Dec 04, 2011 - WASHINGTON - The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be winding down, but the long-term costs of caring for those wounded in battle is on path to rival the costs of the Vietnam War.While Vietnam extracted a far higher death toll - 58,000 compared with 6,300 so far in the war on terror - the number of documented disabilities from recent veterans is approaching the size of that earlier conflict, according to a McClatchy Newspapers analysis of Department of Veterans Affairs data.
The data, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and detailing all disability payments to veterans of all wars, show that veterans leaving the military in recent years are filing for and receiving compensation for more injuries than did their fathers and grandfathers.
At the same time, McClatchy found, the VA is losing ground in efforts to provide fast, efficient and accurate disability decisions. And the agency has yet to get control of a problem that has vexed it for years: The wide variation in disability payments by state and region, even for veterans with the same ailments.
For soldiers now coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, this ongoing variation in an already clogged disability system means the size of monthly compensation checks might be a quirk of geography. 'Uncharted waters' read more>>>
Dec 04, 2011 - Few places outside of Fayetteville have more families dealing with the human costs of the nation's decade at war.More than 400 Fort Bragg soldiers or Pope airmen have died in Iraq or Afghanistan. And repeated deployments of special operators and the 82nd Airborne Division have taken a toll on those who return.
The Fayetteville area has the nation's third-highest number of Iraq-era veterans listed on Veterans Affairs disability rolls, according to a McClatchy Newspapers analysis of VA data.
The analysis counted 7,283 such veterans living around Fort Bragg. Only Waco, Texas, and San Antonio - both also near military installations - have more.
McClatchy counted servicemen who left active duty in 2003 or later, an approximate cohort of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
The data show that people with war-related injuries - from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries to back strains and degenerative arthritis - are clustered around military communities and in the South.
Fayetteville is in the top 10 for nearly every category. The area includes the city and surrounding towns with ZIP codes beginning with 283.
The analysis shows: read more>>>
Dec. 04, 2011 - On Veterans Day 2011, Timothy Jackson, a former sailor in the U.S. Navy and the son of a man who was the same, visited a small, unfinished gravesite on a hilltop alongside a winding road. It belonged to Timothy Matthew Jackson, who went by Matt and had himself been a Marine.And in three generations of Jackson men to serve, Matt was the first to die in combat. He was 22 years old.
It's been a wrenching year for the Jackson family. And for the communities in and around London, it's been a wrenching decade. A decade ago in October, America went to war - first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. At 10 years, the war on terror is almost as long as World War I, World War II and the Korea War combined.
Now, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are nearing their end, as President Barack Obama has plans to bring U.S. troops back from Iraq by the end of this month and reduce forces in Afghanistan - still a hot zone - by the middle of 2012.
But for the soldiers of Kentucky and their families, the war is far from over. read more>>>
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