Murtha to 10th Mountain Division
By MARC HELLER
TIMES WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2008
WASHINGTON — The chairman of a House defense spending panel will visit Fort Drum next Friday to discuss the treatment of soldiers for disabilities and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Rep. John R. Murtha, D-Pa., who heads the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, said he will meet with base commanders and Department of Veterans Affairs representatives as well as with soldiers and their families.
Mr. Murtha's plans follow reports of long waits for soldiers seeking psychological help at Fort Drum, which came on the heels of revelations that VA counselors stopped helping wounded soldiers navigate the bureaucracy in applying for disability benefits.
As a result, the Army and the VA signed an agreement this week spelling out each agency's responsibilities — a development Mr. Murtha acknowledged Thursday as progress toward addressing the issue identified in reports from National Public Radio.
Mr. Murtha said he wants to know more about how PTSD is being handled at Fort Drum, where the 10th Mountain Division is one of the most heavily deployed units to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pennsylvania congressman is one of the most influential lawmakers on defense issues and said the Drum visit is part of his career-long interest in post-traumatic stress disorder.
Asked if he had discussed the visit with Rep. John M. McHugh, R-Pierrepont Manor, Mr. Murtha said, "Sure, we'll invite him."
Mr. McHugh said he expects to be unavailable that day, however, because of a family conflict. But he praised Mr. Murtha for making the visit and noted his influence directing money to military installations. And he said that personally, Mr. Murtha is a friend.
"Jack Murtha is always a good person to come calling," said Mr. McHugh, who added that he has accompanied Mr. Murtha at Fort Drum in the past.
A spokesman for Mr. Murtha said he would be accompanied by committee staffers but not by other lawmakers, unless Mr. McHugh is able to attend.
Defense officials have made the rounds in congressional hearings during the past week, noting efforts to improve care for wounded warriors and to smooth the transition from Army care to VA care. Among other measures, they have hired 300 additional mental health professionals and plan to hire more, officials said.
And more than 800,000 soldiers have been trained in recognizing signs of PTSD, they said, as the Defense Department tries to reduce the stigma of seeking help for mental illness.
The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, of which Mr. McHugh is the ranking Republican and former chairman, was scheduled to address wounded service member services at a hearing today
Friday, February 15, 2008
Congressman to visit Drum, discuss PTSD treatment
McCain is a "deficit Hawk" let the grand kids pay
Ignoring his costly policies on taxes and Iraq, AP called McCain a "deficit hawk"
Summary: An Associated Press article described Sen. John McCain as a "deficit hawk" but provided no support for that characterization. While the article mentioned that McCain has called for making permanent President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, it did not note the absence of budget offsets to pay for them. Further, McCain repeatedly voted in favor of emergency supplemental spending bills for the Iraq war that exacerbated the deficit.
In a February 15 Associated Press article, reporter Liz Sidoti described Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as "[a] deficit hawk." Sidoti provided no support for the label. While she did report that McCain has called for making permanent the tax cuts President Bush called for in 2001 and 2003, she did not note the absence of budget offsets to pay for them. Additionally, Sidoti failed to report that McCain repeatedly voted for or supported emergency supplemental spending bills for the Iraq war, which appropriated funds outside of the normal budgeting process and exacerbated the deficit.
Taxes
McCain asserts on his website that as president, he would "make the Bush income and investment tax cuts permanent" and "permanently repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)." According to a February 1 analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), based on Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office estimates, making permanent the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, as well as repealing the AMT, would have a "direct cost" of $3.6 trillion over 10 years and come to an average of $400 billion in annual cost. CBPP also asserted that "[w]ithout offsets, making the tax cuts permanent would increase the deficit and thereby add to the national debt. The interest payments needed to service this higher level of debt would amount to about $700 billion over the next ten years."
After opposing Bush's tax cuts in 2001, McCain voted against legislation in 2003 to accelerate the tax reductions enacted in the 2001 bill and to cut taxes on dividends and capital gains. In 2006, however, he voted for the bill extending some of the 2003 tax cuts, saying during the April 2, 2006, broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press that he changed his position because: "I do not believe in tax increases. ... The tax cuts are now there and voting to revoke them would have been to -- not to extend them would have meant a tax increase." Now McCain claims on the campaign trail that he initially opposed the Bush tax cuts because they were not accompanied by offsetting spending cuts -- but the absence of offsets did not prevent him from voting for the tax cut extensions in 2006. Further, McCain frequently touts his tax policies without mentioning such offsets.
Iraq
While in 2005 McCain voted for an amendment to express the sense of the Senate that "funds for a fiscal year after fiscal year 2006 for an ongoing military operation overseas, including operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, should be included in the annual budget," McCain supported emergency supplemental spending bills for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in fiscal years 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003. In its 2006 report, the Iraq Study Group criticized this budget procedure, asserting that it "erodes budget discipline and accountability":
The public interest is not well served by the government's preparation, presentation, and review of the budget for the war in Iraq.
First, most of the costs of the war show up not in the normal budget request but in requests for emergency supplemental appropriations. This means that funding requests are drawn up outside the normal budget process, are not offset by budgetary reductions elsewhere, and move quickly to the White House with minimal scrutiny. Bypassing the normal review erodes budget discipline and accountability.
In addition, in 2003, McCain voted to table an amendment that would have provided "funds for the security and stabilization of Iraq by suspending a portion of the reductions in the highest income tax rate for individual taxpayers."
According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis detailed by director Peter Orszag during his October 24, 2007, testimony before the House Committee on the Budget, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is projected at $1.055 trillion for 2008-2017. The projections are based on a scenario in which "the number of personnel deployed to Iraq and other locations associated with the war on terrorism would decline ... from an average of about 200,000 in fiscal year 2008 to 75,000 by the start of fiscal year 2013 and then remain at that level through 2017." Orszag also asserted that the wars would cost $570 billion through 2017 if "the number of personnel deployed on the ground for the war on terrorism would be reduced from an average of about 200,000 in fiscal year 2008 to 30,000 by the beginning of fiscal year 2010 and then remain at that level through 2017." The CBO analysis included the cost of "military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other activities associated with the war on terrorism, as well as for related costs incurred by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for medical care, disability compensation, and survivors' benefits."
From the AP article:
A deficit hawk, McCain also berated [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-IL] and [Sen. Hillary Rodham] Clinton [D-NY] for directing federal money toward pet projects in their home states, a practice known as earmarking.
He said Clinton had received some $340 million worth of earmarks for New York, while Obama sent home $90 million to Illinois. McCain also castigated Obama for failing to disclose details about his earmarks.
"Is that transparency in government? I don't think so," McCain said. "Examine my record on earmark and pork-barrel projects and you will see a big fat zero."
[...]
Obama, in turn, has lumped McCain in with Bush by referring to "Bush-McCain Republicans" and arguing that McCain's national security and economic policies are "bound to the failed policies of the past."
At one point, Obama noted that McCain twice opposed Bush's tax cuts but now supports making them permanent and said: "Somewhere along the line he traded those principles for his party's nomination and now he is for those tax cuts."
—M.G.
War Torn When Strains on Military Families Turn Deadly
why do they die?
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ and DEBORAH SONTAG
Published: February 15, 2008
A few months after Sgt. William Edwards and his wife, Sgt. Erin Edwards, returned to a Texas Army base from separate missions in Iraq, he assaulted her mercilessly. He struck her, choked her, dragged her over a fence and slammed her into the sidewalk.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
A VETERAN’S GRAVE Erin Edwards, who was fatally shot by her husband in 2004, was buried in Clearfield, Pa. More Photos »
Multimedia
Slide Show
War Torn: Violence at Home
Interactive Graphic
The Cases
Related
Audio Interview: Dr. Jonathan Shay on Returning Veterans and Combat Trauma (January 13, 2008)
War Torn: In More Cases, Combat Trauma Is Taking the Stand (January 27, 2008)
War Torn: An Iraq Veteran’s Descent; a Prosecutor’s Choice (January 20, 2008)
War Torn: Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles (January 13, 2008)
Blogrunner: Reactions From Around the WebAs far as Erin Edwards was concerned, that would be the last time he beat her.
Unlike many military wives, she knew how to work the system to protect herself. She was an insider, even more so than her husband, since she served as an aide to a brigadier general at Fort Hood.
With the general’s help, she quickly arranged for a future transfer to a base in New York. She pressed charges against her husband and secured an order of protection. She sent her two children to stay with her mother. And she received assurance from her husband’s commanders that he would be barred from leaving the base unless accompanied by an officer.
Yet on the morning of July 22, 2004, William Edwards easily slipped off base, skipping his anger-management class, and drove to his wife’s house in the Texas town of Killeen. He waited for her to step outside and then, after a struggle, shot her point-blank in the head before turning the gun on himself.
During an investigation, Army officers told the local police that they did not realize Erin Edwards had been afraid of her husband. And they acknowledged that despite his restrictions, William Edwards had not been escorted off base “on every occasion,” according to a police report.
That admission troubled the detective handling the case.
“I believe that had he been confined to base and had that confinement been monitored,” said Detective Sharon L. Brank of the local police, “she would not be dead at his hands.”
The killing of Erin Edwards directly echoed an earlier murder of a military wife that drew far more attention. Almost 10 years ago, at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, a different Army sergeant defied a similar restriction to base, driving out the front gate on his way to a murder almost foretold.
That 1998 homicide, one of several featured in a “60 Minutes” exposé on domestic violence in the military, galvanized a public outcry, Congressional demands for action and the Pentagon’s pledge to do everything possible to prevent such violence from claiming more lives.
Yet just as the Defense Department undertook substantial changes, guided by a Congressionally chartered task force on domestic violence that decried a system more adept at protecting offenders than victims, the wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq began.
Pentagon officials say that wartime has not derailed their efforts to make substantive improvements in the way that the military tackles domestic violence.
They say they have, for example, offered more parenting and couples classes, provided additional victims advocates and afforded victims greater confidentiality in reporting abuses.
But interviews with members of the task force, as well as an examination of cases of fatal domestic violence and child abuse, indicate that wartime pressures on military families and on the military itself have complicated the Pentagon’s efforts.
“I don’t think there is any question about that,” said Peter C. McDonald, a retired district court judge in Kentucky and a member of the Pentagon’s now disbanded domestic violence task force. “The war could only make things much worse than even before, and here we had a system that was not too good to begin with.”
Connie Sponsler-Garcia, another task force member, who now works on domestic violence projects with the Pentagon, agreed.
“Whereas something was a high priority before, now it’s: ‘Oh, dear, we have a war. Well get back to you in a few months,’ ” she said.
The fatalities examined by The New York Times show a military system that tries and sometimes fails to balance the demands of fighting a war with those of eradicating domestic violence.
According to interviews with law enforcement officials and court documents, the military has sent to war service members who had been charged with and even convicted of domestic violence crimes.
Deploying such convicted service members to a war zone violates military regulations and, in some cases, federal law.
Take the case of Sgt. Jared Terrasas. The first time that he was deployed to Iraq, his prosecution for domestic violence was delayed. Then, after pleading guilty, he was pulled out of a 16-week batterers intervention program run by the Marine Corps and sent to Iraq again.
Several months after Sergeant Terrasas returned home, his 7-month-old son died of a brain injury, and the marine was charged with his murder.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Next Page
please go read the entire article
Bolton: Only U.S. can stop proliferation
Bolton: Only U.S. can stop proliferation
Isaac Arnsdorf
Staff Reporter
Published Friday, February 15, 2008
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23535
As the only nation with the power to blunt the nuclearization of Iran and North Korea, the United States must act decisively to defuse the threat from those two countries, former Bush administration diplomat John Bolton ’70 LAW ’74 said at the Law School on Thursday.
The mustachioed former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — whose nomination to the post in 2006 provoked fierce resistance from senators because of past statements he had made that criticized the international body — spoke about nuclear non-proliferation and international cooperation before a crowd of about 100 during a lunch event at the Law School. The program was sponsored by the Yale Federalist Society, an organization of conservative and libertarian law students.
“There’s only one country that’s going to stop nuclear proliferation and the threats presented by Iran and North Korea, and that’s the United States,” he concluded. “And that’s the cold, hard truth about international organizations.”
Bolton served as U.N. ambassador under a recess appointment beginning in August 2005. His nomination to the post in 2006 was never approved by the Senate.
Bolton described what he sees as the current challenges in American non-proliferation policy and discussed the United States’ best options in addressing nuclear threats — hardly bothering to veil his disdain for international law and institutions.
“When I was here, I didn’t take any courses at all on international law,” he said, “and frankly I don’t think I missed a thing.”
The paradigm for stemming proliferation, Bolton said, is Libya’s voluntary disarmament in 2003 under American and British pressure — without the help of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.
In this triumph for American and British intelligence and diplomacy, Bolton asserted, Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi gave up his nuclear-weapons program rather than expose his regime to American intervention.
“He did so in a cold-blooded calculation that — the United States, having just led a coalition to overthrow Saddam Hussein — he might be next,” Bolton said. Allowing “a thuggish regime to stay in power … was pretty hard to swallow, but getting rid of the nuclear capability was worth it.”
After Qaddafi’s announcement, Bolton said, the IAEA’s director was miffed that his organization was left out of the process.
“He thought that we had been dissing him and his agency, as if his agency could have done a thing about a program they knew nothing about,” he said. “Had we left it to the IAEA, [Libya’s weapons] might well still be there.”
The IAEA was similarly ineffective in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bolton told the audience. IAEA inspectors ignored what Bolton considered the top concern about Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities: his cadre of scientists with nuclear knowledge and his inability to produce any evidence of having destroyed the “enormous quantities” of chemical weapons he had declared after the first Gulf War, Bolton said.
Bolton said this judgment, and the resulting decision to go to war that it motivated, was not an intelligence failure but a “defect in our decision-making process for not calling into question the very assumption that his declaration was accurate,” since Hussein may have lied about ever having had those weapons.
Bolton rejected the idea that this “defect” in the decision to invade Iraq should prevent policy makers from taking dramatic steps to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.
Last December’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iranian nuclear ambitions was widely misread and misreported, Bolton said. The report, which said that Iran suspended its nuclear program in 2003, adopted the Iranian definition of a nuclear-weapons program as weapons design and weaponization, which are the final steps in production of a nuclear bomb, Bolton said.
Although the rest of the report mostly echoed the 2005 estimate and admitted the U.S. government had poor knowledge of the state of Iran’s more broadly defined nuclear program, the report’s impact was “to shred the Bush administration’s policy,” Bolton said.
Iran cannot be made to give up its nuclear program by the U.N., since the Iranians have repeatedly lied to and hidden evidence from the IAEA, Bolton said, and since China and Russia, who have commercial interests in Iran, will veto any tough Security Council sanctions.
While the Iranian threat is mostly confined to the Middle East, Bolton said, the world’s other major nuclear threat, North Korea, is more than regional — the North Koreans would sell weapons to anyone who will pay.
“If al-Qaida had the requisite amount of hard currency, North Korea would have no hesitation whatsoever to supply them technology or even a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Furthermore, Bolton said, North Korea has repeatedly broken its pledges to halt its nuclear program and dismantle its existing arsenal.
Bolton also warned that other countries with nuclear aspirations are watching how the United States deals with Iran and North Korea, and allowing those two nations to attain nuclear weapons could create a domino effect, he said.
While Bolton’s speech focused on national-level threats, he said in an interview with the News after his remarks that international institutions have proven even less effective in addressing threats from non-state actors, such as terrorist organizations. The U.N. Security Council has yet to even settle on a definition of terrorism, he said.
“If they can’t even define what terrorism is, it’s not surprising that they can’t come up with a strategy to combat it,” he said.
Students in the audience interviewed said they valued Bolton’s perspective on international power dynamics but were struck by his dismissal of multilaterism.
“I appreciated his critique of the international system, but his disrespect for international law is pretty apparent,” Karen Kudelko LAW ’10 said. “I saw his appointment [as U.N. ambassador] as a slap in the face in many ways to the international law movement.”
Others said Bolton’s hour-long speech was a welcome contrast to the prevailing academic ideas of international law.
“It was a breath of fresh air in terms of what you get in the liberal international political science, which is what you get at Yale,” Alexander Besant GRD ’08 said.
While Bolton allowed his cynicism toward international institutions to show through, he was not as provocative as some in the audience had expected.
“By the standards of what John Bolton talks, it was quite tame,” Johannes Thimm GRD ’08 said.
Bolton last visited campus in December. He also addressed the Yale Political Union in October 2004.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I am afraid John Boltons answer to everything is bomb them into submission, he would make a great NSA for a President John McCain they can sing Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran together as a duet, these pathological Neocons need to retire quietly away and the sane people like Colin Powell need to become the voice of reason for the Republican Party.......
Guess who the general is who is quoted below? General Colin Powell
Subject: General Identified: General Blasts Lack of Hospitals
Friday, 15 February 2008: Guess who the general is who is quoted below? Some had no idea...some guessed it was General Colin Powell. Only one person knew who it was and that was Colonel Dan at http://www.angelfire.com/il2/VeteranIssues/. The answer appears at the end of the below repeated article.
General Blasts Lack of Military Hospitals
Robert F. Sawallesh
12 February 2008
http://www.pentagonmaverick.com/
"The former head of the...has called on the government to maintain military hospitals."
"Seven of the eight military hospitals have closed since...the early 1990s...."
"Soldiers who have been wounded, psychologically are far better off one with the other in the same ward under a military environment."
"Asked if he thought it was a mistake to close military hospitals...," "I'm afraid I do."
"But he acknowledged the decision was taken at the end of Cold War and was based on clinical needs."
"We ought to make a better effort to give soldiers who are wounded in the course of their duty, care and rehabilitation within the military environment if at all clinically possible," "he said."
Sawallesh trivia: Give some careful and deliberate thought as to the name of the high level military leader who stated the above. Answer will be sent on Friday.
Friday: Who stated the above quotes? Take another guess. Answer at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6289237.stm.
Call to save military hospitals
The former head of the British army has called on the government to maintain military hospitals.
In an interview on BBC Two's Newsnight, Sir Mike Jackson said personnel were "better off" in dedicated facilities.
Seven of the eight military hospitals have closed since a Tory government review in the early 1990s and the last in Haslar, Hants, will shut in 2009.
The government says military hospitals cannot match NHS specialised care which provides "top-quality treatment".
Sir Mike told Newsnight: "Soldiers who have been wounded, psychologically are far better off one with the other in the same ward under a military environment.
"That's their life, that's what they respond to. This is not easy to achieve under the present arrangements."
Asked if he thought it was a mistake to close military hospitals, Sir Mike said: "I'm afraid I do."
But he acknowledged the decision was taken at the end of Cold War and was based on clinical needs.
He said his opposition to the closure of military hospitals had always been "more of principle than of numbers".
"We ought to make a better effort to give soldiers who are wounded in the course of their duty, care and rehabilitation within the military environment if at all clinically possible," he said.
'World class'
Sir Mike's comments came after some veterans told Newsnight they did not feel they received adequate treatment at NHS hospitals.
A military-managed ward has recently been set up at Birmingham's Selly Oak Hospital.
But Veterans Minister Derek Twigg said there were no plans to re-establish military hospitals.
He said: "There isn't the (military) population now to justify military hospitals to ensure that our clinicians and nurses get the training and development they need to maintain skills that are needed today to treat and care for the injured service people."
He said there were military managers at every level of the NHS and an increasing number of military nurses.
He said soldiers and their families had talked very highly of treatment and care at Selly Oak.
"I'm very clear that in the operational theatre and places like Selly Oak our personnel are getting world class and top quality treatment," he added.
***
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Hey Bill OReilly read this it brings reality to the homeless vet
Vets: Back from the war but not home
Vetwork helps homeless veterans access services
BY JENNA O'DONNELL Staff Writer
Twenty years ago, Paul Kozak took a leave from his job to start a program to help fellow Vietnam veterans in Ocean County.
GLORIA STRAVELLI Above, Paul Kozak uses the Vetwork van to respond to calls about homeless veterans in need of assistance. At right, plants, books, DVDs and photos of family and his canine companions decorate the apartment of a formerly homeless veteran.
Kozak took a one-year leave of absence and never went back. Years later, that program has expanded and become Vetwork, a nonprofit organization that helps American veterans who find themselves homeless in Monmouth and Ocean counties.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, there may be as many as 6,500 homeless veterans in the state of New Jersey.
"I saw that there was a bigger need," said Kozak of his continued involvement with the program, which is well established in Ocean County but was lacking a Monmouth County base.
To reach veterans in Monmouth County, Vetwork needed an additional mobile van. That is how theMonmouth CountyAssociation of Realtors (MCAR) became involved.
"There was a need for a mobile office for vets in Monmouth County. When we heard about it, we felt it was something we would want to be a part of," said Jane Canlim, a Realtor with the Tinton Falls-based MCAR. "It was an eight-to-10 week project that the public relations committee ofMCAR took on."
The initiative began with a $20,000 grant fromtheOceanFirst Foundation that could be used toward the van ifMCAR raised the additional funds for the vehicle.
"It was really a win-win for both of us," Canlimsaid. "Alittle over $13,000was raised."
Thanks to the donations, Vetwork announced in January that it would be expanding services to provide homeless Monmouth County veteranswith emergency services from a rapid-responsemobile unit. To be eligible for services, the veteran must be a single male or female, honorably discharged, and willing to enter a VA transitional housing program, work-study programor detox/rehab facility.
Vetwork is a programsponsored by the notfor profit Vetgroup Inc., based in Forked River inOceanCounty. The programresponds to and helps veterans dealingwith homelessness, providing support services that include counseling, transportation to Veterans Administration health-care facilities, emergency shelter, food, clothing andmore.
Vetworkprovides services to allhonorablydischargedOcean County veterans, but with the help ofMCAR's fundraiser, will be able to expand services inMonmouth County.
"Our needs are growing," Kozak said. "We don't want to turn anyone away. The number of veterans who are in need continues to climb, especially as troops return home fromthe war. Currently, we are well equipped to provide essential services in Ocean County, but we have a real need in Monmouth County."
The priority for Vetwork, Kozak explained, is to provide immediate assistance to homeless veterans in the area. Whether that need is food, shelter or rehab, counselors are ready to assess the situation and provide veterans with the help that they need.
"There's really no way to know how many homeless vets there are,"Kozak said. "I address themas they come through my door.We had four guys in the last two weeks that are already in programs."
Joe, a 78-year-old veteran ofWorldWar II, is one example of a Vetwork success story.Although he had served his country and worked continuously over the years, Joe, who does not want his last name used, found himself living in motels, vans and the woods in and around Monmouth County for more than 30 years.
Sitting in his cozy, brightly decorated apartment in Brick recently, Joe rememberedmore than two decades of hardship during which his only home was a yellow van and his only companions, his two dogs.
"If itwasn't forVetwork," Joe said, "I probablywould have been dead."
Kozak recallsmeeting Joe back in 2005, at a timewhen he needed a place to recuperate fromsurgery.
"Iwas living in that van for 20 years," Joe said. "And Iwas working."
Joe,who has lived inNewJersey all his life, lost both of his parents at a young age, leaving him with little security. At the age of 19, he joined theU.S.Navy, inspired by patriotism, but in retrospect calls war a "necessary evil."
Upon returning from the service, Joe took up the family trade of tile work, a trade he continued to work at while homeless, but one which he said did not provide a secure source of income.
"[Tilework] was a good trade at one time," Joe said, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. "Some people do very well at it… but Iwasn't one of them. For awhile youwere busy and then there's no work, and before you know it, you can't keep up with the rents."
Joe cited rising rents, the lack of affordable housing, as themain reason for becoming homeless, despite the fact that he continued to work at his trade.
A lover of animals and nature, Joe has filled his apartment with colorful plants, photographs of his parents, and images of animals, including his beloved dogs.
His books, which Kozak recalls Joe would haul around with him during his "yellow van days," are now neatly stacked on shelves along the wall.
"It goes to showyou that a homeless person can live decent too," Joe remarked with pride.
Yet it took a lot of bad breaks and just a few good ones for Joe to get to where he is now, living comfortably in public housing.
"That kind of stuff didn't hold me back. Just likewith the homelessness, it happened. There it is - what are you gonna do about it?" he said.
However, when his van broke down and his dogs died, Joe described the nightmare of his years spent wandering and alone.
"I love nature, but I don'twant to live in it," Joe said. "Not under those conditions. I like a nice house, a nice apartment. The scariest thing in my life was when I first realized my truck was gone - that was my security - and thought, 'What amI going to do now?' "
Joe described the horror that he lived through during the two or three years that he spent living in thewoods following the loss of his van.
He described the fear of being alone and in the darkwithout a sense of direction or a point of reference.
"Here I amin the woods, in the dark. It was pitch black. I was lucky when it was warmweather, but I was in the freezing weather too. Sometimes I would walk into huge puddles or get tangled up in weeds. From the distance I could hear people talking and sometimes a gunshot would go off. Someone must have been hunting, and I wondered, am I going to get picked off out here? Iwas alone, Iwas all over, and I hated it. I hated everyminute of it."
Help finally came for Joe when someone made a call to Vetwork in 2005. He had been in an insurance office paying an insurance bill to keep his van on the road when a woman there found out about his situation. She reached out to social service agencies unsuccessfully, andwould later callVetwork on Joe's behalf.
By then it was a matter of life or death for Joe, who had been getting sick.
"I didn't knowmy way around as far as bureaucracy," Joe said. "I always just went out and went to work. But the van broke down and I didn't have the money to fix it and you couldn't go towork if you couldn't get there. Then I foundVetwork and they helpedme, gotme a pension, did a lot forme."
The people atVetwork also showed Joe something that he had never really found at social services or from the surrounding community: compassion.
"I was negative at first," Joe recalled. "I thought, 'They won't be able to help me.' But when I finally got to Vetwork, they offer you coffee…Imean, generosity, you know, instead of 'Oh, you creep, what are you doing here?' "
"Joewas pretty overwhelmed, too,"Kozak remarked. "He was under a lot of pressure at the time.He was being chased off the street.He needed an operation and he didn't knowhow to approach social services."
Vetwork was able to help Joe access services, getting him food and shelter, and treatment for his medical condition, as well as a pension and, finally, a home.
"For veterans 62 or over and below a certain income, we can get thema pension,"Kozak said. "In Joe's case,we signed himup for a pension, but this takes time."
In the interim, Vetwork provided Joe with food and housing until he was established with an income and an apartment.
When he was working, Joe had been unable to get help finding housing, butVetwork helped himto secure an income that, along with Social Security benefits, and his pension, is livable.
The first time he closed the door to his own apartment, Joe said he thought, "Hallelujah! I couldn't believe it."
It's been three years now that Joe has been living in his own apartment. Vetwork followed up for a while, but now, said Joe, "I've got the pension and I canmanage."
Joe's experiences have provided him with meaningful insight.
"All of these homeless people today, you can bet your bottom dollar that these people hate it like I did.Many of these people were forced out of their homes," Joe said.
Joe doesn't complain about his struggles and is proud that he managed to get through those tough years, but he is bitter about one thing: a society that accepts homelessness.
Hismessage is that homelessness should not exist at all.
"Don't accept homelessness.Don't accept it.Nobody should accept it.They should be out there raising hell about it. If they don't want to work, well, that's their business. But there are people that want to work and that are willing to work and I don't see why they should be without a home," he said.
"What does itmean when that other person is freezing to death out there? There has to be some heart, some compassion. If you don't have that, you're not going to have any feelings for anybody."
Joe also is indignant about the treatment ofwar veterans who end up on the streets,when they should be respected for their service.
"The veterans are coming back with no arms and no legs, and theywere healthywhen theywent into the service. They are over there laying down their lives and they should be treated different…they should be a priority!"
Vetwork'smission statement is exactly that. "We support those who served."
Paul Kozak and his associates continue to work to help veterans in the area and, in turn,Kozak said they appreciate the support of the community to help keep the programgoing.
More information on Vetwork can be found on the Web site, www.vetwork.org, or by calling (609) 971-7613.
Illinois Veteran Children can file for college scholarships
Children of Illinois veterans eligible for tuition waivers at University of Illinois campuses
by Emerald Morrow
Feb 13, 2008
As part of the state's observance of Lincoln’s Birthday this week, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn encouraged eligible students to apply for full-tuition scholarships to the University of Illinois.
The scholarships, six to be given in each of Illinois' 102 counties, are available to students with a parent who has served during wartime. They are good for a full tuition waiver at any University of Illinois campus. The waiver can be used for either undergraduate or graduate study and is applicable for four years.
Each scholarship will be awarded, in part, on the basis of a parent's involvement in conflicts including World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the two Gulf wars.
Students must be Illinois residents, and preference is given to children of deceased veterans, though students whose parents survived their wartime service are eligible. There is no age restriction on the scholarship.
No funds are set aside for the scholarship, as the award is a tuition waiver.
According to Elizabeth Austin, communications director for Quinn, the scholarship was first established for children of Illinois’ Civil War Veterans and has been consistently awarded since then.
March 1 is the deadline to apply for a scholarship for the school year beginning in fall 2008.
Applicants will be notified by April 1.
Find out more at www.standingupforillinois.org
