Senate Passes Veterans Bill
Week of May 05, 2008 
The Senate recently passed S. 1315, the Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act of 2007, by a vote of 96 - 1. The act includes provisions to: (1) establish a new program of insurance for service-connected disabled veterans; (2) expand eligibility for retroactive benefits from traumatic injury protection coverage under Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance; (3) increase the maximum amount of Veterans' Mortgage Life Insurance that a service-connected disabled veteran may purchase; (4) provide individuals with severe burn injuries specially adapted housing benefits; and (5) extend the monthly educational assistance allowance for apprenticeship or other on-the-job training to two years. The bill now moves to the House of Representatives.  

Department of Labor Issues Report
Week of May 05, 2008 

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its biennial report, "The Employment Situation of Veterans: 2007." The BLS report states that the unemployment rate for veterans who have served since September 2001 is 6.1 percent. Veterans who are current or past members of the National Guard or Reserve, who served since September 2001, had a lower unemployment rate of just 2.6 percent. The report is available at the BLS' website. For more information on all the veterans' employment programs offered by the Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS), visit the VETS website.  

VA Seeks More Volunteers
Week of May 05, 2008 
The Department of Veterans Affairs is encouraging more Americans to join its corps of 85,000 volunteers. The volunteers are involved in helping VA medical staff in hospices, outpatient clinics and home-based programs. Volunteers are also active at many of the 125 national cemeteries managed by the VA, where they place flags on gravesites, provide military honors and help with landscaping. Volunteers are also important in programs that reach out to homeless veterans, including annual "stand downs" held in many communities to provide health check ups, clothing, and benefits assistance to the homeless. To become a volunteer, contact your nearest VA facility, or complete a form at the VA Voluntary Service webpage.  

 Bush Threatens Veto Over GI Bill Adds
May 02, 2008
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush and Democrats controlling Congress continued on course toward a veto confrontation as Bush said he would veto any attempt to add a popular veteran benefits bill to his $108 billion war funding request.

Bush's hard line in a Rose Garden news conference April 29 could virtually assure a veto of the hotly contested war funding bill. Democrats are likely to add extended unemployment benefits and new education funding for post-Sept. 11 veterans to the war funding bill, along with a few other add-ons.

When asked about the popular plan to increase education benefits for troops returning from Iraq, however, Bush held firm.

"I made my position very clear to Congress and I will not accept a supplemental over $108 billion or a supplemental that micromanages the war, ties the hands of our commanders," Bush said. "We will work with Congress on these veterans' benefits .... But the $108 billion is $108 billion."

The hard line came as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other top congressional leaders held a rally for the Iraq war veterans measure on the West Front of the Capitol.

Several conservative Republicans joined the rally on behalf of the legislation, which would greatly increase college education benefits for veterans to cover tuition and fees at most public universities. That would, on average, double college aid for veterans to about $12,000 per year.

"We are very close to pulling it off," said Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., the chief sponsor on the legislation, alluding to a plan by Democratic leaders to add the veterans measure to the war funding bill.

"I hope it's in there, but we haven't decided for sure yet," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Democratic leaders still appear to be struggling over how to handle the war funding measure, which exposes fault lines within the party and is a management nightmare for Pelosi and Reid.

The measure - which could grow to $178 billion or more if Democrats add on Bush's 2009 war funding request - is coming together in a remarkably secret process dominated by Pelosi and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis.

Despite the huge cost to taxpayers and prior promises to make the House more open and fair in its operations, Obey and Pelosi have said virtually nothing about their plans for the bill. Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., says it appears that under current plans, Republicans and rank and file lawmakers would be shut out of any opportunity to offer changes to the bill, which Democratic leaders hope to pass next week.

Democrats have devised a complicated procedure for considering the measure in which lawmakers would be forced to vote on three components: the war funding, Democratic policy language restricting war operations, and a package of domestic add-ons like unemployment insurance and the increase in education benefits for veterans.

Another likely Democratic add-on is a $12.7 billion plan to give 13 more weeks of unemployment checks to people whose benefits have run out and 13 weeks beyond that in states with especially high unemployment rates. Democrats are also considering adding $6 billion worth of tax incentives for renewable energy sources such as wind and biofuels.

Those add-ons, and a few other items such as money to combat wildfires, would guarantee a Bush veto.

 $75M Grant to Provide Housing
Week of April 28, 2008
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a grant of $75 million to provide permanent housing for an estimated 10,000 homeless veterans nationwide. HUD's Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program (HUD-VASH) will provide local public housing agencies with approximately 10,000 rental assistance vouchers specifically targeted to assist homeless veterans in their area. In addition, the VA and HUD will link local public housing agencies with VA Medical Centers to provide supportive services and case management to eligible homeless veterans. New York City and the greater-Los Angeles area will receive the greatest number of vouchers.

 The American Veteran Program
Week of April 28, 2008

Programs that help veterans returning to civilian life, especially after a combat tour, are the focus of the April edition of "The American Veteran," the Department of Veterans Affairs' monthly half-hour news magazine. The program's broadcast schedule on The Pentagon Channel is available on the Pentagon Channel website. The VA Office of Public Affairs also makes the program available for viewing on the VA website just click on "Public Affairs" and then "Featured Items." For information about "The American Veteran" program and how to obtain it for local programming, contact VA at 202-461-7502.

 VA Sued Over Care, High Suicide Rates
April 23, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - Roughly 18 U.S. veterans commit suicide every week, advocates told a federal judge April 21 in San Francisco, blaming the United States government for doing such a bad job of caring for wounded war veterans.

"The suicide problem is out of control," said Gordon Erspamer, an attorney representing the groups Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth in a class action lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs. "Our veterans deserve better."

Erspamer's comments came in opening arguments for what is expected to be a week-long trial, the first class action brought on behalf of 1.7 million Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

Early arguments were punctuated by allegations that top government officials deliberately deceived the U.S. public about the number of veterans attempting suicide.

An e-mail made public during the trial revealed that the head of the VA's Mental Health division, Dr. Ira Katz, advised a media representative not to tell reporters that 1,000 veterans receiving care at the VA try to kill themselves every month.

"Shh!" the e-mail begins.

"Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" the e-mail concludes.

According to CBS News, Katz's email was written shortly after the VA provided the network with data showing there were only 790 attempted suicides in all of 2007 -- a fraction of Katz's estimate.

Earlier this month, the city of Dallas, Texas, closed its psychiatric unit after the hospital experienced its fourth suicide of the year.

"On April 4, a man fastened a bed sheet to the bottom corner of a door frame, draped a noose over the top, and hanged himself," the Dallas Morning News reported last week. "Before that, a veteran hanged himself on a frame attached to his wheelchair. And in January, two men who met in the psychiatric ward committed suicide in Collin County days after being released."

"The system is in crisis, and unfortunately the VA is in denial," Erspamer told the court, urging U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti to appoint a special master to oversee the troubled agency. The veterans groups are also seeking a judge's order forbidding the VA from turning away any veteran who shows up at a facility seeking mental health care.

In a number of high-profile cases, Iraq war veterans have killed themselves after being turned away from the VA.

Lawyers for the government disagreed strongly with the veterans, claiming that the VA runs a "world-class health care system." Multiple times during his opening statement, Justice Department lawyer Richard Lepley portrayed the veterans' groups as "special interests" and argued the changes the groups seek in their lawsuit -- better and faster mental health care, and more rights for veterans appealing denials of benefits -- are beyond the judge's authority.

"You have no standards to judge," Lepley told Conti. "This court shouldn't be trying to be a substitute for what the medical professionals at the VA decide."

No veterans are set to testify at the trial, which focuses on the nature of the Byzantine bureaucratic system that veterans must navigate to receive health care and disability benefits. According the Department of Veterans Affairs, the average time a veteran must wait to learn if his or her disability claim has been approved is 185 days, or about six months.

Veterans' groups have asserted that the real wait is much longer, noting that if a veteran appeals the disability ruling, the appeals process can drag on for years. According to internal VA documents provided by the plaintiffs, 526 veterans have died this year while their disability claims were being reviewed.

None of this surprises Kelly Conklin of Chunchula, Ala.

Her husband Manuel became wheelchair-bound after experiencing a negative reaction to an anthrax vaccine administered as he was preparing to deploy to Iraq with the U.S. Navy in 2003. Military doctors pumped him with steroids and other medicine in hopes that he would recover, Conklin said, but in 2005 she came to realize that a recovery was unlikely, so she filed a claim with the VA for disability compensation.

After three years, the family is still waiting.

"It's an every day battle," Kelly Conklin said. "We're having grits and eggs for supper tonight and a lot of nights. Sometimes we don't eat anything but lima beans for supper -- it depends on what we have."

In the absence of a regular paycheck or a disability check, Conklin said her family of four is now living almost completely off charity, with much of the food they eat coming from the local food bank.

She said she used to be proud of her husband for his service in the Navy but has now forbidden her youngest son from joining the Armed Forces.

"If it sounds like I'm down -- yes I am down," she said. "If I sound like I'm bitter, you got that right. They've taken everything away from me. The only thing left for them to take from me is my birthday."

"When we give them our spouses, we give them whole," she said. "And if you can't make him whole [again], then you make sure he's taken care of."

 Akaka Introduces Vets Compensation Bill
April 09, 2008
U.S. Senate Committee On VA Affairs
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI), Chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, introduced legislation to provide a minimum compensation level for veterans whose service-connected injuries require continuous medication or adaptive devices, such as hearing aids.

"Today, veterans who suffer a service-connected injury that requires continual medication or adaptive devices, like hearing aids, may not receive any disability compensation payments. It is important that all of these veterans be compensated in a fair and equitable manner. Veterans with similar disabilities should receive similar benefits," said Akaka.

The Veterans' Compensation Equity Act of 2008 would ensure a minimum 10 percent disability rating for all veterans whose service-connected disability requires continuous treatment. The provision is in line with a recommendation made by leading veterans service organizations in the Independent Budget.

Chairman Akaka's floor statement on the legislation is copied below:

Today I introduce the proposed "Veterans' Compensation Equity Act of 2008." This legislation would mandate fair and equitable ratings for veterans whose disabilities require continuous medication or the use of adaptive devices, such as hearing aids.

Take Action: Tell your public officials how you feel about this issue.

Specifically, the bill would require that all veterans who receive continuous medication or require use of one or more adaptive devices, such as hearing aids, prescribed by the Department of Veterans Affairs or other licensed health care provider for treatment of a service-connected disability, shall be rated at not less than ten percent.

The amount of compensation veterans with service-connected conditions receive is based on a disability rating, which VA assigns. VA uses its Rating Schedule to determine which rating to assign to a veteran's particular condition. Currently the Rating Schedule provides a minimum compensable rating of ten percent or higher for most but not all disabilities that require continuous medication. I do not see any reason why one veteran who requires continuous medication for treatment of a service-connected disability, such as diabetes or asthma, should receive a compensable rating and another veteran who requires continuous medication for treatment of another disability, such as hypertension or chronic sinusitis, is assigned a zero percent rating and receives no compensation.

This legislation would also provide a minimum compensable rating when a veteran requires the use of a hearing aid or other adaptive device, but is nonetheless assigned a noncompensable rating under the current Rating Schedule. The use of adaptive devices prescribed by a Department of Veterans Affairs or other licensed health care provider for treatment of a service-connected condition would result in a rating of at least ten percent.

It is important that veterans who are disabled as a result of military service are compensated in a fair and equitable manner. Providing different compensation for different medical conditions that all require continuous medication or adaptive devices is not just.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this measure, so that veterans seeking compensation will be treated in a fair and equitable manner.

Scholarships for Veterans
Week of April 21, 2008
The Fund for Veterans' Education (FVE) provides needs-based scholarship money to close the gap between GI Bill benefits and higher education costs to veterans who served in Afghanistan or Iraq since Sept. 11, 2001. The veteran must be currently enrolled, or plan to enroll, in a public or private college or university or a vocational-technical school. The FVE is accepting applications for funding for the fall 2008 and spring 2009 terms. The deadline to submit an application is June 15, 2008. For more information, visit The Fund for Veterans'