Veterans dorm at Muscogee County Jail first in country
Updated: Apr 24, 2012
By Laura Ann Sills
Sheriff John Darr announced Monday that military veterans now have a new home at the Muscogee County Jail. A special dormitory for vets opened up last week.
Moses Haynes has been in the veterans' dormitory at the Muscogee County Jail for a week now. He says he can already tell a change in the way he feels and hopes the public will see that Vets have different needs.
"Hopefully people will understand that we do things not cause we just go and do it, because of mental ill problems."
Haynes served in the Army for 5 years. He was in a helicopter crash during his service and says he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. Alcoholism and a probation violation landed him in the Muscogee County Jail.
read more here
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Nicholas Horner sentenced to 2 life terms plus 29 to 59 years
UPDATE
July 17, 2013 Horner gives up appeals
July 17, 2013 Horner gives up appeals
The U.S. Army veteran whose murder trial last year focused on the issues of post traumatic stress and the treatment he received has decided - against the advice of his lawyer - to give up his appeals.
PTSD on trial. Was justice served? Will Horner get help in prison?
Iraq war vet sentenced to 2 life terms plus 29 to 59 years in 2009 Pa. slayings during robbery
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: April 23, 2012
HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. — An Iraq war veteran has been formally sentenced to life in prison in the shooting deaths of two people during the robbery of a west-central Pennsylvania sandwich shop three years ago.
The Altoona Mirror says Blair County President Judge Jolene Kopriva gave 31-year-old Nicholas Horner of Altoona two consecutive life terms on Monday plus 29 to 59 years in prison.
Jurors who convicted Horner of first-degree murder last month deadlocked on whether he deserved execution or life in prison without possibility of parole in the April 2009 deaths of 19-year-old Scott Garlick and 64-year-old Raymond Williams during the robbery of the Altoona Subway shop.
Defense attorneys argued that Horner was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time, but Williams' daughter, Melanie Kollar, told Horner on Monday that she didn't believe that. She said "I pray nightly you will finally accept responsibility."
read more here
Nicholas Horner Pennsylvania Iraq war veteran convicted of first-degree murder
Monday, April 23, 2012
Black Hawk helicopter crew mourned at Kandahar Air Field
Black Hawk helicopter crew mourned at Kandahar Air Field
By HEATH DRUZIN
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 23, 2012
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — The mission goes on. Outside a hangar full of mourners here Monday, the buzz of choppers continued unabated. There’s little time to pause during a war.
For two hours, though, hundreds of soldiers got a chance to say goodbye.
They filled the seats inside and spilled out of the fabric clamshell structure in a crowd stretching close to the flight line, bowing their heads in prayer and tears to remember four soldiers killed Thursday in a helicopter crash in Helmand province.
By HEATH DRUZIN
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 23, 2012
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — The mission goes on. Outside a hangar full of mourners here Monday, the buzz of choppers continued unabated. There’s little time to pause during a war.
For two hours, though, hundreds of soldiers got a chance to say goodbye.
They filled the seats inside and spilled out of the fabric clamshell structure in a crowd stretching close to the flight line, bowing their heads in prayer and tears to remember four soldiers killed Thursday in a helicopter crash in Helmand province.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Nicholas Johnson, 27, San Diego
Spc. Dean Shaffer, 23, Pekin, Ill.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Don Viray, 25, Waipahu, Hawaii
Spc. Chris Workman, 33, Boise, Idaho.
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Investigation blasts VA over wait times for mental health care
Investigation blasts VA over wait times for mental health care
By LEO SHANE III AND MEGAN MCCLOSKEY
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 23, 2012
WASHINGTON — Calling the Department of Veterans Affairs’ data “of no real value,” the Inspector General on Monday slammed department officials for drastically overstating how quickly veterans were able to be seen for mental health issues.
The investigation found that veterans on average have to wait nearly two months – far longer than the VA has claimed. It also confirmed observations by members of Congress that veterans’ access to mental health services has been much more problematic than department officials have acknowledged.
Veterans Health Administration policy requires that all first-time patients requesting mental health services receive an initial evaluation within 24 hours, and a comprehensive diagnostic appointment within two weeks. VHA officials had said that 95 percent of its new patients were seen in that time frame.
But the new inspector general report called those calculations confused and inaccurate. By their researchers’ count, fewer than half of those patients were seen within the 14-day requirement. The average wait for a full evaluation among the rest was 50 days.
The report also sharply criticized VHA staffers for not following proper scheduling procedures, further confusing the data collection.
For new patients, scheduling clerks frequently stated they used the next available appointment slot as the desired appointment date for new patients, thereby showing deceptively short wait times. For established patients, medical providers scheduled return appointments based on known availability, rather than the patient’s clinical need.
Investigators also blamed some of the long wait times on shortages in mental health staff throughout the department.
read more here
By LEO SHANE III AND MEGAN MCCLOSKEY
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 23, 2012
WASHINGTON — Calling the Department of Veterans Affairs’ data “of no real value,” the Inspector General on Monday slammed department officials for drastically overstating how quickly veterans were able to be seen for mental health issues.
The investigation found that veterans on average have to wait nearly two months – far longer than the VA has claimed. It also confirmed observations by members of Congress that veterans’ access to mental health services has been much more problematic than department officials have acknowledged.
Veterans Health Administration policy requires that all first-time patients requesting mental health services receive an initial evaluation within 24 hours, and a comprehensive diagnostic appointment within two weeks. VHA officials had said that 95 percent of its new patients were seen in that time frame.
But the new inspector general report called those calculations confused and inaccurate. By their researchers’ count, fewer than half of those patients were seen within the 14-day requirement. The average wait for a full evaluation among the rest was 50 days.
The report also sharply criticized VHA staffers for not following proper scheduling procedures, further confusing the data collection.
For new patients, scheduling clerks frequently stated they used the next available appointment slot as the desired appointment date for new patients, thereby showing deceptively short wait times. For established patients, medical providers scheduled return appointments based on known availability, rather than the patient’s clinical need.
Investigators also blamed some of the long wait times on shortages in mental health staff throughout the department.
read more here
Veterans healthcare exempt from budget cuts
Vets health care exempt from sequestration cuts
By Rick Maze -
Staff writer
Posted : Monday Apr 23, 2012
Funding for veterans’ health care programs is not subject to sequestration, the White House budget office announced Monday, ending months of speculation about how across-the-board budget cuts could be applied early next year if Congress cannot find a way to avoid fiscal disaster.
Sequestration, looming because Congress and the White House failed to reach an agreement on a 10-year, $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan, also will not cut veterans’ benefits, leaving only administrative expenses of the Veterans Affairs Department potentially subject to reductions, according to legal opinion issued Monday by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
The announcement came in a letter to the Government Accountability Office, which had asked the White House for clarification about the automatic cuts’ effect on VA.
The Budget Control Act of 2011, which set up mechanism for cutting federal programs if a deficit spending agreement wasn’t reached, specifically exempted veterans’ benefits but had no clear statement about what might happen to veterans’ medical care expenses. read more here
By Rick Maze -
Staff writer
Posted : Monday Apr 23, 2012
Funding for veterans’ health care programs is not subject to sequestration, the White House budget office announced Monday, ending months of speculation about how across-the-board budget cuts could be applied early next year if Congress cannot find a way to avoid fiscal disaster.
Sequestration, looming because Congress and the White House failed to reach an agreement on a 10-year, $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan, also will not cut veterans’ benefits, leaving only administrative expenses of the Veterans Affairs Department potentially subject to reductions, according to legal opinion issued Monday by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
The announcement came in a letter to the Government Accountability Office, which had asked the White House for clarification about the automatic cuts’ effect on VA.
The Budget Control Act of 2011, which set up mechanism for cutting federal programs if a deficit spending agreement wasn’t reached, specifically exempted veterans’ benefits but had no clear statement about what might happen to veterans’ medical care expenses. read more here
Three tour combat vet, gunned down back home
Veteran Survives 3 Tours Of Duty But He’s Gunned Down In Lancaster
April 22, 2012
LANCASTER (CBS)
A 30-year-old veteran who served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan was shot to death Saturday in Lancaster, sheriff’s officials said.
Nathen Taylor’s family is grieving and in disbelief.
The shooting in the 700 block of West Avenue H-7 occurred around 12:10 a.m., said Deputy Guillermina Saldana of the Sheriff’s Headquarters Bureau.
Taylor, according to his brother Patrick, had just left a party because he didn’t like to be around a lot of drinking. Taylor called his brother to say he would be dropping by his house within a few minutes.
Taylor was sitting alone in his car, cell phone in hand, when he was shot by an unknown assailant.
read more here
April 22, 2012
LANCASTER (CBS)
A 30-year-old veteran who served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan was shot to death Saturday in Lancaster, sheriff’s officials said.
Nathen Taylor’s family is grieving and in disbelief.
The shooting in the 700 block of West Avenue H-7 occurred around 12:10 a.m., said Deputy Guillermina Saldana of the Sheriff’s Headquarters Bureau.
Taylor, according to his brother Patrick, had just left a party because he didn’t like to be around a lot of drinking. Taylor called his brother to say he would be dropping by his house within a few minutes.
Taylor was sitting alone in his car, cell phone in hand, when he was shot by an unknown assailant.
read more here
Rape Alleged At West Point, Annapolis
Rape Alleged At West Point, Annapolis
2 Women Claim Academies Ignored 'Rampant Sexual Harassment'
By Kyra Phillips and Jessi Joseph
CNN
April 22, 2012
(CNN) -- Karley Marquet and Annie Kendzior said they enrolled at two of the nation's most prestigious military academies to serve their country and become military officers. Instead, they claim, they were raped -- and their military careers are now over. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. Federal Court on Friday, the women claim the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, ignored "rampant sexual harassment."
The suit claims former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the former superintendents of the two academies and the current secretaries of the Army and Navy are "personally responsible" for failing to "prevent rapes and sexual assaults at the Naval Academy and West Point."
Karley Marquet was a high school honor student, championship swimmer and all-star rugby player. She could have gone to college anywhere with her credentials, but Marquet chose West Point.
"When I was accepted, it was kind of overwhelming," she says. "You can't imagine having that structure and discipline but at the same time having people look at you like, 'Wow, you're doing something great for our country.'"
But Marquet said her dream of becoming an officer was shattered in January 2011, her second semester at West Point.
read more here
2 Women Claim Academies Ignored 'Rampant Sexual Harassment'
By Kyra Phillips and Jessi Joseph
CNN
April 22, 2012
(CNN) -- Karley Marquet and Annie Kendzior said they enrolled at two of the nation's most prestigious military academies to serve their country and become military officers. Instead, they claim, they were raped -- and their military careers are now over. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. Federal Court on Friday, the women claim the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, ignored "rampant sexual harassment."
The suit claims former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the former superintendents of the two academies and the current secretaries of the Army and Navy are "personally responsible" for failing to "prevent rapes and sexual assaults at the Naval Academy and West Point."
Karley Marquet was a high school honor student, championship swimmer and all-star rugby player. She could have gone to college anywhere with her credentials, but Marquet chose West Point.
"When I was accepted, it was kind of overwhelming," she says. "You can't imagine having that structure and discipline but at the same time having people look at you like, 'Wow, you're doing something great for our country.'"
But Marquet said her dream of becoming an officer was shattered in January 2011, her second semester at West Point.
read more here
Honors college students use social media to help soldiers
Students use social media to assist soldiers
By Jessica Velez ASST. NEWS EDITOR
Published: Monday, April 23, 2012
SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE
As a result of their efforts, soldiers deliver school supplies to children in Afghanistan.
Social media might be useful for keeping track of friends and messaging the occasional celebrity, but a group of honors students is using the social media platform to help Afghan children and veterans of the Iraq War and Afghanistan conflict.
“Social Media, Social Change: One Pencil Can Help Bring Peace,” is an honors course in its second semester of existence. Taught by Liisa Temple, an Emmy Award-winning freelance journalist, the idea for the course grew from School Supplies for Afghan Children, a charity she started with her husband, retired U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Rex Temple, in 2009 after an encounter he had with a child in Afghanistan.
“When I was handing out the candy, this particular child was fixated on my ballpoint pen,” Rex said. “And he kept saying … the Dari word for pen.”
Rex said he knew what the word meant but asked his interpreter why the child kept saying it. He learned that the child didn’t want to be like his father and toil in the fields.
“He knew the route out of poverty was through education,” Rex said.
Rex called Liisa at home and asked her to ship all of the extra pens and pencils they had lying around their house, an effort that eventually grew into the school supplies program.
Students enrolled in the Honors College course follow in the footsteps of Rex, who delivered more than 700 boxes of school supplies during his last tour in Afghanistan, which ended April 2010. This semester, students have shipped 65 boxes to Afghan school children, Liisa said, with another 50 to 100 boxes ready to ship out this week. School Supplies for Afghan Children has grown to include participants in 17 states and resulted in more than 20,000 pounds of donated school supplies, such as notebooks, pens, pencils and loose-leaf paper.
read more here
By Jessica Velez ASST. NEWS EDITOR
Published: Monday, April 23, 2012
SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE
As a result of their efforts, soldiers deliver school supplies to children in Afghanistan.
Social media might be useful for keeping track of friends and messaging the occasional celebrity, but a group of honors students is using the social media platform to help Afghan children and veterans of the Iraq War and Afghanistan conflict.
“Social Media, Social Change: One Pencil Can Help Bring Peace,” is an honors course in its second semester of existence. Taught by Liisa Temple, an Emmy Award-winning freelance journalist, the idea for the course grew from School Supplies for Afghan Children, a charity she started with her husband, retired U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Rex Temple, in 2009 after an encounter he had with a child in Afghanistan.
“When I was handing out the candy, this particular child was fixated on my ballpoint pen,” Rex said. “And he kept saying … the Dari word for pen.”
Rex said he knew what the word meant but asked his interpreter why the child kept saying it. He learned that the child didn’t want to be like his father and toil in the fields.
“He knew the route out of poverty was through education,” Rex said.
Rex called Liisa at home and asked her to ship all of the extra pens and pencils they had lying around their house, an effort that eventually grew into the school supplies program.
Students enrolled in the Honors College course follow in the footsteps of Rex, who delivered more than 700 boxes of school supplies during his last tour in Afghanistan, which ended April 2010. This semester, students have shipped 65 boxes to Afghan school children, Liisa said, with another 50 to 100 boxes ready to ship out this week. School Supplies for Afghan Children has grown to include participants in 17 states and resulted in more than 20,000 pounds of donated school supplies, such as notebooks, pens, pencils and loose-leaf paper.
read more here
A story of love and tragedy for WWII veteran
A story of love and tragedy
Chester and Mildred Welebob gave much to others. Their homicide/suicide leaves a void in the hearts of friends.
Steve Mocarsky
WILKES-BARRE TWP.
A husband and wife who were victims of a homicide/suicide Friday and Saturday were well-respected in their town and are fondly remembered, according to friends who knew them for many years.
Chester Welebob had served as a township councilman for 20 years, and his wife, Mildred, was a well-loved nursery school teacher before she retired.
“They both cared for each other a lot. They did a lot of things all over town over the years. It’s so sad, so tragic,” said John Quinn, a former township councilman whose father was Chester’s basketball coach in high school.
Wilkes-Barre police on Friday night found 82-year-old Mildred Welebob, a resident of St. Luke’s Villa, in a wheelchair behind a vehicle at the rear of the facility’s parking lot on East Northampton Street. Acting Luzerne County Coroner Bill Lisman said she died of a single gunshot wound, with the cause of death ruled homicide.
A short time later, Chester Welebob, of Wilkes-Barre Township, was found dead inside his car in Wilkes-Barre Township. He was pronounced dead of a single gunshot wound at 12:15 a.m. Saturday, Lisman said, with the cause of death ruled suicide.
read more here
Chester and Mildred Welebob gave much to others. Their homicide/suicide leaves a void in the hearts of friends.
Steve Mocarsky
WILKES-BARRE TWP.
A husband and wife who were victims of a homicide/suicide Friday and Saturday were well-respected in their town and are fondly remembered, according to friends who knew them for many years.
Chester Welebob had served as a township councilman for 20 years, and his wife, Mildred, was a well-loved nursery school teacher before she retired.
“They both cared for each other a lot. They did a lot of things all over town over the years. It’s so sad, so tragic,” said John Quinn, a former township councilman whose father was Chester’s basketball coach in high school.
Wilkes-Barre police on Friday night found 82-year-old Mildred Welebob, a resident of St. Luke’s Villa, in a wheelchair behind a vehicle at the rear of the facility’s parking lot on East Northampton Street. Acting Luzerne County Coroner Bill Lisman said she died of a single gunshot wound, with the cause of death ruled homicide.
A short time later, Chester Welebob, of Wilkes-Barre Township, was found dead inside his car in Wilkes-Barre Township. He was pronounced dead of a single gunshot wound at 12:15 a.m. Saturday, Lisman said, with the cause of death ruled suicide.
read more here
Only 61 survived USS Hobson
N.J. soldiers who endured a naval catastrophe spill their stories of survival 60 years later
Published: Sunday, April 22, 2012
By Kevin Manahan
The Star-Ledger
On a Saturday afternoon in April 1952, two days before his ship would leave for duty during the Korean War, Joseph Torrisi dashed off a two-page letter to his older sister, Rose, on embossed U.S. Navy stationery. A three-cent stamp brought it from Charleston, S.C., to the 400-room Hotel Douglas in Newark, where she was living at the time.
A week earlier, he had sent a note to his mom in Bloomfield, proudly announcing he had found, in Charleston, a Catholic church and, more miraculously, a restaurant that served homemade ravioli.
In tidy penmanship that would have made his grammar-school nuns beam, the 32-year-old wrote that he was spending more money than he had planned, but he wasn’t sweating it. Thanks to a payday aboard ship, he would be flush when he reached Spain, France, Italy, Sicily and Greece.
His destroyer, the USS Hobson, was scheduled to visit 20 Mediterranean ports — a cushy assignment welcomed by Torrisi, a career Navy man who, curiously, disliked life on the sea.
"The next time I write will be from some place I haven’t been to," he told his sister.
But he never made it.
Five days after his final letter arrived in New Jersey, Joseph Torrisi was asleep in his lower-tier bunk at 10:21 p.m., when, during a deadly war-games blunder, the Hobson was sliced in two by the 40,000-ton Wasp, a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Seven hundred miles from the Azores, in cold, turbulent North Atlantic seas three miles deep, the Hobson sank in four minutes or less, taking 176 men with her. Only 61 survived.
read more here
Published: Sunday, April 22, 2012
By Kevin Manahan
The Star-Ledger
On a Saturday afternoon in April 1952, two days before his ship would leave for duty during the Korean War, Joseph Torrisi dashed off a two-page letter to his older sister, Rose, on embossed U.S. Navy stationery. A three-cent stamp brought it from Charleston, S.C., to the 400-room Hotel Douglas in Newark, where she was living at the time.
A week earlier, he had sent a note to his mom in Bloomfield, proudly announcing he had found, in Charleston, a Catholic church and, more miraculously, a restaurant that served homemade ravioli.
In tidy penmanship that would have made his grammar-school nuns beam, the 32-year-old wrote that he was spending more money than he had planned, but he wasn’t sweating it. Thanks to a payday aboard ship, he would be flush when he reached Spain, France, Italy, Sicily and Greece.
His destroyer, the USS Hobson, was scheduled to visit 20 Mediterranean ports — a cushy assignment welcomed by Torrisi, a career Navy man who, curiously, disliked life on the sea.
"The next time I write will be from some place I haven’t been to," he told his sister.
But he never made it.
Five days after his final letter arrived in New Jersey, Joseph Torrisi was asleep in his lower-tier bunk at 10:21 p.m., when, during a deadly war-games blunder, the Hobson was sliced in two by the 40,000-ton Wasp, a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Seven hundred miles from the Azores, in cold, turbulent North Atlantic seas three miles deep, the Hobson sank in four minutes or less, taking 176 men with her. Only 61 survived.
read more here
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Vietnam Memorial Wall Escort in Melbourne
UPDATE
Here is the video from the bikes coming into Wickham Park.
Here are some pictures taken at the Lone Cabbage
I was there filming them as they came into Wickham Park and I can tell you there were a lot more than 1,000 motorcycles. My camera battery ran out before they were all in. Video is processing now so it will be up later tonight. It ran over 16 minutes and still didn't get all the bikes!
Here is the video from the bikes coming into Wickham Park.
Here are some pictures taken at the Lone Cabbage
I was there filming them as they came into Wickham Park and I can tell you there were a lot more than 1,000 motorcycles. My camera battery ran out before they were all in. Video is processing now so it will be up later tonight. It ran over 16 minutes and still didn't get all the bikes!
Hundreds gather for Vietnam memorial event
5:43 PM, Apr. 22, 2012
Written by
Wayne T. Price
FLORIDA TODAY
The weather report for Sunday in Brevard County called for a mixture of wind and rain.
Greg Welsh basically said “no big deal.”
Welsh, longtime member of the Vietnam and All Veterans of Brevard, met with a few dozen volunteers late Sunday morning in Wickham Park to erect the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall.
Rain or shine, the wall was going up Sunday, Welsh said.
“We were putting it up regardless of the rain,” Welsh said. “We fought and died in the rain, so the rain wasn’t a concern.”
The traveling memorial, which is visiting 18 sites around the United States this year, has turned into a notable tradition in Brevard, as it is part of the the Annual Vietnam and All Veterans Reunion, which kicks off Thursday.
As per tradition, supporters on motorcycles gathered at Brevard Community College's Cocoa Campus Sunday morning and escorted the truck and trailer carrying the wall along U.S. 1 to Wickham Park.
Police estimated between 800 to 1,000 motorcyclists were involved.
read more here
Army Surgeon General makes changes after Madigan on PTSD
Army Surgeon General issues new directive on PTSD
Sen. Patty Murray: 'This is an overdue but very welcome step'
Web reporter
Q13 Fox News Online
April 21, 2012
SEATTLE
The Army Surgeon General's Office has issued a new directive for diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder after questions arose about Madigan Army Medical Center’s reversal of more than 300 soldiers’ PTSD diagnoses in the past five years.
The Madigan Army Medical Center is the chief military hospital for Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma. Members of the base's units have seen extensive action in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The new policy, first reported by the Seattle Times, was confirmed by the office of Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who had been pressing for changes in the way the Army handles PTSD cases.
read more here
Sen. Patty Murray: 'This is an overdue but very welcome step'
Web reporter
Q13 Fox News Online
April 21, 2012
SEATTLE
The Army Surgeon General's Office has issued a new directive for diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder after questions arose about Madigan Army Medical Center’s reversal of more than 300 soldiers’ PTSD diagnoses in the past five years.
The Madigan Army Medical Center is the chief military hospital for Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma. Members of the base's units have seen extensive action in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The new policy, first reported by the Seattle Times, was confirmed by the office of Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who had been pressing for changes in the way the Army handles PTSD cases.
read more here
Vets in need urged to go through VA for pensions
Vets in need urged to go through VA for pensions
Frank Gray
April 22, 2012
For decades the Veterans Administration has had a pension program called Aid and Attendance that was designed to help some veterans and their spouses who need assistance in their daily lives.
Veterans who were receiving in-home assistance or living in assisted-living centers could receive sometimes generous monthly pensions to help cover those expenses.
The catch was that to be eligible, veterans had to have limited assets and limited income.
The VA didn’t try to keep the benefit a secret, said George Jarboe, Allen County’s veterans’ service officer, but it didn’t promote it heavily, either.
“It was designed to help people who have no money survive,” Jarboe said.
For years, most veterans knew little of the program, but about five years ago word got out and spread rapidly. Depending on their age, most wartime veterans or their widows can have $80,000 in assets, including their home, and depending on how much they spent on aid or assistance, they could get a pension.
Since the program has become popular, financial advisers have been taking full advantage of it. They have been counseling veterans and their spouses or widows that they could get the benefit, even if they had far too much in assets to qualify. All they had to do was “eliminate” their assets and they could start getting monthly checks.
read more here
Frank Gray
April 22, 2012
For decades the Veterans Administration has had a pension program called Aid and Attendance that was designed to help some veterans and their spouses who need assistance in their daily lives.
Veterans who were receiving in-home assistance or living in assisted-living centers could receive sometimes generous monthly pensions to help cover those expenses.
The catch was that to be eligible, veterans had to have limited assets and limited income.
The VA didn’t try to keep the benefit a secret, said George Jarboe, Allen County’s veterans’ service officer, but it didn’t promote it heavily, either.
“It was designed to help people who have no money survive,” Jarboe said.
For years, most veterans knew little of the program, but about five years ago word got out and spread rapidly. Depending on their age, most wartime veterans or their widows can have $80,000 in assets, including their home, and depending on how much they spent on aid or assistance, they could get a pension.
Since the program has become popular, financial advisers have been taking full advantage of it. They have been counseling veterans and their spouses or widows that they could get the benefit, even if they had far too much in assets to qualify. All they had to do was “eliminate” their assets and they could start getting monthly checks.
read more here
OEF OIF TBI cases could reach 460,000
Soldiers' brain trauma cases disputed
Thousands of terror war soldiers who are back home struggle with TBI
By Bill Torpy and Mark Davis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Now, he struggles to find the right words when talking. He starts sentences and stops in the middle. He reads a chapter, then realizes none of it has soaked in. Some days, he goes out to get the mail, then can’t remember if he brought it in. If he remembers he brought it in, he can’t remember where he put it.
The Army captain says his brain acts like an Internet dial-up connection: The information is there, and it’s coming. But ... he ... must ... wait ... for ... it.
Two years ago, McRaney, a reservist, was in Afghanistan when a mortar shell landed on his bunker, killing three civilian contractors who were with him. McRaney survived, but his brain was damaged in the explosion, diminishing his memory, ability to follow directions and process speech.
read more here
Thousands of terror war soldiers who are back home struggle with TBI
By Bill Torpy and Mark Davis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"A congressional report in February said studies indicate between 15 percent and 23 percent of the 2 million who have served in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have experienced a TBI, which would mean 300,000 to 460,000 cases."David McRaney always considered himself a quick thinker, a problem solver who threw himself into challenges.
Now, he struggles to find the right words when talking. He starts sentences and stops in the middle. He reads a chapter, then realizes none of it has soaked in. Some days, he goes out to get the mail, then can’t remember if he brought it in. If he remembers he brought it in, he can’t remember where he put it.
The Army captain says his brain acts like an Internet dial-up connection: The information is there, and it’s coming. But ... he ... must ... wait ... for ... it.
Two years ago, McRaney, a reservist, was in Afghanistan when a mortar shell landed on his bunker, killing three civilian contractors who were with him. McRaney survived, but his brain was damaged in the explosion, diminishing his memory, ability to follow directions and process speech.
read more here
A war correspondent and veteran's reflection
A war correspondent's reflection: If I don't tell the story, who will?
April 22, 2012
By Jackie Spinner
Coming Home PA is a project spearheaded by PublicSource, a local nonprofit investigative news group, with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and other local media partners.
We were an odd trio, sitting in a hipster lounge in Dupont Circle, last November, smoking flavored tobacco, sharing war stories, oblivious to the people around us.
Joao Silva, a photographer, was still getting treatment in Washington, D.C., after stepping on a land mine in October 2010 in Afghanistan while on assignment for the New York Times. He lost both his legs. A year later, Joao was in shorts, even though it had been snowing earlier in the day, and the disco lights kept catching the metal of his prosthetic legs in a dancing twinkle that matched our mood.
Bill Putnam, a multimedia journalist and former U.S. soldier, was on his way back to Afghanistan. Putnam has gone to war now as a soldier and civilian seven times since 1996. Once again, he was putting everything else aside to cover war.
"I literally don't know anything else but this life," he said in a recent email from Afghanistan. "I don't feel fulfilled back home."
read more here
April 22, 2012
By Jackie Spinner
Coming Home PA is a project spearheaded by PublicSource, a local nonprofit investigative news group, with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and other local media partners.
We were an odd trio, sitting in a hipster lounge in Dupont Circle, last November, smoking flavored tobacco, sharing war stories, oblivious to the people around us.
Joao Silva, a photographer, was still getting treatment in Washington, D.C., after stepping on a land mine in October 2010 in Afghanistan while on assignment for the New York Times. He lost both his legs. A year later, Joao was in shorts, even though it had been snowing earlier in the day, and the disco lights kept catching the metal of his prosthetic legs in a dancing twinkle that matched our mood.
Bill Putnam, a multimedia journalist and former U.S. soldier, was on his way back to Afghanistan. Putnam has gone to war now as a soldier and civilian seven times since 1996. Once again, he was putting everything else aside to cover war.
"I literally don't know anything else but this life," he said in a recent email from Afghanistan. "I don't feel fulfilled back home."
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