Timely article by Joe Galloway
Timely article by Joe Galloway
(For those that do not know and some of our widows in our groups may not; Mr. Galloway was the real reporter that was depicted in “We Were Soldiers Once.” The film with Mel Gibson about the first contact the US Army (1st Cavalry Division) had with the North Vietnamese Army in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam as the war in South Vietnam escalated under Johnson. Mr. Galloway is the only civilian that I know of that was decorated with a Bronze Star with V-device for Valor for his combat actions during that engagement. While I do not agree with all of his sentiments there is a lot to unite around especially in the earned benefits for not only our disabled and dying Veterans but also their widows as well for which Veterans and Widows alike have to fight. Fight our own entire government who is as tenacious as any enemy a US campaigning Army has ever faced. At least in some cases the enemy had honor; our government does not when it comes to Veterans Affairs.
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Support you nation 100% of the time and your government when they earn it. So far in 40 plus years for the Vietnam Veteran they have not and why we keep sending the same tired old politically corrupt folks back up there to do nothing to resolve our issues is the real question. Congress says there is little they can do with VA but I bet if they started filing criminal charges and filing with the attorney general it would help. Also if they got rid of the Feres Doctrine, which Congress allowed, then we could take care of the light work against Veterans Affairs in criminal charges ourselves.
So Congress do not say there is little you can do. It may require some guts but there is plenty you can do if the intestinal fortitude is available!
Anyway a timely sentiment and very appropriate in the highlighted sections.)
For What Did They Die?
By Joseph L. Galloway
November 11, 2008 - "McClatchy Newspapers" -- It is autumn, and the air is crisp and cool at night at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
It gets very quiet at The Wall around midnight. The tourists have gone home, and are all tucked into bed.
A homeless Vietnam veteran patrols the black granite panels. He tells us that he has cancer and is having a hard time getting any benefits from the Veterans Administration. He lives in a mission that houses those who have nowhere else to go, but the doors don't open until 11 p.m.
He sees my interest in Panel 3-East, the third panel to the east of the apex of the memorial, and he asks if I was there at the Ia Drang Valley battles that contributed 305 of the names that are on that panel. I nod, and he grows animated. "Oh, I know these guys well. Or at least I know their names." He begins calling the roll to prove it: "Henry T. Herrick, John Geoghegan, Willie Godboldt, Travis Poss, Carl Palmer, Wilbur Curry, Thomas C. Metsker . . . ."
Twenty, then 30 of the names trip off his lips. "I tell people about them when they ask."
So do I..
We slip a few bucks into his hand for something to eat and he wanders off into the night, heading for the mission and a cot where he can rest his head until 7 a.m., when he and the other homeless are shooed out to begin another day of waiting for something good, finally, to happen to them.
I hope that he lives long enough to collect some benefits and get some medical help from the VA, although given the 6- 8-month backlog in processing veterans' claims, there's no guarantee that he will.
I stand before Panel 3-East and slowly scan those names, remembering their stories, their hometowns, their wives and children, remembering, too, how and where they died and what it all means.
Did they die so that a brother veteran can die waiting in line for a little help from the nation that sent them all off to war in the prime of their youth?
Did they die so that four decades later, an American president and his cronies could start another needless war in a far-off land, a war that to date has dragged on almost as long as the one they fought in Southeast Asia?
Did they die so that wounded veterans of that war could come home to a lot of "Welcome Home" greetings and a lot of "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers, but facing the same fight that America's veterans have always faced when they try to get treatment and benefits from our Army and our Veterans Administration?
Did they die so that an administration full of draft dodgers and draft avoiders and almost bereft of anyone who ever wore a uniform or heard a shot fired in anger could prance around presenting themselves as wartime leaders?
Did they die so that 10,000 craven politicians could stand on bandstands and make speeches full of empty praise for those who protect and defend this country and make empty promises of how they guarantee that our wounded, our new veterans, will be treated better than their fathers and grandfathers were when they came home from their wars?
The men and women who wear the uniform today are, many of them, on their fourth or fifth combat tours in Afghanistan or Iraq. They and their families do all the suffering and sacrificing for the rest of us.
Meanwhile over in the Pentagon, the bean counters run their computers and come up with the good news: The economic meltdown in America, the growing ranks of the unemployed, the complete lack of work or prospect of a decent future in the rural and urban backwaters of a great nation make for a boom in enlistments in our voluntary military.
If you sign on the bottom line because you have no other alternative, no other way out of nowhereville, are you really a volunteer?
The bands will play, and the old veterans will march proudly and the politicians will run their mouths this Veterans Day, just as they do every Veterans Day.
And the 400,000 dead of World War II and the 40,000 dead of Korea and the 58,260 dead of Vietnam and the 4,500 dead of Iraq and Afghanistan will rest silent and uneasy under the modest white marble tombstones that a grateful nation has provided them free of charge.
Across town, an old and ailing veteran of one of those wars will line up tonight for a cot in a mission and wonder whether he can live long enough to collect from the bureaucrats what we owe him.
On Army posts around the nation, the battalions and brigades and divisions are either just coming home after a year or more at war while other battalions and brigades are just saying their goodbyes and heading back out on their third or fourth or fifth deployments.
"Where have all the flowers gone?
Gone for soldiers, every one.
When will they ever learn?"
Joe Galloway is the only reporter that has earned the respect of the Army Cav unit, he earned it in the La Drang valley where he was awarded the Bonze Star for valor in combat, he is a soldier. Go to the website and listen to the music as you read the article.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Timely article by Joe Galloway
Veterans' stigma of mental illness
Veterans' stigma of mental illness
By Linda Rosenberg
Article Launched: 11/09/2008 10:17:16 PM PST
WHEN Chris Hill was honorably discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1982, he made sure to remove the medical records in his permanent file about his visits to a psychiatrist. Hill, who was experiencing severe anxiety attacks, was afraid to be labeled as a veteran with psychiatric problems.
"I was embarrassed about it at the time," says Hill, who now works as a mental health counselor for the Jefferson Center for Mental Health in Jefferson County, CO. "There was a stigma in my own mind about it being bad to get psychiatric help. As a Marine, I didn't want to appear weak."
Research shows that Hill's trepidation about receiving psychiatric care is not unique among members of the Armed Forces. A 2004 study of 6,000 military men and women involved in ground combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan found that of those whose responses indicated a mental health problem, only 23 to 40 percent sought psychiatric help. Many who did not seek treatment cited fear of being stigmatized as a reason.
After leaving the Marines, Hill struggled with alcohol, attempted suicide and says he "lost every material thing I ever owned." Hitting bottom taught him he had to deal with his alcoholism and depression, and he finally began psychiatric counseling.
For the thousands of veterans like Chris Hill who return home with physical and mental scars, their wounds can present particular challenges for years to come. The wars overseas rarely make front page news
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these days, but the wars still loom large for families left behind during tours of duty and dealing with the war's aftermath in the form of veterans returning with posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.
Nearly 300,000 veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from either posttraumatic stress or depression, according to a recent study by the RAND Corporation. The Department of Veterans Affairs says mental health is the second largest area of illness for veterans of these wars.
Some of these troubled veterans seek help from a network of community mental health centers nationwide. These centers' deep roots in the community make them well suited to counsel veterans by engaging churches, synagogues, schools and other community stalwarts to become involved in a holistic approach that treats the veteran's entire family.
Soon more veterans may be able to receive counseling from community-based organizations. On Oct. 10, President Bush signed "The Veterans Mental Health and Other Care Improvements Act of 2008" into law. The new law directs the Veterans Administration (VA) to contract with community-based healthcare organization to provide mental health services in rural areas in which access to VA services is inadequate.
But we should not expect mental health professionals to go it alone.
Everyone has a role to play to help veterans overcome the stigma of mental illness. A few easy ways to help veterans overcome the stigma of mental illness include:
Talk about your family's experiences with mental illnesses and addictions as you would about other medical conditions. Mental illnesses and addictions need to come fully out of the closet.
Decide to become literate about mental illnesses and addictions. Read and ask questions about these conditions and look for courses on mental health literacy in your community.
Support veterans groups and your local mental health center's efforts to make mental health and addictions treatment available in every community.
On this Veterans Day, whether we are a veteran, family member, friend, co-worker or simply a concerned citizen, we all need to make sure we continue to fight the stigma attached to seeking mental health treatment.
We need to do go the extra yard to ensure that veterans who may be suffering from mental illnesses receive the help they need.
Linda Rosenberg is president and CEO, National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare
Soldiers often struggle with unseen war injuries
Soldiers often struggle with unseen war injuries
They are the scars and wounds of combat that we can't see.
For many veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, their injuries are psychological and emotional.
These men and women return home with no physical wounds. But their psyches are damaged from the pain and despair that comes from living too close to death and in constant fear.
They see friends blown apart by roadside bombs. They witness children maimed and killed at military checkpoints. They find battered bodies strewn about like bags of trash. They see things no one should witness, and things no one can ever forget. These soldiers worry that they may be the next casualty of war. When is their number up?
The lucky ones make it home safe and sound -- at least physically.
But for some, the war still rages on in their minds. Car alarms send them diving for cover. A whiff of a chemical jolts flashbacks to battlefields. They awaken at night in cold sweats and panic from recurring nightmares of the hell they endured on repeat tours in combat.
Most of these brave veterans are able to put the horrors of war behind them and lead relatively normal civilian lives.
But too many of them can't forget. They want to, but their scarred minds won't allow it. So they turn to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain. They are quick to anger and start fights, often with spouses or family. They suffer depression and divorce. They lose jobs, go into debt and commit crimes.
For too many, their only escape from the unbearable private torment is suicide.
Call it post-traumatic stress disorder, battle fatigue or mental illness, it's a growing problem of our long wars and repeat tours of duty in the Middle East.
Nearly 15 percent of overall U.S. military casualties result from suicide, say studies and military officials. On average, there are 18 suicides a day among America's 25 million veterans, according to statistics.
Experts acknowledge that veterans are nearly twice as likely to commit suicide as people who have never served in combat. A study by the Rand Corp. found that roughly one in five veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a common denominator in suicides among military veterans.
The armed services and Veterans Administration are aware of the problems and have set up counseling programs, suicide prevention hot lines and advertising campaigns to inform homecoming veterans of available help.
But all the programs in the world won't do any good if veterans don't know about them or won't use them.
"The military releases these (veterans) who need help, but there is no follow-up or attempt to get them help," says Michael Lehmann, a counselor in the Elmira office of the New York State Division of Veterans Affairs. "They're released and that's that."
That's why the Veterans Administration has launched a national suicide prevention awareness program featuring the slogan: "It takes the courage and strength of a warrior to ask for help."
That slogan is important, as the Rand study found that some 300,000 people who served in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.
That's why representatives from the Veterans Administration in Bath are going door to door, visiting returning veterans.
"If we know where you live, we'll come visit you," Lehmann says. "But we often don't know these veterans are coming home or where they live. So we're beating the bush trying to find them and get them to come in and talk to us. If they don't have any problems, fine. But if they do, we want to get them the help they need."
Too often, hurting veterans don't seek that help because they can't get past the "warrior code" that trained them to be tough, brave and self-reliant. They believe that seeking counseling or even antidepressants are a sign of weakness.
Even worse, they fear that acknowledging a mental health problem and seeking help could jeopardize their military careers.
So they avoid professional treatment and try to tough it out, or more commonly, self-medicate with binge drinking and illegal drugs to quiet their demons.
Drugs and alcohol are often the first stumbling steps into a hole that too often ends in suicide.
"It's not a sign of weakness to seek help," says Karen Aikman, the suicide prevention coordinator for the Bath VA Medical Center. "It's a sign of strength that they realize they need help.
"Veterans need to understand that they have earned the right to access to mental health treatment."
We need to do more for our veterans. It begins with the armed services telling their combatants that it's all right to seek mental health counseling. Even more important, the military branches need to screen homeward-bound veterans for mental problems and make sure that those who need help get it.
I often see bumper stickers and signs that say "support our troops."
But those signs and slogans don't mean much if we stop caring about our troops when they return home.
As we prepare to honor and celebrate another Veterans Day, we need to give pause and thoughts to the warriors who come home but can't escape the war.
They are the casualties of battle we don't often hear about.
Jim Pfiffer's Real Life column about people, places and life in the Twin Tiers appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Contact him at (607) 271-8277 or jpfiffer@gannett.com.
US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are being exposed to toxic chemicals that pose serious health risks
US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are being exposed to toxic chemicals that pose serious health risks
iraq-afghanistan-veterans-health
What does a war injury look like? In the case of Iraq, we tend to picture veterans bravely getting on with their lives with the help of steel legs or computerised limbs. Trauma injuries are certainly the most visible of health problems – the ones that grab our attention. A campaign ad for congressman Tom Udall featured an Iraq war veteran who had survived a shot to his head. Speaking through the computer that now substitutes for his voice, Sergeant Erik Schei extols the top-notch care that saved his life.
As politicians argue about healthcare for veterans, it is generally people like Sgt Schei that they have in mind, men and women torn apart by a bullet or bomb. And of course, these Iraq war veterans must receive the best care available for such complex and catastrophic injuries.
Unfortunately, the dangers of modern war extend far beyond weapons. As Iraqis know only too well, areas of Iraq today are among the most polluted on the planet – so toxic that merely to live, eat and sleep (never mind to fight) in these zones is to risk death. Thousands of soldiers coming home from the war may have been exposed to chemicals that are known to cause cancers and neurological problems. What's most tragic is that the veterans themselves do not always realise that they are in danger from chemical poisoning. Right now, there is no clear way for Iraq war veterans to find out what they've been exposed to and where to get help.
In October, the Military Times reported on the open-air pits on US bases in Iraq, where troops incinerate tons of waste. Because of such pits, tens of thousands of soldiers may be breathing air contaminated with burning Freon, jet fuel and other carcinogens. According to reports, soldiers are coughing up blood or the black goop that has been nicknamed "plume crud".
In other cases, soldiers may have been exposed to poisons spread during efforts to restore Iraq's infrastructure. In 2003, for instance, members of the Indiana national guard were put in charge of protecting a water-treatment plant. They were told not to worry about the bright orange dust lying in piles around the plant, swirling in the air and gathering in the folds of their uniforms. In fact, Indiana soldiers spent weeks or months in a wasteland contaminated with sodium dichromate. The chemical, made famous after its role as the villain in the movie Erin Brockovich, is used to peel corrosion off of water pipes. It is a carcinogen that attacks the lungs and sinuses.
Today, a decade and a half after the first Gulf war, we know that such exposure may lead to widespread suffering. In 1991, veterans began to exhibit fatigue, fevers, rashes, joint pain, intestinal problems, memory loss, mood swings and even cancers, a cluster of symptoms and conditions referred to now as Gulf war syndrome (or illness). For years, the US department of defence maintained that stress caused the veterans' symptoms. Veterans groups blamed war-related toxins. This year, the National Academy of Sciences published an extensive review of years of scientific study of Gulf war illness that concluded a cause and effect relationship existed between the widespread illnesses among veterans and exposure to powerful neurotoxins. Complementing the US studies is an emerging body of epidemiological data linking increased incidence of Iraqi cancer, birth defects, infant mortality and multi-system diseases to toxic exposure.
Strangely enough, though, there has been almost no discussion of whether today's soldiers – those fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan – have also been injured by wartime poisons. We don't have a word yet for the constellation of cancers, psychological ills and systemic diseases that may be caused by toxins in today's wars.
In order to care for our veterans, we must do more than offer state-of-the-art hospitals and high-tech prosthetics. Veterans will need information about what poisons they have breathed or touched or drunk and when.
What would such an effort look like? First the military would need to disclose all known incidents of toxic exposure. Then it would have to reach out to veterans and give them information about how to receive care for conditions that arise from this exposure.
This summer, senator Evan Bayh made a first stab at such a system. Bayh pushed the national guard to track down hundreds of those Indiana soldiers who may have breathed orange dust back in 2003. Most of the soldiers are now civilians scattered across the US, unaware that they are at high risk for lung cancer and other respiratory diseases. Some of them may already be struggling with illness. The national guard is making an effort to search for these veterans and provide them with a phone number to call in order to seek medical help.
That's a good first step. But what about all the other veterans who believe that they have returned home from the war healthy? Without knowing it, they may be carrying a small bomb inside them.
And they have a right to know.
Agent Orange Victims Share Tales of Chemical's Poisonous Legacy
also see: More About Agent Orange
article below
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/28762/
Agent Orange Victims Share Tales of Chemical's Poisonous Legacy
Friday, June 06, 2008 :
By Michele Byrd - At age 19, Dan Wilson packed his bags and left St. Louis for the U.S. Army, and life as a soldier in Vietnam. It was a decision that would change his life.
Washington, D.C. - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - infoZine - Vietnam is a land known for jungles, but during his last eight months there, Wilson lived where there was nothing green at all.
"There was no grass," he said. "There were several thousand acres of dust when it didn't rain and mud when it did."
Neither he nor his fellow soldiers knew they were living, eating and drinking in a toxic wasteland.
The area had been sprayed with Agent Orange, a weed killer used by U.S. forces in Vietnam to destroy the jungle that provided cover for enemies. It contained dioxin, a toxic agent that can cause reproduction problems, birth defects, cancer and other diseases.
Now 60, Wilson suffers from illnesses linked to his exposure to Agent Orange more than 40 years ago.
He lives with Type 2 diabetes and peripheral neuropathy, a painful condition that affects the nerve-endings.
"It starts with pain, then it's a burning, then you lose all sensation," he said.
He also lives with Agent Orange-related mental illness that often leaves him depressed and unable to work or drive.
Like Wilson, more than 400,000 U.S. veterans say they suffer from Agent Orange-related illnesses, and what's worse to many is they don't think they are getting the help they deserve.
According to the Department of Veteran Affairs, approximately 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other equally or more harmful substances dubbed with the rainbow of names Agent White, Agent Purple, Agent Blue and Agent Pink were used in Vietnam over nine years. Out of the 3 million soldiers who served in Vietnam, nearly half were there during the heaviest spraying. Between 2 million and 4 million American soldiers and Vietnamese residents were sprayed with Agent Orange and other defoliants.
The diseases linked to herbicide exposure include prostate cancer, respiratory cancer, Type 2 diabetes, soft tissue sarcomas, peripheral neuropathy and more.
At a hearing May 15 before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, experts and veterans urged the government to do more for the victims of the chemical's poisonous legacy.
Richard Weidman, executive director for policy and government affairs for Vietnam Veterans of America, testified that the U.S. government is not doing enough to help American victims of Agent Orange.
"There's not a single Agent Orange study being conducted by the VA, the Department of Defense, the EPA or the National Institutes of Health," he said, in a phone interview Monday. "That can't be an accident since the rest of the world is concerned with dioxin."
However, Dr. Mark Brown, the VA's director of the environmental agents service, said that is not true.
"It's not fair to say we're doing nothing," he said.
Brown said the VA has spent millions of dollars on three studies that can be applied to Agent Orange victims. The first is an ongoing mortality study that tracks the rates at which veterans are dying as well as their causes of their deaths. The second is studying women veterans' health. The third is a what is called a "dose reconstruction study" that will attempt to relate veterans' exposure to Agent Orange to diseases later in life.
Weidman said these studies are flawed. He said the studies are looking only at those most directly exposed and not those who were exposed later through water and soil.
Weidman said that, without better research, there will continue to be insufficient scientific evidence to back up veterans' claims.
"It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," he said.
Bob Haynes, 59, of McHenry, Ill., was exposed to Agent Orange during Army service in South Korea. The U.S. government sprayed Agent Orange along the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea in the 1960s when Haynes served there.
He retired from his job as an engineering manager at a large corporation in October 2006 because of health complications, including post traumatic stress syndrome.
"I have Type 2 diabetes, peripheral neuropathy and PTSD," he said.
He is approved for benefits through the VA and helps other veterans get their claims through the department, but he said the process is daunting.
"I feel like it's a waiting game with the VA and the Department of Defense. They deny claims and make you appeal and appeal and appeal," he said. "They hope you die off so they don't have to pay you."
The VA contends that many veterans wait for help because of lapsed time between exposure and illness.
"Any time this much time has passed, it's hard," said Jim Benson, a department spokesman.
The legacy of Agent Orange exposure is not restricted to veterans who served in Southeast Asia. The effects can show up in the veterans' children and grandchildren. Deformed and intellectually challenged children are born frequently in Vietnam, where people still live in Agent Orange-contaminated environments, but the children of American veterans also suffer the consequences.
"It destroys the genetic code," said Mokie Porter, director of communications at the VVA.
Dioxin accumulates in fatty tissue, where it can stay for months or years. According to the World Health Organization, a developing fetus is most sensitive to dioxin exposure.
Linda May, 60, of Clinton Township, Mich., was married to "buck sergeant" Lawrence Shaffer, an Air Force mechanic who worked on planes that sprayed Agent Orange.
The couple had a son, Steven, in 1982, who was born with Cornelia de Lange syndrome. The disease, named after the Dutch pediatrician who first documented it, is a genetic disorder that affects both physical and intellectual development. Steven also had spina bifida, incomplete development of the spinal cord. Spina bifida is on the list of birth defects presumed to be caused by Agent Orange exposure; Cornelia de Lange syndrome is not.
"People whose parents were never in Vietnam developed Cornelia de Lange, but my pediatrician thought it was possible that he developed it because of exposure to dioxin," she said.
May's pediatrician was Edward Maliszewski, a special forces veteran of Vietnam who also had a doctorate in genetics.
"He wanted to do a study on the children of Vietnam veterans since he had so many of them in his practice and anecdotally observed a higher incidence of problems in them as opposed to children whose parents were not in Vietnam," May said.
Maliszewski never got a chance to do the study. He died of diabetes complications at age 40.
Steven died in 1998.
May said she believes her son's medical conditions were a result of his father's exposure to dioxin.
"I do, absolutely - and there's a good chance it causes miscarriages too," she said, recounting women she saw miscarry during marriages to Vietnam veterans, who later had healthy babies after remarrying.
"Looking at the government's response to Vietnam veterans' children, it just makes me think they can't admit that Agent Orange causes birth defects. It would cause a flood effect of people wanting compensation," May said.
Some veterans, widows and their children are bringing attention to the experiences of Agent Orange victims through a project called the Quilt of Tears. Jennie Lefevre founded the project in 2000. Her husband, Gerald Lefevre, was a crew chief on a plane that sprayed dioxin. After his death from cancer, Jennie Lefevre made a quilt in his honor, and the project blossomed.
The Quilt of Tears is a traveling memorial of several bright orange quilts that feature patches in honor of those who have become sick or died from Agent Orange exposure. May made a patch for her son, Steven. Wilson also has a patch on one of the quilts.
Sheila and Henry Snyder took over the project as president and vice president after Jennie Lefevre's death in 2004.
Henry Snyder was an Army recovery vehicle operator in Vietnam. He returned to the U.S. in 1969 after a year of service.
"When we got home, we started getting sick," Snyder said.
He has been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, glaucoma and respiratory problems, all of which he thinks are linked to his exposure to the poisonous herbicide.
"We don't hold the government responsible for using it, but they should have stepped up sooner and recognized the diseases. We would go back in the military if they asked us, but I think we're getting too old," he said, with a laugh.
Wilson said given the chance to do it all over again, he would.
"I would go back, because despite what my country has become, I still believe in it," he said.
An Agent Orange quilt was on display in Washington over Memorial Day weekendAgent Orange Article
Promoting Opportunities for Veterans
Promoting Opportunities for Veterans
For much of America, affirmative action may be out of favor when it comes to race and gender. But it is enshrined in law for veterans.
Just before Office of Personnel Management staffers took Veterans Day off, they issued this reminder: “Most departments and agencies in the Federal Government are required to have an affirmative action program for the recruitment, employment, and advancement of disabled veterans. The law requires agencies to develop annual Disabled Veterans Affirmative Action Program (DAP) Plans.”
The agency reports describe “efforts to promote the maximum employment and job advancement opportunities for disabled veterans as well as certain veterans of the Vietnam era and of the post-Vietnam era,” according to OPM.
Below are some facts and figures regarding the employment of veterans in fiscal year 2007. The entire report can be found here.
Total employment in the federal government increased from 1,803,055 in FY 2006 to 1,811,459 in FY 2007.
Veterans, as a percentage of all employees, increased from 25.4 percent in FY 2006 to 25.5 percent in FY 2007.
Veterans, as a subset of the total employment, increased from 457,965 in FY 2006 to 462,744 in FY 2007.
Disabled veterans, as a percentage of the total employment, increased from 5.4 percent in FY 2006 to 5.7 percent in FY 2007.
Disabled veterans, as a subset of the total veteran employment, increased from 97,828 in FY 2006 to 103,180 in FY 2007.
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Remember if you are a totally disabled veteran, then your spouse is entitled by law to use your ten point hiring preference to jump to the head of the hiring list in federal job opportunities, if you got it USE it
On Veterans Day, Don't Forget About the War
On Veterans Day, Don't Forget About the War
By Aaron Glantz
November 10, 2008
War in Iraq has disappeared from the headlines. The ongoing economic crisis has Americans looking inward, wondering if they can keep their homes and their jobs, with little interest in death and destruction half a world away. According to the Pew Research Center, media coverage of the war has plummeted from an average of 15 percent of stories in July 2007, to 3 percent this February, to just 2 percent of stories during the last week of October.
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The war also disappeared as an issue in the presidential campaign. Both Barack Obama and John McCain barely mentioned the war in Iraq in their final debate. In his historic victory speech, Obama said "Iraq" only once. Some say the election results show Americans demanding a "change," and in many ways they do. But they also show a collective desire to forget.
Most Americans want to put the war behind them, but this feeling is based not on a coherent critique but on a kind of collective exhaustion. In many ways, we as a country find ourselves in a mood like the one towards the end of the Vietnam War: we are tired and simply want to move on and forget the conflict ever happened.
Yet this feeling can come at a great cost, because it is this same dynamic that led to the betrayal of more than three million Vietnam veterans.
"When I go through airports I see soldiers just sitting up against a wall...by themselves," says therapist and Vietnam veteran Shad Meshad, who heads up the National Veterans Foundation. "No one goes up to them; that positive energy toward them has faded. No one is spitting or shouting, but they're still left with the fact that they're responsible for what they did or didn't do, and they're supposed to think about that alone."
Given the experience of Vietnam vets, Meshad believes that the American people ignore their veterans at their own peril. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, eighteen veterans commit suicide every day and 200,000 sleep homeless on the streets on any given night. By 1986, the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey reported that almost half of all male Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder had been arrested or jailed at least once--34.2 percent had been jailed more than once, and 11.5 percent had been convicted of a felony.
"We're going to repeat that same thing, I can sense it," Meshad says, "if we don't take action and Congress doesn't create services to help these folks over the next ten or fifteen years."
Indeed, there are already many signs that history is repeating itself. Consider the implications of an April 2008 survey by the Rand Corporation; it found that a majority of the 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder and of the 320,000 with traumatic brain injury are not receiving help from the Pentagon and VA medical systems. In its study, Rand noted that the federal government fails to care for war veterans at its own peril--noting PTSD and TBI "can have far-reaching and damaging consequences."
"Individuals afflicted with these conditions face higher risks for other psychological problems and for attempting suicide. They have higher rates of unhealthy behaviors--such as smoking, overeating, and unsafe sex--and higher rates of physical health problems and mortality. Individuals with these conditions also tend to miss more work or report being less productive," the report said. "These conditions can impair relationships, disrupt marriages, aggravate the difficulties of parenting, and cause problems in children that may extend the consequences of combat trauma across generations."
"These consequences can have a high economic toll," the report continued. "However, most attempts to measure the costs of these conditions focus only on medical costs to the government. Yet, direct costs of treatment are only a fraction of the total costs related to mental health and cognitive conditions. Far higher are the long-term individual and societal costs stemming from lost productivity, reduced quality of life, homelessness, domestic violence, the strain on families, and suicide. Delivering effective care and restoring veterans to full mental health have the potential to reduce these longer-term costs significantly."
There is hope in this story, though.
When Barack Obama takes the oath of office on January 20, America will have a President who has shown an interest in and commitment to caring for America's veterans. As a senator, Obama supported increased funding for the VA and an expanded GI Bill. His campaign platform sounded all the right notes about increasing the number of mental health providers, reforming the government's bureaucratic disability-claims system, and increasing the number of Vet Centers, where returning veterans can find community as they make the difficult transition from war to civilian life.
But taking those steps will require hard work and support from the public that amounts to more than just lip service to "supporting the troops." We must stay engaged on the issue of Iraq and our government's treatment of its veterans and create an atmosphere where a repeat of the tragedy that followed the Vietnam War will not be tolerated. If we don't, Barack Obama may follow our lead and rush quickly past the veteran who's sleeping homeless on the street.
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About Aaron Glantz
Independent journalist Aaron Glantz reported extensively from Iraq from 2003-05 and has been covering the stories of American military veterans since his return. He is author of How America Lost Iraq (Penguin) and the forthcoming War Comes Home (UC Press). He edits the website www.warcomeshome.org, a project of radio station KPFA-FM. more...
