Top 10 Veterans News from Around the Country 2/1/10

Find out What’s Inside Today’s Local News for Veterans

1. VFW Head Lauds Shinseki, Sees Improvements In Vets’ Health Care.
2. NY Governor: Keep Aid To Local Vets’ Agencies At Current Level.
3. Vets Cemetery In Kentucky On Track For Fall Opening.
4. Acute Psychiatric Unit Proposed For Vermont VAMC.
5. Ohio County Hard Hit By Veteran Suicides.
6. Old Soldier Battles Suicide Epidemic.
7. Suicide Prevention Said To Be A Focus Of US Army.
8. Obama To Propose 20 Percent Spending Increase For VA.
9. GAO Criticizes Office Running Joint EHR Project For VA, DOD.
10. America’s Last Living WWI Vet Turns 109.

Have You Heard
VA Supports Relief Efforts in Haiti
Working with the military, the VA Caribbean Healthcare System in San Juan, Puerto Rico loaded 12 containers of medical supplies to be airlifted to Haiti as a part of Operation Safe Return, the earthquake relief effort. View more on VA’s Flickr page and find ways to help through the Center for International Disaster Information Learn more at VA Home Page

1.      VFW Head Lauds Shinseki, Sees Improvements In Veterans’ Health Care. The Alexandria (LA) Town Talk (1/30, Donica, 30K) reports, “Veterans of Foreign Wars Commander-in-Chief Thomas J. Tradewell Sr. said Friday that the quality of health care for veterans is improving, but still more needs to be done.” In Alexandria Friday for a VFW conference, Tradewell “said he is pleased with the variety of programs that Veterans Affairs has in place to help veterans,” noting that the VA “has hired additional staff and has established ‘benefits-due-at-discharge’ sites in response to the influx of current servicemen and women being discharged from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” He also praised the Obama administration’s increased support for veterans’ health, and said conversations with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki “show there is a plan to make a smooth transition from the time a service member goes into the military and the time the person complete his or her service and enters the VA system.”

2. New York Governor Proposes Keeping Aid To Local Veterans’ Agencies At Current Level.A ReadMedia release from the New York State Division of Veterans’ Affairs (1/30) announces that Gov. David Paterson proposed to maintain funding for the state’s local veterans’ service agencies at last year’s level of $1,177,000, which was 42% higher than the previous year’s funding.

3.      Vets Cemetery In Kentucky On Track For Fall Opening. The AP (2/1) reports, “Kentucky officials say the state’s fourth veterans cemetery remains on track to open this fall with 1,100 in-ground crypts that will allow former military personnel to be buried near their spouses.” The “78-acre Veterans Cemetery North East will eventually house 25,000 graves, although the second phase of the project won’t be completed for about 20 years.”

4.      Acute Psychiatric Unit Proposed For Vermont VAMC.The Rutland (VT) Herald (1/30, Gregg) reports, “Officials with the state of Vermont, Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center are discussing the possibility of building a secure 16-bed acute-care psychiatric unit at the VA’s 64-acre campus that would serve Vermont residents and veterans needing intensive mental health care. Although the proposal is still in its conceptual stage, the state-owned facility, if built, might be staffed by Dartmouth physicians and would be part of an evolving plan to replace the problem-plagued Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury. Dartmouth already has an affiliation with the VA for a variety of medical services, and also provides mental-health care services for the states of New Hampshire and Maine.” The director of the VA hospital said that the agency has surplus land that it might donate, sell or lend to the state, and was interested in providing services to a new facility in order to obtain more convenient psychiatric care for veterans.

5.      Ohio County Hard Hit By Veteran Suicides. The Warren (OH) Tribune Chronicle 91/31, Rodgers) reports, “An average of seven veterans take their lives each year in Trumbull County, according to a study of county coroner records. Through that study the Tribune Chronicle has identified at least two veterans of the recent war in Iraq.” While veterans nationally account for about 20% of all suicides, in the eastern Ohio county, they accounted for 37% of suicides.

6.      Old Soldier Battles Suicide Epidemic. McClatchy (1/31, Abdullah) reports that retired Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel Rhodes, a three-tour Iraq veteran “is among a small cadre of senior non-commissioned officers and officers who’re opening up about their journeys back from the brink of suicide — efforts that top military commanders applaud as they battle a suicide epidemic. The open support from the military’s uppermost ranks for openly discussing a topic long considered taboo is a revolution triggered largely by both greater awareness and pressure to curb record-high suicide rates.” Now Rhodes “receives hundreds of e-mails every week from soldiers who pour out their hearts with secrets they don’t feel they can tell their spouses or their commanding officers. He encourages them to get help, and every once in a while they do.”

7.      Suicide Prevention Said To Be A Focus Of US Army. The Illinois State University Daily Vidette (2/1, Curry) reports, “The suicide rate among veterans ages 18 to 25 has risen to 26 percent from 2005 to 2007, according to preliminary data from the Veterans Affairs Department.” However, Lt. Col. Ray Hart “explained the Army is very conscious there is a suicide issue and they have been trying to promote suicide awareness as well as find a common thread that can help explain the cause of the suicides.” The Vidette adds, “Battlemind, a program developed by the Department of Defense, focuses on typical reactions when returning from war, and risk factors and early symptoms of anxiety, depression and suicide risk and a buddy program…pairs a returning soldier with a buddy who checks up on him/her weekly.”

VA Reverses Benefits Decision For Afghanistan Vet Suffering From PTSD. The Lynchburg (VA) News & Advance (1/30, Dumond) reported, “For longer now than” 24-year-old Afghanistan veteran Robert Blanchard “served in the Army, his family has fought” the US VA for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) “benefits related to his combat experience.” In September, the VA denied Blanchard’s request for increased disability payments, but three “months into an investigation by The News & Advance into Blanchard’s case, a new letter came from the VA, backdating PTSD and other mental health benefits to 2007.” VA spokesman Bruce Sprecher “said he believes the Veterans Benefits Administration does a good job, but said in some cases, compensation decisions such as Blanchard’s aren’t always right the first time.”Program Reaches Out To

Combat Vets In Virginia. The Lynchburg (VA) News & Advance (1/30, Dumond) reported, “A new program created by the Virginia Department of Veterans Services to prevent the overwhelming number of soldiers returning from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan from falling through the cracks is finding its feet here in Central Virginia. The Wounded Warrior program was created” by the Virginia General Assembly “in 2008 to help Virginia’s combat veterans not currently in federal service and their families, either by direct service or by referring them to another agency.” The News & Advance spoke about veterans’ needs with Dr. Dell Short, the chief of mental heath service at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Salem, Virginia, who “said one of the greatest challenges for therapists is in getting veterans to accept help.”

Iraq Vet Speaks About Overcoming PTSD. According to the Fitchburg (MA) Sentinel And Enterprise (1/31, Magazu, 15K), Iraq veteran Sam Rhodes “travels the country speaking to audiences of 600 to 700 people about PTSD,” and on Saturday, he gave a presentation at the Leominster Veterans Center in Leominster, Virginia. Rhodes “has created a 10-step process to overcoming” PTSD. Steps “include making connections with family members and friends, avoiding seeing crises as insurmountable, accepting change as part of life and moving toward established goals.”

8.      Obama To Propose 20 Percent Spending Increase For VA.McClatchy (2/1, Thomma) reports, “President Obama will propose a 2011 federal budget today that would spend $1.3 trillion more than the government takes in.” The proposal reportedly includes a “20 percent increase for the Department of Veterans Affairs.” According to Politico (2/1, Rogers, 25K), “both Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, two of the fastest areas of recent spending, are exempted” from a three-year domestic spending freeze Obama recently proposed. Instead, the VA is “slated to get significant new money to speed the processing of claims, and billions more will be requested this year to resolve old disputes related to soldiers and airmen exposed to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.”

9.      GAO Criticizes Office Running Joint EHR Project For VA, DOD. Government Health IT (2/1, Mosquera) notes that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has “criticized the group directing the project to tie together the electronic health record systems operated by the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments. GAO said the VA-DOD Interagency Program Office (IPO) needed to improve its planning and scheduling — and specifically its ability to create a master plan for the project — if the project is to succeed.” Government Health IT adds, “VA and DOD plan to develop a virtual lifetime electronic record (VLER), which will give military service members access to all their electronic records as they transition form active duty to veteran status and throughout their lives.”

10.    America’s Last Living WWI Vet Turns 109.The Kansas City (MO) Star (2/1, Campbell) reports, “Missouri native Frank Buckles, the nation’s last living veteran of World War I, will celebrate his 109th birthday” on Monday. After noting that Buckles’ daughter said the veteran is “doing very well,” the Star adds, “Buckles, who was a guest at Kansas City’s Liberty Memorial in 2008, supports efforts to designate the World War I Memorial in Washington as the national memorial to the war, but he does not oppose the Liberty Memorial gaining that status.” CNN (2/1, Courson) publishes a similar story on its website.