Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Committee for Veterans Affairs mission “serve as a point of contact for matters relating to veterans and the military"

Already busy, York’s veterans committee has big plans


Seacoast Online
By Dan Bancroft / Yorkweekly
January 7, 2020
Waddell sees the committee’s work as an opportunity to do more for the veterans who live and work in York. Building a meaningful database of those veterans is high on his list. “We just don’t know who they are,” he says.
YORK -- For a group that was formed just over eight months ago, the Committee for Veterans Affairs has accomplished quite a lot.
Nancy and Barbara Leigh of York stand with LT. Commander Ryan Gieleghen, Master Chief Eric Frank and crew members of the USS California while they await the start of York's Festival of Lights Parade December 7, 2019

The group has held 12 formal meetings since it was created by the Board of Selectmen April 8, 2019, according to member Mike Dow.

The committee’s mission is to “serve as a point of contact for matters relating to veterans and the military, to develop and maintain a broad perspective on the town’s approach to and participation in all such matters, to help ensure the town honors veterans and the military, and to advise the Board of Selectmen accordingly,” according to its charter.

Chair Barry Waddell takes that mission seriously. “Our job is to aid and assist the board,” he says, “but we are not a service organization.” Sometimes, that is a distinction without a difference.
read it here

Caldwell University has agreed to pay $4.8 million for defrauding veterans program

Caldwell University to pay $4.8M for defrauding veterans program


New Jersey Business
By: David Hutter
January 6, 2020

Caldwell University entered into an agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey to resolve an investigation dating back to 2013, according to Caldwell and the United States Attorney’s Office.

Between 2009 and 2013, Caldwell College had a contractual relationship with Ed4Mil, a company that provided on-line training courses to veterans in conjunction with Caldwell, Caldwell spokeswoman Colette Liddy told NJBIZ.

Unbeknownst to Caldwell’s board and cabinet, Ed4Mil personnel and a college employee engaged in a scheme to defraud the government, Liddy said. The college employee separated from employment with Caldwell before the scheme was discovered. A number of people from Ed4Mil, including its principal, and the former Caldwell employee have pleaded guilty to criminal charges, she said.

Liddy said the board of trustees and the cabinet of Caldwell University have denounced this conduct and along with the administration are truly sorry for what occurred. Caldwell University cooperated with the government throughout its investigation, she said.

“Caldwell has been committed to making restitution to the United States on behalf of the veterans of our country by returning all of the money that the University was paid under the Ed4Mil contract,” Liddy said. “To that end, as part of the agreement with the United States Attorney, Caldwell has agreed to pay $4.8 million, representing the funds Caldwell received under the contract with Ed4Mil. Since becoming aware of the misconduct in August 2013, Caldwell University has developed new policies and procedures to ensure that this type of conduct will not happen again.”

From Jan. 1, 2011, through Aug. 8, 2013, Caldwell University submitted false claims for payment to the Department of Veterans Affairs in order to receive education benefits and funds pursuant to the Post-9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Act (Post 9/11 GI Bill) to which it was not entitled, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said. He also stated that the post 9/11 GI bill was designed specifically to help veterans who served in the armed forces after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
read it here

Monday, January 6, 2020

Planning on visiting Arlington National Cemetery? Better have ID with you.

Arlington Cemetery Implements 100% ID Checks Amid Iran Fears


Military.com
By Hope Hodge Seck
3 Jan 2020

Arlington National Cemetery is tightening its security protocols and warning visitors to report suspicious activity in the wake of a U.S. strike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran's elite Quds force.
Family, friends, and loved ones visit gravesites in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, May 27, 2019. (U.S. Army/Elizabeth Fraser)
In a series of tweets Friday afternoon, Arlington staff announced that the cemetery, located by the Pentagon and across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., is implementing 100% identification checks at all entrances.

"Effective immediately, all visitors 16 years and older (pedestrians, drivers and passengers) must present a valid state or government issued photo identification upon entering the cemetery," cemetery staff said in tweets. "Visitors include all funeral attendees, tourists, and personnel on official business."
read it here

Foster Families to Ailing Senior Veterans, Opening Up Their Hearths and Homes

Hundreds of Americans Become Foster Families to Ailing Senior Veterans, Opening Up Their Hearths and Homes


The Good News Network
By Andy Corbley
Jan 5, 2020
The program, launched in 2008, now has a presence in 44 states, and each family in the program is allowed to take up to three veterans into their homes in order to give them a more comfortable and personalized care environment.
Today in the United States, more than 82,000 veterans live in nursing homes—probably not the kind of conditions or end-of-life care that would warm the hearts of veterans who had served gallantly in Korea and Vietnam.

However, the Medical Foster Home program launched by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) in 2008 has been providing opportunities for a much more comfortable life to senior veterans who can’t live alone by allowing American families to open their own doors to the nation’s heroes.

“A Medical Foster Home can serve as an alternative to a nursing home…for veterans who require nursing home care but prefer a non-institutional setting with fewer residents,” says the DVA website.
“Many of our caregivers and vets become family,” Cooper told Southern Living. “They take them on vacation. We recently spoke to a family who takes their veteran—a quadriplegic—camping twice a year. These are opportunities they never would have had.”
read it here

Our government has a lot of explaining to do about the rise in suicides

Pay attention if you are not freaked out and you will be


Our government has a lot of explaining to do about the rise in suicides, but they do not seem to care about answering to us at all. Why would they since we are not demanding it?


Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 6, 2020

When reports came out about what opioids were doing, they did something.
A lawyer for more than 2,000 cities and counties suing opioid makers says a $48 billion deal touted by four state AGs still isn't big enough.
So why not do something when we have seen a rise in suicides? At the same time more was being spent to prevent them, and researchers have been screaming about drugs being given to fight Post Traumatic Stress Disorder evidence proves it got worse than ever!

While we have been reading about medication reports since the beginning of Wounded Times, apparently, reporters drop the subject instead of connecting the dots. In 2012, I posted Military suicide studies must include drugs after reading a report from Counter Punch discussing the side effects of most of the medications given to veterans, as well as those who currently serve.

This is from part of the report "Boom in suicides" by Martha Rosenberg.
The US’s suicide rate has risen to 38,000 a year, says USA Today, after falling in the 1990s. The rise correlates with the debut of direct-to-consumer drug advertising in the late 1990s, the approval of many drugs with suicide links and more people taking psychoactive drugs for lifestyle problems.

Dr. Benjamin announced that federal grants totaling $55 million will save 20,000 lives in the next five years through suicide hotlines, more mental health workers in the VA, better depression screening and Facebook tracking of suicidal messages. Nowhere, including in the suicide-racked military, does she suggest looking at the overmedication which has gone hand-in-hand with the deaths. And on which the government is spending a lot more than $55 million.
Guess what the number of suicides is now?
10. Suicide
Deaths in 2017: 47,173
When a person dies by suicide, they may have lived with a mental health condition — such as depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder — for a long time.

However, not all people who attempt suicide or die by it have these conditions.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among people aged 10-34 years.

Establishing a strong support network, taking appropriate medications, and seeking therapy may help reduce the risk of suicide.
The reports from the DOD and the VA should have caused us to contact every member of congress, since they have been spending our money to achieve such miserable results.

Freaked out yet? Then start paying attention and you will be! Then maybe we can actually save lives instead of just raising awareness they are giving up,

We did nothing meaningful. We just went with whatever was popular on social media. You know, like the stunts raising awareness it was happening...while no one explained what the point of doing any of it was.

Reports kept flooding my email box on how the government was increasing spending fighting PTSD and reducing the suicide rate...almost as often as the rise in suicides were coming in. What I was not seeing was outrage! I was not seeing anyone even questioning why it has gotten worse, while they just posted the same BS reports as if they were supposed to mean a damn thing. The only people it meant anything to were the ones making money off of all of it!

Well BOHICA because while Wounded Times warned about the nasal spray everyone else seemed to think was a good thing President Trump pushed...the report from STATNEWS confirms it was just one more stunt to push on veterans.
In August, President Trump proudly proclaimed that he had directed the Department of Veterans Affairs to buy “a lot” of a drug known as esketamine, the first new major depression treatment with a novel mechanism to hit the U.S. market in decades.

“Its results are incredible,” Trump said at a veterans convention in Kentucky. “I’ve instructed the top officials to go out and get as much of it as you can.”

As of mid-December, the VA had treated just 15 veterans across the country with the drug. The nasal spray, which was developed by Janssen and named Spravato, was only available at seven of the agency’s facilities — out of more than 1,200. The VA treated its first patient with Spravato in June.
And just so you know "Who’s behind the new publication? STAT is produced by Boston Globe Media. Our headquarters is located in Boston but we have bureaus in Washington, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Cleveland. It was started by John Henry, the owner of Boston Globe Media and the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox. Rick Berke is executive editor."


UPDATE Pharmalittle: Few vets were treated with antidepressant Trump touted;