Another Study of Marine suicides getting under way

MILITARY: Study of Marine suicides getting under way
By MARK WALKER

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With active-duty Marines taking their own lives at a near-record pace this year, officials are launching a long-planned study of what troops who have committed suicide were doing in the days leading up to their deaths.

Officials are also taking a deep look at the service's "Never Leave a Marine Behind" suicide prevention program to see whether it needs tailoring.

The two actions come as the Marine Corps reported eight suicides in July, the highest number recorded this year.

Those deaths raised this year's self-inflicted death toll to 32, the same number recorded for all of 2011. If the monthly trend continues, the Marine Corps could match or exceed the record 52 active-duty troop suicides recorded in 2009.

The "forensic" study of recent suicides is designed as a detailed examination of what the troops were doing throughout each day leading to the event.

"We're really anxious to see what we can learn from reaching out to family members and friends and using (investigative) reports," said Todd Shuttleworth, who oversees the Marine Corps' suicide prevention program from the service's headquarters in Quantico, Va.

The wealth of information the study aims to generate will help guide officials in evaluating current efforts and shaping changes or new initiatives, he said.

"We want to effectively be able to teach Marines the warning signs and how to seek help early, before a situation becomes a crisis, and teach them that it is OK to ask for help," Shuttleworth said during a telephone interview last week.
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Todd Akin voted to cut VA

While it appears the reporters seem focused on what Todd Atkin said about rape, and rightly so, they are missing something else that he did.

McCaskill highlights work for veterans in campaign stop
By RUDI KELLER
Sunday, August 26, 2012

With two recent polls showing that she now has the edge in her re-election bid, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill sought to return her campaign to a more normal pace with a Columbia event highlighting her stand on veterans issues.

In her talk on veterans issues, McCaskill touted her oversight subcommittee's work on military contracting, efforts to improve the Army medical service after the housing scandal at Walter Reed Army Hospital and sponsorship of a new GI Bill to help returning veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

McCaskill contrasted her record of support for increased funding for veterans health care with Akin, who she said had voted regularly to cut spending on veterans.

But when reporters got a chance to talk to her, every question was about U.S. Rep. Todd Akin's comments on rape, abortion and pregnancy that were aired last Sunday on St. Louis television.

McCaskill, who used almost $2 million to run ads during the Republican primary, has expressed outrage at Akin's remarks but has not demanded he quit the race.

She's left that to Republicans, who seem to be forming armed camps of Akin supporters and detractors.

McCaskill has called efforts to oust Akin a slap at the 35 percent of GOP voters who supported him in the Aug. 7 primary.
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Have reporters lost their ability to think of more than one topic at a time?

I live in Florida where we are heading for two huge storms. One from mother nature in the form of a hurricane and one from a group of people determined to make all women mothers or stop people from having sex.

Think about it for a second. They don't want to make sure insurance companies cover birth control but ED medication is covered. They don't want any abortions for any reason so either they are telling folks to stop having sex unless they want kids or they forgot how mother nature works. Getting lost in all of this is what should be talked about as well as what Atkin said.

The people running for office getting the nomination not only want to cut the VA budget, they want to sell it off to for profit companies. In other words, privatize it instead of fixing what needs fixing.

If you read Wounded Times with any regularity, you know there are huge problems veterans face everyday. This is not the time to cut the VA but to make it work better and fund it so that it can take care of all the veterans needing care. This is a topic the reporters seem to think is just too boring to cover next to anything to do with sex.

Military veterans say mental health services need to improve

Military veterans say mental health services need to improve
By DIONNE GLEATON
T and D Staff Writer

Zeke Felder wanted to serve his country by enlisting in the military, but the Army drafted him first. Now the Vietnam War veteran is not finding the government as quick when it comes to providing the treatment for his post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It looks like it takes forever to get that done. I don’t think a veteran should wait that long. They make every veteran prove what they did, what happened and what caused the trauma, and that’s very hard to do. It took me quite some time to get the claims that I applied for, but I encourage any veteran to become a member of a group,” said Felder, who is a member of the South Carolina Veteran’s Group based in North.

“Sometimes a veteran, especially if he has PTSD, has problems with family matters. You got to really experience these things to really know what a veteran is going through. We talk to veterans about how to cope with problems and also try to put them on the right road for putting in claims and so forth,” he said.

Processing claims is not the only difficulty. Some veterans are unhappy with the telemental health services being offered by the Orangeburg County Outpatient VA Medical Clinic to provide veterans living in rural and underserved communities with improved access to specialty care.

Those veterans feel they are losing the person-to-person therapy they’re used to. Instead, they’re being referred to a phone-based service.
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Grand Jury indicted NASA Education for defrauding veterans

Veterans agency withdrew $30K NASA grant
Northwest Herald
By STEPHEN Di BENEDETTO
Created: Sunday, August 26, 2012

CRYSTAL LAKE – A state veterans agency in 2010 pulled back approval of a $30,000 grant to NASA Education Corp. after the department learned the Crystal Lake nonprofit was being investigated by the federal government.

Louis Pukelis, spokesman for the Illinois Veterans Affairs Department, said the group withdrew the grant intended for equipment upgrades after being told by U.S. Labor Department investigators of an ongoing probe into NASA Education’s management of government contracts.

“This grant was never paid out due to the department being made aware of a federal investigation into NASA Education,” Pukelis said.

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury indicted business owner John Blanchard and four other employees from NASA Education and Liberating Solutions Corp. on charges of defrauding veterans and the federal government.
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Documents link deaths to improper VA staffing following deaths

Documents link deaths to improper VA staffing
Aug 25, 2012
Written by
Jerry Mitchell

Failure to have proper staffing of nurses allegedly led to two deaths at the G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Jackson, according to investigative documents obtained by The Clarion-Ledger.

In December 2010, a patient suffered a diabetic coma in the intensive care unit and died.

On April 1, 2011, Johnnie W. Lee, a 55-year-old Army veteran who also worked at the Jackson VA, underwent routine skin graft surgery in the morning and was dead by afternoon.

According to a document obtained by the Justice Department's Office of Special Counsel, which is examining these cases, both deaths "had proximate causes related to a lack of proper nursing staffing."

Bonnie Walker, a spokeswoman for the Jackson VA, said the two deaths have been reviewed internally as well as by external agencies and have been concluded. In investigating Lee's death, The Joint Commission, the federal agency that inspects and accredits all health care facilities, did not find the VA had been negligent.
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