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. Home sweet home for vets at Soldier On complex.  Berkshire Eagle  After some treatment and a visit from a veteran’s representative, Shindler found himself signing up with Soldier On, the nonprofit that works with the US Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies to provide homeless veterans with shelter and …
2. Levy to benefit veterans, those in most need.  PNW Local News  That will put additional pressure on the local, state and federal agencies that provide services to them, including the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Like other government agencies, the federal agency is stretched. “The VA cannot do it alone,” …
3. Former state veterans official who made up accounts of heroism warned to cease.  NJ.com  In fact, Veterans Affairs had stated Devereaux was only temporarily disabled and was eligible to pay property taxes. The US Department of Veterans’ Affairs Office of Inspector General Criminal Investigation Division is continuing an investigation into …
4. More legal trouble for ex-veterans official in N.J..  Philadelphia Inquirer  He served as a finance clerk in South Vietnam for four months and 11 days in 1968. Authorities said they found no record of combat medals or combat injuries. The US Department of Veterans Affairs is continuing an investigation of falsified records, …
5. Attorney general clarifies veterans’ tax exemption.  Southwest Virginia Today  An amendment to Virginia constitution passed last winter exempts from state real estate taxation those veterans rated by the US Department of Veterans Affairs as 100 percent disabled. Eligible veterans receive …
6. Group seeks parking for vets.  Statesman Journal  A sign prototype is blue with a bald eagle at the top and white lettering that says: “Veterans parking only. DMV issued veteran’s plates required. Thank you for your service!” Veterans license plates can be from any state. City Councilor Cathy Clark ..
7. St. Tammany Parish OKs land swap for veterans cemetery.  NOLA.com  View full sizeUS Department of Veterans AffairsBaton Rouge National Cemetery is closed to new interments. The parish hopes that the larger property will appeal to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which currently ranks the Covington location No. …
   
8. New VA Call Center.  Emporia (KS) Gazette  “The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is reaching out to women veterans in order to solicit their input on ways to enhance the VA’s health care services. Representatives at VA’s Health Resource Center are placing calls to women veterans nationwide, asking them to share their experiences and suggest potential enhancements to further the VA’s mission to provide better care.” Patricia Hayes, chief consultant of VA’s Strategic Health Care Group, said, “Through this contact center, we are placing friendly, conversational calls to women veterans. We want these veterans and their caregivers to talk candidly about why they are not using VA…and what additional services they would like to see VA offer.”
9. Unemployment A Problem For Younger Veterans. CBS Evening News  26 “percent of vets between the ages of 18 and 24 are out of work.” CBS profiled veterans Lawrence Burnham and Stephanie Anderson, who, nearly a year after ending deployments in Iraq, are unemployed. According to CBS, of the “almost 3,000 soldiers of 41st Brigade Combat Team deployed with Stephanie and Lawrence, a full 50% returned here to Oregon to face unemployment.” CBS added, “President Obama will visit the Washington Navy Yard tomorrow to talk about unemployed veterans.”
10. Obama To Announce Job Assistance Initiatives For Vets.  Reuters  During his Navy Yard appearance, the President announced initiatives which aim to prepare vets for civilian jobs. Reuters also points out that Ed Kringer, who directs the Pentagon’s State Liaison & Educational Opportunity Office, said his department is reviewing how employment for departing servicemembers is handled. According to Administration officials, Obama’s plan would cost $120 million and would need to be approved by Congress. Reuters also notes that Obama will order the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs to lead a task force on providing more assistance to veterans making the transition to civilian careers.

 More Veteran News

• Obama Urges Firms To Hire Vets, Offers Incentives.  Washington Post President Obama “outlined new steps Friday to combat the high rate of unemployment among the ‘9/11 generation’ of veterans, proposing tax credits for companies that hire returning service members and the creation of ‘reverse boot camps’ to train veterans for civilian jobs.” Speaking at the Washington Navy Yard, he “challenged the private sector to hire 100,000 unemployed post-9/11 veterans or their spouses by 2013.”  Stars And Stripes Veterans’ advocates “have been critical of the military’s Transition Assistance Program in recent years, saying the effort doesn’t prepare troops enough for challenges they’ll face navigating job interviews, university classrooms and Veterans Affairs facilities. The new ‘reverse boot camp’ will be an extended transition period for servicemembers leaving the military. Officials said details of the program will be released later this year, based on recommendations from a task force of planners from the Defense Department, the VA, and the White House economic team.”

• Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior Tax Credits:  A new Returning Heroes Tax Credit for firms that hire unemployed veterans (maximum credit of $2,400 for every short-term unemployed hire and $4,800 for every long-term unemployed hire) and a Wounded Warriors Tax Credit which will increase the existing tax credit for firms that hire veterans with service-connected disabilities who have been unemployed long-term (maximum credit of $9,600 per veteran) and continue the existing credit for all other veterans with a service-connected disability (maximum credit of $4,800).

• A Challenge to the Private Sector to Hire or Train 100,000 Unemployed Veterans or Their Spouses by the End of 2013:  The President will challenge businesses to commit to hire or provide training to unemployed veterans or their spouses. Joining Forces will lead this work with businesses and industry.

• Presidential Call for a Career-Ready Military:  The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, working closely with other agencies and the President’s economic and domestic policy teams, will lead a new task force to develop reforms to ensure that every member of the service receives the training, education, and credentials they need to transition to the civilian workforce or to pursue higher education. These reforms will include the design of a “reverse bootcamp,” which will extend the transition period to give service members more counseling and guidance and leave them career-ready.

• Transition to the Private Sector:  The Department of Labor will establish a new initiative to deliver an enhanced career development and job search service package to transitioning veterans at their local One-Stop Career Centers. The Office of Personnel Management will create a “Best Practices” Manual for the private sector to help businesses identify and hire veterans.

• Businesses’ Commitments Sought On Hiring Veterans.  Wall St. Cheat Sheet  Obama “noted companies in his speech that have already been doing their share. Siemens set a goal for itself to hire 300 veterans in 2011, and having already met that goal with months to spare, made a new goal to create 100 more jobs by year’s end. He also noted Microsoft’s educational program, which will help over 10,000 veterans get IT certified over the next two years.”

•    Combat Zone Term Will Drop To Nine Months.  ABC World News “For the past decade, US soldiers have faced one-year deployments again and again — sometimes even longer. But, beginning in January, most soldiers heading to war zones will get to come home to their families three months earlier, with tours of duty cut to nine months,” with 27-month intervals between combat deployments. NBC Nightly News The Army “has decided to reduce the length of war zone deployments from the usual one year to nine months. In addition, the army will increase the amount of time spent back home between deployments.” McClatchy

•  Giving Care To The Caregivers.  North County Times  The mother of an injured Iraq veteran received her “first caregiver stipend” from Veterans Affairs “last month. Besides helping to cover the mortgage, it validates what she spends her days doing. The VA has finally recognized that caregivers of post-9/11 veterans provide crucial support in caring for veterans and that the home environment can enhance the health and well-being of veterans under VA care.”

•  Veteran Caregiver Conference Finished On Thursday. Senior Homes  “The 2011 National Caregiver Support Conference, ‘Caring for Those Who Care for Our Veterans,'” ended on Thursday. The conference, held this week in Washington, DC, is “part of the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010, which has expanded veterans benefits to include the loved ones who care for them. The Act also creates caregiver support services through a caregiver website, a monthly stipend for caregivers of post-9/11 Veterans and health insurance.”

• Suicide Attempts Higher For Veterans On Campus.  USA Today “College students who served in the military have a suicide attempt rate six times higher than the average college student, suggests research presented” Thursday “at a meeting of the American Psychological Association. It found students who are veterans also report thinking about suicide or planning their death at significantly higher rates. Researchers with the National Center for Veterans’ Studies at the University of Utah surveyed 525 veterans,” nearly all of whom “had been deployed in either Iraq or Afghanistan.”

• President Signs New GI Bill Fix Into Law. Army Times  “President Obama signed a new law on Wednesday that provides temporary tuition and fee protection to private college students using the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The law, effective Aug. 1, protects students who were enrolled or admitted into a private school before Jan. 4, 2011, from having tuition and fee payments reduced as long as they continue to be enrolled until they exhaust their 36 months of benefits.” Congress passed the law “as a modest fix to a previously enacted overhaul of the 2-year-old veterans’ education program that sought to simplify how benefits are calculated.”

•  Medicare Data Show Gap In Hospital Performance, Perception. USA Today   “More than 120 hospitals given top marks by patients for providing excellent care also have a darker distinction: high death rates for heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia, a USA TODAY analysis of new Medicare data has found.” USA Today adds, “Veterans Administration hospitals performed well, according to data released for the first time this year.” USA Today points out that all “VA hospitals were as good as or better than the national rate for heart attack and heart failure.”

• Better Way To Keep Patients Safe. New York Times  Dr. Pauline W. Chen says more rigorous US hospital accreditation procedures and standards have not improved patient safety because “few…quality enthusiasts are actually caring for patients.” Now, however, those caring for patients are discussing the “National Surgical Quality Improvement Program from the American College of Surgeons, the largest professional organization of surgeons.” Based “on an initiative in the 1990s that sharply decreased surgical complication rates in the Veterans Health Administration, the program was offered to all hospitals beginning in 2004 and is now used by surgeons at more than 400 institutions.”

•  Surgeon Faces Drug Charges.  Providence (RI) Journal  A “doctor who federal agents say acknowledged performing surgery while under the influence of drugs appeared in US District Court Wednesday to face charges that he conspired with a coworker to distribute painkillers and other drugs using phony prescriptions. Dr. Robert J. Villarreal, 33, and Gary Menissian, 49, an orthopedic assistant at Rhode Island Hospital, appeared before US Magistrate Judge Lincoln D. Almond. Villarreal and Menissian are accused of conspiring to distribute prescription drugs to eight Rhode Island Hospital employees using fake or forged prescriptions, according” to Assistant US Attorney Adi Goldstein. The Journal points out that Villarreal is now a contract physician at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Providence.

• VA Hospital Getting $13 Million In Improvements Despite Plans To Replace It.  Louisville Courier-Journal “The federal government is spending $13 million and wants to spend another $10 million on projects to improve and update the Robley Rex Veterans Affairs Medical Center – even as plans proceed to replace it with a new VA hospital.” National “and local VA officials say the improvements are necessary because even if approved today, a new medical center wouldn’t open for more than five years, and they must keep up with the current demands of healthcare delivery.” The Courier-Journal adds that US Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), “who has helped secure funds for a new medical center, said he supports spending money on the current center because the earliest a new center could open is 2017.

• Military Can Lead To Successful Entrepreneurship, Expert Tells Group At Augusta Area Veterans Forum. Augusta (GA) Chronicle The Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center Auditorium on Thursday, the Small Business Administration (SBA) district office held the Augusta Area Veterans Forum. Jorge Valentin-Stone, a business development specialist for the SBA, “addressed a group of about 50 attendees at the forum, explaining the programs and services the SBA offers to individuals interested in starting a business.” The Chronicle quotes Valentin-Stone, who said, “Members of the military know very well what discipline and sacrifice are all about. You must be willing to take on any number of sacrifices in your life to start a business.”

• Mobile Site Expands Real Warriors’ Reach.  Army Times “A digital health educational resource for service members and veterans is attracting a growing amount of traffic to its new mobile site. Since the Real Warriors Campaign launched m.realwarriors.net in May, 21 percent of people accessing Real Warriors do so through the mobile site.” The “Veterans Affairs Department and the Defense Department fund Real Warriors as part of the Defense Centers of Excellence.”

• Veteran’s Inc Receives $1M Grant. Shrewsbury (MA) Chronicle  “Veterans Inc., with facilities in Shrewsbury and Worcester, received a $1 million grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs for the new Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, which will serve 400 very-low income veteran families. Under the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, the low-income families will be able to take advantage of limited temporary financial assistance payments, such as rent payments, utility payments, security deposits and moving costs to help reduce homelessness among veterans.” In addition, the program will “provide a range of supportive services through sub-awards to eligible low-income veteran families throughout New England, including case management, assistance in obtaining VA benefits and assistance in obtaining and coordinating other public benefits.”

• Tuskegee Airmen’s Ranks May Be Smaller, But These Veterans Are Still Flying High. Washington Post  “They once numbered 15,000 – 992 pilots, 200 navigators, bombardiers and administrators, as well as legions of crew members and support and medical personnel who came to be known as the Tuskegee Airmen.” But only a “few more than 100 of the ‘originals’ from the Tuskegee days were among those who came to Washington this week for the 40th annual convention of Tuskegee Airmen Inc. at National Harbor’s Gaylord hotel.” The airmen were “pioneering aviators who broke the color barrier for black pilots in the US military during World War II.”

•  Shore Veterans Shuttle Service Available. Dispatch  “The Veteran’s Administration (VA) Maryland Health Care System is now providing free door-to-door transportation service Monday through Friday throughout the Eastern Shore for veterans needing transportation to the VA Outpatient Clinic in Cambridge.” Wheelchair vehicles are “available as part of the free door-to-door shuttle service. Veterans are encouraged to call at least one to two weeks in advance of their scheduled appointment.”

• VA Rural Health Care Mobile Clinic Travels To Help Veterans. WBOY-TV  “A traveling health clinic is making sure veterans get the help they need.” On Thursday, Veterans Affairs “set up its community and rural health care mobile clinic in Buckhannon.” The “clinic visits Upshur County twice a month and other locations.”

• American Legion Continues Push For Changes At Arlington Cemetery. WAMU-FM  “Arlington National Cemetery has performed thousands of military burials and ceremonies flawlessly in the past twelve months.” However, Jacob Gadd, a “deputy director at the American Legion, says the only way to recover from years of mislabeled graves and improperly handled remains is for the US Army to hand over management of the cemetery to the National Cemeteries Administration, which is part” of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. WAMU added, “No one in cemetery leadership was available to comment at press time.

• Long-Missing WWII Airmen Buried At Arlington. NBC Nightly News At Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday, a “solemn” burial was held for “12 US airmen, the entire crew of a B-24 bomber from World War II.” The airmen were “laid to rest 68 years after their mission ended with a crash landing in the Pacific. Their remains were found decades later in New Guinea.”