What's New
| VCS Adds "VCS on TV" News Clips to Web Site |
Television News Coverage of VCS Advocacy VCS now posts links to television news broadcasts featuring Veterans for Common Sense and our highly successful advocacy efforts on issues you care about. |
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| Disabled Iraq War Veteran with Service Dog Beaten by McDonalds Employee |
October 30, 2009, Brooklyn, New York (Courthouse News Service) - A disabled Army captain who was wounded in Iraq claims McDonald's employees beat him with garbage can lids after he brought his service dog to the restaurant. Luis Montalvan says the attack came as he was photographing the restaurant after he repeatedly complained about the treatment he received there. |
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| Deployment at All Costs: Military Arrests Mom, Sends Child to Protective Serivces |
Soldier mom refuses deployment to care for baby November 16, 2009, Savannah, Georgia (Associated Press) – An Army cook and single mom may face criminal charges after she skipped her deployment flight to Afghanistan because, she said, no one was available to care for her infant son while she was overseas. |
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| Fort Hood Fallout: Camp Lejeune Whistle-Blower Fired |
A psychiatrist who tried to prevent Fort Hood-style violence among Marines about to "lose it" instead loses his job November 16, 2009 (Salon) - Last April, two Marines at Camp Lejeune predicted to a psychiatrist that some Marine back from war was going to "lose it." Concerned, the psychiatrist asked what that meant. One of the Marines responded, "One of these guys is liable to come back with a loaded weapon and open fire." |
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| New York Times Profiles VA and Secretary Shinseki |
No Longer a Soldier, Shinseki Has a New Mission November 11, 2009 (New York Times) - It was a sad homecoming of sorts. On Tuesday, Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, returned to Fort Hood, Tex., where he was a division commander in the mid-1990s, to pay tribute to two veterans affairs employees who died in the shootings there last week. |
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Dallas Morning News Editorial: Find the Truth to Gulf War Illnesses
Written by The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board
Thursday, 03 September 2009 08:55
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September 1, 2009 - Just a few weeks ago, congressional influence and a large dose of common sense seemed to have saved UT Southwestern Medical Center's research efforts into why so many veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf War returned home with unexplained illnesses.
But despite the efforts of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, to resolve the dispute, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs last week pulled the research plug. It's critical that this potentially ground-breaking research doesn't wilt on the bureaucratic vine. Unless a new arrangement is reached quickly, the VA's decision would dash the hopes of veterans seeking answers to their illnesses and could leave UT Southwestern holding the bag for millions of dollars in research for which it hasn't been paid. The solution rests with the VA. In the same report in which it urged termination, the VA's inspector general noted that the project could have been funded with a federal grant instead of a contract. Moreover, it was noted that this change would have reduced bureaucratic red tape associated with federal contracts and averted the disputes that led to the contract's cancellation. It is particularly ironic that it was the VA that originally pressed for a contract instead of a grant, which is the more common scientific research agreement. This strikes this newspaper as a relatively simple change that would allow the research to move forward. Research findings could change the lives and treatment options for thousands who bravely served their country and have lived for nearly two decades without answers. Reactions to nerve gas, other chemical weapons, pesticides, depleted uranium munitions or some combination are among the possible causes being investigated. Too many avoidable squabbles have stalled the research since Hutchison earmarked the original $75 million in 2005 to fund the five-year research program. VA officials say the agency will continue its own research into the source of the illnesses and not abandon Gulf War veterans. Perhaps, but given the ongoing battle between Vietnam veterans' organizations and the VA over the effects of Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant used throughout that conflict, we think Gulf War vets deserve the sort of independent research that UT Southwestern can provide.
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