Saturday, March 27, 2010

Seven years after teen taken to Walter Reed, she's still there

Kyrgyz woman longs for a home of her own, outside the walls of Walter Reed

By Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 26, 2010; 7:42 PM

Lyudmila Sukhanov has spent the past seven years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as a patient and a prisoner of sorts


But with Kyrgyz cooperation vital to the United States, saving Lyuda, as she came to be known, was not only humane but also strategic, a goodwill gesture directed at a vital but skittish ally. The request to medevac her received the blessing of the commander of U.S. forces in the region, Gen. Tommy Franks, and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In early 2003, a C-17 military transport plane braved dangerous conditions to airlift Sukhanov first to Germany and then to Washington.

Seven years of Walter Reed
Lyudmila Sukhanov, 26, has spent the past seven years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as a patient. She has had 18 major surgeries and nearly died several times after a series of botched intestinal operations in her country. In early 2003, U.S military officials arranged for Sukhanov to be treated by doctors in Germany and then at Walter Reed.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Plans unveiled for Eisenhower memorial in Washington


Plans unveiled for Eisenhower memorial in Washington
He was a two-term president and World War II commander who has buildings, schools, an aircraft carrier, a highway tunnel and even a mountain named after him. Now, President Dwight David Eisenhower, or Ike, will have what only six other occupants of the Oval Office seem to share: A national memorial in the nation's capital.

Unlike the well-known presidential memorials for Washington and Lincoln set amid green, open spaces, the Eisenhower design would be nestled among federal agencies that all came into being during his presidency: the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services — which originally were combined as Health, Education and Welfare — the federal Aviation Administration, and the Voice of America.

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Is state denying benefits to jobless who qualify

Is state denying benefits to jobless who qualify?

By Jim Stratton ORLANDO SENTINEL

11:53 p.m. EST, March 25, 2010
At first, Bonnie Lewis thought her boss was joking.

He had told her that the Longwood call center where she worked was closing. But he was offering Lewis a sales job, one that meant driving around Central Florida.

"I have cataracts so bad I can't see," thought Lewis, 59. "I have no depth perception. I don't have a car."

So she declined the offer and applied for unemployment. After one check, the money stopped because her employer told the state that she had quit, making her ineligible for benefits.

"She didn't quit," says Sally McArthur, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Orlando who got Lewis' benefits restored. "They eliminated her job and offered her something she couldn't possibly do. … They were looking for reasons to turn her down."

The state said it cannot readily determine whether the rate of initial denials is rising, but several lawyers who handle such cases say they have seen similar instances in which the state or employers appear to be stepping up efforts to disqualify out-of-work Floridians.
read more here
Is state denying benefits to jobless who qualify

Teen charged with 2d Wal-Mart announcement

Teen charged with 2d Wal-Mart announcement
By Jan Hefler

Inquirer Staff Writer

WASHINGTON TWP., NJ - A 16-year-old Atlantic County boy arrested after the racially tinged announcement at the Turnersville Wal-Mart this month did the same thing Dec. 28, police reported yesterday.

The youth, whose name has not been released because he is a juvenile, is now charged with two counts each of harassment and bias intimidation, Washington Township police said.

He is accused of announcing over a Wal-Mart telephone March 14 that "all the black people" should leave the store, on Route 42. Police arrested him after examining surveillance cameras and social Web sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

Wal-Mart representatives have apologized and secured their public address system to prevent future problems.
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Teen charged with 2d Wal-Mart announcement
linked from CNN

And Now Veterans: 'We Owe Them'

And Now Veterans: 'We Owe Them'
BY JORDAN SMITH

Travis County is embarking on a new project that will establish, later this spring, the courthouse's newest addition: veterans' diversion court. The impetus for the court came nearly three years ago, from Precinct 4 Constable Maria Canchola, who knows well the reintegration difficulties faced by many vets. Her uncle and cousin came back from war changed men, troubled by "shell shock" they medicated with alcohol. And for 26 years, she has helped her partner – a "stoic veteran" – a former Marine who served as a reconnaissance sniper in Viet­nam. He suffered for nearly 30 years before finally seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, which he never connected to his drinking and which invariably led to run-ins with the law and more than one night in jail.
read more here
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A985573

Deceased Vietnam Veteran CIA Agent Finally Recognized


Deceased Veteran Finally Recognized for Vietnam Service

The Salem News; March 15, 2010
'He gave a lot for his country' Deceased veteran finally recognized for Vietnam service By Cate Lecuyerstaff writer
DANVERS — Robert Krisko is not one of the 58,261 names engraved on the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The Peabody man was part of the Airborne Infantry, and one of the original Green Berets. But when he died in Vietnam in 1967 — at 34 years old — he was working deep undercover for the CIA.
Since he wasn't in the service at the time, his name didn't make the cut when the memorial went up in 1982.
"Every time I'd go there, it just kind of irked me," said his son, Hugh Krisko. "I saw all these names, and my dad's was not on the wall. I just thought it wasn't right."
His widow, Claudette, tried 14 years ago to get him recognized, but had no luck.
"About two months ago, I said I'm going to try this again," she said. "I've got nothing to lose."
She sent out letters, including one to Sen. John Kerry's office, which notified her about "In Memory Day."
"The In Memory program was created to pay credit to people who died as part of the Vietnam War," said Lisa Gough, communications director for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. "It honors those service members whose deaths don't fit the guidelines (to be on the monument)."

click links above for more

link sent from Shelia at AgentOrgangeQuiltoftears.org

Who lied to veterans over Tricare?

Most of this week there have been several posts on this issue. What it boils down to is that when politicians decided to lie to veterans and the troops to scare them, they betrayed the men and women risking their lives as well as the veterans of combat for the sake of this country. This betrayal requires they be held accountable. If they lied because "they didn't know better" it was their job to know what the hell they were talking about. Vote them out because they have proven they are not interested in working for the people. If they knew they truth but lied anyway to score political points, then they should be kicked out of office. We all need to stop letting politicians get away with telling us lies but it is more disgraceful when they use the troops and veterans to get what they want.

Dems: Health reform threat to Tricare overblown
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, March 27, 2010
Republican lawmakers raised the specter of military families and survivors of veterans seeing health care costs rise as a result of the national health reform law that President Obama signed March 23.

But the threat was never more than a notion and it is fading away. That’s the consensus among most military associations and veterans groups, as reinforced by statements from the secretaries of defense and veterans affairs, the White House and chairmen of key congressional committees.

White House officials were angered, and some veterans groups perplexed, by press releases issued last Sunday from Republicans on the House armed services and veterans’ affairs committees, and by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, hours before the House voted to approve the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.

The VFW said "the president and the Democratic leadership are betraying veterans" by not adopting a Republican amendment that explicitly would list Tricare and VA survivor health benefits as meeting the health reform bill’s minimum essential coverage standard.

Without that status, ranking committee Republicans Howard "Buck" McKeon (Calif.) on armed services and Steve Buyer (Ind.) on veterans’ affairs, argued these beneficiaries and even some veterans’ children could be forced to pay a penalty or buy extra health insurance.
read more here
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=140&article=68932

New Law Gives Huge Tax Breaks to Companies who Hire Veterans

New Law Gives Huge Tax Breaks to Companies who Hire Veterans

On March 18, 2010, President Obama signed the new Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (HIRE) into law. This federal legislation creates brand-new tax breaks for hiring and retaining unemployed workers. Here's an overview on this job creation tax break and a clear path to capitalizing on it.. Read More >>

Old Soldiers Still Fighting for Veteran's Disability

Old Soldiers Still Fighting for Veteran's Disability
March 26, 2010. By Gordon Gibb

Albany, NY: While the US Department of Veterans Affairs is adding new diseases and conditions to the list of those which quality for compensation, securing veterans' disability benefits can be painfully slow—and for some, impossible.

On Monday the Albany-based Times-Union revealed the maddening situation of those who came into contact with Agent Orange while serving during the Vietnam War.

Agent Orange is a toxic herbicide used by the US military to defoliate the dense forest and allow US soldiers to better see the enemy. It was later found that military personnel who ingested dioxins and the various toxic chemicals associated with the herbicide have become susceptible to illness. The VA long ago ruled that military personnel who served on Vietnamese soil and became ill from the aftereffects of Agent Orange should be compensated.

However, those who did not actually serve on Vietnamese soil—including those who served in the air or on the sea—are ineligible for compensation unless they can prove their illness is directly service-oriented. That, it turns out, is not easy. Even when doctors verify the connection, benefits can be painfully slow in coming.

The Times-Union told the story of Robert Hug, who served in the Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea aboard the USS Hancock from 1967 to 1970. Hug, a non-smoker, eventually developed cancer of the larynx and required surgery. Doctors blamed his illness on Agent Orange. However the VA denied his claims for cancer-related benefits four times in nine years before finally allowing him benefits last fall.
read more here
Old Soldiers Still Fighting for Veterans Disability

35 years later, Vietnam vets welcomed home

35 years later, Vietnam vets welcomed home
By Claudette Langley

Veterans of the 25-year conflict and war in Southeast Asia received their due at the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday.

On behalf of Chapter 391, Vietnam Veterans of America, Dan Brown accepted a resolution from the board honoring Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day, which is March 30. Supervisors Merita Callaway and Gary Tofanelli presented the resolution to Brown during the consent agenda period of the regular meeting.

“Whereas, beginning in 1950 and ending with troop evacuations in 1975, the Vietnam War was the longest conflict in American history,” the resolution reads. “Whereas, 324,000 Californians, including Calaveras County residents, served in Vietnam...”

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35 years later Vietnam vets welcomed home

A Matter of Life and Death: Suicides in the Army

I have long believed that Chaplains are the best treatment for not only heading off PTSD, but helping to heal it after it has taken hold as well.

Troubled veterans of combat don't want to talk to just anybody. They want to talk to someone they know they can trust, someone they know will not judge them or feel repulsed by what they have to say. They need to know opening up will not harm their career. These, obvious reasons are only part of it. When you consider PTSD is a wound to the emotional part of the brain striking after traumatic events, it is really hitting the soul of the man/woman. When they begin to heal spiritually, every other treatment works better because of it.

The following article points out how important chaplains are for the men and women serving. This should also offer more evidence that the clergy in the civilian world need to become more involved in helping them heal when they come home.

March 26, 2010, 11:19 am
A Matter of Life and Death: Suicides in the Army
By TIMOTHY HSIA
The Army faces a battle over the life and death of its soldiers. The battle is not being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the minds and tortured souls of soldiers contemplating suicide. Last year the Army again reported an increase in suicides, and in response the Army now requires every soldier to complete an online assessment of their physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

The Army’s suicide problem is worse than the official numbers presented because the suicide statistics that are tabulated do not include the family members of soldiers. When I attended suicide prevention training sponsored by the Army, several chaplains who were leading the class told the participants that beyond just counseling service members they also had assisted in helping soldiers cope with a family member’s suicide. The official numbers also do not include veterans who have left the military.

While suicides are most pronounced in the Army, the other branches of the military also face this problem, which extends beyond just soldiers returning from combat and even to the service academies. Moreover, the pain and emotional strain of deployment and suicides is not simply limited to soldiers in the junior ranks. Even generals, like Gen. Carter Ham, commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, has encouraged soldiers to seek help for their mental wounds.

The Army’s response to the uptick in suicides has been swift and pronounced. Beyond just having soldiers fill out individual risk assessments, soldiers are also required to role-play scenes in an interactive DVD video that mirrors the emotional issues that may be encountered. Perhaps more important, within the Army there has been a substantial shift in the army’s organizational ethos concerning how leaders view mental strain. Going to talk to a chaplain or mental health professional is no longer looked down upon. Leaders have also emphasized that official policy does not automatically prevent one from gaining security clearance if they see a psychiatrist.

When my unit returned from Iraq the first time, there was no emphasis on the soldier’s mental health. The one solace that soldiers seek out, then and now, are military chaplains. Were it not for the listening and compassionate ear of my unit’s chaplains, my unit’s morale would have plummeted while deployed. While many civilians probably presume that there are numerous military health professionals — particularly in light of the notoriety of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and the Fort Hood Army Base shootings in Texas — in actuality there are very few psychiatrists at the unit level.
read more here
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/a-matter-of-life-and-death-suicides-in-the-army/

Boston DAV helps Camp Lejeune toxic water vet receive comp

Lejeune veteran receives full disability on contaminated water claims

March 16, 2010 1:20 AM
HOPE HODGE
A former Camp Lejeune Marine suffering from a rare blood disease last week became one of a small number of veterans to receive full disability due to historical water contamination.

Braintree, Mass., resident Paul Buckley said he was shocked after multiple claim denials from the Department of Veterans Affairs to discover a packet in his mailbox granting his claim in full.

“I opened it up and almost fell to the ground,” he said.

The victory comes after a long and harrowing journey for the 46-year-old veteran. On May 10, 2006, more than 20 years after Buckley’s contract with the Marine Corps ended, he became rapidly ill, driving himself to the hospital before collapsing in its emergency room. He was in a coma for 10 days.

Buckley, then 42, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an uncommon and largely incurable form of cancer that typically afflicts a far different demographic.

“The doctors were confused because the people who get my disease are primarily elderly and they have worked in industries where there has been exposure to certain chemicals,” Buckley said. “I was burning my brain trying to figure out where I got this.”



Staff with the Boston branch of Disabled American Veterans, who advocated on Buckley’s behalf, said that he represented a “perfect storm” of circumstances: no environmental or family links to his disease and a detailed nexus letter from doctors with Harvard Medical School making his case.

read more here

http://www.jdnews.com/articles/full-73912-veterans-claim.html

National Medal Of Honor Day at White House


The White House Blog
National Medal of Honor Day
Posted by Jesse Lee on March 26, 2009 at 08:46 AM EDT
Yesterday the President participated in the wreath-laying ceremony for National Medal of Honor Day at Arlington National Cemetery, along with more than 30 of the 98 living Medal of Honor recipients.

The President issued the following statement yesterday:
We are grateful to all those who wear the uniform of our Armed Forces and serve and sacrifice on behalf of our great nation. Members of our Armed Forces hold themselves to the highest standards and set an example of responsibility to one another and to the country that should inspire all Americans to serve a purpose greater than themselves. Today we pay our respect to those who distinguished themselves conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty - the recipients of the Medal of Honor.
Since it was first awarded during the Civil War to the current battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, Medal of Honor recipients have displayed tremendous courage, an unfailing determination to succeed, and a humbling willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice. It is telling that so many Medal of Honor recipients received the award posthumously. These soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsman embody the best of American values and ideals.
Medal of Honor recipients are the foremost example of greatness in service and sacrifice. Their bravery and humble strength continues to reassure our nation of the strength of its character and ideals even in these difficult times. We owe these heroes a debt of gratitude that our nation can never fully repay. So, it is on this day that we salute that fact and celebrate their lives and heroic actions that have placed them amongst the "bravest of the brave." We must never forget their sacrifice and will always keep the Fallen and their families in our thoughts and prayers.

Youth suicides epidemic on tribal reservations

Youth suicides epidemic on tribal reservations
Rates among Native Americans are 10 times the national average

Coloradas Mangus, a sophomore at Ruidoso High School on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, N.M., testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on "The Preventable Epidemic: Youth Suicides and the Urgent Need for Mental Health Care Resources in Indian Country."

By MATTHEW DALY

updated 7:47 p.m. ET, Thurs., March. 25, 2010
WASHINGTON - At 15, high school sophomore Coloradas Mangas knows all too much about suicide.

He's recently had several friends who took their own lives, and he survived a suicide attempt himself.

Coloradas, a member of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, lives on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, where there have been five youth suicides since the start of the school year. All were his friends.


Coloradas went to Capitol Hill Thursday to tell lawmakers about the urgent problem of suicide among Native Americans. Tribal suicide rates are 70 percent higher than for the general population, and the youth suicide rate is even higher. On some reservations youth suicide rates are 10 times the national average.

"Things go wrong that they can't change," Coloradas said, trying to explain the high rate of suicide in his community. "They don't get shown the love they need. They say, 'You don't love me when I was here. Now you love me when I'm not here.' "

On the mountainous Mescalero reservation, located in south-central New Mexico more than 200 miles south of Albuquerque, a single mental health clinic serves a tribe of more than 4,500 people. The closest 24-hour Hotline is in Albuquerque.
read more here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36039795/ns/health-mental_health/

At least 10 dead following multi vehicle crash on Interstate 65

At least 10 people were killed in a wreck on Interstate 65 in Kentucky this morning, a spokesman for the Kentucky State Police said. FULL STORY

Los Angeles SWAT team officer killed in Afghanistan

2 Calif Marines killed in Afghanistan

Associated Press
03/26/10 3:10 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES — They were Marines from the same Southern California city. One was a Los Angeles SWAT team officer on active duty, the other was the son of a Santa Ana police sergeant. Both were killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Afghanistan.

Sgt., Maj. Robert. J. Cottle, 45, a 20-year LAPD veteran, and Lance Cpl. Rick. J. Centanni, 19, both of Yorba Linda, were traveling with two other Marines in an armored truck in the Marjah region of Afghanistan when the blast occurred, LAPD Capt. John Incontro said. The other Marines were seriously injured. No other details of the incident were immediately available.

Cottle and Centanni were stationed with the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, out of Camp Pendleton, in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Cottle had been deployed on active duty since August 2009.

2 Calif Marines killed in Afghanistan

11 Utah Guard workers hospitalized

11 Utah Guard workers hospitalized

By Mike Stark - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Mar 25, 2010 19:33:00 EDT

CAMP WILLIAMS, Utah —Eleven workers who were exposed to an irritating material at a Utah National Guard training base on Thursday had to be decontaminated in a hospital parking lot before they were taken to the emergency room and released several hours later.

The irritant came from material leaking from a building’s heating system that was dripping onto some drywall, according to Maj. Craig Bello of the 85th Civil Support Team.
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11 Utah Guard workers hospitalized

Online scammers are posing as US serviceman prey on hearts

Beware online knights in shining armor, US Army warns

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, March 26th, 2010 -- 8:26 am
Online scammers are posing as US serviceman posted overseas and promising love and marriage to cheat women out of thousands of dollars, the US Army's Criminal Investigation Command has warned.

Special CID agents cautioned that they had learned of multiple incidents in which people online posed as US soldiers and got "romantically involved... with female victims and prey on their emotions and patriotism."

Army CID spokesman Chris Grey said the scammers often used information about real soldiers, including their names and ranks, and found photographs of soldiers online to create a false identity.

These individuals promise "true love, but only end up breaking hearts and bank accounts," the CID warned.
read more here
Beware online knights in shining armor, US Army warns

What Joe Dwyer's Death Can Teach Us about PTSD



Battling the Inner Demons of War
What Joe Dwyer's Death Can Teach Us about PTSD
By Cordula Meyer
A photograph of PFC Joseph Dwyer in Iraq made him an American hero, but five years after returning home, mental combat wounds drove him to his death. He is not alone. In 2009, more than twice as many soldiers died by their own hands than were killed by the enemy in Iraq. But new types of therapy are giving others the chance for the peace he never had.

On an afternoon in June 2008, police in Pinehurst, North Carolina, were dispatched to a white farmhouse. The town is set in an idyllic location, complete with woods, plantation houses and eight golf courses. Many of its inhabitants are retirees, so law enforcement officers generally don't have much to do. But, in the previous months, they had repeatedly been called to this particular address. Its owner, a 31-year-old man named Joe Dwyer, had been barricading himself in his house, where he kept several pistols and a semiautomatic rifle.


This time, the officers broke down the door. Once inside, they found Dwyer lying on the ground, covered in feces and urine, gasping for air. "Help me!" the young man begged the officers. "I can't breathe." Surrounding him were dozens of empty cans of Dust-Off, an aerosol spray meant to clean electronic equipment. But it can also be inhaled as a kind of sedative, which can cause heart and lung damage if repeated.

A taxi driver had alerted the police. She told them that, for months, she had been driving him to local shops every day to buy his cans of Dust-Off because he had wrecked his own car veering to avoid a roadside object he thought was an Iraqi bomb.

Joseph Dwyer was a giant of a man with reddish-brown hair. He died that same day while being rushed to the hospital. He was buried a few days later with military honors. While handing Dwyer's widow, Matina, the folded flag that had been draped over her husband's coffin as a mark of respect from the US Army, an officer fell to his knees in front of her.
read more here
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,685442,00.html

Fiery WWII veteran surrenders peacefully after standoff

Fiery veteran surrenders peacefully after standoff
After dispute with wife, he says he's been married 'too damn long'
By DALE LEZON HOUSTON CHRONICLE
March 25, 2010, 8:13PM
After he allegedly fired a gunshot during an argument with his wife, a 84-year-old World War II-era veteran held a SWAT team at bay at the couple's home in southwest Houston for nearly six hours early Thursday before he was arrested peacefully.

The standoff began around 1:30 a.m. after the homeowner, who identified himself as Gerald Lancaster, fired a shot as his wife was leaving their home in the 10100 block of Amblewood, authorities said.

He was arrested about 7 a.m., police said, and charged with aggravated assault.

Patrol officers arrived at the home after the gunshot, and later the Houston Police Department SWAT unit was dispatched because Lancaster did not come outside.

Lancaster was unarmed when arrested by SWAT officers who broke through a door at the home. He didn't resist, police said, and no injuries were reported.

Lancaster, in an interview from the backseat of a police cruiser after his arrest, said he had been drinking alcohol during the day and that he and his wife had argued. He said his wife had not been drinking.
read more here
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/military/6929247.html