Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News March 12, 2012

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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.    Returning veterans fight for the civilian jobs they left behind.  After 10 years of war, some members of the Guard and Reserve are returning home to find their old jobs have been given to someone else, or they are coming back to fewer hours and benefits. Sometimes employers have been weary of accommodating the emotional and physical baggage that multiple deployments may exact.
 
2.    Prosthetics give injured Marine hope for future.  Today a patient in a special unit at Naval Medical Center San Diego for the most severely wounded troops, Marine Cpl. Kevin Dubois is carrying out his final mission as a Marine, a concentrated effort to stand up straight and walk again despite losing both legs up to his pelvis.
 
3.    Revised VA rules help ex-sailor wake from 27-year nightmare.  Working with a revised set of guidelines for handling claims involving sexual trauma, the VA recently concluded that a former female sailor’s anxiety, panic attacks and depression render her unable to work. She will receive a monthly stipend of almost $2,800, as well as $150,000 in retroactive benefits, dating to her 2006 application for disability compensation.
 
4.    Marines change recruiting pitch to include humanitarian missions.  After a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marine Corps is tweaking its recruiting pitch to emphasize not just combat prowess but also the Marines’ involvement in humanitarian missions.
 
5.    $120 million heat ray waiting for first action.  Designed for crowd control, “Active Denial System” made a cameo appearance in Afghanistan but was never used.
 
6.    Data on radiation, toxin exposure following Japan quake yet to be released.  A year after hundreds of U.S. troops ventured into Japan’s damaged eastern regions to bring aid to earthquake and tsunami survivors, the levels of radiation and other toxins detected in and around the places they worked has yet to be released. Part of a two-day Stars and Stripes special report marking the anniversary of the disaster.

7.    Wyo. vets can get benefit information via computer.  NECN  The US Department of Veterans Affairs is participating in a TeleBenefits program in cooperation with the Sheridan VA Medical Center. The system used for TeleBenefits is exactly the same as that proved to be successful providing health care to rural …

8.    Newsmakers Q&A: Ohio company part of campaign to hire veterans.  Columbus Dispatch  President Barack Obama’s 2013 budget proposal allocates $5 billion for local police and fire departments that hire veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Department of Veterans Affairs has launched a series of employment programs, …

9.    After combat, many vets continue to battle with unseen wounds.  OregonLive.com (blog)  The OregonianTrevor Hutchison spends a lot of time on the phone, navigating the bureaucracies of the Army, the Department of Veterans Affairs. BEND — Oregon National Guard veteran …

10.  60th anniversary marked for Korean War veterans.  Fayetteville Observer  The state Division of Veterans Affairs is seeking Korean War veterans and their families to recognize during the 60th anniversary of the conflict. The project is part of the Department of Defense’s “Year of the Korean War Veteran,” which will begin in …

 

More Veteran News

 

  • VA Hospital site pleases some, puzzles or upsets others.  Louisville Courier-Journal The main objection to the downtown medical district came from veterans, who feared traffic, parking problems and crime. The federal Department of Veterans Affairs concluded that building on an outlying “green field” would be faster and cheaper.
  •  Supervisor Puglisi Announces Montrose VA Saved.  The Daily Cortlandt  The EUL was once being considered by the federal Department of Veterans Affairs to convert the bulk of the 62-year-old Franklin Delano Roosevelt Montrose VA campus into housing units. “The enhanced use lease the federal government, the VA, …
  •       Florida Lawmakers Establish a Purple Heart Day.  WUSF 89.7 News  Veteran students will get the same priority. “This will help insure that our veterans will get the necessary courses before their federal benefits run out,” said Steve Murray, spokesman for the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs.
  •    Fire Chief Suspended For Not Hiring Guardsman.  AP  The fire chief in Muskogee, Oklahoma, “says he’s accepted his three-week suspension after an internal investigation found that he rejected a job applicant four years ago because the candidate was a member of the National Guard. Derek Tatum said he was ‘green and unaware’ when he made the decision shortly after he was appointed chief in 2007.”  Muskogee (OK) Phoenix  Tatum was “suspended without pay for three one-week periods during the course of a month.” Meanwhile, Tatum said the “applicant who was not hired four years ago submitted a second application, met all qualifications, and was hired by the department about two weeks ago.”
  •     VA Celebrates Women’s History Month.  Rafu Shimpo (CA)  Veterans Affairs joined the nation in “observing Women’s History Month in March by honoring women veterans for their significant historical contributions and encouraging them to take advantage of the VA benefits they’ve earned. ‘VA honors women veterans of all eras for their courage and sacrifice,'” said VA Secretary Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. The agency recently “launched a ‘Stories of Service’ video series depicting the role of women in the military.” In the “three- to five-minute video vignettes,” which are available at www.womenshealth.va.gov, female veterans from various eras and across all service branches “talk about their experiences in the military and how they made VA benefits work for them.”
  •   Join Gary Sinise In Honoring Disabled Vet On Monday.  Albany Times Union  “Actor Gary Sinise will join Capital Region well-wishers on Monday for a motorcade escorting disabled veteran Joseph Wilkinson from the Village of Nassau to the Washington Avenue Armory in Albany.” Wilkinson, a “Lansingburgh native, served as a technical sergeant in Air Force Security Forces” during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “Three years later, the first symptoms of health troubles showed up when his right leg started giving out when he ran”; and last year, the VA rated Wilkinson’s “service-related disability at 100 percent for worsening back, leg and bladder problems.”
  •   Wounded Marine Officer Takes Steps Toward Recovery.  Stars and Stripes  US Marine Lt. Col. Ty Edwards, a Florida man who spends part of each day recovering from a traumatic brain injury he received from a sniper during a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Edwards has spent more than three years mending, and he “considers himself blessed to be alive.” Stars and Stripes said he “attributed his progress to the top-notch medical care he received in the war zone and back home,” initially at Bethesda Naval Hospital and then at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa. It is his “home away from home” and the place “where he learned how to walk and speak in complete sentences again.”
  •  Former Marine Lobbies To Adopt Canine Partner.  Westchester (NY) Journal News Megan Leavey and “Rex, the military service dog she had handled since her earliest days as a Marine at Camp Pendleton, Calif., had survived the blast of an improvised explosive device detonated by insurgents outside of Ramadi, Iraq, in September 2006.” The pair finished their “deployment and then spent the better part of a year rehabilitating from the injuries they had suffered together.” Now, Leavey, “wakes up each morning,” wondering if Rex will “be allowed to live out his final years in her comfortable home or if the military has other plans.” Since being discharged in 2007, Leavey, whose “uniform displays a Purple Heart, a combat valor medal and several other decorations, has maintained a constant campaign to adopt the now 10-year-old German shepherd.”
  •  285 Soldiers Had PTSD Diagnoses Reversed At Madigan Army Center.  Seattle Times  “The Army Medical Command has identified 285 Madigan Army Medical Center patients whose diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder were reversed as they went through a screening process for possible medical retirements, according to Sen. Patty Murray.” The command said patients deemed eligible for re-evaluation were “identified from a review of 1,500 soldiers screened by the forensic team for all types of mental-health conditions.” Last month, Madigan’s PTSD screeners “were removed from that duty while the Army Medical Command investigates why diagnoses were changed.”
  •   Revised Rules Help Veteran Wake From 27-year Nightmare.  Norfolk (VA) Virginian-Pilot  The case of Katherine Glover, a Navy veteran who suffers from PTSD and was turned down for every request for disability benefits until the VA started using “a revised set of guidelines for handling claims involving sexual trauma.” After more than five years, Glover “finally got good news” about a $2,800 monthly benefit and $150,000 in retroactive benefits. The Virginian-Pilot reports Glover was raped in 1985 at a NATO base in Italy, but she “didn’t breathe a word of the trauma until 2002, when she finally told a representative from the Department of Veterans Affairs.” The story examines her path to benefits.

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