Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

1.      Veteran-Owned Small Businesses Now Must Prove Their Status.  In continuing coverage, Government Executive (1/5, Brodsky) reports, “Small or veteran-owned businesses now must provide the Veterans Affairs Department with documentation proving their status before being considered for priority set-aside contracts, VA announced on Monday. The rule change, which implements a provision in the 2010 Veterans Benefits Act,” is VA’s “latest effort to prevent unqualified firms from winning small business awards. ‘VA is committed to doing business with, as well as supporting and protecting, veteran-owned small businesses,’ Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki said” in commenting on the change. Washington Technology (1/5, Weigelt) publishes a similar story.

2.      VA Will Expand Device Monitoring In 2011.  Government Health IT (1/5, Mosquera) reports, “The Veterans Affairs Department, which has had a number of embarrassing security and privacy breaches in the past few years, in 2011 will expand visibility into activities on its network beyond personal computers to include printers and other devices that are connected to it. VA will also reduce the number of unencrypted laptops this year as it continue to replace aging computers with new ones that can support the security application, said” VA CIO Roger Baker “in a recent information security briefing with reporters.”

 3.      Firm At Camden Business Incubator Wins $721K US Grant.  In continuing coverage, the Cherry Hill (NJ) Courier Post (1/5, Desai) says “medical software company mVisum, Inc.,” a “company at the Rutgers business incubator,” has “won a federal grant, and the center is hailing the award as proof of its success.” The company “received a $721,000 grant” from the US Department of Veterans Affairs to “expand a communications tool that allows doctors to securely send and receive patient data on smartphones. The award is one of the largest received by a company housed at the incubator, said Greg Gamble, CEO of the Rutgers-Camden Technology Center.”

 4.      Fisher House Program Still Growing After 20 Years.  The American Forces Press Service (1/5, Miles) says the “Fisher House Foundation isn’t basking in past achievements as it prepares to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the opening of its first home on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center” in Bethesda, Maryland. As the “first military families move this week into one of three new Fisher Houses just across the street from the original, the foundation is moving full steam ahead on nine more being built nationwide, many to be completed by the year’s end.” Currently, there are “53 Fisher Houses” on the “grounds of dozens of major military and Veterans Affairs medical facilities in the United States and in Landstuhl, Germany.”

 5.      Fort Detrick Cancer Cases To Be Studied.  In a story run by at least 46 publications, the AP (1/5) reports, “Maryland public health officials say certain cancers appear to occur at younger ages among people living near Fort Detrick in Frederick than in people statewide.” On Monday, “Clifford Mitchell of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said…that investigators will probe deeper into the discrepancies involving liver, bone and endocrine cancers.” The “investigation reflects concerns about Agent Orange testing and industrial chemical dumping at Fort Detrick decades ago.”
     WJLA-TV Washington, DC (1/4, 7:28 a.m. ET) broadcast that while the US Army “says there is no evidence” of it, there “has been more talk about a possible cancer clustered near Fort Detrick. A state official looking at the issue says more research is needed, but one group says hundreds of people near the post have battled or died from cancers related to…Agent Orange exposure.”

6.      Study Of Guard Soldiers Shows Effects Of Mild Brain Injury Fade Over Time.  In continuing coverage, Minnesota Public Radio (1/5, Mador) notes, “Results from an ongoing survey of Minnesota National Guard troops conducted by researchers” at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center “show that most cases of mild brain injury or concussion are likely to fade over time,” which “could be good news for the thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans believed to have suffered” TBIs during combat. After noting that the survey was “published in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry,” Minnesota Public Radio points out that in commenting on the survey, Minneapolis VAMC psychologist Melissa Polusny “says…it shows that some service members may be attributing their symptoms to brain injury when they could really be caused by PTSD.” Polusny “says she hopes these findings on mild TBI could help more service members get appropriate treatment.”
     Researcher Looking For PTSD Symptoms That Increase Vets’ Suicide Risk. According to the Austin (TX) American-Statesman (1/4, Schwartz), a Texas A&M University researcher named Edgar Villarreal is “mining a unique database in hopes of helping clinicians identify the symptoms” of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) “that increase the risk of suicide among combat veterans.” Timothy Elliot, a “professor of counseling psychology who is working with Villarreal on the project, said the influx of new veterans into the VA system is spurring researchers and clinicians to look at new ways to help. ‘The Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense are working to integrate best practices and protocols related to how we treat health problems and how we study them,’ he said in a statement.”
     Afghanistan Vet With PTSD Pleased By VA Outreach Effort In Colorado. According to the KKCO-TV Colorado Springs, CO (1/4, Asmuth) website, Veterans Affairs is “taking action to reach veterans who are often out of touch” with the agency’s services. For the “past six months,” VA has sent “outreach specialist Barbara Martinez across the state” of Colorado “with a mobile office.” KKCO discussed the outreach effort with 25-year-old Afghanistan vet Sean Otto, who has PTSD and says, “Barbara seems to be very helpful.”
     Iraq Vet Frustrated By College’s Psychological Evaluation Requests. The Baltimore Sun (1/5, Walker) notes that Iraq veteran Charles Whittington, who was “barred from the Community College of Baltimore County after publishing a provocative essay” on killing, “says he no longer wants to return to the Catonsville campus” because he is fed up with requests made by the school, which has been provided with a VA psychological progress report from May. The Sun adds, however, that the school wants a more recent evaluation and says it thought that had been made clear to Whittington.

7.      Cops Try To Trace Slain Consultant’s Last Days.  In continuing coverage, an AP (1/5, Chase) story run by at least 128 publications reports, “Police trying to piece together the last days of…slain national defense consultant” John Wheeler III “said Tuesday he was seen alive in downtown Wilmington less than 24 hours before he was found dead in a load of trash at a landfill.” A “tipster told police Wheeler was seen alive…near a downtown intersection” that, according to the AP, is “about six blocks” away “from the office of an attorney who was representing Wheeler and his wife in a property dispute, and about a mile from the Amtrak station Wheeler was known to use for trips” to Washington, DC. Wheeler, a 66-year-old veteran “who had a home about 7 miles from Wilmington in New Castle,” Delaware, “served three Republican presidents and helped to get Vietnam Veterans Memorial built in Washington.” The Wall Street Journal (1/5, El-Ghobashy, Gardiner, 2.09M) and the Wilmington (DE) News Journal (1/5, Livengood) both say Wheeler was a Vietnam vet.
     An AP (1/5) story appearing in at least 12 news sources reports, “Whoever dumped” Wheeler’s body “into a garbage bin in a bustling college town risked being detected, either by witnesses or surveillance cameras, with some of the containers in well-lit parking lots, near restaurants and stores. Police don’t know which of the 10 bins collected on New Year’s Eve in Newark contained the body of…Wheeler,” who was “last seen alive the afternoon before some 15 miles away in downtown Wilmington. Where he might have been killed and what he was doing on the days leading up to his death also remain elusive, said Newark police spokesman Lt. Mark Farrall.”
     ABC’s Good Morning America (1/4, 8:02 a.m. ET) broadcast, “Police say they have no suspects or no motive” for Wheeler’s murder. ABC added, however, that there is one “possible lead: Neighbors says Wheeler and his wife had been involved in a battle with the owner of a house under construction that was blocking their view.”
     The Philadelphia Inquirer (1/5, Shiffman, Shea) reports, “Police in Delaware have discovered evidence that a former Pentagon aide may have been involved in an attempted arson days before his murder, a law enforcement source has told The Inquirer. Police found evidence linking John Parsons Wheeler…to devices planted at the New Castle home of a neighbor with whom he had been feuding, said” a source “who is close to the investigation.” After noting that the “feud was over the size of the neighbor’s house, which was under construction in the city’s historic district,” the Inquirer adds, “The source emphasized that the evidence does not shed light on the murder itself, but it has helped detectives understand Wheeler’s state of mind before he disappeared.”
 FBI Consulting With Police On Investigation. MSNBC Live (1/4, 11:34 a.m. ET, 1.39M) also aired a report updating the status of the Wheeler murder investigation, as did CNN Newsroom (1/4, 2:01 p.m. ET), which noted that the “FBI is consulting” with the “Newark Police Department” on the investigation.
     CNN’s Parker Spitzer (1/4, 8:50 p.m. ET) aired an interview with Richard Radez, who “met…Wheeler at West Point, worked with him in Vietnam, at the Pentagon, and on the war memorial.” Radez told CNN his suspicion is that Wheeler was the victim of a random act of violence.
     Chris O’Connell of WTXF-TV in Philadelphia offered more information about Wheeler, telling Fox’s On The Record (1/4, 10:22 p.m. ET) that the vet was “always taking on causes and working on causes. His latest cause,” with the “Department of Veterans Affairs, was trying to get the ROTC program back into some of the elite Ivy League colleges.”
     NPR’s All Things Considered (1/4) aired an interview with “Atlantic Monthly” writer James Fallows, who “was a long-time friend of …Wheeler.” According to Fallows, one of the “great themes through” Wheeler’s “adult life was… alleviating” the “aftereffects of Vietnam…for the military and for the whole, you know, civic society, too.”

 8.      Judges Rule Cross At Calif. Park Unconstitutional.  An AP (1/5, Watson) story appearing in at least 80 publications reports, “A war memorial cross in a San Diego public park is unconstitutional because it conveys a message of government endorsement of religion, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a two decade old case.” The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals “issued the unanimous decision in the dispute over the 29-foot cross, which was dedicated in 1954 in honor of Korean War veterans.” A US Justice Department spokesman “said the federal government, which is defending the…cross, is studying the ruling and had no comment.” The New York Times (1/5, 1.01M) runs a similar version of the AP story in its “National Briefing/West,” while at least 62 publications carry a Reuters (1/5) article on the cross ruling.
     Fox News’ Studio B (1/4, 3:41 p.m. ET) broadcast that the “ruling does not order the cross be removed. Rather, saying…quote, ‘The result does not mean the memorial could not be modified to pass constitutional muster nor does it mean that no cross can be part of a veteran’s memorial. We take no positions on those issues.'” The Los Angeles Times (1/5, Perry, Saad, 681K) points out that the ruling “did not suggest methods in which the Latin cross and surrounding property could be reconfigured.” According to the Washington Times (1/5, Richardson, 77K), the court ruled that the cross “violated the California Constitution’s ‘no preference’ clause by elevating one religion over all others.” The websites for CNN (1/4) and ABC News (1/4, de Vogue), as well as the San Diego Union-Tribune (1/5, Moran, 264K) and the Courthouse News Service (1/5, Hull) also cover this story.

9.      Keeping Ailing Veterans At Home.  The Bergen (NJ) Record (1/4, Layton, 161K) said Paul Auerbach, a 60-year-old Vietnam vet who “lost his legs to a bone marrow disorder that he believes is related to Agent Orange exposure,” is “one of 51” New Jersey veterans participating in Veterans Directed Home and Community Based Services, a program that “helps veterans at risk of nursing home placement stay at home. The program…has been so successful that the federal government is expanding it to 28 states next year, state health officials said.”

10.    “Fed Up” 82-Year-Old Held Alleged Thieves At Gunpoint.  The Wilmington (DE) News Journal (1/5, Brown) says 82-year-old veteran Joe Harper, who has “diabetes and leukemia, says” that while he does not agree, people “keep telling” him he is a hero for shooting “out a tire on a pickup truck loaded with stuff allegedly stolen at his house.” After Harper “held two men at gunpoint” until New Castle County police arrived, William G. Rafter and Mark Sturgill were “charged with felony theft and conspiracy.” Harper “said he hopes not to be a victim again, adding, ‘I’m fed up with all this thievin’.”