Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

From the VA:

Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

1. VA Will Release RFPs For $12 Billion In IT Outsourcing. InformationWeek (7/23, Hoover) reports that the Department of Veterans Affairs “will ramp up a $12 billion set of IT contracts on Monday, when it will release the request for proposals for the sweeping Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology program, or T4. The effort will include up to $7 billion in spending on IT at the VA over the next five years, and up to $5 billion set aside to provide services” to other agencies that need to meet government requirements for contracting work out to small businesses. In a speech Tuesday to a conference on veteran-owned small businesses, VA Secretary Shinseki said that the agency has received expressions of interest from hundreds of IT vendors, has consulted directly with about 240 and drew 320 to a pre-solicitation conference last month.
A Washington Technology (7/23, Lipowicz, 40K) blog adds that at least seven of the 15 prime contracts to be awarded by VA’s T4 procurement “will be awarded to veteran-owned small businesses, Secretary Eric Shinseki announced. Four of the Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology (T4) prime contracts will go to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, while three will go to veteran-owned small businesses, a department news release said.” Shinseki estimated that T$ will bring veteran-owned small businesses contracts worth between $800 million to $1 billion.

2. Texas Will Build Veterans Cemetery In Corpus Christi. KIII-TV Corpus Christi, Texas (7/23, De La Rosa) reports the groundbreaking for a state veterans cemetery in the northwestern part of Corpus Christi. The cemetery, which local veterans had sought since the late 1990’s, received nearly $8.5 million from the Department of Veterans Affairs and is expected to be completed in about two years.
The website for KRIS-TV Corpus Christi (7/23, Martinez) adds that Texas presently has three veterans cemeteries. KZTV-TV Corpus Christi (7/23, Miles, 11:26 p.m. EDT) also covers the groundbreaking.

3. Veteran Services Brings Nearly $30 Million To One Pennsylvania County. WKBN-TV Youngstown, Ohio (7/23, Poulton) reports that the director of the Mercer County, Pennsylvania Veterans Affairs Office, says that last year veterans there “benefited from nearly $30 million in expenditures that were made by the US Department of Veteran Affairs.” Of that total $15.2 million was for medical care and $13.1 million was for direct compensation and pensions.

4. Minnesota Community Works To Get Veterans Cemetery. The Marshall (MN) News Record (7/24, Adamek) reports that the commissioners of Fillmore County hope to win a state veterans cemetery for Preston, and recently traveled to observe the operations of a veterans cemetery in Little Falls.

5. Ohio Delegation Urges VA To Establish Consolidated Archive In Dayton. The Dayton Daily News (7/23, Nolan, 115K) reports, “Ohio’s congressional delegation is urging the US Department of Veterans Affairs to locate a consolidated archive of the department’s records in Dayton.” A joint news release from the state’s Senators Sherrod Brown (D) and George Voinovich (R) and OH3 Rep. Mike Turner (R) said that the archive would be located in two buildings at the Dayton VAMC, if the city is chosen. The article adds that Minneapolis is also reportedly being considered if a consolidated archive is approved. WHIO-TV Dayton (7/24, 6:35 a.m. ET) also reports the story.

6. Senate Panel Will Probe Arlington Cemetery; McCaskill Says VA Shows Task Is Manageable. KRCG-TV Columbia, Missouri (7/23, 7:02 p.m. ET) reports that Sen. Claire McCaskill will hold hearings next week in her subcommittee on contract oversight to probe the “record-keeping disaster at Arlington National Cemetery.” She “says that the Veterans Administration has demonstrated that millions of gravesites can be located with a little digital know-how, and there is nothing wrong at Arlington that expertise and software can’t fix.”

7. Man Accused Of Collecting Mother’s VA Benefits For Years After Her Death. The Sioux City Journal (7/24, Montag) reports that a Sioux City man “has been charged in court documents with felony theft for allegedly illegally collecting approximately $90,000 in federal assistance.” Charles Meyers, 61, is of collecting nearly six year’s worth of his mother’s benefits from the Veterans Administration after she died in 2003.

8. Air Force Says Agent Orange Was Never Stored At Texas Air Base. The San Antonio Express-News (7/22, Cantú, 210K) reports that Vietnam-era herbicide Agent Orange “was never stored at the former Kelly Air Force Base, local US Air Force officials said.” At a July 13 meeting of area residents advising on cleaning up the site of the former base, now an industrial park, the question was raised as to whether the chemical had ever been stored there.

9. New Mexico Holds Conference For Women Veterans. KRQE-TV Albuquerque (7/23) reports on its website that the New Mexico Department of Veterans’ Services “is presenting the Four Corners Women Veterans’ Conference in Farmington on July 23 which focuses on issues affecting women military veterans.” Topics that will be covered at the conference include post-traumatic stress disorder and military sexual trauma. Representatives from the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center in Albuquerque will also be there to discuss available veterans’ medical benefits and services, and Dr. Betty Moseley-Brown, associate director of the VA’s Center for Women Veterans, was also scheduled to speak.

10. Paper: “It’s About Time” For VA Registry To Track Hexavalent Chromium Exposure In Iraq. In continuing coverage, The Oregonian (7/23, Francis, 276K) “Oregon At War” blog, on the same day that newspaper reported the VA’s decision to establish a registry of US soldiers exposed to hexavalent chromium at Qarmat Ali, Iraq, is 2003, calls the exposure “frankly, scandalous,” adding that “It’s about time.”