VA HQ Veterans News for Monday, November 7, 2011.  Thanks to Kevin Secor at VA HQ

 

1.  Tax-exempt status for veterans' spouses tops amendments.  Killeen Daily Herald  A 100-percent-disabled veteran, as determined by the Department of Veterans Affairs, has one or more disabilities that significantly interfere with normal life functions. Slightly more than 2000 homesteads in Bell County qualify for the disabled ...

 

2.  Veterans honored for service.  NJ.com  Williamstown mayor Mike Gabianelli and New Jersey state senator Fred Madden were among the many guests in attendance at the Holiday City and Office of Veteran Affairs program that recognized five veterans from around the area. ...

 

3.  Vanderford is Veteran Of The Year.  Middle East North Africa Financial Network  In 1994, Vanderford was recognized by the South Carolina State Senate in recognition of dedicated and outstanding service as Union County Veterans Affairs Service Officer, as well as his loyal military service during 1950-1976. ...

 

4.  Veterans' preference all about the points.  The Register-Guard  Alternatively, a veteran may meet the eligibility requirements as a disabled veteran if the veteran has a disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs, if the discharge or release was for a disability incurred or aggravated in the line of ...

 

5.  Tuscaloosa VA to take part in one of largest gene studies.  Tuscaloosa News  Over the next four years, the US Department of Veterans Affairs hopes to get blood samples from 1 million American veterans, which will be coded and stored in what will be the largest secure bio-repository in the US These blood samples, paired with an ...

 

6.  Veterans to use telemedicine for care.  UPI.com  US Department of Veterans Affairs providers will care for veterans using telemedicine for behavioral health, oncology and perioperative care, officials say. The VA and American Well today announced the initiative to bring telehealth services ...

 

7.  NM senators sponsor bill to help veterans exposed to burn pits.  Las Cruces Sun-News
The new registry would help the US Department of Veterans Affairs determine if pollution from burn pits has caused health problems in soldiers who have come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, said Sen. Tom Udall, DN.M. "With this registry, we can ensure ...

 

8.  Veteran sentenced in clinic incident.  The Register-Guard  A Creswell military veteran sentenced Thursday for threatening to shoot a local Veterans Affairs clinic manager on June 29 had no history of such behavior and may have been suffering from dementia during the incident, his lawyer said ...

 

9.  As overall joblessness declines, young vets see an uptick.  Slightly more veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were unemployed in October compared to the month before, even as overall unemployment numbers ticked down a tenth of a percentage point.

 

10.  Prosecutors propose wider public viewing of Guantánamo terror trial.  Pentagon prosecutors have filed a sealed motion with the Guantánamo war court that apparently proposes allowing the general public for the first time to watch military proceedings against an accused al Qaida terrorist.

 

11.                    VA To Debut New Online Jobs Board. Federal Computer Week  Veterans Affairs Department is preparing to debut new website, with an "online job search board, self-assessment tools, resume builder and military skills translator to help veterans identify jobs that match their skills. ... 'As part of the VA's commitment to hiring and retaining Veteran employees -- and in support of the President's pledge to bring more Veterans into civil service -- I am pleased to introduce our new career support program: VA for Vets,'" wrote VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in "an introduction" to the new website. The official "VA for Vets" launch is slated for "Nov. 11, and the website is operating in pilot status until that time."

 

12.                    Unemployment Down Slightly To Nine Percent.  AP  "The American job market improved modestly in October, and economists looking deeper into the numbers found reasons for optimism -- or at least what counts for optimism in this agonizingly slow economic recovery. ... No one looking at Friday's report from the Labor Department saw a quick end to the high unemployment that has plagued the nation for three years. The jobless rate has been 9 percent or higher for all but two months since June 2009."  AP "various groups fared in jobs data," notes that unemployment rate among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan grew from 11.7 percent in September to 12.1 percent in October.

 

13.                    VA Healthcare System Begins Volunteer Companion Program.  Rapid City Journal "The VA Black Hills Healthcare System has initiated a volunteer hospice program to ensure that veteran hospice residents are provided comforting companionship during their final days." The program "No Veteran Dies Alone (NVDA) is modeled after the national No One Dies Alone program developed in 1988. Companion volunteers will assist in providing patients with a dignified and comforted death."

 

14.                    Mobile Medical Unit Bringing Care To Missouri Veterans.  WDAF-TV  "You probably wouldn't be happy about a two-hour round trip behind the wheel to get medical care, but that's the hardship for many people in rural areas, including veterans." The page includes a video in which Fox 4 Medical Reporter Meryl Lin McKean reports, "The VA's new medical mobile unit a first in Missouri comes to Carrolton once a week. So where is the doctor or nurse practitioner? At the Kansas City VA, Nurse Practitioner Christine Lightfoot does checkups via satellite. ... Lightfoot says the goal is to eliminate the long drive for vets already in the system and to reach those who haven't received VA care and can't afford other care." Lightfoot says the "$600,000 will be worth it" as these visits ultimately "will prevent costly health problems."

 

15.                    Arlington Cemetery Execs Brief Senator On Reforms.  AP  "A painstaking review of nearly 260,000 grave markers at Arlington National Cemetery has so far revealed no further evidence of misplaced or misidentified gravesites like the ones that led the Army to oust the cemetery's top management last year, cemetery officials said in a briefing Friday." The cemetery provided the briefing to Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) who chairs a "subcommittee that has investigated what McCaskill and others have called widespread mismanagement at the cemetery. An Army inspector general report last year revealed that more than 200 gravesites were potentially mislabeled or misplaced inside the cemetery."

 

16.                    Wounded Warriors Share Tales Of Recovery, Hope.  Army Times Retired Army Sgt. Bryan Anderson, retired Marine Maj. Justin Constantine, and retired Army Ranger Steve Maguire were "among nine veterans who shared miraculous stories of survival, recovery and adaptation following horrific injuries for a television special, the Wounded Warrior Experience, to air on Veterans Day on the Pentagon Channel." Anderson was "hit by a roadside bomb in October 2005, shredding his legs and slicing off his left hand"; Constantine a former member of the "judge advocate general corps." was shot "in the head by a sniper on Oct. 18, 2006"; and Maguire was blinded in by a "mine while on patrol" with his Army Ranger platoon in Vietnam. The panel discussion "was held Thursday, as part of the American Veterans Center's 14th annual convention" in the District of Columbia.

 

17.                    Female Veterans Proud Of Service.  Muncie (IN) Star Press   "Between her volunteer schedule, her church meetings and her very full social calendar," 96-year-old Dorothy Webb has "little time for sitting around pondering her life. But when she does have a chance to think about the course of her adult years, she has many fond memories, especially as a veteran of the US Navy." Webb is one of the "more than 33,000 adult women in Indiana who are armed forces veterans, 1.3 percent of the state's adult female population." On Saturday, the "Muncie YWCA will honor these female -- and male --veterans at their USO celebration."

 

18.                    Homegrown Veteran Takes Care Of Her Own.  Kearney (MO) Courier   "Deniese Washington takes to veteran patients naturally. 'I'm a homegrown veteran nurse,' said Washington, RN, BSN and staff nurse in the SICU at Kansas City VA Medical Center. 'I can relate to them.'" Washington hails from "three generations of veterans, including two and a half years as a Navy corpsman herself." She has been "at the bedside of veterans for 31 years." Washington said that when her patients "learn she has served the country as well, they relax. ... 'There's camaraderie,' she said. 'Then it's easier to talk to them and for them to open up to me.'"

 

19.                    Veterans Day "Quilting Bee" To Support Veteran Women.  La Prensa San Diego  "Amikas, a San Diego non-profit organization that helps house homeless US military veteran women, will be raising crucial funds with a fundraising twist on an old-fashion idea – the quilting bee. On Veterans Day, San Diegans who care about our veteran women will have the opportunity to view and bid on antique quilts, provided by Martha Sullivan." Because many veterans "cannot pass a credit check in most rentals, Amikas is hoping to raise enough funding to rent a house for four women and their children, where they can develop a good credit referral along with the life skills they need to be successful as civilians."

 

20.                    Maine's Women Veterans Honored In Augusta.  WABI-TV  "Folks in Augusta took time to honor Maine's women veterans at a ceremony" on Friday in the chapel at the Togus VA hospital. "Fifty-five women from all branches of the service were recognized for their efforts." Each of the women, who "served their country from World War II, right up to the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan," received a "certificate and a commemorative coin."

 

21.                    Oregon Veteran Can Hang Flag.  AP  The "management at an Oregon apartment complex has relented and will allow a 70-year-old Navy veteran to hang his American flag in the commons area on Veterans Day -- and some other days, as well." St. Vincent de Paul, the "nonprofit organization that runs the subsidized downtown" housing development, had "threatened to evict Edward Zivica for violating the rules against hanging anything on exterior walls." But St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County on Friday "announced an agreement with Zivica: He can stay and the flag can be displayed on days the two parties have agreed on, 'provided it is done in a manner that's respectful to the flag and our other tenants.'"

 

22.                    Lost Western MT Veteran Finds His Way Home.  KAJ-TV  "Mona Storrud of the Spokane area didn't know where her brother Orrin was, or if he was even alive...until a pair of nurses, a hospital chaplain, and a bit of a miracle, changed all that." On Oct. 15, a "clearly homeless man named Oren Storrud wandered into the Emergency Room of the Polson hospital." He told ER Tech Gloria Quiver and nurse Anne Gray that he was "looking for his sister" whom he knew "lived in the Northwest." So Quiver and Gray "searched, and found his sister"; and they discovered Storrud was a Vietnam veteran with PTSD, who had been missing for 15 years. "St. Joe's Chaplain John Payne helped" to send Storrud home.

 

23.  Movable Courts Uphold Homeless Veterans At Denver's Stand Down Event.  Denver Post  In Denver on Thursday, a courtroom for homeless veterans was set up during a Veterans Affairs-sponsored Veterans Stand Down. The Colorado Bar Association is planning to hold legal clinics for veterans next week in Denver, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs.

 

24.                    Baseball "Player Of The Year" Donates $100K To VA Hospitals. WJBK-TV  Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander "last night was named the 1011 Players Choice 'Player of the Year.' The award in $100,000 from the MLB trust to go to a charity of the player's choosing. The John D. Dingell VA Medical Center and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System will both receive a $50,000 donation."

 

25.                    Vietnam Vet Sentenced For Stealing From Veterans Groups.  AP  "A 63-year-old Vietnam veteran has been sentenced to up to six years in prison for stealing nearly $200,000 from three veterans organizations" that he helped run in "his Albany-area hometown." Ralph VanAlstyne was "sentenced Thursday in Fulton County Court to two to six years in state prison. He was also ordered to make restitution of the $186,000" he stole from the "Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts in Gloversville and the local chapter of the Disabled American Veterans between 2005 and 2008." Prosecutors say the "amount stolen from each group was in the tens of thousands of dollars."

 

26.                    Vietnam Veterans To Honor One Of Their Own.  Dover (DE) Post  "On Veteran's Day, members of the Kent County Chapter 850 Vietnam Veterans of America will honor the memory of Marine 1st Lt. Larry Potts, a Vietnam veteran." Potts, who "grew up in Smyrna, was shot down along with Air Force 1st Lt. Bruce Walker in a rescue mission in 1972 Vietnam. The mission involved the search and rescue attempt for Air Force Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton" whose aircraft, "call-sign BAT 21, was shot down while on a reconnaissance mission over enemy territory. Six rescuers lost their lives in the search for BAT 21."

 

27.                    A Veteran For Veterans.  Santa Rosa (CA) Press Democrat  Lee Gooding, 66, who "should be retired and enjoying his Forestville home, but instead he is working for the good of veterans." Gooding, a veteran himself, is the "executive director of Helping American Veterans Endure (HAVE)." Asked what compels him to "work so hard for veterans," Gooding noted that with "6,500 veteran suicides a year, 18 a day," he feels veterans "need healing beyond medicine and counseling. 'We have writing workshops, humor workshops, music classes, painting classes. I do massage therapy, nutritional counseling, and I am working to get organic, healthy foods to vets,'" he said. Gooding said HAVE's latest project is "our Veterans Peace Garden...to teach organic gardening skills to vets and eventually hope to provide food for them."

 

28.                    For Veterans, Is 'Thank You For Your Service' Enough?.  Washington Post

 

29.                    Congress Should Hear Vets' Voices. Atlanta (GA) Journal-Constitution

 

30.                    Village May Buy Island Where Rangers Formed. AP   "New York has scuttled its plans to purchase part of an island in the upper Hudson River that's considered the birthplace of the Army Rangers, although the state could end up helping an upstate village acquire the parcel so it can be preserved as a public park."

 

31.                    Power Outages: New Britain Veteran, 92, Gets Power Restored From Fellow Vets.  Hartford (CT) Courant

 

32.                    Ford Sends WWII Vets To Washington To Visit Memorial. Detroit News

 

33.                    Pin-up Girl Visits Vets.  Pasadena (CA) Star-News