July 21, Book Review: Martin Schram Asks Us to Remember the Bonus Army

Posted on July 21, 2008 by Team VCS

Martin Schram: Remember the Bonus Army

On July 22, 1932, Republican President Herbert Hoover ordered active duty U.S. Army soldiers to violently smash a peaceful encampment of more than 17,000 World War I veterans who had marched upon Washington for benefits.  We should remember the Bonus Army so we don’t repeat what became a stain on our Nation’s honor.

Martin Schram, a Washington Post national affairs reporter, recounts the brutal Army cavalry charge 76 years ago this week as a harbinger of what may come if we don’t act fast to care for our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

The best history of the Bonus Expeditionary Force was told by Army veteran W. W. Waters.  And Waters’ leadership role is in the Bonus Army is detailed in a new book by Martin Schram, “Vets Under Siege: How America Deceives and Dishonors Those Who Fight Our Battles,” now available from Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

This horrific event on the Washington Mall, where two veterans died and where veterans’ and families’ temporary shacks and tents were burned by soldiers, stands as a low point in American history.  The attack stands as a stark warning of just how petty, partisan, negligent, violent, and even brutally malicious our Nation can be towards our veterans.

Schram writes about how our government repeatedly betrayed our veterans, starting shortly after our freedom was secured from England.  For those who don’t know, in 1783 our unpaid Revolutionary War veterans chased Congress out of Philadelphia, sparking a crisis that would test our young Nation.

VA Abandoned Gulf War Veterans

In the first two chapters of “Vets Under Siege,” Schram superbly chronicles the stoic battle fought by Gulf War veteran Bill Florey, who, suffering from brain cancer, was abandoned by the Department of Veterans Affairs even after the Department of Defense admitted he was exposed to chemical warfare agents at Khamisiyah, Iraq on March 10, 1991.

The chapter reminded me of my deep personal involvement as a Gulf War veteran exposing the Pentagon’s cover-up of Gulf War illnesses, now impacting between 125,000 and 175,000 Desert Storm veterans.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, I eventually forced the Pentagon to admit that a total of more than 145,000 Gulf War veterans were notified they were at or near the Khamisiyah chemical warfare agent plume.

This toxic cloud of chemical warfare agents can be traced back to when the Reagan-Bush Administration sold poison gas to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein through the wheeling-and-dealing of disgraced former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Yes, this is the same discredited scoundrel Rumsfeld who said he knew where Saddam’s stockpiles were located in 2003.  Rumsfeld’s claim turned out to be a whopper of a lie, according my friend Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst.  We veterans knew the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were gone, but we joked that Rumsfeld “knew better” because he had the signed receipts from Saddam.

Due to several monumental bureaucratic blunders (a mixture of incompetence and maliciousness), the Pentagon and CIA failed to let the troops on the ground know about the massive stockpiles of sarin and other poisons at Khamisiyah before our troops blew up the weapons cache in 1991.

Schram does an excellent job collecting various government and press reports to paint a dismal picture detailing how VA remains in hopeless bureaucratic disarray.  He hits the target every time, with citations from several government reports.  His text book-like aproach should be required reading for Congress, the press, and the public, so we become familiar with government betrayals our veterans face during and after combat.

Schram’s Recommendations

In the final chapter the author lists several reasonable recommendations, one of them made by Veterans for Common Sense.  VCS suggests that the military and VA share records more completely and more quickly, so that our veterans don’t fall through the cracks.

There are two points where I could disagree with Schram.  First, he says that VA disability claim appeals take two years.  VA’s testimony on the stand at our trial in U.S. District Court earlier this year reveal the wait is nearly four years, twice what Schram reported.  Schram could have mentioned the trial.

On another point, I agree that veterans should be able to have greater access to private care when VA lacks capacity, especially in rural areas.  However, a “Vet Med Card” could open the door to privatizing VA, something that Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain dreams of doing.  No one wants the incompetent Halliburton or viciously violent Blackwater corporate mercenaries gutting VA or getting anywhere near our veterans.

Another VA Book?

While he places blame for VA’s failures where it belongs, on partisan political appointees such as Michael Kussman and Jim Nicholson, I’m still waiting for another book that could go further.  Much more needs to be unearthed and written about the subject of overhauling VA.  For example, where was Congress from 2001 through the end of 2006, when the Republicans were in charge and when VA’s systemic problems multiplied by orders of magnitude and became a full-fledged crisis?  Fortunately, since 2007, the new Democratic leadership in Congress began shining spotlights on VA’s challenges.

Another book could investigate VA’s outrageous union-busting efforts since 2001 that soured relations between VA staff and VA leaders.  This short-sighted anti-employee policy robbed VA and veterans of key internal suggestions to improve the quality and timeliness of claims decisions and healthcare.  What makes VA’s anti-union and anti-employee efforts sting is the fact that many VA employees are veterans, too.

Hopefully, someone will write a sequel about VA’s more pressing problems, such as how some veterans died and many more lost their freedom under the Bush Administration.  Veterans are dying because VA lacks clear guidance to make sure every mental health emergency is treated promptly and completely.  VA’s shameful abandonment of suicidal veterans, such as Jonathan Schulze, Jeffrey Lucey, and Lucas Senescall, who were each refused VA emergency mental healthcare, only to later complete a suicide.  Mental health problems due to multiple deployments are literally killing our military, as shown by the case of veteran James Dean.

Another author may pick up on Schram’s superb book and write about how the Bush Administration blocks voter registration and voting assistance for hundreds of thousands of our wounded, injured, ill, and homeless veterans.  How ironic that the President who loves to stand before service members and declare “Mission Accomplished” has so brutally betrayed our Constitution and the citizens who pledge their lives to defend it. 

I’m waiting for a prominent author to write a detailed book this year about  the dramatic Winter Soldier hearings that laid bare the truth of the vicious brutality on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What’s Next?

January 2009 offers an opportunity to overhaul VA, regardless of who becomes President, as most of VA’s political appointees are now running for the door and lucrative corporate jobs.  The sad part is that never before has VA been politicized in such an extreme partisan manner.  In the past few months, VA banned voter registration for our wounded, injured, and ill veterans in VA hospitals and VA nursing homes in a blatant effort to reduce the number of eligible voters in the November 2008 election.

And never before has a crisis loomed so large as this perfect storm slams VA.  Vietnam War veterans keep flooding in with Agent Orange and PTSD claims.  Older veterans keep seeking medical care and disability pensions after corporations have looted their retirement funds and terminate medical insurance plans.  And now Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans keep crashing VA’s gates in a tidal wave of demand for care and benefits in what appears to be two endless and unwinnable wars.

Schram’s best writing comes at the end, where he calls for a “Department of Veterans Advocacy.”  I like his idea. Such a name change would send a clear message to veterans and to VA staff that VA ought to think of our veterans, the protectors of our liberty, first.

Once we start moving on that proper course where VA serves as our veterans’ advocates, then we can begin real reform.  That means increasing VA’s staffing, increasing VA’s appropriations, improving VA’s budgeting process, implementing mandatory full funding for VA healthcare, streamlining VA’s lengthy 23-page claim form down to one page, and sending the important message to VA’s beleaguered staff that real help is on the way.

Finally, “Vets Under Siege” sends a broader message to all of America: Schram’s book is a “bold bugle call” for massive reform at VA, lest our Nation once again betray another generation who defended our freedom, as we did in 1783, 1932, the 1970s, and the 1990s.

Let’s follow Schram’s advice and Remember the Bonus Army, because that’s what led to the GI Bill in 1944, a critical lesson not lost on Vietnam War veteran-turned-Senator Jim Webb.

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Joint VA-DoD Pilot Program May Overhaul Treatment of Veterans

Posted on July 19, 2008 by Team VCS

July 18, 2008 – The influx of wounded troops from Afghanistan and Iraq has burst the seams of the military health care system. The much-publicized scandal in 2007 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which kick-started reforms, has proved to be only the tip of a large and ugly iceberg.

The problem is not just about organizations and processes, but about mind-sets.

Although most people in the Defense Department go above and beyond to take care of their wounded, others can still lapse into an attitude of “shut up, shape up, and soldier on”–especially toward those troops who suffer subtle but deeply disabling mental problems rather than obvious physical wounds. Yet it is precisely the hard-to-diagnosis cases of post-traumatic stress disorder and “mild” traumatic brain injury that have become the distinctive injuries of this war.

This fall, however, the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs will decide whether to expand a pilot program that has the potential to dramatically change the treatment of those disabled in the line of duty. Started in November and currently limited to the Washington metropolitan area, the program takes aim at a bureaucratic redundancy that has long bedeviled injured troops leaving the armed forces. This is the double take in which–before discharge–the Army, Navy, or Air Force first conducts an exit exam of a departing service member to assess any conditions that might trigger military disability benefits, and then–after discharge–the VA conducts its own entry exam of the same individual for the same conditions to determine eligibility for VA benefits.

Rarely do the two departments agree on just how disabled a departing service member is. Even when they do, they pay compensation at different rates set by different statutes. What’s more, under federal laws banning “concurrent receipt” of both benefits by the same person, a disabled veteran will often discover his monthly check from the Defense Department is reduced by an amount equal to some or all of the value of his VA benefit. Because the VA is usually more generous, this offset can cut the payment from Defense to nothing. The whole system is a source of endless confusion and complaint.

“The biggest criticism was the redundancy, the complexity,” said Samuel Retherford, a retired Army colonel who oversees the pilot program as the Pentagon’s deputy director for personnel management policy. “They had to re-explain their case, fill out forms over and over, and [re]state the same thing.”

So, in the pilot program, the Defense Department is essentially subcontracting much of its disability assessment system to the Veterans Affairs Department. VA doctors will conduct one set of physical exams, and VA specialists will determine one set of disability ratings, which both departments will then use. This reform should go a long way toward eliminating the disparity in which the military has historically rated the exact condition in the exact same patients as less disabling, and therefore worthy of fewer benefits, than has the VA.

“There’s this presumption of guilt that has pervaded the [military] system for years,” said a veteran who works on Capitol Hill. “Good soldiers got screwed. The system never worked. It was dysfunctional in peacetime–but now it’s an absolute disaster.”

Last August, a government-ordered study by CNA, a nonprofit research group, compared 31,473 individuals who had been assessed by both systems for the same condition. According to the study, the VA ratings were, on average, 8.6 percentage points (out of 100) higher than the Defense Department’s. On mental disorders, the military rated disabilities much lower than did the VA: 11.9 percentage points lower for traumatic brain injury, 24.5 points lower for severe depression, and 32.8 points lower for PTSD.

Mental problems have been a major focus for the VA since Vietnam. In the military, they are still widely stigmatized or ignored–and given lowball ratings from official disability assessment boards. Take Wendell McLeod, an Army specialist mentally impaired after a 2005 accident in Kuwait. “He has to be reminded to do the simple things in life,” said his wife, Annette, who has testified before Congress. “He hasn’t started driving yet.” Even as a passenger, she said, “he grabs the steering wheel now at the least little thing. He doesn’t comprehend that just because there’s a bag in the road, that doesn’t mean it’s an IED [improvised explosive device].”

Spc. McLeod is being treated by the VA, which assessed him as 100 percent disabled. But military raters initially declared his problems a case of mental retardation that was unrelated to and pre-existed his military service; they pointed to his receiving Title I remedial education in elementary school and denied him benefits. Annette McLeod had that ruling overturned through appeals, but she is still struggling to get a military board to reconsider an interim rating of 50 percent. “Hopefully, this will be the last battle with the Army,” she told National Journal.

Because of their case’s high profile, she said, “for us it’s a little bit easier this time around. But some people I’ve talked to, they’re still bogged down in the system.”

Dubious ratings like those given to Spc. McLeod have become distressingly common since the invasion of Iraq. “About a year and a half ago, we were getting anecdotal evidence that the Army’s system was severely underrating cases,” said Kerry Baker, a staffer who works on veterans appeals for the 1.4 million-member Disabled American Veterans. “What we found was just atrocious.” In one case, Baker went on, “we found a kid with several penetrating skull injuries, a couple of different craniotomies, major seizure disorder, major migraines on a daily basis, and a cognitive disorder so severe his mother was appointed as his guardian.” The VA rated the young soldier as 100 percent disabled; the military, 10 percent.

The cause of such discrepancies goes back to the birth of the Republic. Since the American Revolution, the military has had a medical corps to keep troops healthy before battle and to patch them up after–focusing on the collective fighting power of the force and discharging any individual no longer fit to fight. By contrast, federal veterans facilities–authorized by law in 1811–have always focused on care for people who were no longer serving a military purpose, but whose injuries, poverty, or both affected the conscience of a grateful nation.

Over time, however, the two systems have come to overlap in one area: the population eligible for benefits from both–military retirees. Most of these beneficiaries are commissioned officers and senior noncoms who served a full 20 years, but they include those who were so disabled in accidents or combat while in uniform that they were medically retired from military service and therefore eligible to use military hospitals as well as VA facilities for their care.

From 2003 through ’07, the Pentagon medically retired more than 22,000 such disabled troops, who will receive military-subsidized medical care and monthly pension checks for life. Another 57,000 troops have been “medically separated,” discharged as unfit to serve but with lesser degrees of disability, which entitles them to only a onetime severance payment. All 79,000, both the medically retired and the medically separated, also count as disabled veterans who may qualify for VA health care and disability checks. Because the law often entitles the same person to two benefits, one from the Defense Department and one from the VA, each department must determine a disability rating.

Ostensibly, the two departments have used the same standard schedule, written by the VA, to rate each disabling condition, from 10 percent for a bullet through the foot to 100 percent for blindness in both eyes. But for years, the military “supplemented” the schedule with layers of regulations that effectively altered it beyond recognition–until Congress banned the practice last year. The 2007 “wounded warrior” reforms forced all military disability raters to use the VA schedule, without alterations, and ordered the pilot program combining the military and VA assessment systems.

Under the pilot program, the military uses not only the VA-written schedule of ratings but also VA doctors and VA ratings specialists to assess each service member. Military personnel still make the critical decision on whether a given individual is unfit to serve or can return to duty. The Defense Department and the VA provide different kinds of benefits, determined by different laws and regulations, for the same individuals. But the often-bizarre discrepancies in how the two departments rated the same condition in the same individual will no longer exist.
By the end of June, 461 service members had entered the pilot process, of whom just 61 had been discharged from the military (13 medically separated, 48 medically retired). The Washington area benefits from an unusually rich cluster of military and veterans medical facilities, which makes coordination easier here than elsewhere. In late August, the Pentagon and the VA will begin considering a second location, probably an underserved and relatively rural area where implementing the pilot program will be distinctly harder.

Even if the expanded pilot program succeeds, wholesale adoption of the reforms is at least a year away. As the casualties keep coming in, the pressure on the disability system will continue to mount.

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Connecticut Vows to Sue VA Over Ban on Veteran Voting Rights

Posted on July 19, 2008 by Team VCS

July 19, 2008 – To participate in voter registration at the Veterans Affairs medical center in West Haven, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz would have to promise not to encourage anyone to vote and to limit registration to inpatients or residents who approached her.

“The VA’s convoluted constraints and restrictions on registration, and complete ban on voter education, plainly violate democratic rights — the very rights that these veterans fought and sacrificed to preserve and protect,” state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Friday.

In Round 3 of the battle between the VA and Bysiewicz’s efforts to hold registration drives at federal veteran facilities, both she and Blumenthal Friday gave James Peake, U.S. secretary of veterans affairs, until Aug. 1 to change the rules or face a possible suit by Connecticut.

Bysiewicz is one of 20 secretaries of the state who have urged Peake to reverse a ruling he issued in May which puts shelters, hospitals, nursing homes and rehabilitation centers administered by the VA off limits to nonpartisan voter registration drives.

Peake said such drives would violate the Hatch Act, which restricts partisan political activity by federal workers.

For years, however, voter registration was left up to VA managers, and Roger Johnson, director of VA Connecticut Healthcare Systems, agreed with Blumenthal when the issue was first broached last month in West Haven that the Hatch Act referred to workers, not patients.

At the time, Johnson predicted Bysiewicz’s request to run an education program demonstrating use of the new state voting machines would not be a problem, and he was just waiting to hear from Peake.

After Peake’s recent letter to the state officials, however, Johnson said such a demonstration was not necessary, as the only veterans who would be affected are in-patients and residents who would likely use absentee ballots.

Johnson said the medical center in West Haven will notify all in-patients and residents that they will provide volunteers to help them register to vote, if they so desire. He said they will hold another “blitz” close to the last day of regular voter registration, and on Election Day.

Off-limits to registration are out-patients, staff, visitors and the community.

“To respect constitutional rights, the VA should go back to boot camp. Where veterans deserve a clear path to the voting booth, the VA has laid a maze and minefield of regulatory barricades and booby traps,” Blumenthal said.

He said the restrictions “chill or discourage valid fundamental constitutional rights,” and Bysiewicz could not agree to the rules set up for volunteers who wish to help the patients register.

At the state’s facility for veterans at Rocky Hill, Blumenthal said registrations are held several times a year. He said it appears that the only reason for the “misguided federal policy,” is an attempt at voter suppression.

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Editorial Column: The Distraction of Offshore Drilling

Posted on July 19, 2008 by Team VCS

July 18, 2008 – There is no quick fix to $4.50-a-gallon gas, no way to provide instant relief to consumers we know are hurting. Yet President Bush and others continue to push the false promise of offshore oil drilling.

Just this week, the president lifted the executive order banning drilling that George H.W. Bush put in place in 1990. And he’s asked Congress to lift its own moratorium on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf — which includes coastal waters as close as three miles from shore.

This would be a terrible mistake. It would put our nation’s precious coastlines in jeopardy and wouldn’t begin to fix the underlying energy-supply problem. And it surely wouldn’t ease gas prices any time in the near future.

The vast majority of the outer continental shelf is already open to oil exploration: Areas containing an estimated 82{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of all of the natural gas and 79{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of the oil are today available to energy companies through existing federal leases. Federal agencies are issuing drilling permits at three times the rate they were in 1999 — but that hasn’t slowed oil prices during the climb from $19 to beyond $140 a barrel.

Meantime, energy companies haven’t fully utilized their existing permits to drill on another 68 million acres of federal lands and waters. Exploiting these areas probably could double U.S. oil production and increase natural gas production by 75{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d}.

Opening the protected areas of the continental shelf, on the other hand, wouldn’t produce a drop of oil for seven years or longer. It takes a minimum of two years to process the new leases. Industry experts tell us that there’s a three- to five-year waiting list for new drilling ships and other equipment.

And with any drilling, oil spills are a very real threat. Californians have learned the hard way how much damage — environmental and economic — can be caused by a major spill. A healthy coast is vital to California’s economy and our quality of life. Ocean-dependent industry is estimated to contribute $43 billion to California each year.

We cannot drill our way out of the energy problem. Our nation doesn’t need smooth talk and rosy scenarios. We need a clear-eyed view of our energy situation.

Oil markets are global. Economic growth around the world — including millions of new cars in Asia — means demand for oil is on the rise. With less than 3{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of the world’s oil reserves, our nation simply doesn’t have enough domestic oil to dramatically lower the price.

A weak U.S. dollar and instability in the Middle East exacerbate the problem.

We need to forge a long-term energy strategy that takes these factors into account, moves our nation away from fossil fuels and invests in renewable energy resources. We need to promote conservation and develop clean technologies and clean fuels — like cellulosic ethanol. We need to continue to raise fuel economy standards for vehicles and improve the energy efficiency of our buildings by 50{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d}.

It’s also time to crack down on excessive speculation in critical energy markets. In May, Congress took a first step by closing the “Enron loophole,” which brought more energy trading under federal oversight. Congress now needs to eliminate other loopholes and to get serious with large institutional investors who are trading energy futures with no speculation limits.

Changing our nation’s fuel consumption pattern is an enormous endeavor. It will take years. But this is the reality we face. And there’s no time to waste.

Dianne Feinstein is California’s senior U.S. senator.

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The Cost of War: The Parents’ Agony

Posted on July 19, 2008 by Team VCS

July 18, 2008 – Every day for a parent of a person in the United States military is a long day, filled with concern for their daughter or son. Parents of nine US Army soldiers were notified of the deaths of their family members in Afghanistan this week.

    July 16 and 17, 2008 have been extraordinarily long days for another group of parents.

    In Washington, DC, on July 17, 2008, John and Linda Johnson, the parents of US Army Private First Class (PFC) Lavena Johnson, met US Army criminal investigators concerning the classification of the death of their daughter, who died three years ago on July 19, 2005 in Balad, Iraq. The Army labeled her death a suicide, despite evidence from materials the Army reluctantly provided to the parents that she was beaten, bitten, sexually assaulted, burned and shot. Despite numerous questions from Dr. John Johnson about the Army’s investigation and determination of suicide, the Army stuck to its guns, saying that Lavena Johnson committed suicide. After the briefing, the Johnsons asked Congressman William Lacy Clay and Congresswoman Diane Watson to request that House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman hold hearings, requiring the production of witnesses to testify under oath to their knowledge of how Lavena died – an attempt to get information that the Army has so far failed to provide.

    On July 16, 2008, at Fort Knox, KY, Helen and Eric Burmeister, the parents of PFC James Burmeister, attended the court-martial of their son. After being in three IED explosions in Iraq, upon his unit’s return to Germany, James left his unit and flew to Canada. He stayed in Canada for ten months, and while there, in hopes of ending the practice, spoke publicly about “bait and kill” zones used by some military units to entice Iraqis into a zone with interesting objects and then shoot them. James voluntarily returned himself to military control at Fort Knox four months ago. In those four months, despite shrapnel still in his body and raging post-traumatic stress disorder, James was provided with minimal medical and emotional assistance. He was court-martialed on July 16, 2008 for being absent without leave (AWOL) and was convicted. The prosecution brought up the public statements and interviews Burmeister gave on “bait and kill.” He was sentenced to six months in jail, a loss of pay, reduction in rank to private and a bad-conduct discharge that will deny him medical assistance for physical and emotional wounds suffered on active duty. He was taken from the court directly to jail.

    On July 16, 2008, in Boise, Idaho, the parents of US Army war resister PFC Robin Long waited for the news that their son had been deported from Canada and placed in the hands of the US military. Ironically, war resister Long was handed over to US officials at the Peace Arch on the US-Canadian border, just north of Seattle, Washington. Three years ago, in 2005, Long went to Canada after refusing to serve in Iraq, a war he called an “illegal war of aggression.” A Canadian federal judge on July 15 ordered that Long be deported after she ruled that he failed to provide clear and convincing evidence that he would suffer irreparable harm if he were returned to the United States. Long was taken by Washington State police to a civilian jail to await the arrival of Army military police who will transport him to the military prison at Fort Lewis, Washington. Eventually, he will be returned to his unit in Colorado for probable court-martial. At least 200 other US military personnel are in Canada. Several have requested refugee status but have been denied and risk deportation.

    The costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to mount. The lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of Iraqis and Afghans have been permanently damaged by these wars. Support the families, but end the war.

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July 18, Voting Rights Update: VA Secretary Peake Blocks ALL Voting Rights for Veterans at VA Facilities – VCS Issues Statement

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Team VCS

VA refuses request to change vote policy

July 17, 2008 – Veterans Secretary James Peake formally responded to a request by three prominent Democratic senators to reverse his policy disallowing voter registration drives on Department of Veterans Affairs property.

He refused.

Peake said that part of the problem is the Hatch Act, which prohibits partisan political activity by federal employees. The VA only wants to bar partisan groups from registration drives. But Peake said even the determination of which groups are partisan and which are not would amount to a violation of the act.

So the simpliest solution, he said, is to bar all groups, partisan or not. “Moreover, the agency is not in the position to examine the agenda, history and motivations of every organization that may wish to conduct voter registration drives in our facility,” Peake said in a letter to the Democrats.

U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., have asked Peake to end the prohibition.

Akaka said in a statement today that Peake is misreading the law, saying he was “amazed” that the VA is barring voter drives.

“If his contention were true, any federal employee stopping to consider whether a comment or e-mail might be inappropriately partisan wold violate the Hatch Act with that decision-making process itself,” Akaka said. “That interpretation makes no sense. The Hatch Act exists for good reasons, but it clearly allows outside groups to come to VA facilities to help our veterans exercise their right to vote.”

 ***

July 18, 2008 – Statement from Veterans for Common Sense in response to VA’s prohibition against voter registration and voting assistance for our wounded, injured, and ill veterans in VA nursing homes and VA hospitals as well as among homeless veterans assisted by VA.

When the time came to protect and defend the voting rights of our veterans during an election year taking place during a war, VA did nothing.  Veterans for Common Sense is outraged at VA’s failure to protect the voting rights of our wounded, injured, ill, and homeless veterans.

Voting rights are important for our veterans because many veterans need to re-register before voting again.  When a veteran moves from his or her house to a VA nursing home, or when a veteran becomes homeless, then the veteran must usually re-register in order to be eligible to vote in the next election.

The population impacted by VA’s policy decision could be hundreds of thousands, and their equal voting rights are critical. Potentially, there may be thousands of veterans living as in-patients in VA facilities, especially nursing homes, during the November Election.  In addition, VA confirms there are hundreds of thousands more veterans who are homeless during the year.  VCS believes VA must make reasonable and responsible efforts within the next few months in order to assist our veterans.  Our elections must be fair and free, with the greatest opportunity for all to participate – that’s what our veterans have fought for since 1776 by standing between enemy bullets and our beloved Constitution.

VA’s latest lame excuse to ban voter registration and voting assistance for our veterans was that they are too complicated. So VA just threw up their hands and surrendered the voting rights for possibly hundreds of thousands of our veterans.  VA’s weak and indefensible position is all the more striking, shocking, and shameful due to the fact some of our veterans now in VA facilities are recovering from battle wounds from Iraq and Afghanistan.

VCS has three blunt questions for VA:

  1. What effort did VA make to check with local and state election officials to address the voting needs of our veterans?
  2. What effort did VA make to check with widely respected non-profits who might be able to assist VA as well as local and state agencies with voter registration and voting for our veterans?
  3. What kind of disgraceful message is VA sending to our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan when our wounded, injured, and ill veterans can’t vote during war?

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Serious Proselytizing at Air Force Base

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Team VCS

July 18, 2008 – The Jewish Observer reports on new accusations of unconstitutional religious activities at Wright Patterson Air Base in Ohio. The report is based on work done by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which has received 100 complaints from people who’ve worked at that air base over proselytization and worse going on by military officers. Here’s a story from one person on that base:

At public speaking engagements, Mikey Weinstein says he often reads a letter he received in July 2006 from a former contractor at Wright-Patt. Back at home in Albuquerque, he reads from the letter on the phone:
“I worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for just over a year as a civilian contractor…Staff meetings were prefaced and closed by fundamentalist Christian prayer sessions, and the senior NCOs who led the prayer sessions made it clear to the military trainees that they were judged on whether or not they enthusiastically participated. The trainee air persons were given the choice of attending fundamentalist Christian religious prayer ceremonies on Sunday or being assigned to particularly onerous substitute duties. It was made very clear to them that decent evaluations and a successful training period leading to a tolerable term of enlistment or a career in the Air Force included completely embracing fundamentalist Christianity…I was appalled to find groups of senior officers praying as a decision-making aid…Once I got to know people and heard more conversations, I realized that for many officers, the war in Iraq is not at all politically motivated, but religiously motivated. It is a fundamentalist Christian jihad that will bring on the apocalypse and rapture, which is what they want…Hearing this from people who hold destructive atomic and nuclear weapon systems is terrifying to me…immediately after I renewed my contract, I was repeatedly and aggressively proselytized and told to ‘get with the Jesus program and help spread the word of Jesus.'”

And here’s a statement from Mikey’s son, who was stationed at the base himself:

Casey Weinstein describes the atmosphere when he was stationed on active duty at Wright-Patt in 2005.
“I had an issue early on with mandatory prayer at a mandatory Thanksgiving luncheon given when I first got to my unit,” Casey Weinstein says.

He says that a prayer at the luncheon was offered in Jesus’ name, a violation of Air Force guidelines.

“I was told I could go and address the issue with one of the unit members…I addressed the issue in a very calm manner. I said, ‘I just want to let you know there are new guidelines about this.'”

Another issue that came up, Casey Weinstein says, was religious content sent out through official base e-mail.

“It was called The War on Christmas (an excerpt from the book by former Fox News anchor John Gibson) and it was sent out to a bunch of people using official e-mail that just trashes on people who have problems with Christmas being in the workplace.”

Casey Weinstein went to his direct supervisor to discuss this e-mail.

“Now apparently, he heard that I had complained about the Christian prayer in Jesus’ name on Thanksgiving, which was supposed to be a secular prayer,” he says. “So he flipped out. He started yelling at me, with the door open, in front of subordinates, basically just ruining my credibility in the squadron. I got back up and got in his face and showed him the regulations and showed him the regulation about not being allowed to use e-mail for those purposes, here’s the appropriate prayers, and he backed down really quickly.”

“In the military, they want complete and team players,” Mikey Weinstein says. “Anyone who says, ‘That’s great, but you’re in violation of the bedrock principle of our country, which is our Constitution — It’s asking too much of a young trooper to stand up. And it’s very hard to say, ‘No sir, no ma’am, you can’t do this.'”

All of this is part of the lawsuit they’ve filed. One of the most interesting things about the MRFF is that the vast majority of the complaints they’ve received from military personnel – and we’re talking over 8000 complaints – are from Christians.

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Editorial Column: Is Iran Bush’s Answer?

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Team VCS

July 18, 2008 – History can be very harsh and subjective. It seems that the significant accomplishments of President Bill Clinton will be unfortunately overshadowed by his personal indiscretions while in office. Historians will never shy from emphasizing that he was the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. Clinton’s legacy, as a result, has been sadly tarnished.

How will historians judge the legacy of President George W. Bush? And, as he approaches the end of his second term, is it possible for him to influence or redefine his legacy?

The answer to the first question is not favorable. During his tenure, the Iraq war was poorly conceived and implemented. It is now a quagmire with no end in sight. With more than a half-trillion dollars and counting, this war is affecting essential programs here at home. Hurricane Katrina also proved that Washington was incapable of responding efficiently to natural disasters on the home front. And then there is the economy. Most economists would agree that the country is in a recession and possibly a severe one. More Americans are finding themselves jobless every week. The high cost of energy is compounding matters, and polls are giving the administration a very low performance rating—confirming that the nation is going in the wrong direction.

What could overshadow the Iraq war, Katrina and bad economy to provide a new defining moment? The answer is Iran.

Bush could reshape his legacy in the few remaining months of his administration by attacking Iran’s nuclear installations. If this is done successfully, without escalating the conflict in the Middle East, history would define his administration as the one that denied, or slowed substantially, Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. It would be framed as good against evil, with good prevailing in a Hollywood-style production. If Bush decides to pursue such a plan, the ideal time would be after the Nov. 4 presidential election. Why not before? If the plan fails, Sen. John McCain and many Republican candidates could be political casualties.

Yet such a decision may prove to be just as erroneous as the Iraq fiasco.

The ramification of such an attack is likely to have a spillover effect on the entire Middle East, further destabilizing the region. If Iran is attacked, the following is likely to happen:

1. Iranians would rally around their leadership. An attack, which would be undoubtedly viewed as an insult, would galvanize the population and embolden the radical Islamic leadership—extending the life span of the autocratic mullahs. Furthermore, polls conducted in Iran have been very favorable toward the U.S. This positive feeling is likely to vanish and be transformed into hostility with long-term negative consequences.

2. Iran would use its strong interest and presence in Iraq to ensure that the mirage of tranquility is over. Heavily armed militias that take their orders from Iran would flare up, creating destabilizing conflicts across Iraq.

3. Iran is likely to avenge the attack by restricting the flow of oil in the Strait of Hormuz. It could also target the nearby U.S.-friendly Gulf nations, attacking their energy installations. The already-high price of oil is likely to soar, further strangling global economies.

4. Lebanon’s Hezbollah is fated to react against an attack on Iran. For Hezbollah, Tehran is as sacred as the Vatican to Catholics. They feel a much closer affinity and loyalty to the Iranian leadership than to the central Lebanese government in Beirut. Their religious bond with Iran is far stronger to their national identity as Lebanese. Hezbollah would view a U.S. attack as one coordinated with Israel and would likely retaliate by attacking Israel and igniting a repeat of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

Attacking Iran may camouflage the legacy of the Bush administration. Yet redefining the president’s legacy by a conflict with Iran may prove to be an even more dangerous path than that of Iraq.

Will there be a dark day in November? Let’s hope not.

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Jail Inmates Hear from Armed Forces Recruiter

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Team VCS

July 16, 2008 – The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office paired with the Newport-based Army recruiter on Saturday July 12, in an effort to convey information to jail inmates about the possibility of serving in the U.S. armed forces.

This effort is another step by the sheriff’s office to allow incarcerated individuals the opportunity to give back to the community.

Staff Sergeant Justin Morlock of the Army recruiting office in Newport gave some of his own time to the project and was on hand to provide information to all interested individuals. Over a time frame of two hours, Morlock was able to contact more than 30 inmates, out of which three were found to be eligible for military service. Though the eligibility numbers were smaller than expected, the effort was still worthwhile, according to the sheriff’s office, and has the potential to become a regularly scheduled program within the jail.

Deputy Steve Frey worked with Morlock during his visit to the jail.

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Living with PTSD: A Wife’s Perspective

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Team VCS

July 18, 2008 – Carol and Chuck Chapman thought they’d start their lives all over again once he retired from the Marine Corps after nearly 30 years of service.

They moved to Mesa County and bought a spread on Reeder Mesa for their quarter horses. There were lots of good times.

But when he retired, his post-traumatic stress disorder came to life.

As a Marine, he started out as a machine gunner and experienced the tense Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. After he re-enlisted, he moved into jet mechanics, maintaining the flight line on aircraft carriers. He witnessed horrific sights, but Carol never heard the details.

“He saw a lot of trauma in his life, but when he would come home, he never carried that home with him. He was stuffing that inside,” Carol said. “When he retired, that’s when it started to come out.”

Her husband became withdrawn, isolated, tense, quiet and depressed. He avoided large groups of people. Even at church, every door that opened and closed, he looked.

“He would have panic attacks and bursts of anger,” Carol recalled. “He never physically abused me, but verbally … it came out of the blue.”

The Chapmans’ learning curve of PTSD began as Chuck started being treated for depression at the Grand Junction U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital. Meanwhile, Carol was doing her best to cope.

When Chuck was active military, Carol’s support had been other military wives. But with retirement, that went away.

“You walk on eggshells. The stress involved in trying to be there for him, care and help him … I went overboard,” she said. “They need to be independent. That was very difficult for me because he was my life.

“I thought I had failed because I couldn’t help him.”

“I didn’t want to get close to my wife or my kids … because if something happened to them …” Chuck said.

Gerry Mitchell, a VA counselor, helped both learn to cope with his PTSD.

“He’s helped us thorough so much,” Carol said. “Do you know how difficult it is to communicate?

“Our relationship and what it was based on had to be totally rebuilt,” she said. They had to “reach bottom” first then begin again.

“Love is respecting one another and caring for one another,” she said. She had to ask herself: “Do I love you enough to stay with you through this?”

“We did a lot of suffering through that time. It really tests your love,” she said.

So they relied heavily on their faith and kept going to counseling at the VA Hospital.

“My faith is very important to me, and Chuck too,” she said. The couple will celebrate 50 years of marriage on Christmas Day.

The Chapmans attended the weekly presentations on PTSD held Wednesday nights at the VA hospital. This week’s emphasis was on the effects of PTSD on family members.

Carol would like to start a support group for wives of veterans with PTSD. They will be at Wednesday’s presentation at the VA Hospital; veterans who have experienced PTSD will give a panel discussion. The gathering starts at 5:30 p.m. in Building 6. Anyone with questions can call 242-0731, ext. 2407.

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