Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

From the VA:

Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

1.      Forum Planning To Send Letters About Roseburg VA Services To Shinseki. The Roseburg (OR) News-Review (8/11, Korengel) reports, “About 2,500 people signed form letters at the Douglas County Fair stating they want the VA Roseburg Healthcare System to restore services to 1990s levels, a veterans group said Monday. ‘The response was absolutely overwhelming,’ Douglas County Veterans Forum President Jim Little said at a news conference.” According to the Review, members of the forum, which is “composed of officers from 21” veterans groups, “plan to send copies of the letters to Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company the Veterans Administration has retained to review services at the VA Roseburg Healthcare System,” to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, “and to three congressional committees that work on veterans issues.”

2.      Nonprofit Offering Sports-As-Therapy Programs To Disabled Vets. On the front page of its “Style” section, the Washington Post (8/11, C1, Tucker) says that “as part of the Warfighter Sports Challenge, a series of seven extreme events for permanently disabled veterans,” three vets – injured in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam — recently summited the “19,340-foot Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa and one of the seven highest in the world.” According to the Post, Warfighter Sports Challenge is “run by Disabled Sports USA, a Rockville-based nonprofit that offers sports-as-therapy programs for soldiers and civilians across the country.”

3.      VA Clinic Expanding Mental Health Services, Care For Women Vets. On its website, WSAU-AM Wausau, WI (8/9) reported, “The Veterans Administration has hired three women providers and expanded mental health services in the year since it opened a larger community-based outreach clinic in Wausau.” According to WSAU, those “changes reflect the agency’s goal to accommodate a growing number of women veterans and more adequately treat veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues.”

4.      VA Hospital Celebrates Women’s Right To Vote Anniversary. The Muskogee (OK) Phoenix (8/11, Purtell) notes that on Tuesday, the Jack C. Montgomery Veterans Affairs Medical Center “celebrated the 90th anniversary of women’s right to vote.” The “event featured Col. Jane L. Curtis, a member of the Oklahoma Army National Guard’s 45th Infantry Combat Team and a family practice physician. Curtis highlighted pioneering women in the military.”

5.      Former Senator, A WWII Vet, Dies In Plane Crash. In covering the death of 86-year-old Ted Stevens, a former US senator who died in a plane crash, many major media outlets note that he was a World War II veteran. For example, the AP (8/11) says Stevens was a “decorated World War II pilot,” a point also made by ABC World News (8/10, story 2, 1:05, Stephanopoulos, 8.2M) and NBC Nightly News (8/10, story 3, 2:30, Curry).

6.      Following Discovery Of His Remains In Germany, WWII Vet Buried In California. The New York Times (8/11, A9, Wollan) reports, “Sixty-six years after riding a B-24J Liberator on a bombing mission over Berlin,” World War II veteran “John P. Bonnassiolle is finally home.” On Tuesday, Bonnassiolle’s remains, which had been found during an excavation in Germany, were buried in a family cemetery plot in California. The Times notes that the “remains of more than 72,000 Americans are still unaccounted for after World War II.” The AP (8/11, Hunnicutt) publishes a similar story.

7.      Woman Sentenced To Prison For Exploiting Elderly Vet. The Helena (MT) Independent Record (8/10, Byron) noted that 63-year-old Maureen Molina, who in May was found guilty of “exploiting an elderly man by living off of his income,” will “spend at least three years in prison” and has been “ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution.” According to the Independent Record, an “assessment by a psychologist at the veterans hospital at Fort Harrison diagnosed” the elderly man “with post-traumatic stress disorder from extended combat service and wounds suffered in the Philippine Islands.” The Billings (MT) Gazette (8/10) ran the same story.

8.      US Destroyer Named After John McCain Arrives In Vietnam. The CBS Evening News (8/10, story 9, 0:30, Couric) broadcast, “Fifteen years after the US And Vietnam normalized relations, there’s now a floating symbol of their growing bond. The USS John McCain arrived in Denang” Tuesday, for “joint exercises with the Vietnamese military. The destroyer is named after two admirals, the father and grandfather” of US Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who “spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam but later championed renewed ties.”
     The AP (8/11, Mason) reports, “An American warship docked Tuesday in central Vietnam where the former foes planned to conduct naval training in a sign of growing military ties amid new warnings from China for the US to stay out of its backyard.” The port call for the warship “comes as the US and Vietnam celebrate 15 years of normalized diplomatic relations following a bloody war that remains an open wound for many veterans.”

9.      Stimulus Funding VA Hospital Improvements. The Johnson City (TN) Press (8/11, Barber) reports, “Most patients and visitors” to the Veterans Affairs medical center “at Mountain Home may not notice many of the nearly $3 million in improvements to the campus in the past year” were “made possible by federal stimulus money.” The “nine projects provided upgrades to often overlooked aspects of the 109-year-old hospital campus.”

10.    County VA Director Worried About Upcoming Clinic Move. The Muskegon (MI) Chronicle (8/10, Hart) noted that this fall, the “Veterans Affairs Community Based Outpatient Clinic is moving from downtown Muskegon to a larger location near the airport.” And, while proponents “say the larger space will allow for more services,” some people, including Muskegon County Department of Veterans Affairs Director David Eling, are “concerned about transportation for veterans without cars.” Eling “said the move will make transportation more difficult for veterans without cars, because the airport is not a regular stop on any bus route.”