Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News – November 27, 2013

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.Happy Thanksgiving: Message from the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.  Hyperlink to Article Veterans News Now:  “Happy Thanksgiving” to all our Veterans and their families, to the Survivors of the Fallen, and to my VA colleagues across our Department, who serve them so faithfully. May God continue to bless this great and wonderful country of ours.
 
2.   Lou Brissie dies; overcame serious WWII injuries to pitch in big leagues.  Lou Brissie, the decorated World War II hero who overcame terrible combat injuries to become a major league baseball all-star, died Monday at the Augusta VA hospital. He was 89. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

3.   CENTCOM reviews delay in Medal of Honor award.  Nearly four years after a bloody Afghanistan ambush that left five American troops dead, including the son of a Riverview woman, U.S. Central Command is still ensnared in an ongoing controversy of why it took so long to award an Army captain a Medal of Honor for his role in that battle.
 
4.   Fort Drum aviation unit released from seven-day lockdown amid outcry from families.  The soldiers of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 277th Aviation Support Battalion were allowed to return to their homes and families Monday night after being confined in a seven-day lockdown in a cold hangar during a search for missing inventory.
 
5.   Family wants ‘definitive proof’ man in Vietnam isn’t Army sergeant.  For years, a man living in Vietnam as Dang Tan Ngoc has been claiming that he is Army Sgt. 1st Class John Hartley Robertson, a Special Forces soldier who went missing in 1968 and was declared dead by the U.S. government.
 
6.   Former hostages react to Iran’s nuclear deal .  For many of the Americans who were held hostage at the start of the Iranian revolution, trusting the regime in Tehran feels like a mistake.

7.   Bosnia’s military to help dig up mass graves.  Bosnia’s Prosecution office says the military will from now on help speed up excavations of bodies from mass graves with their machinery so that bad weather does not further delay the search for people who went missing during the 1992-95 war.

8.   Drug Testing of Veterans Case Heads to 9th Circuit.  Hyperlink to Article Courthouse News Service:  Veterans subjected to Cold War-era drug experiments asked the 9th Circuit on Tuesday to grant them more relief than ordered last week by a federal judge… The notice of appeal comes four years after Vietnam Veterans of America led a class action against various government entities, claiming that at least 7,800 soldiers had been used as guinea pigs in Project Paperclip.
9.   VA Dedicates $14 Million to Help Homeless Veterans.  Hyperlink to Article About.com (U.S. Government Info Guide):  The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced it will pump nearly $14 million into federal grants intended to help the nation’s more than 62,000 homeless veterans… About $9 million in grants will be used to help renovate existing veterans’ transitional housing projects and to buy vans to assist homeless veterans with their transportation needs.
10.Another Failed Gov’t Tech Project Cost $1.1 Billion.  Hyperlink to Article The Fiscal Times:  Last February, the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department abandoned a project to build an integrated electronic health record system.  After five years, they had already spent $1.1 billion on the failed program.

Have You Heard?

The holiday season is upon us and many of us open our hearts — and our wallets—this time of year. However, the holidays are also a prime time for online fraud and phishing scams. Don’t be fooled by holiday-themed spam emails that claim to support good causes or offer great deals. These could be phishing schemes, and responding to or clicking on a link within an unsolicited email can put your personal information in jeopardy.  Here are some other tips to avoid being a phisher’s “catch of the day” this holiday season. Look for clues—Phishing emails often contain misspelled words, come from unknown senders, and redirect to unfamiliar or external websites. Know whom you’re dealing with—Never give out personal, financial, or other sensitive information in an email.  Don’t forward the email to others as a warning or investigate any of the links yourself; doing so could spread the phishing attack to others.