He's my brother: Marine donates kidney to Nat'l Guardsman
WXIA
Kaitlyn Ross
March 25, 2016
National Guardsman Dustin Brown stands with his wife and young son holding a sign that demonstrates his plight - he needs a kidney.
ATLANTA - In less than 24 hours, a local patriot will undergo life-saving surgery.
Time was rapidly running out for a National Guardsman to receive a kidney transplant before his military contract expired.
Dustin Brown was in Stage 5 kidney failure and about to lose his insurance when another service member stepped up to help.
"We're all on the same team," Marine Corps Veteran Temple Jeffords said. "He's my brother just as much as any other person out there wearing the uniform."
Temple didn't hesitate when he saw Brown was in need.
"One of the things the Marine Corps teaches you is you're all brothers and sisters," Temple said. "That you're all part of the same family."
Dustin was about to deploy as a medic last fall when he found out his kidneys were failing.
He couldn't complete his mission to help people.
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Living with post traumatic stress – a Hull soldier's story
By Hull Daily Mail
Posted: March 25, 2016
The condition's impact on his day-to-day life has been wide and varied. He suffers from flashbacks, sleeplessness and occasional involuntary fits of rage. . he says, trying to explain its nature.
SCOTT Moore's voice trembles slightly as he describes an ordeal that began almost two decades ago.
The 42-year-old from west Hull is a former soldier in the Yorkshire Regiment who served in Bosnia and Northern Ireland in the 1990s and he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
It is a condition that has cost him two marriages, a livelihood and even his enjoyment of New Year's Eve.
Even more seriously, in November 2014, it led to him attempting to take his own life.
"I'd just had enough," he says. "I went and got the drugs I needed – I knew exactly what I was doing and what it would take to kill me."
Indeed, as doctors would tell him later, he had taken enough medication to kill ten men.
But he did wake up, and was informed by medics at Hull Royal Infirmary that his lengthy prescription of drugs to heal his physical pain had saved him.
"Because I was taking so many painkillers I'd become immunised to them," Scott says.
Scott is far from alone in his suffering. A report commissioned by veterans' charity Help For Heroes last November estimated more than 61,000 former soldiers suffer from mental health problems after they leave the Forces.
It was the second time Scott had attempted to take his own life. The first had been in 1998 when he was still serving. Within a year he left active service.
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Veterans Center gets makeover thanks to Home Depot help
Florida Times Union Jacksonville.com
By Saphara Harrell
Mar 24, 2016
Volunteers and veterans were hard at work Thursday painting, digging and mulching at the Five Star Veterans Center.
Photos by Will.Dickey
Wesley Johnson, an employee with Home Depot, paints a room Thursday at the Five Star Veterans Center in Jacksonville.
The one-story, white cinderblock building, which serves as a transitional facility for homeless veterans, is getting small renovations thanks to a Home Depot group called Team Depot which supplied materials and labor for the project.
Two rooms are being painted and fitted with new sinks, while the side of the building is getting plants, mulch and a basketball hoop.
Joshua Peterson didn’t know about the basketball hoop, but was excited when he heard.
He’s been living at the Five Star Veterans Center for about a month, one of 29 veterans currently residing there. The 24-year-old recently got out of the Army and is trying to save up while he attends Everest University. He plans to be out of the center by June.
Peterson said all the veterans pitch in at the center, using their diverse talents to help out.
Five Star’s CEO, Col. Len Loving, echoed that statement, saying the facility wouldn’t be able to operate without the help of the veterans who clean, landscape, wash dishes, and do whatever else needs to be done.
He said the facility serves in-need veterans, but they don’t always fit into the homeless stereotype. “They’re not pushing carts down the street,” Loving said. “Many have cars and have lived in their cars.”
Veteran single father living in shelter with toddler now has a home
NBC 3 News Las Vegas
BY SANDRA GONZALEZ
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23RD 2016
LAS VEGAS (KSNV News3LV) — A homeless veteran and his one-year-old daughter now have a place to call home. We first introduced you to them last week as they were getting some much-needed help.
Eric Jackson was pushing a stroller with his daughter Jerica inside, last week at the Veterans Stand Down event at Cashman Center. He was looking for a place to live. A week later, the army veteran is in his own apartment.
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VA Identifies Additional Beneficiaries in Need of Fiduciary Assistance
New Technologies Aid VA in Identifying 14,000 Beneficiaries Delayed for Fiduciary Appointments Due to Claims Processing Errors
March 24, 2016
WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today that an information technology system that it deployed in 2014 and enhanced in 2015, the Beneficiary Fiduciary Field System, allowed it to identify claim processing errors affecting approximately 14,000 Veterans and survivors. These Veterans’ and survivors’ claims were initially filed over many years, with some going back as far as 2000. The errors concern cases in which VA had proposed that due to disability or age the beneficiary was unable to manage his or her VA benefits without assistance, but did not complete the action by transferring it within VA for appointment of a fiduciary. These cases represent approximately four percent of such proposals since 2000.
VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) became aware of a potential problem when it received inquiries about delayed fiduciary appointments from affected beneficiaries or their families. A system-wide review by VBA using the new technology found claim processing errors that had occurred at each of its regional offices and pension management centers across the country. In these cases, one or more of the procedures for controlling and transferring the workload were not followed, resulting in the fiduciary appointment delays.
“We sincerely apologize to these Veterans and their survivors for this regrettable delay,” said VA Deputy Secretary Sloan D. Gibson. “We are taking immediate action to complete these cases, initiate the fiduciary appointment process, and ensure that these errors do not happen again. We must also continue to transform the claim process for beneficiaries needing fiduciary assistance and properly resource our fiduciary program to ensure that beneficiaries have the help they need to effectively use the benefits they earned.”
VBA has set up a dedicated team to immediately review the cases, notify beneficiaries, complete the claim processing steps, and appoint a fiduciary as quickly as possible. Because the law requires VA to check the qualifications of the fiduciaries it appoints, including conducting a face-to-face interview, VA anticipates that it may take as much as six months or more to complete the fiduciary appointment process for these beneficiaries. However, the beneficiaries will continue to receive their monthly benefits as VA works to appoint a fiduciary to assist them.
Additionally, VBA has already modified its systems to better track this workload and plans to remove manual transfer processes that are prone to error through enhancements to its automated claims processing system, the Veterans Benefits Management System.
For more information, Veterans can contact (1-888-407-0144).
Additional Information on VA’s Fiduciary Program:
The VA fiduciary program provides oversight of beneficiaries who, due to injury, disease, or the infirmities of age, are unable to manage their VA benefits. VA’s role is to conduct oversight of beneficiaries to ensure their well-being, and oversee the fiduciaries it appoints to assist beneficiaries with the management of their VA benefits. In 2015, VA protected more than 224,000 beneficiaries, who received over $3 billion in VA benefits. Beneficiaries in the fiduciary program include Veterans, surviving spouses, dependent parents, adult children, and minor children. The number of beneficiaries served by the program has grown by 50 percent since 2011 and VA projects continued growth as it increases its benefit claims production (1.4 million claims in 2015) and the beneficiary population ages.
