabbing and wounding two uniformed soldiers at a north Toronto military recruitment centre a day earlier. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO – A man who allegedly said Allah instructed him to kill was charged Tuesday with stabbing and wounding two uniformed soldiers at a north Toronto military recruitment centre a day earlier.

While investigators were probing possible terror links, the city’s police chief said there didn’t appear to be any connection to terrorist groups, although it seemed the man had deliberately targeted military personnel.

“To date, there is nothing to indicate the accused is working with anyone or in concert with any organization,” Chief Mark Saunders said. “It will take some time to have a complete picture.”

The incident occurred mid-afternoon Monday, when a man walked into the government building that houses a Canadian Armed Forces recruitment centre on the ground floor.
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