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.   VA processing claims at record pace, but still can’t keep up.  Despite handling more claims than ever before in August, department officials acknowledge the benefits backlog remains stubbornly high.
 
2.   Beaufort Naval Hospital, VA in Charleston unveil $2.3 million MRI.  For years, officials from Naval Hospital Beaufort and Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston lobbied for federal funding for a mobile MRI machine for their hospitals but were rebuffed.
 
3.   Veterans seek artist for war memorials.  The man responsible for creating artist’s renderings for the county’s first two war memorials in Veterans Park is deploying to Afghanistan soon, leaving the job open.
 
4.   Airmen told to check pay updates with system shutdown approaching.  The Air Force in December will temporarily shut down its personnel data system for a major overhaul that could affect airmen’s pay if they don’t ensure critical updates are made to their records before the upgrade begins, officials say.
 
5.   Anxiety rising among troops, families as sequestration nears.  With Congress having left town until after the November elections and the threat of sequestration looming, servicemembers are growing anxious about just how deeply defense cuts will hit the military community, defense contractors and the larger economy.

6.   Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Information Technology Awards Cloud.  The Herald | HeraldOnline.com  Systems Made Simple (SMS) is a Service-disabled, Veteran-owned Business that delivers leading IT solutions to Fortune 500 customers and federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency and General …

7.   Connecticut Veterans Wartime Service Medal Presented at Avery Point Campus.  UConn Advance (blog)  In her remarks to those assembled on the lawn overlooking Long Island Sound, Linda S. Schwartz, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Veteran’s Affairs, noted that Connecticut’s commitment to its veterans dates back to the Civil War. “We were …

8.   VA stresses mental heath services this month.  The-News-Leader  The theme for the outreach campaign, “Stand by Them,” is part of a joint VA and Department of Defense effort focused on veteran and service member support networks, especially their friends and family members, who may be the first to realize a veteran …

9.   “Veteran” Designation Available On Kentucky Driver’s Licenses.  WDRB-TV “Kentucky veterans can now be issued a driver’s license that indicates their service to the country.” As a “veteran myself, I know that service in our nation’s military is typically a point of lifelong pride among veterans,” said Kentucky Gov. Beshear, who made his comment in a news release. The plate designation, he added, is “one small way in which we can acknowledge the many men and women who have honorably worn the uniform.”
 
10.   Feds Want Wider Use Of Health Records Applet. Information Week  “Millions more Americans soon will be able to download their personal health records by clicking on a simple ‘blue button’ on the websites of their healthcare providers and insurance companies.” The “technology, called Blue Button, is a Web applet that enables the downloading of medical records as text or in PDF format–and soon, in machine-readable XML format–from backend databases.” The US Veterans Affairs Department “developed Blue Button and launched it in 2010 on the agency’s My HealtheVet portal as a way of giving military veterans online access to their medical records.” Information Week spoke to Peter Levin, VA’s chief technology officer, who said Blue Button is important because everyone needs “access to health data.”

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