Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

From the VA:

Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

1.      Bill With Money For Agent Orange-Exposed Vets Headed To President. The AP (7/28, Abrams) reports, “Months behind schedule and stripped of money for domestic stimulus programs, legislation to fund the troop surge in Afghanistan was sent to President Barack Obama on Tuesday after disgruntled Democrats failed to block it.” The bill “includes…$13.4 billion in benefits for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.”
     The Washington Post (7/28, Bacon, Pershing), the Boston Globe (7/28, Vizer), CQ (7/28, Young, Lesniewski), and Dow Jones Newswires (7/28, Boles) also take note of the Agent Orange funding, as does Bloomberg News (7/28, Faler), which says the money “would pay for a Veterans Affairs decision to expand the number of ailments presumed to be linked to use of the defoliant Agent Orange.” Lawmakers “said they expected more than 86,000 veterans or their survivors to be eligible for compensation.”

 2.      Bill Would Allow Hmong Vets To Be Buried In National Cemeteries. McClatchy (7/28, Seidman) reports that on Tuesday, “California lawmakers…introduced a bill” in the US Congress to “make some 6,900 Hmong veterans eligible for internment in US national cemeteries.” After noting that Hmong veterans “fought alongside the CIA and US Special Forces during the Vietnam War,” McClatchy points out that while US Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA) “expects the bill to pass,” he “said he’ll need to educate his fellow members of Congress about the story of the Hmong veterans.”

 3.      House Subcommittee Votes To Ease Income Rules On VA Pensions. The Marine Corps Times (7/28, Maze) reports, “A House subcommittee has expanded the types of income that would not be counted in determining eligibility for pensions aimed at veterans with low incomes, and has found a way to pay for the change that improves its chances of becoming law.” After noting that the “Veterans’ Pensions Protection Act of 2010…passed the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s disability assistance panel,” the Times adds, “To pay for the legislation, the bill would extend until Sept. 30, 2015, a program in which VA uses Internal Revenue Service records to verify how much income a veteran is receiving.”

 4.      Study: HIV Care Quality Generally High In VA Facilities. HealthDay (7/28) reports, “National performance rates for quality-of-care measures for HIV patients receiving care through the Department of Veterans Affairs…are generally high, though there is variation from facility to facility, according to a study in the July 26 Archives of Internal Medicine.” For the study, “Lisa I. Backus, M.D., of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California, and colleagues analyzed observational data for 21,564 HIV-infected patients for conformance with 10 National Quality Forum measures at 73 VA facilities.”

5.      Sioux Falls VAMC Tour Informing Female Vets About Benefits. The Yankton (SD) Press & Dakotan (7/28, Gulbrandson) reports, “A tour of open houses that set out to inform female military veterans about the benefits for which they qualify under the Department of Veterans Affairs has turned into an opportunity for those veterans to get to know each other.” Charlotte McGrath, “Women Veterans Program manager” with the Sioux Falls Veterans Affairs Medical Center, “said this is more difficult than people might think” because women vets are a “very isolated group.” After noting that the “tour – which has traveled to Watertown, Sioux Falls, Sioux City and Aberdeen – made a stop in Yankton Tuesday, at Minerva’s Grill & Bar,” the Press & Dakotan says the “tour is a partnership between the Sioux Falls VA Medical Center and Minerva’s.”

 6.      VA Event Designed To Bring Awareness To Problem Of Military Sexual Trauma. WDAY-TV Fargo, ND (7/27, 6:09 p.m. CT) broadcast, “National and local advocates for victims of sexual abuse gathered” at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Fargo Tuesday “to bring awareness” to military sexual trauma (MST). WDAY added, “Called the ‘Clothesline Project,’ the awareness event showcased shirts made by victims of MST to help them cope with their trauma and break the silence. VA representatives say MST…is a growing problem, with 80 to 90,000 survivors serving in today’s military.” KVLY-TV Fargo, ND (7/27, 6:07 p.m. CT), which aired a similar report, said VA “provides free counseling and treatment” to MST victims.

 7.      Vet Says Wheelchair Games Keep Her Going. The Palm Beach (FL) Post (7/28, Frias) profiles 62-year-old Carol Adams, who has “competed in nine of the last National Veterans Wheelchair Games, the largest wheelchair sporting event in the world.” This year, Adams, who “has become one” the event’s “most decorated athletes,” won “five gold medals,” giving “her a total of 42 career medals: 38 gold, the rest silver. ‘It keeps me going and it gives me something to do,'” said Adams.
     Games Also Praised By Male Vet. The Waynesburg (PA) Observer-Reporter (7/28, Frazier) reports, “After years of going for gold, Tom Strang finally captured it at this year’s National Veterans Wheelchair Games. ‘While it is a competition, it’s all about camaraderie. Everyone is very encouraging,'” and the “‘competition encourages you to be healthy and be the best that you can be,’ said the Cecil resident when asked to describe…the games,” an “annual event…sponsored” by the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

 8.      Official Says It Will Be Difficult For VA To Reduce Travel-Related Emissions. The Federal Times (7/27, Kauffman) noted that last week, the Federal government “pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions from indirect sources such as employee travel and waste disposal by 13 percent by 2020, compared with a 2008 baseline of 16.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.” The Times continued, “The Veterans Affairs Department is projecting a ‘marginal, if any,’ reduction in emissions associated with employee travel because the department is on a steady growth spurt, said C.J. Cordova, director” of the green management program service for VA, which “has set a 10 percent reduction goal for indirect emissions.” After offering another quote from Cordova, who stated, “If you’re increasing employees and you’re increasing the number of buildings, you’re increasing commutes,” the Times added, “Still, VA has formed a working group to explore options for cutting travel-related emissions, she said.”

 9.      VA Getting A “Cybersecurity Facelift.” Federal News Radio (7/27, Beasley) said the Department of Veterans Affairs is “getting a cybersecurity facelift,” which “will include a more intensive system monitoring program, adjustments to health IT protocol, new training tools and enhanced wireless capabilities. At a recent Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) breakfast on the role of Chief Information Security Officers, Jaren Doherty, Deputy Secretary for Information Protection and Risk Management at…VA, spoke with Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller about” his department’s security programs. Among other things, Doherty “said that by September 30, VA will have status updates every 24 hours on every network desktop and every data platform.”
     Davis Leaving NASA For “Daunting” Challenge At VA. Federal News Radio (7/27) reported, “Jerry Davis, the widely respected chief information security officer at NASA, is leaving that agency to join the Department of Veterans Affairs.” The article noted that while NASA has “its own share of cyber-security issues, the challenges…are daunting” at VA, the “second largest agency in government.”
     GovInfoSecurity.com (7/28) says Davis “will face more daunting information security challenges as he moves to a new assignment as deputy assistant secretary for information protection and management” at VA, which “has been plagued with a series of IT security mishaps, including the…exposure the personal identifiable information of nearly 4,000 veterans in Texas earlier this year.”

 10.    Documents Reveal That Cemetery Officials Knew About Arlington’s Problems In 2005. In continuing coverage, the Washington Post (7/28, Davis, Davenport) reports, “Arlington National Cemetery officials knew more than five years ago that many burials did not match Arlington’s maps and paper records, according to documents released Tuesday by a Senate subcommittee investigating millions of dollars in botched contracts overseen” by the US Army. After saying the “findings set the stage for a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing on Thursday,” called in the wake of “revelations that hundreds of graves at Arlington have been left unmarked or mismarked,” the Post points out that the documents released on Tuesday also show Veterans Affairs officials “offered to work” with Arlington officials on digitizing older records.

   According to the Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune (7/28, Jackson), at a news conference in Missouri earlier this week, US Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) “said the Veterans Administration, which operates other cemeteries across the country, had previously offered Arlington officials the digital software system the VA uses to track burials and gravesites, but the Army turned down the offer ‘and failed this country,’ she said.”
     Former Lead Officials At Arlington Subpoenaed. The AP (7/28, Flaherty) notes that Maria Speiser, a spokeswoman for McCaskill, “says a subpoena has been issued to the former Arlington National Cemetery officials who were pushed out after the Army discovered that potentially hundreds of remains had been misidentified or misplaced.” Speiser “says the cemetery’s former superintendent, John Metzler, and his deputy, Thurman Higginbotham, have been told they are legally bound to testify” at Thursday’s hearing. The “Post Now” blog for the Washington Post (7/28, Davis) publishes a similar story, as does McClatchy (5/28), which says Metzler and Higginbotham “had refused an invitation to attend” the hearing.