Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

From the VA:

1.      VA Expands Presumptive Illnesses List For Vets From Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan. In continuing coverage, the Hinesville, Georgia-based Coastal Courier (10/5) reports, “Veterans of the first Gulf War as well as current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan now have a smoother path toward receiving health-care benefits and disability compensation for nine diseases associated with their military service, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced” recently. A final regulation published in the Federal Register “relieves veterans of the burden of proving these diseases are service-related: brucellosis, campylobacter jejuni, coxiella burnetii, malaria, mycobacterium tuberculosis, nontyphoid salmonella, shigella, visceral leishmaniasis and west Nile virus.” The VA Secretary, who “added the new presumptions after reviewing a 2006 National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine report on the long-term health effects of certain diseases suffered among Gulf War” vets, “also extended the presumptions” to Iraq and Afghanistan vets.

 2.      Name Approved For New Vets Home In Alabama. According to the Montgomery (AL) Advertiser (10/4, Rowell, 37K) said the “state’s newest veterans home in Pell City now has a name. The State Board of Veterans Affairs approved Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home as the name.” A groundbreaking ceremony for the home, which will be paid for in part by US VA funds, “has been tentatively set for Nov. 30.”

 3.      Stand Down Event Held In California. The Eureka (CA) Times-Standard (10/4, Drange) reports, “An estimated 300 veterans turned out” for the “fifth annual North Coast Stand Down in Ferndale over the weekend. Started in 2000 by a pair of veterans, the Stand Down is a national organization aimed at providing services to veterans, including dental work, counseling, resume workshops and free food and clothing.” The event in Ferndale was “organized by the Redwood Veterans Center.” The Contra Costa Times (CA, 175K) (10/4) publishes the same story.

 4.      Pennsylvania Honors POWs. On its website, WHP-TV Harrisburg, PA (10/4, 16K) reported, “On Monday, members of the Pennsylvania National Guard, along with state lawmakers and family members of missing persons and prisoners of war, held a ceremony in the state capitol.” Last week, a “tree and memorial marker was put in place on state capitol grounds…to remember those military personnel.”

 5.      New Jersey Mission Of Honor Buries Three Vets’ Remains. The Bergen (NJ) Record (10/5, Ax, 161K) reports, “Three Bergen County veterans whose cremated remains had sat unclaimed for decades in a funeral home were finally buried Monday, joining dozens of others that have been similarly honored in recent months” by the “New Jersey Mission of Honor – a veterans group empowered by a new state law” in New Jersey to “remove abandoned remains of veterans from funeral homes and bury them properly.”

6.      Supreme Court Will Not Hear Claims Processing Case Brought By Vets Groups. In its “Liveshots” blog, the Fox News (10/4, Ross) website reported, “Two veterans groups lost in their effort to have the Supreme Court force bureaucrats in the Department of Veterans Affairs to move more swiftly in processing claims, as the Supreme Court announced Monday they will not hear a case challenging a supposed lack of brevity from the government.” Lower courts had “ruled against” a case brought by the “Vietnam Veterans of America and the Veterans of Modern Warfare,” which “allege that…VA takes far too long to process claims made by its members and for all veterans.”

 7.      Some Advocates Disappointed By Omnibus Veterans Bill. In continuing coverage, the current issue of the Army Times (10/11, Maze, 104K) reports, “An omnibus bill containing two years’ worth of ideas to improve veterans disability, insurance and employment benefits passed Congress” last week, “just as lawmakers fled Washington for a six-week election break. While there is plenty in the bill that would help veterans, some advocates are disappointed by what’s missing.” The Times adds, “Particularly disappointing” to one advocacy group, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, is the “failure of Congress to pass a bill making improvements in the Post-9/11 GI Bill, despite the backing of more than 140 co-sponsors and wide support among veterans groups and the Veterans Affairs Department over details.”

 8.      VA Planning Test Of Thin-Client Computers. Government Computer News (10/5, Hardy) reports, “The Veterans Affairs Department is planning a new test of thin-client computers to lower costs and improve security, adding to the thousands of thin clients the agency already uses. The department wants to field 20,000 so-called ‘dumb terminals’ in six hospitals and 29 clinics, reports Bob Brewin in NextGov.” After noting that with thin-client computers, the “computing power and data storage is in a remote server that multiple terminals connect to,” GCN adds, “VA wants white papers from vendors for the planned thin-client expansion by Oct. 22, Brewin writes.”

 9.      Fort Hood Deaths Part Of “Alarming Surge” In Military Suicides In Texas. In continuing coverage, the Houston Chronicle (Wise, Wang, 363K) noted that four US soldiers stationed at Fort Hood — all of whom had “served combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan” — recently took their own lives. Their deaths at the “sprawling Army base are part of an alarming surge in suicides among young active-duty military personnel, reservists and veterans in Texas. A Houston Chronicle analysis of the state’s vital statistics found that suicides among Texans younger than 35 who had served in the military jumped from 47 in 2006 to 66 in 2009 – an increase of 40 percent.” In a related story, the current issue of the Army Times (10/11, 104K) reports, “In the wake of a spike in suicides” at Fort Hood, its “senior officer has ordered a basewide effort to check on each and every soldier.”

10.    Best Friends Buried Next To Each Other At Arlington National Cemetery. NBC Nightly News (10/4, story 12, 2:45, Williams, 8.37M) broadcast that on Monday, Navy SEAL Brendan Looney, killed two weeks ago in a helicopter cash in Afghanistan, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Looney was “laid to rest beside his best friend, Marine Lieutenant Travis Manion,” who was “tragically cut down by a sniper three years ago” in Iraq. The CBS Evening News (10/4, story 7, 2:45, Couric, 6.1M) aired a similar report, and offered coverage of this story on its website.
     This story was also noted by the AP (10/2, Jones) and the Doylestown (PA) Intelligencer (10/3, Weckselblatt, 35K), which pointed out that Travis Manion’s “remains were removed Friday from Calvary Cemetery in West Conshohocken, where they have been for three years, and taken to Arlington to fulfill his wish to be buried there. The move was inspired following the tragic death” of 29-year-old Looney, who perished “just two weeks before he was scheduled to conclude his military career.”
     Motorcyclists Try To Drown Out Westboro Baptist Protestors. The Washington Post (10/5, Ruane, 605K) reports, “A group of motorcyclists staged a counter-demonstration Monday at the Arlington National Cemetery burial” of Looney, “parking motorcycles and revving engines to oppose a protest by members of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas.” Members of the church, “who often demonstrate at military funerals, are the subjects of a Supreme Court case that seeks to decide whether they have a right under the Constitution to stage such inflammatory demonstrations. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case Wednesday.”