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. Renovations At Holyoke Soldiers Home.  WAMC  A one million dollar grant from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and 600 thousand dollars from the state is paying to replace all the windows in the Holyoke Soldiers Home. It will make the building, which opened in 1952, more energy efficient. …
2. Manchin rep to meet with veterans.  Keyser Mineral Daily News Tribune  Representatives from the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the West Virginia Division of Veterans Affairs will be on-hand to deliver presentations and take questions from veterans in attendance at meetings that will take place this Wednesday, …
3. Talk about Clyde: Volunteer continues work honoring veterans’ graves.  Fremont News Messenger  This spring, he voluntarily went through Townsend, York, Riley and Green Creek Township cemeteries to verify the veterans’ grave sites with the VA veteran and flag list. This summer, he plans to walk the three cemeteries in Ballville Township to see if …
4. SAIC Awarded $10 Million Contract By General Services Administration.  Sacramento Bee  … today it was awarded a prime contract by the General Services Administration (GSA) to provide information technology (IT) strategy and support services to the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Information & Technology (OI&T). …
5. Duckworth not considering run for Hawaii posts.  Honolulu Star-Advertiser  When another Illinois transplant from Hawaii, Barack Obama, became president, Obama appointed Duckworth assistant secretary of public and intergovernmental affairs for the US Department of Veterans Affairs. It is as a VA assistant secretary that …
6. VA officials encourage local veterans to report issues, concerns.  Bluefield Daily Telegraph  Veterans with questions, comments or concerns can contact the Beckley VA Hospital’s patient representative at 304-255-2121 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 304-255-2121 end_of_the_skype_highlighting , extension 4239. The US Department of Veterans Affairs and West Virginia Division of Veteran’s Affairs are partnering with the …
7. VA Secretary Learns What “Rural” Means For Alaska Veterans. Anchorage Daily News “The nation’s top official for veterans affairs told reporters in Anchorage on Memorial Day that his agency can and must do a better job of reaching military veterans.” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, in Alaska at the invitation of Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), “spoke to a crowd of hundreds Monday at Fort Richardson National Cemetery.” He also took time to answer some questions from reporters, telling them, among other things, that VA thinks “telehealth, telemedicine — the power of that microprocessor — is likely to be the next major health care delivery change in this century. And we will see more of that. We’ve invested the last two years about $284 million in telehealth technologies so that we can connect a specialist wherever they are in our system, whether it’s in San Francisco or here in Anchorage, with a veteran who is in a remote village.”
8. Pentagon, VA To Combine Health Data. Honolulu Star-Advertiser “Merging the medical records of active-duty US military personnel and veterans into a single computerized health system from enlistment to death will make it easier for them and their families to get help, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said Friday in Honolulu. The Kauai-born Shinseki, in Honolulu to kick off the National Veterans Golden Age Games sponsored by the VA, said he and Defense Secretary Robert Gates” are now “committed to going to a single, common joint platform for electronic health records, and I’m very pleased, as I know (Gates) is, that we’ve been able to arrive at this point.” The Star-Advertiser added, “After visiting Friday with veterans at the games at the lawn behind the Hale Koa Hotel, Shinseki traveled to Kalaeloa, where he toured the US Vets Center for the homeless and at-risk with Gov. Neil Abercrombie and state homeless coordinator Marc Alexander. Shinseki reiterated his department’s goal of ending homelessness of veterans by 2015 and said Abercrombie’s initiatives for addressing homeless issues fall in with that plan.”
9. Profiles In Heritage: Eric K. Shinseki. DoD Live Eric Shinseki the subject of “‘Profiles in Heritage,’ a series honoring the diverse warriors, leaders, and others that have served in the United States Armed Forces over the years. May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage month, and this episode tells the story of…Shinseki, current Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and the highest-ranking Asian-American in military history.” He is a “wounded warrior, having suffered a major foot injury while serving in Vietnam, which helps him empathize with many of our nation’s wounded and disabled veterans.”
10. Formerly Homeless Woman Says US Government Must Do More For Its Vets. CNN Newsroom  Alicia Watkins, a formerly homeless Air Force veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. She told CNN that she returned from Afghanistan wounded and “fell through the cracks.” She urged the US government to talk to its returning veterans about what their needs are and to pay close attention to is wounded warriors until they are functioning in society.

Have you Heard?

Secretary Shinseki Talks Rural Health Care

While in Alaska to recognize Memorial Day, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki discussed the challenges of providing health care to rural Veterans, as well the bright future of telehealth. View video from Alaska station KTUU

 

More Veteran News

• Washing The Wall To Remember Vietnam Vets. Washington Post “The local chapter of the Boozefighters Motorcycle club, which counts many veterans among its members, cleans the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials twice a year as part of a tribute to their fallen brethren. They are among many veterans groups that volunteer their time to clean the memorials.” The Post added, “If you’d like to volunteer to help wash the Wall, contact the National Park Service at (202) 426-6841 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (202) 426-6841 end_of_the_skype_highlighting .”

• Acupuncture Offered As Treatment For Gulf War Vets. Boston Globe “Though scientists continue to debate how acupuncture works and whether it is effective beyond a placebo effect, military leaders have been embracing more of what they call ‘complementary’ therapies” for vets, including those who served in the Gulf War. Two years ago, the “Army surgeon genera…created a task force to look at how to improve pain management for military members. The resulting report dedicated an entire section to therapies such as yoga, acupuncture, and massage. The VA Boston Healthcare System began offering acupuncture for pain management several years ago.”

• VA Treating Many Vets For PTSD. CNN Newsroom The US Department of Veterans Affairs is “dealing with a lot of cases right now involving post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.” With women veterans, they “can experience PTSD after an assault or after sexual harassment, as well as after seeing someone, for example, get shot.” CNN said that when it comes to PTSD treatment, there are “different kinds of talk therapy and a variety of different kinds of drugs,” and now, there is also a smartphone “app that people can download…to try to keep track of their symptoms and communicate with their counselors.”

• Palo Alto VA Helping Troubled Vets Control Their Driving Habits. KGO-TV Occupational therapist Marc Samuels has a driver’s education program at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto for vets, who have “either…been in an accident” or whose families have reported that they are “driving aggressively.” One of those taking part in the program is Iraq veteran Victor Alcantar, a PTSD-afflicted veteran whose “driver’s training is only one part of a mental health treatment program that includes therapy.”

• Chiarelli: Study Of Long Deployments’ Impact On Soldiers’ Brains “Essential”. CNN’s State Of The Union  US Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who when asked if “suicide among those in the military and veterans combined is epidemic,” said that for “every one of those individuals who commits suicide, there’s a whole bunch of folks who will never, ever consider committing suicide that are hurting. And that’s why I think it is absolutely essential that we study and learn everything we can about the brain” and what effects long deployments are having on it. Chiarelli also said the US military needs more psychologists, although he stressed that this is a “national problem” existing outside the military as well.  “What we need is a focused effort on the research to get behind the causes and the remedies for post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury.” He added, “I want Congress to provide as much as they can to these research efforts.” But “I worry, given the fiscal situation, that some of the money that’s being used to do this critical research is going to dry up.”

• 2012 Appropriations – Military Construction-VA: End of BRAC Process Yields Easy Savings. CQ Weekly “Congress is expected to repeat the pattern set in the fiscal 2011 spending bill for military construction and the Veterans Affairs Department by increasing spending for veterans’ programs while saving money appropriators say won’t be needed for certain military construction projects.” According to CQ, a “draft Military Construction-VA spending bill for fiscal 2012 that the House Appropriations Committee approved last week by voice vote would provide $72.5 billion, $1.3 billion less than President Obama’s request and about $615 million less than the current year. Reductions in new appropriations would all come from military construction activities, particularly as a result of the conclusion of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process this September.”

• Legion Post Honors Fallen At Indiana Cemeteries. USA Today A traveling squadron from American Legion Post 118 as out in force Monday, paying tribute to fallen US soldiers at veterans cemeteries in Indiana. USA Today adds, “Since Memorial Day was moved to become part of a three-day weekend about 40 years ago, the change has undermined the true spirit of the holiday, says Joe Davis, national spokesman” for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

• War Widow Helping Children Of Fallen Soldiers. ABC World News  Marsha Boniface, who lost her husband when he was killed in the Korean War. Boniface now sews “tiny teddy bears” and delivers them to children of deceased US soldiers being “brought back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.” ABC noted that some of Boniface’s bears were delivered to Dover on Sunday.

• Children Of Fallen US Soldiers Say Experience Has Made Them More Compassionate. AP “More than 4,300 children of US troops killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are growing up, forging their own paths while keeping the connection to their mom or dad alive in ways ranging from annual backyard barbeques on the anniversary of the parent’s death to keeping a music box of his favorite song.” As “painful as their memories are, those interviewed at a camp for children of the fallen say the experience has made them more compassionate. The kids interviewed describe the annual ‘good grief’ camp organized by the nonprofit Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors every Memorial Day weekend as one outlet that’s allowed them to learn to work through their feelings, and many attend every year.”

• Despite Leaving Army For College, Giunta Will Stay Focused On Those Still Serving. CBS’ 60 Minutes  “When Sal Giunta received his Medal of Honor at the White House in November, it was an historic moment; he was the first living soldier to earn this award in a generation.” Giunta received the medal “for his actions during a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan, when he rescued a dying American soldier from enemy hands and saved his unit from being overrun.”

• Rieckhoff, Tetz Concerned About Many Challenges Faced by Veterans. CNN’s State Of The Union  Tim Tetz, legislative director of the American Legion, and Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who said the biggest problem veterans coming back from war face today is unemployment. But, Rieckhoff added, they also have education challenges and “serious healthcare challenges and this town in Washington hasn’t done enough,” which is why Rieckhoff says the American public needs to make a “constant and consistent commitment to this generation of warriors coming home.” Tetz added that “we can’t forget those who previously served…while we are trying to take care of the new veterans.”

• Glendale, California, VA Seeking To End Veteran Homelessness. CNN Newsroom Glendale, California, plans to find housing for all its homeless veterans within a year. CNN pointed out that the US Department of Veterans Affairs has made it a priority to end veteran homelessness within five years. One homeless vet profiled in CNN’s story is currently in “temporary VA housing.”

• Vet, VA Disagree On Help For Homeless Vets In Augusta, GA. Augusta (GA) Chronicle Difficulties faced by homeless vets in Augusta. Edward Smith, a vet profiled in the article, said the local VA hospital is “just not user-friendly.” But Robin Brown, the “acting public affairs officer for the VA, said in an e-mail that there are social workers trained to work with homeless veterans and assist them with their benefits.”

• Afghanistan War IEDs Cause Surge In Double Amputees Among US War Wounded. Huffington Post “American soldiers and Marines walking combat patrols in Afghanistan have suffered a surge of gruesome injuries, losing one or both legs and often their genitals to crude homemade bombs Taliban insurgents bury in dirt roads and pathways.” Wood adds that “the latest wave of severe injuries comes after Gen. David Petraeus ordered US troops in Afghanistan last year to get out of their protective armored vehicles and start walking.”

• Man Disabled In Iraq Helping Other Vets. CNN’s State Of The Union Disabled Iraq veteran Dale Beatty, the co-founder of Purple Heart Homes, which helps build handicap-accessible homes for disabled vets and which works with banks to help vets buy their own homes. Beatty says his group tries to help veterans whose “needs aren’t being met” by Veterans Affairs “because they don’t qualify for certain extra benefits, or their needs are not being met by…other nonprofit groups out there that are targeting Iraq and Afghanistan vets.” Beatty added that he thinks VA is “overwhelmed” by all the people it is trying to help. He said on “individual levels,” however, VA does “a lot of good things.”

• Federal Government Making Tech Upgrades. Washington Post “Federal government 2.0,” saying “flashy consumer products that have been adopted in the corporate workforce – upending BlackBerrys for iPhones, Microsoft Outlook for Gmail, and lately laptops for iPads – are now invading the federal government,” including Veterans Affairs. The Post notes that VA is “getting ready to allow its clinicians to choose an iPad or iPhone instead of a BlackBerry.” According to VA chief information officer Roger Baker, “not offering access to consumer devices threatened to harm the department’s services by making it an undesirable place for young, bright doctors to work.” He remarked, “The more we say no, the more stodgy we would look. So we had to figure out a way to say yes.”

• UCD Med Center Fights Infections; VA Facility Finds Success. Sacramento Bee While UC Davis Medical Center is struggling with high infection rates, “including Clostridium difficile and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA),” Sacramento’s Veterans Affairs Hospital has “taken aggressive steps that have lowered its rates of MRSA and central line-associated bloodstream infections to zero.” The “local efforts are part of a four-year, systemwide Veterans Affairs campaign to wipe out potentially deadly bugs, which has resulted in a 62 percent drop in the VA’s MRSA rate across the country.” The Bee added, “The VA’s success – in Sacramento and its 152 other hospitals – has wide implications for care at other hospitals.”

• Fighting For Veteran Services As Need Grows. Bronxville-Eastchester (NY) Patch “For the last few years,” members of the Hudson Valley Veteran’s Committee and “county legislators…have been fighting” plan by Veterans Affairs “to lease 160 acres of the 61-year-old Montrose VA hospital to private developers.” Opponents “of the plan say that services have been dwindling in recent years, even though the need for services grows.” The Patch added, “A VA spokeswoman confirmed what spokeswoman Nancy Winter told Patch in January – that no changes would be made at the Montrose location this year, but they were still considering private development proposals.”

• The Veterans Affairs Hospital In Jamaica Plain: Serving American Heroes Every Day. Jamaica Plain (MA) Patch “The Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System’s Jamaica Plain Campus is arguably one of the neighborhood’s more well-known spots, having opened in 1953 to work with veterans in and around the city. … We caught up with Diane Keefe, the Boston VA’s Public Relations Manager, to talk about the hospital’s place in the neighborhood as well as its mission at large.” Among other things, Keefe said the hospital’s location near the Green Line is good for vets. She added, “Many of us who work here are related to veterans and feel a special connection to what we do.”

• Called To Serve: Memorial Squad Honors Fallen Veterans With Final Salute. Chicago Tribune There are 109 volunteers on the Lincoln National Cemetery’s “Memorial Squad, a dedicated crew of mostly suburban former military personnel. Members of the detail stand in the rain, heat or snow as they administer a rifle salute, fold and present the American flag, and play taps on a bugle for families burying veterans.” The Tribune added, “‘They do an outstanding job honoring our veterans and are irreplaceable,’ said Marty A. Fury, director of the cemetery.”

• Remember Their Full Devotion. Tampa Tribune