Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

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From the VA:

Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

1. VA Approves Funding For Therapeutic Homeless Facility In West LA. According to the Los Angeles Times (6/29, Groves, 776K), the Department of Veterans Affairs has “approved $20 million in funding to convert a little-used building at the West Los Angeles VA campus into therapeutic housing for chronically homeless veterans – a plan that has been years in the making.” After noting that the “action was jointly announced Monday” by US Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), US Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), and Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the Times adds, “At a June 16 meeting in Washington,” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki “committed $20 million in funding to renovate and rehabilitate Building 209” for the therapeutic housing project. The AP (6/29) runs a similar story, while KBFX-TV Bakersfield, CA (6/28, 10:12 p.m. PT) aired a similar report.
The website for KPCC-FM Pasadena, CA (6/28), meanwhile, reported, “Shinseki also agreed to work with Feinstein and Waxman to identify funds to renovate two other buildings on the campus for veteran housing, according” to Sen. Feinstein’s office, “which reported that Los Angeles County has about 6,540 homeless veterans, one of the largest populations in the nation.”

2. New Hampshire Officials Planning To End Veteran Homelessness By 2014. The AP (6/29) reports, “New Hampshire officials say they can end homelessness among veterans by 2014 with a plan that emphasizes that there is ‘no wrong door’ for veterans seeking help.” Last year, the “state created a committee…to improve collaboration among the state health and human services department, community groups and the VA medical centers in Manchester and White River Junction, Vt. It released a plan Monday outlining nearly dozen goals, including increasing awareness of existing resources, improving substance abuse treatment options, and giving veterans preference when applying” for subsidized housing.

3. Ground To Be Broken This Summer On State Vets Cemetery In Texas. The AP (6/29) reports, “The Corpus Christi area” in Texas “is getting a state veterans cemetery. Groundbreaking is planned Wednesday for the Coastal Bend State Veterans Cemetery.” Construction, which is “expected to take about 18 months,” is “funded by the US Department of Veterans Affairs.”
However, an update on this story appearing in the Corpus Christi (TX) Caller Times (6/29, Savage, 57K) says the groundbreaking “has been postponed until next month because of rains expected later in the week from Tropical Storm Alex.” The “event, originally scheduled for Wednesday, has been rescheduled for 10 a.m. July 23.”

4. VA Project Among IT Upgrades Halted By Administration. The “Federal Eye” blog for the Washington Post (6/29, O’Keefe, 684K) reports, “The Obama administration is putting the brakes on upgrades to about 30 major information technology projects, a decision that impacts about $20 billion in government spending.” White House Budget Director Peter Orszag “ordered the moratorium Monday and said the upgrades can’t continue until agencies present plans to complete them on time and on budget.” Orszag “cited the Department of Veterans Affairs, which spent about $300 million in the past decade trying to build two” failed financial systems, a point also made by Politico (5/29, Romm, Hart, 25K).

5. UN Launches Agent Orange Clean Up Project. The AP (6/29) reports, “The United Nations has launched a $5 million project to clean up Agent Orange contamination at a former US military air base in Vietnam, the world body said Tuesday. The project will focus on dioxin contamination at Bien Hoa airport,” one of “three former American air bases where US forces mixed, stored and loaded the defoliant onto planes for spraying missions during the Vietnam War.” The AP adds, “The Agent Orange issue remains the most contentious legacy between Vietnam and the US since the war ended 35 years ago.”

6. Memo Calls For DOD To Develop Concussion Tracking Systems. NextGov (6/26, Brewin) reported, “Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III” recently “issued a memo…calling for the Defense Department to develop systems that would track soldiers who experience concussions on the battlefield and match them to specific events in combat in an effort to better treat them, a shortcoming that the department had been sharply criticized for not resolving.” Brain injuries “are one of the most common battlefield wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Lawmaker Meets With William Beaumont Army Medical Center Officials. In “The Two-Way” blog, NPR (6/29, Gura) reports, “Having heard ‘ Brain Wars: How The Military Is Failing Its Wounded,’ ProPublica and NPR’s investigative series on Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI),” US Rep. Harry Teague (D-NM), a member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, “met with officials from Fort Bliss and William Beaumont Army Medical Center over the weekend. According to the El Paso Times, on Sunday, Teague visited with soldiers and health care professionals at Mentis Neuro Rehabilitation.”
In its article, the El Paso Times (6/28, 73K) reported, “Teague said he recently learned from Col. James Baunchalk, the commander of Beaumont Army Medical Center, that the Defense Department has designated the military hospital as a level 2 facility for TBI. This means Fort Bliss only manages care for mild and moderate TBI cases,” so more “severe cases are referred to other programs. Teague said military officials told him the hospital’s main challenge for TBI is recruiting and retaining qualified medical professionals.”

7. Virtual Reality Used To Treat PTSD. Writer Tom Matlack, a former “venture capitalist,” points out on the Huffington Post (6/28) that gamers “in their twenties have taken center stage in the war on terror,” controlling drone airplanes, monitoring “enemy conversations on the web,” and communicating “directly with troops on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Matlack, who says gamer skills also “have a key role to play” in healing combat vets suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, adds that “doctors are perfecting the use of virtual reality to re-create the trauma that many soldiers can’t access on their own but still plagues their civilian lives.”

8. Doctor Notes How Many US Physicians Have Had VA Training. While being interviewed by the La Grange (IL) Suburban Life (6/29, Sinopoli), Dr. Margaret Baumann of the Hines Veterans Affairs Medical Center notes the influence that VA has had on training US physicians, thanks to what Baumann called a “very bold move…made by Chicago physician Paul Magnuson,” the “medical person in charge of the whole VA” as World War II was ending. According to Baumann, because of what Magnuson, who “added this whole academic affiliation to bring…VA to the cutting edge of treatment for every medical area in 1946,” did, it is “now estimated that 60 percent of all physicians in the US have had some training with…VA.” Baumann went on to say that VA has “made tremendous strides in medical knowledge, in part because” of its “commitment to research.”

9. WWII Vet Honored. ABC World News (6/28, story 10, 1:40, Sawyer, 8.2M) broadcast that US veteran Robert Bearden, who on June 6th, 1944, landed on the “beaches of Normandy, D-Day,” recently received 13 medals, “including the Purple Heart,” for all he did once he landed. According to ABC, after landing, Bearden “was shot and then wounded by a grenade, but he kept fighting for four days before being captured by enemy forces.”
Local Officials Vote For Removal Of Stalin Bust At National D-Day Memorial. The Roanoke (VA) Times (6/29, Bowman) reports, “The National D-Day Memorial Foundation” in Bedford, Virginia, which is “under fire for placing a bust of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin at the memorial, faced more criticism Monday when the Bedford County Board of Supervisors voted to ask the foundation to get rid of the bust.” The “board’s action comes a week after” US Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) “told the foundation that he also does not support keeping the Stalin bust.” The websites for WSET-TV (6/28) and WDBJ-TV (6/28) in Roanoke, Virginia, both published similar stories.
Vet Says Bust Protest Cost Him His Job As A Memorial Volunteer. The WSLS-TV Roanoke, VA (6/28, Hatcher) website said veteran Robert Lindell, a National D-Day Memorial volunteer, “claims he was let go after protesting the…Stalin bust.” New “memorial foundation president Robin Reed,” whose “first day on the job” was Monday, “won’t discuss the situation, calling it a personnel matter.”

 

10. Lebanon VAMC Offering Medical Foster Home Program. The Lebanon (PA) Daily News (6/29, Gillhoolley, 19K) reports that through the Lebanon Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 75-year-old Korean War veteran Marty Ginder “enrolled in the Medical Foster Home program, an alternative to nursing-home placement.” After noting Ginder’s praise for the program, the Daily News adds, “Lebanon is the only VA Medical Center in Pennsylvania that currently offers the Medical Foster Care program, and they’re looking for caregivers in Lebanon County, according to Teresa Stump-Klinger, program coordinator.”

 

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