Making News

• Department Of Military And Veterans Affairs Partnering With U Of M To Raise Awareness Of Benefits. Ann Arbor (MI) Journal The Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs is “partnering with the University of Michigan to raise awareness about the many benefits and opportunities available for veterans.” The DMVA began an “intense, statewide knowledge campaign earlier this year…to improve Michigan’s current, last-place status.” Michigan is “11th in the nation in veteran population, but 53rd, even behind Guam and Puerto Rico” for veterans services. DMVA Officials believe this may be partially due to eligible veterans being unaware of available benefits.

• Hagerstown Office Open Full Time To Assist Veterans. Hagerstown (MD) Herald-Mail ”The Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs has restored its veterans benefits office in downtown Hagerstown to full-time status. Veterans Benefits Specialist Jim Lichtinger said the office at 33 W. Washington St. is open Monday through Friday to help qualified veterans request benefits they might have earned while serving in the military.” In the past, the Herald-Mail adds, the “office was open on Tuesdays.”

• Henderson House A Godsend. Albuquerque Journal ”It’s not yet a year old, but Henderson House, a transitional residence for homeless female veterans, is changing” the lives of veterans like Casey Smith, who lives “at the comfortable Northeast Heights house” with her eight-year-old son, Donovan. Smith said, “If not for Henderson House, we would be on the street.” The Journal added, “Clients are referred” to Henderson House “through the New Mexico VA Health Care System.”

• As US Troops Leave Iraq, What Is The Legacy Of Eight Years Of War? McClatchy The war in Iraq has “taken nearly nine years and the price has been high: almost 4,500 Americans dead” and another 32,000 wounded. According to McClatchy, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a problem for some of those who served in Iraq, as well as for soldiers who have served in Afghanistan. Since 2009, Veterans Affairs’ “crisis line – 1-800-273-8255 – has received more than half a million calls.”

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Leaves Scars “On The Inside,” Iraq Veteran Says. Portland (ME) Press Herald Miguel Cyr “said it’s understandable, but still frustrating, to see friends and family members struggle to comprehend the problems he faces in dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.” Cyr “said he takes medication the VA doctors prescribed, including antidepressants and pills to help him sleep, and goes to psychiatric therapy sessions. The treatment helps, he said, especially when he feels the need to talk about an incident in Iraq that’s been bothering him.”

• Colin Powell: VA “Doing A Lot” To Help Returning Vets. ABC’s This Week Christiane Amanpour said to Powell that “so many” returning veterans are “taking their own lives,” becoming homeless, or finding it hard to land jobs. Powell said, “I think we’re doing a lot with respect to what the Department of Veterans Affairs” in terms of helping such vets. Powell added, “The Pentagon is seized with this, particularly the problem of suicides.”

• Mahoning Valley Doctor Chrisanne Gordon Helps Vets With Brain Injuries. Youngstown (OH) Vindicator ”Mahoning Valley native Dr. Chrisanne Gordon is on a mission to end the misery of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who are suffering” from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). It is “estimated that 360,000 military veterans, including some 10,000 Ohioans and many from the Valley, will return from the Middle East wars with TBI, the invisible but — Dr. Gordon says — very real ‘signature injury’ of those wars.” That number in the civilian world “would be an epidemic,” said Gordon, a “rehabilitation specialist. ‘That’s why we have to share — the military’s TRICARE, the Department of Veterans Affairs and civilian healthcare systems — so that all of our heroes get the expert care that they deserve,’” she said.

• Hike In Camp Lejeune Male Breast Cancer Cases Expected. St. Petersburg (FL) Times ”Federal scientists at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry confirmed last week that 184 male Marine Corps veterans with a history of breast cancer have been identified in Department of Veterans Affairs records. More research is under way to see how many of those men have ties” to Camp Lejeune, “where drinking water was contaminated with carcinogens for 30 years ending in 1987.” The US Marine Corps “maintains that no link has been established between the base’s polluted water and any disease.”

• VA Delivering 9 Out Of 10 IT Projects On Time. Federal News Radio “The Department of Veterans Affairs has been re-engineering the way it manages its information technology projects, and it seems to have paid off. For fiscal 2011, VA managed to cross the finish line on 89 percent of its project milestones on time.” That is a “number that’s far in excess of anything I’ve ever seen in a development organization before, either private sector or public sector,” said VA’s assistant secretary for information and technology Roger Baker.

• “Punishment Did Not Fit The Crime”: After 60 Years, Korean War Vet With Stress Disorder Seeks Vindication, Upgrade In Discharge. Belleville (IL) News-Democrat In 1951, a “military court in Pusan, South Korea, convicted” veteran Ralph Simonton “of accidentally shooting a Korean civilian. Simonton was stripped of rank, sentenced to prison for three years and dishonorably discharged.” The News-Democrat added, “The military court, in meting out Simonton’s punishment, failed to take into account his heroism in combat or the role PTSD played in the accidental shooting…said” Leon Jenkins, a “counselor in the St. Clair County Veterans Assistance Commission, which helped prepare Simonton’s” recent “application for discharge upgrade.” Such an upgrade would allow Simonton to use the Veterans Affairs medical system.

• Asheville’s Veterans Restoration Quarters Gives Homeless Vets Hope And A Home. Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times ”On any given night,” the Veterans Restoration Quarters (VRQ) “houses about 235 men,” nearly all of whom “are homeless veterans.” After saying in the middle of its report that that Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki wants to end veteran homelessness, the Citizen-Times briefly mentions that the VA “contributes about $1.5 million a year to the VRQ’s budget.”

• VA Center Program To Thank Caregivers. Muskogee (OK) Phoenix ”November is National Family Caregiver Month, and to thank those who care for the veterans at the Jack C. Montgomery VA Medical Center, the hospital is having a caregiver appreciation program from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday at 1011 Honor Heights Drive. The program, called ‘Celebrating Caregivers,’ will be presented” in the hospital’s second floor “Downing Room.” During the program, caregivers “will have the opportunity to learn about VA programs and how the VA can support them.”

• Local Wreaths Across America Event Goes Forward. Silver City (NM) Sun-News A few months ago, veteran Ron Groves, who served in both Vietnam and the Gulf War, said he “would no longer be able” to organize the Wreaths Across America event at Fort Bayard National Cemetery and asked the Sun-News for contact information for “local veterans groups.” It seemed no local vets or groups were willing to assume the responsibility. Then last week, Gold Star Mother Mary Cowan said she “would be willing to help. … ‘It would be a shame to see it die,’” said Cowan who “lost her son Aaron in February 2005 when the Apache helicopter he was piloting crashed.” But a “local veteran should really be in charge,” she added.

• “Wreaths Across America” To Benefit From Sale Of Clarksville Artist’s Painting. Clarksville (TN) Leaf Chronicle Local artist Lynne Griffey has donated a painting to “the ‘Wreaths Across America’ program, an effort that is backed in this area by the local Gold Star Wives Eagles chapter, together with the American Legion.” They hope the sale of Griffey’s painting will help them achieve their goal to “decorate every grave in Kentucky West Veterans Cemetery for the Christmas season.” The painting depicts “standard military tombstones rising above a blanket of fresh snow…with only the green and red of Christmas wreaths to mark the stones and keep them from fading into obscurity.” The wreath-laying ceremony is slated for Dec. 10.

• Lafayette Moms Help Honor Fallen Soldiers With Christmas Wreaths At Arlington Cemetery. WISH-TV ”This Thanksgiving holiday weekend, two Indiana” Gold Star mothers are “already working hard to provide a Christmas for soldiers.” Dana Vann’s son “Senior Airman John P. Morton died after an accident at an airbase in Italy in 2002″; and Pam Mow’s son “Army Cpl. Cody Putman died while serving in Iraq.” They are helping Wreaths Across America raise money to “put wreaths on every grave” at Arlington, which is “more than 300,000 wreaths.”

• J.R. Martinez Receives Letter From Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. People “Dancing with the Stars winner J.R. Martinez,” who “suffered severe burns when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq in 2003,” has “fans in high places. US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta wrote a letter to the Iraq war veteran and called him up to offer his congratulations for winning the mirror-ball trophy in last week’s finale, according to the Department of Defense.” And during a phone call made to Martinez on Friday, Secretary Panetta “invited Martinez to the Pentagon.”

• Veterans’ Medical Care. New York Times Harold Ticktin of Shaker Heights, Ohio, wrote that he and three other WWII veterans have “nothing but kind words” for the Veterans Health Administration, which “works so well as a single payer.”