Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

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. VA Announces Budget Request for 2012.  Business Wire  –In announcing the proposed budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) during the next fiscal year, Secretary of …
2. Budget breakdown: Veterans Affairs.  While many agencies are cutting back or barely holding steady, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ budget is growing.
3. Veterans organizations urge Administration and Congress to invest $65.3B to meet veterans health-care, benefits. 
4. Sen. Patty Murray on VA-HUD Assessment of Veteran Homelessness.  The State Column (blog)   Today, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman, Senator Patty Murray, released the following statement on the Department of Veterans
5. The Villages Outpatient Clinic exemplifies intent of national event.  Villages Daily Sun  Veterans like Bill Oster, a Disabled American Veterans service officer, for the high level of excellence at which this US Department of Veterans Affairs
6. Villages Elementary of Lady Lake students send handmade cards to ailing veterans.  Villages Daily Sun  US Department of Veterans Affairs North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System. “These handmade valentines that are donated by students and given to
7. VA & HUD Issue First-Ever Report on Homeless Veterans « Oskaloosa News.  Local Theaters · Radar and Road Conditions · Local Traffic Cameras … WASHINGTON – For the first time, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of … HUD’s report, Veteran Homelessness: A Supplement to the 2009 Annual Homeless … “With our federal, state and community partners working together,
8. Committee approves bill to extend military burial details to Washington Crossing National Cemetery.  HARRISBURG – Legislation to grant formal burials to veterans buried at Washington Crossing National Cemetery won unanimous approval in the House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee on Tuesday.
9. VA to hold outreach at Cass County fairgrounds.   The national and state Departments of Veterans Affairs will host two open houses at the Cass County fairgrounds in Weeping Water, noon to 7 p.m. March 4 and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 5, to provide information and counseling to rural-area veterans.
10. Veterans lend a hand with state memorial | BlueRidgeNow.com.  Veterans lend a hand with state memorial. Mike Dirks/Times-News … ‘This is going to be slimy,” the sculptor told local veteran Rufus “Pooch” Pace as … a casting mold, drinking coffee and talking to the others about veterans affairs

President Obama’s 2012 VA Budget Request

On February 14, the President released VA’s Budget proposal, which includes a plan of $132 billion for 2012. For more information, visit VA’s Budget website or call (202) 461–6630.

 IN OTHER NEWS

• VETERANS REPORT – All Military.  New VA Tribal Govt. Office The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced … for veterans when they need help in securing state and local benefits.
• Veterans upset over V.A.  Local veterans are up in arms as frustration builds over what they say … V.A. officials refused to discuss the state of the Veteran’s Clinic on … It is now up to the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide for Laredo’s war
• The man who adopted a cemetery.  George Scott Miller Jr. rescued African-American graves from obscurity
• Caregivers Of Wounded Troops Still Waiting For Benefits Signed Into Law By Obama. Vet Groups Criticize Administration Over Pace Of Implementing Caregiver Law. Washington Post “Nine months after President Obama” signed the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act, a “broad expansion of benefits for those caring for service members severely wounded” in the two current US wars, “none of the assistance has materialized and it is caught up in a bureaucratic tangle that could shrink the number of families eligible for the help.” While Veterans Affairs officials “say… some progress has been made” designing the law, vets group “criticize the administration for not moving faster given the public emphasis the president and the first lady have continued to place on veterans issues” at post-signing events, such as one “called ‘Strengthening our Military Families.'”
• VA Offering More Services To Veteran Caregivers.  Providence (RI) Journal “The Department of Veterans Affairs is launching the first of a series of new and enhanced services supporting family caregivers of seriously ill and injured veterans disabled in the line of duty after Sept. 11, 2001.” The column quotes VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who said, “Caregivers make tremendous sacrifices every day to help veterans of all eras who served this nation.” The column adds, “VA also has a Caregiver Support Web page at www.caregiver.va.gov, which will provide general information once final regulations are published.” 
• Runyan A “Champion” For Disabled Veteran Assistance Programs. CQ Weekly “on the basement floor of the Capitol,” 49 “Republican moderates…gather for lunch” each Tuesday. Generally, the “group’s members are fiscal conservatives who have reservations about cutting some government programs and services or who don’t subscribe to GOP orthodoxy on social issues such as abortion. Newly elected Jon Runyan of New Jersey, for instance, a one-time offensive lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles, has emerged as a champion for programs to help disabled veterans, schools and universities, social services and other domestic priorities in the coming budget battles.”
• Schoomaker Criticizes Newspaper’s Findings On Warrior Transition Units.  Pittsburgh Tribune-Review US Army Surgeon General Eric B. Schoomaker has “sharply criticized a nine-month probe by the Tribune-Review that found ongoing neglect of wounded, sick and injured soldiers in the service’s Warrior Transition units. In a letter to the editor” of the Tribune-Review, Schoomaker “wrote that the Trib’s articles ‘grossly misrepresent’ the Army’s treatment of patients and ‘did a disservice’ to caregivers, recovering soldiers and ‘every American.'”
• Indiana Vets’ Groups Fighting Change In Tuition Assistance. AP “Indiana veterans’ groups are fighting a proposal that would reduce college tuition help for children of some Indiana veterans.” The bill, which “would change a longstanding practice of guaranteeing full college scholarships to children of disabled military veterans,” would “allow full scholarships to children of deceased veterans and to those of veterans who are at least 80 percent disabled.
• Civilian Volunteers Offering Rehab Assistance To Wounded Vets.  Fayetteville (NC) Observer A kayaking class in East Raleigh is “one of dozens of civilian-run alternative therapies that combat veterans are using to reclaim their physical and emotional strength after suffering brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. Most of the programs rely on volunteers, are free to veterans and their families, and combine what science knows about combat stress with intuitive notions about how to relieve it.”
• Lutz VA To Hold Women’s Health Fair. Saginaw (MI) News “Female veterans have a chance to learn more about staying healthy,” because the “Lutz Veterans Affairs Hospital, 1500 Weiss in Saginaw, is holding a women’s health fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday in the first floor auditorium.
• Sioux Falls VAMC To Host Series Of Open Houses For Female Vets.  Sioux Falls (SD) Argus Leader “Female veterans are invited to a series of open houses hosted” by the Sioux Falls Veterans Affairs Medical Center “this month. The open houses,” which will “run from 3 to 6 p.m. and offer health care information and share changes for female veterans,” are to be held “Thursday.
• Bob Stump VAMC Employee Helps Honor Vietnam Vet. AP Vietnam vet “Luis Molinar was set to receive a Silver Star, Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal for valor during a ceremony Sunday at the McCormick Ranch Golf Club in Scottsdale.” 
• Magnetic Energy Beams Being Used To Treat PTSD In Combat Vets. Forum Of Fargo-Moorhead “transcranial magnetic stimulation” is a medical treatment involving a “metal coil that transmits magnetic energy beams into” a patient’s brain. Doctors “at Walter Reed Army Hospital are using it to treat post-traumatic stress disorder among combat veterans.”
• Sioux Tribe Reviewing National Cemetery Bids. AP “The Rosebud Sioux Tribe is reviewing bids for architecture and engineering design for a national cemetery that would be located on reservation land near” Mission, South Dakota. The “tribe is proceeding based on a grant opportunity letter from the Veterans Affairs.”
• VA, HUD: Vets Make Up 16% Of Nation’s Homeless. Tulsa (OK) World “The federal departments of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs have released a report stating that veterans make up 16 percent of the nation’s homeless population.”  
• Orange Prairie VA Clinic Pleasant And Professional. Peoria (IL) Journal Star Veteran Jack L. Bradley praises the Veterans Affairs “clinic on Orange Prairie.” Bradley adds, “My caregivers at…VA have been outstanding, and I heartily recommend the new facility to any veteran.”
• VA Eases Agent Orange Claims For Korea Veterans.  Keene (NH) Sentinel
• Best To Tell The Story Before It Is Too Late. Cumberland (MD) Times-News “There’s a TV program I’d like you to watch Wednesday night” at “9 p.m. on National Geographic.” The program is about the Wereth 11, “American soldiers who were taken prisoner in Belgium and murdered by German SS troops during the World War II Battle of the Bulge. The incident drew little attention at the time because the infamous Malmedy Massacre happened the same day, and – it is entirely possible – because the Wereth 11 were black.”
• Lawsuit To Claim Vets Were Sexually Assaulted.  Army Times
• Whatever Happened To … … The Wounded Soldier? The Washington Post (2/13, Long).
• Veterans Rap Group Slated For Tuesday. Johnstown (PA) Tribune-Democrat “A Veterans Rap Group will hold its third meeting from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday in the solarium at Hiram G. Andrews Center at 727 Goucher St., Upper Yoder Township. The group is being sponsored” in part by the “DuBois Vet Center in Clearfield County.”
• VAMC Arts Fest Deadline Coming.  Martinsburg (WV) Journal
• WWII Pvt. Gets Distinguished Service Cross.  AP
• “Local Kid” Helps North Veterans.  Attleboro (MA) Sun Chronicle