Veterans Groups Urge House to Reject VA Budget Plan
Associated Press
by Hope Yen
23 Jul 2017
Eight major veterans' organizations on Saturday urged Congress to provide emergency money to the Department of Veterans Affairs -- without cutting other VA programs -- as the House moved quickly to address a budget shortfall that threatened medical care for thousands of patients.
An Air Force senior master sergeant greets a Marine Corps veteran at the North Dakota Veteran's Nursing Home in Lisbon, N.D. Under the new VA budget plan, pensions would be reduced for some veterans in nursing homes. (US Air Force photo/David Lipp)
Their joint statement was issued after the House Veterans Affairs Committee unveiled a plan Friday that would shift $2 billion from other VA programs to continue funding the department's Choice program. Put in place after a 2014 wait-time scandal at the Phoenix VA hospital, Choice provides veterans with federally paid medical care outside the VA.
To offset spending, the VA would trim pensions for some veterans and collect fees for housing loans.
The veterans' groups criticized the plan as unacceptable privatization. They urged the House to embrace a bill that "ensures veterans' health care is not interrupted in the short term, nor threatened in the long term."
A House vote is scheduled for Monday. VA Secretary David Shulkin has warned that without congressional action, the Choice program would run out of money by mid-August.
read more here
With dying wish, Vietnam veteran receives diploma from North Central High School
The Spokesman Review
Eli Francovich
July 20, 2017
In a back room of North Central High School on Wednesday, Steve Fisk gently draped a graduation gown over the hunched shoulders of 68-year-old Vietnam veteran Stephen Rieckers.
Frank Fuchs, North Central High School ASB president from last year, helps Stephen Rieckers fit his graduation cap before Rieckers received his honorary diploma, July 19, 2017. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Then Rieckers rolled his electric wheelchair onto the stage of North Central’s auditorium to receive the diploma he never got.
“To me it’s a valuable thing, because it’s something I’ve been after for a long time,” he said.
Rieckers should have graduated in 1969. Instead, he dropped out of high school at the end of his junior year to escape an abusive step-father. He then enlisted in the military and served two tours in Vietnam as a helicopter mechanic.
read more here
As administration wages war on legal marijuana, military veterans side with pot
Tribune Washington Bureau
Evan Halper and Lauren Rosenblatt
July 23, 2017
"We were hearing these compelling stories from veterans about how cannabis has made their lives better," said Joseph Plenzler, a spokesman for the American Legion. "That they were able to use it to get off a whole cocktail of drugs prescribed by VA doctors, that it is helping with night terrors, or giving them relief from chronic pain."
WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) -- The Trump administration's attack on legal marijuana, already stymied by large states determined not to roll back the clock, is increasingly confronting an even more politically potent adversary: military veterans.
Frustrated by federal laws restricting their access to a drug many already rely on to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain and opioid addiction, veterans have become an influential lobbying force in the marijuana debate after sitting on the sidelines for years.
The 2 million-member American Legion this spring got involved in a big way by launching a campaign to reduce marijuana restrictions, which it says hurt veterans and may aggravate a suicide epidemic.
The move reflects the changing politics of marijuana, and of a conservative, century-old veterans service organization facing new challenges as its membership grows with those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
read more here
DAV Magazine Unsung Heroes covers the battle to treat all disabled veterans-caregivers equally. Imagine that!
You'd think that when the Congress does something for one generation, it would benefit all generations. Then again, you'd also have to think that Congress would have planned on taking care of them in the first place.
Veteran survives crash, stroke, heart attack, but denied benefits
WXIA
Andy Pierrotti
July 22, 2017
In the past, when a veteran was deemed unemployable by the VA, Social Security judges were required to explain why they disagreed with the VA’s disability ruling.
Starting this past march, judges are no longer required to do that.
Sleep is rare commodity for Daniel Norfleat. The Covington resident typically gets about three to four hours asleep a week.
“And without the sleep, I’m constantly going around in circles, a circle of pain,” said Norfleat, a U.S. Navy veteran.
The 53-year-old takes two dozen pills a day for pain, depression and a severe case of insomnia. The rare moments he does get shut-eye, he’s often woken by the screams of a deadly day serving onboard the U.S.S. Lexington, an air craft carrier.
In 1989, a pilot crashed his plane while trying to land. Five sailors died that day and Norfleat hasn’t been able to shake the image from his mind.
“We had fires. We had hurt bodies, hurt people,” said Norfleat. “I have a VA psychologist I see and we talk about it.”
In addition to post traumatic stress disorder, Norfleat has suffered a heart attack, a stroke, and knee surgeries.
read more here
