Veterans Suicide Report Earns Emmy

Keep in mind with all of this, with all that happened, NAMI Veterans Council thought it was a good idea to award Dr. Katz for being behind all of this and forced to act to save lives.

It is not as if they didn't know what was going on.

National Alliance on Mental Illness
Submitted to
Subcommittee on Military Construction,
Veterans’ Affairs and Related Agencies
Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives

March 20, 2007

The General Accountability Office (GAO) issued a startling report last year to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs documenting VA’s failure to spend several millions of available dollars in pursuit of important initiatives that would move VA in the right direction to reform its mental health programs. The Veterans Council Executive Committee met recently with Dr. Ira Katz to discuss his plans to improve the allocation of funds dedicated to the initiatives under the new strategic plan. We hope Congress will closely monitor VA’s implementation of the new strategic plan to ensure it meets that promise.

National Alliance on Mental Illness

Anyway, a reminder of what was behind all of this can be found here

Friday, July 3, 2009

Dr. Ira Katz award slaps veterans
I still believe in NAMI but I no longer believe in the NAMI Veterans Council. The decision to award Dr. Ira Katz for suicide prevention is akin to awarding a vampire for testing blood. Katz, as reported here countless times, was refusing to admit there was a problem with veterans committing suicide. Everything he did, what they are awarding him for, he was forced to do. The Veterans Council is giving him an award for what it took an act of Congress to do!

Veterans Suicide Report Earns Emmy
CBS' Armen Keteyian's Investigation Exposing a Cover-up by the VA Honored by Award
By CBSNews.com
(CBS) The "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" won an Emmy Award last night in the category of Outstanding Investigative Journalism in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast for a series of reports by Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian that exposed how officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs tried to cover-up the true risk of suicide among veterans.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/22/cbsnews_investigates/main5329689.shtml

Play CBS Video Video Suicide Cover-Up Runs Deep
New information reveals that statistics related to veterans' suicides was explicitly withheld from the public and from CBS News. Chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.
Video Veterans Suicides In Question
In a recently filed lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs is accused of deliberately misinforming the American public about the number of veterans committing suicide. Armen Keteyian reports.
Video Veteran Suicides, An Epidemic
CBS News first reported on the staggering number of veteran suicides in a report last year. Now, newly-released data shows that vets who get help from the VA are still at risk. Armen Keteyian reports.
Photo
(CBS)
Stories
Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans
Veteran Suicides: How We Got The Numbers

Excerpts of the veteran suicide coverage:
Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans
Veteran Suicides: How We Got The Numbers
Congress Vows Action On Vets' Suicides
VA Admits Vet Suicides Are High
VA Says E-mail Was "Poorly Worded"
VA Official Grilled About E-Mails Soldier Suicide Attempts Skyrocket

Katie Couric's Notebook: Road To Recovery

Katie Couric's Notebook: Road To Recovery

CBS News - New York,NY,USA

August 7, 2008, 4:29 PM
Katie Couric's Notebook: Road To Recovery
Posted by Katie Couric 1




Video:
Notebook: Road To Recovery
At 23, Nancy Kules was a newlywed with her whole life ahead of her. On November 27, 2005, life changed.

The phone rang, and words came flying at her. IED. Leg. Arm. Coma.

She describes not knowing what to do with all that information, but the bottom line was that her husband Ryan was badly injured in Iraq.

The story gets repeated far too many times. Nearly 33,000 men and women have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands more suffer from invisible wounds like PTSD.

The wounded warrior needs help to heal, but so do caregivers like Nancy.

For more of my notebook, just click the little monitor.

Nice little speech but 1.6 minutes is all she came up with? Granted I'm not sure how this "note book" usually is but I'm thinking back on some of the reports that have come out on PTSD and wondering where the media has been on all of this. Sure they do a snip it here and there, but where are the hour long reports? Where are the series stations like PTSD used to do? This is such a huge issue that you'd think they would spend a hell of a lot more time on it as a public service issue alone but they haven't. It is not political. It is not about pro-war or pro-defense but it is about pro-those-we-send.

I think they deserve a lot more time and their families as well.