Help change the way veterans are treated with PTSD

MSC has received a request to pass along the information below from our friends at VUFT. Please read their message and pass along to other's who you feel may be in need of help with VA claims involving PTSD. All of us together may someday see some great changes within the VA system if we work together to make those changes.

www.militaryspousesforchange.com
Involve. Inform. Inspire.
URGENT REQUEST
I am writing to update you about our class action lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. We are challenging the VA's failure to provide prompt mental health care to veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and VA's failure to promptly and accurately process disability compensation claims for PTSD. The week of March 3, the judge held a hearing about the quality and timeliness of mental health care given to suicidal veterans. After four days of testimony, the judge ordered a full trial on all of our issues to start on April 21, 2008. This is a very quick timeline, and we hope this means that we will receive a final decision from the judge in the next few months.

In order to put on our strongest case, VUFT and our attorneys need your help in the next few days. The attorneys for VA AND THE Department of Justice have challenged our right as a group to sue VA. It will make it very much easier for them if they can drive us out of this class action suit. We need to prove to them that VUFT belongs in this suit as there is a fairly large number of our members who have had serious problems with the VA on mental health issues.

If you are a VUFT member who has been diagnosed with PTSD and have experienced problems getting timely mental health care for their PTSD or for potential suicide, please send us an email. We are also looking for VUFT members who are having problems getting their PTSD disability compensation claim approved. If you are a veteran with these specific types of problems, then please send VUFT a new email in the next several days, even if you already sent one in the past.
Please send your email to
contact@www.vuft.org, with a "CC" copy to kcorbit@dralegal.org.
EVEN IF YOU HAVE ALREADY SENT US AN EMAIL AND/OR HAVE ALREADY TALKED TO THE LAWYERS ABOUT YOUR COMPLAINT, PLEASE DO IT AGAIN.

If you are willing to talk to our attorneys about your problems with the VA, then I strongly encourage you to contact our attorneys directly. Our attorneys need to show the judge that the problems we are complaining about are system-wide problems and not just isolated to a few veterans. You can reach them at (510) 665-8644.

Your participation could make a huge difference in the lives of the hundreds of thousands of veterans fighting with the VA. For information about our lawsuit, please go to this web site: www.veteransPTSDclassaction.org

So, if you want to in help our fellow veterans by winning this landmark case, then please e-mail and/or call our attorneys in the next few days. Our attorneys have been working on this case for more than a year. I have met them all, and they are friendly and understanding when it comes to speaking with veterans and families about confidential issues:

The specific group working at this time to compile the information on the VUFT portion of this case are:
Danny Brome, dbrome@dralegal.org
Kasey Corbit, kcorbit@dralegal.org
Disability Rights AdvocatesPhone: (510) 665-8644Fax: (510) 665-8511TTY: (510) 665-8716www.dralegal.org
Thank you for your continued support of our critically important lawsuit.
Sanford (Sandy) CookVice Chair, VUFT, Inc.

-- Carissa Picard
PresidentMilitary Spouses for Change
406.498.2134 (c)www.militaryspousesforchange.com
Involve. Inform. Inspire."Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest,' but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is." Sydney J. Harris