{This blog is not affiliated with the VA. Though a Veteran, four yrs. all shore in Navy last year In-Country Vietnam, I don't work for the VA}
**USN All Shore '67-'71 GMG3 Vietnam In Country '70-'71 - Independent**

In 2003 some 72% of Americans fully supported the Abandoning of the Missions and those Sent to Accomplish so extremely Quickly after 9/11!!
At least some 95%, if not more as less then 1% serve them, not only still support the, just below, total lack of Sacrifice, they ran from any and all Accountability and left everything still on the table to be continually used if the political/military want was still in play in future executive/legislative wants!!
DeJa-Vu: “With no shared sacrifices being asked of civilians after Sept. 11", Decades and War From, All Over Again!!
Especially for the Corporate and Wealthy Community, investors in Defense Industries, and for these, Afghanistan and Iraq, came Two Huge Tax Cuts, with more sweetheart deals to same from states and the fed!!


Thousands of people across America don’t just talk about honoring Veterans; they walk the walk. Dedicated Volunteers Serve Veterans for Decades

On this Executive Administration, it's Cabinet and those directly around same, "Best - Ever": "We haven't had this kind of visibility from the White House—ever." Joyce Raezer National Military Family Association - Dec. 30, 2011, and plenty more of similar since Joyce, others, spoke and continues!

Ask yourself: If the Veterans Administration is so corrupt and mismanaged, as the conservative ideology, under which the seeds of are planted when they control, wants everyone to buy into as they obstruct the budgets and do extremely little after they charge same, then why does the Private sector, many problems within rarely heard about, adopt so many practices and advanced technologies developed within the VA, for free?! The VA, DoD, and in partnership with Universities and Colleges, not just Health Care are constantly in R&D and that developed that works is quickly moved into the private, for profit, sector, even as the VA is long under funded, decades, and especially during and after our wars that the few are sent into!

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President Obama 26 August 2014

Fact: "This is not just a job of government. It’s not just a job of the veterans’ organizations. Every American needs to join us in taking care of those who've taken care of us. Because only 1 percent of Americans may be fighting our wars, but 100 percent of Americans benefit from that 1 percent. A hundred percent need to be supporting our troops. A hundred percent need to be supporting our veterans. A hundred percent need to be supporting our military families."

Fact:
"We’ve been able to accomplish historic increases to veterans funding. We’ve protected veterans health care from Washington politics with advanced appropriations. We’ve been able to make VA benefits available to more than 2 million veterans who didn't have them before, including more Vietnam vets who were exposed to Agent Orange. We’ve dedicated major new resources for mental health care. We’ve helped more than 1 million veterans and their families pursue their education under the Post-9/11 GI Bill."

August 26, 2014 - Secretary Robert A. McDonald's Remarks for the American Legion's 96th Annual Convention, Charlotte, NC
Fact: "Unlike, P&G, VA may not be concerned about quarterly profit and loss statements or shareholder value, but it does have a bottom line—Veterans. "
{which is why No Government agency should be turned into a private corporate entity feeding for profit off the Countries duty and responsibility, especially the VA}
* * * * *

Fact: “We are dealing with veterans, not procedures—with their problems, not ours.” —General Omar Bradley, First Administrator of the Veterans Administration

Facts: Matthew Hoh {former Marine and foreign service officer in Afghanistan}: "We spend a trillion dollars a year on national security in this country."
"And when you add up to the Department of Defense, Department of State, CIA, Veterans Affairs, interest on debt, the number that strikes me the most about how much we're committed financially to these wars and to our current policies is we have spent $250 billion already just on interest payments on the debt we've incurred for the Iraq and Afghan wars."
26 September 2014

Fact: "If military action is worth our troops’ blood, it should be worth our treasure, too — not just in the abstract, but in the form of a specific ante by every American." -Andrew Rosenthal 10 Feb. 2013

Fact: "12 years also is a long time. We now have a lifetime responsibility to a generation of service members, veterans and their families." Dr. Jonathan Woodson 11 Sep. 2013: With 9/11 Came Lifetime Responsibility
{two tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, came with these two recent unpaid for wars, nor the results of, DeJa-Vu all over again from the previous decades and wars from! Ignore the many issues, by those served, no need to fund!}

Fact: Sen. Bernie Sanders told Republicans: “If you can’t afford to take care of your veterans, than don’t go war. These people are bearing the brunt of what war is about, We have a moral obligation to support them.” February, 26th, 2014

Fact: 25 June 2014 U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller: Veterans' Affairs issue an 'all too similar' scene

Fact: How We Could Do More For Our Vets: "We need to go into debt to pay our debt to U.S. veterans to make sure they get the care and services we owe them."

Fact: “Why in 2009 were we still using paper?” VA Assistant Secretary Tommy Sowers “When we came in, there was no plan to change that; we’ve been operating on a six month wait for over a decade.” 27 March 2013

WHY? GOOD QUESTION THOSE SERVED SHOULD ANSWER!


Bob Herbert Losing Our Way : "And then the staggering costs of these wars, which are borne by the taxpayers. I mean, one of the things that was insane was that, as we're at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration cut taxes. This has never been done in American history. The idea of cutting taxes while you're going to war is just crazy. I mean, it's madness." Bill 'Moyers and Company': Restoring an America That Has Lost its Way 10 Oct. 2014

Presidential Proclamation -- Veterans Day, 2013: "As we pay tribute to our veterans, we are mindful that no ceremony or parade can fully repay that debt." read more>>>


Under two previous Executive administrations and wars from, father and son. With son and conservative congresses leading the extremely quick abandoning of the missions and those sent to accomplish after 9/11:

ProPublica and The Seattle Times Nov. 9, 2012 - Lost to History: Missing War Records Complicate Benefit Claims by Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans
"DeLara's case is part of a much larger problem that has plagued the U.S. military since the 1990 Gulf War: a failure to create and maintain the types of field records that have documented American conflicts since the Revolutionary War."

Part Two: A Son Lost in Iraq, but Where Is the Casualty Report?

Army Says War Records Gap Is Real, Launches Recovery Effort

3/27/15 - U.S. Nerve Gas Hit Our Own Troops in Iraq
"During and immediately after the first Gulf War, more than 200,000 of 700,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Kuwait in January 1991 were exposed to nerve gas and other chemical agents. Though aware of this, the Department of Defense and CIA launched a campaign of lies and concocted a cover-up that continues today."
"When Brown and others tried to obtain their medical records to prove their illnesses were service-related, they learned that the records had disappeared."




Add in the issues of finally recognizing in War Theater and more Veterans, by the Shinseki Veterans Administration and the Executive Administrations Cabinet, what the Country choose to ignore from our previous decades and wars of: The devastating effects on Test Vets and from PTS, Agent Orange, Homelessness, more recent the Desert Storm troops Gulf War Illnesses, Gulf War Exposures with the very recent affects from In-Theater Burn Pits and oh so so much more! Tens of Thousands of Veterans' that have been long ignored and maligned by previous VA's and the whole Country and through their representatives!

How does a Country HONOR It's Fallen, by Their Own 'Sacrifice' in Taking Care of the Brothers and Sisters They Served With!!


"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." - Abraham Lincoln

"To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan" - President Lincoln

She wrote that she's proud of her service but added this: "That doesn't change the fact that I contributed - however indirectly - to human beings vanishing from the earth in a moment of sheer agony."



Homeless Veterans/Stand Downs

Are You Concerned About a Veteran? The Veterans Crisis Line Can Help>>>

For our sisters: National Women Veterans Hotline, call 1-855-VA-WOMEN1-855-VA-WOMEN (1-855-829-66361-855-829-6636) New Hotline now up and running

Monday, February 23, 2015

Oscar and 'Veterans Press 1'

Suicide in not new! Many issues in human life can bring on someone to take that route of self destruction! Veterans suicides aren't new, but are helped towards, especially in war theater veterans, by the ease in which those they served ignored the issues like Post Traumatic Stress {PTS} of war theaters, along with ignoring so many other issues, finally being addressed through the VA under Sec. Shinseki and continuing under Sec. McDonald with the continued help from an entire Executive Administration and it's Cabinet. So many of our brothers from Vietnam and Korea choose that route, not only suffering from PTS but the other issues as well, as the Country served ran from their responsibilities in fully funding the Agency they promised to the few who serve them, so they cope not cure from issues like PTS! That decades long, and wars from, under funding brings about constant costly problems that are turned into 'scandals', for the media political hype and the peoples representatives, who control the Countries purse strings of funding it's needs, own political enhancement as they attack the mostly Dedicated VA personal, thank god for the constant flow of young to old volunteer's! A few, so called experts, in their health care fields enriched themselves, in a number of ways, by feeding the needed 'proof' that these issues, like PTS, didn't even exist so the people and through their representatives needn't Sacrifice themselves! Talk of Veterans Suicides have come to light with these two recent long conflicts, once again, like so many other issues the VA and DoD taking the blame, from the people served and through their representatives who in turn feed the, very wealthy and extremely low taxed, media meme's, none looking in their mirrors at the real problems and who's actually creating the oft repeated and returned to 'scandals' so brazenly hyped!

My Congratulations to the Producers of and the voters who not only Nominated but blessed them with the 'WIN' on this Documentary not many will probably see, doesn't fit the political FOX speak meme's, after all they're getting 'American Sniper' also nominated all wrong in the message that should be learned in their poser patriotism, nor has there been much reporting, local and national, about. Just the same on who wore what and attacks or praise on who said what, from an apathetic society, unwilling to Sacrifice!

Neal Simon: 'Veterans Press 1'
“Veterans Press 1” takes viewers into the responders’ cubicles as they connect with veterans coping with everything from depression and divorce, to anger and anxiety. Often, the callers are teetering along the twin cliff edges of disillusionment and destruction. Many calls are routine, if that word is app...

Feb. 22, 2015 - Sometime tonight, tucked into the glitzy and glamorous celebration of all things movies, presenters will announce the Academy Award winner for Best Short Documentary film of 2014. And then, amidst the starlets in designer gowns, the leading men in tuxes, the acclaimed directors with shelves full of trophies in Malibu mansions and the Tinseltown blockbusters like “American Sniper,” a small film with a wide heart may take center stage for a few minutes. If that happens, if “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1” wins the best short documentary Oscar, Hollywood’s bright lights will shine on a Hornell High School graduate and her 250 Veterans Administration colleagues who are employed at the national VA suicide hotline in Canandaigua.

The HBO film captures the crucial work of the highly-trained VA staff as they field some 1,000 calls a day from veterans, active service personnel and military family members.

The film — which was produced by Dana Perry and directed by Ellen Goosenberg Kent — was shot over about nine months in 2012. The filmmakers were embedded, a couple days at a time, in the non-descript government building in Ontario County. Their camera lens documents with unflinching honesty the heartbreak, the tensions and the triumphs at the crisis hotline center.

“Veterans Press 1” takes viewers into the responders’ cubicles as they connect with veterans coping with everything from depression and divorce, to anger and anxiety. read more>>>

Oscars 2015: Who Dana Perry Is and Why She Want Us to Pay Attention to Suicide
Feb 23, 2015 - While accepting the Oscar for best documentary short subject, producer Dana Perry said suicide should be talked about "out loud," dedicating the award to her son.

During her acceptance speech on behalf of "Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1," the music abruptly cut off when Perry mentioned her son, Evan Scott Perry, who committed suicide at age 15 in 2005.

"I lost my son," Perry told reporters after the speech. "We need to talk about suicide out loud to try to work against the stigma and silence around suicide because the best prevention for suicide is awareness and discussion and not trying sweep it under the rug."

Perry also mentioned veteran suicide in her Oscar speech, which she called "a crisis." Tonight's Oscar-winning HBO documentary, directed by Perry and Ellen Goosenberg Kent, is about the Department of Veterans Affairs' 24-hour call center for veterans. read more>>>

Filmmakers put veterans and suicide in spotlight
February 23, 2015 - Two filmmakers who won an Oscar for their documentary on a suicide hotline used their acceptance speech to urge troubled veterans to receive help.

Dana Perry and Ellen Goosenberg Kent spent months at the Department of Veterans Affairs' suicide hotline headquarters filming Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, which showed the dedicated efforts staffers make to prevent veterans from killing themselves. Their Oscar on Sunday night was for best documentary short subject.

Perry mentioned her 15-year-old son, who had killed himself. "We should talk about suicide out loud," Perry said.

VA Secretary Robert McDonald praised the HBO documentary for highlighting "the challenges our veterans can face and the work of our dedicated Veterans Crisis Line staff." read more>>>

February 23, 2015 - Statement from Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald on Oscar Win for HBO Documentary Highlighting Life-Saving Work of Veterans Crisis Line

America's longest war ended, fyi; but shared sacrifice wasn't part of it

Sen. Bernie Sanders told Conservatives: “If you can’t afford to take care of your veterans, than don’t go war. These people are bearing the brunt of what war is about, We have a moral obligation to support them.”

February, 26th, 2014 Neither of these recent wars have yet been paid for, nor the continued blowback from the spread and growth from the policies implemented!
Neither the long term results from, including the long ignored or outright denied existence of, till this Administrations Cabinet and Gen Shinseki, only Government branch consistent for the past six years, Veterans issues from!
As well as under deficits most of the, grossly under funded for decades and the wars from now, VA budget is still borrowed, with interest, thus added problem creating costs, with representative who control the purse strings blaming the mostly dedicated VA personal within, that shouldn't exist!


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