IAVA Paul Rieckhoff Among Others Removed for New York Mayor's Veterans Council

Mayor to present veteran board appointments, amid harsh criticism
Capital New York.com
By Gloria Pazmino
Apr. 9, 2015

“It’s become clear to the community that the mayor is not serious about veterans' issues,”
Rieckhoff told Capital.

Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce today a new set of appointees to the Veteran Advisory Board, finally replacing many of the members whose terms had expired.

The appointments have angered representatives of the city’s veterans, who say that de Blasio has failed to act quickly on a crisis.

The board, established in 1987, serves as a liaison between veterans and the Mayor’s Office of Veterans’ Affairs and helps guide policy and connect the veterans to resources in the city. The mayor is responsible for appointing six members; the speaker and Council appoint five.

The mayor’s slow pace of appointments led to questions about whether the board was serving its purpose in the early months of his administration. Gotham Gazette reported last year on some of the holdover members’ murky attendance record at meetings and frustration among city veterans who did not feel they had a direct connection to the board.

All board members who were appointed by former mayor Michael Bloomberg have been removed, including Paul Rieckhoff, the founder and C.E.O. of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America—the country’s first organization specifically for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, which boasts over 200,000 members and is headquartered in the city.

Rieckhoff told Capital the members were only told about their removal a day in advance and said he questioned the qualifications of the new members. He also criticized Loree Sutton, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Veterans’ Affairs, for her slow pace of action so far.
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August 18, 2014

IAVA CEO and Founder Paul Rieckhoff issued the following statement:

“IAVA congratulates General Sutton on this well deserved honor to head Veterans Affairs for the city of New York,” said IAVA CEO and Founder Paul Rieckhoff. “New York is home to one of the largest communities of veterans, who face the same issues as veterans across the country, including homelessness, unemployment, suicide, waiting on disability benefits, and more. General Sutton knows the problems veterans face and is uniquely positioned to help solve them. As a New York based organization, IAVA looks forward to continuing our work with General Sutton as she continues to improve the lives of veterans.”

From NPR in 2010

Pentagon Shifts Its Story About Departure of Leader of Brain Injury Center

Two days later, we got a message from Sutton's boss, Charles Rice, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. A Pentagon spokeswoman, Eileen Lainez, said that Haight "misspoke." Sutton stepped down after Rice decided "that a change in leadership was necessary to continue moving the organization forward," Lainez said.

The Pentagon has pledged in recent days to improve its care for soldiers with mild traumatic brain injury — and one place that might need some attention is communications at the top.

Earlier this month, we reported that the military was routinely failing to diagnose such injuries, which are the most common head wounds sustained by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also found that soldiers had trouble getting adequate treatment at one of America's largest military bases, Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.