Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

Veterans!  Here’s your Top 10 News stories of the day compiled from the latest sources

We encourage you to browse our list so that you can take what you want and keep what you need

1. Minnesota town duped by woman’s story of military service.

2. More Marines now eligible to receive Purple Heart for TBI.  It’s no longer necessary for Marines suffering from mild traumatic brain injuries to have been knocked unconscious to qualify for a Purple Heart, a retroactive change that could affect thousands of troops who have served in battle since Sept. 11, 2001.

3. Pendleton Marines turn the tide in the ‘Fallujah of Afghanistan’ .  Even by Marine Corps standards and the long history of one of its most decorated battalions, the Afghanistan tour for Camp Pendleton’s 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which ended this month, was brutal.

4. Carter says hopes to meet North Korea leader and son.

5. Man overpowered trying to hijack Alitalia flight.

6. Letters: Pensions defended, homeless veterans, Gaza and Israel.  San Diego Union Tribune  The US Department of Veterans Affairs does a commendable job meeting the health needs of thousands of veterans. The high cost of everything, from food to housing, is a task that is too complex and demanding for veterans struggling to cope with the …

7. Houston Organization Recruits Record Number of Women Veterans for Entrepreneurship Conference.  The WVBC recruited over 60 Women Veteran Entrepreners to attend the V-WISE Conferenc in San Antonio TX The Women Veterans Business Center has recruited over 60 (Sixty) Women Veterans from Houston and surrounding cities to attend the first Veteran- Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship Conference (V-WISE). The Conference is for  Women…

8. ONB breakfast to discuss fed projects.  Birmingham Business Journal  Operation New Birmingham said it will hold its April breakfast briefing Thursday morning in downtown to discuss prospects for locating more federal offices in downtown, including a new US Department of Veterans Affairs clinic and offices for the US …

9. VA Dedicates Wind Turbine At National Cemetery.  North American Windpower  The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has dedicated a new 50 kW wind turbine at the Massachusetts National Cemetery. The 120-foot-tall structure is projected to produce up to 95% of the cemetery’s annual …

10. Room for improvement in quality of diabetes care provided to US veterans. aidsmap  The quality of diabetes care provided to HIV-positive patients is good, but there is room for improvement, investigators from the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs report in the May edition of AIDS Patient Care and STDs. …

HAVE YOU HEARD?

NRD Launches Mobile Site

Wounded Warriors, Veterans, Service Members and their families can now connect to the National Resource Directory on their mobile device. Enter NRD.gov in the browser for access to thousands of resources!

IN OTHER NEWS

• Voice of the Free Press: Veterans have earned long-term support.  vt.Buzz (blog)  Just one set of statistics shows many veterans face ongoing challenges long after they have completed their service, and reinforce the importance of long-term support. The US Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center on Homelessness Among …

• San Diego a haven for homeless veterans.  San Diego Union Tribune  As part of a landmark 2009 initiative to end homelessness among veterans by 2015, the US Department of Veterans Affairs is offering new programs and claims to have cut the number of veterans on the streets by almost half in two years. …

• Man walks across US to highlight PTSD care in military.  Statesman Journal  He quotes a statistic reported a year ago in the Army Times: Of veterans under care of the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, there are 950 attempted suicides per month. Suicides by veterans average 18 per day, five by veterans receiving VA care. …

• Homeless Veterans On Rise In San Diego. San Diego Union-Tribune “An estimated 2,200 veterans were homeless in San Diego County in 2010, about 400 more than two years before.” Officials with Veterans Affairs “expect that figure to jump again in future counts, as the population of homeless increases overall in the county.” But on a national basis, VA “claims it is ahead of schedule” to end veteran homelessness in 2014, a goal that was been talked about by VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in a “March speech to the American Legion.”

• VA Better At Treating Minorities But Outcomes Still Lag, Study Says. Providence (RI) Journal “In the past decade, the Department of Veterans Affairs health-care system has made good progress in providing screenings and treating high-risk conditions for all its patients, closing the gaps in care between white and African-American enrollees, a new study says.” The same study, however, “shows that significant differences still persist between black and white veterans when it comes to outcomes in heart disease, diabetes and hypertension.” The study, which “says more research is needed to understand the reasons for differences in clinical” outcomes.

• Army Telebehavioral Project Broadens Access To Mental Health Care. NextGov “A pilot telebehavioral mental health project the Army is running in Afghanistan has widened access to treatment, with both patients and providers reporting satisfaction with the system, according to Maj. Sebastian Schnellbacher, the 101st Airborne Division’s psychiatrist, who spoke in March at the Armed Forces Public Health Conference in Hampton, Va.” The Army’s “experience thus far with the Afghanistan project in many ways reflects results of a three-year program run by Peter Tuerk, a psychologist at the Charleston, S.C., VA Medical Center, who has used videoconferencing systems to conduct prolonged exposure therapy sessions with veterans who cannot make it to the hospital for face-to-face counseling.

• VFW Starts To Cater To Female Vets. USA Today Most of the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ “7,500 posts filled with retired men.” Last July, however, the “nation’s only VFW post targeting the needs of women” was launched. Today, VFW Post 12097 in Buffalo, New York, has “49 members, 40 of them women.”

• Morris Twp. Company Makes Gifts To Help Veterans Re-Enter Work Force. Bergen (NJ) Record “As part of the company’s goal of enhancing the quality of life for others, Actavis Inc. recently applied its human resources expertise to helping veterans transition back into the civilian work force. As the ‘team-building’ portion of the company human resources leadership team’s first retreat of the year, Brenda Vesey, vice president of human resources, arranged for more than 18 Actavis employees to make gifts designed to assist veterans’ transition to the work force.” To “prepare for the program, Caring Capital president Susie Schub sought advice on useful gifts from staff at the Veterans Administration New Jersey Health Care System in Lyons as well as from HR executives leading career transition programs for veterans through Society for Human Resource Management-Morris County.”

• Getting The Star Treatment. Augusta (GA) Chronicle On Thursday, the 319th Transportation Company Vietnam Veterans dinner raised money for the Wounded Warrior Care Project. On of those in attendance at the event was Mike Dickerson, who has received care at the Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s “‘Active Duty Rehab’ unit — an intensive, one-of-a-kind facility that is helping wounded troops get back on their feet, flesh and bone or otherwise.” The Chronicle praises Dickerson and the dinners keynote speaker — actor Gary Sinise, who is a “tireless advocate and friend to US veterans and active-duty troops all over the world.”

• Veterans Invited To Special Event In Bartow. Lakeland (FL) Ledger “Local armed forces veterans and their families are invited to participate in a special event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday at the Stuart Center, 1710 US 17 S. ‘Veterans Connect’ is a joint program by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs and the Florida Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles, in cooperation with the Polk County Veterans Service Office.” The James A. Haley Veterans Hospital’s Mobile Outreach Clinic “will be on-site offering a variety of medical services” at the event, which, among other things, will include presentations on services that are “available to veterans and their families.”

• Tree City Quilters Guild To Benefit Fisher House Foundation. Gainesville (FL) Sun “The Tree City Quilters Guild seventh biennial quilt show will take on a patriotic theme this year” for “Salute America, a Patchwork of Quilts.” The event will “include a judging on Tuesday and quilt show on Saturday and Sunday at the Best Western Gateway Grand Hotel.” The Sun adds, “The Tree City Quilters Guild will donate a portion of the proceeds and three quilts that will be on display at the show to the Fisher House, a not-for-profit organization that provides housing for families of members of the Armed Forces, military retirees and veterans who are receiving treatment at the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, said publicity chairwoman Melanie Jensen.”

• 2011 STAR AWARDS: UAW Retirees Recognized For Work With Hospitalized Veterans. Kalamazoo Gazette Dick Knowlton “and some other workers from the former General Motors Corp. Stamping Plant” have been “chosen as recipients of a 2011 STAR Award.” According to the Gazette, some United Auto Workers 488 members at the plant formed a Veterans Committee that approached the Veterans Affairs hospital “in Battle Creek, and the result was a partnership in which the volunteers work with the patients and greet visitors at the hospital.”

• Vietnam Vet Fighting VA Rules To Get Tombstone Changed. News of Cumberland County

• Hospitals Drowning In Noise. Chicago Tribune “Worldwide, the sound levels inside hospitals average 72 decibels during the day and 60 decibels at night – far exceeding the standard of 40 decibels or less, set by the World Health Organization.” But helping “health officials rethink hospital safety and design” is the Healthcare Acoustics Research Team (HART), an “unusual collaboration of experts with experience in acoustics, engineering, architecture and psychology and medicine.” Diana Pope, a “nursing research scientist for the Department of Veterans Affairs at the Portland Medical Center in Oregon,” is a HART researcher.

• Group Works To Give Veterans Proper Burials. Stars And Stripes The cremated remains of Arthur Uffman, who joined the US Army in January 1941, and his wife, were left on a shelf in an Arizona funeral “for more than 16 years.” Yesterday, however, the “Uffmans was interred with eight other veterans whose remains were mistakenly left in the same funeral home, along with the remains of nine veterans who died in recent months in the Tuscon area.