Veterans for Common Sense

June 12, 2008 – When he was a cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., in the early 1970s, Norton Schwartz did not hide his religion under his blue-and-white uniform.

A member of the academy’s Jewish choir before graduating in 1973, according to one of his classmates, Schwartz has since risen up the ranks and on June 9 was appointed Air Force chief by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

If confirmed by the Senate, Schwartz will be expected to immediately deal with an armed service that has been badly embarrassed by the recent mishandling of nuclear material. But Schwartz, one of only a few Jews in the top ranks of the military, will also have to face off with the difficult questions of religion at his alma mater. During the past decade, the Air Force Academy has developed a reputation for being a hotbed of evangelical Christian proselytizing, drawing numerous constitutional complaints. Opponents of this trend see a ray of hope in Schwartz’s appointment.

“He has the capacity to bring change and change this general feeling that the Air Force Academy likes you more if you’re an evangelical Christian,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

With his appointment, Schwartz becomes the third Jew in the top ranks of the military, alongside Lieutenant General Steven Blum, who heads the National Guard, and General Robert Magnus, who is the assistant commandant of the Marines.

Schwartz, who was promoted to the rank of general in August 2005, has held a series of top jobs in the Air Force. He flew his first operational mission in 1975 and, as such, took part in the infamous aerial evacuation of Americans from Saigon. In 1980 he became involved in Air Force Special Operations a few months after another humiliating event: the failed mission to free American hostages held by the Iranian regime.

“There are seminal events in all our lives,” Schwartz told Air Force Times in an April 2000 interview. “This was one of the momentous events for my generation.”

Two months ago, the Defense Department announced that Schwartz was to retire at the end of the year from his position as head of the Transportation Command, which manages global air, land and sea transportation for the Defense Department. But it was soon after this that the Secretary of Defense learned that the Air Force had sent four fusing devices for ballistic missile nuclear warheads to Taiwan instead of sending helicopter batteries. This followed an incident last summer in which a B-52 bomber mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles flew to Louisiana from North Dakota. Gates ordered an internal probe, and on June 5 he ousted the top military and civilian officials at the helm of the Air Force. Four days later, he tapped Schwartz to be secretary of the Air Force.

Schwartz’s Jewish identity did not go unnoticed after his appointment, particularly given the current military tensions with Iran. Press TV, an Iranian English language media outlet, wrote an article last week, titled “U.S. Names Jewish as Air Force Chief.”

There have long been rumors that Schwartz’s predecessor, Michael Moseley, was opposed to a military attack on Iran. The appointment of Schwartz has prompted speculation in the Iranian press and on some blogs that the Bush administration is yet again seriously considering the military option to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Aside from the recent controversies, one of the most prominent challenges facing the Air Force has been a series of lawsuits and constitutional challenges at the academy. Following revelations compiled in a May 2005 report from Americans United for Separation of Church and State that evangelical officers and staff members had pressured cadets of other faiths to convert — charging that there was “systematic and pervasive religious bias and intolerance at the highest levels of the Academy command structure” — the Air Force appointed an investigative panel. In June 2005, the panel found evidence that officers and faculty members of the academy periodically used their positions to promote their Christian beliefs and failed to accommodate the religious needs of non-Christian cadets. no “overt religious discrimination” was found.

The Pentagon has since issued formal guidelines to protect against religious intolerance and discrimination in the Air Force Academy, but Congress partly rescinded them under pressure from evangelical groups.

One of the primary critics of the Air Force has been Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and a Jewish graduate of the Air Force Academy. Last March, Weinstein’s organization sued the federal government to combat what it calls creeping evangelism in the armed forces, arguing that it violated the constitution. Weinstein said he has already requested a meeting with Schwartz.

“He’s the new sheriff in town, and we don’t know where he stands on the issue of the proselytizing of the Air Force by fundamentalist Christians,” Weinstein said.

Schwartz’s classmate at the academy, Mike Nishimuta, says that one of the reasons he believes Schwartz — or “Nortie,” as he knows him — is an outstanding choice is that he is a “good diplomat.” He noted that Schwartz already distinguished himself at the academy by being named cadet wing commander.

“He is extremely smart, a good diplomat and someone who knows how to work with Congress,” said Nishimuta, who is now an aerospace consultant.

June 12, 2008 – I gave a dollar to a shabbily dressed young man holding a “help me” sign on a Market Street in San Francisco. Most Saturday shoppers, many of them foreign tourists taking advantage of the cheap dollar, ignored him and the scores of homeless people hoping to score some spare change. Dave thanked me.

I asked him why he wasn’t working.

“My back hurts,” he explained. The pain began “outside of Baghdad.” He pointed to the base of his spine. “A mortar shell exploded. A couple pieces of metal lodged somewhere here.” He pointed to the base of his spine. “One of my buddies got hit in the eye. He’s worse off than me.” Dave said he was about to turn 26 and had lived on the streets for almost two years.

Heroin? I guessed.

He smiled.

“Some had it worse. Arms, legs, brains.”

I asked where he slept.

“Parks, under freeways, sometimes in homeless shelters if I have nothing that can get stolen,” he laughed.

I shook his hand and wished him luck. “Hey,” he called. “I haven’t killed myself yet like some of my buddies did.”

Dave was referring to the average of 18 veterans who kill themselves every day in the United States. “In California alone in 2006, 666 veterans committed suicide,” reported John Koopman. (SF Chronicle, May 12, 2008)

Dave might have been referring to Tim Chapman, also of San Francisco. Like Dave, he could not readapt to civilian life after his experience with war in the Middle East. Tim got on drugs. He joined a gang. His wife left him and he began to focus on ending his life, he told Koopman.

Throughout the country, communities cope with tens of thousands of U.S. troops returned from Afghanistan and Iraq with blighted bodies and brains.  As long as Bush’s wars continue – no candidate has pledged to withdraw all the troops – the country faces a growing collection of veterans, many of whom cannot function in family or work settings. They suffer from war wounds – physical and mental — that require expensive treatment.

Even though the overall number of veterans has begun to decline as World War II and Korea participants expire, “the government expects to be spending $59 billion a year to compensate injured warriors in 25 years, up from today’s $29 billion.” And reporter Jennifer C. Kerr cites the Veterans Affairs Department, which “concedes the bill could be much higher.” (Associated Press, May 11, 2008)

Those who don’t show injuries or don’t come in for or respond to treatment have become the highest risks. In 2005, CBS News began investigating suicides in the U.S. military. “120 people each week who had served in the military committed suicide. That’s an average twice that of non-veterans,” concluded a report from CBS’ Armen Keteyian (Nov. 13, 2007)

CBS asked Dr. Steve Rathbun, acting head of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia, for a detailed analysis of suicide statistics obtained from government authorities for 2004 and 2005. From the figures, Rathbun found that veterans “were more than twice as likely to commit suicide as non-vets.” Iraq and Afghan War veterans aged 20 through 24 had the highest suicide rate among all veterans — between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000. The general population has 8.9 per 100,000.

In early April, a group of lawyers representing veterans’ rights sued in a San Francisco federal court. The suit claimed the VA had deliberately concealed the risk of suicide among veterans. Attorney Gordon Erspamer put it generously. “Unfortunately the VA is in denial,” said the Veterans’ Rights Attorney. Erspramer was referring to emails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA’s head of Mental Health. Katz had insisted that the suicide risk for returning Afghanistan and Iraq veterans was in normal range. “There is no epidemic in suicide in VA,” Katz told CBS’ Keteyian last November. But in one 2007 email Katz wrote: “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month [12,000 a year] among veterans we see in our medical facilities.”  That contradicted the number the VA gave CBS News (790 attempted suicides in 2007).

The e-mail, “Not for the CBS News Interview Request,” began with “Shh!” Katz finished his email with: “Is this something we should (carefully) address … before someone stumbles on it?”

Rep. Bob Filner (D-Ca), chair of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs called this “a crime against our nation, our nation’s veterans.” (CBS News)

Katz later regretted his statement. “It was an error and I apologize [to the House Committee] for that.” (CBS news interactive, April 23, 2008)  Katz confessed he knew some 12,000 veterans a year had attempted suicide while being treated by the VA. That figure doesn’t cover those not under VA treatment. Katz wondered if “this is something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?”

Bush Administration officials are replete with sick jokes. Remember FEMA’s Michael Brown after Hurricane Katrina? The right wing bureaucrats saved their cruelest joke for those deployed and returning from the Middle East, almost 1.7 million men and women. Veterans suffering from wounds or traumas often observe their conditions worsening, leading to greater disabilities. The new vets know more than the ones from previous wars about getting their rightful benefits; thus, rising costs.

Because battlefield and emergency medical care have improved dramatically since World War II and Korea, and even since Vietnam, wounds that would have previously killed have become treatable. The number of vets collecting after Afghanistan and Iraq duty has grow to almost 200,000.

When Bush’s routine “special” request to continue the war appears before Congress, however, most Members — and certainly not the President — don’t focus on the disabled veterans. Since 2001, when Bush initiated his two wars, the number of partially destroyed vets has leaped 25 percent. 2.9 million Daves – or far worse cases – now populate the country. They join older vets from older wars as part of those who fit Franz Fanon’s description: the wretched of the earth.

Rick used booze, a habit he acquired in Vietnam where he served two tours of duty doing “search and rescue.” Within a decade after his return to the United States he became convinced that he saw malevolent shadows. These illusive entities manufactured parasites and directed them to burrow under his skin and have now followed him to the gas station near his Oakland street lodgings.

He has spent two decades battling that fear – with the help of booze and other substances, of course. “The war was the most exciting time in my life,” he concluded as he scratched the spots where the imaginary entities had crawled under his skin. “You wonder why they would do it all over again.”

Tens of millions of Americans ask why Bush and his supposedly conservative advisors would again dispatch young men and women to fight a war that had no just cause and threatens to drag on endlessly. Millions ask: Why can’t the United States withdraw? Why doesn’t Congress just cut the funds? They shake their heads at the answers.

Civil war might break out. We can’t desert those poor Iraqis. Al Qaeda could claim victory. Our reputation, our prestige, our national conscience, blah blah blah….

Steve Smithson, a deputy director at the American Legion, told AP reporter Jennifer Kerr that suicide “is a cost of war” as if patriotic – sheeplike? — Americans simply had to accept that war brings awful things, but when the President calls the patriots respond.

Almost 24 millions veterans – disabled or not – watch their numbers dwindle as World War II and Korean War vets die. The VA projects that by 2033 only 15 million will remain, but it will cost more to deal with them. Compensation for disabled veterans, agency economic predict, will increase from today’s $29 billion to $33 billion – at least. The disabilities mount, the injuries become more acute.

A RAND corporation study claimed some 300,000 ex soldiers suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. More than 320,000 had probably experienced traumatic brain injuries in combat. The nature of Bush’s wars means “in Iraq and Afghanistan all service members, not just combat infantry, are exposed to roadside bombs and civilian deaths. That distinction subjects a much wider swath of military personnel to the stresses of war.” (Julian Barnes, LA Times April 18, 2008)

ENOUGH ALREADY!

June 14, 2008 – Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is planning to increase its output next month by about a half-million barrels a day, according to analysts and oil traders who have been briefed by Saudi officials.

The increase could bring Saudi output to a production level of 10 million barrels a day, which, if sustained, would be the kingdom’s highest ever. The move was seen as a sign that the Saudis are becoming increasingly nervous about both the political and economic effect of high oil prices. In recent weeks, soaring fuel costs have incited demonstrations and protests from Italy to Indonesia.

Saudi Arabia is currently pumping 9.45 million barrels a day, which is an increase of about 300,000 barrels from last month.

While they are reaping record profits, the Saudis are concerned that today’s record prices might eventually damp economic growth and lead to lower oil demand, as is already happening in the United States and other developed countries. The current prices are also making alternative fuels more viable, threatening the long-term prospects of the oil-based economy.

President Bush visited Saudi Arabia twice this year, pleading with King Abdullah to step up production. While the Saudis resisted the calls then, arguing that the markets were well supplied, they seem to have since concluded that they needed to disrupt the momentum that has been building in commodity markets, sending prices higher.

The Saudi plans were disclosed in interviews with several oil traders and analysts who said that Saudi oil officials had privately conveyed their production plans recently to some traders and companies in the United States. The analysts declined to be identified so as not to be cut off from future information from the Saudis.

Last week, King Abdullah also took the unprecedented step of arranging on short notice a major gathering of oil producers and consumers to address the causes of the price rally. The meeting will be held on June 22 in the Red Sea town of Jeddah.

Oil prices have gained 40 percent this year, rising to nearly $140 a barrel in recent days and driving gasoline costs above $4 a gallon. Some analysts have predicted that prices could reach $200 a barrel this year as oil consumption continues to rise rapidly while supplies lag.

The growing volatility of the markets, including a record one-day gain of $10.75 a barrel last week, has persuaded the Saudis that they need to step in, analysts said.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said, “We would welcome any and all increases in oil production, including from Saudi Arabia.”

But the measure carries some risks to the kingdom and is not guaranteed to bring down prices, analysts said. Some investors doubt that Saudi Arabia has the capacity to increase its production beyond its current levels.

“This clearly represents the biggest test for them,” said John Kilduff, a senior vice president at the brokerage firm MF Global, who said the move could backfire if investors failed to respond to the extra Saudi supplies. No other producer has the capacity to quickly expand production.

Oil prices fell on Friday, slipping $1.88 to settle at $134.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after reports of the prospective Saudi increase trickled into the market.

Ibrahim al-Muhanna, an adviser at the Saudi petroleum ministry, declined to comment on the production increase but said that Saudi Arabia was uncomfortable with oil prices. “Our goal is to bring back stability to the oil market,” he said.

Consumers are complaining that rising fuel prices are imposing a growing toll on their economies, and contributing to higher food costs. The Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said this month that it was time “to apply the blowtorch to the OPEC organization.”

In Washington, bipartisan support is also growing to pass a law allowing the Justice Department to engage in antitrust proceedings against OPEC producers accused of curbing supplies to drive up prices.

Pressure is also mounting in consuming countries to address record energy prices. Congress is debating measures that would tackle speculators, whom many in Washington blame for driving up commodity prices.

When the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, of which Saudi Arabia is the most powerful member, met in March, it decided against increasing production, blaming speculators and a declining dollar, not a shortfall in supplies, for driving up oil prices.

Saudi Arabia’s unilateral policy could put it at odds with other members of the OPEC cartel. In a report from the group’s secretariat on Friday, OPEC analysts said they saw no need to put more oil on the market. “Claims that the recent surge in prices is due to a supply shortage are unjustified,” the report said.

Saudi Arabia is completing a huge expansion program in its oil industry that is expected to bring its production capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009. As part of that expansion, Saudi Aramco, the country’s national oil company, is planning to start soon an oil field, called Khursaniyah, with a daily production rate of 500,000 barrels.

The production increase, which would amount to less than 1 percent of global consumption, could be made public next week at the energy meeting, which is expected to bring together a large number of consuming and producing countries, including the United States, Russia, Britain, China, India and Japan.

While the meeting is not expected to achieve anything tangible, Saudi officials hope that tackling the issue publicly will break the upward momentum that is dominating oil markets.

“They’ve created pressure on themselves to make a concrete move at this meeting,” said Adam Robinson, an analyst at Lehman Brothers. “But when the king calls an oil summit, the markets would do well to take heed.”

June 13, 2008 – A few days ago, a tip was sent to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) research department to check out an organization called Marshall Minute Military Ministries. MRFF has investigated a seemingly endless stream of evangelical ministries and para-church organizations operating within the military, from small Mom and Pop church groups to large scale, military-wide operations like Campus Crusade for Christ’s Military Ministry, who are well on their way to accomplishing their goal of turning our military into a force of “government-paid missionaries for Christ”. Marshall Minute, however, had escaped our attention — until now. (Full disclosure: Chris Rodda is the senior research director of MRFF).

Marshall Minutes is run by Michael G. Marshall of the Armed Forces Baptist Missions (AFBM), an organization on “A Worldwide Quest for the Souls of Men and Women in Uniform and their families.” AFBM’s primary means of evangelizing the military is “church planting,” establishing churches near military bases and then opening “Military Service Centers” to help these churches “reach young, single military men and women with the Gospel of Christ.” Marshall Minute’s particular “field white for the harvest” is the Milwaukee Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS), where new recruits are tested and processed before being sent to basic training, and the ministry plans to “plant” a church near the Great Lakes Naval Base in late 2008 or early 2009.

Nothing seemed all that unusual about Marshall Minute, and I was about to just add this one to our files as yet another example of the many similar military ministries that exist on or near just about every military installation, when a link on their website caught my eye — a link to military recommendations. This link led to two letters of endorsement from military officers, recommending Michael Marshall to other commanders — one from Lt. Col. Ronald L. Jackson, Jr. on Department of the Air Force letterhead, and one from Maj. Alan C. Shaw on Department of Defense letterhead. The letter from Maj. Shaw, written as commander of the Milwaukee MEPS in July 2007, listed among Marshall’s qualifications that he held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Service Command (USSC). I naturally assumed that the USSC was a U.S. military entity, but had never heard of it before, so I looked it up.

What I found is that the USSC was a private “disaster relief” organization with no official military affiliation. USSC no longer seems to be an active organization, but appears to have recently been replaced by something called the United States Operational Support Command (USOSC), another private organization with a deceptively official sounding name, founded by Michael Marshall and full of former USSC members. But it’s not the misleading names of these organizations that makes them significant enough for me to be writing this piece about them. Unofficial organizations with official sounding names are a dime a dozen. Many have logos that incorporate images such as the Great Seal of the United States, and some use “.us” rather than “.com” or “.org” URLs for their websites to further the impression that they are government entities. What’s different about the USOSC, and formerly the USSC, is that their members wear military uniforms and rank. This is not only deceptive. IT’S ILLEGAL!

Title 10 of the U.S. Code strictly prohibits any person who isn’t a member of the armed forces from wearing “the uniform, or a distinctive part of the uniform, of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps” or “a uniform any part of which is similar to a distinctive part of the uniform of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps.” There are some exceptions to this law, but none of them would apply to the USSC or USOSC. Even the members of these organizations who are former or retired military, and permitted under certain circumstances to wear the uniform of their former service, are breaking the law. Those who qualify under these exceptions can only wear the uniform of the branch they served in, and cannot, of course, wear the insignia of a higher rank than they held in the military. The USSC and USOSC use the same rank structure as the U.S. Army, but have their own commissioning and promotion qualifications under which most enlisted members seem to hold the rank of sergeant major, and colonels and generals abound. When in their Class “A” and Class “B” uniforms, those USOSC members who did serve in the military wear all the genuine military ribbons and medals they earned during their service; they get more ribbons from the USOSC; and former USSC members add their USSC ribbons. The result is a chest full of ribbons like you’d see on a real general.

Michael Marshall, listed in Maj. Alan Shaw’s endorsement letter as a Lieutenant Colonel in the USSC, doesn’t provide his highest real military rank in his biography, but he was an enlisted man in the Navy from 1972 to 1976. By wearing the USSC uniform, which was essentially the U.S. Army uniform, and the rank insignia of a Lieutenant Colonel, Marshall was doing nothing short of impersonating an Army officer. Even the MEPS Inspector General didn’t recognize the illegality of these Army chaplain look-alikes. According to Maj. Shaw’s letter of endorsement, the IG actually commended them in a report.

According to Title 18 of the U.S. Code, (Crimes and Criminal Procedures): “Whoever, in any place within the jurisdiction of the United States or in the Canal Zone, without authority, wears the uniform or a distinctive part thereof or anything similar to a distinctive part of the uniform of any of the armed forces of the United States, Public Health Service or any auxiliary of such, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.”

But has Michael Marshall or any member of the USSC or USOSC been punished? Of course not. In fact, many USSC “officers” have received the “President’s Volunteer Service Award,” created by George W. Bush in 2002. Volunteers who perform a certain number of hours of community service qualify for one of four levels of this award, with the highest level awarded for 4,000 hours.

As Bush clearly explained in an April 2002 speech in Bridgeport, Connecticut: “And so, in my State of the — my State of the Union — or state — my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation — I asked Americans to give 4,000 years — 4,000 hours over the next — the rest of your life — of service to America. That’s what I asked — 4,000 hours.”

While thousands of these awards are given out each year, organizations wanting to give the appearance of official government sanction and/or recognition often post images on their websites of the mass produced “congratulatory letter from the President of the United States” that accompanies the award.

Another link on the Marshall Minute website leads to the website of “In PURSUIT! Ministries,” an organization that sends chaplains to law enforcement agencies as well as MEPS. Featured on the In PURSUIT! website is the organization’s director, Chaplain Tim Sherman, who also holds the rank of major in the USOSC. Sherman is a chaplain at the Fargo, North Dakota MEPS. A photo of Sherman with First Sergeant Rivera of the Los Angeles MEPS shows that the only discernible difference in their uniforms is the color of the name strip above the right shirt pocket, and USOSC instead of U.S. ARMY on the strip above the left pocket. New recruits passing through a MEPS, unfamiliar with various military uniforms and insignia, would have no idea that “Major” Sherman is not an Army officer, and would probably think he outranked the first sergeant and other enlisted personnel who work there.

Michael Marshall is also a chaplain with the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), which is an official auxiliary organization of the United States Air Force, and, according to his ministry’s website, serves as an Air Force chaplain with the 347th Air Force Recruiting Squadron, on orders from Scott Air Force Base. Marshall claims this was done with a “military support authorization.” How this is possible will require a bit more investigation because, according to CAP regulations, a military support authorization can be used to allow a CAP chaplain to be accommodated on an Air Force base for a ceremony or event, such as a wedding or a funeral, but would not appear be used for any kind of long-term position. According to Marshall, his “orders” came from Air Force Lt. Col. Ronald Jackson, the author of his other letter of endorsement.

While the USSC did not impose a religious test on its “officers,” its successor, the USOCS, does. In fact, the USOCS calls itself a ministry. All members must subscribe to the organization’s Doctrinal Statement and Covenant, which, like the doctrinal statements of Marshall Minutes, the Armed Forces Baptist Missions, and In Pursuit! Ministries, includes a belief in the “Pre-Millennial return of Christ” and the “Rapture of the Church.”

USOCS’s Doctrinal Statement also says that “Under no circumstances will we have fellowship with those who deny the Scripture, deny the person or the work of Christ, compromisers or those who are not similar in faith.” How can chaplains from this organization, with a regulation so contrary to the most basic regulations for U.S. military chaplains, be permitted to operate at U.S. military installations and facilities?

MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein, a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, former JAG, a former White House counsel under President Reagan, and former general counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate Ross Perot, is demanding an investigation: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the insidious, unconstitutional infiltration of ‘end times,’ fundamentalist Christianity into quite literally every molecule of the U.S. armed forces will very likely require 400 court martials to even BEGIN to remedy. Thus, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is now officially demanding that those responsible within the penumbra of the Department of Defense, and there are many, including Inspectors General, for the aiding, abetting, and endorsing of USOSC proselytizers, feloniously impersonating active duty U.S. military officers and senior NCOs must be subjected immediately to trial by courts martial. Additionally, MRFF is now likewise demanding that all United States Attorneys whose jurisdictions cover localities where USOSC personnel are illegally wearing their proselytizing-enabling, intentionally confusing military ‘uniforms’ in blatant violation of Title 10 of the U.S. Code immediately refer these violations to the FBI for aggressive and swift investigation.”

June 12, 2008 – An attorney for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which runs hospitals and homeless shelters for veterans, told a federal appeals court Thursday that the VA could not conceive of any circumstance where voter registration drives could occur at its facilities.

“This is an activity that could be seen as harming the appearance of the VA’s neutrality,” said Owen Martikan, assistant U.S. attorney representing the agency, adding voter registration drives would interfere with patient medical care and also violate the federal Hatch Act, which limits federal employees from participating in political campaign activities.

“If you cure the problem of overt partisanship, you are creating another problem,” Martikan said. “Once you let in someone else, you are not being neutral unless you let everyone in.”

But Scott Rafferty, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney who has spent several years arguing the VA must allow voter registration drives to help wounded former soldiers register and vote, disagreed.

“Integrating veterans into the communities that they live in is the highest honor we can award veterans,” Rafferty told the court.

The issue before a federal appeals court in San Francisco is whether restrictions on voter registration drives at the VA’s campus in nearby Menlo Park are unconstitutional.

The case has national significance. The VA has facilities across the country serving thousands of veterans. In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton ordered the VA to help register veterans. However, the VA ceased allowing voter registration drives during the Bush administration.

Several U.S. senators and California’s secretary of state, all Democrats, have asked the VA to become a voter registration agency like motor vehicle departments. This spring, the VA issued a new policy saying it would help vets — who asked for help — to register and to vote. The VA also said it would allow nonpartisan voter registration drives, but then rescinded the policy on registration drives.

The suit before the federal appeals court is revisiting the question of whether Steve Preminger, chair of the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee — where the Menlo Park facility is located — has standing to question the constitutionality of the VA’s policy.

On Thursday, judges from the three-judge panel asked the VA if there was any circumstance where it could conceive of a nonpartisan voter registration drive. One judge said students at her daughter’s high school were given voter registration forms when they are 17-1/2 years old — and asked why veterans cannot be given the same opportunity?

“It’s a different environment than a school,” Martikan said. “It means diverting resources from patient care.”

Another judge laid out a scenario where anyone who would participate in voter registration efforts would not wear campaign buttons or say what party they belonged to. He asked if the VA would object to a voter registration drive if participants were told “no partisan activities.”

That would not satify the VA, Martikan said, saying, the “VA has different interests.”

Martikan said that Preminger and an associate came onto the VA campus in a car that had an “impeach Bush” bumper sticker. “They introduced themselves as members of the Democratic Party,” he said, adding it was a fiction that registration drive participants could “pretend to be nonpartisan.”

After the hearing, Preminger said his attempts to register voters were neither overtly partisan nor disruptive.

“I don’t carry myself that way — not at all,” he said.

Preminger said Republican Party volunteers have been able to visit the Menlo Park facility to register voters.

June 13, 2008 – A review by the Department of Veterans Affairs finds that women veterans aren’t receiving the same quality of outpatient care as men at about one-third of its facilities.

The review obtained by The Associated Press appears to validate the complaints of advocates and some members of Congress who have said the health care system needs to focus more on women veterans.

Women make up about 5 percent of the VA’s population, but that number is expected to nearly double in the next two years as more women return home from Iraq and Afghanistan and seek care.

The review notes that the VA has created women’s clinics in many hospitals, but it says more clinicians need to be trained in women’s care and more equipment focused on women’s health is needed.