Veterans for Common Sense

December 5, 2007

Dear Senator Sheldon Whitehouse:

I am asking you as a constituent not to vote for James Peake as the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Because of his dismal Record as the Surgeon General of the Army and the continued scandals that have plagued Walter Reed Army Medical Center since our wounded have been coming home in 2003 from this war in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a user of the VA medical System for the past thirty years and I have seen many Secretaries of Veterans Affairs over that thirty years the Secretary of  Veterans Affairs should be neither a Democrat nor a Republican while he serves the veterans in that office.

Those veterans that have given just about that they can give this country except there life on the Battlefield should have the best of care with no strings attached. A veteran that needs services in one clinic other than his/her primary care clinic should not have to wait six months or more in order to get an appointment or be served. That veteran should be able to always see a doctor in whatever clinic they go to within 30 days  or less especially the Mental Health Clinics and PTSD Clinics. If a veteran comes into a VA Facility and needs to be seen by those staff members for PTSD he should be never turned  away but brought in and evaluated right away and treated as a dire emergency just like someone is having a heart attack, stroke, or seizure.

Jim Nicholson did not do that in fact he returned several million dollars that the congress allotted for the VA to treat PTSD victims back into the government that should have been used by the VA to hire more staff at the VA facilities where the most veterans were coming in for treatment for this disorder. He told the Administration that the VA did not need any additional money for this while many veterans were in dire straights and needed help immediately.

Seeing what went on at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from the start of this war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the type of injuries that these heroes were receiving from the IED’s and the resulting explosions besides the loss of legs, arms, and other wounds from shrapnel burns etc. The Brain injuries are the worst because these veterans have to learn to speak again; walk again;  get there memory back if possible plus cope with the reminder of the scars and loss of limbs they have to live with the rest of there lives.

The cost to these brave soldiers families is even going to be greater and this country because of the divorce rate amongst these families of these severely wounded heroes because there wives cannot cope with have to take care of the kids and her husband all the time without some kind of respite from all these responsibilities she will have to endure for the short and long time future. We cannot afford another Secretary of Veterans Affairs Like Jim Nicholson was.

What we need is someone that will go in there and take charge and stand up to be called on and stop these scandals at the VA and Military Medical Facilities and take care of the patients

whether or not that patient is in house or an outpatient.

Sincerely,

Craig Close

P.S. There are still a lot of WWII and Korean War veterans that were never treated for PTSD nor for Brain injuries along with the Vietnam veterans and were either misdiagnosed or were not diagnosed at all. One of the best parts of the VA Medical Treatment Systems is the fact that everyone is in a computer data bank and when you go to a clinic you may not see the same doctor as you did the last time you was there as things change from time to time but everything about your medical history cane brought up a looked at along with whatever medications you are taking and the pharmacy can prevent the interaction of certain drugs to keep one from having a medical emergency from that interaction. 

December 5, 2007 – A plan by the state [Massachusetts] Highway Department to remove dozens of flags, banners, and other signs hanging over highways across the state was halted yesterday by Governor Deval Patrick, just hours after the father of a missing soldier somberly watched two flags removed from a bridge in Methuen.

According to a statement released late yesterday afternoon by the Executive Office of Transportation, MassHighway will not complete the removal of the displays until a task force identifies an appropriate and safe way to honor veterans on state-owned roads. Patrick, who is in China on a trade mission, directed Tom Kelley, the secretary of Veterans’ Services, and Luisa Paiewonsky, the MassHighway commissioner, to convene a group of veterans representatives and highway safety officials to develop a plan.

This is the second time in little more than a year that the state has issued a decision to remove the bridge signs and then quickly reversed it. A spokesman for Patrick, declined to comment on whether the governor was aware of MassHighway’s decision to remove the signs before it was issued.

Some veterans’ families viewed yesterday’s announcement as a victory. But James Wareing, a retired director at Malden Mills who has created several bridge displays in Massachusetts since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, called it “a desperate attempt at preventing a public relations nightmare.”

Yesterday morning, Wareing and Ramon “Andy” Jimenez took down two flags that paid tribute to Jimenez’s son, Army Specialist Alex Jimenez, and other veterans. Alex Jimenez, 25, was kidnapped in Iraq seven months ago by Iraqi insurgents and remains missing.

“I don’t see this as a reversal; they realized they made another mistake and now they are trying to do some damage control,” said Wareing, who has spent an estimated $10,000 over the last six years hanging flags and banners throughout New England.

Last year, state highway officials ordered a similar removal of overhead displays, but after an outpouring of support for the flags and banners, they decided to allow them, provided the signs were positioned behind fences. In their latest decision, highway officials said even those must go because they could fall on drivers, causing a crash. They said that the earlier decision to allow them behind fences was just a temporary solution, while they worked on defining a long-term policy.

Yesterday, in bitter cold, Jimenez, from Lawrence, clutched an American flag and a black POW/MIA flag in his gloved hands as he stood on a bridge across Route 213. He looked down at the flags, as tears flowed down his cheeks and dropped to the snow-covered ground.

“I’m very happy they figured it out,” Jimenez said later in the day, after the Patrick administration halted the removal of the displays. “I don’t want anybody hurt, but I think the signs are safe.”

Wareing had predicted earlier in the day that the state would reconsider.

“I think when they hear from all the supporters throughout the state, they will realize how important these messages are,” he said.

In an earlier letter to Paiewonsky, Wareing said he understood the safety concerns about displays on overpasses, but said that “the risks are greatly over-exaggerated compared to other safety issues that MassHighway faces.”

Other supporters of the banners and flags agreed with Wareing.

“I think we are more in danger of losing our lives driving through Boston’s tunnels or getting hit by someone on a cellphone,” said Gail Tuccero, 54, of Waltham, the mother of an Army corporal who spent 13 months in Iraq. “To me, this is another way of sweeping the war under the rug.”

Wareing said he is unaware of any accidents on the state’s highways caused by a falling flag or banner posted as a tribute to soldiers or Marines. Officials at the Executive Office of Transportation also could not identify any accidents caused by the displays.

Jimenez and Private Byron W. Fouty of Michigan were kidnapped May 12 when insurgents attacked a checkpoint in Baghdad. Another soldier, Private First Class Joseph Anzack Jr., was also captured but his body was found several days later floating in the Euphrates River. Four US soldiers and an Iraqi translator were killed in the ambush.

Ramon Jimenez said he was recently contacted by the Army and informed that an insurgent who may have information on his son’s whereabouts was recently captured and is being interrogated.

December 5, 2007 – “Support our troops.” How often have we heard this Bush administration mantra whenever Congress or the public demands Iraq funding accountability or an Iraq withdrawal timeline? Yet, once the troops become veterans, too often they are woefully neglected. In a 2006 survey, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that 26{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of homeless people are veterans. VA further estimates that at least 195,827 veterans are homeless in the United States, a conservative estimate, 49,724 in California, and 3,000 in San Francisco, with 1,356 of these 3,000 classified as “chronically homeless.” The VA defines “chronically homeless” as an individual with a disabling condition who has been continually homeless for a year or more or has had four or more episodes of homelessness over the past three years.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that 89,553 to 467,877 veterans were at risk of homelessness, meaning that they were below the poverty level and paying more than 50 percent of household income on rent.

Homelessness is rising among veterans because of high living costs, the lack of adequate funds, and many are struggling with the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse, exacerbated by a lack of support systems.

The VA has been severely criticized for diagnosing wounded veterans with a personality disorder, instead of PTSD, thus denying them disability pay and medical benefits. In the past six years, more than 22,500 soldiers have been suspiciously dismissed with personality disorders, rather than PTSD. By doing so, the military is saving an estimated $8 billion in disability pay and an estimated $4.5 billion in medical care over their lifetimes. (These figures are from “How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits” by Joshua Kors, citing Harvard professor Linda Bilmes’ study, in The Nation (April 9, 2007)).

How many of San Francisco’s homeless veterans, discharged for personality disorders rather than PTSD, would be off the homeless roles if they had disability pay and VA medical care? While not every homeless veteran was misdiagnosed with a personality disorder rather than PTSD, it seems obvious that the VA should do more to reach its stated “goal to provide excellence in patient care, veterans’ benefits and customer satisfaction.”

Passage of the FY 2008 HUD appropriations bill would be a modest start. It includes $75 million for nearly 7,500 HUD-VA Supported Housing vouchers for homeless and disabled veterans. Unfortunately, President Bush has threatened to veto this bill because it exceeds his spending request. It is shameful that we can spend $473.4+ billion conducting the Iraq war, but not an additional $75 million for war casualties.

Ralph Stone is a Vietnam veteran living in San Francisco. Send feedback to stonere@earthlink.net.

Congress OKs new pay and benefits provisions

[VCS Note: VCS worked very hard on key passages of this critical legislation.  We await word on the final details of the bill and how it will be implemented when it becomes law, as expected.] 

Friday, December 7, 2007 – After months of bickering, congressional negotiators have approved a $696.3 billion defense policy bill that includes a 3.5 percent military pay raise, improvements to treatment and benefits for wounded combat veterans, and precedent-setting changes in reserve retired pay and survivor benefits.

The agreement comes in time for Congress to pass it, and President Bush to sign it, before the Dec. 31 expiration of a variety of recruiting and retention benefits, including enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses — as long as no surprises pop up when lawmakers take the required final votes on the measure.

The pay raise, the wounded warrior assistance package, the more generous reserve retirement plan and a monthly increase in survivor benefits are all examples of congressional initiatives that were opposed by the White House and Pentagon, but which lawmakers felt were needed in time of war.

Under the agreement struck Dec. 6, active and reserve members would get a 3.5 percent increase in basic pay and drill pay Jan. 1, an amount 0.5 percentage point more than the Bush administration proposed. The White House sought a 3 percent increase that would have matched average private-sector wage growth last year.

But negotiators dropped a House plan that would have provided raises in 2009 through 2012 that also would have been modestly higher than civilian wage growth, something White House and defense officials said was overly generous and would take money from other priorities.

However, lawmakers stood firm against continued administration calls to raise Tricare premiums and retail pharmacy co-pays for many beneficiaries. As they did last year, negotiators banned such increases for fiscal 2008.

A large section of the bill, the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act, is a congressional response to complaints from combat-injured troops about cumbersome policies regarding treatment of injuries, the process for determining whether they can stay in the military, the benefits they get if they separate, and the transfer of their health care from the military to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The bill orders the creation of a Wounded Warrior Resource Center to serve as the main point of contact for troops and families for questions about health care and benefits. The bill also orders the Pentagon and VA to set common standards for disability evaluations, develop a common policy for care and management of those injured in war, and find a way to share electronic medical records — a longstanding complaint.

It also orders an expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act to give people caring for combat-injured troops up to 26 weeks of unpaid time off, twice the amount currently allowed.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., House Armed Services Committee chairman, said he hopes the provisions on combat-injured troops would “restore confidence in the quality of care and service received by wounded warriors and their families.”

And Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, said Congress is not finished. He said his committee plans to do even more next year, particularly in smoothing the transition of injured troops between military and VA care facilities. A key issue is to “make sure that VA has the resources it needs to care for our returning service members and the veterans from previous conflicts,” Filner said.

Negotiators approved a Senate proposal to allow some National Guard and reserve members to draw military retired pay earlier than the current age 60, and a House-passed plan to provide $50 per month to survivors to partly make up for the offset in military survivor benefits required of those who are also eligible for VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation. The payment would rise to $100 in 2014.

Negotiators decided that military retirees with VA disability ratings of less than 100 percent who are nevertheless considered fully disabled because they cannot work should be treated the same as other 100 percent disabled retirees when applying to concurrently receive their full military retired pay and veterans’ disability compensation.

And lawmakers ordered that people who are medically retired before completing 20 years of service also should qualify for “concurrent receipt.”

The reserve retirement plan would allow a reservist to begin drawing retired pay 90 days earlier than age 60 for every 90 days of mobilization.

Pentagon officials argue the change would encourage experienced reservists to leave service. But supporters, led by Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said a more generous system is only fair, considering the increased burden on Guard and reserve members since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

December 2, 2007 – Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) went on the offensive over the delay of supplemental funding for the war in Iraq, dismissing recent comments by President Bush saying delays in funding puts troops in harms way as “fear tactics.” Appearing on the program Meet The Press, Webb also suggested that the issue at the heart of the current fight over war funding is how long American troops will be deployed in Iraq.

“The problem with the administration’s approach to [war funding] is that they constantly use fear tactics,” Webb said, citing the President Bush and Congressional Republicans defeat of his amendment to give troops longer breaks between deployments. “If President Bush had said to do it they’d be saluting and doing it.”

“There’s no one in the Congress who’s going to interrupt funding that goes to the ability of the military to take care of the present responsibilities, Webb said. He said that by engaging in scare tactics, Bush and his Republican allies in Congress avoid debate over the length of the American mission in Iraq.

“The elephant in the bedroom for this entire time period is how long are we going to be in Iraq? What are we funding implicitly as well as implicitly, and we don’t get to have this debate,” Webb said, expressing concerns that President Bush wishes to establish permanent bases in Iraq using the American presence on the Korean peninsula as a model.

Later in the interview, host Tim Russert pressed Webb on his party’s plan for funding the war.

“There are some Democrats who have said they want to stop funding the war period,” Russert said.

“And I think that’s just not a winning formula,” Webb responded.

December 4, 2007 – In April 2007, William Winkenwerder Jr. retired from his position as assistant secretary for health affairs at the Department of Defense, where he had been in charge of all military healthcare. On June 1, he went to work for a Wisconsin-based private contractor named Logistics Health Inc., which hired him to serve on its board of directors and “advise and counsel LHI on business development,” according to a company press release. It was a hire that seems to have paid quick dividends.

On June 13, 2007, the Department of Defense began accepting bids for a contract to give soldiers medical and dental exams before they head off to war. Logistics Health was among the companies bidding on the contract, which was worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years. Before he left the DOD, in addition to running military healthcare, Winkenwerder had also been in charge of the office that wrote the contract.

On Sept. 25, Logistics Health won the contract despite bidding $800 million, meaning it was not the low bidder. At least one other company bid $100 million less.

After objections by competing companies, the contract has now been “stayed,” or put on hold, while the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, evaluates those complaints. At least one firm alleging unfair bidding practices has also asked congressional watchdog Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to investigate. But the contract may still be awarded to Logistics Health; the GAO will issue a decision by Jan. 14. The contract, which at one time was also going to benefit a second firm with its own revolving door to the federal government, exemplifies the culture of cronyism in privatized military healthcare. Military healthcare is a lucrative wartime bazaar for private contractors that is largely free of oversight — and of Halliburton- or Blackwater-size headlines.

You might remember William Winkenwerder from earlier this year. While still at the Pentagon and responsible for military healthcare, he expressed shock at reports in the Washington Post on neglect of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, even though Salon had reported the same neglect two years earlier. “This news caught me — as it did many other people — completely by surprise,” he said at a Feb. 21 press conference.

On paper, the process of awarding the contract for soldiers’ medical and dental exams was handled through the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, a contracting shop at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md. Winkenwerder didn’t control that office when he was at the Pentagon.

But as assistant secretary of defense for healthcare, Winkenwerder was also director of a DOD office called TRICARE Management Activity. When the government contracts out for services, the details of the services it wants from a bidder are contained in a document called the “statement of work.” In the case of the medical and dental exam contract, the “statement of work” was not written at Fort Detrick, where it belonged officially, but by Winkenwerder’s office, TRICARE Management Activity. “We are just the contracting office,” explained Christopher Sherman, a civilian official at Fort Detrick. “That contract is managed by the TRICARE Management Activity … We have them put together the statements of work and the solicitations.” Sherman said Winkenwerder’s office had been preparing the contract since late 2006.

Dina Rasor, author of “Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War,” said it was likely that Winkenwerder’s office configured the statement of work in such a way that a contract would be awarded to a favored company over its competitors. Though she had not reviewed the statement of work in question, Rasor said manipulating these documents is a common abuse in government contracting. “They take something unique about the company and they put that in the statement of work or [add] requirements that the other companies [can’t meet],” said Rasor. “It is the kind of thing that is hard to put your finger on. These people have become very sophisticated at doing this.”

The competing companies that protested the Logistics Health deal have taken note of Winkenwerder’s role. “I think it is a conflict scenario,” said Charles Roché, chairman of United States Military Dental Service Corp. He expressed the alleged conflict of interest in a rhetorical question. “You end up being employed by the very people that you are helping put together the deal for?”

Roché and other contractors have also seized on what they say is an additional anomaly with the contract. When Logistics Health put together its bid, it partnered with other firms, including QTC Management Inc., another contractor that is the largest private provider of government-outsourced disability examination services in the country. The company has raked in hundreds of millions through contracts with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Anthony Principi, the former secretary of the VA, is chairman of the board. And President Bush recently nominated QTC Management chief operating officer James Peake to be the next VA secretary. (Peake was also the former Army surgeon general through 2004.) His confirmation hearing is slated for Dec. 5.

The details of the proposal that Logistics Health submitted to the Defense Department are not public. It is known that QTC Management was supposed to be a partner in the deal; competitors like Roché believe QTC Management was supposed to be a significant partner, since it employs more than 600 clinical associates to perform the sort of medical exams the contract would require. This fall, investors from Logistics Health and QTC Management were even in merger talks.

But on Sept. 10, just days before the contract was awarded, QTC suddenly withdrew from the Logistics bid and pulled the plug on merger talks, both for reasons unknown.

In a telephone interview, Principi, the QTC chairman, would not say why his company suddenly cut off relations with Logistics Health mere days before the $800 million contract was awarded. “It was just a business decision that was made,” Principi said. “QTC decided not to have anything to do with LHI.”

But more important, other contractors say the Defense Department was aware of the falling out. And that means that right before Logistics Health won the contract, the company lost what was probably a significant partner — a partner whose potential contribution DOD must have evaluated when considering which bidder was most qualified to get the contract.

Other contractors were flabbergasted that Logistics Health was still awarded that $800 million contract, despite QTC’s exit just days earlier. “That’s like saying I made a deal with you and this is what you are supposed to do, and I am going to sign this deal,” explained Roché. “But … the very people that were part of the deal are no longer present on your side of the desk. So how can you tell me you are able to make a deal when half of your business fell apart?”

Roché’s protest was dismissed by the GAO on technical grounds. But another company, Comprehensive Health Services, has also objected to the award of the massive contract. The GAO will decide the merits of the protest by Jan. 14.

And Roché has also appealed to Congress for help. “At the time the contract was awarded, LHI had lost its partner in the bid,” Roché recently wrote Henry Waxman, the pugnacious California Democrat who has subpoena power as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “The offering made to the government was substantively altered by the withdrawal of a key partner in the bid.”

Waxman’s staff did not return a call from Salon seeking comment. But on Nov. 8, Waxman wrote Roché saying his investigative staff would review information passed along by Roché.

In a statement to Salon, Diana Henry, the Logistics Health corporate communications manager, said, “Logistics Health Incorporated (LHI) has established a reputation as an outstanding company with a track record of superior service to its customers.” She added that the company “conducts all of its business activities in a highly ethical and professional manner.” She did not respond to questions about Winkenwerder.

In an Oct. 26 Los Angeles Times article, Winkenwerder was quoted as saying that he had nothing to do with the procurement process, had not talked to Logistics Health about working there until after he left the government in April, and had not lobbied the government for the contract after leaving the Pentagon. The Los Angeles Times article contained the first report that other companies had protested the contract, and that one losing bid from another firm was for $100 million less than the Logistics Health proposal.

Interestingly, prior to this award Logistics Health had already had a contract to perform medical and dental exams on guard and reserve soldiers, which ended in 2006. But that contract was administered through the Department of Health and Human Services, a major client that has paid the company more than $185 million since 2000, according to data available through the nonprofit group OMB Watch. Logistics Health’s president is Tommy Thompson, the former secretary of that department, who joined the company in March 2005 two months after leaving DHHS.

In September 2006, the government announced that the responsibility for the contract would be transferred from DHHS to the Department of Defense. Winkenwerder joined Logistics Health in June 2007, two months after leaving the DOD, and in September the company won the new contract from the DOD for performing medical and dental exams.

December 2, 2007 – Marine Cpl. Sean Scharf still has a vivid memory of how he was greeted on his new job at a bowling alley two years ago when he had returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq . “This guy goes, ‘Oh you’re back from the war? Well, don’t flip out on me!,’ ” Scharf said, shaking his head at the memory. “What did he think I was going to do?”

Scharf’s pal from his platoon, Cpl. Sean O’Neill, had an even more typical encounter. He was at a party when it came up that he had just finished his second tour. “So, of course, someone asked me, ‘Hey man, did you kill anyone?’ ” O’Neill said, rolling his eyes with disgust. “You wouldn’t believe how many people ask that. Like, ‘So, you a killer?’ “

Vets helping vets: When I caught up with Scharf and O’Neill last month at UC-Berkeley, where O’Neill is studying political science, it had been more than two years since I’d seen them at a friend’s house in Saratoga . Scharf is now a student at San Jose City College , studying law enforcement and moonlighting as a security guard. Both have helped form the fledgling Bay Area chapter of Vets For Vets, helping veterans readjust to life at home.

Recently released statistics on the alarming number of suicides among Iraq war veterans are the most dramatic sign that Vets for Vets and groups like it are an essential part of helping soldiers with their often bewildering re-entry to civilian life.

The Associated Press published preliminary information from the Department of Veterans Affairs that 283 combat veterans who served in the war between 2001 and 2005 killed themselves after returning home. A CBS News report in November said that from 2004 to 2005, veterans ages 20 to 24 – those most likely to have served in Iraq and Afghanistan – killed themselves at twice the rate of civilians in that age group.

Scharf and O’Neill said they haven’t yet counseled anyone they thought might be suicidal, but they have talked to plenty of vets who seem to be lost at home. They said most soldiers they speak to aren’t so much stymied by the politics of the war as they are by being back in a life without the structure, comradeship and solid identity of the military.

“You know, one minute you’re this action hero, and the next, you’re at home doing some job stacking and kicking boxes around,” Scarf said. “It can be really difficult to make that change.”

Where to look: And then there are those who had a wartime experience that’s so wrenching they can’t come to terms with it and don’t know where to find help.

Mostly, Scharf and O’Neill talk to the vets at barbecues and outings they arrange, and they refer them to services ranging from places to get an affordable apartment and a job to how they can get help from the VA. They also work in connection with the San Francisco-based veterans’ advocacy group, Swords to Plowshares.

One member of Vets for Vets, Tia Christopher, has even written a manual for returning soldiers that includes a chapter for civilians on what to say and not to say to a vet.

“What they don’t want to hear is, ‘You kill anyone?’ or ‘You see any action?’ or “Are you OK mentally?’ ” Christopher told me. “Just say, ‘Welcome back.’ Or maybe, ‘How’s your transition going?’ “

O’Neill said the question he appreciated the most was, “How can I help?” That’s something that many returning vets desperately need to hear.

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED: For more information about Vets for Vets, e-mail bayareavets@gmail.com. Contact Swords to Plowshares at www.swords-to-plowshares.org or call (415) 252-4788.

Contact Sue Hutchison at shutchison@mercurynews.com

“In all fairness, Gen. Peake was really busy setting up combat hospitals in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones,” VCS Executive Director Paul Sullivan said. “And he gets an ‘A’ for doing a fine job at that.  But when it came to the long-term outpatient health care needs and long-term benefits for soldiers leaving the military … Peake dropped the ball.”

December 6, 2007 – A retired general who once commanded the hospital at Fort Bragg spoke Wednesday before the U.S. Senate in a hearing to determine whether he should lead the federal Department of Veterans Affairs.

Retired Lt. Gen. James Peake — who served at Fort Bragg as commander of the 44th Medical Brigade and as the post’s health services director — pledged to be an advocate for injured veterans and to fight for funding for their care.

Peake, who is 63, became commander of the 44th Medical Brigade at Fort Bragg in 1992. He left in 1994 to command Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Peake retired from the Army in 2004 after being lead commander in several medical posts, including four years as the U.S. Army surgeon general.

In the 2½-hour confirmation hearing, The Associated Press reported, Peake also vowed to work on making headway in fixing gaps in care and reducing delays in disability pay.

But Peake hedged on offering specific solutions, according to the AP, deferring to detailed briefings he will receive later if confirmed. He indicated that his greatest mark on the agency in the waning months of the Bush administration might be improved communications with the Defense Department.

The AP reported that most major veterans organization are not opposed to Peake’s nomination.

But at least one group has reservations.

Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a non-profit group that advocates for veterans’ rights, said his organization is concerned about the long-term health care veterans will receive from a VA under Peake’s direction. Sullivan said he is concerned because Peake was surgeon general of the Army when problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center came to light.

“In all fairness, Gen. Peake was really busy setting up combat hospitals in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones,” Sullivan said. “And he gets an ‘A’ for doing a fine job at that.

“But when it came to the long-term outpatient health care needs and long-term benefits for soldiers leaving the military … Peake dropped the ball.”

Sullivan said he expects Peake to be confirmed as VA secretary. The Associated Press reported that the full Senate is expected to confirm his nomination as early as this month.

Staff writer Laura Arenschield can be reached at arenschieldl@fayobserver.com or at 486-3572.

December 2, 2007 – Livermore Falls, Maine – Tyler Curtis escaped mortars, bullets and bombs in Iraq. Yet, he failed to survive his homecoming.

On Thanksgiving morning, three months after the young veteran returned home to Livermore Falls, he took his own life. The emotional wounds of war left him unable to go on, his sister, Gretchen Errington, told mourners who filled a rural funeral home last week to say goodbye.

“He served his country and ended up paying the ultimate price,” she said.

In the months since his return, the 25-year-old got into bar fights. He talked about his desire to return to Iraq. And he talked about his grief for the families of those he may have killed.

“It’s not the fact I had to shoot people,” he told former wife Randi Sencabaugh about two weeks before his death.

“It’s the fact they had a brother or a sister,” she remembered him saying. “I can’t imagine somebody – my sibling or my parents – dying.”

Details of Curtis’ death are sketchy. Police said they received a call from a family member early on Thanksgiving with a plea to check on him. An Androscoggin County sheriff’s deputy found him a short time later.

An investigation is continuing, Capt. Ray Lafrance said Thursday. However, it is clear that it was a suicide, he said.

“He had lots of problems,” Lafrance said.

Many calling for help

Curtis was not alone among returning veterans.

The Pentagon has not released any numbers on how many veterans of the Iraq war have killed themselves since their return. Some numbers have trickled in, though.

At least 147 soldiers have committed suicide during their service in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began, the Associated Press reported in October.

The outlook is similarly grim for returning veterans. At least 283 combat veterans who left the military between the start of the war and the end of 2005 have taken their own lives, according to preliminary Veterans Affairs Department research obtained by the wire service.

Veterans of any war are twice as likely to commit suicide than members of the general public, according to a 2006 article in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The new veterans are a puzzle, experts say.

Attempts to define a particularly at-risk segment of returning soldiers – young, old, male, female, married, single – have been fruitless, said Kerry Knox, a psychologist who is leading a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) effort to end suicide.

“I think it’s such a wide range,” said Knox, who runs the VA’s Center of Excellence in Canandaigua, N.Y. “We are right at the beginning of understanding what we’re seeing.”

They’re seeing a lot. Knox’s center created a phone bank at the end of July, launching a branch of the nationwide suicide hot line. Anyone who calls the number, 1-800-273-TALK, is asked to press “1” if they are a veteran or calling on behalf of a veteran. Those calls are diverted to workers in Canandaigua.

In only four months, the New York call center received about 15,000 calls, said Janet Kemp, who runs the phone program.

Of them, about 250 have been categorized as rescues – people who were stopped from a suicide they were poised to commit. They often had already taken drugs or were armed with a gun.

In most cases, the call center managed to alert police for help. In less imminent cases, a call was made to the suicide prevention coordinator in the nearest VA hospital.

“One suicide is too many,” said Knox, who manages all of the coordinators. “We know it is preventable. It’s really a community responsibility to have that philosophy.”

Dramatic change

It’s unclear whether Curtis called for help.

“He called me the day that it happened, but I didn’t answer the phone because my daughter was crying,” said Sencabaugh, who was Curtis’ high school sweetheart. “It’s very hard. That’s difficult to me.”

Though they were divorced in October 2005, they remained friends.

“He was the type of friend who would call me in the middle of the night to talk,” she said. “I think he was unhappy with a lot of things.”

He’d changed dramatically after seeing combat.

“The look in his eyes was different to everybody,” Sencabaugh said. “He would look right through you.”

At his funeral, Curtis was remembered as a mischievous kid who had always wanted to be in the Army.

“His death seems to empty the whole future of happiness,” the Rev. Roger Chabot told the roughly 200 mourners.

Too distraught to speak, Curtis’ sister, Gretchen, made her remarks through a letter read by a friend. As they left the service, family members including his mother, Joyce L’Italian, and his father, Gary Curtis, filed past photos of Tyler from childhood to his Army service.

Later, friends talked about his energy.

His football coach at Jay High School, Mike Henry, remembered Curtis as a vibrant kid who loved competition. What he lacked in size – he was about 5 feet, 8 inches tall – he made up for in gumption, Henry said.

Henry made him a lineman.

“Because he was smaller, he had to be that much more intense,” Henry said.

Even after his first of two tours in Iraq, the intensity seemed intact, said Sencabaugh. To her, he compared combat to one of his favorite video games, “Ghost Recon.”

But when she saw him again in August, he’d grown inward and sad.

‘He was just unhappy’

In Curtis’ obituary, family members blamed “post-traumatic stress syndrome” for his death. They did not respond to phone calls seeking interviews. However, Sencabaugh said Curtis believed he suffered from the symptoms.

“He knew he had it,” she said. “I know he did.”

Part of his sadness may have come from his desire to return to his Army buddies, she said.

“He told me a thousand times he wanted to go back,” she said. “Being in the Army was the only thing Tyler ever wanted, even if he had nothing. He was happy sitting in Iraq at 9 o’clock at night when the thermometer read 150 degrees.”

He’d begun to work as a truck mechanic, but he was bored.

“He was just unhappy,” she said. “He didn’t know what he wanted to do with himself.”

In ways, he tried to reach out. About a week before his death, he applied to become a member of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

But it wasn’t enough. He’d been fighting more than ever, Sencabaugh said. He was avoiding old friends, who never seemed to compare to the Army buddies.

Whether he ever reached out for the help of counselors, it was available. Army rules would have forced him to meet with a counselor before his discharge. He would have also been given information on the VA, both from the national organization and Maine.

But he never enrolled with the VA, said James Doherty, spokesman for the VA in Maine.

It would have taken a step by either Curtis or his family to get the VA involved.

“Unless we know about them and they come to us, there’s nothing we can do,” Doherty said.

For Curtis, it is too late.

Sencabaugh, 23, wiped away tears last week as she thought of Curtis’s last moments.

“He was so uncomfortable in his own skin, he needed to get out of it,” she said.

November 20, 2007 – IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) A homeless Vietnam veteran whose body was found beneath an Iowa City bridge had been turned away just days before from a Veterans Affairs center and the county jail.

The nearly naked body of Sonny Iovino, 55, was found Nov. 7 under a bridge, and an autopsy showed he died of hypothermia. His body was found two days after Iovino had repeated run-ins with police.

According to University of Iowa police reports obtained by The Gazette, campus police found Iovino lying on the ground on the morning of Nov. 5. He wasn’t wearing shoes and seemed confused as he talked and dug in mulch, the reports said.

Officers got Iovino to put on shoes, then cited him for trespassing and told him to leave. Later in the morning, officers responded to another call and found Iovino wearing only pants. They persuaded him to dress and leave.

After dealing with Iovino less than two hours later, officers took him to a psychiatrist at the VA center. Iovino asked for medication but wouldn’t consent to an evaluation and was released back to police.

After a shelter declined to take him, reports show officers arrested Iovino and took him to jail, where deputies also refused to admit him because of rules regarding people with medical needs.

Officers cited Iovino for criminal trespass, then released him pending a Nov. 20 court date. He signed the charge and walked off toward the bridge where his body was later found.

Advocates for mentally ill people said it’s hard to help when people refuse treatment.

“If they don’t want to go and if they aren’t committed there’s nothing anyone can do,” said Gene Spaziani, former chairman of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Johnson County. “They’re on their own. That’s the way it goes.”

Information from: The Gazette, http://www.gazetteonline.com/