UK Veterans 'betrayed and abandoned' by the Government

Heroes' pension betrayal: Savings scam sanctioned in Whitehall could cost military veterans up to £50,000 each and force them to work into their eighties to recoup their losses

Daily Mail
By TOM KELLY INVESTIGATIONS EDITOR FOR THE DAILY MAIL
30 December 2019

Tens of thousands of pensioners have lost up to £10billion between them Armed forces now face working into their eighties despite suffering trauma They said they had been 'betrayed and abandoned' by the Government

Forces veterans have had their futures ruined by a Government-sanctioned pension scam.

Although some are still suffering trauma from tours of Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland, they now face working into their eighties after losing nest eggs worth up to £50,000.

They said they had been 'betrayed and abandoned' by the Government which registered the rogue scheme but now refuses to help.
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Nebraska who suffered his second traumatic brain injury is making a miraculous recovery

Nebraska veteran comes out of coma in time for Christmas

WCMH/CNN 17 min ago

OMAHA, Neb. — A Purple Heart veteran from Nebraska who suffered his second traumatic brain injury is making a miraculous recovery.

Tony Belt, who fell 18 feet in a work accident, woke up from a coma before Christmas and has been able to communicate by giving a thumbs up or down. WCMH/CNN

Christmas Eve marked three months since Tony Belt fell 18 feet in a work accident, KETV reported.

"The doctors told me he probably wasn’t going to make it to the weekend,” said Kyli Belt, Tony’s wife.

He survived that weekend, but doctors still said he would never wake up.

Tony is a fighter. He spent eight years in the Army, deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006, he was shot in the head, an incident that ended his military career and sent him home with a Purple Heart. read it here

Joint Chiefs Senate confirmation shows they do not take military sexual assaults seriously

Why This Veteran Is Suing One of the Joint Chiefs for Sexual Assault

The Daily Beast
Molly Jong-Fast
Dec. 30, 2019

Twenty-eight-year veteran Kathryn Spletstoser couldn’t get the military to take her claims against a decorated Air Force general seriously. Now she’s making those claims in court.

Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty

Army Lt. Col. Kathryn Spletstoser just wanted to fade into retirement. She’d served 28 years in various posts and had done four combat deployments: two in Iraq, and two in Afghanistan. She’d been a White House fellow. She had earned three master’s degrees. She was one of the most accomplished officers of her generation. She was ready to go into private sector work, spend time with her aging mother, and go back to her native Wisconsin.

But in April 2019, when President Trump nominated Air Force Gen. John Hyten, then the commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Command and her boss, to serve as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the second highest ranking military officer in the United States and the second most powerful position in the U.S. armed forces—she put those plans aside.

She claims that Hyten sexually assaulted her numerous times throughout 2017. For two years, she had said nothing about the alleged incidents, but when the oft-decorated Hyten stood to be elevated to such a high position, she went public, reporting him in April.

Trisha Guillebeau, the public affairs adviser to the Joint Chiefs, said: “In response to your request for comment I’d like to state that all investigations found the allegations against Gen. Hyten to be unsubstantiated. All allegations provided to the Department of Defense were subject to comprehensive investigation and unsubstantiated. In addition, the Senate conducted its own exhaustive, comprehensive review of the matter during Gen. Hyten’s confirmation process to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Hyten’s confirmation by the Senate as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff validates the trust that has been placed in him by our nation, our department’s leadership, and Congress.”
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Vietnam Veteran Ex-POW finds trip to Hanoi Hilton healing

Vietnam POW seeks healing at Hanoi Hotel

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Ernie Suggs
December 30, 2019

The mission back to Vietnam was designed to help veterans who are still struggling with some level of post-traumatic stress disorder. The hope is that they’ll reach closure by seeing the place of their greatest trauma in a different light.

Photo: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

When retired Lt. Col. James W. Williams returned to Southeast Asia this past fall, to the site of the worst 313 days of his life, the last thing he expected to find was himself.

For a period spanning 1972-1973, Williams, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, was a prisoner at the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

As he walked through what’s left of the prison, now a propaganda-filled museum, someone stopped him in his tracks and pointed at a photograph on the wall.

There he was.

Tall. Handsome. Full afro. The only black soldier, he was leading a line of POWS, the last to leave, out of Vietnam.
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Did PTSD cause your discharge without honor?

'A scarlet letter': Veterans help their fellows overturn bad military discharges

Washington Examiner
by Russ Read
December 30, 2019

“The other than honorable discharge and less than honorable discharge is more punishment, it’s more punitive, than just the name or just getting kicked out of the military," said Marine Corps veteran Thomas Burke. "It’s not just a scarlet letter that you have to put down on an application. It prevents you from reintegrating into society.”

Activist veterans are helping their comrades seek upgrades to so-called "bad paper" military discharges that disqualify them from key benefits that help them re-enter civilian life.

“I think there is a growing sense that something needs to be done," said Kristofer Goldsmith, 34, who advocates on behalf of fellow veterans. Approximately 500,000 living veterans from various wars have been discharged from the military under other than honorable conditions, says Goldsmith, who himself once had "bad paper" from his time in the Army.

Depending on the type of discharge, an "other than honorable" designation can bar former service members from Veterans Affairs healthcare, home loans, and disability payments, and from GI Bill college money. Additionally, the "OTH" discharges confer a stigma that can limit employment opportunities and other aspects of day-to-day life.

The Department of Veterans Affairs in 2017 changed its policy so that former "OTH" service members could get mental health crisis treatment. In 2018, The Honor Our Commitment Act required the VA to provide mental health care to veterans with OTH discharges. Still, advocates say, much remains to be done.

Marine Corps veteran Thomas Burke on patrol in Afghanistan in 2008, followed by local children. Several would be killed while attempting to bring him and his unit an RPG warhead. Courtesy of Thomas Burke.
Thomas Burke

It's something both men know first hand. Burke, now 30, was given an "OTH" discharge following a PTSD-related suicide attempt in 2010. Goldsmith, too, received "bad paper" following his own PTSD-connected attempt to kill himself.
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