Sgt. Edward Cunningham accused of making threats at marine base
By Jennifer Donelan
April 5, 2013
A Marine at Marine Corps Base Quantico is in custody for allegedly making death threats toward fellow Marines and co-workers on base. The threats follow a deadly shooting on the base where just two weeks ago a Marine killed two others before turning the gun on himself.
Sgt. Edward Charles Cunningham, 31, was sent for a behavioral health screening after the alleged threats last week, Lt. Agustin Solivan tells ABC7. He was cleared and sent back to his position in the communications branch on base.
read more here
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Former Marine shot by police after having flashback is laid to rest
Former Marine shot by police after having flashback is laid to rest
Posted: Apr 05, 2013
By STEPHANIE BEECKEN
6 News Reporter
KNOXVILLE (WATE) - A former marine and war veteran killed by police during a shootout in Maryville was laid to rest Friday.
Theodore Jones IV, 27, was shot multiple times by police back on March 21. His family says he suffered from PTSD and was having a war flashback when he was killed.
Police say Jones fired multiple times at a car driving down the road, then he shot at police cruiser and then a police officer. Jones allegedly refused police orders to drop his gun that's when officers say they had no choice but to use lethal force.
The funeral was at Tennessee Veteran's Cemetery on John Sevier Highway with close friends and family in attendance.
Jones received full military funeral honors for being a veteran who has defended our nation.
Posted: Apr 05, 2013
By STEPHANIE BEECKEN
6 News Reporter
KNOXVILLE (WATE) - A former marine and war veteran killed by police during a shootout in Maryville was laid to rest Friday.
Theodore Jones IV, 27, was shot multiple times by police back on March 21. His family says he suffered from PTSD and was having a war flashback when he was killed.
Police say Jones fired multiple times at a car driving down the road, then he shot at police cruiser and then a police officer. Jones allegedly refused police orders to drop his gun that's when officers say they had no choice but to use lethal force.
The funeral was at Tennessee Veteran's Cemetery on John Sevier Highway with close friends and family in attendance.
Jones received full military funeral honors for being a veteran who has defended our nation.
Kirk says the night her brother started shooting at a stranger's car and law enforcement, he was suffering from a flashback. She hopes others who are suffering from PTSD seek treatment.
read more here
Between what we are told and what happens is the blank space of PTSD
Would Santiago Cisneros III still be alive if he was actually told what PTSD was? Would he have reacted the way he did facing police officers the day he was shot if during the two years he had been to the VA, he got the help he needed?
KOMO News
By Liz Rocca
Published: Mar 26, 2009
The military contends it's more prepared than ever to deal with PTSD.
In fact, Fort Lewis - the very post that K-10 ran away from - was one of the first to screen every returning soldier for both physical and mental problems.
Soldiers are screened upon their return to post with a lengthy questionnaire and face-to-face meeting. They are screened a second time 90 days later.
Dr. Murray Raskind, a Veterans Administration psychiatrist who treats PTSD, says the military is getting better, but the screening isn't foolproof.
"The question is does the soldier recognize that they have a problem and are they willing to say that they have a problem?"
Raskind says too many soldiers are still reluctant to admit they are struggling for fear it will create a paper trail that will ruin their careers.
And, Raskind says, it can sometimes take up to a year for problems to surface.
Santiago Cisneros never dreamed he'd have trouble adjusting to civilian life again.
"It took a while to realize I was dealing with PTSD because I didn't know what post-traumatic stress disorder was. I had no clue"
Cisneros finally found help through the Veterans Administration and the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Northern California.
"I've started to build a foundation of hope and humanity again," Cisneros says.
Arthur Smith is getting treatment from a civilian therapist, and has resigned himself to living life as a fugitive.
"I don't mind saying that I'll never go back - if I do I'll break out," he says.
But K-10 says his dangerous rage should have raised significant red flags for the Army.
Officer: 'The only thing I could think of... is that I was going to die'Shattered soldiers say there was no help
By KATU.com Staff
Published: Apr 5, 2013
PORTLAND, Ore. – Two Portland police officers were holding a routine meeting on the top of parking garage when they came under fire from a suspect armed with a shotgun, according to investigators who reviewed the incident.
The officers were not hit but returned fire and killed Santiago Cisneros, III.
In a 2009 interview with KOMO, Cisneros said he had tried to kill himself just eight months after leaving Iraq. He said the military didn’t give him the help he needed after returning home.Cisneros’s father said his son struggled to adjust to civilian life and had some minor run-ins with the law. Despite that, he said before his death that Cisneros had been working and generally doing better.
KOMO News
By Liz Rocca
Published: Mar 26, 2009
The military contends it's more prepared than ever to deal with PTSD.
In fact, Fort Lewis - the very post that K-10 ran away from - was one of the first to screen every returning soldier for both physical and mental problems.
Soldiers are screened upon their return to post with a lengthy questionnaire and face-to-face meeting. They are screened a second time 90 days later.
Dr. Murray Raskind, a Veterans Administration psychiatrist who treats PTSD, says the military is getting better, but the screening isn't foolproof.
"The question is does the soldier recognize that they have a problem and are they willing to say that they have a problem?"
Raskind says too many soldiers are still reluctant to admit they are struggling for fear it will create a paper trail that will ruin their careers.
And, Raskind says, it can sometimes take up to a year for problems to surface.
Santiago Cisneros never dreamed he'd have trouble adjusting to civilian life again.
"It took a while to realize I was dealing with PTSD because I didn't know what post-traumatic stress disorder was. I had no clue"
Cisneros finally found help through the Veterans Administration and the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Northern California.
"I've started to build a foundation of hope and humanity again," Cisneros says.
Arthur Smith is getting treatment from a civilian therapist, and has resigned himself to living life as a fugitive.
"I don't mind saying that I'll never go back - if I do I'll break out," he says.
But K-10 says his dangerous rage should have raised significant red flags for the Army.
Friday, April 5, 2013
White House proposes another budget increase for VA in 2014
UPDATEOK, I read the article again this morning and it looks like I was not seeing things last night.
VA budget has $63.5B for care, benefits
This is the part I can't believe.
Currently, the backlog hovers around 600,000 cases, up dramatically from around 80,000 just four years ago. The average wait for completion of a claim is almost nine months.
This was in a report from April 2, 2012 and addresses what the claims looked like in 2009. Shinseki noted the monumental challenge VA has been up against. During 2009, VA produced 900,000 claims decisions, but also received 1 million new claims. The next year, VA increased its claims decisions to 1 million, but received 1.2 million new claims. “Last year, we produced another 1 million claims decisions and got 1.3 million claims in,” Shinseki said. “So the backlog isn’t static. The backlog is a bigger number than we would like, but it is not the same number as three years ago.”I am getting really tired of correcting what reporters get wrong and beginning to wonder if they all have an agenda that is not in the best interests of our veterans. For Heaven's sake they should be important enough to get the story straight.
Researching THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR, has opened the door to a whole new world the press has not dared to enter into. All these years I thought they were getting the story straight and letting the public know what was going on. WOW! I was wrong to trust them because the searches are all available for anyone to find if they take the time and actually care beyond getting today's story out.
VA Claims as of December 31, 2012
Post-9/11 (Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts) claims make up 21% of the total inventory and 22% of the backlog
Gulf War (definition) claims make up 23% of the total inventory and 21% of the backlog Peacetime (period between end of Vietnam and Gulf War) claims make up 11% of the total inventory and 11% of the backlog
Vietnam claims make up 37% of the total inventory and 38% of the backlog
Korean War claims make 4% of the total inventory and 4% of the backlog
World War II claims make up 3% of the total inventory and 3% of the backlog
Other era claims make up 1% of the total inventory and 1% of the backlog
Original vs. Supplemental Claims
40% were first time claims and 60% were Supplemental as of March 29, 2013
VA’s current Inventory of compensation claims contains both "original" claims—those submitted by Veterans of all eras who are claiming disability compensation from VA for the first time, and “supplemental” claims—those submitted by Veterans of all eras who have previously filed for disability compensation with VA. Below is a breakout of the original and supplemental claims in the current VA inventory:
60% of pending claims are supplemental, 40% are original.
77% of Veterans filing supplemental claims are receiving some level of monetary benefit from VA.
11% of Veterans filing supplemental claims already have a 100% disability rating (receive $2800 or more per month) or qualify for Individual Unemployability (compensated at the 100% disabled rate).
40% of Veterans filing supplemental claims are already rated at 50% disability or higher.
43% of supplemental claims are from Vietnam-era Veterans; 19% are from Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
Considering it is almost 10:00 and I've been working since 7:00 this morning, my brain is tired. Check back tomorrow morning on this because I can't believe what I am reading in the rest of the report so I really think I need to go to bed because I must be delusional or the rest of this report it totally out of whack.
White House proposes another budget increase for VA in 2014
By Leo Shane III
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 5, 2013
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs would receive a 4 percent funding increase for its fiscal 2014 discretionary budget and a $2.5 billion infusion to battle the growing claims backlog under White House budget plans to be announced next week.
The funding boost comes as most government departments face steep cuts as the president and lawmakers search for ways to rein in the national debt. It still must be approved by Congress before it becomes law.
But White House and VA officials said the extra money for veterans programs shows President Barack Obama’s commitment to help servicemembers returning from combat with their transition to civilian life, and to make sure the lifelong war wounds aren’t forgotten.
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said the budget emphasizes “the president’s commitment to our veterans and their families” but also acknowledged that more money doesn’t promise immediate results for veterans impatient with the VA bureaucracy.
“At the end of the day, it’s not the inputs or investments, but the outputs: questions being answered, tax credits being utilized, jobs being created,” he said. “That’s going to prove to people whether the system is working.”
read more here
Army pushes VA to process disability claims faster
Army pushes VA to process disability claims faster
Gregg Zoroya
USA TODAY
April 4, 2013
The Department of Veterans Affairs is under growing pressure to reduce a mountain of pending veteran disability claims, and a new voice has been added to the chorus — the U.S. Army.
The Army has spent tens of millions of dollars and doubled staffing for a joint program with the VA aimed at cutting the Army's backlog of soldiers waiting to leave the service because of being wounded, ill or injured.
The number of ailing soldiers waiting to leave the service has grown from 18,000 in 2011 to more than 27,000, largely because the VA is not bringing more manpower to the task, Army officers told USA TODAY.
"The ideal situation would be if they could add some capacity. That means adding some people to do (disability) ratings," says Brig. Gen. Lewis Boone, director of the Army's disability evaluation system.
The VA says its resources are taxed to the limit trying to reduce its own caseload of 900,000 pending disability claims from veterans of all past and present wars. It cannot spare more rating evaluation specialists for the Army program, VA official Danny Pummill says.
read more here
I guess this was all forgotten about too
and probably this one too
Gregg Zoroya
USA TODAY
April 4, 2013
The Department of Veterans Affairs is under growing pressure to reduce a mountain of pending veteran disability claims, and a new voice has been added to the chorus — the U.S. Army.
The Army has spent tens of millions of dollars and doubled staffing for a joint program with the VA aimed at cutting the Army's backlog of soldiers waiting to leave the service because of being wounded, ill or injured.
The number of ailing soldiers waiting to leave the service has grown from 18,000 in 2011 to more than 27,000, largely because the VA is not bringing more manpower to the task, Army officers told USA TODAY.
"The ideal situation would be if they could add some capacity. That means adding some people to do (disability) ratings," says Brig. Gen. Lewis Boone, director of the Army's disability evaluation system.
The VA says its resources are taxed to the limit trying to reduce its own caseload of 900,000 pending disability claims from veterans of all past and present wars. It cannot spare more rating evaluation specialists for the Army program, VA official Danny Pummill says.
read more here
I guess this was all forgotten about too
Yesterday came and went without the DoD and the VA meeting the July 1, 2008 deadline to make several improvements to the medical evaluation board (MEB), physical evaluation board (PEB), and to report to Congress on the advisability of consolidating the DoD and VA disability evaluation systems. These requirements were part of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act and were passed into law as PUBLIC LAW 110-181 [H.R. 4986].
There are many important and vital rights that were granted by Congress in passing the law. Those rights depend on the DoD and the VA acting swiftly to publish regulations to improve processes, eliminate discrepancies between military and VA ratings, assign independent medical doctors to those members at the medical evaluation board, and to report to Congress.
and probably this one too
Disability review board 'invite' letters going to 75,000 veteransAwe shucks,,,since they forgot about the claim pile being that large back in June of 2009, they don't remember much at all.
By TOM PHILPOTT
Stars and Stripes
Published: January 19, 2012
On combat patrol several years ago, a U.S. soldier suffered two attacks from improvised explosive devices in a 24-hour-period. The first one rattled him and killed his buddy. The second one blew him out of his vehicle and knocked him unconscious.
The Army would medically separate this soldier with a 10-percent disability rating, even though his medical records showed symptoms of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
This case, and many like it, occurred before Congress in 2008 ordered military branches to clean up their disability evaluation systems and end practices that had underrated medical conditions of ill and injured members.
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