Veterans for Common Sense

January 26, 2008 – Hawaii Sen. Daniel Akaka and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are calling for $2 million in additional funding for the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The Hawaii senator says many of the servicemen and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will be suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, increasing demand on the center.

In a letter to the secretary of veterans affairs requesting the additional funding, the Hawaii Democrat notes that the center’s budget has dropped from a 2005 high of just over $10 million. He says the center has seen its staff levels decline steadily since 1999.

Akaka is chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Edwards visits Jeff City, touts health care for all, higher minimum wage and an end to Iraq war

Jefferson City, Missouri, January 29, 2009 – John Edwards brought his populist campaign to central Missouri Tuesday, invoking the names of Harry Truman and John Kennedy in a bid to keep his presidential aspirations alive.

Edwards pledged to push for universal health care, a minimum wage of $9.50 an hour and an end to subsidies for factory farms that are driving family farmers out of business. He told a boisterous crowd of supporters that he would end the war in Iraq his first year in office, improve care for returning veterans and shut down the debate on what type of torture is permissible in the United States.

“No torture is permissible in America or by America,” Edwards said.  A crowd of several hundred people who packed into a banquet room of the Jefferson City Eagles’ lodge responded enthusiastically, particularly when Edwards spoke of the middle-class struggle to pay the rising cost of gasoline, food, health care and a college education.

They are the themes that have defined Edwards’ campaign. People responded most when Edwards spoke about health care and Bush’s handling of the war on terror. Edwards noted that 47 million people in the United States lack health insurance. But the crowd appeared particularly moved by his reference to his wife’s battle with breast cancer.

“Tomorrow, just as sure as I’m standing here, women across America will do what my wife did,” Edwards said. “They’ll do a self-exam, they’ll find a lump and find out later that they have breast cancer. But some of those women, unlike Elizabeth, will not have health care coverage. What are they supposed to do? You can’t get chemotherapy in the emergency room. Where are they supposed to go?”

Edwards said no person should be denied care because of a pre-existing condition. And mental illness should be treated just as physical problems are. The crowd cheered when Edwards described a dysfunctional health care system whose costs have spiraled out of control.

“People can’t keep paying these prices,” Edwards said. “It’s absolutely killing them.”

His plan, he said, would not be cheap. But the $120 billion cost could be paid by rolling back the tax cuts that Bush pushed through early this decade on people with incomes of more than $200,000 a year.

Edwards pledged to bring a quick end to the Iraq war and to close overseas detention centers. And he said there would be no more illegal spying on American citizens. “Here’s a radical idea for you – suppose we had a president of the United States who believed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” he said.

After his remarks he was besieged by supporters. He signed autographs and spoke to several people, including Bob Pund, a quadriplegic from Columbia. Pund asked Edwards to consider boosting Social Security disability payments because it was impossible to live on the current amount. Edwards assured him that he would look into the problem. Pund said later that he appreciated Edwards’ response.

Edwards never mentioned his consistently third-place finish in the Democratic primaries already held. He avoided criticizing Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama except to say that he was the only one of the three who had never taken a dime from a lobbyist or special interest fund-raising committee.

He also touted his plan to make college affordable by having the government pick up tuition costs for any student who qualifies to attend and is willing to work 10 hours a week. The plan could be paid for by cutting banks out of the student loan business, he said.

January 27, 2008 – After serving in the Navy in World War II, Marylander Charles Schelberg was able to attend Washington College in Chestertown thanks to the GI Bill, which covered all his costs. Mr. Schelberg, who hailed from a working-class family of Chesapeake Bay watermen, was the first in his family to attend college and earned an economics degree that led to a successful career in community banking.

There were millions of Charles Schelbergs after World War II, and the individual success of each one fed the cumulative success of a nation that shrugged off the economic malaise of the Great Depression and stoked the economic engines of the world’s most vibrant economy. America took care of its deserving warriors, and the nation benefited greatly.

When today’s military veterans return home from their nightmarish tours of combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, many nurture dreams of earning a college degree, just as many of their grandparents did after serving in World War II.

Unfortunately, the nation is not responding to their service as it did in Charles Schelberg’s day.

Two of Mr. Schelberg’s grandsons have answered their country’s call. Charles did so after the attack on Pearl Harbor; Matthew and James Schelberg did so after the attacks of 9/11. The brothers both served as Marines in Iraq’s Anbar province. They are back home now, and both are pursuing college degrees – under circumstances that underscore the educational challenges facing contemporary veterans.

Today’s combat veterans encounter a GI Bill whose stinginess would have been unimaginable to their grandparents. It is sad to chart how far it has fallen and how inadequate are its current benefits. Gone are the glory days of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (the formal name of the GI Bill), which enabled millions of servicemen back from World War II to enter the hitherto largely inaccessible world of higher education. The GI Bill helped make the “Greatest Generation” great, paving the way for prosperity and the postwar boom years and permanently lowering the barriers to American higher education. Nearly 8 million veterans filled the nation’s classrooms thanks to its benefits.

Yes, the GI Bill still exists, although in a different form now known as the “Montgomery GI Bill,” and it still offers education benefits. But today’s version makes education benefits a voluntary, contributory program; to receive any tuition benefits from Uncle Sam, you must have agreed in advance to a monthly deduction from your meager paycheck. Worse yet, the benefit is just a fraction of what is needed to meet today’s tuition costs. Reservists who have returned from the battlefield earn even less than enlisted soldiers.

By contrast, the grandparents of today’s veterans attended college free of tuition payments and free of the burdensome tuition-generated debt that most of today’s veterans will shoulder.

While some in Washington have sought to right this wrong by restoring a measure of the benefits of the original GI Bill, efforts have so far been roadblocked in Congress.

This leads us back to Matthew and James Schelberg. Matt attends Pennsylvania’s Bucknell University, where his veterans’ benefits cover only a small part of his educational expenses. He will accumulate an estimated $60,000 in student-loan debt by the time he completes his undergraduate degree, a heavy burden for a young man who just fought for our flag in one of the toughest trouble spots in the world.

James attends his grandfather’s alma mater, Washington College, and his situation illustrates both the problem of a diminished GI Bill and the nascent effort to compensate for its shortcomings. Where government has failed to act, the private sector is setting the example of how America’s veterans deserve to be welcomed home.

James is one of the first recipients of a veterans scholarship program created by the Hodson Trust. The program enables Maryland veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to attend one of the four Maryland colleges the trust has long supported: the Johns Hopkins University, Hood College, St. John’s College and Washington College. The scholarship covers all of James’ costs of tuition, room and board, books and other expenses not covered by veterans’ benefits or institutional aid. While his brother faces years of debt repayment, James’ education is covered in full.

Initiatives similar to the Hodson Trust scholarships are emerging across the country. More must be encouraged. But the private sector alone cannot compensate for what the federal government has failed to do. The nation must meet its moral obligation to all the young men and women who have risked their lives in defense of our country’s ideals.

We were able to meet the higher education needs of Matt and James’ grandfather and millions like him, and society as a whole was the better for it. Today’s returning soldiers merit the same.

Finn M. W. Caspersen, chairman of the board of trustees of the Hodson Trust, is also chairman and CEO of a private management firm and chairman of the Harvard Law School Dean’s Advisory Board. His e-mail is fcaspersen@theknick.com.

Press Conference with Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn at Pritzker Military Library on Tuesday, January 29th at 1:30 PM on the Mandatory Full Funding of VA Healthcare Referendum that appears on the February 5th Primary Ballot in Cook and 21 other Illinois Counties.

Contact: Bruce E. Parry
Bruce@CoalitionofVets.org
773-395-3559
 
MEDIA RELEASE: Mandatory Funding of VA healthcare on February 5th Ballot in 22 Counties in Illinois
 
Chicago—During the February 5th Presidential Primary, voters in Cook County and 21 other counties in Illinois* will have the opportunity to vote for Full Mandatory Funding of VA Healthcare. This advisory referendum will be on every ballot—voters are encouraged to look on the back page of the ballot!
 
The Referendum tells the United States Congress that the voters of Illinois want and expect the U.S. to properly fund healthcare for all veterans—particularly ensuring benefits for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Sadly we have not taken care of all those veterans! The VA treats over 5.5 million veterans. Even so, Harvard University found that more than 1.8 million veterans have no health care; they are excluded from the VA. The disgrace is that veterans who have honorably served this country are still turned away from the VA or have to pay for VA healthcare.
 
At present, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are limited to 5 years of VA healthcare without charge for their care. It is questionable as to what has happened to those veterans that served during Operation Enduring Freedom that did not enroll in the VA when they were discharged in 2003. Experience from past wars shows that it often takes veterans 10, 20 and even 30 years before they go to the VA. This happened with the Viet Nam veterans and the VA was unprepared to deal with the influx of problems that were residuals of that war. It has been 33 years since that war ended and VA will soon see those veterans again in the system. There are 7.2 million living “baby boomer” Viet Nam war veterans, and they will retire from the work force in 5-10 years if they remain healthy. The odds are that when they see the changes in their health care coverage as retirees, they will need help too. Veterans that are currently being compensated for their war injuries will more than likely see more health conditions existing as they progressively age.
 
Veterans have paid for their healthcare. They paid through their honorable service in the military, where they were promised VA healthcare without pay for life. The VA gave it and then took it back from those war veterans that previously received it for free. It is time for the VA to return to this important and necessary standard. We  urge every voter in Cook and the other 21 counties* holding this referendum to vote YES for Full Mandatory Funding of VA Healthcare to tell the Congress this is what the American people want.
 
The exclusion of veterans to receive healthcare is a direct contributor to homelessness, joblessness, and poverty. There is no greater disgrace than the very existence of homeless and jobless veterans on our streets. Healthcare problems are the number one reason for bankruptcy. They are a reason that many people cannot work, and ultimately that cannot even get a roof over their head. The VA is the largest, and one of the most effective healthcare systems in the country. It has been noted for its computerized system-wide ability to follow and treat veterans and to promote preventative healthcare measures that save lives and money in the long run. VA is the most cost effective healthcare system in the country: it is more economical to care for and ensure every veteran has free comprehensive healthcare now, than to wait for them to turn to the public healthcare system later. We must stop denying healthcare services to millions of veterans. Congress must stop using veterans as pawns each year to decide if it will increase necessary spending to care for those who bore the battle.
 
Vote YES for Full Mandatory Funding of VA Healthcare this February 5th and tell Congress that it is time to pass Mandatory Full Funding of VA Healthcare for all Veterans.
 
* With Cook County, the other Illinois Counties voting on this referendum are:
Christian, Clark, Clay, Clinton, Coles, DeKalb, Edgar, Grundy, Hardin, Jasper, Jefferson, Jersey, Jo Daviess, LaSalle, Lawrence, Marion, Richland, Rock Island, Stephenson, Tazewell, and Woodford.
 
###
 
WHO:              Military veterans from various organizations; Montford Point Marine
                        Association Chicago Chapter, American Legion, Veterans Strike Force,
                        National Women Veterans United (NWVU), Triple Nickel Parachute
                        Infantry Association, 24th Infantry Regiment, Veterans of Foreign Wars IL
                        District 2, VetNet, Veterans for Unification, Korean War Veterans
of America, AMVETS Chicago Chapter, Filipino-American Veterans of
Illinois, 173rd Airborne Brigade Elite Forces Chapter VI, Country Club
Hills Veterans Assistance Commission.
 
WHAT:            Press Conference
 
WHEN:            Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 1:30 p.m.
 
WHERE:          Pritsker Military Library
                        247 E Ontario St
                        Chicago, IL 60611
                        (312) 587-0234
 
Jere Beery
National Public Relations Director
Operation Firing For Effect
www.offe2008.org

January 25, 2008 – Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Bleill lost both his legs above the knees when a bomb exploded under his Humvee while on patrol in Iraq on October 15, 2006. He has 32 pins in his hip and a 6-inch screw holding his pelvis together.

Now, he’s starting to walk again with the help of prosthetic legs outfitted with Bluetooth technology more commonly associated with hands-free cell phones. Here at One Click Power you can have complete knowledge about bluetooth technology.

“They’re the latest and greatest,” Bleill said, referring to his groundbreaking artificial legs.

Bleill, 30, is one of two Iraq war veterans, both double leg amputees, to use the Bluetooth prosthetics. Computer chips in each leg send signals to motors in the artificial joints so the knees and ankles move in a coordinated fashion.

Bleill’s set of prosthetics have Bluetooth receivers strapped to the ankle area. The Bluetooth device on each leg tells the other leg what it’s doing, how it’s moving, whether walking, standing or climbing steps, for example.

“They mimic each other, so for stride length, for amount of force coming up, going uphill, downhill and such, they can vary speed and then to stop them again,” Bleill told CNN from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he’s undergoing rehab.

“I will put resistance with my own thigh muscles to slow them down, so I can stop walking, which is always nice.” Watch Bleill demonstrate his legs »

Bluetooth is the name for short-range wireless technology that can connect computers to printers, MP3 players to speakers and — perhaps the most well-known use — cell phones to ear pieces.

Older models of computer-controlled legs have to be “programmed” via wire by laptop computers before the amputee can use them. Those legs required more movement from the amputee’s remaining thigh muscle to generate motion in the prosthetic leg.

Because of built-in motors, the Bluetooth legs allow Bleill to walk longer before he tires.

“We’ve compared walking several laps in both sets of legs and one, your legs come out burning and tired and these, you know, you sometimes are not even breaking a sweat yet.”

Bleill says the technology also means he spends less time in a wheelchair. The Marine uses canes to walk with them. He’s hoping to get to the point where he can use one cane regularly, and eventually lose the cane altogether.

“I can walk without canes, but it’s not real pretty,” he said.

This new generation of prosthetic technology was originally conceived to help amputees who had lost only one leg. But it’s working for Bleill and Army Lt.Col. Gregory Gadson, who is also using the Bluetooth devices in his legs.

What they are experiencing will help future amputees.

“We are the first ever to try this, so it’s learning day-to-day. The [prosthetics] company comes down on a regular basis and checks in with us,” Bleill said.

Gadson, a former linebacker at West Point, said they are breaking new ground for amputees. “I think we are kind of pioneering and hopefully blazing a trail for others to try the technology also,” he said.

But the technology is not without some problems.

“It’s only going to react to how I move,” Bleill said. “Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t know those reactions, I don’t know what I’m doing to make it react. So sometimes the leg kicks harder than I want it to, or farther, and then I start perpetuating, and I start moving faster than I really want to.”

Aside from the Bluetooth technology, Bleill’s legs have one other thing in common with a cell phone. They need to be charged overnight. Currently, there are no spare batteries available.

What are his long-range plans?

He just wants to make it back to his home state of Indiana and work for a charity or even help the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts.

“They do a lot for the community,” he said.

He added he simply wants “to give back.”

“To, you know, just carry on a normal life. Go home, see my girlfriend, see my family.”

January 25, 2008 – Contrary to the line famously quoted by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, old soldiers do die. And as they do, the organizations they kept alive are fading away.

Veterans of World War II are dying at a rate of more than 1,000 a day, thinning the ranks in veterans halls, changing the roles of veterans groups and forcing some organizations to bequeath their buildings and property.

One of them is American Legion Pou-Parrish Post 132 in Smithfield, about 30 miles southeast of Raleigh. The post has made plans to turn over its assets before it dissolves, as many members think it will.

In December, Johnston Community College agreed to take over the post’s building, the fields once used by its baseball program, some land and a substantial bank account. The assets are valued at more than $1 million.

“It keeps our legacy going,” said Bill Wilkins, 73, a 26-year member of the post. “We’re getting older and won’t be around much longer, and the younger vets aren’t joining.”

The Legion is trying to stay vibrant — and the wars in Iraq and elsewhere are creating a new pool of veterans to help. But a wide generation gap between current members and new veterans threatens the existence of the Legion and many other veterans groups.

“You’ve got to constantly recruit, because we lose members every day,” said Jerry Tart, adjutant of American Legion Post 109 in Benson, and commander for the district that covers Wake and Johnston counties.

At about 700 members, the Benson post remains one of the state’s most active, holding weekly social dances and several charity events throughout the year.

But even it has seen a drop from a peak of more than 1,000 members. Tart said his post loses 30 to 40 members a year, many of them to the grave. He estimated that 40 percent of his members are veterans of World War II, while fewer than 10 percent served in the Persian Gulf or more recent conflicts.

Younger vets aren’t interested in polka dances and the old-fashioned post bars frequented by older vets.

And the differences extend beyond age. Many veterans of earlier conflicts were drafted, while newer vets were volunteers and career soldiers.

Nationally, American Legion membership has declined steadily for most of the past 20 years, from a peak of 3 million in 1989 to 2.6 million in 2006.

January 25, 2008 – A claim by an Eight Mile man that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder — the result of being “waterboarded” during a Navy survival course in 1975 — is a rare one, according to a Department of Veterans Affairs official in Washington, D.C.

“It’s the first case I’ve encountered personally involving waterboarding,” said Arnold Russo, director of the VA’s Appeals Management Center. He acknowledged, however, that he had heard of a couple of such cases.

Russo — whose office had rejected the claim by 60-year-old Arthur McCants III — said he has been with the VA for 19 years.

Waterboarding is a controversial interrogation method that simulates drowning and has been denounced by some as torture.

McCants said he was subjected to waterboarding while going through the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training at San Diego. He said he has been haunted by dreams of drowning since then and has struggled with alcohol and drugs, as well as suicidal thoughts.

Russo made his comments in response to earlier inquiries by the Press-Register about McCants’ case.

The newspaper first reported McCants’ story Dec. 2. VA officials had declined to discuss the case until McCants signed a document allowing them to do so.

During the SERE training, said McCants, he was subjected to waterboarding during a role-playing exercise in which he and other students were POWs and their instructors posed as enemy guards.

A VA document shows that McCants successfully completed the SERE course on April 21, 1975, and also reflects that a VA analyst has since diagnosed him as having PTSD as a result of the waterboarding that he described.

The VA, however, has turned down McCants’ claims for full disability for service-connected PTSD.

“I’m not denying that he has PTSD,” Russo said, “but we don’t have the service incident verified.” Russo said he has been unable to confirm that waterboarding was part of the SERE curriculum in 1975.

A Nov. 9 article in The Washington Post told of a former SERE instructor — Malcolm Wrightson Nance — testifying before Congress that he had undergone waterboarding himself in his training in California.

Russo said the best evidence that McCants could show to verify his claim would be testimony from a service member who saw McCants being waterboarded. McCants told the Press-Register that those who underwent the SERE training came from various units and did not know each other.

Russo said testimony by the former instructor might help McCants’ case, but said he would need to know more details. “I’m not ruling anything out,” he added.

He said that testimony from others who experienced or witnessed waterboarding during the SERE course might also be useful.

McCants said he first applied to the VA for full disability in 1985. He re-filed his claim in 1998 and has continued to plead his case.

McCants said he received notice of the latest denial from the VA Appeals Management Center in November.

Russo said the next step for McCants is to appeal to the Board of Veterans Appeals in Washington.

McCants said he currently lives on $1,500 per month — $200 from the VA and $1,300 in disability from the Postal Service, for which he once served as a mail carrier.

Over the years, McCants has been arrested on various drug-related offenses and in 2000 he pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine. He was sentenced to three years probation, records show. Court documents show that a cocaine trafficking case against McCants related to an Aug. 31 arrest is pending before a grand jury.

McCants — who is divorced — said he is frustrated with the VA but is trying to stay positive. “I’ve got good hopes,” he said.

January 26, 2008 – Thanks to the state budget crisis, John Rains may soon lose his bunkmate.
Rains, 84, served in the Army Air Corps’ Pacific campaign during World War II. For the past four years, the Missouri native has lived at the 400-bed Veterans Home of California-Chula Vista.

“You never get to know a guy until you live with him,” Rains joked yesterday.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a 10 percent across-the-board budget cut in state spending to cope with California’s yawning budget deficit, estimated at $14 billion.

Administrators at the eight-year-old veterans home – one of three operated by the California Department of Vterans Affairs – told Lt. Gov. John Garamendi yesterday that to achieve such savings, they are planning to reduce the facility’s capacity.

Through attrition, they will cut the patient census from the current 359 to about 300, said Jane Bergman, the home’s interim administrator. The downsizing, along with accompanying cuts in staffing, is expected to achieve most of the financial savings.

“We want to make sure the care (patients) are getting isn’t going to suffer,” said J.P. Tremblay, deputy secretary of communications for the VA department.

Garamendi had not previously visited the spacious facility, which sits on 25 acres atop a hill off Telegraph Canyon Road east of Interstate 805. The home is far different from the institutional nursing homes of years ago that more closely resembled hospitals.

Its well-lit lobby is painted in shades of purple, pink and aqua. Couches surround a fireplace. A framed poster print of a Purple Heart medal hangs above the mantel.

“I am very impressed with this facility,” Garamendi said. “This is really quite spectacular.”

But he expressed worry about the state’s budget battles. Garamendi, a Democrat, said the Republican governor’s proposal is only a starting point for discussion.

“We’ll see if we can deal with the budget issues,” Garamendi said. “We’ve got a tussle ahead of us.”

He is worried, too, that expected cuts to the Medi-Cal program might magnify the financial challenges for the veterans home. However, Tremblay said, Medi-Cal funds make up less than 1 percent of the home’s $28 million budget.

In November, legislators grilled Veterans Affairs officials about some defects lying beneath the Chula Vista home’s modern facade. The biggest issue: dry rot in the walls of showers throughout the facility.

Since then, Tremblay said, the state Assembly has approved $2.9 million to repair the showers and several other items over the next 18 months starting in March. That money already is appropriated, he said, and won’t be affected by the fiscal crunch.

Tremblay said the department hopes to recover some of the $2.9 million by collecting a bond posted by the building contractor, which has gone out of business since constructing the veterans home.

The Chula Vista facility is one of three operated by the VA department; the others are in Barstow and Yountville.

Tremblay said facilities totaling 500 beds are under construction in west Los Angeles, Lancaster and Ventura. Those sites are expected to open late next year.

In addition, construction will begin this year on a 120-to 140-bed home in Fresno and a 60-bed home in Redding, with completion expected by 2010.

Money for the new homes had been budgeted previously.

January 24, 2008 – The Senate yesterday began debating whether to grant legal immunity to telephone companies for assisting in warrantless wiretaps of terrorism suspects, with Democrats divided and their leadership pleading with the White House for more time to consider the issue.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) wrote in a letter to President Bush that Congress needs another month to agree on a replacement for a temporary surveillance law, which lawmakers approved as a stopgap measure last August and is to expire on Feb. 1.

“The legislative process on this critical issue should neither be rushed, nor tainted by political gamesmanship,” Reid wrote.

But Vice President Cheney said in a speech yesterday that Congress “must act now” to renew the expiring surveillance law and provide telecommunications companies with protection from lawsuits alleging they violated personal privacy rights while helping the government after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“Those who assist the government in tracking terrorists should not be punished with lawsuits,” Cheney said at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

The temporary surveillance law — approved under heavy White House pressure — gives the government broad powers to eavesdrop on the communications of terrorism suspects without warrants. It effectively legalized many of the practices employed by the National Security Agency as part of a secret program approved by Bush in late 2001.

The White House and Republican lawmakers are pushing to make the law permanent while also adding legal protections for telecommunications companies, which face dozens of lawsuits. Most House Democrats and civil liberties groups strongly oppose immunity for the communications firms, but other Democrats — including John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee — have backed the GOP position.

Reid said he is personally opposed to granting legal protections to the communications companies, but he has designated the intelligence committee’s bill as the starting point for Senate debate. Given the Senate’s composition, that decision means that opponents would effectively need 60 votes to strip immunity from the bill; Democratic aides concede they do not appear to have the votes to meet that threshold.

Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers have said they may put forward amendments providing more limited legal protections for the telecommunications companies, but the prospects for compromise are uncertain. Rockefeller told reporters yesterday that his committee’s immunity proposal “will prevail.” Six of the committee’s eight Democrats supported the legislation, giving Republicans a crucial edge in the narrowly divided Senate.

Further complicating the outlook was a renewed threat by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) to stage a filibuster to block any version of the bill that includes immunity.

Once the Senate acts, the bill would go to a conference committee that includes members of the House, which has approved a bill that lacks immunity provisions and would increase oversight of the government’s spying activities. In the end, a final Senate bill is unlikely to be approved until next week, leaving little time for negotiations with House lawmakers, legislative aides said.

Caroline Fredrickson, Washington legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said Democrats opposing immunity face an uphill battle and accused Reid of mishandling the issue. “We would very much like Senator Reid to have a fight with the White House, to move forward with a bill that’s stronger on civil liberties and has no immunity,” she said. “If a bill doesn’t pass, it’s on the president’s head.”

Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley, called the criticism “ridiculous” and said the debate is proceeding under Senate rules. “Senator Reid strongly opposes efforts to grant the telecommunication companies immunity and will work with senators to try to improve this bill in as many ways as possible,” Manley said.

January 25, 2008 – The head of a commission that spent 2½ years studying veterans’ disability benefits says the government needs to do more for those suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

Testifying Thursday before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee about a proposal for a comprehensive treatment, rehabilitation and benefits plan for veterans with PTSD and other mental disorders, the chairman of the Veterans’ Disability Benefits Committee said current benefits could be described as “just paying people with PTSD to go away.”

Retired Army Lt. Gen. James Terry Scott, whose 13-member commission issued its final report late last year, said the government needs a holistic approach that links disability benefits, treatment and vocational training, with an evaluation every two or three years of a veteran’s disability to see if treatment is working.

A study done on behalf of the commission found that 31 percent of veterans with disabilities rated at less than 100 percent who receive bigger monthly benefits from the VA because they are considered unemployable have PTSD or other mental health disorders, a figure that could be reduced with better coordination between the benefits and health care arms of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

At the moment, the two VA divisions cannot even agree on the definition of “recovery.”

Most veterans receiving disability benefits for PTSD and other mental health issues are from the Vietnam era, but Scott said VA needs to be prepared for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who seek counseling, treatment and benefits.

The idea of regular re-evaluations of a veteran’s PTSD, especially for veterans considered unemployable and thus eligible for higher compensation, is controversial, but veterans groups appear to be warming to the idea that VA needs a more comprehensive plan.

Steve Smithson of the American Legion, who testified at the same hearing, said his organization supports the call for a combined treatment and benefits plan, but is “concerned that a mandatory re-evaluation every two to three years could result in undue stress.”

Veterans with PTSD “may be fearful that the sole purpose of such a reevaluation would be to reduce compensation benefits,” Smithson said, which is exactly the argument that led the VA to drop plans several years ago to review all PTSD cases.