Crossposted from Blue Bloggin(an awesome blog):
by Bosskitty

Veterans Administration Bars Voter Registration Drives for Wounded Soldiers

On April 25, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) issued Directive 2008-023, “Voting Assistance for VA Patients,” allowing voter registration drives in VA hospitals, only to reverse itself on May 5 with Directive 2008-025. Without registration drives, it appears that each veteran will have to request support individually, placing the burden on veterans who are staying in hospitals, long-term care facilities, or nursing homes. Litigation on the issue is pending.

VA Has Opposed Voter Registration Drives for Months

The VA’s latest rejection of voter registration drives follows months of determined opposition by the VA in response to calls for the agency to help veterans vote. Kerry and Feinstein had earlier requested that the VA be designated a “voter registration agency” under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) - also known as the “Motor Voter Act.” The Act requires states to offer voter registration opportunities at all offices that provide public assistance, services to the disabled, and motor vehicle registration services.

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More lies from this administration. If there’s a problem, instead of FIXING it, they spend more energy on covering it up and lying about it. Gee I wonder if they are wearing their flag lapel pins when they work on covering up this shit and let veterans continue to suffer. CBS News has reported that the VA has lied about the number of suicides and attempted suicides among veterans.

New documents reveal the number of veterans who commit or attempt suicide are substantially higher than the number the Department of Veterans Affairs has stated in the past - including what CBS News was told during an exclusive investigation.

In a series of e-mails, Dr. Ira Katz, the head of Mental Health for the VA, also made it clear that he did not want the damaging information revealed.

Last November, a CBS News investigation yielded startling results.

According to data from 45 states, 6,256 men and women who had served in the armed forces took their own lives in 2005 - that’s 120 suicides every week.

There’s a class action lawsuit to be heard in San Francisco, charging the department’s “inadequate care” is “unable to deal with the growing incidence of depression and suicides.”

Gordon Erspamer, the lawyer for the veterans groups, “We find that the VA has simply not devoted enough resources … They don-t have enough psychiatrists.”

A recent RAND report found that “300,000 U.S. troops - about 20 percent of those deployed - are suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

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and the veterans get fucked…….. go figure.

Veterans Affairs employees last year racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in government credit-card bills at casino and luxury hotels, movie theaters and high-end retailers such as Sharper Image and Franklin Covey - and government auditors are investigating, citing past spending abuses.

All told, VA staff charged $2.6 billion to their government credit cards.

The Associated Press, through a Freedom of Information request, obtained the VA list of 3.1 million purchases made in the 2007 budget year. The list offers a detailed look into the everyday spending at the government’s second largest department.

By and large, it reveals few outward signs of questionable spending, with hundreds of purchases at prosthetic, orthopedic and other medical supply stores.

But there are multiple charges that have caught the eye of government investigators.

More at AOL News

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struggles to reduce? What’s that mean? They don’t want to acknowledge some of them? They say there is no disability when there is? Just askin…….

Outgoing VA Secretary Jim Nicholson acknowledged Tuesday that he’s struggling to reduce surging disability claims from injured Iraq war veterans.
Addressing Congress for a final time before stepping down Oct. 1, Nicholson suggested to a House committee that the VA has yet to find a clear solution for long waits.

Nicholson also said, though, he’s proud of many accomplishments during his 2 1/2 years as head of the Veterans Affairs Department, pushing forward initiatives such as requiring screenings for brain-related injury, adding storefront walk-in clinics and boosting mental health counselors.

But citing in part growing demands from a prolonged Iraq war, Nicholson also said the VA faces difficulties in meeting challenges and expressed sympathy to injured veterans who might have unfairly suffered as a result of unnecessary red tape.

More at USA Today

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A photograph of Marine Jeffrey Lucey sits in the home of Joyce and Kevin Lucey

WASHINGTON - The family of an Iraq war veteran filed suit Thursday accusing Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson of negligence in the suicide death of their son.

The lawsuit says the VA is to blame for the death of 23-year-old Jeffrey Lucey, a Marine who killed himself in June 2004 after he allegedly was denied mental health care following a tour in Iraq.

The lawsuit seeking unspecified damages names Nicholson, who is leaving his job, and the U.S. government as defendants.

The action comes just days after the group Veterans for Common Sense sued Nicholson and the VA on behalf of injured Iraq war veterans. That lawsuit accuses the agency of unlawfully denying the veterans disability pay and mental health treatment.

Lucey’s father, Kevin, says he and his wife hope their lawsuit will force the Bush administration to take swift action to fix the VA.

“They’ve got to look at the entire system of the VA,” said Lucey, who spoke from his home in Belchertown, Mass. “We’re hoping that it goes to trial and that people can truly see how dysfunctional the system is.”

Kevin and Joyce Lucey joined the anti-war group Military Families Speak Out after their son’s death.

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Another fine example of this administration’s incompetence, as it trickles down to Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center. Yet, NO ONE will be held accountable for this latest breach of personal security. - JS

WASHINGTON (AP) - More than a quarter of the computer equipment at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington could not be found by investigators, government auditors reported Tuesday.

Three other VA facilities showed slightly better results but still could not locate between 6% and 11% of their equipment, including computers, hard drives, monitors and other devices. In all, the four facilities audited by the Government Accountability Office reported more than 2,400 missing items originally worth $6.4 million.

Aside from decrying potentially wasted tax dollars, lawmakers said the report raises fresh questions about the security of the agency’s information, including sensitive medical records and Social Security numbers.

The audit follows a series of computer data security breaches at the agency that exposed millions of veterans and medical providers to possible identity theft.

“It has a very corrosive effect on trust in the VA in general,” said Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn. “I think all of us up here are sensing the frustrations of our constituents and our veterans.”

For the audit, the GAO sampled equipment inventories at medical centers in Washington, San Diego, Indianapolis and at VA headquarters offices.

The auditors said much of the equipment that could be found was not where inventory records said it should be. Equipment often was moved or set aside for discard without documentation. As a result, it was difficult or impossible to determine what had happened to the missing equipment, the report said.

Equipment slated for disposal - some containing sensitive records - often sat unprotected in storage rooms for months or years, the report said.

“Essentially no one was accountable for IT equipment,” it said.

read more at USA TODAY

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By HOPE YEN

WASHINGTON - Frustrated by delays in health care, a coalition of injured Iraq war veterans is accusing VA Secretary Jim Nicholson of breaking the law by denying them disability pay and mental health treatment.

VA Secretary Jim Nicholson

The class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, seeks broad change in the agency as it struggles to meet growing demands from veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Suing on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans, it charges that the VA has failed warriors on several fronts - from providing prompt disability benefits, to adding staff to reduce wait times for medical care to boosting services for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The lawsuit also accuses the VA of deliberately cheating some veterans by allegedly working with the Pentagon to misclassify PTSD claims as pre-existing personality disorders to avoid paying out benefits. The VA and Pentagon have generally denied such charges.

VA spokesman Matt Smith said Monday he could not comment on a pending lawsuit. But he said the agency is committed to meeting the special needs of Iraq war veterans.

“Through outreach efforts, the VA ensures returning Global War on Terror service members have access to the widely recognized quality health care they have earned including services such as prosthetics or mental health care,” he said. “VA has also given priority handling to their monetary disability benefit claims.”

The lawsuit comes amid intense political and public scrutiny of the VA and Pentagon following reports of shoddy outpatient care of injured soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and elsewhere.

read more HERE

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And how long will it take for these people to get that retroactive check? They could be dead before they see it. “National shame” to be sure!! What about the families who lost loved ones who were exposed to agent orange? A friend of mine lost her husband, who suffered immeasurably, and was left to raise two young children by herself. How do you repay someone for that kind of pain? What diseases will our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer in the years to come from depleted uranium? Makes me sick. These patriots make the choice to serve this country and what do they get in return? Shit on. Over and over again.

SAN FRANCISCO - An appeals court chastised the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday and ordered the agency to pay retroactive benefits to Vietnam War veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange and contracted a form of leukemia.

“The performance of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has contributed substantially to our sense of national shame,” the opinion from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals read.

It was not immediately known how much the department would have to pay under the order or how many veterans would be affected.

VA spokesman Phil Budahn said late Thursday that officials were reviewing the ruling, and declined further comment.

The VA agreed in 2003 to extend benefits to Vietnam vets diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, known as CLL. U.S. troops had sprayed 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides over parts of South Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1960s and ’70s to clear dense jungle, and researchers later linked CLL to Agent Orange.

But the VA did not re-examine previous claims from veterans suffering from the ailment, nor did it pay them retroactive benefits, which was at the heart of the latest dispute.

Thursday’s opinion was on a technical matter involving whether a lower court had properly interpreted a landmark agreement in 1991 on benefits, stemming from a class-action lawsuit originally filed in 1986.

The appeals court sided with veterans groups who said the veterans were entitled to retroactive benefits.

More at YahooNews

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By HOPE YEN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — VA Secretary Jim Nicholson abruptly resigned Tuesday after months of the Bush administration struggling to defend charges of shoddy health care for veterans injured in the Iraq war.

Nicholson, a former Republican National Committee chairman and a Vietnam veteran, was picked by President Bush to head the Veterans Affairs Department in 2005. Planning to return to the private sector, he said his resignation is to take effect no later than Oct. 1.

Nicholson, 69, is the latest in a line of senior officials heading for the exits in the final 1 1/2 years of the Bush administration.

“It has been an honor and privilege to lead the VA during this historic time for our men and women who have worn the uniform,” Nicholson said in a statement. “We have accomplished so much and the VA is always striving to improve our services to veterans.”

His resignation comes amid intense political and public scrutiny of the Pentagon and VA following reports of shoddy outpatient care of injured troops and veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and elsewhere.

More at the AP

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Hear, hear!

Why do (draft-dodging) Republicans hate our (patriotic and heroic) veterans?

Texas Democrat chastises Bush on vets’ health care

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, who represents President Bush’s home district, gave the Democrats’ radio address Saturday.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Texas congressman who represents President Bush’s home district said Saturday that the administration and Republicans put a higher priority on tax cuts than on veterans’ health care.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, said the House has sent Bush a $64.7 billion spending bill to fund Veterans Affairs. That includes a $6 billion increase for veterans’ health care, $3.8 billion more than Bush had requested, Edwards said.

“For weeks, the White House budget office threatened to veto this bill, because it was above their request,” Edwards said in the Democrats’ weekly radio address. “Fortunately, the president finally backed down on his threat to this historic veterans’ bill, but only after it was clear that Congress would override a veto.”

The Veterans Affairs spending bill passed the House 409-2 last week.

Article at CNN.com

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OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The Department of Veterans Affairs knew for months that shower heads, handrails and other fixtures posed serious suicide risks to Seattle-area psychiatric patients, but refused to fix the problems, inspectors said in a report released Friday.

The VA said it scrambled to remedy problems in Seattle after a medical standards group threatened to pull its endorsement of two area hospitals last month. Health care for the nation’s veterans has been rocked in recent months by accounts of shoddy treatment at the Department of Defense’s Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., was unsatisfied with the agency’s response and scheduled a flight home to personally inspect the Seattle VA hospital’s progress on Friday.

The Chicago-based Joint Commission, a nonprofit hospital standards group, said psychiatric ward conditions posed an “immediate threat to life” after it inspected the VA Puget Sound Health Care System in May.

More at the AP

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(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

Joe Haldeman, a Vietnam vet and award-winning science fiction writer, told the following story in the introduction to a 1986 sci-fi anthology:

A friend of mine in Vietnam took a sniper’s bullet in the back but his life was saved, at least for the time being, by his inability to spell: the bullet lodged in the dictionary he kept in his rucksack to help with letters home. The incident was written up in the Pacific Stars and Stripes, but somehow the dictionary had become a Bible; it was over his heart, not his spine; and the bullet had stopped on the world “peace.”

I love this story, which I view as three stories in one. The first story is what really happened. The second is the fictitious story. And the third story is about how and why someone decided the first story should be changed.

Veterans will likely appreciate the true story of Haldeman’s buddy. Some of them might take the fatalistic view, but regardless, the story’s ironic, and captures the absurdity of war - poor spelling and dumb luck saved the guy. Other people clearly prefer the second story. For them, it might be hopeful, but it also posits the existence of a God and an order to the universe, even in war. It feels like a reward for faith and trusting some higher power. Personally, I-ve always loved the third story the most, because I feel it encompasses both of the others, and I-m fascinated by the mindset that feels the need to essentially improve on the truth. (When I-ve told someone the “first” story, then told them it was re-written, it doesn-t take much prodding for them to guess the book became the Bible.)

Last year’s Letters From Iwo Jima was a stronger film than its complimentary film, Flags of Our Fathers, but both tried to tell true war stories. Flags of Our Fathers especially mirrors Haldeman’s tale. Examining the truth and mythology behind the famous photo at Iwo Jima, Flags… tried to tell all “three” stories. Whether it’s a war, a specific event, or a film or story about an event, some people definitely prefer that second story to the first, true one.

Haldeman’s tale touches on the nature of truth and storytelling. It’s a theme woven throughout the work of another Vietnam vet, Tim O-Brien. In his extraordinary collection of interrelated short stories, The Things They Carried, he has a piece called “How to Tell a Real War Story.” It relates several striking tales. O-Brien writes:
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Does it ever end?

WASHINGTON - Nearly two dozen officials who received hefty performance bonuses last year at the Veterans Affairs Department also sat on the boards charged with recommending the payments.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press raise questions of conflicts of interest or appearances of conflicts in connection with the bonuses, some of which went to senior officials involved in crafting a budget that came up $1.3 billion short and jeopardized veterans’ health care.

The documents show that 21 of 32 officials who were members of VA performance review boards received more than half a million dollars in payments themselves.

Among them: nearly a dozen senior officials who devised the flawed 2005 budget. Also rewarded was the deputy undersecretary for benefits, who manages a system with severe backlogs of veterans waiting for disability benefits.

Deputy undersecretaries who sit on the review boards, which are appointed by VA Secretary Jim Nicholson, also had input on bonus recommendations involving themselves, fellow members and spouses that made questionable performance claims and neglected agency problems.

More at Yahoo News

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This is so sad. Why send this kid to prison. Why not hospitalize him and treat him.

SAN ANTONIO –Sgt. Paul Miles‘ family knew something was different about him when he came back from Iraq. The Eagle Scout and former church missionary was jumpy. Behind the wheel, he would suddenly drive as if under attack. Later they would learn he built a bomb and used it to damage a statue of the Virgin Mary. Then, he killed a cat.

Ultimately, the 22-year-old National Guardsman was arrested in November on federal charges, accused of building explosives in his apartment, and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or manic depression. He could get 10 years in prison.

Thousands of soldiers and Marines who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are believed to have been damaged psychologically by the experience. Whether the 22-year-old Miles is one of them - whether he was unhinged by the war, as his family suspects, and a psychiatrist who examined him says is possible - is not clear.

But Miles’ father wants authorities to take his Norman Rockwell youth and service record into consideration.

“I’d love for them to use some discretion,” Curtis Miles said. “That’s a pretty harsh sentence to mess his life up for the rest of his life for bad decision-making that resulted from him coming home from Iraq.”

The prosecutor on the case said he cannot simply let Miles go.

“I’m not in a position to give him a pass,” said John Ratcliffe. “There is no ’service exception’” for criminal activity, he said, adding: “It could be argued that anyone who makes explosive devices and blows up personal property has mental issues.”

Miles’ family and supporters say his prewar life never hinted at violence.

In addition to achieving Boy Scouts’ highest rank and serving as a church missionary, Miles volunteered at a center for mentally retarded adults, padding his skinny frame to play Santa Claus at Christmas parties.

Read more at TheState.com

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the panel concluded there was inadequate understanding of how to diagnose and treat the brain injuries that have become a signature of the Iraq war, where thousands of troops have been wounded by improvised explosive devices, and the mental effects of long exposure to the constant threat of attack.

“We believe there is a need for greater and better coordinated research in this area,” he said.

Didn’t the meathead cut funding for this research?

From the NYTimes:

WASHINGTON, April 11 - An independent panel assessing dilapidated facilities and red tape for wounded Iraq war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Wednesday issued a sweeping indictment of leadership failures, inadequate training and staffing shortages.

The panel, headed by two former secretaries of the Army, Togo D. West Jr. and John O. Marsh Jr., found that a high standard of care for troops when they were first evacuated from war zones and hospitalized fell apart when they became outpatients, with a “breakdown in health services” and “compassion fatigue” on the part of overworked staff members.

“Leadership at Walter Reed should have been aware of poor living conditions and administrative hurdles and failed to place proper priority on solutions,” the panel said in a summary of its draft report released at a meeting at Walter Reed.

The report called the current system for assessing soldiers- disabilities “extremely cumbersome, inconsistent, and confusing,” saying it must be “completely overhauled.” It called for the creation of a “center of excellence” on treatment, training and research on two conditions suffered by thousands of troops in Iraq: traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

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