Archive for December, 2009
VA Benefits Article on CBS 60 Minutes
Watch “60 Minutes” on Sunday, January 3rd.
Two wars and a recession have significantly increased the claims handled by the U.S. Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs, slowing the large bureaucracy and frustrating many veterans. Byron Pitts reports. Veterans for Common Sense has provided in-depth data and interviews for this article.
Gerry Connolly Sends A Veterans Newsletter
One of my first acts as your Congressman was to travel to Iraq and Afghanistan to meet with our troops. I’m inspired by their courage and dedication to securing peace and protecting our national security. We all need to be mindful of the tremendous sacrifices made by our military families, many of whom will be spending the holiday season separated from loved ones serving abroad.
In Congress, we have been able to achieve bipartisan agreement on vital issues affecting benefits for military personnel, their families and our veterans. Those who have fought to defend our freedom deserve the best health care and counseling services. As a nation, we owe military families the support they need, and returning troops the educational opportunities that will lead to career success when they leave the service.
I will continue to work with members of both parties and the Administration to meet our commitments to those who serve America in uniform.
Gerry Connolly
See the entire newsletter here.
Military Families’ Tax Break Will Hit Cities at a Tough Time
Just when local officials thought they couldn’t get any more bad news about shrinking tax revenues, they must now deal with a new federal law that will take away even more from city coffers.
The act, passed on Veterans Day, will extend residential benefits to spouses of military personnel, allowing them to retain residency in their home state for tax and voting purposes.
The change is a major help to military spouses, some of whom have been forced to move because of a service member’s job. Because of the act, they’ll no longer have to change their residency each time they relocate.
For local cities, however, it will mean less in personal property taxes to collect next year. And it’s coming at a time when other revenues – everything from real estate tax to food and beverage taxes – are shrinking.
Lifting the Silence
When soldiers come home with invisible injuries — traumatic memories of things they have seen and done — professional therapy should help them heal. Far too many soldiers are unwilling to seek it and many others, as James Dao and Dan Frosch reported in The Times, are keeping too tight a lid on what they reveal in therapy.
That is not just because of the stubborn belief that real warriors can’t show doubt or weakness. There is a strong and legitimate fear that a soldier who confesses horrible things to a therapist faces a serious risk of career damage, disciplinary action or even prosecution.
The military has rules governing the privacy of soldiers in therapy, but they contain more exceptions than the federal law protecting civilians. Experts told The Times that confidentiality doesn’t exist. A former military lawyer noted that the rules allow confidences to be breached to ensure the success of “a military mission” — which could mean almost anything a unit does.
A Plan in Need of Clarity
By: Senator Jim Webb
December 4, 2009
I have great regard for the careful process the Obama administration employed in its efforts to define a new approach for the long-standing military commitment in Afghanistan and to put an operational framework in place for our responsible withdrawal. I intend, nevertheless, to continue to call on the administration to clarify to the American public and Congress how it defines success and how we reach an end point.
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On the personnel front, our active-duty military has been deployed repeatedly for combat operations since 2001. Guard and reserve components also have deployed at levels not envisioned when the all-volunteer force was introduced. We are in uncharted territory in terms of the long-term effects these deployments are having on the well-being of our men and women in uniform, especially the Army and Marine Corps. I introduced dwell-time legislation nearly three years ago to ensure that we achieved a better balance in deployment cycles with a minimum interval before follow-on deployments. The new commitment of some 30,000 U.S. troops will put additional strains on our forces and their families. I plan to press the administration on this point to ensure that we are more vigilant in safeguarding the welfare of our men and women in uniform.
The Full Cost of War in Afghanistan
Add Your Name to An Open Letter at IAVA
On Tuesday night, President Obama announced his plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
The full cost of this war must include a lifetime of support for each of these new veterans and their families.
Add your name to the open letter and urge our nation’s leaders to fully plan for this new surge of veterans in the coming years.
Add your name at www.IAVA.org/Afghanistan.
The New Way Forward
Here’s the link to the President’s Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Regardless of your individual opinion on the President’s decision, unfortunately one of the issues that appears to be missing from his address is he did not mention the impact of a build-up in force after the fact — namely Veterans.
The non-profit organization Veterans for Common Sense has a number of good articles high-lighted to this effect.
- VCS Demands Plan to Handle Afghanistan War Casualties
- Obama Administration Struggling to Tackle Mental Health Crisis Plaguing Military
While we have much to be thankful for with the Obama Administration’s handling of the VA so far, much remains to be done.
Here is VCS’s four point response to President Obama’s oversight – he must implement a plan to care for the casualties caused by his escalation of the Afghanistan war:
1. Fill Medical Vacancies. VCS asks President Obama to direct Defense Secretary Gates and VA Secretary Shinseki to quickly fill all of the hundreds of mental healthcare provider vacancies at both DoD and VA in order to meet the expected increase in mental health casualties from the wars for conditions such as TBI, depression, PTSD, and suicide. Additional medical professionals to treat our service members physical wounds, injuries, and illnesses is also warranted.
2. Conduct Exams and Provide Care. The new mental and physical healthcare professionals are urgently needed to perform the universal pre- and post-deployment exams mandated by the Force Health Protection law (PL 105-85). The increase in new hires should also allow for earlier access to treatment for our service members and veterans, when treatment is more effective and less expensive.
3. Fight Stigma. The DoD and VA should expand their anemic anti-stigma campaign and encourage service members and veterans to seek care and train officers to promote exams and treatment. Implementation of an anti-stigma effort remains half-hearted and incomplete, at best, a sign that comments by our top military leaders at press conferences are not filtering down through the ranks.
4. Quickly Process Claims. VA should also anticipate an increase in disability claims due to the increased number of service members deployed, and thus should begin planning to hire any needed additional staff.
Read more at www.veteransforcommonsense.org