Confirmed: CBS News "60 Minutes" will broadcast the first-ever investigation into the endless delays and red tape veterans face obtaining disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
In 2002, before former President George W. Bush started his ill-fated Iraq War, Veterans for Common Sense warned that VA was unprepared to meet the needs of additional veterans when VA was already overloaded with patients and claims.
What happened at the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) - the VA agency that processes disability claims - was beyond our worst nightmare. And "60 Minutes" has the story.
VBA Forces Veterans to Wait . . . and . . . Wait
Now, more than one million veterans are now waiting . . . forced to wait an average of six months for a disability claim decision from VBA.
Please visit our web site to see the preview of the "60 Minutes" segment.
Please share this e-mail with everyone you know - veterans, family, and friends - so they can watch this important "60 Minutes" news broadcast on Sunday, January 3, on CBS.
Please visit our web site with facts about our landmark lawsuit against VA, including VBA's long-term, systemic problems.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
CBS News "60 Minutes" will broadcast what veterans face and you never see
When you hear some talk about the problems veterans face when they come home from where we sent them, Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense should be at the top of the list of people they interview because he has been behind most of the changes the VA has made over the last few years and it took him a lot longer to get them to change.
Stolen valor:Marine ‘general’ now faces charge
Marine ‘general’ now faces charge
Officials: He passed himself off as officer
By Jeanette Steele, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 12:01 a.m.
FEDERAL COURT— David Vincent Weber arrived last month at a Ramona Veterans of Foreign Wars event in style: two stars on his shoulder and two Purple Heart medals pinned on the front of a Marine Corps uniform.
Weber, 69, appeared in a federal courtroom in downtown San Diego yesterday with considerably less pomp. He faces a charge under the 2005 Stolen Valor Act of wearing military medals he didn’t earn while passing himself off as a Marine major general at VFW Post 3783’s birthday celebration for the Corps.
Weber didn’t enter a plea, was allowed to post bail and was appointed an attorney at federal government expense during a hearing in U.S. District Court.
read more here
Marine general now faces charge
Officials: He passed himself off as officer
By Jeanette Steele, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 12:01 a.m.
FEDERAL COURT— David Vincent Weber arrived last month at a Ramona Veterans of Foreign Wars event in style: two stars on his shoulder and two Purple Heart medals pinned on the front of a Marine Corps uniform.
Weber, 69, appeared in a federal courtroom in downtown San Diego yesterday with considerably less pomp. He faces a charge under the 2005 Stolen Valor Act of wearing military medals he didn’t earn while passing himself off as a Marine major general at VFW Post 3783’s birthday celebration for the Corps.
Weber didn’t enter a plea, was allowed to post bail and was appointed an attorney at federal government expense during a hearing in U.S. District Court.
read more here
Marine general now faces charge
Cold-Case: Trial looms for ex-wife of slain marine during Vietnam War
Cold-Case Trial Looms for Ex-Wife of Slain Marine
37 years later, NC trial looms for ex-wife in cold-case slaying of Marine over love triangle
By KEVIN MAURER Associated Press Writer
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. December 30, 2009 (AP)
William Miller's final errand was supposed to be a good deed, helping his estranged wife with car trouble. The Marine sergeant left home one night in 1972 and within the hour was found dead on a rural road.
Thirty-seven years later, three people face trial on murder charges for what prosecutors say was an ambush triggered by a love triangle around Miller's wife and violence between Marine pals.
The case remained unsolved until Miller's sister contacted a newspaper reporter looking into cold cases and the resulting investigation elicited new information from a 1970s baby sitter.
Miller's ex-wife Vickie Babbitt, 58, is scheduled to go to trial in March on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Also charged with murder and conspiracy are George Hayden, 57, who married Babbitt after Miller's death and later became a small-town police chief, and Rodger Gill, 56, an ex-Marine who was friends with the others.
read more here
Cold-Case Trial Looms for Ex-Wife of Slain Marine
37 years later, NC trial looms for ex-wife in cold-case slaying of Marine over love triangle
By KEVIN MAURER Associated Press Writer
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. December 30, 2009 (AP)
William Miller's final errand was supposed to be a good deed, helping his estranged wife with car trouble. The Marine sergeant left home one night in 1972 and within the hour was found dead on a rural road.
Thirty-seven years later, three people face trial on murder charges for what prosecutors say was an ambush triggered by a love triangle around Miller's wife and violence between Marine pals.
The case remained unsolved until Miller's sister contacted a newspaper reporter looking into cold cases and the resulting investigation elicited new information from a 1970s baby sitter.
Miller's ex-wife Vickie Babbitt, 58, is scheduled to go to trial in March on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Also charged with murder and conspiracy are George Hayden, 57, who married Babbitt after Miller's death and later became a small-town police chief, and Rodger Gill, 56, an ex-Marine who was friends with the others.
read more here
Cold-Case Trial Looms for Ex-Wife of Slain Marine
What Color Star Should a Military Spouse Get
The following was written by a woman of great courage and compassion. Her courage is evident in this heartbreaking article. Her compassion is known to me because she is a good friend. Carissa founded Military Spouses for Change and then later, renamed it to Military Spouses of America. I was on the board of directors and very proud of all the work Carissa did, and still does for military families.
Most of the time when a spouse talks, it is long after the service member has left the military. It is when they feel free to open up. In this case, Carissa is still living on Fort Hood with her children, opening herself up to more judgments and attacks because she lifts the curtain, letting the rest of us know how hard it is on military families. Too often forgotten when we report on the rates of PTSD, suicides and attempted suicides, we forget about the families they leave behind, just as we forget about the fact half of civilian marriages end in divorce without half the problems the military families have. I am also sure many military spouses will feel grateful she did this, said what they would not dare talk about.
The next time you read a story about how grateful Americans should be for those willing to serve this country, maybe, just maybe, you can also offer a prayer of thanks for the families standing where few will ever see.
Most of the time when a spouse talks, it is long after the service member has left the military. It is when they feel free to open up. In this case, Carissa is still living on Fort Hood with her children, opening herself up to more judgments and attacks because she lifts the curtain, letting the rest of us know how hard it is on military families. Too often forgotten when we report on the rates of PTSD, suicides and attempted suicides, we forget about the families they leave behind, just as we forget about the fact half of civilian marriages end in divorce without half the problems the military families have. I am also sure many military spouses will feel grateful she did this, said what they would not dare talk about.
The next time you read a story about how grateful Americans should be for those willing to serve this country, maybe, just maybe, you can also offer a prayer of thanks for the families standing where few will ever see.
What Color Star Should a Military Spouse Get?....
by Carissa S. Picard
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" Robert Francis Kennedy
The U.S. Army, Fort Hood, and War in Iraq from the perspective of an activist Army Spouse
"The blood and tears shed in houses back home aren't tallied by the Department of Defense even though these losses are casualties of the same wars that were being ‘fought over there' so they wouldn't ‘be fought over here.' I think the...reasoning was fundamentally flawed. Both wars are being fought on two fronts, but America only recognizes one." Carissa S. Picard, Esq.
Ironically, it would be at the largest military installation in the United States that I would come to know loneliness and isolation better than the man who brought me there. This stranger who was rarely home was the very person who "defined" me as well as justified my presence at Fort Hood. Once I married Caynan, I was no longer Carissa, I was Caynan's wife.
My tasks, outside of raising our children, generally revolved around the navigation of the unspoken interstitial space of the Army wife-being neither here nor there, neither this nor that. Or, put more plainly, learning how to live your life when you are no longer a civilian, but you are not a soldier either.
I wasn't a photograph, I was its negative. I wasn't sure what I was anymore, but I always knew what I wasn't. I wasn't a practicing attorney. My license was in Maryland. I wasn't a voice for myself, my family, or other military families. Soldiers speak for their families. I wrote the occasional blog or op-ed, until my husband threatened to divorce me if the writing didn't stop. Advocacy from within was a career killer. Apparently, it was a marriage killer as well.
Every species has to adapt or die. In my muddled attempts to survive the last eight years, I learned to engage in covert warfare, practice collateral damage control, manipulate pain management, and master the rules of dis-engagement. Landmines abound and I am not without battle scars.
The blood and tears shed in houses back home aren't tallied by the Department of Defense even though these losses are casualties of the same wars that were being "fought over there" so they wouldn't "be fought over here." I think the Administration's reasoning was fundamentally flawed. Both wars are being fought on two fronts, but America only recognizes one.
read more here
http://www.veteranstoday.com/article9953.html
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
VA Selects Permanent Location for Historic Civil War Monument
VA Selects Permanent Location for Historic Civil War Monument
WASHINGTON (Dec. 30, 2009) - Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced today the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has selected the Frazier International History Museum in Louisville, Ky., as the new home of the Bloedner Monument, the nation's oldest Civil War memorial.
The Bloedner Monument was removed from Cave Hill National Cemetery in Louisville in December 2008 and taken to a temporary facility where it was professionally conserved by Conservation Solutions Inc. to arrest further damage.
"The removal of an important monument from a national cemetery is rare and was not undertaken without great deliberation," said Secretary Shinseki. "However, the overwhelming significance of the Bloedner Monument and its failing condition warranted this unusual step."
The monument was carved in January 1862 by Pvt. August Bloedner to commemorate his fellow soldiers of the 32nd Indiana Infantry, all of them German immigrants who fell in the Battle of Rowlett's Station near Munfordville, Ky. The monument's original location was on the battlefield, marking the graves of 13 soldiers who perished there. When most of these remains were removed to Cave Hill National Cemetery in 1867, the Bloedner Monument was moved there as well.
VA historians, in collaboration with the Kentucky Heritage Council and Heritage Preservation Inc., selected the Frazier International Museum as the new home from three interested facilities based on Civil War exhibit plans, controlled environment and security, financial stability, annual visitation and proximity to Cave Hill National Cemetery.
The monument was fabricated from St. Genevieve limestone, with a base of Bedford limestone added in 1867. It measures approximately 5 feet long, 1 foot deep and 3 ½ feet high. The monument is carved on one side with a relief of an eagle and an inscription in German in a rustic script. The text was approximately 300 words and 2,500 characters long at the time it was carved. Because of the poor quality of the limestone and effects of the environment, the monument has lost a significant amount of material. Only about 50 percent of the original carving and inscription remains.
The monument was temporarily relocated to a University of Louisville facility for treatment while VA conducted a thorough evaluation of potential sites. The evaluation process included written proposals and site visits. VA posted information on the Internet, mailed information to Veterans and Civil War heritage groups and held a public information meeting to solicit suggestions.
A new monument, with an interpretive sign explaining the significance of the original Bloedner Monument and indicating its location, will be placed at Cave Hill National Cemetery in 2010.
WASHINGTON (Dec. 30, 2009) - Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced today the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has selected the Frazier International History Museum in Louisville, Ky., as the new home of the Bloedner Monument, the nation's oldest Civil War memorial.
The Bloedner Monument was removed from Cave Hill National Cemetery in Louisville in December 2008 and taken to a temporary facility where it was professionally conserved by Conservation Solutions Inc. to arrest further damage.
"The removal of an important monument from a national cemetery is rare and was not undertaken without great deliberation," said Secretary Shinseki. "However, the overwhelming significance of the Bloedner Monument and its failing condition warranted this unusual step."
The monument was carved in January 1862 by Pvt. August Bloedner to commemorate his fellow soldiers of the 32nd Indiana Infantry, all of them German immigrants who fell in the Battle of Rowlett's Station near Munfordville, Ky. The monument's original location was on the battlefield, marking the graves of 13 soldiers who perished there. When most of these remains were removed to Cave Hill National Cemetery in 1867, the Bloedner Monument was moved there as well.
VA historians, in collaboration with the Kentucky Heritage Council and Heritage Preservation Inc., selected the Frazier International Museum as the new home from three interested facilities based on Civil War exhibit plans, controlled environment and security, financial stability, annual visitation and proximity to Cave Hill National Cemetery.
The monument was fabricated from St. Genevieve limestone, with a base of Bedford limestone added in 1867. It measures approximately 5 feet long, 1 foot deep and 3 ½ feet high. The monument is carved on one side with a relief of an eagle and an inscription in German in a rustic script. The text was approximately 300 words and 2,500 characters long at the time it was carved. Because of the poor quality of the limestone and effects of the environment, the monument has lost a significant amount of material. Only about 50 percent of the original carving and inscription remains.
The monument was temporarily relocated to a University of Louisville facility for treatment while VA conducted a thorough evaluation of potential sites. The evaluation process included written proposals and site visits. VA posted information on the Internet, mailed information to Veterans and Civil War heritage groups and held a public information meeting to solicit suggestions.
A new monument, with an interpretive sign explaining the significance of the original Bloedner Monument and indicating its location, will be placed at Cave Hill National Cemetery in 2010.
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