Some See Higher Fraud Risk as More Vets Seek Compensation

They are still at it! Trying to blame veterans again. This article headlines "Some See Higher Fraud Risk as More Vets Seek Compensation, Overloading Doctors" but when you read the article, there are few examples of it happening. Just as in real life, fraud among veterans is pretty rare.

"Regulators have seen evidence that fraud is slipping through. The VA’s Office of the Inspector General says it investigates only a small percentage of complaints it receives about possible false claims, but that “stolen valor” arrests—cases that involve false claims of military service or disability—are on the rise, with 72 arrests so far in 2014, up 71% since 2009."

Does this mean mean frauds are a huge problem or does this mean they simply don't know yet?

Are investigators, doctors and claims processors overworked? You bet but they were before the rules were changed to help Vietnam Veterans file claims for PTSD and Agent Orange after decades of being left behind without hope of getting help to heal.

When we face how long there has been thousands in the backlog of claims, those claims represent a tiny fraction of frauds. The truth is, less than half seek help or compensation even though they need it and earned it. While some see "fraud" others see hope that veterans are finally seeking help.

VA Disability Claims Soar
Some See Higher Fraud Risk as More Vets Seek Compensation, Overloading Doctors
Wall Street Journal
Daniel Huang
October 27, 2014

Requests for disability pay by veterans have ballooned during the past five years, overloading many doctors who evaluate the claims and increasing the possibility of fraud, according to current and former VA staff and government watchdogs.

From fiscal 2009 to 2013, the number of medical disability claims received by the Veterans Benefits Administration—a branch of the Department of Veterans Affairs—climbed 44%, while the number of doctors called upon to evaluate the claims rose only 22%, according to the VA.

“Claims are coming in a lot faster than what the VA is able to handle,” said Daniel Bertoni, a director at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which investigates federal spending. A March 2013 GAO report found that claims jumped 29% from 2009 to 2011 but the agency processed only 6% more.
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Fort Campbell Boots Honor Fallen

UPDATE A last-minute outpouring of support for massive memorial project at Fort Campbell ensures every fallen hero since 9/11 – all 7,000 – will be remembered for Military Survivor Appreciation Week

Durbin, an Iraq War veteran, testified Tuesday that he was accosted and shot while sleeping in his car on Allison Hill after giving a fellow soldier a ride home.

Fort Campbell Survivor Outreach Services Honors Fallen Soldiers with Boot Display
Clarksville Online
October 27, 2014

Soldiers with the 551st Military Police Company and 1/506 Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team arrived first thing Friday morning to start setting up the Survivor Outreach Services boot display honoring service members who died in support of the Global War on Terror since Sept. 11, 2001.
(Photo by Nondice Thurman, Fort Campbell Public Affairs Office)

Fort Campbell, KY – In honor of Military Survivor Appreciation Week, formerly known as Gold Star Family Appreciation Week, more than 5,000 boots are on display on the lawn of the 101st Airborne Division Headquarters.

The boots have been collected from military service members across Fort Campbell and abroad to honor service members who died in support of the Global War on Terror since September 11th, 2001.

This display of combat boots honors the memories and sacrifice of the military men and women who gave their lives while serving our country.
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Soldiers Fighting Ebola Coming Home to Quarantine

Will they get hazardous pay for this?

ARMY TO QUARANTINE TROOPS WHO WERE FIGHTING EBOLA
ABC News 7 Los Angeles
Luis Martinez
October 27, 2014

The Army has decided that troops returning from deployments to Liberia should be quarantined so they can be monitored for possible exposure to the Ebola virus and a general was among the first people affected.

The order immediately affected up to a dozen soldiers who returned to their home base in Italy this weekend, including Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, the former top U.S. commander in Liberia.

"Out of an abundance of caution the Army directed a small number of personnel, about a dozen, that recently returned to Italy to be monitored in a separate location at their home station of Vicenza," Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said today. "None of these individuals have shown any symptoms of exposure."

The Army later released a statement confirming that the decision was made by Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff.

"The Army Chief of Staff has directed a 21-day controlled monitoring period for all redeploying soldiers returning from Operation United Assistance," the statement said. "He has done this out of caution to ensure soldiers, family members and their surrounding communities are confident that we are taking all steps necessary to protect their health."
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While You Were in Vietnam, Michael Savage Was Hugging Trees!

In case you've been unplugged since last week, you may have missed Michael Savage's latest group to hate. Our troops and veterans with PTSD. He went on a rant about saying this nation needs more men like him. He said he was tired of the celebration of weakness after a caller said he was a veteran with PTSD. Savage didn't understand PTSD any more than he understood that someone could become a veteran by 20.

Guess he never heard of these

The youngest person ever to receive the Medal of Honor was probably William "Willie" Johnston, who earned the Medal during the Civil War just prior to his 12th birthday and received his award 6 weeks after his 13th. The oldest recipient was probably General Douglas MacArthur who was 62 years old when he earned the Medal. World War II hero Jack Lucas became the youngest man in THIS CENTURY to receive the award when he threw is body over TWO grenades at Iwo Jima just 5 days after his 17th birthday. (At the time of his heroism he had already been in the Marine Corps for THREE years.

You can catch up on the rest of what Savage had to say using junk science on combat and PTSD

These are the most important things you really need to know when it comes to the source of the rant.

Michael Savage Old Enough to Serve, Didn't

It is amazing what you can find online. This one from 2009 about the hater holds a lot of information.

First, he hates a lot of different groups so much so that this happened
Profile: Michael Savage, the US shock jock banned from Britain

"Get Aids and die, you pig," the American radio "shock jock" told a purportedly homosexual man who once badmouthed his teeth.

Latinos "breed like rabbits"

Muslims "need deporting"

autistic children, "in 99 per cent of cases it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out".

Instead of going to Vietnam he was doing this

After being awarded a biology degree and seeking to emulate his hero, Charles Darwin, he moved to Hawaii in the 1960s where he earned master's degrees in anthropology and botany, travelling the South Pacific investigating the medicinal properties of plants. (Being abroad, he missed the Vietnam draft).

An expert on herbology and homeopathy, he has written 18 books, including one in which he advocated the therapeutic uses of marijuana and another about the importance of re-greening America in which he wrote about our "plant allies" and called for every state to have a "tree czar".

Angry that no publisher wanted a book he had written blaming Asian immigrants for bringing in infectious diseases, he recorded a mock radio show with his wife, Janet, and two of his friends acting as callers.

So there you have it. While Vietnam veterans, most of them under 21, which Savage thinks is strange, were risking their lives,,,,Savage was hugging trees and pushing for tree czars.

So much for the claim this nation needs more men like him while slams veterans with PTSD. Now you know where he's coming from even though he has no clue where you were or why you have PTSD.

VA Canceled Appointment for Mental Illness Awareness Week?

Update to the original story

Local veteran finds 'twisted humor' in VA's ironic decision -- but she's not laughing
Counseling session a victim of 'Mental Health Week'
By Kevin Leininger of The News-Sentinel
November 4, 2014

Leslie Haines figures it could have been worse.

"I'm just glad it wasn't "suicide prevention day," she said, remembering how her Oct. 9 counseling session for post-traumatic stress disorder had been canceled -- without warning, she says -- so 47 staff members at Fort Wayne's VA Medical Center could attend a Mental Health Awareness week training session.

But if the Army Reserve major and executive director of Lutheran Military Veterans and Families Ministry was able to appreciate the irony in her aggravation -- and she was -- Haines also believes the incident illustrates a potential danger for people already struggling with serious issues that may have been exacerbated by the very bureaucracy that is supposed to be helping them.

"I can generally find twisted humor in things," said Haines, who served as a military police officer at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and injured while serving in Iraq -- duty that also produced emotional scars she is reluctant to discuss but remain years later. "With PTSD you're already dealing with trust issues, and is somebody breaks that trust, it only erodes further. I'm glad (Lutheran Military Veterans) is a not-for-profit organization where we don't look at the clock, with no bureaucratic issues to deal with."
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Veteran's canceled appointment drips with irony
Army Times
By Patricia Kime
Staff writer
October 27, 2014

In October, Army Reserve Maj. Leslie Haines walked into the Fort Wayne campus of the Northern Indiana VA Health Care System for her regularly scheduled appointment at the PTSD clinic.

The session had been on the books for months; Haines says she attends appointments like clockwork to treat her “high-level PTSD, that’s often exacerbated” by her civilian job — counseling troops and veterans.

But on Oct. 9, the clinic receptionist told Haines her appointment that day had been canceled.

The reason?

Mental Illness Awareness Week.

The staff, it seems, was attending a guest lecture on resiliency from an inspirational speaker.

“Do they see the irony in that?” Haines said. “I was thinking, I’m glad it wasn’t National Suicide Prevention Day.”
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Two Camp Pendleton Marines Injured After Humvee Crash

Humvee crash shuts down traffic near Camp Pendleton
FOX5 NEWS
BY FOX 5 DIGITAL TEAM
OCTOBER 26, 2014,

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Two Camp Pendleton Marines were injured Sunday when their Humvee crashed into a truck and overturned on southbound Interstate 5 near the Aliso Creek rest area.

The 45-year-old truck driver told California Highway Patrol officers he saw the Humvee approaching from behind shortly before 10 a.m., CHP Officer Jim Bettencourt said. The Humvee struck the back right corner of the truck and spun out of control, first up the right shoulder embankment and then across all four lanes of traffic before hitting the center divider.
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Tami Mielke, who was retired by the time she ended her life

Tami's Torment: 'Suicides are a problem in the Guard'
Argus Leader
Steve Young
October 25, 2014

Tami Mielke, a lieutenant colonel in the South Dakota Air National Guard who suffered from PTSD after a deployment in Iraq in 2010, in her official portrait as Mission Support Group Commander.
(Photo: Submitted Photo)

Retired members say National Guard doesn’t understand how to deal with PTSD

Tami Mielke's decision to end her life raises serious questions about South Dakota's care of its emotionally wounded warriors.

A gunshot June 24 at Mielke's rural Sioux Falls acreage silenced the demons that came back from Iraq with the 50-year-old former Air National Guardsman. But it hasn't quieted concerns about the way the Guard helped and supported her after she returned — or any other members who struggle with their war experiences.

And there have been others.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America, 12 South Dakota Army National Guardsmen and one airman have died by suicide, including three who took their lives this year. None of those include Tami Mielke, who was retired by the time she ended her life.

Though just six of those 13 guardsmen had deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, "Suicides are a problem in the Guard nationally, and we're a cross section of that," said Maj. Gen. Tim Reisch, head of the South Dakota National Guard. "We acknowledge that it's a problem here."
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National Guard PTSD I Grieve

Delta Airline Pilot-Navy Reserve Officer Death Under Investigation in Qatar

Navy officer dies in Qatar
Cmdr. Christopher Kalafut, 49 of Oceanside, dies in non-combat incident
UT San Diego
By Jeanette Steele
OCT. 26, 2014

A 49-year-old Navy officer from Oceanside died Friday in Qatar in a non-combat incident, the Pentagon said Sunday.

Cmdr. Christopher E. Kalafut was in Doha at Al Udeid Air Base. He was part of U.S. Central Command's Naval Amphibious Liaison Element.

He was serving in Qatar as part of the war effort in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon said the incident is under investigation.

Kalafut was a Navy Reservist who had worked as an airline pilot for Delta since 2001, based out of Atlanta. He and his spouse, Mary, bore five children ranging from age 12 to 21.

A Delta release said the family resides in Acworth, Ga., and noted that he was the subject of an article in Georgia's Marietta Daily Journal on Father's Day this year.
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Florida mental health system is completely ill-equipped to handle this crisis

For Forgotten Soldier, a march through mental health gauntlet
Miami Herald
BY CARLI TEPROFF-CTEPROFF
10/25/2014

“The Forgotten Soldier is just the beginning of the dementia avalanche that is coming our way,” the public defenders wrote. “The Florida mental health system is completely ill-equipped to handle this crisis.”

They call him the Forgotten Soldier — although actually he served in the Marines.

At 59, his lawyers say, he suffers from dementia and traumatic brain injuries and can barely talk, walk or take care of himself. But for years he became a human shuttlecock, batted to and fro between jail and state hospitals and mental health facilities.

Attorneys in the Broward Public Defender’s Office say the man — whose advocates ask that he not be identified — personifies the way the United States is ill-serving a vulnerable population, the growing ranks of individuals, many of them veterans, coping with early-onset dementia. They say it is particularly shocking that it happened in Broward, a county that prides itself on its progressiveness, and pioneered the nation’s first felony mental health court.

“This is a five-alarm alert to the community that says your mother and father are not safe,” said Howard Finkelstein, Broward’s elected public defender.

Frustrated and discouraged by his plight, Chief Assistant Public Defender Owen McNamee and Assistant Public Defender Douglas Brawley — also the man’s attorney — wrote a letter outlining his trek through the system. It was sent to the Department of Children & Families, to judges and to county commissioners in hopes that more money will be fed into the system to ensure caring treatment of those with similar needs.
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Crowd Welcomes Home 150 Army Reservists

Marion gives U. S. Army Reserves unit a warm welcome home
SWVA.com
Linda Burchette
Staff Writer
October 24, 2014

It was a much happier gathering in downtown Marion Friday than a year ago.

In August 2013 the crowds were sending U.S. Army Reserves 760th Engineering Company off to Afghanistan with tears and best wishes for their safety. Yesterday, they were welcoming the soldiers home with smiles and congratulations for a job well done.

The 760th, a vertical engineer company of about 150 members organized to handle a wide range of missions, had been deployed to Afghanistan for a retrograde mission to close forward operating bases and pack up and send equipment back to the United States.
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