Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

1.      The battle after the war.  Mail Tribune In the past two years, the number of women veterans seeking help at the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ facility has grown nearly 9 percent, 

2.      Veterans worried about service cuts.  Appeal-Democrat  In one, a Navy veteran who developed cancer from radiation exposure during the Korean War was denied benefits from the US Department of Veterans Affairs

3.      Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs: Fighting for Louisiana’s.  The Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs (LDVA) announced today that it is … at a recognized veterans’ cemetery at no cost to the veteran or the state in which

4.      Military families fight battle at home against foreclosure.  The Tennessean Private bank loans guaranteed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs historically have out-performed other categories of mortgages, according to the 

5.      Land sought for veterans cemetery.  Buffalo News  By Lou Michel Building a National Veterans Cemetery in Western New York is proving to be a challenge. The US Department of Veterans Affairs is now seeking a

6.      Wanted: 200 acres near Batavia.  The Batavian  The US Department of Veterans Affairs is trying to secure a plot of land that is central to Buffalo and Rochester for a new veteran’s cemetery, according to

7.      Mountain Hospice Receives National Recognition.  WBOY-TV  The grant is funded by through a contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs. “They’ve given to us it’s time for us to give back to them.

8.      US Treasury Department Revamps HAFA Short Sale Program, Results to Only 661.   Press Release Mag  
VA, that is veteran’s affairs, will approve the VA short sales if the cost to the VA is calculated is less than the foreclosure. 

9.      Iraq vet walks country, arrives in San Marcos. Newstreamz San Marcos … who criticized the US Department of Veterans Affairs for not being more proactive in providing support to soldiers, though he said there are similar 

10. Veterans decry proposed cuts to county services. San Jose Mercury News JP Tremblay, deputy secretary of the state Department of Veterans Affairs, said the governor focused on preserving funding for the nearly 2000 veterans in

HAVE YOU HEARD?

A new innovative VA employee-developed software program is speeding up claims and eliminating errors and will soon be used by VA nationwide. Renford Patch, a Veterans Service Representative at VBA’s regional office in Phoenix, Ariz., developed a program that automates the steps for determining compensation for varying degrees of hearing loss. The calculator analyzes audio metric data from a hearing test and then determines whether a veteran has a hearing loss, the extent of the loss in terms of decibels, and the level of disability. The calculator then generates a narrative text file, citing relevant regulations for payment. To date, the program as proven to be 100 percent accurate in its calculations. VA’s acting Undersecretary for Benefits Mike Walcoff believes that VBA could adapt the calculator in the future to expedite claims processing for other medical conditions.

IN OTHER VETERANS NEWS

11. Veterans Muster to honor Vietnam vets. Newnan Times-Herald By Sarah Fay Campbell Joe Brooks and Malcolm Jackson of the Coweta Commission on Veteran’s Affairs appeared before the Coweta County Board of Commissioners 

12. Sen. Frank Lautenberg Kicks Off Project To Record New Jersey Veterans History. The State Column (blog)
He is now working to reach as many of the state’s veterans as possible with this program. Lautenberg’s office will collaborate with veterans groups,

13. St. Albans VA plans panned by Ackerman. YourNabe.com … to the federal government’s plans for reconstructing the St. Albans Veterans Hospital and sent a letter to the US Department of Veterans Affairs,

14. Craig Veterans Telehealth Clinic introduces new telebenefits program. Craig Daily Press Telebenefits is a pilot program meant to connect rural Colorado veterans with benefit counselors at the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ Denver Regional

15. VA Hospital Hosts “Eliminating Veteran Homelessness” Summit. Fayetteville (NC) Observer During a National Homeless Forum held in early December, one year into his commitment” to “end veteran homelessness within five years,” Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki “determined that the program was not where he wanted it to be” and that “VA’s plan to end homelessness had failed to solicit input from the local communities. ‘He said, ‘Let’s go back to the drawing board,” said Edgar Norwood, the acting homeless coordinator” for the Veterans Affairs hospital “in Fayetteville.” That is “why Norwood and other VA leaders met to brainstorm with more than 80 people Wednesday during an ‘Eliminating Veteran Homelessness’ summit held” at the hospital.

16. Tuscaloosa VAMC Hosts “Homeless Summit.” Tuscaloosa (AL) News “More shelters and transitional housing, better public transportation and more funding are needed to better serve the homeless in West Alabama, according to participants in a ‘homeless summit’ hosted Tuesday by the Tuscaloosa Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Representatives of dozens of local agencies, governments and nonprofit groups attended the summit to discuss ways to improve conditions and services for the area’s homeless population.”

17. Ground To Be Broken On Renovation Project For Disabled Vet. Washington Post “Officials from the Northern Virginia Fuller Center for Housing, Azalea Charities, the Quality of Life Foundation and Caulkins Construction are scheduled to break ground Thursday on a renovation project that will help” make it easier for 26-year-old veteran Joshua Himan to get “around his Woodbridge home easier when Himan returns. He was paralyzed from the chest down when the vehicle he was riding in hit a…bomb” in Afghanistan.

18. WWII Vet Given Bronze Star. AP 86-year-old Clarence Earl Derrington Jr., who was “wounded in the back by a mortar round in World War II’s famous Battle of the Bulge,” then “spent 260 days” as a prisoner of war, “finally got an award that was long overdue” when US Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) presented him with a “Bronze Star medal during a ceremony Tuesday in Jackson.”

19. VA Aiming To Help Vets In Need Of End-Of-Life Care. Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News Dr. Scott Shreve, “who oversees palliative care” at the Lebanon Veterans Affairs Medical Center, is “also directing hospice and palliative care nationally for…VA,” which has a “new training curriculum, the Education on Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Veterans Project” that is “scheduled to be rolled out to all 153 VA medical centers this year.” According to the blog, VA, which in 2008 issued a directive that “entitles all veterans to hospice and palliative” care, “recently unveiled a partnership with the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, We Honor Veterans, that aims to address issues related to military service that arise at the end of life.”

20. VA Employees Going To Great Lengths To Protect Patient Data. NextGov “The Veterans Administration will go to extreme lengths to protect patient data, including dumpster diving, Chief Information Officer Roger Baker said in his regular press call on the VA data breach reports sent monthly with Congress.” Baker described how such dumpster diving occurred recently at the VA hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, then “said the incident demonstrates VA has developed a culture where employees, if necessary, will take extraordinary steps to protect sensitive veteran information.”

21. VA Hospital Providing “Some Of The Best Health Care In America.” KTRK-TV Veterans at Houston’s DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center are “getting some of the best health care in America,” in part because the hospital “has had electronic medical records for years.” KTRK noted that “78 VA doctors are on the ‘Best Doctors in America’ list,” which is “compiled by surveys of doctors and specialists around America. The polling is confidential, and the ‘best’ doctors are chosen based on 1.5 million evaluations collected annually.”

22. Hospital Helps Homeless Vet Change His Life.  WMAR-TV With help of the DeBakey VAMC, veteran Oliver Avery, who was “divorced twice, homeless, desperate and ready for a change,” has “turned his life around. He was selected to attend the Veterans Affairs year long Leadership Development Institute,” a program that is “designed to enhance the leadership skills of people for higher level positions. Today Avery is the assistant chief of the Environmental Management Service at the 120-bed Loch Raven VA Community Living & Rehabilitation Center in Baltimore,” which is a “division of the VA Maryland Health Care System.”

23. VA Rehab Unit Simulates Real Life. SmartPlanet.com Profiles Independence Way, the “model community rehab unit at the Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the first of its kind at a VA hospital.” Independence Way is an “environment that simulates real life, so veterans who suffer from traumatic brain injuries (TBI), other neurological conditions or physical injuries can train for community re-entry within the safe setting of a medical center.”

24. VA Doctor Leads Study On Nighttime Bladder Activity Of US Men. Reuters A new study in the Journal of Urology has found that one in five American men have to get up at least twice nightly to empty their bladders, a situation which could indicate an underlying medical problem or could contribute to poorer health. Dr. Alayne D. Markland, who is affiliated with the Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, was the lead researcher on the new study.

25. Patients In VA Hospitals Receive Inadequate Evaluation, Treatment For Osteoporosis. MedWire “Few elderly people with hip fracture receive adequate evaluation and treatment for osteoporosis, a study of patients attending US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals shows.” For the study, published in the journal Osteoporosis International, researchers “reviewed the medical records of 3347 patients treated for hip fracture between 2004 and 2006.” The researchers “found that only 42 (1.2%) fracture patients underwent” bone mineral density “testing and only 487 (14.5%) received osteoporosis therapy within 12 months of fracture.”

26. VA Exempted From Plan To Rescind Unspent Money. New York Times “Senate Democrats on Wednesday defeated a bid by Republicans to repeal last year’s sweeping health care overhaul, as they successfully mounted a party-line defense of President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.” Lawmakers in “both parties joined forces, however, to repeal a tax provision in the law that would impose a huge information-reporting requirement on small businesses.” Because the “tax provision was expected to result in increased tax revenue, Democrats had to come up with another way to generate the same money,” which they did in a plan that “rescinds $44 billion in unspent money appropriated by Congress,” although the “Pentagon, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration” are exempted “from those cuts.”

27. Bill Would Recognize Family-Friendly Employers. Army Times “Businesses that go above and beyond to create flexible workplaces for military spouses or caretakers of disabled service members deserve federal recognition – which might encourage more businesses to follow their lead, say the sponsors” of S. 90, “bipartisan Senate legislation” that “would create a nine-member Defense Department task force to oversee a new Military Family-Friendly Employer Award.” The bill, which has been “referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee,” would hand out non-financial awards “once a year.”

28. Advocate For Homeless Veterans Sees Real Change At VA. Real Change News Vietnam veteran and Washington State homeless veteran advocate Joe Ingram writes that he was initially skeptical on hearing VA Secretary Shinseki tell a national conference he was “here to end veteran homelessness,” then adds that Shinseki “has brought change.

29. Australian Compiles CD To Raise Funds For Agent Orange Victims. Cumberland Courier Newspapers A former Vietnam war veteran “has launched a campaign to help the children of Vietnamese people who were contaminated by toxic dioxin Agent Orange during the conflict. Clarence Ormsby has devoted many hours and a substantial amount of money to compile a commemorative CD that he hopes will raise thousands of dollars.”

30. New Non-Profit Says It Intends To Help Fill Counseling Gap. Grass Valley (CA) Union Gary Brown, the executive director of a new nonprofit to serve veterans, agrees with a previous commentary on inadequate veterans services. He focuses on the problem of PTSD affecting returned veterans and their families. While the VA “does provide local psychological help for those who seek it,” diagnosed veterans “must leave the area for further treatment,” which for some “adds another hurdle to an already frightening prospect.

31. Researchers Warn Sleep Deprivation May Cause PTSD, Suicide. Stars And Stripes “Researchers are finding that longtime sleep deprivation can have devastating consequences, including chronic insomnia and psychological disorders. Especially vulnerable are downrange troops on repeated deployments, experts say.”

32. Veterans Facing Foreclosure Guaranteed $1,500 in Relocation Assistance. Loansafe.org The Department of Veterans Affairs “works tirelessly to keep veterans from the brink of foreclosure,” allowing almost three-quarters of the VA borrowers who defaulted in 2009 “to avoid foreclosure and keep their homes.” Even borrowers who “do wind up losing their homes will have some manner of safety net. Veterans who submit to a short sale or a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure can receive $1,500 in relocation assistance, the VA announced in early January.”

33. Cemetery Lands Once Housed Village Of Freed Slaves. Huffington Post Rows of “small unassuming white tombstones, many engraved with names like George, Toby and Rose” in a quiet corner near the Iwo Jima Memorial are “the only visible reminders” that part of Arlington National Cemetery “sits atop what used to be a thriving black town — “Freedman’s Village” — built on land confiscated from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.”

34. VA To Host Feb. 18 Town Halls On Needs Of Local Vets.  Lake County (CA) News

35. Forum For Veterans Planned In North Tonawanda. Buffalo News

36. Raising Hell And Hope. Doylestown (PA) Intelligencer

37. VA Fashion Show Flashback.  Menlo Park (CA) Patch

38. Task Force Upholds Covenant To Support Veterans And Their Families. Reno (NV) Gazette-Journal