Top 10 Hot Spot Veterans News from Around the Country – 07-14-08

1. Peake Says DeBakey "Saved And Enriched Countless Lives."
2. Veteran Wants To Make Things A Bit Easier For Fellow Students   
3. VA Works On Speeding Up Claims Processing.  
4. Many Returning Veterans End Up Homeless.   
5. Iraq Veteran Struggles With PTSD.  
6. Some Veterans Blaming PTSD For Crimes Had Pre-Service Records.  
7. Group Helps Veterans Cut Through VA Red Tape.  
8. VA Grant Will Pay For Nebraska Veterans Cemetery.  
9. Newest National Cemetery Dedicated In Alabama.  
10. National Cemetery Administration Gives Nebraska $5 Million For Veterans Cemetery

1.      Peake Says DeBakey "Saved And Enriched Countless Lives."   The Baltimore Examiner (7/13) reports, "Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake joined with national leaders in offering condolences to the family and colleagues of Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, an internationally acclaimed medical pioneer with long ties to the Department of Veterans Affairs. DeBakey, 99, died Friday in Houston." Peake said, "Dr. DeBakey’s skills as a surgeon and manager, along with his deep commitment to military personnel and veterans, has created a legacy of service that will never be equaled. He has touched countless lives, and, more importantly, he has saved and enriched countless lives." A "pioneer in the field of cardiac surgery, DeBakey is credited with developing mobile Army surgical hospitals during World War II, which became the foundation for bringing specialized medical care closer to troops on the battlefield and, thereby, dramatically reducing combat deaths. In the late 1940s, he was instrumental in establishing the VA facility in his hometown of Houston as one of the premier medical facilities in the country. In December 2003, President Bush signed into law a measure naming VA’s Houston medical center after DeBakey. This April, VA named a conference room in the Department’s headquarters after DeBakey and Congress awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation’s highest awards for civilian service. ‘At VA, we are honored to count Dr. DeBakey as one of our own,’ Peake said. ‘His medical skill and his boundless compassion will be missed by colleagues, patients, and veterans everywhere.’"

2.    Veteran Wants To Make Things A Bit Easier For Fellow Students.   The Martinsville Reporter-Times (7/13, Hillenburg) reports, "For veterans such as Sgt. Russell Silver Jr., a 1999 Decatur Central High School graduate, going back to college at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis after active military duty was a puzzling maze. It cost him time and countless steps to apply for the benefits he deserved – even though the Indianapolis campus is ranked first in the state in its student veteran population, with triple the number attending IU Bloomington. There are 12,000 National Guardsmen in Indiana alone. … But thanks to veteran activists like him, the Post 9/11 GI Bill Assistance Act of 2008 and a national organization known as Student Veterans of America (SVA), change is in the wind. IUPUI and other campuses are forming their own SVA chapters so student veterans can share information, facilitate their benefits and make their voices heard."

The Air Force Times (7/13, Maze) reports, "Retired Rear Adm. Patrick Dunne, acting VA undersecretary for benefits, acknowledged that the workload is growing. The VA expected to get 855,000 claims this year but now projects it will receive 883,000, a 5 percent increase over 2007, Dunne said. But even with the increased volume, ‘we are now completing more claims than we receive,’ Dunne said. ‘As a result, the pending inventory at the end of May was reduced to 390,000.’ That is the lowest level since September 2006, Dunne said. He said he expects additional improvements as VA brings on more staff and upgrades the use of technology to help process claims. The VA has hired 2,700 new claims processors since January 2007 and plans to hire at least 3,100 more by this fall, he said. Veterans groups hope progress continues. Kerry Baker of Disabled American Veterans said the claims process is ‘bewildering’ to many veterans and their families and needs to be simplified so it is easier to file and prove a claim, which would cut down on the number of appeals." 

4.      Many Returning Veterans End Up Homeless.   The New Haven Register (7/13, Sanders, Stebbins, Zapana, 72K) reports, "When Johanna Montalvo, 35, returned home from a tour of duty in Iraq in 2006, the drug habit she says she acquired in the military got her kicked out of her house. She has since cleaned up. But she is still living in a homeless shelter. Montalvo is one of at least 100 homeless veterans in New Haven and more than 260,000 homeless veterans across the nation, city and federal officials said. Her story is not new: one in 70 U.S. veterans has experienced homelessness. In Connecticut, it is one in 30, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. And veterans are more than twice as likely to become homeless than other civilians, statistics released by the Alliance indicate. Officials predict more veterans will become homeless, especially as thousands return from Iraq and Afghanistan, and they see a new issue emerging: the increasing number of – and lack of services for – homeless women veterans like Montalvo. In March, the Department of Veterans Affairs reported a drop in the number of homeless veterans nationally on any given night to 154,000 – suggesting a total number of about 266,000 for this year. Partnerships between the VA and community-based agencies have caused a drop of about 25 percent in the number of homeless veterans on any given night since 2003, the VA reports. But the numbers go against the upward trend in homeless veterans rates that previous years suggest. National statistics show that in 2006, the most recent year with reliable data, 3.3 percent of all Connecticut veterans were homeless, up from 3.1 percent in 2005. The percentage was more than double the 2006 national homeless rate of 1.4 percent of all veterans, which had increased steadily since 2004. In 2006, estimates put the number of homeless veterans at 330,000. Although many experts stress no reliable studies have been published with the number of homeless Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, some estimate that number could be as high as 10,000 to 15,000, or about 1.3 percent of all soldiers who have been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001." 

5.      Iraq Veteran Struggles With PTSD.   The Jackson Hole Star-Tribune (7/13, Miller) reports, "Robert Niezwaag Jr., an Army commander with a laid-back leadership style, suddenly found himself yelling at his men. The tiniest annoyance could send him into a rage, and he felt as if he hated ‘everything and everybody.’" Niezwaag "would learn later that the anger was a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, an anxiety disorder that probably resulted from spending 13 months in the war zone in Iraq. Military medics tried to ease the symptoms in the field with a prescription of the anti-depressant Prozac, but Niezwaag noticed no improvement and stopped taking the medication. He found temporary relief when he left Iraq and retired from the Army in October 2004. During his final months of service in Fort Hood, Texas, he was on a ‘pink cloud.’" But his "anger — a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD — followed him from the deserts of the Middle East to his home in central Wyoming, where he had hoped to start fresh after 14 years in the Army. He quickly found that he was unable to communicate with his wife. Everything she did seemed wrong, and he sometimes got angry." Niezwaag "also struggled to find work that would agree with his PTSD symptoms." His "thoughts and dreams were haunted by images of war. He recalled firing his weapon at the enemy, watching innocent people die and seeing Iraqi children with gunshot wounds walk into a U.S. military base seeking help." Niezwaag is now "studying psychology at Central Wyoming College. A vocational rehabilitation program through the VA covers the cost. He just finished the first session of summer classes, and he’s getting ready to start the second summer session." 

6.      Some Veterans Blaming PTSD For Crimes Had Pre-Service Records.   McClatchy (7/14, Carollo) reports that though "California passed legislation in 2006, and at least four other states have drafted or considered laws to empower judges to send these veterans to treatment in lieu of prison because their crimes may be the byproduct of war,…a yearlong examination found that veterans sometimes had criminal records and other questionable backgrounds before enlistment, and experts said that since crime is not a typical symptom of PTSD, their subsequent crimes more likely were a product of their backgrounds than of the war. ‘It’s an excuse, the way I see it,’ said Catherine Casey, whose 16-year-old daughter was killed in 2006 [a] former California-based Marine driving drunk in Minnesota. ‘To use it as a crutch or an excuse for our behavior is, as far as I’m concerned, unacceptable.’ Casey, a police investigator who does background checks for the Minneapolis Police Department, was angry not only because her daughter died, but also because she learned the man who killed her had a history that included alcohol offenses before he joined the military."

7.      Group Helps Veterans Cut Through VA Red Tape.   The Chicago Daily Herald (7/14, Zawislak, 142K) reports on the "anger and frustration with the Department of Veterans Affairs and other federal agencies" expressed by Chicago area veterans, noting that some have found help by contacting the American Combat Veterans of War. "The organization was founded in 2001 by Vietnam vet Bill Rider and run on a shoestring budget in La Jolla, Calif. The small group has a roster of experienced veteran volunteers used to dealing with the problems of returning ‘warriors’, including the bureaucracy intended to assist them." A local Lake County, IL, chapter is planned.

8.      VA Grant Will Pay For Nebraska Veterans Cemetery.   The Scottsbluff Star-Herald (7/13, Elfrink) reports, "Nebraska soon will have its first state-run veterans cemetery, thanks to a federal grant announced Friday. The Veterans Administration will provide $5 million through its National Cemetery Administration to help design and build the cemetery, which will be on 22 acres donated by the City of Alliance. Once it’s built, the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs will be responsible for maintaining the cemetery, said Frank Salvas, director of state cemetery grants services for the National Cemetery Administration. … Efforts by a veterans group to establish a new national cemetery in the Omaha metro area thus far have been sunk by the VA’s rules, which require that 170,000 veterans live within a 75-mile radius. With 133,000 veterans in the region, eastern Nebraska doesn’t make the cut. But through the VA’s state partnership program, which funds about 10 new state cemeteries every year, states can build new veterans cemeteries with federal assistance, as long as a state is willing to pay for the upkeep."

9.      Newest National Cemetery Dedicated In Alabama.   The Birmingham News (7/13, Gray) reports on the dedication ceremony at the 479-acre Alabama National Cemetery in Montevallo, noting that "William F. Tuerk, the undersecretary for memorial affairs, National Cemetery Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, said the efforts of elected officials and veterans groups helped bring Alabama its third national cemetery. ‘Wars begin and end, but caring for the nation’s warriors is a perpetual obligation,’ Tuerk said. ‘It is a promise that’s being kept here today.’"

10.    National Cemetery Administration Gives Nebraska $5 Million For Veterans Cemetery.   The Lincoln Journal Star (7/12) reports, "Nebraska received word this week that the National Cemetery Administration will provide about $5 million in federal funds to help build the cemetery, Gov. Dave Heineman said Friday. When completed in 2010, the state cemetery will be operated by the Nebraska Department of Veterans’ Affairs, with free burial for eligible veterans and spouses. … The cemetery will be located at the Alliance Municipal Airport, site of the World War II Alliance Army Airbase, on land donated by the city of Alliance."