Veterans service officer is coming to a location near you Bronson FL

Veterans service officer is coming to a location near you

By Lou Elliott Jones

BRONSON — If you are a military veteran Mike Engle wants to meet you.

He’s recruiting, but not to send folks back into military service, he’s looking for veterans to help them claim any services they are entitled to from the Veterans Administration.

Engle is the Levy County Veterans Service Officer and with his staff of two he helps veterans file claims and get transportation to the VA Clinic in Gainesville.

And with economic hardship hitting many veterans, Engle has seen an uptick in a request for services.

“We are seeing some veterans who would not have filed a claim before saying give it to someone else who is worse off than me, come in to file a claim,” Engle said.

The Veterans Administration says there are 5,000 veterans living in Levy County, and there are those snowbirds who are also veterans living here part of the year. Engle has made contact with about 2,500 veterans. He said the VA, while telling him how many veterans live here does not provide him with names and addresses so he can contact them.

That’s part of the challenge of his job, finding the other 2,500 or so veterans
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Can we bind up the wounds of those who served the nation?

by
Chaplain Kathie

Gettysburg_Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.


But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Yet after this, Lincoln was not done addressing the people who were willing to die for the sake of the nation and what they believed in. This is from the second inagural address he gave. The rest of his speech was wonderful but this came at the end.

Lincoln Second Inagural Address

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Since the day brother raised arms against brother, men and women from every state in the union have been serving together. North, south, east and west, people of every race, religion, social class, political affiliation and education have joined together to serve this one nation. They come from the Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy, from the Coast Guard to the National Guards and Reservists, they are ready to defend this nation and ready to come to the aid of its citizens. Men and women leaving the military once again put on the uniform of service as police officers and firefighters, of emergency responders and entering into service organizations.

What are the rest of us doing for them? We know where they are when we need them but why do they have to wonder where the nation's heart is when they need us?

We hear about the backlog of claims in the VA but do we raise our voices about this? It is our money that sends them into battle and our money the government uses to take care of the wounded warriors. We have a vital interest in how they use it. Why do we allow this to continue? Does it ever occur to us that a claim tied up or denied erroneously is a veteran waiting for the care he or she was assured would be there if they needed it? It is a veteran, usually along with a family, forced to fight to have their wounds bound as their bills pile up and the notion of a grateful nation slips into the abyss.

When the wound can be seen with our eyes, this cannot be allow to stand, but when it is wounds we cannot see with our eyes but within their own eyes, it has far more ramifications on the families and the communities they return to. We have no excuse for allowing any of this to go un- addressed.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was a wound in the time of George Washington leading the charge against the British forces, but while the name was different, the wound was still the same. It wounded again when Lincoln addressed those standing at Gettysburg and again at his second inauguration. Each and every president that followed lead a wounded nation unable to uphold the claim of leading a grateful nation. Truman was the last friend of veterans. His budget reflected this.

Stunning statement of devaluing
Truman (1946-52)Veterans Benefits 9.6%
Eisenhower (1953-60)Veterans Benefits 4.7%
Kennedy (1961-63)Veterans Benefits 3.6%
Johnson (1964-68)Veterans Benefits 2.9%
Nixon (1969-74)Veterans Benefits 2.9%
Ford (1975-76)Veterans Benefits 2.9%
Carter (1977-80)Veterans Benefits 2.4%
Reagan (1981-88)Veterans Benefits 1.9%
G.H. Bush (1989-92)Veterans Benefits 1.6%
Clinton (1993-2000)Veterans Benefits 1.6%
George W. Bush (2001-08)Veterans Benefits 1.6%

1.6% with two active occupations, veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Bosnia, Somalia, all needing help to bind their wounds yet not enough money to begin to do it.

PTSD and TBI wounds are real. Just as real as a limb gone from a bomb blast or skin healing from a bullet or burn wound, but PTSD can keep killing long after the uniforms have been packed away. It can kill many months and many years later along with health problems from chemical exposures.

Agent Orange was followed by depleted uranium and white phosphorous. Burn pits across Iraq and Afghanistan bring lung cancer and other illnesses. Contaminated water brings disease. All of this will cause the ranks of the wounded needing the VA to swell far beyond what the doors can hold.

Over and over again men and women return to their communities as members of the National Guards and Reserves only to find time has passed them by and they return to a home town they do not feel they still belong in. They find they cannot get the help they need to bind their wounds or find an understanding ear. Even when they do manage to get to the VA, usually too far away to travel to on a regular basis, they are forced to fight for the benefits their wounds caused by service inflicted upon them.

Our voices do not speak eloquently as Washington or Lincoln did regarding the need to care for them. Our voices are too busy squeaking about our own needs. We are an ungrateful bunch. They suffer in this bad economy the same as we do but there is a huge difference. While we were seeking our own support and our own desires being met, they were thinking of us. While we were complaining about the price of food and gas, so were their families but they couldn't do anything about it from Iraq and Afghanistan. While we lost our jobs, they were busy doing their's and then came home to see their own civilian job vanished while they were away.

What would it cost you to do something to take care of them and begin to live up to what we all claim? Would it cost you the time it takes to make a phone call? Send an email? That's all it really would cost you to change their lives. It's not as if you can solve their problems on your own but you can be an answer to their prayers and the wishes of all the generations that came before them. Our elected have a responsibility to do what it takes to take care of all of them. We need to make them live up to their end of the responsibility chain for a change. We have a much better chance of this now than we did over the last eight years.

GAO says VA still underestimating costs
By Hope Yen - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Jan 23, 2009 13:10:41 EST

WASHINGTON — Two years after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that imperiled veterans health care, the Veterans Affairs Department is still lowballing budget estimates to Congress to keep its spending down, government investigators say.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, set to be released later Friday, highlights the Bush administration’s problems in planning for the treatment of veterans that President Barack Obama has pledged to fix. It found the VA’s long-term budget plan for the rehabilitation of veterans in nursing homes, hospices and community centers to be flawed, failing to account for tens of thousands of patients and understating costs by millions of dollars.

In its strategic plan covering 2007 to 2013, the VA inflated the number of veterans it would treat at hospices and community centers based on a questionably low budget, the investigators concluded. At the same time, they said, the VA didn’t account for roughly 25,000 — or nearly three-quarters — of its patients who receive treatment at nursing homes operated by the VA and state governments each year.

“VA’s use, without explanation, of cost assumptions and a workload projection that appear unrealistic raises questions about both the reliability of VA’s spending estimates and the extent to which VA is closing previously identified gaps in noninstitutional long-term care services,” according to the 34-page draft report obtained by The Associated Press.

Lawmakers expressed anger, saying they will be watching for new VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to provide a more honest accounting.

“The problems at the VA have been caused by years of mismanagement and putting the bottom line above the needs of our veterans,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “While we won’t fix everything overnight, Secretary Shinseki has pledged honesty and accurate accounting which are key to realistic budgets and providing the services our veterans have earned.”

According to latest GAO report, the VA is believed to have:

• Undercut its 2009 budget estimate for nursing home care by roughly $112 million. It noted the VA planned for $4 billion in spending, up $108 million from the previous year, based largely on a projected 2.5 percent increase in costs. But previously, the VA had seen an annual cost increase of 5.5 percent.

• Underestimated costs of care in noninstitutional settings such as hospices by up to $144 million. The VA assumed costs would not increase in 2009, even though in recent years the cost of providing a day of noninstitutional care increased by 19 percent.

• Overstated the amount of noninstitutional care. The VA projected a 38 percent increase in patient workload in 2009, partly in response to previous GAO and inspector general reports that found widespread gaps in services and urged greater use of the facilities. But for unknown reasons, veterans served in recent years actually decreased slightly, and the VA offered no explanation as to how it planned to get higher enrollment. click link for the rest of this.

With President Obama saying his heart is with the veterans and the Democratic Party leading the committees they used to complain about how they were failing the veterans, it's time to get all of them to prove it. Contact your elected and tell them Lincoln sent you!

Veterans explain why they give up on the VA

When you know you do not leave the service the same way you went into it, it's easy to know it happened because you went in. You know you have health problems and then you read about chemicals being used where you were and you know why you're sick. This happened to veterans exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam and the veterans exposed while processing it, loading it and delivering it. Veterans that never set foot in Vietnam were exposed to it along with other chemical contaminations on bases like Fort McClellan .

Fort McClellan
Home to the US Army Military Police and US Army Chemical Schools (Chemical Defense Training Facility - CDTF).

They filed claims for what was caused by their willingness to serve, but the claims were denied. They tried to fight but sooner or later, they figured they couldn't fight anymore something they shouldn't have had to fight at all for. Some of my friends are still fighting.

When women were sexually assaulted, again because they were willing to serve, they were rebuffed and denied justice for the criminal actions of someone else and the results of the attacks when they ended up with PTSD. They fought to have claims approved and then gave up.

When will this country ever get this right? People working with claims get all defensive about denying claims stating that it's up to the veteran to prove the claim. The veterans' view is the VA should have to prove their disability was not caused by service to the country. After all, when VA doctors, trained by the VA to know what they're talking about link the illness with the service, it's only logical that they are not making baseless claims.

Take a veteran with PTSD. They have flashbacks. They are not having flashbacks of life outside of Vietnam, but of events during their time in Vietnam. When they have nightmares, it's about Vietnam not of things that have nothing to do with Vietnam. Same thing with the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. It's always about the events causing the traumatic reactions. The VA tells them they have to prove it. The last thing on the minds of the troops is getting names and phone numbers in case they needed to have claims substantiated years in the future. Most Vietnam veterans never saw the people they were with again because they were deployed alone under DEROS. (Date Expected Return From Over Seas) They would get orders to go, catch a plane from the states and end up in Vietnam in with a bunch of strangers they would end up bonding with for their year and then never see them again.

If you go onto the Lost and Found site, you'll read about Vietnam veterans still looking for people they were with online.

Army Lost and Found

Some are trying to just find friends they used to have but most of them are trying to find someone that can tell the VA what they say happened really happened. In a perfect world you'd assume the military has records of all of it and who was there at the time, but they don't. Records get lost and paperwork ends up in someone else's file because of clerical errors and wrong social security numbers. This happened to my husband when his social security number was typed on documents about six different ways. Yet when veterans file claims, the VA doesn't care if they have all the paperwork they were handed or not. It's not the fault of the processors because they cannot just approve claims. They have to back up their decisions. If they decide wrongly in favor of the veteran, there is hell to pay but if they decide wrongly in favor of the VA, well then, that's a different story. They have to make sure all the "i" are dotted and the "t" are crossed. If not, then the claim is denied and then the veteran has to file an appeal.

There are over 800,000 cases waiting to be processed and over 300,000 appeals waiting. It's not a matter of a one shot appeal because often there are multiple appeals filed. The veteran is given so much time to respond and if they do not within the time the VA gives them, the claim begins fresh. In other words, the claim, if approved finally, does not go back to the original filing unless they meet every deadline. The veteran keeps going to the VA seeking treatment but without an approved claim and an act by Congress, they have to pay for the treatment because in the eyes of the VA, it's not service connected until the claim is approved. Imagine having a disability you and your doctor know is connected to your service, then finding out you have to pay for the treatment! Would you be angry? Would you want to give up?

Read the following and find out why they feel the way they do.

Veterans testify about health problems
By MIKE BARBER
P-I REPORTER

A special Veterans Affairs panel aiming to do justice for the long-neglected veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War convened in Seattle on Wednesday -- at the same time retired Gen. Eric Shinseki was testifying at a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday to be the new VA secretary.

While Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., spoke at Shinseki's hearing about the need to change the current culture of the VA, several veterans in Seattle told the 14-member Advisory Committee about problems they had after returning from Operation Desert Storm 18 years ago.

Each veteran had fallen ill in the 1990s and never recovered from similar, mysterious symptoms they said they were discouraged from reporting or treating after returning from war:

"I felt kicked out, humiliated ... I looked elsewhere for answers" and dropped all contact with the VA in 1996, said Mark Nieves, 38, of Seattle. He came home ill displaying a variety of mysterious symptoms after serving as a cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division in the 1991 Iraq invasion.

Lee Christopherson, 47, of Seattle, a former Coast Guard commander who also served in the Iraq war in 2003, was urged to attend the meeting by his mom, who said she wanted him to share what she had seen him bottle up over the years, including multiple strokes, blood clotting, vascular dementia, severe joint pain, fatigue, sweats, and involuntary muscle spasms all over his body.

"I had significant medical issues but I avoided recording them due to the fear of repercussions to my career," said Christopherson, who has been waiting since 2004 for a decision on his disability claim.

Beckie Wilson, a retired enlisted sailor and veteran of Desert Storm in 1991, said she gave up seeking VA treatment 10 years ago, opting for private doctors, in part from feeling vulnerable as a woman and made to feel "crazy."

"I didn't feel like the VA is changing so why bother? Is it truly changing? Are you truly trying to do something for us?" she asked. click link above for more

Desert Storm Vet's battle still raging

The story of Mike Bailey needs to be read. He blogs over at
The Daily Bailey

Military experiment veterans 1941-now

Military & Veterans: Politics for the deserving

SSG "Beetle" Bailey's World

Mike (Beetle) Bailey
A disabled Army veteran who cares about his country, served in the military during the Vietnam Era, and Gulf War One. A "normal" man with a family and grandchildren who just wants a better nation for them, and for our nation to keep the "PROMISE" they made when we entered the military to care for us and our families if we were injured or killed on active duty.

Miami Veterans Affairs Examiner: Hmmmmmmmmm, very interestink
1 comment January 14, 8:32 PM
by Harmon Biehl,
Hey Vets, I have a Desert Storm Vet that has a very interesting tale to tell. In fact it is so interesting that it conjurs up wild scary stuff out of my past military service. I am visualising the guy on Laugh In wearing the German helmet smoking the cigarette and saying, "very interestink". The Vets name is Mike and so far all the information I have received from him has been bullet proof. See what you think!

Check it out.


Ham, I entered the US Army by enlisting on October 31, 1973 I went to Basic at Fort Ord, Ca , in January 1974 I went to Fort Polk La, for Infantry AIT in Jan - March 74. In mid March I was assigned to the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington.

I was placed in Company C, 2/47th Infantry 3rd Brigade North Fort Lewis, old WW2 Barracks.
My platoon Sergeant was SFC Crosby and my Squad Leader was a Vietnam Vet named SSG Cierlik. I was assigned as an M79 gunner. In May 1974 we had a notice placed on the company bulletin board asking for volunteers for a 2 month Temporary Duty assignment testing new uniforms and equipment for the battlefield of the future at a base on the East Coast, if we were interested to tell the 1SG and he would make sure we were sent on Wednesday at 1300 to the Main Post Theater for the briefing.

Several men from the battalion volunteered for it, myself and SP4 Raymond Chase volunteered from our platoon, we were in the same squad. We went to the briefing, and we both stayed and filled out the paperwork to volunteer, after hearing that we would only work 4 day weeks, Monday - Thursday, 0800-1200 hours daily unless we were doing a test. We would have every Friday, Saturday and Sunday off and could travel anywhere on the East Coast and would not be restricted to within 50 miles of base, as was normal back then. We would never have KP, Guard duty or any other type duties like CQ or CQ runner, when we were off, we would be off. They would pay us TDY pay of 2 dollars a day and we would also be authorized travel by Privately Owned Automobiles which would give us nine days travel East and back West. 18 days travel plus 35 dollars a day per diem.

Over 200 men volunteered from Fort Lewis that day, they were only accepting ten of us. SP4 Chase and I were both surprised to receive orders on the first of June sending us TDY to Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland on 16 June 1974 with arrival on 25 June 1974. On 13 June 1974 while pulling CQ Runner duty someone slipped a 4 way hit of windowpane LSD in my coke, I awoke the next morning in a padded cell at Madigan Army Medical Center .I was released about 1100 hours to my platoon Sergeant SFC Crosby.

He informed me that they had conducted a health and welfare at 0100 hours on the 14th and found over 1000 hots of LSD in a SP4 's wall locker from our platoon, he admitted putting it in my drink without my knowledge. The Company Commander decided to send me TDY with SP4 Chase leaving on the 16th of June. We left Fort Lewis with a copy of my hospitalization report for the doctors at Edgewood to show the "bad trip".

click link above for more

Why are veterans walking alone?

by
Chaplain Kathie
They were carried by their brothers in Vietnam when they were wounded. They marched into hell together. Supplied by the government to wage war with the weapons they needed to defeat the enemy, they did what was expected of them. Some did it because they believed in the mission they were sent on. Some did it because they believed their brothers would have their backs. They walked and fought side by side, but when they came home, they walked alone and the new enemy was the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As VA evaluates the evidence gathered, it must apply rules from an extensive body of laws, regulations, court rulings and internal policy manuals. There are more than five dozen separate steps in evaluating a veteran's initial disability compensation claim, and VA itself may wait two or three months to receive information requested of other federal agencies and private sources with medical records. One step that generally contributes significantly to processing time is the search for old military records, particularly medical records. Finding evidence that a condition first was noted when someone received care in the military health care system can be important to determining an official connection with his or her service.

In a small percentage of cases, the old military records needed by veterans must be retrieved from the National Archives and Records Administration, an independent federal agency. It holds millions of military personnel and health records of discharged and deceased veterans for the last century at its National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Mo. As part of its efforts to expedite claims processing, VA has put some of its own personnel at the St. Louis center to supplement the National Archives staff. On average, VA waits 122 days for the St. Louis center to locate and forward requested records.

Over and over as their claims were being denied, they were told that it was up to them to prove their claim was worthy of their seal of approval. They handed over their DD214, all the records they had and even the pictures they had taken. Then they were asked for more. Records could not be found, witnesses were scattered across the nation and they discovered they were considered as lying until proven truthful.

Search for Records Delays Claims Development

When veterans apply for disability compensation, they are asked to provide medical evidence of a current condition and evidence that would relate it to the time of service. VA currently is expanding its role in providing assistance in requesting records and gathering additional evidence to demonstrate the connection with military service as well as current evidence of disability. This includes providing the veteran a medical examination. In addition, VA works closely with private nonprofit veterans organizations that have trained staff members assist veterans with their claims. Under federal law, the burden ultimately is on the veteran to demonstrate a "service connection" for a disability.

These men and women, rare as they are, were willing to lay down their lives for the sake of this nation. Does the VA understand how noble this is? How can they possibly think that the majority of them are lying about their service or their wounds? How can a person go from being willing to surrender their very life for the nation into a low life looking for free money? Does it happen? Absolutely but the vast majority turn to the VA reluctantly.

May 19, 2005
A Office of Inspector General Washington, DC 20420
Report No. 05-00765-137

Ratings for PTSD. During FYs 1999–2004, the number and percentage of PTSD cases increased significantly. While the total number of all veterans receiving disability compensation grew by only 12.2 percent, the number of PTSD cases grew by 79.5 percent, from 120,265 cases in FY 1999 to 215,871 cases in FY 2004. During the same period, PTSD benefits payments increased 148.8 percent from $1.7 billion to $4.3 billion. Compensation for all other disability categories only increased by 41.7 percent. While veterans being compensated for PTSD represented only 8.7 percent of all compensation recipients, they received 20.5 percent of all compensation payments.

Lump sum to reduce "workload" and money.

Lump-Sum Payments. In 1997, as part of an overall strategy to improve claims processing timeliness, we suggested that VBA could offer lump-sum payments to veterans to reduce the number of reopened claims. Taking into consideration that 30.6 percent of all claims are rated 10 percent, combined with results from our survey where rating specialists expressed concern with insufficient staff to adequately process claims, consideration should be given to offering lump-sum payments to veterans as settlement of all future compensation cases. Lump-sum payments for all veterans with disabilities rated 20 percent or less would result in reducing 46.9 percent, or 1.17 million active claims. It would also result in reducing recurring compensation payments of $1.96 billion a year and would free up staff to improve the quality and timeliness of future workload. Acceptance of a lump-sum payment would not change a veteran’s eligibility for VA health care.

The VA put this out saying by 2001 they would have increased claim reps by 1,000, but this was before Afghanistan and before Iraq.

Increasing Claim Complexity Prompts Quality Controls, Training

Each year, VA receives more than 100,000 new disability compensation claims. With improved benefits information and outreach, veterans today are filing claims for more conditions than at any time in history. By the end of fiscal 2001, VA expects to have 1,000 more employees working on claims than the 5,500 in fiscal 1999.

PTSD Case Reviews

We reviewed 2,100 compensation cases at 7 VAROs and found VBA procedures were not always followed, and that VAROs approached stressor verification requirements differently from state to state. In 527 (25 percent) of the 2,100 cases reviewed, we found inconsistencies in the methods raters used to develop and verify veteran-reported evidence about the claimed service-related stressor event before granting compensation benefits. The error rate ranged from a low of 11 percent in Oregon to a high of 40.7 percent in Maine. The error rate for Illinois was 21.7 percent. To demonstrate the potential consequence of not obtaining or developing adequate evidence to support a PTSD claim, the 25 percent error rate equates to questionable compensation payments totaling $860.2 million in FY 2004. Over the lifetimes of these veterans, the questionable payments would be an estimated $19.8 billion.
Our review at three VAROs revealed that the STAR program was ineffective in detecting the evidence development weaknesses identified in our review of PTSD cases. We determined that veterans sought less treatment for PTSD when their ratings were increased to 100 percent. Of 92 PTSD cases reviewed, we found that 39 percent had a decline in mental health visits after achieving 100 percent status. The average decline in visits was 82 percent, with some veterans receiving no mental health treatment at all.
Part of the problem is that the compensation program has a built-in disincentive to get well when veterans are reapplying to get their disability ratings increased.

The issue here is not that they did not want to get well. They were already aware they would never be cured and that the programs the VA had would only keep them stable. Many Vietnam veterans go for therapy and medication to stay stable. It is not until another stressor comes into their lives and they need additional help they once again turn to treatment.

My husband has an approved 70-30 claim. 70 percent for PTSD and 30 for un-employability. He is still going to the VA for treatment because when he stops going, he begins to slide back again. During the years as the newer veterans entered into the system, his appointments were cut back several times. His doctors noticed that the appointments needed to be increased back to at least monthly visits and he was once again stable.

How many other veterans do not have doctors making efforts to make sure the visits are appropriate to the level of care needed? Is the figure of veterans receiving no mental health care due to their not wanting it or more an availability issue? Consider that some PTSD veterans are able to still work cannot keep taking time off work to go to the VA and that some veterans live too far away from the care they need causing hardships trying to get to the help. Ever see a Vets Center without veterans seeking help? Most of the centers are able to see veterans in need when the VA hospitals are too far away for them to go to. It's another reason why the Veterans Centers need to be up and running in every state to take care of the veterans living too far away from medical care.


They already had a problem and they knew it. They didn't act to fix it with the new veterans coming in.


There is a very small percentage of claims that are not real. Much of the problem addressed in this report stated the problem was not fraud in the claim itself but incomes that were not reported. That did not mean the claim itself was fraud. Yet months and years after a veteran seeks help from the VA, they are put through hell trying to get it. At the same time, they have bills to pay and families to take care of but they have no income to do it with. They are forced to fight the government for what? For doing what few others in this country were willing to do? For doing their duty and ending up wounded for doing it?

We have more veterans in this country that have never sought any kind of help from the VA, yet the VA is unable to take care of the veterans that do seek help and compensation. We are a nation of over 300 million people yet we cannot take care of the less than 24 million veterans needing the help of the government.

So why are they and their families fighting the government alone? Why are they still waiting for help, feeling as if the entire nation has forgotten they even exist? When do we fight for them? When do we demand all veterans receive the care they were assured would be there if they needed it? When do we demand the over 800,000 claims in the backlog pile get processed and the hundreds of thousands of claims on appeal be done? The veteran has a timeline to meet but the VA does not. They can take all the time in the world to honor a claim. They can and do finally approve claims at lower ratings than the veteran qualifies for. Why else would requests for additional ratings end up being honored if they did not qualify for them in the first place?

There are groups all over this country trying to help the veterans but they have a go-it-alone attitude without joining forces and memberships to petition the government and congress to get this right right now! This is all going to get worse for our veterans unless this is about the veterans having to fight battles after the battles they were sent to fight have been finished.

Today they still end up being pushed out and pushed back. They end up without money and without care. They end up homeless. They end up in jail because they lost hope and feel used and abused by the same nation they were willing to die for. Ask the veterans, even the ones that feel betrayed by the government, if they would do it again and they would still risk their lives. We should hang our heads in shame because they cannot hold their heads up high knowing they were worthy of every effort to us to make sure they were taken care of. Why should they walk alone now?

Shinseki pledges to fix gaps in veterans care

Shinseki pledges to fix gaps in veterans care

By Hope Yen - The Associated PressPosted : Tuesday Jan 6, 2009 21:08:25 EST

WASHINGTON — Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki pledged to move quickly to fix gaps in health care if confirmed as Veterans Affairs secretary, saying he will reopen benefits to hundreds of thousands of middle-income veterans denied during the Bush administration.
In a 54-page disclosure obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to head the government’s second largest agency also urged Congress to set VA funding a year in advance to minimize political pressures. And the former Army chief of staff said he will step down from the corporate boards of defense contractors to alleviate potential conflicts of interest.
“If confirmed, I would focus on these issues and the development of a credible and adequate 2010 budget request during my first 90 days in office,” Shinseki wrote to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, noting that VA funding in the past created “significant management difficulties” that delayed medical care.
The Senate committee is scheduled to hold Shinseki’s confirmation hearing on Jan. 14.

click link above for more

The Dept. of Veterans Affairs needs some bailout money now!

This is really good but, I bet the author never read this blog.

The Dept. of Veterans Affairs needs some bailout money now Mr. Vice President


Submitted by Scribes Cafe on Tue, 12/23/2008 - 05:08.
The Dept. of Veterans Affairs needs some bailout money now!


Americans have been told by the news media these past eight years what most Americans already know from birth. They have been told to be patriotic with thousands of financially poor young men and women joining the armed forces, enticed with promises of education and health benefits upon their separation. Sadly, after years of defending the American executive orders without question these young men and women who have received combat related wounds, which include mental and physical breakdowns, never actually get to make use of the earned educational benefits. Many find themselves abandoned, unable to articulate what they are experiencing and they become lost on American soil with a new title; homeless veteran.

While waiting for Department of Veterans Affairs processing, which can take many months to a few years, the young, former military members are now disabled veterans and are shunned by the very society they gave up their late teenage years to defend. Being a former Marine helicopter door gunner and a disabled Vietnam; aircrew member / veteran, I know the feeling of being considered a second rate American citizen. It feels wrong, strange, and is quite confusing. The disabled veteran must enter the process of proving they are disabled. They must continue waiting for an appointment to be evaluated by a sub-contracted outside doctor who gets paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs to basically deny the claim.

I had a baby doctor evaluate my radiation burns and he, having no experience with radiation burns wrote a report which didn’t include how my feet were burned. Therefore when the report was read by the claims specialist at the Florida VA regional office they denied the VA hospital caused the burns. The baby doctor actually told me I must have stepped into something toxic. The fact is I stepped into the VA hospital radiation room and they didn’t put a protective shield over my legs and feet. I understand what the new disabled veterans are going through today. After waiting to be APPROVED by the Department of Veterans Affairs so they can be APPROVED for medical or mental treatment, or to enter an educational setting, they become more broken down both physically and emotionally. Many have resorted to the final solution and have committed suicide to end the agony they are all quietly suffering.

This is not written in the newspapers or written online nor is it mentioned on the television. When one of these stories do make it out for the public to see, the viewer has already been trained by the very same television news, and the print and online media to become numb to such events. They shrug it off as being what happens to those for actually served in a combat environment. They have actually held another service members brains or intestines in their hands. They have sucked it up and carried blown up babies and women and have become dizzy with grief. Something the rich and elected ones ignore. click link above for more

Vietnam Veterans of America and Veterans of Modern Warfare VA Law Suit Begins

Disability claims lawsuit begins against VA

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 16, 2008 17:17:49 EST

A hearing begins Wednesday in a lawsuit aimed at cutting the time that the Department of Veterans Affairs takes to process disability claims to no more than 90 days.

Vietnam Veterans of America and Veterans of Modern Warfare filed the lawsuit against VA after learning the department took as long as a year to come up with disability benefits decisions, and as long as four years to rule on appeals of those decisions. The average time for an initial decision is about six months.

VA has a benefits claims backlog of more than 400,000 cases.

Rita Reese, principal deputy assistant VA secretary for management, told Congress in January that the department would increase the number of fulltime case workers from 14,857 to 15,570, with a goal of reducing the disability claims backlog to 298,000 by the end of fiscal 2009, which would be a drop of 24 percent.

The lawsuit asks for monetary relief for veterans if VA can’t reduce its processing time.

“Delayed disability benefit awards create an additional and, in many cases, unmanageable stress for an already suffering population,” VVA and VMW officials said in a joint press release. “According to the VA, the suicide rate among individuals in the VA’s care may be as high as 7.5 times the national average, and every night, more than 150,000 American veterans are homeless.”
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VA has a history of losing papers

While it is not a new problem, it is a larger one than ever before. There is a saying among veterans trying to have claims approved. "It was lost in translation." In their case, they are talking about how the VA requires veterans to have their papers and claims all in within a certain timeframe, but the translation on the VA end is "whenever" they process it. We've heard stories of lost files for years.

VA has a history of losing papers
Tampabay.com - St. Petersburg,FL,USA
By William R. Levesque, Times staff writer
Sunday, November 30, 2008

Air Force veteran David Chini has lost track of all the times the Department of Veterans Affairs lost records he sent to it.

Registered mail? A VA worker signed, and the paperwork vanished. By fax? Chini, 69, of St. Petersburg said the VA claimed it never arrived. Regular mail? Don't even ask.

And if something doesn't arrive, the agency threatens to discontinue his medical benefits because Chini isn't sending the papers it needs.

"It's just totally demoralizing," he said.

Recent revelations that workers in 41 of 57 VA regional benefits offices, including St. Petersburg, improperly set aside hundreds of claims records for shredding came as no surprise to veterans.

The VA, critics say, has long operated in a veritable culture of lost paper and was losing records many years before this latest scandal. Lost paperwork sometimes leads to delayed, denied or abandoned claims for medical or financial assistance.

And it leaves some questioning if workers lose it deliberately to ease workloads. At least two VA employees outside Florida are being investigated for just that.

"I remain angry that a culture of dishonesty has led to an increased mistrust of the VA within the veteran community," said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.

The VA notes it is the most paper-intensive federal bureaucracy, sifting through 162-million pages of claims documents a year.

And while the VA hopes to have largely paperless claims filing by 2012, the size of the agency makes computerization a challenge.
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The usual explanation for lost files when it comes to Vietnam veterans is that the papers were all lost in the fire in St. Louis. Read about it here.

Veterans Still Burned Over 35 Year Old Fire
For more than 30 years many a veteran has been faced with the chilling reality of discovering that their military service records had gone up in smoke in a St. Louis fire.
Since that time countless numbers of veterans have been fired up by responses to inquiries and benefits applications that include the now infamous "Your records were burned…" statement.
To this day among many veterans the standard wisecrack upon being told that a service or VA document of theirs has been misplaced or is temporarily unavailable is- "Must have had another fire in St. Louis." More skeptical vets feel that the fire offered a convenient opportunity for covering up long standing mismanagement of important records and offered the system yet another means of dodging the benefits bullet.
What about the fire? And what was burned? The only answer is the official one and official answers tend to serve only as confirmation to the believers and fuel for fire for the skeptics. Nonetheless, here it is:
"On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at National Personnel Records Center, Military Personnel Records (NPRC-MPR) in St. Louis destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files."The National Archives
Just as important an issue is- Which records went up in smoke? Once again, the official word from The National Archives:
"Army records: Personnel discharged November 1, 1912, to January 1, 1960. 80% estimated loss.Air Force records: Personnel discharged, September 25, 1947, to January 1, 1964 (with names alphabetically after Hubbard, James E.). 75% estimated loss."
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The problem with this is they don't seem to talk very much about all the unit records that were not destroyed. Most of the bases kept the same files because the DOD does everything in multiple copies. It they really wanted to find the files they needed, they could but that would take too much time and too much manpower to do it. Wouldn't it be worth it to the veterans if they did find the copies available to speed up some of these claims? Wouldn't it be a better idea for the VA to hire enough workers so that these claims are not trapped with all the new ones? After all, we're not just talking about claims. We're talking about veterans and their families waiting to have their claims honored.