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 clinic appears likely for Kernersville.  Winston-Salem Journal  Officials said they were told by the US Department of Veterans Affairs that a site west of US 52 and south of Martin Luther King Boulevard in the north district of Piedmont Triad Research Park in Winston-Salem had been eliminated. …
2.    Clifford Stanley, Pentagon’s top personnel manager, resigns.  Clifford Stanley, the Pentagon’s top personnel manager, abruptly resigned Thursday amid lingering questions about his management style and practices.
3.    Panetta looks with skepticism on North Korea’s recent overtures.  North Korea is in an accommodating mood at the moment, but if history is a guide, it will swing back toward violent provocation, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other defense officials said Thursday in the South Korean capital.
4.    Date set for military post office closures in Iraq.  The U.S. Postal Service will stop accepting mail addressed to military post offices in Iraq starting Nov. 17, as U.S. forces withdraw to meet an end of year deadline to leave the country, the Department of Defense announced.
5.    Afghan soldiers take the lead, slowly, on questioning villagers.  An old woman waded through a mass of Afghan soldiers toward their captain, her dirt-smudged face frozen with woe. She dug her henna-stained fingers into his flak jacket’s collar and wailed: Let my son go.
6.    Members of Congress want answers for veterans.  Bakersfield Californian  Some local veterans swear they wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for the health care they receive from the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Others say dealing with the VA is like walking through molasses. …
7.    Identity Theft Scam Targeting Local Veterans.  KKCO-TV  The Grand Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center is “warning local veterans about an identity theft scam targeting them.” KKCO added, “Any veterans who believe they’ve been targeted are encouraged to report the call to the Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General using the OIG hotline at 1 (800) 488-8244 or by e-mailing vaoighotline@va.gov.”
8.    “Beyond The Battlefield” Reporter Says Nonprofits Helping Injured Vets. MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show  David Wood, author of the Huffington Post’s recent 10-part “Beyond The Battlefield” series on severely injured Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Wood said, “On the battlefield and in the military medical system, there have been enormous advances over the last ten years that have really enabled the military to save wounded soldiers and Marines who ten years ago probably would have died of their wounds.” According to Woods, people who work for the military medical system have “incredible competence and professionalism.” But, Wood added, “gaps have opened up in what the Pentagon” and Veterans Affairs “have been able to do for veterans.” Woods pointed out, though, that an “enormous number of non-profit voluntary organizations have sprung up to help” badly injured vets.
9.    Veterans Speak Of VA Struggles.  Alaska Public Radio Network  “During the AFN convention in Anchorage over the weekend, Alaska’s US senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski brought together officials from both the federal and state Veterans Administration to conduct a Native Veteran’s listening session.” The lawmakers “were joined by the deputy undersecretary of the VA John Garcia,” who “said the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki is committed to bringing the VA into the 21st century, using technology for outreach, health care and education.” During the meeting, however, a “flood gate” of veterans’ stories “told of struggles with getting VA services because of bureaucracy and because most of those VA services are available only in major hubs or cities like Anchorage making it expensive and difficult for vets in rural Alaska.”
10.  Coffee Shop Helping Troubled Vets.  CBS Evening News  “Iraq veteran Jorge Gonzales is executive director of Coffee Strong,” which is also the name of a coffee shop near the US Army’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord in the state of Washington. The “veteran-owned shop opened three years ago to serve free coffee to soldiers and Marines. Over time, it became a place for troops to share their problems and treat the mental scars of war.” Colonel Dallas Homas, head of the suicide prevention program at Lewis-McChord, said he that unlike some other military officials, he does not have a problem with Coffee Strong’s anti-war message, because he thinks that “wherever a soldier gets help is a good thing.” CBS which took note of the rise in recent years of the Army’s suicide rate, said veteran Deborah Flagboam, who was sexually assaulted during boot camp, went to Coffee Strong for help after military officials said there was a two-month wait for long-term psychiatric therapy.

Have You Heard?

The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Coach smartphone application, jointly developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), is being honored today as one of seven recipients of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman’s Awards for Advancements in Accessibility.  The goal of the Chairman Awards is to encourage technological innovation in communication-related areas and recognize annually those outstanding efforts in the public and private sector as well as public-private partnerships that advance accessibility.  This includes the development of individual mainstream or assistive technologies introduced into the marketplace, the development of standard or best practices that foster accessibility or the development of a new consumer clearinghouse of disability-related products and services.  The numerous submissions were judged by a panel of seven FCC executives.  All winners are being honored today at an awards ceremony at the FCC headquarters in Washington, D.C.   Information on the PTSD Coach app is on the VA’s National Center for PTSD Website: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/pages/PTSDCoach.asp

The app is one of the first in a series of jointly-designed resources by the VA National Center for PTSD and DoD’s National Center for Telehealth and Technology to help service members and Veterans manage their readjustment challenges and get anonymous assistance.

More Veteran News

• Advocate Urges Civilians To Hire Local Vets.  MSNBC’s NewsNation  On Tuesday, President Obama “announced new plans to help military vets find work” by “urging federally funded community health centers to hire 8,000 military medics over the next three years” and by “giving grants to colleges and universities” for training vets to become physician assistants. MSNBC interviewed Mark Baird, the founder of HirePatriots.com. Baird urged civilians to provide “jobs every single day for their local veterans.”

•   More Vets Moving From Combat To Classrooms.  San Diego (CA) Union-Tribune “Universities across the region are seeing sharp increases in demand from returning veterans, the vast majority of whom attend local community colleges first. And the schools expect that demand to grow” as the US scales down its involvement in foreign conflicts. The Union-Tribune points out that when Veterans Affairs “implemented the Yellow Ribbon Program within the GI Bill,” private institutions that chose to participate in the program became more affordable to veterans.

•  New DC Center Aims To Help Transitioning Vets. Army Times Medically retired Marine Cpl. Ryan Lamke “who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of multiple run-ins with roadside bombs in Iraq as well as a rocket-propelled grenade, is majoring in economics at Georgetown. He hopes a new facility, the National Youth Transitions Center, which opened Wednesday in Washington, DC, will help remove some of the ‘luck’ factor for fellow veterans searching for a job or seeking education programs available to them.” According to the Times, the facility, which “will contain a National Veterans Center,” is a “collaboration of more than 40 non-profit organizations helping disabled young adults obtain jobs and live independently.”

•   CHEST: Combat Vets’ Sleep Problems Tied To Injury Type.  MedPage Today  “The type of injury sustained by US military personnel in the Middle East appears to be related to the types of sleep disturbances they experience when they return home, researchers found. Among soldiers with traumatic brain injury (TBI), blast injuries were associated with higher rates of anxiety and insomnia, and blunt trauma was associated with a higher rate of obstructive sleep apnea, according to Jacob Collen, MD, of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.” MedPage Today added that “among troops with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), those who were not injured were more likely to receive a diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea compared with their injured counterparts, Collen reported at the CHEST meeting,” held recently in Honolulu.

• Veterans Center Hopes To Expand.  Charleston (WV) Daily Mail Officials “with the Charleston Veterans Center are looking for a larger space so they can expand local services.” Aaron Rayburn, acting team leader at the center, “emphasized that the organization would stay in Charleston, but he wasn’t sure if the agency had any leads on new sites.” The Daily Mail added, “Agency officials are hoping the move will be completed by Jan. 1, according to the classified ad soliciting for space.”

•   VA Mental Health Caseload Climbing: New Report.  New Haven (CT) Independent “The number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans receiving mental health care from the VA has quadrupled since 2006, with PTSD and depression the most common diagnoses, a new report by the federal Government Accountability Office shows.” The report “identifies key barriers that hinder veterans from accessing mental health care from the VA, including stigma, lack of awareness of mental health care services, logistical challenges to accessing care, and special concerns about the VA care offered.” Officials with VA “said they have taken a number of steps to expand the agency’s mental health care services, including increasing the mental health staff from about 14,000 in fiscal year 2006 to more than 21,000 in fiscal year 201l; expanding the availability of telephone-based mental health services; and integrating mental health care into its primary care settings.”

•   Bummer: Feds Stonewall Pot Treatments For Traumatized Vets.  Wired   Katie Drummond says Dr. Sue Sisley is “tantalizingly close to federal approval for a groundbreaking study of marijuana’s potency in treating PTSD – if only the National Institute on Drug Abuse would stop stonewalling her.” Sisley, a “psychiatrist whose practice treats mostly war veterans, wants to add evidence-based science to the ubiquitous anecdotal reports, not to mention animal research, that point to marijuana’s effectiveness at quelling symptoms of post-traumatic stress.” Drummond adds that Veterans Affairs’ Dr. Deb Gilman and Dr. Lauren Lee “have signed on as co-investigators to help Sisley’s proposal pass NIDA muster.”

• Veterans Meet Thursday To Question VA Plans.  Sunbury (PA) Daily Item  A health official with the US Department of Veterans Affairs “said he will assure local veterans at a meeting Thursday night that a planned VA reorganization does not include hospital or clinic closings or relocations. But veterans and veterans directors who plan to attend the 6 p.m. meeting in the 535 Western Ave. post near the corner of Franklin Street want assurances that the integration of Bedford and Boston VA facilities will not reduce medical care available to Lynn area veterans or represent a first step to closing facilities, including the veterans clinic on Boston Street.” However, US Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) “credited the VA for scheduling meetings on the integration plan around Greater Boston through the end of November.”

• Phoenix Veterans Housing Project Gets $12M In Financing.  Phoenix (AZ) Business Journal  “Financing for the $12 million Madison Pointe apartments,” which will “provide low to moderate income housing to Phoenix residents and US veterans,” has “been secured.” Fifteen of the 60 units in the apartments “will be set aside for a veterans’ voucher program administered through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Veterans Affairs Supported Housing.”

•   GAO Studies Joblessness Among Veterans At Request Of Tester, Baucus.  Billings (MT) Gazette  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has “chosen…to produce a report examining federal jobs programs for veterans in an effort to better serve vets and ensure the most efficient use of taxpayer dollars. The report is a direct response to a request from Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester, both D-Mont., first issued in February, GAO leaders confirmed.” The Gazette added, “This report will help build on what’s working and get rid of what isn’t, so we can cut bureaucracy and increase jobs for our veterans, Baucus said.”