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.   CalVet encourages veterans and active military to register and vote.  Orange County Breeze  The California Department of Veterans Affairs is coordinating with the California Secretary of State to encourage veterans, active duty military, employees and their families to vote! “Veterans have protected our right to vote from the time this …
 
2.   Medal recipients’ Social Security numbers accidentally posted online.  The Social Security numbers of Army recipients of the Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross were inadvertently posted online by a Pentagon contractor and were available to the public until they were discovered by a Vietnam veteran who researches military medal awards.
 
3.   Group lets injured troops train own canines as service dogs.  Chuck and Kate Daffron made a decision to change the lives of disabled veterans by launching a non-profit organization to help veterans train their own service dogs.
 
4.   Afghan troops get a lesson in American cultural ignorance.  Eleven years into the war, NATO troops and Afghan soldiers are still beset by a dangerous lack of cultural awareness, officials say, contributing to a string of insider attacks that have threatened to undermine the military partnership. So the Afghan army is trying something new: a guide to the strange ways of the American soldier.

5.   Paying tribute to a Civil War veteran.  Towanda Daily Review  Review Photo/ERIC HRIN The grave of Civil War veteran Private Horace O. Sackett was rededicated Saturday in Litchfield Township with a new gravestone from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Here, Sackett’s great-great-great grandson, Jerrell Sackett, …

6.   After years of use, dangers of opioid drugs discovered.  Austin American-Statesman  It wasn’t clear if the pills directly responsible for the overdoses were prescribed by U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs physicians. But in many instances, family members said, the veterans first used the narcotics as active-duty service members.

7.   Critics say pharmaceutical firms spurred the increase in prescriptions.  Austin American-Statesman  Over the past dozen years, as the number of prescriptions for narcotic painkillers written by U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs doctors soared, pharmaceutical companies waged a behind-the-scenes campaign to get the VA to focus more on veterans’ pain, …

8.   Wait time grows for veterans seeking benefits.  The Bay Citizen (blog)  Veterans across the nation are waiting an average of 260 days for a decision on a war-related disability claim – three days longer than last week and 80 days longer than in mid-2011, according to data recently released by the U.S. Department of …

9.   Lehigh Valley nonprofit receives grant to help low-income military veterans.  The Express Times – LehighValleyLive.com  Amy Beck, executive director for the Lehigh Valley Center for Independent Living, in Allentown about a $152,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for the Supportive Services …
 
10.  Marine Combat Vet Wants To Help Others. American Forces Press Service  Marine Corp. Cpl. Adrian Cuevas, a native of South El Monte, California, who “is an Afghanistan veteran on his third deployment there and is currently serving as a machine gun squad.” His “end of active service date is fast approaching and he has decided he wants to dedicate his life to helping people work through that anguish – the trauma he himself has endured.” Cuevas has experienced three IED explosions and “lot friends in battle.” He plans to go “back to school. … I want to be a counselor to help people out who have gone through what I have gone through.”

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