Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News – August 27, 2012

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Veterans! Here’s your Top 10 News stories of the day compiled from the latest sources

 

We encourage you to browse our list so that you can take what you want and keep what you need

 

1.   Navy gives heroes farewell to sailor shot in head in Iraq.  There was a lot of hero talk during Holly Crabtree’s retirement ceremony. The hospital corpsman chief, shot in the head by a sniper two years ago in Iraq, never fully recovered and left the Navy on Friday after 14 years.
 
2.   Is stigma against servicemembers hindering hiring?  With all the ribbons, flags and bumper stickers, Americans may think their service members are being treated with respect. But Iowa Workforce Development’s IowaWorks warns there is an area where our nation is falling short: the hiring of veterans.

3.   VA focuses on women veterans during summit.  KATV  If they answer yes, we let them know they are a veteran and we inform them of their benefits.” Gina Chandler is the state women’s coordinator the VA. She says there are about 20,000 woman veterans in Arkansas. But surprisingly, many of them don’t know …

4.   Conference expense list details millions spent by VA.  Fox News  The House Committee on Veterans Affairs released a list of expenditures from one of the conferences held in Orlando, Fla. The biggest expense of the $2.9 million event was participant travel, which cost $1.2 million. But the VA Department also spent …
 
5.   VA Divulges Some Details On Costly Conferences. The Military Times  “The Veterans Affairs Department has turned over to Congress 54 DVDs showing every moment, including some embarrassing ones, of the controversial 2011 human resources conferences held in Orlando, Fla., that cost taxpayers a combined $5 million.” The Times, which says “VA officials are not trying to downplay the potential waste of taxpayer money,” says “the single worst moment is a video mix that shows VA employees singing karaoke to the Michael Jackson song ‘Beat It,’ with excerpts from some of the week’s speakers.” The Times, which carries video on its website and reports other details about videos and which VA officials attended the conferences, adds that “documents do not justify the enormous cost of the conference nor answer questions about whether VA officials following [sic] the law and regulations in spending about $2,500 a person for 1,900 attendees.” Three videos produced “cost the VA about $52,000.”
 
6.   Veterans Administration Workers Sing “Beat It” In Latest Government Conference Embarrassment. The Huffington Post  Video and reports “the latest government conference scandal involving the Department of Veterans Affairs got more embarrassing Friday when a video surfaced of human resources workers delivering a tin-eared rendition of Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It.’” HuffPost says it “obtained more than 70 hours of video spanning most of the rest of the conferences, and while nearly all of it consists of mind-numbing training material, a few moments don’t exactly bathe the venerable institution in glory.” One shows “a live presentation by the actor in the Patton parody, Jim Deken,” shown saying, “‘You remember we talked about the Marines. … You can always tell a Marine. You just can’t tell him very much damn much,’ he says in what could be seen as an odd remark at an event that spent
 
7.   Michigan Athletes Compete In 2012 Paralympic Games. Dearborn (MI) Press and Guide (8/26) provides and extensive, detailed report on sports and recreation programs for disabled veterans in the Paralyzed Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, and Military Order of the Purple Heart. The report notes that some veterans are going to the London 2012 Paralympic Games, and Michigan veterans are among the group. Part of the report focuses on the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic that teaches disabled vets “adaptive Alpine and Nordic skiing.” It notes that Secretary Eric K. Shinseki “is a disabled veteran who lost part of his right foot in Vietnam.” He ” praised the strides the veterans at the clinic have made in their recuperation” and said disabled vets face “the challenge and the triumph, every day – to keep on living while you are living.”
 
8.   Veterans Struggle To Translate Military Skills Into Civilian Jobs.  Federal News Radio  Unemployment challenges for veterans, including the “cultural gap” of translating military skills to civilian jobs, and also reports that a job fair for veterans was held Saturday in Bethesda, Maryland. The fair was part of the 100,000 Jobs Mission that began in 2011 and includes “a coalition of companies like JP Morgan Chase that are committed to hiring 100,000 vets by 2020.” One veteran of the Marine Corps came from New York and “has been looking for work after getting out in 2005.”
 
9.   Job Fair Seeks Veterans.  WTHR-TV  Embedded video in a website report about a “Hiring Our Heroes” job fair held Saturday “to help Indiana veterans find work.” About 60 employers were registered, “but not all of them showed up,” according to the report, which said another job fair will be held Sept. 18. The “Hiring Our Heroes” fair was “just one of hundreds put on this year by the American Legion and the US Chamber.” WTHR-TV also noted that “the Bureau of Labor and Statistics reports that as a population, 8.3% of all veterans are unemployed. The national unemployment number across the board is about the same.”

10.   Study Of Marine Suicides Getting Under Way.  North County (CA) Times  A lengthy report on Marine Corps plans to take “a deep look at the service’s ‘Never Leave a Marine Behind’ suicide prevention program” in light of eight reported suicides in July, “the highest number recorded this year.” Suicides this year stand at 32, and “if the monthly trend continues, the Marine Corps could match or exceed the record 52 active-duty troop suicides recorded in 2009.” The Times says the review is “a detailed examination of what the troops were doing throughout each day leading to the event.” It adds that “most suicides and post-traumatic stress cases emerge months after troops come home from deployments.”


 

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