Top 10 Veterans News from Around the Country 10-20-09

What’s Inside Today’s Local News for Veterans

1. First Lady To Visit VA. 
2. Obama To Honor Vietnam Vets. 
3. Marine Accused Of Faking Injuries To Plead Guilty. 
4. Florida Soldier’s Home Contaminated With Chinese Drywall.
5. Attack In Afghanistan Seen As Symbol Of Challenge Faced By Administration.
6. Winneshiek Medical Center Offers Space For VA. 
7. VA Medical Network Cares About All Veterans. 
8. VAIHCS To Sponsor Concert For Veterans Day. 
9. Calverton National Cemetery To Expand. 
10. Speeding Eligibility Claims.

1.      First Lady To Visit VA.  The third item in the Washington Post‘s (10/20, Franke-Ruta) "What to Watch" column says First Lady Michelle Obama "continues her tour" of Federal agencies on Tuesday, "visiting the Department of Veterans Affairs in the late morning. VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki also attends."  

2.      Obama To Honor Vietnam Vets.  On the front page of its Metro section, the Washington Post (10/20, B1, Ruane) reports, "Tuesday in the White House Rose Garden," President Barack Obama "is scheduled to pay tribute" to Pasqual Gutierrez and "about 80 other Vietnam veterans who fought" in a "savage, unnamed battle" on March 26, 1970. The veterans’ efforts "resulted in the rescue of a company of trapped fellow soldiers." According to the Post, "Gutierrez’s outfit — Alpha Troop, First Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment — has been awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for its ‘extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry’ in the fight." The lead item in the Washington Post‘s (10/20, Franke-Ruta) "What to Watch" column also notes Tuesday’s Rose Garden event. 

3.      Marine Accused Of Faking Injuries To Plead Guilty.  The AP (10/20, Dishneau) reports, "A Marine sergeant charged with faking battle injuries to get freebies intended for wounded warriors will plead guilty, a Marine Corps spokeswoman said Monday. Sgt. David W. Budwah…will enter the plea at a court-martial hearing Wednesday at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., 1st Lt. Joy Crabaugh wrote in an e-mail." After noting that Budwah is "alleged to have worn eight unearned medals and decorations on his uniform, including bronze-star campaign medals from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," the AP says the "government claims he faked post-traumatic stress disorder in July 2008 in hopes of leaving service early and was sent to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, where he began bluffing his way into wounded-warrior events."
      Virginia’s News & Messenger (10/19, LeDoux) said Budwah "joined the Marines in October 1999 and spent nearly all of the next six years with a radio communications unit in Okinawa, Japan, according to Quantico Marine Corps base." Budwah "has been stationed" at that base "since February 2006."  

4.      Florida Soldier’s Home Contaminated With Chinese Drywall.  On its website, WPTV-TV West Palm Beach, FL (10/19, Cashmere) said Colin Green, a soldier from Port St. Lucie, Florida, "returned from overseas to his two year old home," only to find it contaminated with Chinese drywall. In "less than a week," however, Green "heads back to serve his country at Fort Bragg, North Carolina." He "faces at least a year’s deployment," but the "medical lab specialist is awaiting word…as to whether he’ll be allowed to take his family with him when he returns to Fort Bragg." 
  

5.      Attack In Afghanistan Seen As Symbol Of Challenge Faced By Administration.  The AP (10/20, Lardner) reports Larry Mace, whose son was "killed earlier this month in Kamdesh when several hundred militant fighters armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades stormed" a "remote, undermanned Army outpost in a dangerous patch" of Afghanistan, "says…US military commanders should have" known that Mace, who was buried Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, and his fellow soldiers "were sitting ducks." The "attack at Kamdesh, along with a similarly costly battle a year earlier in nearby Wanat, have emerged as powerful symbols of the challenges" the Obama Administration "faces as the war in Afghanistan enters its ninth year. Without more troops and firepower, the Taliban-led insurgency will grow stronger," but "devoting more people and equipment risks an open-ended commitment to a war increasingly unpopular" with the US public.
      Soldier Killed In Attack Buried At Arlington.  The Washington Post (10/20, B2, Alcindor) reports, "More than 100 family members and friends" attended the funeral for the 21-year-old Mace, one of "eight soldiers killed Oct. 3 in Kamdesh." The Post notes that Mace was laid to rest "in Section 60, where most veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are buried."  

6.      Winneshiek Medical Center Offers Space For VA.  The Decorah (IA) Journal (10/20, Greiner) reports Winneshiek Medical Center (WMC) "hopes it can still find a way to serve the county’s veterans. At Wednesday’s Winneshiek Medical Center Board of Trustees meeting, Chief Administrative Officer Dan Werner explained the Medical Center has made on offer to the Veterans Administration to consider locating a new community based outpatient clinic on the WMC campus." This past summer, Werner has "announced the Veterans Administration was planning to go with its original plan of opening a community based outpatient clinic (CBOC) in Decorah, rather than utilizing existing health care facilities in the community."  

7.      VA Medical Network Cares About All Veterans.  In continuing coverage, Daniel F. Hoffmann, "director of the Veterans Administration’s VISN 6 region," says in a letter to the editor of the Fayetteville (NC) Observer (10/20) that he was "deeply troubled by Thursday’s article about our Fayetteville Veterans Affairs Medical Center (‘VA system fails local veterans,’ by Don Talbot). As the director of the VA Mid-Atlantic Health Care Network, I thank Talbot for his compliments about our dedicated and caring staff members and his comments highlighting his concerns." But "I want to make it clear that all resources are distributed equitably to the VA medical centers under my purview. As a matter of
fact, I can tell you that for the last nine years I’ve been here, the budget and staff for Fayetteville VAMC have grown consistently."
  

8.      VAIHCS To Sponsor Concert For Veterans Day.  The Danville (IL) Commercial- News (10/20) reports, "The Veterans Affairs Illiana Health Care System will sponsor an outdoor concert to honor Veterans for Veterans Day at 2 p.m. Saturday at the VA gazebo." In "case of inclement weather, the concert will be in the social activities room in Building 104."  

9.      Calverton National Cemetery To Expand.  Newsday (10/20, Mallia) reports, "Calverton National Cemetery will expand its developed acreage, preparing enough grave-site land for an additional decade of burials, officials said Monday. Rep. Tim Bishop…announced US Department of Veterans Affairs funding for the $32-million project." The "expansion is scheduled for completion in fall 2011." 

10.    Speeding Eligibility Claims.  In a Federal Times (10/20) op-ed, Jim Borland, the "special adviser for health IT at the Social Security Administration," and Greg Pace, the agency’s deputy chief information officer, note that the SSA has "worked with the Veterans Health Administration for many years to speed the flow of their electronic medical records to our disability examiners." The authors add, "We have learned in our successful use of health IT that targeted investments in technology, consensus standards, strong partnerships and results-oriented goals can produce measurable success. When you extend that formula to a $19 billion investment," as the President and Congress have done with Recovery Act funds, "substantial improvements" in US health and healthcare "become achievable."