Top 10 Veterans News from Around the Country 09-15-08

Today’s Local News for Veterans

What’s Inside

1. Peake Says ‘Responsible Leadership’ Will Repair Illinois Clinic.
2. Peake Tours Marion VAMC, Discusses Hospital’s Future.
3. American Legion At Odds With Bush Over GI Bill Benefits.  
4. Unresolved Claims Said To Be A Problem For VA.  
5. Peake Says VA’s Voter Registration Policy Is ‘Uniform Approach.’  
6. National Guard Attempting To Contact Veterans About Possible Toxic Exposure.  
7. New Veterans Clinic Opens, Has Room For Expansion.  
8. Outreach Program Provides More Local Services To Veterans.  
9. HUD-VA Program "Designed To Support Ending Homelessness" Among Vets.  
10. Waco VAMC To Receive Mental Health Triage Support.

     1.      Peake Says ‘Responsible Leadership’ Will Repair Illinois Clinic.   In a story published by dozens of newspapers nationwide, the AP (9/14, Suhr) reports, "The head of the nation’s Veterans Affairs system said Saturday it still could be months before inpatient surgeries resume at a southern Illinois hospital. But rehabbing the site’s image after a surge in patient deaths last year may take far longer." Regarding the VA’s disciplinary response to the scandal, Peake said, "We don’t do public floggings. The point is we moved forward with putting responsible people in leadership." He "also said federal regulations covering employees limited possible firings over the Marion VA’s surgical troubles."2.      Peake Tours Marion VAMC, Discusses Hospital’s Future.   In continuing coverage, the WSIL-TV Carterville, IL (9/14, Craig) website reported Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake was in Marion, Illinois, "Saturday to tour the VA hospital and hold a town hall meeting about the facility’s troubled past– and his hope for its future." Peake "admitted it will likely be months" before major surgeries can resume at the Marion VA, but "he says it may be even longer before the hospital’s reputation is mended. Surgeries were halted there a year ago after a surge in patient deaths including nine that investigators deemed ‘directly attributable’ to substandard care." The WPSD-TV Carterville, IL (9/14, Bond) website, which also noted Peake’s visit, reported "the old problem leadership" at the Marion VAMC has been replaced.3.      American Legion At Odds With Bush Over GI Bill Benefits.   CQ Weekly (9/15, Zeller) reports, "What was once a collegial relationship between the American Legion – arguably the most conservative veterans’ association – and President Bush has run into trouble for the second time over the new GI Bill. The Legion was upset earlier this year when Bush" initially opposed the bill, which he eventually signed into law. Now, "the two are tussling again, this time over administration of the new benefits, which the American Federation of Government Employees said the Veterans Affairs Department plans to outsource. VA Secretary James B. Peake "wrote the union that complying with the Aug. 1, 2009, deadline Congress imposed for the benefits ‘will tax VA’s resources’ and require private sector help." American Legion members, however, "don’t like" that plan, so Dave Rehbein, the Legion’s "newly sworn-in national commander," is "seeking a meeting with Peake."

4.      Unresolved Claims Said To Be A Problem For VA.   The Schenectady (NY) Daily Gazette (9/15, Bryce) reports, "It’s estimated there are 600,000 to 800,000 unresolved claims and appeals" with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, "according to veterans’ advocates." David E. Autry, a spokesman for the Disabled American Veterans in Washington DC, "which represents veterans and advocates and helps them obtain their benefits," said, "It’s a three-pronged problem. There are not enough people to do the job expeditiously, they may or may not be well trained to do the job right, and there is inadequate oversight on how they do it." The Gazette focuses on veteran Chauncey Robinson, who has "been fighting for 16 years to get his veteran’s disability benefits."
      Supreme Court To Hear Disability Dispute.   The New York Sun (9/15, Goldstein) reports, "Sixty-four years ago on the battlefields of France, a round of ammunition exploded in Woodrow Sanders’s face while he was loading his bazooka." Later this year, Sanders’s case "will be heard before the Supreme Court, which will decide whether the American government owes" the World War II vet "disability benefits for the blindness he has suffered in his right eye." Sanders "first applied to the Veterans Administration for benefits relating to the loss of his vision in 1949," but his claim has been rejected several times. The "federal government’s court papers suggest that Mr. Sanders’s loss of sight could have been due to an eye infection that he suffered in 1948, three years after being discharged" from the military. The case, "which will receive close attention from veterans’ organizations when it is argued in December 2008, is one of several cases on the Supreme Court’s docket for the coming term that are already generating interest."

5.      Peake Says VA’s Voter Registration Policy Is ‘Uniform Approach.’   The Air Force Times (9/14, Maze) reports, "In a politically tinged reversal of early restrictions, the Veterans Affairs Department has decided to open its doors to nonpartisan voter registration drives. The decision, announced Sept. 8, came just days before VA officials were expected to face a grilling by the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees voting laws, over what VA finds so wrong about helping veterans exercise their right to vote." VA Secretary James Peake said his agency ‘has always been committed to helping veterans exercise their constitutional right to vote. We have now established a uniform approach to helping those of our patients who need assistance to register and to vote."

6.      National Guard Attempting To Contact Veterans About Possible Toxic Exposure.   The AP (9/14) reports, "The Indiana National Guard is still trying to track down former soldiers who may have been exposed to a toxic chemical while serving in Iraq in 2003." Gen. R. Martin Umbarger told a state legislative panel "that the former soldiers must be located for evaluation and their exposure documented in medical records," which "would allow them to receive medical treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals."

7.      New Veterans Clinic Opens, Has Room For Expansion.   WSBT-TV South Bend, IN (9/14, Ernstes) reports that "a new veteran’s clinic will soon open its doors on the south side of Goshen. It will serve thousands of veterans in four counties and it may be just the beginning for services down the road." Gary Whitehead from the Elkhart County VA Office said that clinic has "an agreement that if they need to expand, that they’ll be able to expand, move the walls back further and make more office space."

8.      Outreach Program Provides More Local Services To Veterans.   The Albany Times Union (9/14, Brown, 95K) reports, "Approximately 23,000 veterans and their families in Albany County won’t have to go as far for Veterans Affairs benefits under a new outreach program," which allows veterans to receive certain services in a number of new locations. Joseph Pollicino, the bureau director, said, "We believe that a program that makes us more readily available to the veterans and families of veterans in the community is worthwhile." 

9.      HUD-VA Program "Designed To Support Ending Homelessness" Among Vets.   In a profile of Iraq veteran Chris Shields, the Huntington (WV) Herald-Dispatch (9/14, Wilcox) reports that "in May 2008, the Huntington Housing Authority and the Huntington VA Medical Center were awarded 35 Section 8 housing vouchers as part of the 2008 expansion of the HUD-VASH (Housing and Urban Development Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing) program designed to support ending homelessness. … In the program, HUD provides rental assistance and the VA Medical Center hires a clinical social worker to provide intensive case management."

10.    Waco VAMC To Receive Mental Health Triage Support.   An editorial in the Waco (TX) Tribune Herald (9/15) praises the "professional staff of the Heart of Texas Regional Mental Health Mental Retardation Center," which will soon be unveiling a new crisis center. The Tribune Herald notes that the facility "will assist the Waco Veterans Affairs Medical Center by doing mental health triage for veterans in need."