VA: On Memorial Day

For the greater majority of the population, still not demanding 'sacrifice' now over a decade plus, as well as the decades previous, with their magnetic ribbons, lapel flag pins, purple heart bandages, super patriotic flags..............., you have the long weekend with the many consumer sales, so party on!

VA Honors Military Sacrifice on Memorial Day

WASHINGTON – May 27, 2011 - From parades to somber ceremonies and moments of silence, on Memorial Day, Monday, May 30, Americans will honor the sacrifices of military men and women who paid the ultimate price in their service to our nation.

“The fallen warriors we honor on Memorial Day cherished liberty and freedom enough to lay down their lives to preserve our way of life,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “We owe them eternal gratitude and we must pass those sentiments on to future generations.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will continue a tradition of hosting ceremonies at its national cemeteries and other facilities nationwide. Many of the programs are the centerpiece of Memorial Day events in their communities, honoring deceased Veterans and military members.

President Obama will speak at Arlington National Cemetery with VA Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould in attendance.

Secretary Shinseki will deliver the keynote address at a Memorial Day ceremony at Fort Richardson National Cemetery in Alaska, emphasizing VA’s goal of improving service to Veterans in rural areas. VA’s Acting Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs, Steve Muro, will speak at the dedication of a new state Veterans cemetery in Newton, Miss. The Mississippi Veterans Memorial Cemetery was constructed with a VA grant of nearly $7 million. VA’s Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, Tammy Duckworth, will lay a wreath at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, then speak at the Hawaii State Veterans Ceremony.

More than 100,000 people are expected to attend activities at VA's national cemeteries, with color guards, readings, bands and choir performances. Events will honor more than one million men and women who died in military service during wartime, including more than 655,000 battle deaths.

At Rock Island National Cemetery in Illinois, Rep. Bobby Schilling will present the son of a deceased World War I veteran with his father’s Silver Star certificate.

Riders with the Buffalo Soldier Motorcycle Club of Albuquerque, N.M., will arrive at Santa Fe National Cemetery May 28 to lay a wreath at its memorial recognizing the unknown soldiers, women and children who died at the nearby site of the Army’s Fort Craig in the late 1800s. Many of the Fort Craig remains, including Buffalo Soldiers, were reburied in 1976 at other military cemeteries. Three Buffalo Soldiers were later identified and laid to rest in marked graves at Santa Fe National Cemetery. Buffalo Soldiers served in African American regiments that were given that name by the Indian tribes they fought and impressed with their bravery.

On May 29, at Riverside National Cemetery in Southern California --VA’s busiest -- volunteers will read aloud the names of more than 5,000 people who were buried there since last year’s Memorial Day.

VA maintains more than three million gravesites at its 131 national cemeteries. In 2010, VA conducted more than 111,800 burials in its national cemeteries. The number of annual interments is expected to increase over the next two years. This year’s budget for VA national cemetery operation and construction is nearly $446 million.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day when the tradition of decorating Civil War graves began in 1866. It still brings loved ones to the graves of the deceased, often with flowers as grave decorations. To honor Veterans buried in national cemeteries, VA staff and volunteers typically place American flags -- either individual small ones on each grave, usually placed by volunteers, or “avenues of flags” flanking both sides of the cemetery main entrance road. Often these flags are the burial flags donated by next of kin of Veterans buried in the cemetery.

For the dates and times of Memorial Day weekend programs at VA national cemeteries, visit the National Cemeteries site.

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Vets Back in Line of Fire

Social Security Cuts Put Vets Back in Line of Fire

May 26, 2011 -

Social Security is crucial to veterans and military families when those who have served our country retire, become disabled, or lose their lives. Yet Republican lawmakers have put Social Security in their sights, willing to trade Social Security cuts for tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations in the name of deficit reduction. But cuts to Social Security or privatization would hurt millions veterans and military families.

Today, nine veterans’ organizations—including the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council—and several lawmakers joined the Strengthen Social Security campaign and released a report “Social Security: Serving Those Who Serve Our Nation” that shows the deep harm cuts would do to veterans and military families. For example:

Most of the more than 4,000 children who lost a parent since the beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars now receive Social Security survivors’ benefits. More than 771,000 veterans receive Social Security disability benefits. Social Security currently pays benefits to over 9 million veterans—about 4 in 10 veterans today—and the vast majority of veterans will become Social Security beneficiaries in the future.

The report highlights the personal stories of how Social Security has helped several veterans to make ends meet and build a better future. {continued}

Social Security: Serving Those Who Serve Our Nation

AMERICAN GI FORUM • GOLD STAR WIVES OF AMERICA, INC. • BLINDED VETERANS ASSOCIATION • NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN VETERANS • NATIONAL MILITARY FAMILY ASSOCIATION • PARALYZED VETERANS OF AMERICA • SOCIAL SECURITY WORKS • STRENGTHEN SOCIAL SECURITY CAMPAIGN • UNION VETERANS COUNCIL, AFL-CIO • VETSFIRST, A PROGRAM OF UNITED SPINAL ASSOCIATION • VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA • VOTEVETS.ORG
MAY 2011

But Only One Returns

Army Couple Deploys To Iraq, But Only One Returns

May 27, 2011 - Max and Kim Voelz served together in Iraq in the same Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit — that's the Army's elite bomb squad.

The couple met on Valentine's Day in 1997 at EOD school. They married on June 12, 1999.

"We deployed in 2003. We were in the same unit. She ripped bombs apart by hand in Iraq just like I did," Max says. "There was no being scared, no doubt, no 'I might die' — we never talked about that."

One night in 2003, Max called in the location of an explosive and sent his wife to disarm it.



"That night she was at a different base and I tried to talk to her on the phone before she went — just to tell her, like, an extra, 'Be careful.' But she was already on her way to take care of it, so I didn't get to," Max says.

Kim, 27, didn't survive that mission. Her injuries were severe. One leg was blown off and she was in a medically induced coma when Max got to the hospital. {continued}

AO: Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos

Vietnam, Cambodia cooperate in dealing with AO issues

24/05/2011 - A delegation from the Vietnam Association of Agent Orange/Dioxin Victims (VAVA) is on a working visit to Cambodia from May 23-25.

The visit aims to strengthen the two countries’ relationship and cooperation in overcoming the bad consequences caused by Agent Orange/Dioxin toxic chemical sprayed by US troops during the past war in Vietnam.

At a working session with the Cambodian Women’s Association for Peace and Development (CWAPD) in Phnom Penh on May 23, the Vietnamese guests presented reports on issues related to Agent Orange victims in Vietnam who have badly suffered from a huge amount of herbicide that US troops spayed in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the past war.

In Vietnam’s southern region alone, nearly 5 million Vietnamese people have been affected by about 80 million liters of herbicide, most of which are Agent Orange (AO) chemical.

Border areas in Cambodia and Laos which share the common borderlines with Vietnam are also affected by the toxic chemical, resulting in environmental pollution and many serious diseases for generations, such as cancer and deformity. {continued}

Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign

Care of Wounded Vets Draws Ire {???}

These types of articles have been coming out of the woodwork, following the decades long 'lets blame the VA' meme's, especially by those of a certain so called political ideology, since the recent ruling and comments by the judge and the so called representatives, both parties, hired by the people.

Shortcomings in care of wounded vets draws ire of senators

May 25, 2011 - Retired Spc. Steve Bohn, who was severely injured in an ambush in Afghanistan three years ago, is sinking deeper into debt every day while he waits for Veterans Affairs officials to process his disability claim.

“I get $699 a month from my retirement pay, and my rent is $700 a month,” the 24-year-old veteran said. “I can’t pay my electric bill. I can’t pay any of my other bills.

“I used to work as a roofer and a chef, but I can’t do either of those anymore, because of the pain. I’m struggling.”

The money problems are just the latest ordeal for Bohn, who told lawmakers Wednesday that he already has weathered multiple surgeries, apathetic care specialists and frustrating incompetence from military physicians. Twice he was sent to the wrong base while awaiting surgeries. For the last seven months, his pleas to speed up the claims process have been ignored.

Members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee said Bohn’s story is indicative of the infuriating problems still plaguing injured servicemembers as they move from military wounded warrior units to veterans health care. More than four years after promises of improvements following the wounded troop care scandals at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, they noted, progress remains frustratingly slow.

Officials from the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments insisted that improvements have been made, and that anecdotes the senators have heard during their series of hearings on veterans care — long waits for medical appointments, inexperienced prosthetics specialists at VA facilities, confusing and confrontational benefits processing — are being addressed. {continued}

Lets get the facts straight. The VA has been under funded for decades, switching funds around from those related to the Korean conflict to those political points as to us Vietnam Vets that the country was doing something, that started the ball rolling for the following decades, not to mention ignoring us Vietnam Vets as to issues like PTS and Defoliants, that carried through as to Gulf War Syndrome, especially up to the most recent past one.

The technology of record keeping etc. alone has stayed far behind the advances the public was even able to obtain as well as the DoD and intelligence agencies were advancing in. Many of the appointed heads and their administrations over these decades were political appointee's not there, like many well known Veterans groups, for the Veterans but for political ideology and use of us Veterans for same, quick points and votes ahead of coming elections.

As to these recent two conflicts little to nothing was done by the representatives, and the country approved, as they rubber stamped costs towards invasion and occupations, not even congressional hearings, over site and great expanse of the budget needed by the VA, and military care as well, remember Walter Reed, untill the 110th Congress when the catchup game started.

And now thankfully we have one of the few VA administrations, in my lifetime, not being run politically, playing that catchup game as well as moving back into the long ignored issues of the past and us older Veterans especially as to Vietnam and the first Gulf War.

Sure there will be problems in any huge Agency, but if not funded fully on the front end, or in this case when the country cheers on wars of choice, the problems are greatly expanded, in back ups for needs and much much more which ends up costing much more in many ways creating further problems!

This is Not the VA's doing, but hey it's Really Easy to lay blame on others, instead of Demanding 'Sacrifice', This Is A Major Problem Of The Country Especially The Huge Majority That Don't Serve And The Wealthy Who Reap Great Wealth From Our Wars Of Choice Waged Over These Decades!!!

USN '67-'71 All Shore GMG3 Vietnam In-Country '70-'71 last of my four, who takes every chance to Thank the tepublicans for their support of us, verbal and symbol spitting on, with their 'purple heart bandages' while sending this generations soldiers into two more conflict theaters of choice!!