RAOBULLETIN

15 April 2015HTML Edition

THIS BULLETIN CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES

Pg Article Subject * DOD * .

04 == MCRMC [13] -------------------- (Obama Stops Short of Endorsement)05 == DoD/VA Seamless Transition [27] --- (Little Progress after 10 Years)07 == Divorce and SBP -------------------- (Impact on Survivor Benefit Plan)07 == Pentagon Wish List -------------------------- (2016 Unfunded Priorities)08 == Fisher House Expansion [11] --------------------------- (Las Vegas NV)09 == DECA Budget Cuts [13] -------------- (Commissaries Targeted Again)10 == DoD Fraud, Waste, and Abuse--------- (Reported 1 thru 14 Apr 2015)12 == POW/MIA [56] ----- (DNA Samples Needed for MIA Identifications)12 == POW/MIA Recoveries ----------------- (Reported 150401 thru 150415)

* VA * .

14 == VA Claim Filing [05] - (Vet Advocates Unhappy with New Mandate)16 == VA Claims Backlog [144] ------------ (67% Decline since MAR 2013)16 == VA Scrutiny ------------------------- (Higher than Ever After One Year)18 == VA Accountability [03] ------------------------ (Progress Disappointing)18 == VA Health Care Access [22] ---- (Overall no Decrease in Wait Times)21 == VA Health Care Access [23] --------------------------------- (Challenges)23 == VA Surviving Spouse Website --------------------------------- (New Site)24 == VA Sexual Trauma Program [07] ---- (Ruth Moore Act Reintroduced)24 == GI Bill [190] ---------------- (Transferring Benefits | 5 Things to Know)25 == VA Women Advisory Committee [03] --------------- (4 New Members) 26 == VA Careers ----------------- (What You Need to Know as a Job Seeker)27 == Homeless Vets [65] --------------- (VA Awards $93M in SSVF Grants)27 == VA Aid & Attendance [17] ------- (Assisted Living Services Funding)28 == VA Lawsuit | Conley Monk --------------- (Appeal Ruling Promptness)

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29 == VA Lawsuit | Michael Farley -------------- ($21M Malpractice Verdict)30 == VA Whistleblowers [23] - (Intimidation & Punishment Still Common)31 == VA Health Care Stories [12] ------------------ (VA Form 9 Submission)33 == VA Health Care Stories [13] --------------------------- (Spokane VAMC)34 == VAMC Hampton VA [03] ------------------- (Suicide Behavior Reports)34 == VAMC Tomah WI [06] ------------ (Patient Drug Testing Discouraged)35 == VAMC Louisville KY ---------------- (Vet Likes Robley Rex VA Care)36 == VAMC Dayton [01] ---------------- (Veterans Praise VA Medical Care)37 == VAMC Aurora CO [04] --- (HVAC Chair Suggests Sell or Scale Back)37 == VAMC Minneapolis [03] --- (Memo Confirms Problems were Known)39 == VA HCS North FL/South GA ---------------- (Cancelled Appointments)40 == VARO Honolulu HI ---------------------------------- (Data Manipulation)

* VETS * .

41 == SECNAV Retiree Council [05] --- (2014 Issues & Recommendations)43 == Vet Toxic Exposure~Lejeune [53] ----------------- (Available Benefits)44 == Pennsylvania Vet Bonus [03] ----- (Submission Deadline 31 AUG 15)44 == National WWII Museum -- (New Orleans | A Memorable Experience)47 == Atomic Vets [08] --------------- (Enewetak Atoll Cleanup Vet’s Plight)49 == Vet Fraud & Abuse ----------------------------- (Fake Insurance Policies)50 == Veterans Vision Project [03] ---------------------------------- (LS2, USN)50 == Vet Jobs [173] -------------------------- (USAF Summer Work Program)51 == Vet Jobs [174] ------------------------------ (New Solar Power Programs) 51 == Retiree Appreciation Days ------------------------- (As of 13 APR 2015)51 == Vet Hiring Fairs ------------------------------- (16 Apr thru 15 May 2015)52 == WWII Vets [84] -------------------------------------- (Susie Winston Bain) 54 == America's Most Beloved Vets ------- (Operation Enduring Freedom (2)55 == Vet State Benefits & Discounts ------------------------- (Louisiana 2015)

* VET LEGISLATION * .

55 == Selective Service System [11] -------------- (Reinstate Draft | H.R.1509)56 == SBP DIC Offset [41] ----- (New Bill for Military Survivors | H.R.1594)57 == Student Loans [03] ---------------------- (Nevada Refinance Bill | SB215)57 == NDAA for 2016 --------------------- (HASC Released Markup Schedule)57 == Vet Bills Submitted to 114th Congress -------------- (150401 to 150414)

* MILITARY * .

59 == Philippine Liberty ------------------- (All Bars & Nightclubs Off-Limits)59 == ACTUV ------------------------------------------------ (Robotic Ghost Ship)60 == Military Haircut --------- (Student Threatened with School Suspension)62 == BRASS ----------------------------- (DARPA Computer Software Project)62 == S-97 Raider --------------------------- (Newest, Fastest Attack Helicopter)63 == Medal of Honor Citations ----------------- (Gardner~James A | Vietnam)

* MILITARY HISTORY * .

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66 == Aviation Art --------------------------------------------- (Heaven Can Wait)66 == Iwo Jima Reflections ---- (Raymond Lueb | 32 Days without a Scratch)67 == Military Trivia [104] ------------------------------ (Military Ship Prefixes)68 == Military History ------------- (WWII Fire Bombings of Japanese Cities)70 == Vietnam at 50 ----------------------------------------- (Vietnam Syndrome)72 == D-Day ---------------------------------- (Normandy Beachhead Obstacles)73 == WWII Prewar Events --------------- (1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin)73 == WWII PostWar Events ------ (Munchengladbach Cathedral Nov 1945)74 == Spanish American War Images 42 -- (U.S. Military Segregation, 1898)74 == Military History Anniversaries -------------------- (16 Apr thru 15 May)74 == WWI in Photos 124 ------------------------------ (Sandbags for the Front)75 == Faces of WAR (WWII) -------- (Washington DC Parade (3) May 1942)

* HEALTH CARE * .

75 == TRICARE Pharmacy Policy [22] - (Compound Pharmacy Marketers)77 == Brain Injury ------------------------ (Awareness & TRICARE Coverage)78 == TRICARE Mental Health Care [02] ------- (First Eight Appointments)78 == Traumatic Brain Injury [42] -------- (Concussion-Sleep Disorder Link)79 == Traumatic Brain Injury [43] ----------------- (Concussion-Related CTE)81 == Memory Loss-------------------------------------------------- (Five Causes)83 == Medicare Reimbursement Rates 2015 [02] -- (Fix Bill Seniors Impact)84 == THoR ------------------- (DARPA Takes Aim at Antibiotics Resistance)

* FINANCES * .

85 == IRS Tax Payments -------------------------------------------- (Ways to Pay)86 == Federal Pay [03] ---------------------- (1000 Highest Paid | How to Find)86 == Social Security Benefits [03] ----------------------- (Little-Known Facts)88 == Saving Money ----------------------------- (Service Providers | Negotiate)89 == IRS Forgiven Debt Policy [01] ----------------------- (Why it is Taxable)90 == Contact Lens -- (Expensive | Manufacturers Now Setting Retail Prices)91 == Car Wrapping Con ------------------------------------------ (How it Works)92 == Arrest Warrant Attached Scam ---------------------------- (How it Works)93 == Tax Burden for South Carolina Retired Vets ---------- (As of Apr 2015) 94 == Tax Burden for Delaware Residents -------------------- (As of Apr 2015) 95 == Thrift Savings Plan 2015 ----------- (Share Prices + YTD Gain or Loss)

* GENERAL INTEREST * .

96 == Notes of Interest ------------------------------------- (01 thru 15 Apr 2015) 98 == Congress’ Double Standard ------------ (Civilian Agencies vs. Military) 99 == Iran Nuclear Threat ----------------------- (Obama’s Report on Iran Deal)101 == Tax Freedom Day ----------------- (When Does it Arrive in Your State?)102 == Student Loans [04] ----------- (Repayment Strike | Corinthian Colleges)103 == FOIA [02] ---------------------------------- (CIA Panetta Review | Denied)104 == SSA Fraud, Waste & Abuse --------------- ($500K+ to Sexual Predators)

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104 == Women on 20s ----------- (All Bear Male Portraits | Time for a Change)107 == Photos That Say it All -------------------------------------- (Daddy’s Gone)107 == WWII Ads -------------------------------------------------- (Greyhound Bus)108 == Normandy Then & Now --- (Omaha Beach - Vierville sur Mer, France)108 == They Grew Up to Be? --------------------------------------- (Kirsten Dunst)108 == Have You Heard? ----------------------------------------------------- (Doctor)109 == Interesting Inventions ------------------------------------------- (Door Lock)109 == Moments in US History ------------------------------ (Divorce Court 1948) Note: 1. The page number on which an article can be found is provided to the left of each article’s title2. Numbers contained within brackets [ ] indicate the number of articles written on the subject. To obtain previous articles send a request to raoemo@sbcglobal.net.

*ATTACHMENTS* .

Attachment - Veteran Legislation as of14 Apr 2015Attachment - Louisiana Vet State Benefits & Discounts Mar 2015Attachment - Military History Anniversaries 16 Apr thru 15 May Attachment - Retiree Activity\Appreciation Days (RAD) Schedule as of 13 APR 2015

* DoD *

MCRMC Update 13 ► Obama Stops Short of Endorsement

The push to reform military pay and benefits picked up steam 30 MAR when the White House signaled support for the slate of controversial proposals that call for changing the military retirement and health care systems. But President Obama stopped short of endorsing the 15 specific recommendations that the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission sent to Capitol Hill in January. The recommendations would shrink the size of military pensions by 20 percent and create new investment accounts for all troops. They also call for ending Tricare in its current form and instead offering military families insurance policies similar to those available to civilians. "I believe the recommendations are an important step forward in protecting the long-term viability of the all-volunteer force, improving quality-of-

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life for service members and their families, and ensuring the fiscal sustainability of the military compensation and retirement systems," Obama wrote wrote in a letter to the compensation commission.

The White House backs the "underlying objectives" of the recommendations, but will continue to review the details and "to adopt or refine the specific proposals in as many instances as possible," according to the letter. White House and Pentagon support for the proposed changes will be an important political factor on Capitol Hill, where any changes would need approval from lawmakers. The White House will offer more details by 30 APR about whether Obama supports the details of the recommendations or will seek to revise them, the letter said. The changes to military retirement would for the first time offer a retirement benefit to troops who serve less than 20 years. The Defense Department would offer to match troops' own retirement savings up to 5 percent of basic pay. Troops would own that investment account regardless of when they leave the military. The proposal would also give troops who reach 12 years of service a lump-sum retention bonus in exchange for a new four-year service commitment. The amount would likely vary by service and career field. [Source: MilitaryTimes | Andrew Tilghman | March 30, 2015 ++]

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DoD/VA Seamless Transition Update 27 ► Little Progress After 10 Years

When former Marine Sgt. Chris Morey went to the VA for excruciating back pain and migraines, doctors said they couldn’t do anything for him because they had not received his deployment medical history from the military. Sgt. Morey, who separated from the Marine Corps in 2007 after serving four years, was told by the Department of Defense that the VA would be sent a copy of his deployment history that included things like a concussion he’d suffered in an improvised explosive device blast during his third tour in Iraq. But that never happened. “I’m telling you I get headaches; I’m telling you my back is messed up,” he told The Washington Times of his visit to the VA. “You’re telling me it doesn’t matter because it’s not in this record.”

Veterans advocates are urging the Defense Department and VA to collaborate better so electronic health records can simply be clicked and dragged from one system to another when a service member transitions to civilian life, eliminating problems like the ones faced by Sgt. Morey. While the new secretaries of the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments have publicly said their priority is providing seamless customer service, advocates say they have seen little progress in solving the decade-old divide between the two bureaucracies. Under the current system, troops are given a compact disc with PDF copies of their health records when they leave the military that they must bring to the VA. The PDFs are essentially just photos of records and can’t be manipulated or updated with current health information.

John Stovall, national security director at The American Legion, said implementing a new system to make the transition of medical records easier for veterans should be “a top priority” for leadership. “It’s easy to see in terms of just bureaucratic infighting or protecting their turf, but, ultimately, it comes down to the positive outcomes for our veterans and service members. It’s a very personal issue to them,” he said. Mr. Stovall stressed that in addition to increasing interoperability between Defense and VA medical records, it’s also important for the military to use health records that can also be accessed by private doctors. Sgt. Morey has stopped going to the VA because of “the time commitment that it takes to actually be that squeaky wheel” to get an appointment, but sees private doctors through his employer-provided health care plan. After a VA doctor never followed up on the results of X-rays taken of his back, he has been unable to even get a copy of the X-rays sent to his private doctor.

A soldier at Fort Drum questioned Defense Secretary Ashton Carter about what he’s doing to make sure service members are able to make a smooth, easy transition to civilian life. “The way I think about it is there’s only one soldier. Why should they have to put up with two Cabinet departments, right?” Mr. Carter

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responded. “You guys shouldn’t have to see all that. It should be seamless to you.” But that’s easier said than done. Both Mr. Carter, who became the leader of the Defense Department in January, and Bob McDonald, who took over the VA in August, have inherited an ages-old problem that has haunted their predecessors: how to restructure their departments to better work with each other and provide veterans with a world-class health service that is transferable from one branch to another without the bureaucratic infighting for turf protection.

Two years ago, the Senate and House Veterans’ Affairs committees sent letters to then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel calling for the Pentagon and VA to adhere to a plan to improve disability claims processing by speeding records transfers to the VA. At the time, lawmakers were concerned the delay in transferring records slowed veterans’ disability claims by as much as 175 days because it took that long for the VA to receive complete records from the Defense Department. The 2013 plan required the Pentagon to hand over service treatment records to VA “immediately” and establish an electronic transfer capability for the records by the end of 2013. “Immediately” was translated into a PDF document handed to the veterans upon their release, and the establishment of transferable electronic records is still in progress.

Last year, the Pentagon issued a final request for bids for an $11 billion contract to replace its obsolete electronic health record system and improve data-sharing between it and the VA. However, both branches of the government seem to be moving down different modernization paths. The Pentagon is working on its Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization program (DHMSM), and the VA is in the process of implementing the next generation of its Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, known as VistA. The DHMSM contract will be awarded in June. PricewaterhouseCoopers is among the bidders, along with IBM and a team consisting of Computer Sciences Corp., Hewlett Packard and Allscripts. Each bidder is working with a different electronic health records vendor. PricewaterhouseCoopers currently runs the VistA health record system. The Department of Defense aims for initial operational capability for the new system by next year.

In February, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) added the lack of interoperability between the Pentagon and VA health records to its list of “high risk” areas that flags government systems and programs that are particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement or transformation. “The two departments have engaged in a series of initiatives intended to achieve electronic health record interoperability, but accomplishment of this goal has been continuously delayed and has yet to be realized,” the GAO said in its report. “The ongoing lack of electronic health record interoperability limits VA clinicians’ ability to readily access information from DOD records, potentially impeding their ability to make the most informed decisions on treatment options, and possibly putting veterans’ health at risk.”

The Pentagon is doing its best to give veterans the best experience possible, said spokeswoman Laura Seal. The Defense Department “is sharply focused on supporting transitioning service members — this is our commitment to those who serve and their families,” Ms. Seal said in an emailed statement. “Sharing healthcare resources and health information between DoD and VA continues to evolve. This support includes timely and accurate submission of personnel and health information to VA to determine eligibility for benefits and/or demonstrate service connection for disability payments.” Mr. McDonald told Congress earlier this year that the administration’s $4.1 billion budget request for fiscal 2016 would make progress in efforts to more easily share health records with the Defense Department by “enhancing and modernizing VA’s electronic health record, enhancing data security and achieving health data interoperability with the Department of Defense.”

Walinda West, a VA spokeswoman, highlighted several initiatives the department is working on to better work with the Defense Department, including a joint committee to institutionalize sharing and collaboration, an agreement to share health care resources and a congressionally authorized fund to enhance collaboration from 2003. The Defense Department was not able to provide a comment. Joe Davis, a

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spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said that each of the new secretaries has had other issues to deal with since taking over their respective departments. “They inherited departments in different forms of crises,” he said. “The VA, obviously, is still working hard to overcome its nationwide crisis in care and confidence. DOD is transitioning to a smaller force but with a growing list of requirements and threats, not the least of which is mandatory sequestration returning.”

The board charged with finding ways to improve benefits for military personnel also thought the Defense Department and VA could work together better. One of the recommendations from the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission, which released its findings earlier this year, suggested the DOD and VA begin using standardized electronic health records and a uniform drug formulary to help service members have a smooth transition out of the service. The commission found that existing friction between the two bureaucracies can “impair collaboration and reduce cost-effectiveness.” Veterans agree. “If I’m this 30-year-old that works more or less in tech, and I can’t figure out all systems I have to go through, what hope does a Vietnam vet have?” said Sgt. Morey. “Now I keep them [VA, DOD] as far away as possible. They’ve been more trouble than they’re worth.” [Source: The Washington Times | Jacqueline Klima | April 05, 2015 ++]

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Divorce and SBP ► Impact on Survivor Benefit Plan

Retirees who are enrolled in the Survivor Benefit Plan should notify the Defense Finance and Accounting Service of their divorce once finalized. Acting quickly after a divorce can avoid many pitfalls such as premiums being deducted beyond the date of divorce. If the divorce decree contains no language mandating the retiree’s need to elect former spouse coverage, it is vital that he or she notify DFAS as soon as the divorce is final so SBP spouse coverage can be suspended and SBP premiums stopped. Retirees, within one year of a divorce, must elect to convert spouse coverage to former spouse coverage when mandated by a court ordered divorce decree. If no court ordered requirement is imposed, the retiree may voluntarily cover the former spouse under the SBP. Failure to maintain SBP as instructed in the divorce decree may lead to contempt of court charges and require a lengthy Board for Correction of Military Record review to correct.

Retirees who have SBP coverage must be familiar with the rules. A lack of knowledge is rarely a justifiable defense should a dispute arise. Retirees with suspended spouse coverage who remarry may elect to resume his/her prior level of SBP coverage, increase SBP coverage, or terminate spouse coverage for the new spouse within one year of the remarriage. Failure to notify DFAS of the new marriage within one year of remarriage will result in the prior level of coverage being automatically reinstated effective the date the new spouse becomes an eligible beneficiary. For more information or help with changing SBP coverage contact the SBP or casualty assistance representative at the nearest military base. [Source: NWS Seal Beach Retired Military Newsletter | Air Force’s SBP Manager | April 2015 ++]

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Pentagon Wish List ► 2016 Unfunded Priorities

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on 30 MAR sent Congress the military's annual "wish lists," including 12 Boeing Co F/A-18 fighter jets and 14 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets, but said he would not back any of the requests unless lawmakers passed a larger overall defense budget. "Any extra program inserted into our budget submission will come at the expense of other programs we deemed more important, with ripple effects across the rest of the budget," Carter said in a letter, a copy of which was seen

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by Reuters. Carter told lawmakers he was sending the lists of "unfunded priorities" to Congress as required under the fiscal 2013 defense policy law, but registered his concerns about any moves by Congress to restructure the Pentagon's budget request. Lawmakers use the lists to insert their priorities and shape the Pentagon's budget request, but the fate of the fiscal 2016 defense budget remains uncertain given that the request already exceeds congressional budget caps by $34 billion.

F/A-18E Super Hornet F-35 Fighter Jet EA-18G Electronic Attack Plane

Military leaders have warned Congress that failure to enact the higher budget level would undermine their ability to respond to a sudden conflict, train troops and maintain equipment, which could ultimately endanger the lives of Americans. The biggest items on the annual lists this year included the Navy's request for $1.15 billion to buy a dozen Boeing fighter jets to cover projected shortfall in strike fighters in coming years. If approved by Congress, the orders could help Boeing extend production at its St. Louis manufacturing plant, whichs is currently slated to halt at the end of 2017. Last year, the Navy asked for over $2 billion for 22 EA-18G electronic attack plane built on the same production line, and Congress ultimately funded 15 of them, which - along with a slower production rate - extended production from the end of 2016. The Navy also requested eight more F-35C fighter jets for use on its carriers for $1.04 billion, while the Marine Corps asked for six more F-35 B-model jets, which take off and land like helicopters, at a cost of $1.05 billion.

Officials at Boeing and Lockheed declined comment on the services' wish lists. The Navy also asked for $65 million to buy an additional Triton unmanned surveillance plane built by Northrop Grumman Corp and $187 million for two Boeing C-40A cargo planes. The Army asked for $200 million for PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement missiles built by Lockheed to keep up with surging demand for missile defense by military commanders, and $975 million to beef up cybersecurity at key sites in the United States, Europe and South Korea. The Air Force sent Congress a modest list of items, but urged lawmakers to fund its full base budget request before looking at any additional items. [Source: Reuters | Andrea Shalal | March 30, 2015 ++]

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Fisher House Expansion Update 11 ► Las Vegas NV

Because members of the military and their families are stationed worldwide and must often travel great distances for specialized medical care, Fisher Houses are built on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers to accommodate those needs. These homes enable family members to be close to a loved one at the most stressful times – during the hospitalization for an unexpected illness, disease, or injury. There is at least one guest home at every major military medical center to assist families in need and to ensure that they are provided with the comforts of home in a supportive environment. By law, there is no charge for any family to stay at a guest operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs;

On 28 MAR a dozen dignitaries including three members of Nevada’s congressional delegation pitched the first shovelfuls of dirt to launch construction of the Nevada’s first Fisher House, where families of

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wounded warriors can stay while their loved ones recover at the North Las Vegas VA Medical Center. The $6 million, two-story building will accommodate up to 16 families. It is being built by the Fisher House Foundation, which is matching $3 million in funds raised at a breakneck pace by the nonprofit Nevada Military Support Alliance. Using the words of a mother of an injured soldier who once stayed at a Fisher House, foundation Chief of Staff Mary Considine said this one, like the other 64, will be “a peaceful refuge in the middle of a storm.”

These homes are more than just a free place to sleep,” Considine said. “They actually provide a healing environment for the families, a place where they can find solace if they need it, a place where they can find shoulders to cry on.” Scott Bensing, president of the Nevada Military Support Alliance, said, “… I’m so very proud that this day has come nearly 15 months after we committed as a community to raise the $3 million in local funds to help build this home. Do the math. That’s about $50,000 a week for this entire campaign. “With the very consistent help of the Nevada Veterans Foundation,” he said. “I think it’s fair to say that the Nevada Military Support Alliance has set the high water mark for Fisher House funding.” Currently Fisher House has 64 Houses in operation that served 25,000 families in 2014. Savings to families since 1990 total $282,000,000 with the 5.8 million days of lodging provided. [Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal: | Keith Rogers | March 29, 2015 ++]

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DECA Budget Cuts Update 13 ► Commissaries Targeted Again

The FY 2016 defense budget proposal continues the plan to ultimately reduce the annual commissary subsidy by $1 billion. According to a recently released report by the RAND Corporation, “Past and recent proposals to eliminate the subsidy, have been made in the name of reducing the DoD budget.” The National Defense Budget Estimate for Fiscal Year 2016 is approximately $585 billion. With the proposed commissary cuts only saving .05% of the budget, why does the DoD continue to look at this “important non-pay benefit” as a cost saving measure? These cuts hurt the very people DoD needs to re-enlist at a time when retention is becoming increasingly challenging and those that have already sacrificed and devoted their entire adult lives in service to our nation: retirees.

DoD solicited the expertise of the RAND Corporation to review how price increases have effected grocery retailers in the private sector. RAND used this data to analyze how this might translate into changes in sales and revenue at the commissaries. RAND’s report said:

Commissary patrons typically buy more groceries than customers of comparable civilian supermarkets.

Patrons travel greater distances to take advantage of this benefit and frequently remain on base to shop at the exchanges after shopping at the commissary.

Half of eligible commissary shoppers are retirees and one-quarter are active-duty personnel, E-1 through E-3.

RAND’s conclusion was not surprising: “If the appropriation is eliminated, prices at the commissaries will likely rise and/or stores may no longer be financially viable.” The report went on to say that, “raising overall price levels will not be a successful strategy to cover the shortfalls in costs caused by the elimination of the annual Department of Defense appropriation.” In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, MOAA President, Vice Admiral Norb Ryan, USN (Ret) said, “Congress should take a critical look at waste in the Pentagon’s acquisition programs. In 2013 alone, the Government Accountability Office reported that the Pentagon’s top 85 major defense-acquisition programs experienced overruns of nearly $411 billion. Reporter Andrew Tilghman of the Military Times observed that this amount in itself is almost enough to cover the entire cost of sequestration for the Defense Department.”

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The $411 billion in acquisition program overruns would cover the entire cost of sequestration or pay for the commissary subsidy for nearly the next 300 years. With the proposed cuts only saving the DoD very little, you need to ask your elected officials why the commissaries are repeatedly the target of DoD budget cuts, especially when they provide such a significant benefit that is highly valued by so many. [Source: MOAA Leg Up | April 10, 2015 ++]

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DoD Fraud, Waste, and Abuse ► Reported 1 thru 14Apr 2015

Leaders of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency were effusive about the new technology. It was the most powerful radar of its kind in the world, they told Congress. So powerful it could detect a baseball over San Francisco from the other side of the country. If North Korea launched a sneak attack, the Sea-Based X-Band Radar — SBX for short — would spot the incoming missiles, track them through space and guide U.S. rocket-interceptors to destroy them. Crucially, the system would be able to distinguish between actual missiles and decoys. SBX “represents a capability that is unmatched,” the director of the Missile Defense Agency told a Senate subcommittee in 2007. In reality, the giant floating radar has been a $2.2 billion flop, a Los Angeles Times investigation found. Although it can powerfully magnify distant objects, its field of vision is so narrow that it would be of little use against what experts consider the likeliest attack: a stream of missiles interspersed with decoys.

The Airborne Laser takes a test flight over the Mojave Desert at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in July 2009.

SBX was supposed to be operational by 2005. Instead, it spends most of the year mothballed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The project not only wasted taxpayer money but left a hole in the nation’s defenses. The money spent on it could have gone toward land-based radars with a greater capability to track long-range missiles, according to experts who studied the issue. Expensive missteps have become a trademark of the Missile Defense Agency, an arm of the Pentagon charged with protecting U.S. troops and ships and the American homeland. Over the last decade, the agency has sunk nearly $10 billion into SBX and three other

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programs that had to be killed or sidelined after they proved unworkable, The Times found. “You can spend an awful lot of money and end up with nothing,” said Mike Corbett, a retired Air Force colonel who oversaw the agency’s contracting for weapons systems from 2006 to 2009. “MDA spent billions and billions on these programs that didn’t lead anywhere.”

The four ill-fated programs were all intended to address a key vulnerability in U.S. defenses: If an enemy launched decoys along with real missiles, U.S. radars could be fooled, causing rocket-interceptors to be fired at the wrong objects — and increasing the risk that actual warheads would slip through. In addition to SBX, the programs were:

The Airborne Laser, envisioned as a fleet of converted Boeing 747s that would fire laser beams to destroy enemy missiles soon after launch, before they could release decoys. It turned out that the lasers could not be fired over sufficient distances, so the planes would have to fly within or near an enemy’s borders continuously. That would leave the 747s all but defenseless against anti-aircraft missiles. The program was canceled in 2012, after a decade of testing. The cost: $5.3 billion.

The Kinetic Energy Interceptor, a rocket designed to be fired from land or sea to destroy enemy missiles during their early stage of flight. But the interceptor was too long to fit on Navy ships, and on land, it would have to be positioned so close to its target that it would be vulnerable to attack. The program was killed in 2009, after six years of development. The cost: $1.7 billion.

The Multiple Kill Vehicle, a cluster of miniature interceptors that would destroy enemy missiles along with any decoys. In 2007 and 2008, the Missile Defense Agency trumpeted it as a “transformational program” and a cost-effective “force multiplier.” After four years of development, the agency’s contractors had not conducted a single test flight, and the program was shelved. The cost: nearly $700 million.

These expensive flops stem in part from a climate of anxiety after Sept. 11, 2001, heightened by warnings from defense hawks that North Korea and Iran were close to developing long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States. President George W. Bush, in 2002, ordered an urgent effort to field a homeland missile defense system within two years. In their rush to make that deadline, Missile Defense Agency officials latched onto exotic, unproved concepts without doing a rigorous analysis of their cost and feasibility. Members of Congress whose states and districts benefited from the spending tenaciously defended the programs, even after their deficiencies became evident. These conclusions emerge from a review of thousands of pages of expert reports, congressional testimony and other government records, along with interviews with dozens of aerospace and military affairs specialists.

“The management of the organization is one of technologists in their hobby shop,” said L. David Montague, a former president of missile systems for Lockheed Corp. and co-chairman of a National Academy of Sciences-sponsored review of the agency. “They don’t know the nitty-gritty of what it takes to make something work.” This leads, he said, to programs that “defy the limits of physics and economic logic.” Of the SBX radar, Montague said: “It should never have been built.” Retired Air Force Gen. Eugene E. Habiger, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command and a member of the National Academy panel, said the agency’s blunders reflected a failure to analyze alternatives or seek independent cost estimates. “They are totally off in la-la land,” Habiger said. Senior officials who promoted the four programs defend their actions as having helped to create a new missile defense “architecture.” Regarding SBX, they said it was much less expensive than a network of land-based radars and could be put in place more rapidly.

Henry A. Obering III, a retired director of the Missile Defense Agency, said any unfulfilled expectations for SBX and the other projects were the fault of the Obama administration and Congress — for not doubling down with more spending. “If we can stop one missile from destroying one American city,” said Obering, a former Air Force lieutenant general, “we have justified the entire program many times over from its initiation in terms of cost.” The agency’s current director, Vice Adm. James D. Syring, declined to be interviewed. In a written response to questions, the agency defended its investment in the four troubled

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programs and asserted that the nation’s missile defense system was reliable. “We are very confident of our ability … and we will continue to conduct extensive research, development and testing of new technologies to ensure we keep pace with the threat,” the statement said. It called SBX an “excellent investment.”

Boeing Co., the agency’s prime contractor for homeland defense, designed SBX. Raytheon Co. built the system’s radar components. Both companies are among the world’s biggest defense contractors and major political donors. A Boeing spokesman said that SBX has “sufficient capability to execute its role with speed, precision and accuracy.” Representatives of Raytheon declined to be interviewed. For the entire article which includes a history of the program go to www.stripes.com/news/us/the-pentagon-s-10-billion-bet-gone-bad 1.338836?utm_source=Stars+and+Stripes+Emails&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines&utm_medium=email. [Source: Tribune Washington Bureau | David Willman | April 07, 2015 ++]

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POW/MIA Update 56 ► DNA Samples Needed for MIA Identifications

There are 83,000 missing and unaccounted for Americans from World War II forward, yet many families of the missing have yet to provide a family reference sample to assist in DNA identifications. Currently, 89 percent of Korean War families have provided samples, as well as 83 percent of Cold War families and 81 percent of Vietnam War families, but only 4 percent of WWII families have. The government last year identified 107 MIAs, but more could have been identified—and faster—if more family reference samples were on file. Please forward the following service casualty office contact information to MIA families in your hometown, as well as to local newspapers:

Army: 800-892-2490 Marine Corps: 800-847-1597 Navy: 800-443-9298 Air Force: 800-531-5501 State Department: 202-485-6106

For more information, go to: http://www.dpaa.mil/Resources/FAQs.aspx. [Source: VFW Action Corps Weekly | April 10, 2015 ++]

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POW/MIA Recoveries ► Reported 150401 thru 150415

"Keeping the Promise", "Fulfill their Trust" and "No one left behind" are several of many mottos that refer to the efforts of the Department of Defense to recover those who became missing while serving our nation. The number of Americans who remain missing from conflicts in this century are: World War II (73,515) Korean War (7,855), Cold War (126), Vietnam War (1,656), 1991 Gulf War (5), and Libya (1). Over 600 Defense Department men and women -- both military and civilian -- work in organizations around the world as part of DoD's personnel recovery and personnel accounting communities. They are all dedicated to the single mission of finding and bringing our missing personnel home. For a listing of all personnel accounted for since 2007 refer to http://www.dpaa.mil/ and click on ‘Our Missing’. If you wish to provide information about an American missing in action from any conflict or have an inquiry about MIAs, contact:

Mail: Public Affairs Office, 2300 Defense Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 20301-2300, Attn: External Affairs

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Call: Phone: (703) 699-1420 Message: Fill out form on http://www.dpaa.mil/Contact/ContactUs.aspx

Family members seeking more information about missing loved ones may also call the following Service Casualty Offices: U.S. Air Force (800) 531-5501, U.S. Army (800) 892-2490, U.S. Marine Corps (800) 847-1597, U.S. Navy (800) 443-9298, or U.S. Department of State (202) 647-5470. The remains of the following MIA/POW’s have been recovered, identified, and scheduled for burial since the publication of the last RAO Bulletin:

Vietnam

The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced 31 MAR that the remains of a U.S. servicemen, missing from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be buried with full military honors. Sgt. Rodney L. Griffin, 21, of Mexico, Mo., assigned to 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, was apassenger aboard an UH-1H Iroquois (Huey) helicopter that was enroute to Fire Support Base Katum, South Vietnam, when it was diverted due to bad weather. After flying into Cambodian airspace, the aircraft came under heavy enemy ground fire causing the pilot to make an emergency landing in Kampong Cham Province, Cambodia. The Huey’s four crewmen and its four passengers survived the landing. One crewman was able to evade being captured by enemy forces and later returned to friendly lines. The other three crewmen and one passenger were captured. Two of the captured crewmen were released by the Vietnamese in 1973, and the remains of the other two captured men, were returned to U.S. control in the 1980s and identified. Griffin died at the site of the crash during a fire fight with enemy forces. His remains were not recovered after the fire fight. Griffin will be buried, April 25, in Mexico, Mo.

From 1992 through 2008, joint U.S./Kingdom of Cambodia (K.O.C.) teams investigated the site without success. On Feb. 18, 2009, a joint team interviewed witnesses in the Memot District of Cambodia who claimed to have information on the loss. The witnesses identified a possible burial site for the unaccounted serviceman. The team excavated the burial site but was unsuccessful locating the remains. From Jan. 16, 2010 to March 11, 2011, joint U.S./K.O.C. teams excavated the area, but were unsuccessful. In February 2012, another joint U.S./K.O.C. team re-interviewed two of the witnesses. The witnesses identified a secondary burial site near the previously excavated site. The team excavated the secondary burial site and recovered human remains and military gear from a single grave. In the identification of Griffin, scientists from DPAA and AFDIL analyzed circumstantial evidence and used forensic identification tools, to include mitochondrial DNA, which matched his brothers.

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Rodney L. Griffin

Korea - None

World War II - None

[Source: http://www.dpaa.mil | April 14, 2015 ++]

* VA *

VA Claim Filing Update 05 ► Vet Advocates Unhappy with New Mandate

Beginning 24 MAR veterans filing or appealing claims must now use standardized forms, a controversial move that the VA says will streamline the process, but some advocates say it will cost tens of thousands of veterans their benefits. “This change is largely unnecessary and it’s been made solely for the convenience of the VA,” said Gerald Manar, Veterans of Foreign Wars National Veterans Service deputy director. Until now, veterans have been able to begin the claims or appeals process by submitting a letter or even a scrap

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of paper. That informal system preserved the initial date of their claim, meaning any benefits awarded would go back to the date that the VA received the note. According to numbers the VA used to get the rule change approved, about half of all veterans filing claims or appeals used the informal system. Under the new system, benefits will still go back to the date of claim or appeal, but the clock starts only when a veteran files standardized VA paperwork.

Under the new system, benefits will still go back to the date of claim or appeal, but the clock starts when a veteran files standardized VA paperwork

If the VA receives a handwritten note, department officials will send back a response informing the veteran of the proper paperwork and where to find it, though they will not send the paperwork itself. Replacing the informal claim is an “intent to file” form, for those who want to file a claim but still need to gather more information or documentation. VA officials have said the new process will reduce confusion and make it easier to file claims. Thomas Murphy, VA’s director of compensation service, said inaccurate information in informal claims often led to delays in compensation for veterans. “It was difficult to keep track of and veterans often had wrong dates of claim as a result,” he said.

Veterans advocates, however, are incensed by the mandate, and several veterans advocate groups have filed a lawsuit to stop the VA from changing the way veterans file disability claims and appeals. The lawsuit was joined by American Legion, AMVETS, Military Order of the Purple Heart, the National Veterans Legal Services Program and the Vietnam Veterans of America. "Our nation’s promise to care for its injured and disabled veterans is being diluted by this new VA rule," said Ron Abrams, joint executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program. Some concerns were:

Older veterans, who may not own a computer, could be disproportionately affected, along with those suffering from brain injuries who may have difficulty navigating the formal site and keeping track of user names and passwords, Disabled American Veterans’ National Service Director Jim Marszalek said. “Those are the people we’re leaving behind, those most in need,” he said.

Another worry is that tens of thousands of veterans could potentially lose months of benefits in the confusion over the new rules and the wait for the VA to respond to them. That’s because the clock won’t start on benefits until the date a veteran submits the proper intent-to-file form — meaning many who mistakenly file informal claims will have to wait for the VA to respond and start over. The VA has no deadline to respond and will not send the claim forms with their letter, another sticking point for advocates. “That’s unfairly penalizing veterans,” Marszalek said.

Murphy points out that the VA announced the deadline six months ago and even created a new avenue to file informal claims — a call center 800 number. He added that the change in the VA simply brings it in line with other federal agencies, such as Social Security and Medicare, and that it’s unnecessary to send veterans forms when responding to improperly filed claims. “I believe we’re at such a place in society that we don’t need to be sending you a form,” he said. Among the many controversies swirling around the VA is a backlog of hundreds of thousands of disability claims that has dogged the department for years. The change could help the VA with the backlog, because veterans who have trouble with the new system or mistakenly file an informal claim will delay or give up on filing their claim, Manar said. “Thousands of

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veterans who haven’t got the word or who haven’t understood what they saw in the newspaper or magazine … are going to do what they’ve always done,” Manar said. [Source: Stars & Stripes | Heath Druzin | March 23 & 27, 2015 ++]

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VA Claims Backlog Update 144 ► 67% Decline Since MAR 2013

In late March the VA announced it has reduced its backlogged claims from a high of 611,000 claims in March of 2013 to fewer than 200,000 this week – a 67 percent decline. VA has applied new technology, dedicated more human resources toward claims processing, and improved efficiencies through automation and paperless claims processing. In addition, VA cites the transformation of Veterans Benefits Administration’s training and quality assurance programs resulting in steady increases in the accuracy of decisions. Just a few years ago, claims processors handled 5,000 tons of paper annually, an amount equivalent to 200 Empire State Buildings. In less than two years, VA converted claims processing to a 21st Century digital environment where claims for VA benefits and services can be submitted and processed, and benefits delivered, online. Veterans increasingly are filing claims electronically from the start utilizing the eBenefits website https://www.ebenefits.va.gov/ebenefits/homepage. Veterans can submit their applications online, upload their supporting documentation, and check the status of their claim through a multi-channel Web portal boasting nearly 60 self-service features. [Source: NAUS Watchdog Newsletter | April 03, 2015 ++]

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VA Scrutiny ► Higher than Ever After One Year

One year after revelations that a VA hospital was denying veterans care and falsifying data to hide it, the federal agency tasked with looking after Americans who have served in the military is under more scrutiny than ever, with many growing impatient with pace of the agency’s overhaul. “I’m incredibly disappointed with the lack of progress,” said Katherine Mitchell, a Phoenix VA doctor whose reporting last spring helped expose what turned out to be a nationwide crisis in veterans’ health care. The scandal started in earnest last April, when House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) said during a hearing that veterans may have died while awaiting care in Phoenix and that the hospital may have two sets of records to conceal wait times. Both allegations turned out to be true.

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Phoenix, though, was just the beginning. News of that hospital’s malfeasance led to the discovery of similar horror stories at VA hospitals throughout the country: poor care, unexpected deaths, understaffing, over-prescription of narcotics, construction debacles. One year later, new failures are documented every week.

As the VA chips away at a long-standing backlog in disability claims, the backlog for appeals of denied claims is growing. More than 300,000 appeals are pending as of January, according to the VA. Nationally, the average length of time to receive a decision on an appeal is 1,255 days — nearly 3½ years.

The wanton dispensing of narcotics at a Wisconsin hospital earned it the nickname “Candy Land.” Patients at the Tomah Medical Center were 2.5 times more likely than the national average to receive high doses of opiates. Six congressional hearings have been held this year to discuss overmedication and abuse of authority at the Tomah VA.

The Choice Card program that enables veterans who live far away from a VA or face 30-day or more wait times to access private care was quickly labeled as flawed. The restrictive 40-mile rule has already been eased.

Construction of a medical center in Aurora, Colo., is more than $1 billion over budget, costing more than twice as much as the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Congressional leaders are threatening to withhold funding until someone takes responsibility for the overruns and delays. Just this week, Miller suggested the VA should consider selling the hospital.

Reports of retaliation against VA whistleblowers continue, despite VA leaders saying that retaliation will not be tolerated. More than 25 whistleblowers have received legal settlements, but 120 active investigations remain, according to Miller’s office.

The scandal cost former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki his job, and former Procter & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald replaced him in late July, accepting what some see as the most unforgiving job in government — reform and reorganization of the second largest and most dysfunctional department in the federal government. When he’s not being hauled in front of occasionally hostile lawmakers to discuss the VA’s myriad problems, he faces an entrenched bureaucracy that is resistant to change and rules that make it difficult to fire people in his own department. “He came into one of the most difficult jobs in the federal government at one of the most difficult times to be in the job,” said Ryan Gallucci, Veterans of Foreign Wars’ deputy director for national veterans service.

In an interview with Stars and Stripes, McDonald acknowledged that his department still has a long way to go in its reforms, but he pointed to shorter wait times, a shrinking disability claims backlog, and an effective effort to lower veterans’ homelessness as signs of success. “Give us a try,” he said. “In my first national press conference last September I gave out my cell phone number and I get calls from hundreds of veterans every single day. Now, I’m getting roughly 35 percent of the calls …where the message I’m getting is, ‘You changed my life, you helped me get in.’” So far even the staunchest critics of the VA’s reforms are sticking by McDonald, though there’s a rising call for him to fire more of those responsible for the problems. “No one thought the department’s problems would magically disappear upon the appointment of a new secretary,” Miller said in an email response to Stars and Stripes. “But it’s been a year since the scandal broke, and the department is still facing challenges with transparency, protecting whistleblowers and conveying accurate information to the public. It’s simply naïve to think these issues will subside in the absence of the thorough housecleaning the department desperately needs.”

Mitchell, who was given compensation and a new job from the VA after administrators at the Phoenix VA retaliated against her for speaking out, has become a go-to person for VA employees who want to report wrongdoing. “They’re very scared of retaliation,” she said. “The culture has not changed. Asked about that persistent fear, McDonald said he expects more employees to receive compensation for maltreatment, and he encouraged whistleblowers facing retaliation to call him on his cell phone, a number

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he has given out publicly. “We will not tolerate retribution,” he said. “We cannot improve unless we have people criticizing [us].” Much of the leadership implicated in wrongdoing throughout the VA system is still in place or on paid leave, which has been especially irksome to veterans advocates, lawmakers and whistleblowers. Only a handful of those at the center of the scandal have left, and many were able to retire, keeping generous pension packages. “Sometimes I think there’s a little more damage control than appetite to overhaul the system,” said Pete Hegseth, CEO of the conservative veterans group Concerned Veterans for America and one of the staunchest critics of the VA’s handling of the crisis.

While senior leaders played a large role in fueling the toxic atmosphere of the VA, some advocates worry the misdeeds of relatively few leaders is taking focus away from a dire need to reform the culture of the mid-level bureaucrats and administrators who have more direct interaction with patient care. “The secretary has made an attempt to do that at the higher levels, but we find the problem really lies in what we call the frozen middle,” Veterans of Foreign Wars senior legislative associate Carlos Fuentes said. “Some of them even feel they can wait out the secretary or the [public] focus on the access crisis.” One year later, veterans are still waiting too long for care, but the ongoing scrutiny has forced even reluctant administrators to improve their practices. Keeping up that pressure is key to continued improvement, American Legion Executive Director Verna Jones said. “The curtain’s been lifted,” she said. [Source: Stars & Stripes | Heath Druzin | April 08, 2015 ++]

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VA Accountability Update 03 ► Progress Disappointing

HVAC Chairman Miller released the following statement 9 APR regarding the first anniversary of the VA scandal, which was made public at an April 9, 2014, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing.

“I think Sec. McDonald is doing his best to correct VA’s course, but enormous challenges remain. VA’s chief problem – a widespread lack of accountability among failed employees – is as prevalent today as it was a year ago. In fact, in the wake of the biggest scandal in VA history, which centered on appointment wait time manipulation, not a single VA senior executive has been fired for wait time issues. Further, VA employees at the heart of the scandal in Phoenix remain on paid leave to this day. Everyone knows accountability is a major problem at VA, and right now the department needs to work with Congress to ensure VA has every tool possible to swiftly hold problem employees accountable. That’s why VA’s refusal to support any HVAC legislative efforts to improve accountability at the agency introduced this Congress is so disappointing. No one thought the department’s problems would magically disappear upon the appointment of a new secretary. But it’s been a year since the scandal broke, and the department is still facing challenges with transparency, protecting whistleblowers and conveying accurate information to the public. It’s simply naïve to think these issues will subside in the absence of the thorough housecleaning the department desperately needs. Eric Shinseki’s tenure as VA secretary was marked by many widespread and systemic problems. But to his credit, Shinseki accepted responsibility for the issues that occurred on his watch. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many employees who, despite their connection to the VA scandal, remain on the department’s payroll to this day.” – Rep. Jeff Miller, Chairman, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs

[Source: House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Press Release April 09, 2015 ++]

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VA Health Care Access Update 22 ► Overall no Decrease in Wait Times

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A year after Americans recoiled at new revelations that sick veterans were getting sicker while languishing on waiting lists — and months after the Department of Veterans Affairs instituted major reforms costing billions of dollars — government data show that the number of patients facing long waits at VA facilities has not dropped at all. No one expected that the VA mess could be fixed overnight. But the Associated Press has found that since the summer, the number of vets waiting more than 30 or 60 days for non-emergency care has largely stayed flat. The number of medical appointments that take longer than 90 days to complete has nearly doubled. Nearly 894,000 appointments completed at VA medical facilities from Aug. 1 to Feb. 28 failed to meet the health system's timeliness goal, which calls for patients to be seen within 30 days. That means roughly one in 36 patient visits to a caregiver involved a delay of at least a month. Nearly 232,000 of those appointments involved a delay of longer than 60 days — a figure that doesn't include cancellations, patient no-shows, or instances where veterans gave up and sought care elsewhere.

A closer look reveals deep geographic disparities. Many delay-prone facilities are clustered within a few hours' drive of each other in a handful of Southern states, often in areas with a strong military presence, a partly rural population and patient growth that has outpaced the VA's sluggish planning process. Of the 75 clinics and hospitals with the highest percentage of patients waiting more than 30 days for care, 12 are in Tennessee or Kentucky, 11 are in eastern North Carolina and the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, 11 more are in Georgia and southern Alabama, and six are in north Florida. Seven more were clustered in the region between Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Colorado Springs, Colorado. Those 47 clinics and hospitals represent just a fraction of the more than 1,000 VA facilities nationwide, but they were responsible for more than one in five of the appointments that took longer than 60 days to complete, even though they accounted for less than 6 percent of patient visits.

That has meant big headaches for veterans like Rosie Noel, a retired Marine gunnery sergeant who was awarded the Purple Heart in Iraq after rocket shrapnel slashed open her cheek and broke her jaw. Noel, 47, said it took 10 months for the VA to successfully schedule her for a follow-up exam and biopsy after an abnormal cervical cancer screening test in June 2013. First, she said, her physician failed to mention she needed the exam at all. Then, her first scheduled appointment in February 2014 was postponed due to another medical provider's "family emergency." She said her make-up appointment at the VA hospital in Fayetteville, one of the most backed-up facilities in the country, was abruptly canceled when she was nearly two hours into the drive from her home in Sneads Ferry on the coast. Noel said she was so enraged, she warned the caller that she had post-traumatic stress disorder, she wasn't going to turn around — and they better have security meet her in the lobby. "I served my country. I'm combat wounded. And to be treated like I'm nothing is unconscionable," she said.

The AP examined wait times at 940 individual VA facilities from Sept. 1 through Feb 28 to gauge any changes since a scandal over delays and attempts to cover them up led to the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in May and prompted lawmakers to pass the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act in August. The analysis included all VA hospitals and outpatient clinics for which consistent wait time data was available. It excluded residential treatment centers, homeless dormitories and disability evaluation centers. Data for individual facilities were not available for August. It is difficult to quantify exactly how things have changed because the VA introduced a new method for measuring wait times at the end of the summer. VA officials say the new methodology is more accurate, but its adoption also meant that about half of all patient appointments previously considered delayed are now being classified as meeting VA timeliness standards. That means published wait times now can't be directly compared with data the VA released last spring.

The trend, however, is clear: Under the VA's old method for calculating delays, the percentage of appointments that took longer than 30 days to complete had been steadily ticking up, from 4.2 percent in May to nearly 5 percent in September. Under the new method — the one that counts half as many

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appointments as delayed — the percentage went from 2.4 percent in August to 2.9 percent in February. The number of appointments delayed by more than 90 days abruptly jumped to nearly 13,000 in January and more than 10,000 in February, compared to an average of around 5,900 the previous five months. That's not a change that can simply be blamed on bad winter weather; many of the places reporting the largest gains are warm year-round.

VA officials say they are aware of the trouble spots in the system. They cite numerous efforts to ramp up capacity by building new health centers and hiring more staff. And they say that in at least one statistical category, the VA has improved: The number of appointments handled by VA facilities between May and February was up about 4.5 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. But they also readily acknowledge that in some parts of the country, the VA is perpetually a step behind rising demand. "I think what we are seeing is that as we improve access, more veterans are coming," Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Sloan Gibson told the AP. He also acknowledged that the VA has historically been "not very adroit as a bureaucracy" in responding to those changes. It takes too long to plan and build new clinics when they are needed, he said, and the VA isn't flexible in its ability to reallocate resources to places that need them most.

"We are doing a whole series of things — the right things, I believe — to deal with the immediate issue," Gibson said. "But we need an intermediate term plan that moves us ahead a quantum leap, so that we don't continue over the next three or four years just trying to stay up. We've got to get ahead of demand." He also asked for patience. President Obama signed legislation in August giving the VA an additional $16.3 billion to hire doctors, open more clinics and build the new Choice program that allows vets facing long delays or long drives to get care from a private-sector doctor. It will take time to get some of those initiatives expanded to the point where they "move the needle," Gibson said. Between Nov. 5 and March 17, according to VA officials, only about 46,000 patients had made appointments for private-sector care through Choice — a drop in the bucket for a system that averages about 4.7 million appointments per month.

In many parts of the country, the VA can boast of being able to deliver care that is just as fast, or even faster, than patients would get in the private sector. Relatively few VA facilities in the Northeast, Midwest and Pacific Coast states reported having significant numbers of patients waiting extended periods for care. Of the 940 hospitals and outpatient centers included in the AP analysis, 376 met the VA's timeliness standard better than 99 percent of the time. A little less than half of all VA hospitals and clinics reported averaging fewer than two appointments per month that involved a wait of more than 60 days. The difference between the haves and have-nots can be stark. The Minneapolis VA, one of the system's busiest medical centers, completed 276,094 medical appointments between Sept. 1 and Feb. 28. Only 424 of them involved a wait of more than 60 days. At the VA's outpatient clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, a facility handling a third of the volume, 7,117 appointments involved a wait of more than 60 days. That means there were more vets experiencing extended delays at that one clinic than in the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut combined.

Equally surprising: The Jacksonville clinic is practically brand new. It opened in 2013 with the express intent of improving access to care in a fast-growing city with a lot of military retirees and a close relationship with three Navy bases: Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Naval Station Mayport and the Kings Bay Naval Base.But like other VA facilities built recently in spots now struggling with long waits, the clinic took so long to plan and build — 12 years — that it was too small the day it opened, despite late design changes that added significantly more space. "Even our best demographic models didn't anticipate the rate at which the growth would occur," said Nick Ross, the assistant director for outpatient clinics at the VA's North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System. In recent months, the clinic has been enrolling another 25 new patients per day — a growth rate that would require the VA to hire another doctor, nurse and medical support

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assistant every 10 weeks to keep up with demand, said Thomas Wisnieski, the health system's director. Officials are hoping to lease 20,000 square feet of additional clinic space while they begin the planning process for yet another new building. Clinic construction is also underway in an attempt to ease chronic delays in care in the Florida panhandle. A new outpatient VA clinic is scheduled to open in Tallahassee in 2016, and a groundbreaking ceremony was held in August for a new clinic in Panama City.

The Fayetteville VA hopes to celebrate its 75th anniversary this fall with the opening of a huge new outpatient health care center that could ease the types of chronic delays that caused Rosie Noel so much anxiety. (After her canceled exam, the VA paid for Noel to get care at a private-sector clinic; she doesn't have cervical cancer.) With 250,000 square feet of usable space, the center will be almost as large as the main hospital building. The new campus will have 1,800 parking spots, a women's clinic and scores of new treatment rooms. It is sorely needed for a region that is home to two of America's largest military bases, the Army's Fort Bragg and the Marines' Camp Lejeune, and one of the highest concentrations of vets in the country. In two core counties, one in five adults is a veteran. Yet the new building is also emblematic of the slow pace of change at the VA. Planning for the facility began in 2008, and Congress approved funding the next year. Construction hadn't even begun when the first target completion date came and went in June 2012. The VA's Office of Inspector General said in a 2013 report that the VA's management of the "timeliness and costs" of seven planned health care centers, including the one in Fayetteville, had "not been effective."

The hospital's director since 2010, Elizabeth Goolsby, cited the VA's failure to expand quickly as a primary reason for why eastern North Carolina now has some of the longest waits for care in the country. "The contracting and building time in the Department of Veterans Affairs is a lengthy process," she said. During her tenure in Fayetteville, Goolsby has opened new outpatient clinics in Wilmington, Goldsboro, Pembroke and Hamlet. All now rank among the VA locations with the highest percentage of appointments that fail to meet timeliness standards. At the VA's clinic in Jacksonville — a small medical office built in a shopping plaza near Camp Lejeune's main gate in 2008 — nearly one in nine appointments completed between Sept. 1 and Feb. 28 involved a wait of longer than 60 days. "It's not big enough to accommodate the number of veterans we are seeing or the number of providers we need," Goolsby acknowledged. One solution, she said, has been to keep building. A 15,000-square-foot clinic is under construction to serve the area around Camp Lejeune. The VA also is trying to develop a clinic in Sanford, north of Fort Bragg. And there have been stopgap measures, like the construction of modular buildings at the Fayetteville hospital this winter to host mental health clinics, and an emergency lease for a temporary medical office that allowed it to bolster staff in Jacksonville.

Some vets whose doctors were moved over to the new Jacksonville space said things improved immediately, even if that has not yet been reflected in the statistics. "It used to take me six months to a year to get a doctor's appointment," Jim Davis, a retired Marine who fought in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and now has Lou Gehrig's disease. Since he transferred to the temporary clinic, he said, "I've called, and within three or four days I can get in to see the doctor." He called the change a relief, because he preferred to stay within the VA system for care if he could. "There's not a pharmacist at Wal-Mart calling me at home and asking me if the latest change in medicine made me feel sick. But that is happening in the VA," Davis said. "They are so much more respectful, because they know you served." [Source: The Associated Press | David B. Caruso| April 09, 2015 ++]

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VA Health Care Access Update 23 ► Challenges

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After years of planning, a large, new outpatient center is scheduled to open this fall to expand care offered at the VA medical center in Montgomery, Alabama. That expansion is long overdue. Among the VA's full-service medical centers, the Montgomery VA had the highest percentage of appointments that took longer than 30 days to complete. More than one in 11 appointments completed between September and February failed to meet timeliness standards. A sister hospital, a short drive to the east in Tuskegee, was No. 2. There's no guarantee, though, that a new building will help the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System solve one of its other longstanding problems — a difficulty recruiting enough doctors and specialists to handle demand.

Both hospitals are surrounded by largely poor, rural counties designated by the government as having severe physician shortages. "They are on the frontier of some of the most medically underserved areas of the country," said Dr. William Curry, associate dean for primary care and rural health at University of Alabama School of Medicine. That could mean that veterans who might otherwise get care in the private sector are more reliant on the VA. It also has historically meant big challenges recruiting physicians, who can make more money in metropolitan areas. "Not a lot of medical students want to go work for the VA in a rural community medical clinic," said Dr. Kevin Dellsperger, chief medical officer at the Georgia Regents Medical Center and former chief of staff at the VA medical center in Iowa City, Iowa. Dr. Srinivas Ginjupalli, acting chief of staff for the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System, confirmed that recruiting is a challenge, but he said the VA has been boosting salaries since the summer in an attempt to be more competitive in attracting staff. Goolsby cited similar rural recruiting problems in her enterprise, which serves a sprawling region of hog farms and tobacco fields. Other VA officials said difficulty attracting health care providers to remote or poor parts of the country was an issue throughout the system.

A few places struggling the most with long waits did report improvements. At the VA in Montgomery, Alabama, the percentage of appointments that take longer than 30 days to complete has fallen from 12.6 percent in September to 6.4 percent in February. That's still a bad number compared to other VA hospitals but, looking at performance only in February, it would be enough improvement to take the hospital from worst to third in terms of the percentage of delays. The VA's most chronically delayed outpatient clinic throughout the summer and fall, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, reported improvement, too. In September, 24 percent of its patient visits were delayed by at least 30 days. By February, that had fallen to 11 percent — still terrible, but much better. The VA site that had the most trouble meeting the VA's timeliness standard during the whole six-month period reviewed by the AP was a small clinic near Fort Campbell in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. One in five appointments took longer than 30 days to complete, and the rate has gotten steadily worse over time.

The centerpiece of the legislation signed over the summer was a plan to expand the number of veterans who are approved to get care outside of VA facilities. Yet the Choice program has barely gotten off the ground. ID cards for the program were mailed starting in November, but many vets still don't understand how it works. It theoretically is open to patients who can't been seen within 30 days, or who have to drive longer distances for care, but enrollees still have to get VA approval to see a private-sector doctor and only some physicians participate in the payment system. "It's not working the way it needs to work," said Gibson, the deputy VA secretary, though he added that he was enthusiastic about its potential. He said some consultants advising the VA said it might take 18 months to build the program. In a meeting with congressional aides and state veterans service officials in March, Goolsby gave some figures to illustrate how the program was working in southeastern North Carolina: Of the 640 patients offered an opportunity for outside care through mid-March, only four were ultimately seen by a private-sector doctor. "We're finding that a lot don't want an outside appointment," she said. Reasons vary, she said, but one factor is that switching to a new doctor can be disruptive for someone with an ongoing medical issue. In March, officials loosened the eligibility rules for the program slightly so it would cover more vets who have to drive longer distances for care. The VA also has been trying to tackle long wait times in other ways.

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The Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System, Ginjupalli said, has been promoting the use of "telehealth" systems that allow patients in rural or backed-up areas to see doctors elsewhere via video conferencing. It also has reached an agreement with the Defense Department to help reduce long delays for care at its clinic in Columbus, Georgia, by moving some staff to a 19,000-square-foot building at the military's medical center at Fort Benning. Dr. Daniel Dahl, psychiatrist and associate chief of staff for mental health at the Central Alabama VA, said the new space will triple the VA's capacity for mental health care in the area. In February, the average delay for a mental health appointment at the Columbus clinic was 25 days — seven times the national average. Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald has cautioned that it will take time for reforms to make a difference. He also warned in recent testimony to Congress that the system may still be decades away from seeing peak usage by the generation of servicemen and servicewomen who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The number of total enrollees in the VA system has ballooned from 6.8 million in 2002 to 8.9 million in 2013. During that same period, outpatient visits have soared from 46.5 million to 86.4 million annually; patient spending has grown from $19.9 billion to $44.8 billion; the number of patients served annually has grown from 4.5 million to 6 million. McDonald told Congress the number of mental health outpatient visits alone is up 72 percent from 2005. "Today, we serve a population that is older, with more chronic conditions, and less able to afford private sector care," McDonald said. That could mean that without further change, waits will only grow. [Source: The Associated Press | David B. Caruso| April 09, 2015 ++]

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VA Surviving Spouse Website ► New Site The Department of Veteran Affairs has created a new internet website for surviving spouses and dependents of military personnel who died on active duty and for survivors and dependents of veterans who died after leaving the service. The site is organized into two broad categories-death in service and death after service. It provides visitors with information and about a wide range of benefits for surviving spouse, dependent children, and dependent parents of diseased veterans and active duty personnel. The site also has information from, and links to, other federal agencies and organizations that offer benefits and services to survivors and dependents.

Several options also apply to surviving retirees participating in the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), where the spouse is lost through death, divorce or annulment, and the retiree later remarries. Unless the former spouse coverage elected as part of the divorce, retirees who remarry have two choices. They can: Resume the prior level of coverage; Elect not to resume spouse SBP coverage, (this election is irrevocable), this election will not affect child coverage; or if the original election was for reduced coverage, the retiree may request the base amount be increased. There is also a link to frequently asked questions, and answer most questions. For more specific questions the site tells how to contact the VA directly. The new website can be found at http://www.vba.va.gov/survivors. Some of the topics found on this page include:

Dependency and Indemnity Compensation Parents’ Dependency and Indemnity Compensation Survivors Pension Home Loans Dependents’ Educational Assistance Program Educational and Vocational Counseling Beneficiary Financial Counseling Civil Service Preference

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Commissary and Exchange Privileges Children of Vietnam Veterans with Certain Birth Defects Fiduciary Services

[Source: 131st Bomb Wing RAO newsletter | March 2015 ++)

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VA Sexual Trauma Program Update 07 ► Ruth Moore Act Reintroduced

Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) has introduced legislation to make it easier for veterans who suffered sexual abuse in the military to get help from the Veterans Affairs Department. The Ruth Moore Act aims to make it easier for veterans to get VA benefits by easing the department’s “burden of proof” standards. As part of the VA’s process to get disability benefits, a veteran must be able to show that that their condition is connected to their time in the military. "Congress and the Pentagon must continue working together to address the prevalence of sexual violence in our armed services," Tester said in a statement. "And as we seek to bring justice to survivors of military sexual trauma, we must also make sure they are treated fairly in accessing the benefits they need. That's what this bill does."

According to the legislation, if a veteran says a mental health condition is connected to military sexual trauma, the VA will generally consider a diagnosis from a mental health professional to be “satisfactory” evidence for considering the condition to be related to military service. The legislation goes a step further, adding that, if there isn’t evidence to the contrary, a veteran’s testimony could be enough to “establish" that "the claimed military sexual trauma" happened. Tester’s legislation comes as senators approved a handful of veteran-related amendments to the budget, which passed early Friday morning 27 MAR. Senators passed amendments on improving VA healthcare for rural veterans, allowing the agency to hire more mental healthcare workers, bolstering a program that gives veterans access to non-VA care, expanding the VA’s research on issues related to female veterans and giving legally married same-sex couples access to VA benefits. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) has introduced a companion bill to Tester’s legislation in the House. [Source: The Hill | Jordain Carney | March 27, 2015 ++]

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GI Bill Update 190 ► Transferring Benefits | 5 Things to Know

Footing the bill for college these days isn't easy. Those who qualify can transfer their Post 9/11 GI Bill bennies to their spouse or children. But it's a process sailors must stay on top of — or risk screwing it up. What you need to know to successfully transfer the benefit:

1. Eligibility. You might be eligible for the GI Bill, but there are other rules that qualify you to transfer the benefits. Even if you are retirement eligible, you must obligate the additional four years or the max remaining time. The transfer rule was designed so career military members, who might already have the education they need, can pass it on to one or more family members. The basic qualifications:

At least six years’ service by the day you elect to transfer, with an agreement to obligate another four years.

At least 10 years of active duty and selected reserve time, separately or combined, and aren't allowed by service policies, such as high-year tenure, to obligate for another four years, but agree to serve the maximum remaining time allowed.

2. Transferability. You can give the benefit to your spouse or any of your children. But the beauty is that you can also split the benefit and give a portion to any combination of spouse and multiple children. To

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qualify, a family member must be enrolled in the Defense Eligibility Enrollment Reporting System, known as DEERS, and fully eligible for military dependent benefits at the time of the GI Bill transfer. If you get a divorce from your spouse or your child gets married before using the benefits, they can still qualify to use the GI Bill if that is what you want. As the one who originally qualified for the benefit, you can revoke the transfer or modify how much of the benefit they get. The key is, each dependent must be designated to have at least one month of benefits at the time you set up the transfer. You can always shift the benefit around later, even after you are discharged. But once you leave the service, you can't qualify anyone new.

3. How soon to use it. Spouses can start using the benefit immediately upon your transfer or they can use it once you separate or retire. From the date you leave active duty, the spouse must use the benefit within 15 years. But if the benefit is used while the member is on active-duty, that spouse won't qualify for the monthly stipend or payment for books and supplies. That only comes after the member leaves the service. If you have designated your child, he or she can only start using the benefits once the member has at least 10-years of service. They must have their high-school diploma or be 18 years old. For the child, there's no 15-year deadline, but they must use it before they reach the age of 26.

4. Apply early. You can only apply to transfer benefits while on active duty, so if you are considering this, start as soon as you are eligible. A new 10-step "checklist" — titled Transfer of Education Benefits (TEB) Steps — in the March 2 OPNAV Instruction 1780.4describes in detail how to make sure you qualify to transfer your benefits and how to apply. Refer to http://projects.militarytimes.com/pdfs/1780_4.pdf.

5. Be thorough. Approval comes through the Veterans Administration. You'll need the help of your command career counselor and possibly your personnel support detachment to get all the steps done — particularly if something in your record needs to be fixed. Because there's obligated service required, that obligation must be made and documented in your record before you can finalize your benefit. Personnel officials recommend that sailors apply for the transfer within 30 days of re-enlistment or extension. And sailors can work with the Navy Personnel Command's G.I. Bill office to hold their transfer request until their obligated service can be verified in their electronic records. "One of the most crucial steps is verifying the application status," said Paul D. Wilder, Navy GI Bill Programs branch head at Navy Personnel Command. "Check the milConnect Web page (https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/milconnect) routinely until the 'Submitted' status changes to either 'Request approved' or 'Request rejected.' If the request has been rejected, members will need to take the appropriate corrective steps and resubmit the request." Only after the status has changed to approved, he said, has the transfer of benefits been accomplished." Many sailors assume approval is automatic. It's not. A small detail can cause the application to be disapproved, so log in early and often to the VA website until your approval is noted and you have the paperwork in hand.

[Source: MilitaryTimes | Mark D. Faram | March 29, 2015 ++]

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VA Women Advisory Committee Update 03 ► 4 New Members Four new members have been appointed to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Advisory Committee on Women Veterans, an expert panel that advises the Secretary on issues and programs affecting women Veterans. Established in 1983, the Committee makes recommendations to the Secretary for administrative and legislative changes. “Women have made significant contributions to the safety and security of our great Nation. As we seek to enhance services for women Veterans, VA values the Committee’s guidance,” said VA Secretary Robert A. McDonald. “The Committee’s recommendations help VA to identify and address gaps in service to better meet the needs of women Veterans today and in the future. VA welcomes the newest members of this important Committee.”

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Of the approximately 22 million living Veterans, about 2 million are women Veterans. They comprise 9.2 percent of the total Veteran population. VA estimates that by 2040, women Veterans will comprise approximately 16 percent of the total Veteran population. “VA is committed to offering a full continuum of benefits and health care services and is transforming itself to meet the evolving needs of our women Veterans,” said Elisa Basnight, Director of VA’s Center for Women Veterans, who echoed Secretary McDonald’s sentiments. “This advisory committee plays an integral role in our progress.” New members of the Committee are:

Ms. Octavia Harris, El Cajon, California, a retired Command Master Chief, U.S. Navy; currently serves as a program manager of the Comprehensive Advanced Restorative Effort at the San Diego Naval Medical Center;

Ms. Louisa Long Jaffe, Alexandria, Virginia, a retired Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army; currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Technical and Project Engineering, LLC;

Dr. Joyce Johnson, Chevy Chase, Maryland, a retired Rear Admiral, U.S. Public Health Service; currently practices medicine in the specialty of public health/preventive medicine, and serves as a global health/public health and management consultant; and

Ms. Shannon McLaughlin, Sharon, Massachusetts, a Major serving full time in the Massachusetts National Guard, with combat service in Afghanistan.

The new Committee members, who are appointed to two-year terms, join Committee members Dr. Shirley Quarles of Atlanta, Georgia; Ms. Felipe Torres, Helotes, Texas; and Ms. Mary Westmoreland, Bronxville, New York, who were also reappointed for another term. For more information about women Veterans, visit www.va.gov/womenvet, or contact the Women Veterans Call Center at 1-855-829-6636. The call center is available to address concerns of women Veterans, their families and caregivers M-F 08-2000 and Sat 08-1830 EST. [Source: VA Blog | VAntage Point | April 02, 2015 ++]

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VA Careers ► What You Need to Know as a Job Seeker

VA Careers is dedicated to the recruitment of the finest health care professionals to care for our Nation’s Veterans – and has a team of recruiters working for this purpose on an annual basis. For those efforts we process over 1 million applications yearly and hire an estimated average of 44,000 annually. In the recruitment arena, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is lack of communication between employers and jobseekers. That’s correct – employers across the board, not just VA. If you read about the application process at varying organizations, almost always, a lack of communication is a major problem. A news article mentioned, “Not responding to their applications” as the #1 complaint among surveyed jobseekers. Also, being told, “not qualified” is among the top 10 also. Within VA, there are many that feel Veteran Preference does not allow a non-Veteran to get hired, while some Veterans feels preference is non-existent.

The reality is that all hiring could be improved in America. That is why it is up to the jobseeker to manage their career path. A First Sergeant mentor of mine gave me great advice, “No one cares about your career like you do. Follow up” There are many methods to improve your “game” as a job seeker and many of the topics are touched on at ‘A Veterans approach to a job search’ ( http://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/17069/a-veterans-job-search). Vets are encourage you to review the career advice and become an expert job seeker.

Lastly, do not get discouraged. As individuals, we cannot control all aspects of a hiring process, but we can ensure that we have done our best to demonstrate our qualifications and willingness to an employer. It may take one application, it may take 100, but there is a position for everyone. When a good fit is made,

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both the jobseeker and employer are responsive. To explore careers at VA, visit http://www.vacareers.va.gov. [Source: VAntage Point Blog | March 31, 2015 ++]

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Homeless Vets Update 65 ► VA Awards $93M in SSVF Grants

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald today announced the award of nearly $93 million in Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) 3-year grants that will help approximately 45,000 homeless and at-risk Veterans and their families. The grants will be distributed to 24 non-profit agencies in 15 communities, with $30 million in awards being distributed to the Los Angeles area. “The Department of Veterans Affairs is committed to using evidence-based approaches such as SSVF to prevent homelessness and produce successful outcomes for Veterans and their families,” said Secretary McDonald. “This is a program that works, because it allows VA staff and local homeless service providers to work together to effectively address the unique challenges that make it difficult for some Veterans and their families to remain stably housed.”

Under the SSVF program, VA is awarding grants to private, non-profit organizations and consumer cooperatives that provide services to very low-income Veteran families living in – or transitioning to – permanent housing. The grants announced today will provide additional resources to the fourth year operations of the SSVF program. “With the addition of these crucial resources, communities across the country continue an historic drive to prevent and end homelessness among Veterans,” said Matthew Doherty, Acting Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. “The SSVF program gives Veterans and their families the rapid assistance they need to remain in permanent housing or get back into permanent housing as quickly as possible.”

Through the homeless Veterans initiative, VA committed more than $1 billion in FY 2014 to strengthen programs that prevent and end homelessness among Veterans. VA provides a range of services to homeless Veterans, including health care, housing, job training and education. More information about VA’s homeless programs is available at www.va.gov/homeless.  Details about the SSVF program are online at www.va.gov/homeless/ssvf.asp. [Source: VA News Release | March 31, 2015 ++]

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VA Aid & Attendance Update 17 ► Assisted Living Services Funding

A government attempt to close a loophole in a benefit for low-income wartime veterans could hurt many of those it was designed to help, a benefits consultant said. That's because the Department of Veterans Affairs' proposal goes beyond fixing a problem that arose from veterans transferring assets to family members or trusts in order to meet income limits for the pension benefit. The proposal would eliminate funding for assisted living services that many poor veterans rely on, said Patty Servaes of Elder Resource Benefits Consulting. “In most cases, these are the poorest of the poor veterans,” she said. A VA benefits

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official couldn't be reached for comment on provisions of the proposed regulation. The agency received more than 800 comments on the proposal, VA spokeswoman Megan Lutz said. The agency cannot estimate “when the final regulations will be ready for publication in the Federal Register,” she said.

The daughter of a World War II Navy veteran said the benefit had a significant impact on her father's final months. Having the government pay part of the $4,000 monthly cost of staying at Overlook Green in Whitehall eased Joseph Quinn's mind, said his daughter, Kathleen Kotula of South Park. “I think it made him feel thankful that they were able to do that for him and his family,” she said. Quinn, 91, of Bethel Park served on a minesweeper during the war. He retired as an industrial engineer from U.S. Steel Corp.'s Clairton Works. He had a good pension, but “once you start looking at a nursing home and that sort of thing, it can eat your money up quickly,” Kotula said. The staff at Overlook Green made sure he took his medications and helped him to take a shower, she said.

The benefit covers such minimal care, but the proposal classifies help with medications and daily living as non-medical, Servaes said. “Under these new regulations, that's not going to qualify you,” she said. The benefit in question provides up to $2,120 per month for wartime veterans who are at least 65, or who have a disability not connected to their military service. A 2012 report by the Government Accountability Office recommended the VA add a look-back provision, similar to one used by Medicaid, to keep veterans from transferring assets in order to meet income guidelines. At least one veteran transferred more than $1 million to an irrevocable trust three months before applying for the benefit, the study found. Though the VA knew about the transfer, it approved the benefit because the transfer wasn't illegal, the GAO said. Such transfers are legal for the veterans' benefit but tend to disqualify veterans for Medicaid coverage. The GAO found that some financial planners charged veterans hundreds to thousands of dollars in fees and urged them to transfer assets into trusts, even though that disqualified them for Medicaid.

The proposed change to the program would assume that any transfer made in the past three years before applying for the benefit was done to meet income requirements. That would disqualify the veteran from receiving the pension benefit for up to 10 years based on the amount transferred. The VA said in its Federal Register notice of the proposed change that a penalty period might keep financial advisers from suggesting that claimants “transfer assets ... to create the appearance of economic need where it does not exist.” Joe Davis, spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the organization believes the proposal will benefit veterans. An American Legion spokesman couldn't be reached for comment. Although Servaes dislikes some details of the look-back proposal, she doesn't disagree with the general idea. She worries about veterans who need help with assisted living. A VA analysis estimated the agency could save $134 million over five years from the look-back provision — but would save $313 million on denied coverage for assisted living services. Given those figures, it appears the intent is to target assisted living, she said. “How could it not be?” Servaes said. [Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | Brian Bowling | April 05, 2015 ++]

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VA Lawsuit | Conley Monk ► Appeal Ruling Promptness

A Vietnam veteran long denied his own post-military benefits is suing the Veterans Affairs Department to speed up the disability compensation appeals process, a move that could potentially affect thousands of cases stuck in administrative limbo. On 6 APR, Marine Corps veteran Conley Monk Jr. filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims asking for the department to "promptly" rule on appeals pending for more than one year when the case involves a veteran facing medical or financial hardship. Even as VA officials have made substantial progress in recent years on drawing down the backlog of first-

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time disability benefits cases, the growing backlog of appeals cases has alarmed veterans' advocates. About 290,000 veterans have appeals pending in the system. Many of those cases have lingered for multiple years, leaving some veterans waiting with none or only a fraction of the benefits they are owed. VA officials have said administrative moves alone to certify and transfer appeals entail an average wait of nearly two years.

The lawsuit — separate from one filed by Monk last year seeking a review of post-traumatic stress disorder cases for veterans who received other-than-honorable discharges — calls delays in the appeals system "pervasive and unlawful" and worthy of court intervention. William Hudson, a law intern at the Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic and part of Monk's legal team, said the courts have intervened to force quick decisions in individual veterans' cases in the past, but the suit could create the first class action-type case in the history of the appeals court. Court officials would have to set the guidelines of veterans eligible for the expedited reviews, clearly defining which individuals face medical or legal hardship.

Monk's own case has been pending for almost two years, during which he claims he suffered costly new medical problems from a botched VA surgery and lost his home to a fire. In a statement, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, offered his support for Monk's legal effort. "I strongly support action to reform this broken appeals system because justice delayed for these veterans is justice denied, unconscionably and unacceptably," Blumenthal said. "I hear from hundreds of veterans whose benefit appeals have languished for months, even years. The VA needs to improve and enhance its processing of appeals." VA officials have not yet responded to the lawsuit. [Source: MilitaryTimes | Leo Shane | April 06, 2015 ++]

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VA Lawsuit | Michael Farley ► $21M Malpractice Verdict

A 60-year-old Navy veteran, now a prisoner in his own body, has been awarded a $21 million malpractice verdict against the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Manchester. The 3 APR ruling by a federal judge assails the VA for "carelessly prescribing the wrong medication" and leaving the patient "medically abandoned. "The patient, Michael Farley of Bennington, now lives with “locked-in syndrome” after suffering two strokes within two months in 2010. He remains fully conscious, but has no voluntary muscle movement other than the very limited ability to move his eyes and his head. According to U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty, Farley’s condition could have been avoided if doctors at the Manchester VA had properly diagnosed and treated him after his first stroke in October 2010.

Farley sought treatment at the Manchester VA, where he had been a regular patient, after experiencing a loss of peripheral vision and a painful headache, according to court documents. After a series of tests, doctors determined that he had suffered a stroke. “It is a basic principle of medicine that a patient who has suffered a stroke is generally at an elevated risk of suffering a second stroke,” McCafferty wrote. “Therefore, doctors who are treating stroke patients must be cognizant of this risk, and they must take steps to prevent a second stroke from occurring. “Unfortunately, Mr. Farley’s doctors at the Manchester VA did not adhere to this standard of care,” she continued. “They failed to provide him with an adequate diagnostic evaluation, and as a result, they carelessly prescribed him the wrong medication.” There are many medical nuances in McCafferty’s 122-page decision, but the core issue centers around the fact that doctors sent Farley home after the first stroke with instructions to take two baby aspirins daily.

Six weeks later, on Dec. 2, he was found unresponsive in his home and taken to Elliot Hospital, where he was diagnosed as having suffered a massive stroke in the same region of the brain where the first stroke had occurred. The judge cited medical studies and expert witnesses in stating that the blood thinner

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Coumadin should have been prescribed after the first stroke. “The overwhelming weight of the expert testimony, coupled with the scientific studies, established that Coumadin more likely than not would have prevented Mr. Farley’s second stroke from occurring,” she wrote. Beyond the failure to prescribe Coumadin, McCafferty outlined several other missteps in the veteran’s treatment. During the October visit to the VA, after the first stroke, Farley’s VA doctors ordered an ambulance transfer to a VA facility in West Roxbury, Mass., where he would have been admitted to a hospital and evaluated by a neurologist, but the ambulance was told to turn back, for reasons no one was ever able to explain. “The evidence suggests that the decision to cancel the transfer was made amidst confusion at the Manchester VA,” the judge wrote.

Her decision outlines many other allegations related to the malpractice claim, such as failure to use proper monitors, failure to order the proper tests and a failure to refer the patient to qualified specialists. McCafferty described a breakdown in the continuum of care after Farley visited the Manchester VA on the day before his second stroke for an appointment with his primary care physician, Dr. Armando Del Rio. “The court finds that, incredibly, Dr. Del Rio was unaware as of December 1, 2010, that his patient, Mr. Farley, had suffered a serious stroke approximately six weeks earlier,” she wrote. The next day, 2 DEC, Farley was admitted to Elliot Hospital, where doctors first thought he was in a coma and would not recover. The judge used the phrase “harrowing trauma” to describe what followed. “Mr. Farley lay trapped inside his paralyzed body, lucid and mentally alive, but he could not communicate that to his caregivers and family, who were in his hospital room discussing end-of-life scenarios,” she wrote.

“Mr. Farley’s adult children did not believe he was in a coma; they thought that he was moving his eyes in an effort to communicate with them. The caregivers assured them that they were wrong and that his eye movement was merely a symptom of his comatose state.” At some point, a nurse noticed that Farley’s eyes were tracking her as she walked in and out of his hospital room and the diagnosis of locked-in syndrome followed. The judge’s award is broken into three parts: $1.3 million for past and current medical costs, including conversion of a home to accommodate Farley’s needs; $12 million for future medical care; and $8.1 million to Mrs. Farley for non-economic damages. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Plourde, who represented the Veterans Administration during a four-day bench trial in October, was unavailable for comment as to whether he plans to appeal the verdict. [Source: New Hampshire Union Leader | Dave Solomon | April 07, 2015 ++]

The Veterans Administration Medical Center building in Manchester.

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VA Whistleblowers Update 23 ► Intimidation & Punishment Still Common

Last July, when Dr. Christian Head testified before Congress about improper record keeping at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Health Care system, he also detailed what department whistleblowers

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typically face when they speak out: isolation, defamation, and aggressive attacks. Since then, he said, VA managers in Los Angeles have reassigned many of his patients, blocked some of his operating room access, moved his office to a converted closet and stripped him of his chief of staff duties. "When I complained, they said, 'If you don't like it, take it to Congress,' " the 20-year neck surgeon said. He did. On 13 APR, Head was part of a list of whistleblowers before the House Veterans Affairs Committee testifying that despite public promises of protections for employees who speak out, intimidation and punishment are still common throughout the department. Stories included at least 11 employees in Delaware's Wilmington VA Medical Center who have been sidelined for months after clashes with local management and an associate director at the Central Alabama VA Health Care system who was physically removed from a hospital after complaining about fraudulent patient records.

The hearing came just days after the one-year anniversary of the start of the patient wait times scandal that caused a national uproar and forced the resignation of several top department officials, including former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. His replacement, VA Secretary Bob McDonald, has repeatedly vowed to punish officials who retaliated against employees reporting wrongdoing. But lawmakers questioned that promise, saying they still see too many problems for whistleblowers in the department. "Retaliation is still a popular means used by certain unethical VA employees to prevent positive change and maintain the status quo within the department," said Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., chairman of the panel's oversight subcommittee. "It is very simple. If you retaliate against or stifle employees who are trying to improve VA for our nation's veterans, you should not be working for VA."

Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner & Rep. Mike Coffman

Carolyn Lerner, head of the independent Office of Special Counsel, said more than 40 percent of the whistleblower retaliation cases they're investigating come from VA agencies, well above any other government department. The office has settled 45 claims since the start of the fiscal year but has more than 100 others still pending. Meghan Flanz, director of VA's Office of Accountability Review, said the department is working closer with the special counsel to settle those cases and punish retaliatory supervisors, but noted that firing managers is a time-consuming federal process. That excuse prompted more anger from lawmakers, who have accused the department repeatedly of working too slowly to remove problem employees. Flanz said she believes whistleblowers in the department are coming forward in greater numbers because of their confidence in the changes made in recent months. Head disagreed, calling his experience since publicly exposing problems more of the same from the department. He said the last nine months have been trying, but he doesn't regret speaking out. "I will always take a stand against these problems," he said, "because I think veterans deserve better." [Source: MilitaryTimes | Leo Shane | April 13, 2015 ++]

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VA Health Care Stories Update 12 ► VA Form 9 Submission

Sometimes Ralph Clark Davie can't feel his feet. Sometimes they sting. The 67-year-old Vietnam veteran has good days and bad, but over the years his condition continues to worsen. Sometimes he needs a walking cane, and rarely can he make it sitting or standing in one position for more than an hour. He retired early from a nearly 40-year career as an electrician because it became dangerous to climb a ladder and take on other rigors of the job, and a few years back he sold his prized 1985 Porsche 928 because he often couldn't feel the clutch to shift gears. "It started coming on pretty much immediately after I got out of the military, but at first I just thought it was restless leg syndrome," Davie says. "I take pills for it every day and it seems to help quite a bit. I take pills also for the PTSD."

Davie and his wife, Jeanette, have adjusted to daily life as he continues to struggle with the onset of peripheral neuropathy, a progressive condition without a cure that Department of Veterans Affairs doctors have said is likely related to Agent Orange exposure during the war, records show. Yet more than five years after applying for VA benefits through Shasta County's Veterans Service Office, Davie is no closer to securing those medical disbursements than he was when he filed the first form in October 2009. "I didn't have any trouble dealing with the people at the VSO, I just had trouble with results," he said. "The woman down there didn't file the appropriate form for my claim to be processed and that ended up wasting three years of my life." It would take more than two years and a letter from a U.S. senator for the Davies to learn their case had been closed years earlier due to a missed deadline. A "VA Form 9"-- -- a single piece of paper that would have formalized Davie's appeal -- was not filed within a two-month window in 2012. They were back to square one.

If your application for medical benefits is denied by the VA, it can be a lengthy process to appeal. The first step to challenging the VA's decision is submitting a "notice of disagreement," which Davie did on March 9, 2010, with the help of the Shasta County VSO. From there it can be a waiting game. Before moving forward the veteran must receive a "statement of case" from the regional VA office, which can take anywhere from a few months to five years, according to Chris Attig, a Dallas, Texas-based attorney specializing in veterans services. Nearly two years after appealing the VA's decision, Davie received his "statement of case" on March 2, 2012. The document offered a summary of the case, evidence and pertinent laws, notes on how those laws impacted the VA's decision and an explanation of reasons for that decision. "Once you get the state of case you can file a formal appeal, but you have to wait for that statement of case

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-- and this all takes time, the VA works very slowly," said Jeanette Davie. "From there you have 60 days to file the VA Form 9 to formalize your appeal. That's where they (the VSO) dropped the ball."

Jeanette Davie says she and her husband gathered some extra information and paperwork needed for the appeal and turned it in to the Shasta County VSO. "She said, 'alright, we'll take care of it,' and that was the end of the story until we heard from Dianne Feinstein's office," she said. "By 2014 we had been waiting about four years, and we kept going back to the VSO and asking what's happening with our claim. We knew it was a long process, so we kept going back." After another two years without any new information about his case, Jeannette Davie in 2014 asked U.S. Sen. Feinstein to look into the matter. Following an inquiry, the VA's Oakland office responded Aug. 21, 2014, with a letter saying Davie's claim had been denied for more than two years because the vital VA Form 9 was never filed. Shasta County Veterans Services Officer Duke Medeiros declined to comment for this story. He referred questions to his supervisor, Shasta County CEO Larry Lees. "I wouldn't speak specifically about any particular case, and I'm not going to talk about individual personnel issues," Lees said. "I feel good that we are one of the strongest funded veterans services offices in the North State. Is there more we could do? Yes. I think that's a fair statement, but we get more compliments than complaints."

Dallas-based attorney Chris Attig said issues arise with local VSOs around the country, not just in Shasta County. The Davies' case is not an isolated incident. "It's a pretty common thing for a VSO to miss that Form 9, and it's really unacceptable to miss that deadline," said Attig, a lawyer who has been dealing with veteran claims and appeals in California and around the country since 2008. "But frankly I think part of it is on the process, which is convoluted," he continued. "There is absolutely no reason to have a veteran file a notice of disagreement and the later a Form 9. The veteran and the VA are having to do an appeal twice." According to the VA's own statistics, about 10 percent of claim decisions were appealed during the last fiscal year, more than 118,000 nationally. Those numbers are projected to increase to 125,000 during the current budget year ending in September, according to the Board of Veterans' Appeals annual report.

Local and regional figures are harder to distill. The Shasta County VSO was unable to provide related statistics on Thursday or Friday. Lees said in February the office with four full-time employees served 637 walk-in veterans. "That's probably average," he said. "It's a busy place." The office operated on a budget of about $398,000 during the 2013-14 fiscal year, up from about $385,000 the previous budget year. In 2013 there were about 16,200 veterans living in Shasta County, making up about 13 percent of the population, according to an NPR analysis of VA data. About 42 percent of those Shasta County veterans received medical benefits compared with a state-wide average of about 25 percent.

The Oakland VA office, which handles cases and claims for veterans in the North State, has taken heat after a scathing federal probe revealed it improperly filed and then lost 14,000 unprocessed veterans' benefit claims dating back to the 1990s. The federal investigation by the VA's Office of the Inspector General blamed sloppy bookkeeping, inadequate training, poor oversight and other factors for the faults at the Oakland regional office. That inquiry was prompted by North State Congressman Doug LaMalfa after he received numerous complaints from local veterans getting the runaround. Attig said that, in his experience, those working in local VSOs around the country took pride in their work, but sometimes weren't properly trained to build a strong appeals case or deal with claims system full of red-tape and deadlines. "I'm not saying the VSO are not good people, but there's a lot that has to be done and some are just never trained to do it," Attig said about VSOs in general, noting he couldn't speak specifically about Shasta County's office. [Source: Stars & Stripes | Clay Duda | March 22, 2015 ++]

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VA Health Care Stories Update 13 ► Spokane VAMC

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Recently I had prostate surgery at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Spokane. The entire experience, from the diagnosis through pre-operation orientation, the surgery itself and the post-operative care, was wonderful. I couldn’t have had better care. My wife decided that she would spend the time I was there with me in the same room. Once again, the VA staff went out of their way to make her comfortable and feel welcome. A lot has been written and televised about problems with the VA hospitals and the care they provide. From my experience, the problems don’t seem to have affected the Spokane VA. One of my nurses used to work at one of the hospitals on the South Hill, and she said that this is the first hospital she has worked in where the patient really came first. She also said there is no set limit on the time spent to make the patient comfortable and their needs met at the VA. So if you are thinking about whether you want to go to the VA for any medical treatment, give it a try. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Dennis and Storma Edelbrock

[Source: The Spokesman-Review | Letters, Opinion | March 31, 2015 ++]

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VAMC Hampton VA Update 03 ► Suicide Behavior Reports

A Hampton VA Medical Center patient twice reported his attempted suicide but the staff never notified the hospital’s suicide prevention coordinator, according to an inspector general’s report released 30 MAR. The incident involving the man who had a history of depression and insomnia occurred more than three years ago and was investigated at the request of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) According to report, the staff noted the attempted suicide in the patient’s record, but never filed a report to alert the suicide prevention coordinator for further monitoring and review. Providers are required to complete a suicide behavior report when they become aware of suicide attempts under VA policy. A suicide prevention coordinator would then assess the patient’s risk, ensure they’re evaluated at least weekly for the next month at a minimum, as well as follow up on missed appointments. Media outlets report that the unidentified young man later died of accidental causes six weeks after visiting an area outpatient clinic.

The report “reveals the upsetting reality that VA personnel did not do everything they could in this case to help a troubled veteran,” Burr said. “The findings highlight the necessity for administrators and medical personnel to approach the difficult nature of suicide with compassion and fully train all personnel to follow procedures in these situations.” Hampton VA Medical Center officials said they agree with the report and its recommendations. Providers who work there under contract are now trained in managing suicide risk. The medical center also is randomly auditing 70 medical records per month in three departments to ensure the staff is taking steps to evaluate at-risk patients. “There were things that could have been done differently,” said Dr. Priscilla Hankins, chief of mental health at the Hampton VA. “The documentation is one of them.” Hankins also noted that while the VA’s expanding services are helping many veterans, there are some that are beyond help. “Are there some who do not get better? Yes, unfortunately, that is the reality,” she said. “There are some who we cannot assist. That is the unfortunate, sad outcome.” [Source: The Associated Press | March 31, 2015 ++]

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VAMC Tomah WI Update 06 ► Patient Drug Testing Discouraged

A pharmacist at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wisconsin said she was discouraged by higher-ups from performing drug tests on patients prescribed opiates, as is recommended by VA guidelines. In a joint U.S. House and Senate committee hearing in Tomah on 30 MAR, Noelle Johnson, a pharmacist

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who was fired from the facility and now is employed by VA as a pain management specialist in Des Moines, Iowa, said pharmacists were discouraged from testing patients for drug use for fear of what prescribing physicians might learn. If the tests were negative, it might indicate that the patient was not taking the medication, raising questions as to whether they were "diverting" or selling their meds. If the tests were strongly positive, it could suggest overuse or abuse and VA could be held liable "when something unfortunate happened," Johnson said she was told. "I believe that this is the point of urine drug testing, to substantiate use and misuse of high-risk medications for the safety of veterans and the public," Johnson said. "What happened to the doctors' oath of "First Do No Harm?"

During three hours of testimony, House Veterans' Affairs and Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee members heard from families of patients who died at the Tomah VA, former employees who said they warned VA officials about physicians suspected of overmedicating patients but were fired or reprimanded for doing so and VA administrators in charge of investigating wrongdoing at the hospital.The facility came under fire earlier this year after reports surfaced that at least two providers prescribed more opiate pain medications than their peers and patients died from drug toxicity. The VA Office of Inspector General launched an investigation in 2011 into the number of narcotics prescriptions distributed at the facility as well as drug trafficking, mismanagement and intimidation of pharmacists by hospital administrators and doctors. But the OIG was not able to "substantiate the majority of the allegations" and closed the case in 2014 without publicly releasing the report, raising questions of a cover up or concerted effort to protect the providers in question, Dr. David Houlihan and nurse practicioner Deborah Frasher.

During the hearing, VA OIG John Daigh defended his decision not to release the report. "The data we collected did not support the allegations that led us to Tomah, and knowing that our national report would highlight the many deficiencies in VA providers' compliance with these guidelines, I chose to administratively close this report," Daigh said. A Center for Investigative Reporting investigation published in January found a 14-fold increase in the number of oxycodone pills prescribed at the Tomah VA Medical Center, from 50,000 in 2004 to 712,000 in 2012. Veterans at the hospital told a reporter that distribution was so rampant, they nicknamed the place "Candy Land." Last Aug. 30, a 35-year-old Marine Corps veteran, Jason Simcakoski, died of an overdose while in the inpatient psychiatric ward and 32 other unanticipated deaths have occurred at the facility in the past few years.

Simcakoski died while under the care of Houlihan and another physician. He had checked himself in for anxiety and was scheduled for release that day, but having been put on a new medication, Suboxone, in addition to the 14 other medications he was taking — tranquilizers, an antipsychotic medication and tramadol — could not move, according to his father Marvin Simcakoski. "I regret leaving my son in his room alone that morning only to get a call hours later that he had stopped breathing," Simcakoski said. VA clinical practice guidelines for treating acute anxiety and post-traumatic stress note that opiates may be helpful in curbing acute pain resulting from a severe injury that may attribute to the development of PTSD. To treat these ailments, however, other medications such as antidepressants are recommended, according to the VA guidelines. Marvin and Heather Simcakoski said Jason did not have the condition for which opiates are usually prescribed — chronic pain. But he was put on a powerful one — tramadol — just days before he died, they said during the hearing.

VA clinical practice guidelines call for performing a urine drug test before prescribing opioids and randomly testing throughout the prescription period. But according to Daigh, just 10 percent of veterans at Tomah received the recommended drug testing. An internal investigation is underway of Houlihan and Frasher, who were placed on administrative leave 10 MAR. Dr. Carolyn Clancy, acting undersecretary for health affairs, said once the investigations are concluded, VA will "act quickly, decisively, and productively," with veterans' care, health and safety leading any personnel decisions the department makes. She added too, that a number of organizations — the OIG, Joint Commission, Drug Enforcement Agency

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and the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services — have reviewed or also are investigating the facility. "The stories [families have] told have been noted by others and are a profound and invaluable gift to us. And we will use that to improve. ... Our commitment to you is that we will use this information to improve now and in the future," Clancy said. [Source: MilitaryTimes | Patricia Kime | April 02, 2015 ++]

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VAMC Louisville KY ► Vet Likes Robley Rex VA Care

In recent months, the Veterans Administration has taken a verbal beating nationally for poor service to veterans. I am a veteran and I avail myself of the services which are offered to me in the Louisville area. It is difficult to put into words the excellent service which I have received for approximately 25 years. I have never waited an excessive amount of time for an appointment, I receive all of my medications in a very timely manner, and the personnel services, doctors, nurses and attendants have always been totally acceptable. As for the location of the proposed new veterans hospital, listen to the vast majority of the veterans: Totally upgrade the present facility, build a multi-storage parking facility with pedways to the hospital, save money by the millions and make a lot of people happy for many years to come. [Source: The Courier-Journal | Evert Vaughn | March 25, 2015 ++]

The existing Robley Rex VA Medical Center on Zorn Avenue, Louisville KY

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VAMC Dayton Update 01 ► Veterans Praise VA Medical Care

Hoping to avoid a Veterans Administration scandal similar to what plagued Phoenix last year, leaders of the Dayton VA health facilities have taken the center on the road, meeting with veterans to discuss their medical concerns. A team of VA executives met 24 MAR with about 25 veterans at the Middletown Senior Citizens Center, and most of the response was positive. They praised the center for providing quality care in a timely fashion. That certainly wasn’t the sentiment expressed in 2014 in Arizona when Veterans Affairs internal investigations identified 35 veterans who had died while waiting for care in the Phoenix VHA system. Eventually, the Veterans Health Administration’s top health official, Dr. Robert Petzel, retired early at the request of Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki, who resigned from office amid the fallout from the controversy.

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 Glenn Costie, CEO/Medical Center Director for the VA Healthcare System of Ohio, speaks during a Veteran Listening Session, the third in a series of quarterly Veteran listening sessions for the Dayton VA Medical Center that give veterans, family members and other members of the community an opportunity to share any feedback, questions, or concerns regarding VA leadership.

Glenn A. Costie, CEO/Medical Center Director at the Dayton VA, was one of the officials who traveled to Arizona last year trying to correct the issues there. He hopes discussions, like the ones held recently in Dayton, Lima and Middletown, and later in Springfield and Richmond, Ind., curtail any controversy before it starts. “People here were pretty positive about their care,” Costie said after the session that lasted about 30 minutes, about half of the scheduled time. He said the VA, because of its clients, sometimes deals with challenges not seen in public physician offices. He said some of their patients may suffer from mental stress, physical ailments, and the loss of limbs, all at the same time.“We must meet those needs,” he said.

Ted Froats, public affairs officer for the Dayton VA, said the veterans who attended Tuesday’s event seemed “very happy about their care.” One of those was Jim Oakley, an Army veteran from Middletown. He said the health care he receives from the VA is better than from his private physician. “I love it,” he said. Still, some of the veterans in the room expressed concern about their medical coverage and benefits. Bill Sollenderger, a Navy veteran from Dayton, said he takes 24 pills a day for his many ailments. He said none of them are narcotics, and his physician told him he’ll be on the medicines the rest of his life. He doesn’t understand why he has to get the prescriptions renewed every few months. VA officials told Sollenderger they would investigate his complaint and try to resolve his issue. [Source: Dayton Daily News | Rick McCrabb | March 24, 2015 ++]

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VAMC Aurora CO Update 04 ► HVAC Chair Suggests Sell or Scale Back

The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee says the VA could consider selling or scaling back the over-budget Denver veterans hospital to find the money to complete it. Florida Republican Rep. Jeff Miller on 7 APR said the Veterans Affairs Department has not taken the troubled construction project seriously. He says Congress won't authorize any more money until it does. The VA had no immediate comment. The hospital in suburban Denver is expected to cost $1.73 billion, nearly three times the amount the VA estimated last year. The current estimated completion date is 2017. The VA says problems in the design process were to blame and an investigation is underway. Miller is pressuring the department to fire

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those responsible. His committee plans a hearing in Washington 15 APR. [Source: Daytona Beach News Journal | April 07, 2015 ++]

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VAMC Minneapolis Update 03 ► Memo Confirms Problems Were Known

A Minnesota Congressman is asking that an internal memo obtained by KARE 11 be included in an ongoing federal investigation of the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. "I'm really irritated by this," said Congressman Tim Walz (D-MN). "Really irritated, really angry." The memo, written last April by the number two man at the local VA, spells out a number of improper scheduling practices that were taking place in Minneapolis and says, "These practices must cease immediately." Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN) says the memo contradicts personal assurances he got that the Minneapolis VA wasn't part of an unfolding national scandal about delays in patient care.

Congressman Tim Walz

In the memo, Dr. Kent Crossley, Chief of Staff at the Minneapolis VA, tells staffers to stop claiming appointments were "cancelled by the patient" when, in fact, they were "cancelled by clinics". Crossley also says he's aware that some schedulers have been "cancelling consults due to lack of access." He continued, "This is not the proper way to handle these situations." Just two weeks after that memo was written, Walz says local VA administrators told him Minneapolis didn't have waiting list problems. "I sat in that room with the Legion commander, with the VFW, when they told us this," Walz said. Based on that briefing, Walz appeared before cameras. "I went out I said I have been told we do not have this here in Minneapolis." After seeing the memo, Walz says he was misled about improper scheduling practices that covered up appointment delays. "They were happening, they were happening at the time." "You've been burned?" asked KARE 11 reporter A. J. Lagoe. "Yes, yes," Walz replied.

Walz says the memo shows that VA management was aware of scheduling practices that were, at best, making things inconvenient for veterans and, at worst, putting lives at risk. "While it makes me angry and we'll get to the bottom of it," Walz added, "it doesn't shock me." Now, Walz has written to the VA's Inspector General asking for the memo to be part of an on-going federal investigation of the Minneapolis VA. "While it makes me angry and we'll get to the bottom of it," Walz added, "it doesn't shock me." The investigation began last year, after KARE 11 reported about whistleblowers who claimed the Minneapolis schedulers had been keeping secret lists in order to make wait times look shorter - and help managers earn big bonuses. "It's all about making the numbers look good regardless if it's damaging people," said Letty Alonso, a former VA scheduler who says she was fired for trying to expose problems.

Crossley's memo seems to acknowledge that some VA schedulers were under pressure to make appointment delay statistics look good. "I acknowledge changing historical practices such as these may affect our performance on metrics," he wrote. "Nonetheless, these practices must cease immediately." In an email written a day after Crossley's memo, an administrative officer writes she's heard complaints that

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some VA schedulers had even told veterans, "I can't schedule you or my access metrics will take a hit and I'll get into trouble." "When you hear things like this it taints the whole system," Walz said. "I can't trust the data I'm getting."

Jordan Buisman died awaiting an appointment at the Minneapolis VAMC

Crossley's memo also states that when patients from the St. Cloud VA are referred to Minneapolis and there's no capacity, "the patient should be fee based." That means the veteran is sent to a private doctor -- to ensure they receive timely medical care. That didn't happen in the case of Marine Corporal Jordan Buisman. Last year, Buisman's mother shared her son's medical records with KARE 11. They showed that when the St. Cloud VA didn't have the neurology specialist he needed, he was referred to Minneapolis. Buisman passed away while waiting almost 70 days for an appointment. KARE 11 requested an interview with Minneapolis VA Director Patrick Kelly to ask about the Crossley memo. In response, we got a short statement that said in part: "The specific scheduling issues identified were potentially serious but not thought to be widespread. These examples were used to highlight the need to directly address the issues, be transparent and act with integrity in our scheduling practices." [Source: Minneapolis - St. Paul KARE 11 | Steve Eckert and A.J. Lagoe | April 09, 2015 ++]

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VA HCS North FL/South GA ► Cancelled Appointments

In February, the assistant director of the North Florida/South Georgia VA Health System pointed to canceled appointments as a contributing factor in the Jacksonville clinic’s wait times, which are the worst for any major VA facility in the country. What Nick Ross failed to mention was that the clinic — not patients — was responsible for canceling more than half of those appointments. “We have a fairly high number of folks who either cancel their appointment or no-show, this accounting system really doesn’t take that into effect because it’s cumulative,” Ross said when presented with Jacksonville’s wait times. Then, as now, roughly a quarter of veterans at the Jacksonville clinic don’t get seen within the VA’s 30-day target, more than seven percent higher any other major facility in the nation. “If you take that into account, technically speaking, we can’t do anything about that.”

The Jacksonville VA outpatient clinic on Jefferson Street

The numbers tell another story. Out of 117,117 canceled appointments from Jan 1, 2014, to March 1, 2015, the clinic canceled 59,661 of them, according to data provided by the VA through a Freedom of

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Information Act request made by the Times-Union. The cancelations are important because they add to already lengthy waits for veterans attempting to get healthcare. Patient wait times, and some VA administrators’ attempts to cover them up to receive bonuses, were the paramount issue in the VA scandal that erupted in Phoenix last year — eventually leading to VA secretary Eric Shinseki’s resignation. In Northeast Florida, Jacksonville, as mentioned, is last in the nation among major facilities for wait times. In St. Augustine, the VA’s lack of action in finding a new home for the clinic there will cost taxpayers at least hundreds of thousands of dollars. In Gainesville, a recently released inspector general report found nepotism and preferential treatment there. All three facilities are managed by the North Florida/South Georgia VA Health System.

During the 14-month period, the clinic scheduled 627,078 appointments. Nearly 10 percent of them were canceled by the clinic. The VA cited reasons why appointments are canceled. “Any change in provider ... requires cancellation of patient appointments and rescheduling,” wrote area VA spokeswoman Cindy Snook in an emailed statement. “We schedule patient appointments 120 days into the future. “Any associated appointments such as lab, X-ray, etc. would also require cancellation and rescheduling.” If a provider is sick or on leave, that would also require an appointment to be canceled, Snook said. Still, the Jacksonville clinic’s cancellation rate dwarfs those at other similar-sized clinics in the state. In a February interview with the Times-Union, Ross cited the cancellation rate as a reason why wait times at the Jacksonville facility were so much longer than other clinics in the state that have fewer physicians per appointments. No one associated with the Jacksonville clinic or its leadership was available 3 APR to say why Jacksonville’s rate was so much higher.

The Times-Union requested the statistics after numerous patients detailed how their appointment dates were changed or canceled — many times without their knowledge. “Sometimes you go to the VA appointment and they’ll say you’re appointment has been canceled, you have to come back on another day,” said Tony D’Aleo, a veteran and president of the Jacksonville chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America. “I would never cancel them. “The VA canceled them.” Russ Jones received a letter in the mail, dated Feb. 24, 2015, from the VA notifying him of an appointment with a podiatrist March 30 — outside the VA’s target of 30 days, though just barely. Ten days before the appointment, he was sent a letter in the mail notifying him the Jacksonville clinic had cancelled his appointment. “We apologize for the inconvenience,” the letter said, though it gave no reason as to why. “Your appointment will be rescheduled as soon as possible.”

By contrast less than 1 percent of medical appointments at Nebraska's largest Veterans Affairs health facility, the Omaha VA Medical Center, failed to meet the VA health system's timeliness goal, which calls for patients to be seen within 30 days. [Source: The Florida Times Union | Clifford Davis | April 03, 2015 ++]

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VARO Honolulu HI ► Data Manipulation

A former supervisor at the Honolulu Veterans Affairs regional office acted inappropriately when he failed to follow proper procedure for processing benefits claims, according to a new report from the department’s inspector general. The manager, who has since resigned, removed certain controls between April and August 2014 in the electronic records used to track and identify 143 benefits claims, potentially resulting in some vets receiving more compensation for dependents than they were entitled to because the claims were incomplete, the watchdog concluded. The employee told the IG that it wasn’t his intention to misrepresent data, but that “he wanted his team to work on the most difficult aspects of their workload, and he did not want to provide them with easy work associated with the control he removed.”

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The supervisor also improperly inserted himself into a situation involving a veteran’s rental housing payments, and instructed his staff to disregard a policy involving recoupment of separation pay for that veteran. In addition, he didn’t follow the required policy of informing vets what their reduced monthly benefits would be if they did not fill out the paperwork associated with their dependent status.

The IG report said the supervisor’s actions “misrepresented the [regional office’s] claims inventory and timeliness measures, and impaired its ability to measure and manage its workloads.” The electronic system controls are supposed to remain in place until employees “complete all required actions, including providing notices of benefits decisions to the claimants,” the report stated. The inspector general investigated the matter after the director of the Honolulu VA regional office in October 2014 asked the watchdog to look into the allegation of data manipulation. The former supervisor told the IG he was trying to “assist a veteran in need” when he circumvented the policy regarding recoupment of separation pay for a vet who was having trouble paying rent and was going to be evicted. VA is supposed to recoup any separation pay from the Defense Department before paying the vet disability compensation. In this instance, the supervisor told a veterans service representative to modify the vet’s monthly disability payments by reducing the separation pay recoupment amount, so the vet had more money to pay rent. “This would allow the veteran to receive additional monthly benefits, but would lengthen the time it would take the VA to recoup the $40,000 in separation pay,” the report said. “The proper action should have been to instruct the veteran to submit a request to waive recoupment of his separation pay.”

VA staff has moved to restore the full recoupment amount to the monthly payments, according to the IG. The IG recommended that the Honolulu VA regional office review and correct as appropriate all the supervisor’s improper actions, ensure staff receive training on properly processing dependency questionnaires, and take appropriate administrative action against the supervisor, if necessary. The head of the regional office agreed with the watchdog’s recommendations, and implemented them.

VA often touts its progress in reducing the disability claims backlog, particularly now after last year’s eruption of the scandal involving patient wait times and data manipulation within the Veterans Health Administration prompted a large-scale reform effort. As of March 28, the disability compensation and pension claims backlog was at 193,662 claims, down from 611,073 claims in March 2013. Claims in the backlog have been pending for more than 125 days. The growing number of claims filed by veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan has put pressure on a department already facing numerous challenges. Last year, the IG found problems with data manipulation and unopened mail at VA facilities in Philadelphia and Baltimore, according to a July 15, 2014, Associated Press report. Lawmakers and the IG office have questioned the VA’s backlog numbers as well as the accuracy of claims processing and the amount of benefits payments to vets. [Source: GovExec.com | Kellie Lunney | March 30, 2015 ++]

* Vets *

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SECNAV Retiree Council Update 05 ► 2014 Issues & RecommendationsThe 2014 Secretary of the Navy’s Retiree Council met Aug. 11-15, 2014 at the Washington Navy Yard. The council meets annually in accordance with Secretary of the Navy Instructions and is made up of volunteers from the Navy and Marine Corps retired community. The council debates areas of retiree concerns and makes recommendations to the Secretary. After the council issues their recommendations, the Secretary of the Navy reviews them then issues a response. The top-three topics the council submitted were: veterans’ health and welfare, TRICARE, several supplemental topics, and retiree volunteer management. Although the last topic prompted no issues, the council took the opportunity to address the Navy’s efforts to fund full-time regional program coordinators.

Veterans’ Health and Welfare Issue 01: Agent Orange exposure by “blue water” Sailors. The council recommended the

Secretary endorse the presumed exposure and support legislative change.

Issue 02: Transitional housing for single-parent veterans with children. The council pointed out that existing agreements between the Housing and Urban Development and community housing entities are insufficient to address this growing need problem.

TRICARE Issue 03: Acceptance. The council recommended that there be a directed effort to increase

acceptance of TRICARE by civilian healthcare providers and clinics.

Issue 04: Enrollment fee Increases. The council strongly opposed TRICARE increases to enrollment fees for TRICARE for Life and tiered fees.

Issue 05: Chiropractic services. The council recommended that services be extended to all TRICARE beneficiaries.

Issue 06: Eye exams. The council pointed out eye exams are not consistent with the recommendations of the American Optometric Association and that TRICARE be updated to match those guidelines.

Issue 07: Mental health providers. The council stated that there exists a shortage of mental health providers who accept TRICARE.

Volunteer Service and Advocacy Issue 08: Volunteer services. The council recommended that the Navy establish a clearing house

mechanism where the demand for volunteer services would be matched with the supply of willing retirees.

Issue 09: Retiree entitlements. The council said that many retirees are not sufficiently informed about their entitlements and that collaborative agreements should be made between the Navy and veteran service organizations as well as the Veteran’s Affairs (VA) and the Labor Departments.

Issue 10: Retiree volunteers. The council proposed that the Navy use less contract and Reserve support and use experienced retirees who volunteer their services in exchange for having their travel and living expenses covered.

Issue 11: VA website. The council recommended that a retiree-specific tab be placed on the VA website to serve as a central point of information for all retirees.

Issue 12: Funeral honors. The counsel stated that there is inadequate guidance for using Navy retirees for funeral honors details.

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Retiree Compensation Issue 13: Arrears of Pay. The council said that a upon a retiree’s death, their pay is either

deposited and removed or there is no deposit for many days. They recommend that this process be changed significantly.

Issue 14: Retiree compensation proposed changes. The council recommended that any future changes eliminate disparities in the current regulations that adversely affect spouses who lose TRICARE when they remarry, fully evaluate the impact on recruiting and retention of delaying retirement pay until age 55, and consider and implement remedies for issues including disability and retirement pay computation issues, surviving widow benefits, and medically retired benefits.

Outreach Issue 15: Shift Colors & Semper Fi magazines. The council recommended DFAS email

distribution list be used to distribute both Shift Colors and Semper Fi retiree publications. In

Issue 16: Separation training. The council recommended that state and local benefits and resources be added back into the Transition Goals, Plans, and Success courses.

Issue 17: DD-214. The council recommended that separating Sailors and Marines be required to record an email address on their DD-214.

Medical Issue 18: Taxes. The council recommended that TRICARE enrollment fees and premiums be

changed to pre-tax benefits.

Issue 19: TRICARE pharmacy. The council recommended that specific pharmacies be added to TRICARE coverage.

Overseas Issue 20: TRICARE. The council recommended that payments from retirees living overseas

should be made to TRICARE, not Medicare.

Issue 21: Commissary & Exchange. The council discussed the denial of commissary and exchange privileges to retirees living in Rota, Spain.

Issue 22: Retiree mail services. The council recommended that retiree mail privileges be increased above the current one-pound limit.

Issue 23: Space Available travel. The council recommended that travel for surviving spouses of retirees living overseas be available.

The council is currently soliciting issues of concern for their next meeting which is tentatively scheduled to take place Aug. 3-7, 2015. [Source: Shift Colors | Spring 2015 ++]

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Vet Toxic Exposure~Lejeune Update 53 ► Available Benefits

From the 1950s through the 1980s, people living or working at the U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, were potentially exposed to drinking water contaminated with industrial solvents, benzene and other chemicals. This chemical exposure may have led to health conditions. These 15 health conditions qualify regarding the contaminates: esophageal cancer, breast cancer, kidney cancer, multiple myeloma, renal toxicity, female infertility, scleroderma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, lung cancer, bladder cancer, leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, hepatic steatosis, miscarriage or neurobehavioral effects. You may

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be eligible for VA health benefits if you served on active duty or resided (family members) at Camp Lejeune for 30 days or more between Aug. 1, 1953, and Dec. 31, 1987. If you are eligible:

Veterans receive VA health care; care for qualifying health conditions is at no cost (including copayments).

Family members receive reimbursement for out-of-pocket medical expenses incurred from treatment of qualifying health conditions.

To apply veterans need to gather documents showing they served on active duty at Camp Lejuene. They can use military orders or base housing records. They then need to enroll in VA Health Care. Veterans already enrolled can contact their local VA health care facility at http://www.va.gov/directory/guide/ to sign up for the Camp Lejeune Program and receive VA care. If not yet enrolled, veterans can apply online at http://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/apply, call toll-free (877) 222-8387, or visit the nearest Veterans Affairs Office. Family members need to gather documents to show their relationship to a veteran; they can use a marriage license or a birth certificate. They also need to show that they lived at Camp Lejuene. They need the military orders sending their veteran to Camp Lejeune or Camp Lejeune base housing records. Then gather receipts for qualifying expenses.

By law, VA may only compensate for eligible out-of-pocket expenses after family members have received payment from all other health plans. Family members may request reimbursement for expenses incurred on or after March 26, 2013, which is the date when Congress began to fund this program. To apply for reimbursement, visit http://www.clfamilymembers.fsc.va.gov or call toll-free (866) 372-1144. For more information, call Brenda Stormer at the Veterans Affairs Office at (724) 465-3815. [Source: http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/camp-lejeune/index.asp April 2015 ++

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Pennsylvania Vet Bonus Update 03 ► Submission Deadline 31 AUG 15

The deadline for submitting applications for the Persian Gulf Conflict Veterans Benefit Program is Aug. 31, 2015. Pennsylvania veterans or beneficiaries of deceased veterans could be eligible for:

A one-time benefit of $75 per month for each month (or major fraction thereof) of active service in the Persian Gulf Conflict Theater of Operations during the period of Aug. 2, 1990 to Aug. 31, 1991. The maximum compensation is $525.

An additional one-time benefit of $5,000 if the service member was declared a prisoner of war at any time while on “active service” during the covered period.

Beneficiaries may also be eligible to receive an additional one-time benefit of $5,000 if the service member died while on “active service” during the covered period, or died as a result of service-connected wounds, diseases or injuries sustained during such active service, as certified by DOD or VA.

Proof of residency, military service, and the receipt of the Southwest Asia Service Medal are required, among other documentation go to: http://www.milvet.state.pa.us/DMVA/Docs_BVA//PGVB/Digest.pdf for more information or to apply. [Source: VFW Action Corps Weekly | March 27, 2015 ++]

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National WWII Museum ► New Orleans | A Memorable Experience

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The National WWII Museum is made up of three buildings, including the Atrium in the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion, which features rotating macro-artifacts from the museum's collection, including a Douglas C-47. Following is an account of reporter Jill Schensul’s visit to the Museum:

-o-o-O-o-o- In the darkness of the theater, the numbers appear. They come at you, really, daring you to absorb them:

Soviet Union, 24,000,000 China, 20,000,000 Poland, 5,600,000 Japan, 3,100,000 U.S.A., 518,000 Germany, 8,800,000

These are the number of dead, by country, in World War II. A total of 65 million, more than all other wars to that point combined. Visitors get a sobering taste of submarine warfare from the feature "Final Mission: The USS Tang Experience." "Beyond All Boundaries," the much-praised film that is a centerpiece of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, slaps you into awareness. Awareness of a reality that, as the "Greatest Generation" veterans slip away, we are in danger of forgetting. The movie, narrated by Tom Hanks, its executive producer, is in "4-D." The 3-D is accomplished without needing those special glasses, and the fourth D reaches into the audience -- wind blows, the theater's seats shake, smoke billows. The movie like the museum wants to engage all generations; that's why you need that extra "D" these days.

Still, as the film proceeds (it takes us through the Pacific Theater and Africa in addition to Hitler's march through Europe), the actual events upstage any theatrical booms and quakes. The bigness is difficult to wrap your mind around. But in one section on the brutal Battle of Saipan, when just the center screen is illuminated, with shots of the consequences of war -- a woman jumping off a cliff to commit suicide, a GI giving his canteen to a child and a GI holding a tattered Imperial Japan flag amid ruins -- there is an image of a shivering Japanese girl, maybe 5, and all alone. It is just a quick image, a blink in the spectrum of this devastation. But you see her shiver. You can feel it. Basically, this is what will move you. Individuals. The stories of individuals, of each person, each one of the ones that make up the 65 million dead -- along with those who survived, of course. The stories bridge the gap of time and place. And one hopes they will lead to understanding. Remembering. Incorporating the lessons of war into the minds of generations that followed.

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That is exactly the mission of the museum, what Stephen Ambrose, the historian and writer, had in mind when he began gathering support for it. Ambrose, a longtime professor of history at the University of New Orleans, wrote not only biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, but historical best-sellers, including "Band of Brothers." When he founded the Eisenhower Center at the university in 1989, its mission was to study the consequences of war. So his first project was collecting oral histories from World War II veterans about their experiences. He collected their words and also thousands of artifacts from veterans as he interviewed them. All this formed the foundation of the museum, which he saw as a place that would reflect "his deep regard for our nation's citizen soldiers, the workers on the home front and the sacrifices and hardships they endured to achieve victory," according to its president. Ambrose got a lot of heavy hitters to help support the museum: Hanks, Steven Spielberg and state and federal governments.

It opened in 2000, and in 2003, Congress designated the museum as "America's National World War II Museum." Ambrose, however, died in 2002, so he never knew of the extra import that would be given to the museum he founded. From its one original building, the museum has expanded to three and is planning more. Currently exhibitions are organized in three main pavilions around central themes of the war.

The Louisiana Memorial Pavilion showcases the large artifacts of the war and exhibitions about D-Day, the home front and the Pacific. Here you'll find the Solomon Victory Theater, which shows "Beyond All Boundaries"; also the Stage Door Canteen, where the music and entertainment of the generation come to life.

The John E. Kushner Restoration Pavilion is where staff and volunteers restore artifacts in public view. Make sure you stop by the American Sector Restaurant and Soda Shop -- atmospheric and friendly, with old-fashioned tunes and USO photos.

The U.S. Freedom Pavilion, the most recent addition, features exhibitions and interactive experiences that illuminate the story of a country mobilizing for war. At its heart is the Campaigns of Courage section, with its new Road to Berlin: European Theater Galleries.

There's a lot to see in this museum. Truly, you need at least half a day, or consider breaking up your visit into two days (an extra $6 for second-day admission), so you have time to digest it all. But there are two other special features of the museum (well, at least two) not to miss.

"Final Mission: The USS Tang Submarine Experience" requires buying a supplementary ticket, but it's worth the $5. You will get an interactive experience of being aboard the most successful submarine in World War II, boarding as it sets off on its fifth (and final) war patrol on Oct. 25, 1944. You're assigned a workstation down in the control room -- I never did figure out how to work my various wheels and dials, but it soon didn't matter. Above us through a glass window, we could see the prow of a Japanese warship and hear the buzzing of alarms and the shouting of instructions. I stood looking up, mouth open, helpless, along with my fellow sub mates: a dad and his son, grandparents and their little girl, a young Asian couple with a little boy: as we began to understand we were under attack. We were gaining an understanding what the "final" in the title of the experience actually meant. I had no idea -- as the men on Oct. 25, 1944, had no idea. But for them it was real.

The other feature to watch out for at the museum is "Dog Tag Experience," which allows you to follow one person's story through the war. When you pay for your ticket, you receive a dog tag that you can then register at a kiosk in the Campaigns of Courage section of the museum. You "follow" a real person in the museum database: Whenever you notice a dog tag station at various points throughout the exhibition, you can access additional information about the person you're following and his or her experiences at that point in time. I didn't have enough time to learn all about my dog-tag person, Augustus Hamilton of the 358th Fighter Group; he enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked. I felt bad that I couldn't stay with him, but I had doomed myself from the outset to run out of time because, well, there are stories everywhere.

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The moment I entered the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion, I was waylaid. After gasping at the enormous planes suspended from the ceiling, I noticed a familiar-looking craft to my left. It was, I learned from the signage, a Higgins Boat, a replica of one used for the D-Day landing in Normandy. It also explained one reason the museum is in New Orleans: When the military in the late 1930s began developing small boats that could carry troops from ships to open beaches, they eventually discovered Andrew Jackson Higgins of New Orleans, who had been manufacturing shallow-water work boats to support oil and gas exploration in the Louisiana bayous. Higgins adapted his designs for the military's specifications; he and his 30,000 workers went on to make every landing craft used in the war.

Right next to the Higgins display was a long metal table, and near the far end sat two men, one sporting military medals, the other with a gray, unruly beard. Behind the man with the medals was a sign: "I was there! Meet Forrest Villarrubia, USMC, WWII veteran. Pacific Theater." Both men were veterans, willing to answer questions, or welcome other veterans, to the museum. On the table beside them was a photo of a man who had just died. I asked them about Thomas Blakey. Blakey was an Army paratrooper who landed behind enemy lines early on D-Day to capture and hold a bridge to keep Germans from sending reinforcements to Utah Beach. He was 94 when he died, Villarrubia said. He had logged 15,000 hours as a volunteer at the museum. They didn't tell me that Blakey had been one of the legions of veterans who had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. It was something you didn't talk about at the time. Blakey was haunted by what he saw behind enemy lines and was only finally able to drive away the ghosts when he became a volunteer. Sharing his stories. Talking about the war, in all its aspects, helped him come to terms with the past.

After his death, there was a memorial service for Blakey. Gordon "Nick" Muller, president and CEO of the National WWII Museum, gave the closing remarks. "He gave his spirit and memories to millions of visitors," Muller said. "To all of us in this room, Tom Blakey was the very heart and soul of this museum." I thought about 15,000 hours of telling stories. I thought about 94 years of living. I thought about 65 million people dying. I hadn't even begun to explore the place, but already I was grateful for the opportunity it provided to learn the stories of individuals, as many as I and the million other visitors could. So their memories, and what made them the Greatest Generation, might live on. [Source: The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) | Jill Schensul | Mar. 09, 2015 ++]

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Atomic Vets Update 08 ► Enewetak Atoll Cleanup Vet’s Plight

Jeffery Dean, the youngest of four brothers who grew up in rural Knox County in the 1970s, was a typical kid. He helped with haying at local farms, went lobstering in the summers and did well enough in high school to graduate but not well enough to go to college. Instead, he signed up for a stint in the U.S. Army. Two weeks after he graduated from high school, he was on a bus and gone. “It was my first time out of the state of Maine,” Dean, now a 58-year-old carpenter who sometimes forgets how to finish the sentences he started, recalled this week. “That was a big learning experience.”

The young soldier, just 19 then, couldn’t have imagined the lifelong journey he ended up taking thanks to his three-year-stint in the Army. Familiar with boats, he had signed up to be a watercraft operator and was stationed at Fort Story in Virginia Beach. But soon enough, he was transported to the other side of the world — to a tiny Pacific Ocean atoll with a hard-to-pronounce name. Enewetak Atoll — a chain of about 40 islets that surround a large lagoon — is part of the Marshall Islands, and to the naked eye, there wasn’t much there except for sandy white beaches and the grey reef sharks that haunted the waters around the coral reef. Although Dean couldn’t see it, there was something else in the atoll that he believes ended up haunting his whole life: radioactive contamination from the atomic and hydrogen bombs that the American

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military had tested on the atoll a few decades before. He and his fellow soldiers had just one mission to accomplish during their stint in the Pacific — to clean up and rehabilitate the atoll before it was returned to the people of the Marshall Islands.

Nuclear weapon test Mike (yield 10.4 Mt) on Enewetak Atoll.

Many of the men who were part of the cleanup mission have connected serious health concerns that are plaguing them today with their work on the atoll 40 years ago. Some have formed a group called the Atomic Cleanup Vets with the goal of helping each other with information and moral support during challenging times. Another goal is to be recognized as “Atomic Veterans,” a category defined in legislation that designates veterans who participated in above-ground nuclear tests between 1945 and 1962, who were part of the U.S. military occupation in or around Hiroshima or Nagasaki before 1946, or who were among the prisoners of war held in or near Hiroshima or Nagasaki. This designation allows veterans who have developed one of several specific cancers or nonmalignant conditions to be eligible for compensation or free medical care through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. They do not have to prove their cancers were caused by radiation.

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Angus King confirmed that his office has heard from veterans in similar situations, and is working with them and the VA on a case-by-case basis. “Senator King’s office is aware of the issue and his staff has been in touch with the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Scott Ogden, spokesman for the senator, wrote in an email to the BDN. “Our veterans have served our nation with honor and distinction, and if they suffer from illnesses resulting from their work in the line of duty, then they deserve recognition from the VA. Senator King’s office will continue to work with Maine veterans and the VA on this issue moving forward.” A VA spokesperson from Washington, D.C., contacted on Monday did not immediately have any response to questions about why the veterans who served on Enewetak Atoll do not have the Atomic Veterans designation.

According to the Marshall Islands dose assessment and radioecology program’s website, approximately 4,000 American servicemen assisted in what became known as the Enewetak Radiological Support Project. They were there between 1977 and 1980, working to scrape 73,000 cubic meters of surface soil off six different islands on the atoll. They deposited the radioactive soil into the Cactus Crater on Runit Island, part of the atoll, then capped the crater with a thick layer of concrete. Dean remembers that it was breathlessly hot on the islands, the temperatures rising to as high as 125 degrees Fahrenheit. The young soldiers who worked to remove and consolidate the soil contaminated with cesium-137, plutonium and other heavy radioactive elements often wore few clothes and almost nothing in the way of protective gear. Somewhere, he said, there’s a photograph of him unloading atomic waste out of the well deck of his amphibious craft wearing only sneakers and shorts. “We were basically expendable guinea pigs. They could have taken measures to make it safer. And the place was red hot, no question about it,” he said. “We had no idea. They said, yeah, don’t worry about it. They didn’t even really tell us what was going on.”

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His job on the atoll was to drive the amphibious craft that brought the soldiers around the atoll. They worked six days a week in 12-hour shifts, and in their downtime they would snorkel or dive along the reef. Dean made friends with some of the other 800 young American men who were stationed there at the same time, and after four months of that, he left the atoll for good. But, Dean believes, he and his buddies brought the worst part of the atoll home with them. A few years ago, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which is now in remission but was at stage 4 at one point. His friends also have had an awful lot of health problems, Dean said, including bone cancer, blood cancer and liver cancer. The carpenter believes that some of his other health troubles, including debilitating arthritis and a neurological condition that he calls “chemo brain,” which has affected his short-term memory, could be connected to his time in the South Pacific.

Dean is working now to get some kind of disability rating from the Veterans Affairs department. He’s hopeful that he’ll get some kind of financial help from the government, but is not optimistic about his chances in the bigger picture. “We don’t know how many of us have already died of cancer. We know it’s high,” he said. “We weren’t in the war, but we brought the enemy back with us, and it’s going to get us all in the end.” Go to http://www.wcsh6.com/media/cinematic/video/70854572/atomic-clean-up-veterans-asking-for-help-40-years-later/ to view a WCSH-6 video clip on this story. [Source: Bangor Daily News, Maine | Abigail Curtis | March 24, 2015 ++]

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Vet Fraud & Abuse ► Fake Insurance Policies

A Pompano Beach insurance agent has been arrested for selling fake policies to military veterans' families, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater announced 1 APR. Investigators say in one case, an 84-year-old widow tried to collect on a $100,000 policy after her husband died, but she was unable to receive any benefits.Patrice Sands, 45, sold the fraudulent policies at the Miami-based Make-A-Wish Veterans, Inc., that provides assistance to veterans, investigators said. Sands collected premiums from her clients and deposited the funds into bank accounts tied to her business, Universal Research Group Insurance Agency, but she failed to secure policies through a company licensed to transact insurance in the state of Florida, Atwater said in a statement. "All incidents of insurance fraud are harmful because they result in higher premiums for policyholders," said Atwater. "But, I am particularly troubled when seniors who have served our country valiantly are sought out by fraudsters."

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Patrice Sands

The widow who was unable to collect on her husband's policy later told investigators that Sands told her the insurance company had "gone under." Sands wrote the woman a refund check for the premiums that were paid, but the check bounced, officials said. Investigators also said Sands got the life insurance certificate back from the woman – and destroyed it. Sands was arrested in Miami-Dade and faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. The Division of Agent and Agency Services will seek to suspend her insurance agent license, state officials said. The Division of Insurance Fraud has arrested 59 insurance agents, bail bond agents, public adjusters and others, since July 2014, for the theft of more than $4 million through fraud. To verify legitimate insurance products in Florida, consumers are encouraged to call the Insurance Consumer Helpline at 1-877-693-5236. [Source: Florida Sun Sentinel | Wayne K. Roustan | April 01, 2015 ++]

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Veterans Vision Project Update 03 ► LS2, USN

Layla Webb, E5/LS2 | United States Navy

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Vet Jobs Update 173 ► USAF Summer Work Program

The Air Force is currently hiring hundreds of students and others through the summer hire program. Participation in the program varies from base to base, but all listings are posted at https://www.usajobs.gov. The summer hire program will end 25 SEP. Clerical, lifeguard, recreation aid, computer clerk, general laborer positions and more are available. Most summer hire positions are open to people eligible for the Pathways Summer Intern Program, but some may be open to Veteran Recruitment Appointment, 30 percent or more disabled veterans, reinstatement, military spouse and disability-eligible applicants, or to the general public. Job seekers should call 800-525-0102 (if hearing impaired, call TTY/TTD 800-382-0893) for more information. [Source: NAUS Watchdog Newsletter | April 03, 2015 ++]

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Vet Jobs Update 174 ► New Solar Power Programs

The White House is looking to military bases and job-seeking veterans to boost its solar energy initiatives, calling it a win for the economy and the environment. On 3 APR, administration officials announced a pair of new industry training programs for active-duty troops and unemployed veterans, as well plans to expand GI Bill benefits to cover new solar power programs. Dan Utech, the White House's deputy special assistant for energy and climate change, said the moves build off existing renewable energy initiatives while complimenting efforts to help servicemembers transition from military to civilian life. "These are good-paying jobs," he said. Officials had already announced plans to train 50,000 individuals in the solar industry over the next five years. The new announcements boost that total to 75,000 over the same span, with an unspecified number of veterans to be included in the trainee pool. Among them will be active-duty troops getting ready to leave the force who take part in pilot programs at 10 military bases.

The Solar Ready Vets Program, a partnership between the departments of defense and energy, is already underway at three sites and will train about 200 service members in solar panel installation, electrical system repair and building code regulations. Energy Department Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall said participants will also be guaranteed interviews with private sector solar firms upon completion of their six-week courses. Labor Department officials have committed to better publicize and coordinate similar training programs for unemployed veterans, partnering with state workforce agencies to reach those individuals. And Veterans Affairs officials are working with state approving agencies to ensure college programs focusing on solar industry jobs meet veterans education benefits requirements. In March, President Obama built on past his federal energy goals by pledging to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 40% over the next decade and increase the share of renewable energy use to 30 percent in that span. [Source: MilitaryTimes | Leo Shane | April 03, 2015 ++]

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Retiree Appreciation Days ► As of 13 APR 2015

Retiree Appreciation Days (RADs) are designed with you in mind. They're a great source of the latest information for retirees and Family members in your area. RADs vary from installation to installation, but, in general, they provide an opportunity to renew acquaintances, listen to guest speakers, renew ID Cards, get medical checkups, and various other services. Some RADs include special events such as dinners or

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golf tournaments. Due to budget constraints, some RADs may be cancelled or rescheduled. Also, scheduled appearances of DFAS representatives may not be possible. If you plan to travel long distances to attend a RAD, before traveling, you should call the sponsoring RSO to ensure the RAD will held as scheduled and, if applicable, whether or not DFAS reps will be available. The current schedule is provided in the attachment to this Bulletin titled, “Retiree Activity\Appreciation Days (RAD) Schedule”. Note that this schedule has been expanded to include dates for retiree\veterans related events such as town hall meetings, resource fairs, stand downs, etc. For more information call the phone numbers of the Retirement Services Officer (RSO) sponsoring the RAD as indicated in the attachment. An up-to-date list of Retiree Appreciation Days can always be accessed online at

HTML: http://www.hostmtb.org/RADs_and_Other_Retiree-Veterans_Events.html PDF: http://www.hostmtb.org/RADs_and_Other_Retiree-Veterans_Events.pdf Word: http://www.hostmtb.org/RADs_and_Other_Retiree-Veterans_Events.doc

[Source: RAD List Manager | Milton Bell | April 13, 2014 ++]

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Vet Hiring Fairs ► 16 Apr thru 15 May 2015

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s (USCC) Hiring Our Heroes program employment workshops are available in conjunction with hundreds of their hiring fairs. These workshops are designed to help veterans and military spouses and include resume writing, interview skills, and one-on-one mentoring. For details of each you should click on the city next to the date in the below list. To participate, sign up for the workshop in addition to registering (if indicated) for the hiring fairs which are shown below for the next month. For more information about the USCC Hiring Our Heroes Program, Military Spouse Program, Transition Assistance, GE Employment Workshops, Resume Engine, etc. visit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s website at http://www.hiringourheroes.org/hiringourheroes/events .

Biggs Field, TX - Fort Bliss Military Spouse Hiring FairApril 16 - 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. CST Details Register

Virginia Beach, VA - Norfolk/Virginia Beach Hiring FairApril 17 - 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST Details Register

Tampa, FL - Tampa Hiring FairApril 17 - 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST Details Register

Kansas City, MO - Kansas City Hiring FairApril 21 - 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. CST Details Register

Italy, AE - U.S. Army Garrison Vicenza Transition SummitApril 22 - 10:00 a.m. thru April 23 Details Register

Virtual Job FairApril 23 - 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. EST Details Register

Nellis AFB, NV - Nellis Air Force Base Military Spouse Networking ReceptionApril 28 - 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. PST Details Register

Nellis AFB, NV - Nellis Air Force Base Military Spouse Hiring FairApril 29 - 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. PST Details Register

Arlington, VA - Transitioning Senior Military Leadership Networking Reception

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April 30 - 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. EST Details Register

Fort Leonard Wood, MO - Fort Leonard Wood Transition SummitMay 5 & May 6 Details Register

Camden, NJ - Camden Hiring FairMay 6 - 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST Details Register

Glen Allen, VA - Richmond Hiring FairMay 7 - 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST Details Register

Fort Hood, TX - Fort Hood Military Spouse Networking ReceptionMay 11 - 6:30 p.m.to 8:30 p.m. CST Details Register

Austin, TX - Austin Hiring FairMay 11 - 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. CST Details Register

Fort Hood, TX - Fort Hood Military Spouse Hiring FairMay 12 – 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. CST Details Register

http://www.virtualjobscout.org/# Military Spouse Virtual Job FairMay 14 - 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. EST Details Register

[Source: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Assn April 12, 2015 ++]

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WWII VETS 84 ► Susie Winston Bain

On Dec. 7, 1941, Susie Winston Bain was returning to her University of Texas dormitory after a sorority meeting when she heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Like other students, she wanted to serve her country. At the start of the war, not many military jobs were open to women. Bain made up her mind to fly with the Women Airforce Service Pilots. “I really wanted to make some contribution to the war effort,” Bain says. “If Rosie the Riveter could rivet, why couldn’t I fly?” The Bay City native quit college for financial reasons and then took a grinding job as a typist to save up money. She asked her boss to increase her salary from $85 a month to $95 so she could take the flying lessons required to qualify as WASP trainee. “Pilots were desperately needed to take care of home jobs and release male pilots for overseas,” recalls Bain, who now lives in Austin. “He tried to assure me that a woman’s place was in the home, not the cockpit of a plane, but he would give me the extra $10 if I promised to give up this ‘tomfoolery.’ I declined his offer, worked a little harder, ate a little less and finally reached the 35 hours necessary to enter flight school at Sweetwater.”

Susie Winston Bain today and during WWII (2nd from right) & WASP paper doll

Bain tells this story while threading her way through an exhibit about the WASP service, “Flygirls of World War II,” on view at the Bullock Texas State History Museum through Feb. 8. Organized by the

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Wings Across America research project, the show relies on interviews with dozens of women like Bain who served in multiple capacities between 1942 and 1944. Right off, it documents the initial opposition to women flyers. “This is not a time when women should be patient,” first lady Eleanor Roosevelt said on Sept. 1, 1942. “We are in a war and we need to fight it with all our ability and every weapon possible. Women pilots, in this particular case, are a weapon waiting to be used.”

The first item that Bain — eyes flashing with moxie and good humor — encounters at the exhibit is a WASP uniform. The pilots who trained at Sweetwater were promised, but never received, these sharp navy blue outfits. Alongside it is a WASP doll in a crisp diminutive uniform. The small indignity of the undelivered uniforms — the WASP women wore instead white shirts and khaki slacks — was underscored numerous times. The WASP service was disbanded, for instance, in 1944 in order to give jobs to male pilots returning from the European theater. It was not until 1977 that they received veteran status. They waited until 2010 to receive the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor for their service. During the war, Henry “Hap” Arnold spearheaded support for the WASP program within the armed forces. Pioneering pilot Jacqueline Cochran founded and directed the forces.

More than 25,000 women volunteered; 1,830 licensed pilots were accepted into the experimental flight-training program. Of those, 1,704 graduated. They received the same long training — on the ground and in the air — as male pilots. “I expected to fly off into the clouds with a long white silver scarf floating out behind me,” WASP Doris Brinker Tanner told an interviewer in 2000. “Wasn’t that way, kiddo! We worked like dogs in dirty, greasy coveralls. We had to break down an engine. We had some tough ground school classes, but oh, the flying was so wonderful!” They started training at Houston Municipal Airport — now Houston Hobby Airport — then moved to Avenger Field in West Texas after a few months. Its wooden barracks came with bays that held six cots, six lockers, two tables and six chairs each. Two showers, two sinks and two commodes served each pair of bays. “Sweetwater was full of snakes, spiders, desert and dust storms,” Bain says. “All of which I experienced with little enthusiasm physically. Once, a dust storm covered the field and I was forced to fly in circles. I couldn’t find the runway. Fortunately, my gasoline held up until the storm abated, and I got ‘home’ safely. Whew!”

After she graduated and flew military planes regularly, she was forced down into a cabbage field in Louisiana during a storm. Bain overheard the farmer calling in the incident by phone. “The plane just came down in my field,” she recalls him saying. “The pilots are coming this way. Wait, those aren’t pilots. They’re women.” Although Bain says most men in the service were very nice, she sometimes faced skepticism or even undisguised contempt from male counterparts. In Laredo, she co-piloted a B-26 that towed targets for gunners in a B-17. “I was receiving lots of back talk from those training for gunnery school,” Bain says. “They’d say: ‘You stupid (expletive) WASP! Can’t you keep your plane steady so I can hit the target?’ I was tempted to say that I doubted if the Nazis would accommodate him by making the target more available.”

The last WASP class graduated on Dec. 7, 1944. Thirteen days later, the service was disbanded, with “no honors, no benefits and few thanks.” They paid their own way home, Bain confirms. “When I got out of the plane, the ground crew all came out, and they hugged me,” WASP Betty Tackberry Blake recalled in 2001. “We all shed a few tears. I patted the plane. I knew I’d never get in one again. I was heartbroken.” At least women had proved that they could operate just about anything and accomplish their dreams. “If another national emergency arises – let us hope it does not, but let us this time face the possibility — if it does, we will not again look upon a women’s flying organization as experimental,” Gen. Arnold said on Dec. 7, 1944. “We will know they can handle our fastest fighters, our heaviest bombers; we will know that they are capable of ferrying, target towing, flying training, test flying and the countless other activities which you have proved you can do.”

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Not unlike college women of the time, who were assumed to be seeking a “Mrs.” degree, Bain discovered that people thought WASP servicewomen like herself really wanted to “catch a male pilot.” “I often wondered how we could have managed to log 60 million air miles if all we ever did was ‘flirt’ with the boys.” [Source: Tribune News Service | Michael Barnes | Jan. 267, 2015 ++]

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America's Most Beloved Vets ► Operation Enduring Freedom (2)

Monica Lin Brown Pat Tillman Sal Giunta Ty Carter

The medic Monica Brown ran through enemy fire to save soldiers after a roadside bomb hit a convoy, and is the second woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star.

The NFL star Pat Tillman left a promising, high-paying career with the Arizona Cardinals to become an Army Ranger after 9/11.

For running headlong into enemy fire to save two wounded squadmates, Sal Giunta is the first living person since the Vietnam War to receive the Medal of Honor.

When an enemy force of 300 attacked Combat Outpost Keating, Ty Carter braved enemy fire to retrieve ammunition, provide first aid to a wounded soldier and help carry another to safety.

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State Veteran's Benefits & Discounts ► Louisiana

The state of Louisiana provides several benefits to veterans as indicated below. To obtain information on these refer to the attachment to this Bulletin titled, “Veteran State Benefits – LA” for an overview of the below those benefits. Benefits are available to veterans who are residents of the state. For a more detailed explanation of each refer to http://vetaffairs.la.gov.

Housing Benefits Employment Assistance Education Benefits Other State Veteran Benefits Discounts

[Source: http://www.military.com/benefits/veteran-state-benefits/louisiana-state-veterans-benefits.html Mar 2015 ++]

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* Vet Legislation *

Selective Service System Update 11 ► Reinstate Draft | H.R.1509

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY-13) has no doubt that bringing back the military draft will make America safer. He just hasn't had any success convincing other lawmakers that he's right. "It would take a lot of courage for people to vote on this," the 84-year-old New York Democrat said in an interview with Military Times last week. "We wouldn't be in the mess we're in if [Congress] knew their kids might be drafted. "I know this is the right thing to do." Earlier this month, Rangel reintroduced legislation that would reinstate the military draft for all men and women ages 18 to 25, arguing that "if war is truly necessary, we must all come together to support and defend our nation."

It's an argument he has made year after year, with little progress. Since 2003, Rangel has introduced similar legislation seven times. The closest the idea came to a full chamber vote was nearly 12 years ago, when the measure failed a procedural vote on the House floor. But Rangel — a Korean War veteran who volunteered to serve in the Army — keeps bringing it back. "If we're going to get into wars, we have to be prepared to make sacrifices," he said. "It shouldn't just be poor-ass kids volunteering to do the work." In past years, when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at their peak, his pitch was fueled by the carnage and casualties of those conflicts. Now it's the possibility of extended military action in Iraq against Islamic State fighters. He's also pushing for a new War Tax Act, mandating that current and future war spending be paid for with new taxes on all income brackets. Every few years, the revived legislation grabs a few Capitol Hill headlines but little serious scrutiny. But there's little hope for either proposal in the Republican-controlled House, and Rangel's draft bills aren't expected to get a significant conversation at the committee level this year. And military leaders repeatedly have shot down the idea, saying they now boast a much smaller but more highly trained and highly disciplined fighting force than they did before the draft was abolished in 1973.

Rep. Charlie Rangel

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Rangel insists that the public is interested in a broader debate on the draft's merits — and the added pressure it would put on government bureaucrats contemplating military action anywhere in the world. "I've been surprised the religious community hasn't called for it," he said. "The number of dead and wounded we've had in the recent wars … that's a hell of a thing to happen to our young people. It would seem to me religious leaders would see this as a way to keep us out of those fights." Until he gets that kind of groundswell, Rangel said he's content to be the lonely Hill voice pushing the issue. "You know I'm right. I know I'm right," he said. "We're getting somewhere on this issue, but Congress is not." [Source: MilitaryTimes | Leo Shane | March 30, 2015 ++]

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SBP DIC Offset Update 41 ► New Bill for Military Survivors | H.R.1594

Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) recently introduced H.R. 1594, the Military Surviving Spouse Equity Act. The bill repeals a law known as the “widow’s tax,” an unfair penalty that forces thousands of military survivors to forfeit their earned benefits. Under current law, military survivors forfeit part of or their entire military Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) annuity when receiving Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The two programs serve very different purposes. SBP is a program administered by the Department of Defense that allows uniformed service retirees to elect to provide continuing financial support for an eligible survivor. DIC is paid to survivors of servicemembers who die while on active duty, or to survivors of retirees who die of service-connected illness.

The vast majority of active duty deaths are in ranks of E-6 and below. For these survivors, the offset virtually wipes out any SBP payment, leaving most survivors with only DIC, a modest payment of about $15,000 a year. Eliminating this inequity has been a longstanding legislative goal of MOAA. MOAA thinks that when military service causes a member’s death, indemnity compensation from the VA should be paid in addition to SBP coverage, not subtracted from it. “We’re thankful to Wilson for reintroducing this important legislation,” said MOAA’s Deputy Director of Government Relations, Col. Phil Odom, USAF (Ret). “As chair of the House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee, his support carries considerable weight.” We continue to work with our contacts in the Senate to introduce similar legislation.

To support this legislation veterans are encouraged to contact their congressional representatives and request they cosponsor and vote in favor of this bill. At http://capwiz.com/moaa/issues/bills/?bill=64029741 MOAA has provided a preformatted editable message which will be forwarded to legislators representing your zip code. [Source: MOAA Leg Up | April 03, 2015 ++]

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Student Loans Update 03 ► Nevada Refinance Bill | SB215

State lawmakers are reviewing a bill that would allow Nevada college graduates to refinance student loans to get a better interest rate. The bill would create a refinancing program under the Nevada Department of Business and Industry. The director could issue revenue bonds to pay for the program. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Aaron Ford included several amendments to the bill so only graduates of Nevada colleges who have remained in the state for at least a year would be eligible. He said the refinancing process would work just like refinancing a mortgage or home loan. Ford said the bill, SB215, would help nearly 242,000 Nevadans that hold more than $7 billion in student debt. [Source: The Associated Press | March 24, 2015 ++]

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NDAA for 2016 ► HASC Released Markup Schedule

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Thornberry released the Committee markup schedule for the National Defense Authorization Act for 2016.

April 22, 20152:30 PM - Subcommittee on Emerging Threats & Capabilities Markup (Room 2118)4:00 PM - Subcommittee on Readiness Markup (Room 2212)

April 23, 20158:30 AM - Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces Markup (Room 2118)9:30 AM - Subcommittee on Military Personnel Markup (Room 2212)10:30 AM - Subcommittee on Seapower & Projection Forces Markup (Room 2118)12:00 PM - Subcommittee on Strategic Forces Markup (Room 2212)

April 29, 201510:00 AM—Full Committee Markup (Room 2118)

NAUS Note: Strange that the full committee will meet one day before the President’s recommendations on the MCRMC proposals are finalized.

[Source: NAUS Weekly Watchdog | April 03, 2015 ++]

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Vet Bills Submitted to 114th Congress ► 150401 to 150414

For a listing of Congressional bills of interest to the veteran community introduced in the 114 th Congress refer to this Bulletin’s “House & Senate Veteran Legislation” attachment. Support of these bills through cosponsorship by other legislators is critical if they are ever going to move through the legislative process for a floor vote to become law. A good indication of that likelihood is the number of cosponsors who have signed onto the bill. Any number of members may cosponsor a bill in the House or Senate. At https://beta.congress.gov you can review a copy of each bill’s content, determine its current status, the committee it has been assigned to, and if your legislator is a sponsor or cosponsor of it by entering the bill number in the site’s search engine. To determine what bills, amendments your representative/senator has sponsored, cosponsored, or dropped sponsorship on go to:

https://beta.congress.gov/search?q=%7B%22source%22%3A%5B%22legislation%22%5D%7D Select the ‘Sponsor’ tab, and click on your congress person’s name. You can also go to http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php

Grassroots lobbying is the most effective way to let your Congressional representatives know your wants and dislikes. If you are not sure who is your Congressman go to https://beta.congress.gov/members. Members of Congress are receptive and open to suggestions from their constituents. The key to increasing cosponsorship support on veteran related bills and subsequent passage into law is letting legislators know of veteran’s feelings on issues. You can reach their Washington office via the Capital Operator direct at (866) 272-6622, (800) 828-0498, or (866) 340-9281 to express your views. Otherwise, you can locate their phone number, mailing address, or email/website to communicate with a message or letter of your own making at either:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm http://www.house.gov/representatives

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FOLLOWING IS A SUMMARY OF VETERAN RELATED LEGISLATION INTRODUCED IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE SINCE THE LAST BULLETIN WAS PUBLISHED:

H.R.1694 : Fairness to Veterans for Infrastructure Investment Act of 2015. A bill to amend MAP-21 to improve contracting opportunities for veteran-owned small business concerns, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Fitzpatrick, Michael G. [PA-8] (introduced 3/26/2015).

==================================================================

S.865 : Ruth Moore Act of 2015. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to improve the disability compensation evaluation procedure of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs for veterans with mental health conditions related to military sexual trauma, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Tester, Jon [MT] (introduced 3/25/2015) Related Bills: H.R.1607.

S.895 : Servicemember and Veteran Protection Act of 2015. A bill to allow members of the Armed Forces to defer principal on Federal student loans for a certain period in connection with receipt of orders for mobilization for war or national emergency, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Tester, Jon [MT] (introduced 3/26/2015)

[Source: https://beta.congress.gov & http: //www.govtrack.us/congress/bills April 14, 2015 ++]

* Military *

Philippine Liberty ► All Bars & Nightclubs Off Limits

U.S. Pacific Command is strictly limiting liberty for troops participating in the Balikatan exercise alongside 5,000 Filipino troops. “Service members participating in, and supporting Balikatan 2015 may only eat in restaurants inside their hotel or within close proximity to their hotel (walking distance) if their hotel does not have a restaurant inside,” said Army Maj. David Eastburn, a PACOM spokesman. Absolutely off limits will be the bars and nightclubs, Eastburn said, but commands can organize their own events. “Bars and nightclubs are off-limits, and all participants in Balikatan 2015 must be back in their hotel by 10 p.m. Service members may participate in command sponsored community relations events, and ships may authorize events on the pier.”

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The exercise, which begins April 20 and runs for 10 days, involves elements from the III Marine Expeditionary Force, the amphibious transport dock Green Bay and various Navy construction, riverine and explosive ordnance disposal units. Liberty has been restricted for U.S. troops in the Philippines since a Marine was accused of murdering a local transgender woman, Jennifer Laude, after a night out on the town. Lance Cpl. Joseph Pemberton is on trial in the Philippines and faces 20 years in prison if convicted. The killing infuriated many Filipinos, who have called for their government to scrap the newly minted 2014 Visiting Forces Agreement, a major foreign policy victory for the Obama administration, which rekindled military ties with the country after decades of frosty relations. But the Philippine government has stood by the VFA, saying it will not renegotiate the deal.

Balikatan, which means “shoulder-to-shoulder,” is a field training exercise that includes a number of humanitarian assistance projects. “Our armed forces and the U.S. armed forces are coming together for these mutual defense and disaster response exercises towards a more responsive partnership to the community, focusing on development and community service,” Philippine Lt. Col. Harold Cabunoc told The Philippine Star. In addition to the 11,000 U.S. and Philippine troops, Australia is sending about 60 troops and an aircraft to the exercise. The exercise comes at a time of rising tension between China and its neighbors over its construction of artificial islands in the Spratlys archipelago, which lies off the coasts of Malaysia and the Philippines. Analysts believe that the Chinese government is seeking to expand its exclusive rights to resources, including fishing and mineral deposits. [Source: NavyTimes | April 20, 2015 ++]

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ACTUV ► Robotic Ghost Ship

How do you keep track of increasingly stealthy Russian, Chinese and Iranian submarines? If you’re the U.S. military, you build a robotic ghost ship to follow them around the high seas. In 2010, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced that they were building a 132-foot autonomous boat to track quiet, diesel-powered submarines. The program was dubbed Anti-submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV. To little notice, the system earlier this year passed a critical test, moving much closer to actual deployment and potentially changing not just naval warfare but also the way humans, ships, and robotic systems interact across the world’s waters.

A computer generated model of DARPA’s ACTUV ship.

In six weeks of tests along a 35-nautical mile stretch of water off of Mississippi, testers at engineering company Leidos and DARPA put the ACTUV’s systems through 100 different scenarios. The test boat, equipped with nothing more than off-the-shelf radar components, a few pre-programed navigational points and some proprietary software, was able to tail a target boat at 1 kilometer’s distance, without crashing into rocks, shoals, or erratically behaving surface vessels. Most importantly, the tests showed that the robot boat

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could execute a difficult military mission without violating the maritime laws outlined in the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea. They also provided a critical proof-of-concept for machine-learning systems at sea, showing that big robots can, indeed, navigate the open seas along with cruise ships and shrimp boats. The next big challenge for the ACTUV will be the same kind of tests, but with “enemy ships” trying to block or interfere with it. The world’s waters could soon be crowded with robot ships that almost never hit land.

Speaking at a National Defense Association Event in Virginia, DARPA program manager Ellison Urban outlined why the Navy needs sub-hunting boat bots. Diesel-electric submarines, with their nearly-noiseless engines, are incredibly difficult to track from afar. They’re also cheap at $200 million to $300 million apiece, making them affordable to the likes of Iran, which claims to have a fleet of 17. “Instead of chasing down these submarines and trying to keep track of them with expensive nuclear powered-submarines, which is the way we do it now, we want to try and build this at significantly reduced cost. It will be able to transit by itself across thousands of kilometers of ocean and it can deploy for months at a time. It can go out, find a diesel-electric submarine and just ping on it,” said Urban.

Leidos conducted the tests on a 42-foot surrogate boat while they finish construction of the ACTUV prototype vessel, the Sea Hunter, which is expected to launch this fall. [Source: Defense One | Patrick Tucker | March 24, 2015 ++]

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Military Haircut ► Student Threatened with School Suspension

A 7-year-old's high and tight haircut meant to honor his soldier-stepbrother earned him the threat of suspension from an elementary school named for a Medal of Honor recipient, and the fallout from the incident has led a Tennessee school district to increase security measures. Adam Stinnett went to Bobby Ray Memorial Elementary School in McMinnville, about a 90-minute drive southeast from Nashville, on 9 MAR sporting the new hairdo. His mother, Amy Stinnett, said he'd requested the high and tight to be more like Spc. Justin Bloodworth, his active-duty stepbrother. Adam was written up by the principal, who thought the haircut was against school policy banning "mohawk haircuts or other extreme cuts."

Amy Stinnett disagreed. Adam went back Tuesday with the same haircut. After his mother received an email from the principal and stopped by for a face-to-face chat, it was made clear that Adam's hairstyle would have to change before he returned to school. With so much hair already gone, his mother had few options. "I did shave his head," Stinnett said Thursday. "With no hair, he looks sick all the time." The incident upset Adam, who wants to follow Bloodworth's path into military service, his mother said. "They crushed my son's dreams," she said of the school officials. "They made him feel upset. They broke his heart. He didn't deserve that." Stinnett contacted the local newspaper. A Sunday article in the Southern Standard (subscription required) gained traction on Facebook, as did a later piece from a local Fox TV affiliate. Stinnett said she's been contacted by regional and national news outlets looking to spread the story.

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Some of those outlets have contacted the Warren County Board of Education, which put out a news release 25 MAR in response to the Southern Standard article saying, in part, that "neither Bobby Ray Memorial Elementary, nor any school in Warren County School District, prohibits military haircuts." Decisions on appropriate haircuts are made on a school-by-school basis, the statement says, adding that district officials would not discuss specifics in Adam's case. That hasn't stopped people from asking, nor has it kept them from sharing their thoughts on the matter via social media. The school district has taken down its Facebook page after a deluge of comments, said Bobby Cox, the district's director of schools. He said the messages were "not necessarily threatening" but added to an incident that had caused the district "great stress." He also said more security had been added to the elementary school.

"It's been portrayed that we are anti-military, anti-patriot, and we are not," Cox told Army Times. "I'm just sorry that's been the way it's been portrayed." Cox said the haircut policy is under review and that he believes a more complete definition of what styles are acceptable will help eliminate future problems. "All I really want is for the school and the school district to do a public apology: Not just for my son, but for the fallen war heroes ... and the veterans, and the active military personnel that are in the Army now," Stinnett said. "Considering the military haircut as a distraction is basically saying that our Army is a distraction." The school's gymnasium bears the name of Spc. Jeremy L. Brown, who died in Afghanistan in 2010 when his unit was attacked by small-arms fire. "We're a small community, very close-knit," Cox said. "Very proud of our school. Very proud of the name of our school."

Navy Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class David Robert "Bobby" Ray earned the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions with a Marine Corps unit during a 1969 battle near An Hoa, Vietnam. Ray suffered severe wounds while treating members of his unit but continued administering aid, according to his award citation, at one point killing an enemy attacker and wounding another when they approached as he bandaged a wounded Marine. His final act came when he threw himself onto the body of a patient to save him from a nearby grenade blast. [Source: ArmyTimes | Kevin Lilley | March 26, 2015 ++]

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BRASS ► DARPA Computer Software Project

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency is working on what sounds like an impossible task -- software that doesn't need to be updated or upgraded. On 8 APR the Defense Department Agency announced a four-year research project into software systems that could last more than 100 years by adapting to physical and digital changes. Though military software systems are critical to national security, updates eat up time and money, according to DARPA. The new program, called "Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems," might require a completely new kind of computing, according to DARPA's request for proposals. For instance, software may need to adapt to dynamic levels of resources such as memory, bandwidth, energy and processing power, the RFP notes. Effective adaptation could mean

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adjusting to rely on some resources instead of others, or eliminating certain functionality if another application does it more efficiently. Inability to adapt "negatively impacts economic productivity, hampers the development of resilient and secure cyber-infrastructure," and also raises the risk of losing content as software becomes outdated, the RFP said. [Source: NextGov | Mohana Ravindranath | April 08, 2015++]

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S-97 Raider ► Newest, Fastest Attack Helicopter

First proposed in response to a Request for Information for the Armed Aerial Scout program in March 2010, the Sikorsky S-97 was formally launched on 20 October 2010. It is intended as a possible contender for the United States Army's requirement for an Armed Aerial Scout to replace the Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. Other military roles are possible, with the U.S. Special Operations Command having expressed interest in the concept as a replacement for the MH-6 Little Bird. It is based in the same technology as their X2 technology demonstrator, which broke the world helicopter speed record in 2010: 260 knots—that's 299.2mph vs the 172mph of conventional helicopters. According to Sikorsky's Mike Miller, it "is an all-new helicopter, all-new configuration. We haven't seen something this new in 30 years." The Raider uses counter-rotating rotor blades with a push propeller on the tail. This unique combination allows it to pulverize all speed records. Obviously, its weight is limited. This thing will not have the same kind of firepower as heavier helicopters, but it will be able to zip to any location and provide troop support faster than any other chopper. The aircraft will not be operative in the US military just yet. In fact, only two Raiders are built which will be tested during 2015. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-97_Raider & Sploid | Jesus Diaz | Oct. 02, 2014 ++]

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Medal of Honor Citations ► James A. Gardner | Vietnam

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The President of the United States in the name of The Congresstakes pleasure in presenting theMedal of Honor Posthumously

To

JAMES ALTON GARDNERRank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st

Battalion (Airborne), 327th Infantry, 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne DivisionPlace and date: My Canh, Vietnam, 7 February 1966.

Entered service at: Entered service at: Memphis, Tenn. 1963Born: 7 February 1943, Dyersburg, Tenn.

Citation

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. 1st Lt. Gardner's platoon was advancing to relieve a company of the 1st Battalion that had been pinned down for several hours by a numerically superior enemy force in the village of My Canh, Vietnam. The enemy occupied a series of strongly fortified bunker positions which were mutually supporting and expertly concealed. Approaches to the position were well covered by an integrated pattern of fire including automatic weapons, machine guns and mortars. Air strikes and artillery placed on the fortifications had little effect. 1st Lt. Gardner's platoon was to relieve the friendly company by encircling and destroying the enemy force. Even as it moved to begin the attack, the platoon was under heavy enemy fire. During the attack, the enemy fire intensified. Leading the assault and disregarding his own safety, 1st Lt. Gardner charged through a withering hail of fire across an open rice paddy. On reaching the first bunker he destroyed it with a grenade and without hesitation dashed to the second bunker and eliminated it by tossing a grenade inside. Then, crawling swiftly along the dike of a rice paddy, he reached the third bunker. Before he could arm a grenade, the enemy gunner leaped forth, firing at him. 1st Lt. Gardner instantly returned the fire and killed the enemy gunner at a distance of 6 feet. Following the seizure of the main enemy position, he reorganized the platoon to continue the attack. Advancing to the new assault position, the platoon was pinned down by an enemy machine gun emplaced in a fortified bunker. 1st Lt. Gardner immediately collected several grenades and charged the enemy position, firing his rifle as he advanced to neutralize the defenders. He dropped a grenade into the bunker and vaulted beyond. As the bunker blew up, he came under fire again. Rolling into a ditch to gain cover, he moved toward the new source of fire. Nearing the position, he leaped from the ditch and advanced with a grenade in one hand and firing his rifle with the other. He was gravely wounded just before he reached the bunker, but with a last valiant effort he staggered

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forward and destroyed the bunker, and its defenders with a grenade. Although he fell dead on the rim of the bunker, his extraordinary actions so inspired the men of his platoon that they resumed the attack and completely routed the enemy. 1st Lt. Gardner's conspicuous gallantry were in the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

JAMES ALTON GARDNER

James Alton Gardner was born in Dyersburg, Tennessee on 7 February 1943. He was recruited as a football player for West Point by Coach Tony Bullotta along with a number of other promising talents from Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas. He played plebe football as an undersized interior lineman/fullback. He was most notable for his humor, red hair and foot-speed.

Gardner attended Dyersburg High School in Dyersburg, Tennessee where he was a star athlete, in the 4-H and sometimes a prankster. Janie Putnam, Jim’s 4-H advisor, recalls a time when rounding up the energetic boys after swimming in a lake observed him staying with his friend, Bert, who had reduced swimming ability. He accompanied the young boy safely to shore and Janie believes that but for Gardner’s action his friend would not have been able to return to shore. It was a good thing he stayed with Bert. Burt returned the favor some time later by introducing Gardner to his first cousin, Joella, the girl he eventually married a month before he was sent to Vietnam.

His contact with the Class of '65 started at Messick High School in Memphis, TN where he met Eddy Dye while dating his sweetheart, Joella Garner. He took his entrance exam for West Point at Fort Campbell, KY with John Pickler and John McCullough in the spring of 1960 and started his short cadet career in Second New Cadet Company in the same squad as Bob Doughty. Eddy Dye remembers the march to Camp Buckner at the end of Beast where he and Gardner swam out to the big rock in Lake Frederick and talked about personal feelings.

After Beast Barracks, he was assigned to A-2 where he roomed with Jerry Lipsit. Jerry remembers him being a really dedicated cadet but lonesome for his sweetheart, Joella. Jim left the Academy before the end of Plebe year but didn’t give up his dedication to the Army.

In 1964 Gardner joined OCS Class 4-64, 52nd Company (OC), 5th Student Battalion, Fort Benning, Georgia where he excelled in sports and military aptitude. He “maxed” the PT test … twice … and was an excellent marksman with the M-14. He was a star on the intramural flag 4-64 football team (football at OCS was anything but “flag” with the Benning games being just short of semi-pro) justifying the talent Coach Bullotta saw in him 5 years before.

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During the OCS daysGardner’s room was across the hall from Jack Easton who recalls the lonely weekends when they were both tied to the barracks for some foolish TAC Officer minor infraction. They would trade or exchange “how sad I am” stories as they shined boots or immersed themselves in brain drain infantry nonsense… such as the range of the .50 cal machine gun, etc., etc. They traveled together to Auburn, Alabama in Gardner’s brand new red Triumph TR6. The top was always down on the weekends after they had turned “OCS Blue.” After OCS, they were Ranger buddies throughout the entire Ranger School training cycle and stick buddies through jump school. Gardner was always conscious of the fact he was commissioned a year ahead of his West Point Class.

After Airborne training he joined the 101st Airborne Division and was assigned to the 1st Battalion (Airborne), 327th Infantry, 1st Brigade in Vietnam. He was in operation Gibraltar and shortly thereafter organized and was the first commander of the 1/327 Infantry’s elite Tiger Force. He led the Tiger Force with skill and without fear or concern for his personal safety while always concerned for the safety and well-being of his paratroopers. On his 23rd birthday, 7 February 1966, he distinguished himself in combat earning the Medal of Honor while leading his Tiger Force near My Canh. His platoon sergeant, Phill Belden, wrapped Gardner’s body in a poncho liner and then wrapped himself in one next to him and watched over his friend and leader all night until the medevacs were able to land in the morning. Jack Easton was not surprised to hear Gardner distinguished himself as he considered him one of the most “gun-ho” OCS candidates on record.

During a ceremony at the Pentagon on October 19, 1967, Gardner's widow was formally presented with his Medal of Honor by Secretary of the Army Stanley Rogers Resor. James Alton Gardner was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame on 29 June 2006 at a ceremony at Fort Benning, Georgia and his Medal of Honor was donated to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) on 14 August 2009. It is displayed at the Headquarters’ Atrium in its Hall of Heroes. A bowling center at Fort Campbell, an athletic field at Fort Benning, the National Guard Armory in Dyersburg and a primary conference room at the Pentagon are fittingly named after James Alton Gardner.

Gardner is survived by his widow, Joella Gardner McManus of Huntsville, AL, his sister, Lynda Gardner-Park, and niece, Kimberly Pruitt. He was buried on February 15, 1966, at Fairview Cemetery in his hometown of Dyersburg. In addition to the Medal of Honor, Gardner also received the Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart. [Source: http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1965/624620Cached & www.history.army.mil/html/moh/vietnam-a-l.html#Fritz Apr 2015 ++]

* Military History *

Aviation Art 86 ► Heaven Can Wait

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Heaven Can Waitby Nicolas Trudgian

B-17 Fortresses of the Bloody Hundredth - the 8th Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group return to Thorpe Abbotts following a raid on enemy oil refineries. Shown here is the imaginatively named B-17, Heaven Can Wait, on final approach to Thorpe Abbotts after the intense battle on September 11, 1944. Skilfully piloted by Harry Hempy, the seriously damaged B-17G has struggled 500 miles home on two engines to make it back to England - they lost their tail gunner that fateful day. Below the descending bomber stream, an agricultural traction engine peacefully ploughs the wheat stubble in preparation for next year’s vital crop, the farm workers oblivious to the unimaginable traumas experienced by the crews of the returning B-17 Fortresses. [Source: http://www.brooksart.com/Heaven.html Apr 2015 ++]

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Iwo Jima Reflections ► Raymond Lueb | 32 Days Without a Scratch

Raymond Lueb from Edmond, Oklahoma, enlisted in the Marine Corps because he was going to be drafted and he wanted his choice of branch of service. Lueb spent about six months of initial training and assault training on the beaches of California. Lueb arrived on the black beach of Iwo Jima in the second assault wave. He served as an 81 mm mortar man, and he and his fighting-hole buddy were the first Marines to make it to the airstrip. “The lieutenant told us to go back to get extra ammo. We could carry eight rounds each, and he didn’t say go around the airstrip. We went across the airstrip and were in front of our own front lines, in enemy territory. The Japanese could see us from the end of the airstrip and started shooting at us with .30-caliber machine guns. We went from shell crater to shell crater and got across. We lucked out that time.”

Lueb was awarded a letter of commendation for putting out a fire in his mortar pit, which resulted in saving about 200 Marine lives. “Everyone ran away up the side of the pit, but I grabbed a shovel. Two of my buddies looked back and saw what I was trying to do. They risked their lives to come back and help me put the fire out. Three guns would have blown up along with ammunition and affected everyone within a quarter of a mile.” Lueb also witnessed the second flag raising on top of Mount Suribachi, which became

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famous as the photo taken by Joe Rosenthal. “We didn’t see the first flag raising. We were about 300 yards from the base of Mount Suribachi, so we saw the second one. There was lots of hootin’ and hollarin’ when the flag was raised. We knew we had stopped a lot of enemy fire from the mountain when the flag was raised.” Raymond Lueb served in the Marine Corps from January 1944 to May 1946. When Lueb departed Iwo Jima he was stationed in Japan for six months and served as a military policeman. [Source: Defense Media Activity – Marines | Melissa Karnath | March 16, 2015 ++]

Cpl. Raymond Lueb

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Military Trivia 104 ► Military Ship Prefixes

Over a century ago, there was really no fixed prefix for ships of the United States Navy. Ships were identified in one of several ways in correspondence or documents – for example:

By Naval type - U.S. Frigate (USF) [Name], U. S. Destroyer (USD) [Name] By Rigging - United States Barque [Name], United States Sloop [Name] By Function - United States Flag-Ship (USFS) [Name]. Ships would also identify themselves as "the Frigate [Name]," or, simply, "Ship [Name]".

The term "United States Ship" - abbreviated as the prefix U.S.S. or USS - was seen as early as the late 1790s and it was in frequent (but not exclusive) use by the last half of the 19th century. But in the beginning of the 20th century – on 8 January 1907, in fact - President Theodore Roosevelt issued Executive Order 549 and established the present usage of prefixes and eliminated all prefixes other than "USS," "USNS", "USNV", and "USRC" for ships and other military watercraft.

The prefix USNS stands for “United States Naval Ship “, and indicates a civilian manned ship of the Military Sealift Command (or other commands). These ships are also indicated with a prefix of “T” in front of the hull number – for example, USNS Mercy T-AH-19.

The prefix USNV stands for United States Naval Vessel - foreign-built, leased by the United States Navy with USN crews.

The prefix USRC stood for “United States Revenue Cutter” until 1915, when Revenue Cutter Service was transformed into the United States Coast Guard, and the prefix “USCGC” was initiated, standing for “United States Coast Guard Cutter”. For a time the USCG also used the prefix USCGD for “United States Coast Guard Destroyer” – these destroyers were used in the

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1920s (during the “prohibition era”), having been transferred from the Navy to the Coast Guard to help chase down “rum runners.” The United States Lighthouse Service had used USLHT for “United States Lighthouse Tender” prior to be merged into the US Coast Guard.

“United States Ship” applies to a ship only while she is in commission – the ship does not receive the USS prefix until it is actually commissioned – so prior to that, the ship is referred to as a Pre-Commissioning Unit, with the prefix PCU. As an example, CVN-80 (Enterprise) is scheduled to begin active construction around 2018 – at which time she would be referred to as PCU Enterprise until she is commissioned sometime in 2027. When a particular ship is declared out of active service, a prefix of “ex-” is attached in front of its name. This is done to separate the stricken vessel from any other vessel bearing the same name and in service, at that time. As an example, CVN-65 was referred to as ex-Enterprise after it accepted retirement. After decommissioning, a ship is properly referred to by name, with no prefix. Generally, the United States Navy refers to ships by name without use of the article “the” - simply saying “Enterprise” instead of “the Enterprise”. A sole exception is in the case of (DDG-68 (and previously DD-537) – “The Sullivans” is the full name of the ship, as a tribute to the five Sullivan brothers (George, Francis, Joseph, Madison, and Albert) who lost their lives during the Second World War.

Moving on to other branches of the US Military… The United States Army still operates 50 vessels of five types - excluding the U.S. Army Corps of

Engineers ships (such as dredge vessels) – and uses the prefix USAV for “United States Army Vessel”. In the past, other Army ship prefixes included USAS for “United States Army Ship”, USAT for “United States Army Transport” and USAHS for “United States Army Hospital Ship” – examples being USAV Spearhead, USAS American Mariner, USAT American Legion, and USAHS Shamrock.

In 1957, the United States Air Force began operating a small fleet of Missile Range Instrumentation Ships to support missile test ranges, using the ship name prefix "USAF". Also used was USAFS for “United States Air Force Ship” – examples being USAF Echo & USAFS Coastal Sentry.

The United States Marine Corps has no commissioned ships, relying on the United States Navy for such transportation.

To be inclusive of the Uniformed Services, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration uses the prefix NOAAS for “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ship” – for example NOAAS Gordon Gunter.

[Source: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/Military-Ships/fl/Military-Ship-Prefixes.htm?nl=1 | Patrick Long | Jan 2015 ++]

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Military History ► WWII Fire Bombings of Japanese Cities

It was not Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but in many ways, including lives lost, it was just as horrific. On March 10, 1945, U.S. B-29 bombers flew over Tokyo in the dead of night, dumping massive payloads of cluster bombs equipped with a then-recent invention: napalm. A fifth of Tokyo was left a smoldering expanse of charred bodies and rubble. Today, a modest floral monument in a downtown park honors the spirits of the 105,400 confirmed dead, many interred in common graves. It was the deadliest conventional air raid ever, worse than Nagasaki and on par with Hiroshima. But the attack, and similar ones that followed in more than 60 other Japanese cities, have received little attention, eclipsed by the atomic bombings and Japan's postwar rush to rebuild. But the attack, and similar ones that followed in more than 60 other Japanese cities, have received little attention, eclipsed by the atomic bombings and Japan's postwar rush to rebuild.

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Survivors commute through destroyed Nakamise shopping street after Tokyo firebombing on March 19, 1945.

After about two hours and 40 minutes, the B-29s left. Survivors speak of the hush as dawn broke over a wasteland of corpses and debris, studded by chimneys of bathhouses and small factories:

Nihei, now 78, was mesmerized as she watched from a railway embankment. "It was a blazing firestorm. I saw a baby catch fire on its mother's back, and she couldn't put out the fire. I saw a horse being led by its owner. The horse balked and the cargo on its back caught fire, then its tail, and it burned alive, as the owner just stood there and burned with it," she said.

-o-o-O-o-o-

Firefighter Isamu Kase was on duty at a train parts factory. He jumped onto a pump truck when the attack began, knowing the job was impossible. "It was a hellish frenzy, absolutely horrible. People were just jumping into the canals to escape the inferno," said Kase, 89. He said he survived because he didn't jump in the water, but his burns were so severe he was hospitalized for 15 years. Split-second choices like that determined who lived and who died.

-o-o-O-o-o-

Kimura, a 7-year-old, escaped the flames as he was blown into the entrance of a big department store while running toward the Sumida River, where tens of thousands of people died: burned, crushed, drowned or suffocated in the firestorm.

-o-o-O-o-o-

Masaharu Ohtake, then 13, fled his family's noodle shop with a friend. Turned back by firefighters, they headed toward Tokyo Bay and again were ordered back. The boys crouched in a factory yard, waiting as flames consumed their neighborhood. "We saw a firetruck heaped with a mountain of bones. It was hard to understand how so many bodies could be piled up like that," said Ohtake.

-o-o-O-o-o-

Police photographer Koyo Ishikawa captured the carnage of charred bodies piled like blackened mannequins, tiny ones lying beside them. "It was as if the world had ended," said Nihei, whose father sheltered her under his body, as others piled on top and were burned and suffocated. All her family survived.

-o-o-O-o-o-

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Michiko Kiyo-oka, a 21-year-old government worker living in the Asakusa district, survived by hiding under a bridge. "When I crawled out I was so cold, so I was warming myself near one of the piles that was still smoldering. I could see an arm. I could see nostrils. But I was numb to that by then," she said. "The smell is one that will never leave me."

March 19, 1945

From January 1944-August 1945, the U.S. dropped 157,000 tons of bombs on Japanese cities, according to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. It estimated that 333,000 people were killed, including the 80,000 killed in the 6 AUG Hiroshima atomic-bomb attack and 40,000 at Nagasaki three days later. Other estimates are significantly higher. Fifteen million of the 72 million Japanese were left homeless. The bombing campaign set a military precedent for targeting civilian areas that persisted into the Korean and Vietnam wars and beyond. But the nonatomic attacks have been largely overlooked. "Both governments, the press, media, radio, even novelists ... decided the crucial story was the atomic bomb," said Mark Selden, a Cornell University history professor. "This allowed them to avoid addressing some very important questions."

Survivors of the Tokyo firebombing feel their pain has been forgotten, by history and by the government. After the war, only veterans and victims of the atomic bombings received special support. "We civilians had no weapons and no strength to fight," Kiyo-oka said. "We were attacked and got no compensation. I am very dissatisfied with how the government handled this." No specific government agency handles civilian survivors of firebombings or keeps their records, because there is no legal basis for that, said Manabu Oki at the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry. Yamabe, the historian, said authorities "are reluctant to acknowledge civilian suffering from the wartime leaders' refusal to end the war earlier." [Source: The Associated Press | Elaine Kurtenbach & Mari Yamaguchi | Mar. 09, 2015 ++]

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Vietnam at 50 ► Vietnam Syndrome

The Vietnam War’s lasting impact on America’s foreign policy is largely characterized by doubt, in the opinions of many analysts. Doubt that the United States, despite possessing the most powerful military on earth, will win a war against a determined enemy. Doubt among presidential administrations that the public would support a conflict, once television showed them pictures of dead soldiers being dragged through the streets of countries most Americans knew little or nothing about. Mostly, doubt — with some notable outliers — that the United States can impose its will through force, no matter the situation. Driving those doubts is the desire to avoid another open-ended commitment with an uncertain endgame, where U.S. troops spend years on the ground in a foreign country, fighting against an enemy that can blend back into the civilian population far too easily. That desire is part of what some have defined as “Vietnam syndrome,” a concept declared dead and reborn several times in the decades since the last American combat troops left Southeast Asia.

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“Getting involved and not being able to get up, like Gulliver tied down by the Lilliputians suffering constant blows, that’s the concern,” said Carlyle Thayer, an American professor and Vietnam analyst who taught a course on the Vietnam War at Australia’s National Defense University. That concern endures — buffeted by experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan — as Americans debate today’s military actions. Americans support fighting the Islamic State group by a 60 percent to 31 percent margin — unless that action turns to ground troops, according to a September Gallup poll. Only 40 percent approve of that, according to the poll. President Barack Obama went so far as to rule out U.S. ground troops before the latest round of air and naval strikes on Iraq and Syria began. Before the end of the Vietnam War, presidents didn’t speak in such measured, cautious ways about how they would wage war. However, Obama made it clear during a May speech at the U.S. Military Academy that caution would be a cornerstone of his foreign policy agenda

“Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences,” Obama said. The U.S. would act unilaterally when it was directly threatened and would otherwise explore other options, he said. Obama, 53, is too young to have served in Vietnam — yet his words that day mirror the definition of Vietnam syndrome offered by journalist and Vietnam War author Marvin Kalb, who called it “a fundamental reluctance to commit American military power anywhere in the world, unless it is absolutely necessary to protect the national interests of the country.”

Near Tay Ninh, Vietnam, November 4, 1966: A soldier stands amid swirling dust from a helicopter arriving to evacuate the wounded after the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division came under heavy Viet Cong fire during Operation Attleboro (left). South Vietnam, April, 1967: A soldier runs past a burning Viet Cong hootch during a 199th Light Infantry Brigade patrol in the area of Can Giouc, about 15 miles south of Saigon (right)

The term Vietnam syndrome first reached prominence when presidential candidate Ronald Reagan used it during an August 1980 campaign speech. Reagan said the syndrome was created by the “North Vietnamese aggressors” aiming to “win in the field of propaganda here in America what they could not win on the field of battle in Vietnam.” In Reagan’s view, America failed to secure Vietnam because it lacked the means and the will to do so from the home front. Nevertheless, fear of another Vietnam “quagmire” became the lens through which military action was viewed in the post-war 1980s. Although Reagan’s budgets dramatically increased defense spending, his military actions were generally small, covert or obtained by proxy.

Then came the first Gulf War. It was civilian America’s first look at the reconstituted, all-volunteer force in a very large-scale action. Victory came swiftly and at the cost of relatively few casualties. President George H.W. Bush avoided the quagmire by pulling troops out of Iraq quickly and leaving Saddam Hussein in power — moves that drew little criticism at the time. Basking in the afterglow of military triumph, Bush ended a speech in 1991 with the proclamation that, “By God, we’ve kicked the

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Vietnam syndrome once and for all.” About two years later, the doubts that Vietnam brought about returned, this time in the Horn of Africa. On Oct. 3, 1993, the “Black Hawk Down” incident kicked off the Battle of Mogadishu, leaving 18 U.S. servicemembers dead. Americans recoiled at images of Staff Sgt. William David Cleveland’s body being dragged through the Somali capital’s streets. Days later, Clinton ordered U.S. troops to begin preparing for withdrawal. A year later, the genocide in Rwanda began, and Clinton sent no military force. He would later describe not intervening in the genocide, which claimed about 1 million Rwandans, as one of his biggest regrets. “If we’d gone in sooner, I believe we could have saved at least a third of the lives that were lost. … It had an enduring impact on me,” Clinton said on CNBC in 2013.

American overseas involvement remained somewhat restrained up until the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. After that, eight out of 10 Americans supported a ground war in Afghanistan. If President George W. Bush had any worries about Vietnam syndrome, he didn’t share them publicly. Defense analysts once again declared Vietnam syndrome kicked, at least, until the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grew protracted, and opinion polls turned against the conflicts. In 2009, conservative scholar Max Boot said that George H.W. Bush got it wrong with his 1991 proclamation — Vietnam syndrome was alive and well in the Obama era. Boot noted several examples of lawmakers and analysts questioning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the prism of Vietnam. Boot dismissed their doubts as defeatist. He saw no reason to make the Vietnam comparison, unless it was to compare administrations “more interested in ending than in winning the war.” Boot’s view led him to agree on one point with Obama’s assessment: “You never step into the same river twice. And so Afghanistan is not Vietnam.” [Source: Stars and Stripes | Erik Slavin | Nov. 12, 2014 ++]

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D-Day ► Normandy Beachhead Obstacles

Some of the first assault troops to hit the Normandy beachhead take cover behind enemy obstacles to fire on German forces as others follow the first tanks plunging through the water towards the German-held shore.

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WWII Prewar Events ► 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin

America's Jesse Owens, center, salutes during the presentation of his gold medal for the long jump on August 11, 1936, after defeating Nazi Germany's Lutz Long, right, during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Naoto Tajima of Japan, left, placed third. Owens triumphed in the track and field competition by winning four gold medals in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, long jump and 400-meter relay. He was the first athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games.

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WWII PostWar Events ► Munchengladbach Cathedral Nov 1945

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In Europe, some churches have been completely ruined, but others still stand amid utter devastation. Munchengladbach Cathedral stands here in the rubble, though still in need of repairs, seen in Germany, on November 20, 1945.

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Spanish American War Images 58 ► U.S. Military Segregation, 1898

Segregated company of US Soldiers (likely Buffalo Soldiers), Camp Wikoff, 1898 --during the Spanish-American War

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Military History Anniversaries ► 16 Apr thru 15 May

Significant events in U.S. Military History over the next 30 days are listed in the attachment to this Bulletin titled, “Military History Anniversaries 16 Apr thru 15 May

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WWI in Photos 124 ► Sandbags for the Front

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Highlanders, soldiers from the United Kingdom, take sandbags up to the front in 1916.

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Faces of WAR (WWII) ► Washington DC Parade (3) May 1942

* Health Care *

TRICARE Pharmacy Policy Update 22 ► Compound Pharmacy Marketers

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As a 1 MAY deadline approaches for Tricare to place new controls on compounded medication prescriptions, some compounding pharmacies have launched aggressive marketing campaigns to bill the Pentagon for millions of dollars. In what initially seemed to be a phone phishing scam to get personal information from Tricare beneficiaries, compound pharmacy marketers have been cold-calling military families and retirees to persuade them to apply for specialty prescriptions like pain creams, wound ointments and erectile dysfunction medications. The companies also are trolling for sales staff and Tricare beneficiaries on Craigslist and setting up shop on and around military bases to sell these medications.

Tricare officials say the beneficiaries are receiving calls or direct requests from sales representatives who ask whether patients have certain medical conditions, and, if so, if they are interested in compound medications. They then ask the patients to complete forms and provide their sponsor's Social Security number to initiate the prescriptions while they bill Tricare. Such medications can range in cost from a few hundred dollars to more than $9,000 per prescription. The Defense Health Agency has seen reimbursements for compounded medications skyrocket in the past decade. In 2004, Tricare paid $5 million for these medicines. In just the first three months of this year, the Defense Health Agency was billed more than $700 million for the drugs. "Compounds by definition are supposed to be individualized therapy for an individual patient's needs," said George Jones, Tricare's pharmacy chief. "It's been difficult to believe that's what's truly going on when there are printed recipes and standard formulas [being sold]."

Beneficiaries are receiving calls or direct requests from sales representatives of compounding pharmacies.

The extreme sales tactics have gone far beyond phone calls. At Joint Base San Antonio this week, a compound drug marketer set up a food truck outside the main gate at Fort Sam Houston, promising free lunch to Tricare beneficiaries who signed up for medications, according to documents obtained by Military Times.Marketing materials distributed by the pharmacy representatives at the truck claim the products are "For Military Only, Approved by Tricare." They tout a website http://soldierscripts.com, where Tricare beneficiaries can log on and order medications. Upon logging on you are taken to a contact request confirmation window which says:

Thank you for interest in SoliderScripts. One of our medical professionals will be contacting you to get your medical information. If you need immediate assistance, please call us right now at (512) 265-1552. Below that it says: No doctor visit or doctor referral required. Simply complete an online doctor visit to determine your medical needs and a prescription will be shipped to you the next day.

Representatives listed on the marketing materials and on the website did not return phone calls from Military Times. "We are looking at putting out a notice to the post populations that these people are seeking personal information and to be mindful. This company is not operating under any invitation from anyone here at Joint Base San Antonio," spokeswoman Karla Gonzalez said. Company representatives have been caught soliciting beneficiaries inside military hospital pharmacies and at exchanges and commissaries, according to Jones. Marketers also are using Craigslist to search for sales reps and customers. One

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advertisement posted 7 APR in Houston calls the medications "a free fringe benefit for Tricare customers." "Hand crafted for every individual, the products are specially designed to help our servicemen and women cope with everything from PTSD, anxiety, chronic pain and scars," the ad reads.

Another sales rep, who claimed to be the spouse of a military health care provider, was searching on Craigslist for "charismatic, outgoing people with military ties" to help him sell the medications in San Antonio. "Ideally, I'd like military spouses or active duty members to join my team that have a huge circle of friends with Tricare," wrote the advertiser, who did not respond to a Military Times request for comment. Industry advocates say the vast majority of compounding pharmacies are small companies whose operators want to help patients and get paid a fair price. But a host of factors, including changing regulations and reimbursements and "simple unscrupulous business practices" have contributed to the industry "developing a reputation akin to the Wild West," said David Ott, CEO of United Compounding Management, a network of accredited pharmacies. "A minority of bad actors have given compounding a bad name and made new management strategies a necessity," Ott said in a recent editorial in The Hill newspaper.

Starting 1 MAY, Defense Department pharmacy contractor Express Scripts will screen each ingredient in these medications to ensure that all substances comply with Food and Drug Administration regulations. Those with allowable ingredients will be covered by Tricare. Those with unacceptable additives either will need to be reformulated or require prior approval for coverage. The change likely will make many of these new prescriptions ineligible for reimbursement. "We have developed a process that leverages the technology as much as we can ... and developed a set of criteria to ensure the safety of our patients while also ensuring that Tricare can pay for the ingredients," Jones said. Until then, companies surely will continue to press for new customers.

Tricare officials say beneficiaries should never provide personal information, including birth date, Social Security numbers or bank information, over the phone. If they receive a call, they should contact Express Scripts at (866) 216-7096 or by email, fraudtip@express-scripts.com. "Tricare will never call beneficiaries and ask for personal information," said Defense Health Agency spokesman Kevin Dwyer. [Source: MilitaryTimes | Patricia Kime | April 10, 2015 ++]

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Brain Injury ► Awareness TRICARE Coverage

The Military Health System continues to emphasize Brain Injury Awareness this month. Learning about brain injury can not only help prevent unnecessary injury, but can help you understand different types of injuries and how you can help someone who has experienced a brain trauma. Brain injuries affect millions of Americans each year. Just as no two people are exactly alike, no two brain injuries are exactly alike. After an impact to the head, a person with a brain injury can experience a variety of symptoms. Brain injuries can be classified as acquired or traumatic.

An acquired brain injury is an injury to the brain, which is not hereditary, genetic, progressive, or initiated by birth trauma. While a traumatic brain injury (TBI) can be considered an acquired brain injury, traumatic brain injuries are caused by an external force.

A concussion is the most common type of traumatic brain injury. A concussion can be caused by direct blows to the head, gunshot wounds, violent shaking of the head, or force from a whiplash type injury. This type of injury occurs because the brain receives an impact or a sudden momentum or movement change. A person with a concussion may or may not experience a brief loss of consciousness. A concussion may or may not show up on a diagnostic imaging test, such as a CAT scan so it is important to know the symptoms of a brain injury and watch the person who

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has experienced any trauma to their head. You can get a contusion from a direct blow to the head; the contusion is specifically, the bruise (bleeding) on the brain.

Many think that getting a brain injury is hard to do, but the opposite is true. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the leading cause of traumatic brain injury is falls. The brain is not a hard, fixed substance. It is soft and jello-like in consistency, composed of millions of fine nerve fibers, and "floats" in cerebral-spinal fluid within our skull. When the head is struck suddenly, strikes a stationary object, or is shaken violently, this force is transmitted to the brain causing injury like concussions, contusions or any number of injuries.

Cognitive rehabilitation therapy (CRT) is an umbrella term that refers to a collection of therapy techniques that may be used to help improve an individual’s cognitive (i.e. thinking) abilities after a brain injury, including TBI. TRICARE does not cover CRT as a stand-alone therapy because some of the treatments have not met TRICARE Standards of coverage as fully safe and effective. However, TRICARE offers a comprehensive rehabilitation benefit that includes occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), speech therapy and behavioral health services when ordered by a physician as part of a comprehensive individual rehabilitation treatment plan. Individual therapists commonly incorporate CRT techniques into covered services which are reimbursed under each separate therapy. For more information, visit the Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy page on the TRICARE website at http://www.tricare.mil/CoveredServices/IsItCovered/CogRehabTherapy.aspx. For specific coverage details, contact your regional contractor. [Source: TRICARE Communications | March 25, 2015 ++]

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TRICARE Mental Health Care Update 02 ► First Eight Appointments

Do you know? Counseling, psychotherapy, and family therapy are covered benefits under TRICARE. It’s no secret—the first eight appointments with a TRICARE authorized provider do not require a Primary Care Manager (PCM) referral, just your military identification card. Don’t wait until your family has an emergency, take your time and find a provider that makes you comfortable. Your PCM or family doctor can give a recommendation. If you are unsure of the differences in provider types, their education, treatments, and ability to prescribe medication, use the “Find a Doctor” tool at www.tricare.mil/CoveredServices/Mental/GettingMHCare/SelectProvider.aspx .

For the first eight mental health care appointments, you can see TRICARE authorized clinical psychologists, clinical social workers, psychiatric nurse specialists, TRICARE certified mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, pastoral counselors, and supervised mental health counselors--all are licensed and meet quality requirements. All can be accessed easily online, with mobile applications, or by phone. Your Managed Care Support Contractor’s website also has a “Find a Provider” link with a directory, contact details, and the providers’ specialty areas. Remember, if you find yourself in an emergency situation, for example, an individual believes he or she will harm himself, herself or others, go to the nearest emergency room or call 911. To schedule your first eight mental health appointments, go to:

North Region: https://www.hnfs.com Health Net Federal Services, Mental Health Care (1-877-874-2273)

South Region: https://www.humanamilitary.com Humana Military, Mental Health Care (1-800-700-8646)

West Region: https://www.uhcmilitarywest.com UnitedHealthcare Military & Veterans, Mental Health Care (1-877-988-9378)

Overseas: http://www.tricare-overseas.com International SOS

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Keep in mind, nine or more appointments require authorization from your PCM. All appointments with pastoral counselors and supervised mental health counselors must have prior authorization. Active Duty Service Members (ADSM) must seek mental health care in their military treatment facilities, but can participate in family therapy sessions with TRICARE authorized mental health providers. Learn more on the Covered Treatments page in the Mental Health Care section of the TRICARE website www.tricare.mil/CoveredServices/Mental/Treatments.aspx . [Source: TRICARE Communications | March 26, 2015 ++]

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Traumatic Brain Injury Update 42 ► Concussion-Sleep Disorder Link

New research shows a close link between concussions and sleep disorders. A recent study by the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) shows that sleep disturbances are common after a person sustains a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), commonly known as a concussion. Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder experienced by people who get a concussion, with prevalence rates ranging between 20 and 90 percent. People who have suffered a concussion also have a hard time establishing a consistent pattern of sleep. Another issue may be frequent or loud snoring during sleep. The research shows people who experience such symptoms should avoid caffeinated food or drinks, such as chocolate, energy drinks and sodas for at least six hours before bedtime. Other measures or “stimulus controls” include sleeping in a quiet, dark place that is cool and comfortable. It is the importance of keeping a regular sleep schedule. “Go to bed at the same time every day, and get up at the same time, regardless of how much sleep you get.” Taking a short-term sleep medication may also be necessary to reduce or eliminate these symptoms. The National Center for Telehealth and Technology smart phone apps like CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) Coach and interactive websites, such afterdeployment.org, provide educational tools to help patients manage symptoms. [Source: NAUS Weekly Watchdog | March 27, 2015 ++]

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Traumatic Brain Injury Update 43 ► Concussion-Related CTE

After his last tour in Iraq, it took master gunner Shane Garcie about six weeks to notice he'd changed. "Your brain is throwing parties because you're home, you're alive," says Garcie. "So, it doesn't settle in right away." Now he's not sure what bothers him most: the fogginess of his brain, the anger that can erupt from nowhere or the deep, dark depressions he can't shake off. "One minute I'm in a good happy mood, everything is cool; the next minute I'm depressed," Garcie told CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "I don't want to be around anybody, I want to isolate. Some days, I don't want to get out of bed." "We could walk around this town and everybody, 90% of these people, would say, 'Hey, Shane, hey,' "Garcie says about his hometown of Natchitoches, Louisiana."But it's not Shane. It looks like me, it walks like me, it talks like me, but it's not me because of the damage."

Since 1984, Green Beret Tommy Shoemaker has served in many war theaters -- Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Bosnia -- and is still an Army reservist. He came home from Iraq to Monroe, Louisiana, in late 2006 with a bum leg and a disabled brain. "I carry note cards and a pen with me everywhere I go, and when I'm talking to somebody, I write it down," Shoemaker told Gupta. "Because if I don't, I won't remember. I mean memory was not a problem for me, I could remember anything. And now I have to write everything down. But it's the mood swings he can't control that do the most harm. "I've always been really easygoing. Everything rolled off my back, no problems," says Shoemaker in his

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Southern drawl. "But now that's not so. I mean, I'll get mad over something as simple as a banana peel in the front yard or my wife saying the wrong thing to me, and is it really anything? No, but at that moment, it hits me and I just do things that I would've never done before. I yell, I scream, I holler, and that's just never been my manner. I'm sad for my kids and my wife to have to live with that."

Dr. Julian Bailes, co-director of the NorthShore Neurological Institute in Evanston, Illinois, is pointing at the angry red and vivid yellow blooms on the PET scan of a living brain said, "Compared to normal controls, you see abnormal binding in the areas under the surface of the brain and deeper in the brain, showing abnormal accumulations of tau protein," he explains. All are signs of CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a crippling neurological disorder caused by repeated blows to the head. Characterized by deep depression, failing memory and anger that lurks just under the surface, CTE is a form of dementia that first came to light in the boxing world. "Punch drunk" was the term most often used for former pugilists, such as Muhammad Ali, who developed brain damage after a lifetime of hard knocks. Today it's called dementia pugilistica and is considered a variant of CTE. CTE is the disease many believe played a role in the deaths of former NFL players like Ray Easterling, Junior Seau, Shane Dronett and Dave Duerson. They all shot themselves. Duerson left a note asking that his brain be studied.

Living brain scans of Tommy Shoemaker and Shane Garcie

Images like these are traditionally gathered post-mortem, from brain samples taken at autopsy. That's been the only way CTE could be diagnosed. Only a handful of studies have looked at living brains, with the hope a diagnosis could be made before death. "Looking at living brains is a remarkable contribution to the science right now, a really remarkable contribution," Dr. Geoffrey Ling told CNN. Ling is director of the Biological Technologies office at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. "It is very exciting and the potential is dramatic." In one of the largest studies of its kind to date, Bailes and his co-authors at UCLA compared the living brains of 14 former athletes thought to have CTE, 24 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and two ex-soldiers, Tommy Shoemaker and Shane Garcie, to a control group of 28 cognitively normal people.

The researchers injected the participants with a radioactive "tracer" called [f-18]FDDNP before their PET scans. The tracer latches on to a brain protein called tau, which is thought to be responsible for much of the damage in Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain disorders, and lights up areas of the brain that are affected. For us to be able to make the diagnosis of the injury or the disease in living people is paramount to being able to help them, treat them and to find some way to keep them out of progressing into a terminal problem," says Bailes. The scans of the ex-soldiers was a plus: a tiny sample designed to give a glimpse into what might be causing their debilitating symptoms. And they offer a chance to explore what many experts are beginning to suspect: The blasts and energy jolts common in warfare might be creating a new form of CTE, a "blast-variant" version. "In the military, it seems it would be vitally important to know who has been exposed to this, and then be able to identify, mark, follow the progression of brain

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degeneration from blast injury," says Bailes. "And to know who's at risk and maybe who needs to be pulled out of harm's way permanently."

Sure enough, the specific pattern of the tau the researchers found in Garcie and Shoemaker's brains didn't look at all like Alzheimer's. Instead, it looked similar to the tau display found in the 14 players suspected of having CTE and the results taken from brain autopsies of people diagnosed with CTE. And it looked similar to what had been found in a previous study by Bailes and his UCLA colleagues of the living brains of five NFL football players who were suspected of having CTE. According to the Brain Trauma Foundation, 10% to 20% of Iraqi veterans are suffering from some level of traumatic brain disorder. The foundation even calls it the ‘signature injury’ of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The science of CTE is in its infancy. A band of researchers around the country has been racing to catalog as much information as possible, to answer the questions: Is CTE distinct enough to be diagnosed? Is it a "new" neurodegenerative disease? "Before people run out and say, 'Oh, this person has CTE, or that person has CTE,' I think that'd be way premature to do that," says Ling. "Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, that's a condition that still needs further study." Researchers struggle with how to tease out the differences between post-concussion syndrome, a chronic but stable disease, and CTE, which early research shows spreads from the initial site of impact throughout the brain and worsens with age. "There's so many things about CTE we don't understand," says Bailes. "There never has been long-term longitudinal studies that analyze who gets it and exactly why, what the prevalence of it is, and then who progresses. There may be a group that doesn't progress."

The type of radioactive marker to use, and how accurate it is in binding to tau protein, is also under scrutiny. A number of tau trackers are in the works, and each seem to have unique characteristics. The UCLA study's [f-18]FDDNP is an older marker that critics say isn't specific enough because it can also bind to amyloids, which are misfolded proteins commonly seen in Alzheimer's brains. Bailes and several of his UCLA co-authors have launched a company to develop [f-18]FDDNP, and they defend their tracer this way: "Most CTE sufferers have been found at autopsy to have tau, but also about 40% have had amyloid as well. So they are showing both degeneration markers in the brain," says Bailes. "Most importantly, it's a distinct pattern that we haven't seen in any other condition -- not in Alzheimer's, not in other forms of dementia, and certainly not in normal controls. So it's not just what we're binding to, it's that this pattern appears to be distinct and it appears to be the areas that have been damaged in autopsy studies of sufferers with CTE." Ling has a more global view. "In the end, these scans are just scans. That's all that they are. It really has to do with the context of the patient. We have to understand the patient: What is their history? Do they have multiple head injuries? Do they have anything else that could compound this?"

At this time, there is no cure for CTE. There are no real treatments, either. All that can be done is to treat the symptoms. Psychotherapy and antidepressants are often prescribed for anxiety and anger, while memory issues are tackled with lifestyle and diet changes that may or may not help. "There really is no concussion pill, there's no specific medication we have to treat these," says Bailes. "It's recognition, it's taking that individual out of harm's way for future impacts or blast injury, and it's allowing the brain to heal." Experts agree that accurately identifying brain injury on the spot is critical. That's because the risk increases each time you have one. "Every concussion predisposes you to be a little more sensitive to have another one, especially if they are in close proximity time wise," says Bailes. The hope is that science will develop a test that can diagnose brain trauma in war zones or on the sidelines of a football game at the time of injury. Several are in development, but only a pencil-and-paper test is in use right now.

For Shane Garcie, all that matters is what can be done to keep other soldiers from ending up like him. "I've talked to other doctors and a couple of neurologists and neurosurgeons, and they're like, 'Man, really, I don't know how you're functioning like you are,' he says. "I could've been a comedian. I was very quick-witted, very smart. Now I stutter. I sputter. I lose words. I can be having a conversation and forget

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everything we're talking about." But it's not just Shane that's having all these brain issues. “There were thousands of troops who were getting blasted by IEDs, car bombs, RPGs, grenades. I want them to know that they're not alone."

For Tommy Shoemaker, it's important that soldiers with CTE receive a physical diagnosis, rather than just being lumped under the umbrella of post-traumatic stress disorder. To him, it matters a great deal that his symptoms are the result of a brain injury, instead of the inability to cope with the emotional fallout of trauma. "People are more apt to accept a physical disorder than they are mental disorders," he says. "So if you can do that for soldiers, I think that's a big plus." "I think it's a plus when they go to get a job, you know, and they ask 'em: 'Do you have a mental disorder?' Well no, I don't. I have a brain injury. Nobody wants to be diagnosed as having a mental disorder." [Source: CNN | Sandee LaMotte | April 06, 2015 ++]

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Memory Loss ► Five Causes

You can't find your keys or you forget an appointment. For many people in middle age or older, simple acts of forgetfulness like these are scary because they raise the specter of Alzheimer's disease. But Alzheimer’s is not the only health issue that can lead to forgetfulness, which is often treatable if you know the cause, according to the National Institute on Aging. Memory loss can happen at any age and for a number of reasons. “Patients might experience memory loss and describe their symptoms similarly, but a doctor can tease apart what parts of the brain are affected,” says Seth Gale, MD, a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He points out things like polypharmacy (taking several medications), significant depression, and poor sleep that can lead to memory complaints. “When you drill down and find out what is actually happening with brain function, you can reassure someone. They have the capacity to learn and store information but because of their overloaded mental resources, they are having trouble,” says Dr. Gale.

Talk with your doctor about concerns you may have about your memory, so the condition responsible for your symptoms can be addressed. Discussing your symptoms and taking various tests, possibly including an MRI, may help your doctor determine what is affecting your memory, Gale says. In some cases, one or more of the following issues could play a role.

1. Sleep Apnea - This common but treatable sleep disorder causes breathing to stop briefly and frequently throughout the night. It is linked to memory loss and dementia, according to Constantine Lyketsos, MD, director of the Memory and Alzheimer's Treatment Center at Johns Hopkins Medicine and professor and chair of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Bayview. You might have sleep apnea if you wake up with a headache and have daytime fatigue — or if your partner complains of loud snoring. When not treated, sleep apnea affects spatial navigational memory, found a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience. This type of memory includes being able to remember directions or where you put things like your keys. The research suggests that deep sleep, also known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, plays an important role in memory.One explanation is that for people with sleep apnea, oxygen delivery to the brain is interrupted several hundred times during the night, explains Dr. Lyketsos. “The brain is stressed, so people wake up,” he says. The injury sleep apnea causes can show up as a variety of memory loss symptoms, he adds.

2. Silent Stroke - Obvious changes in the ability to think and move normally can come from strokes that block major brain blood vessels, Gale says. Mild memory problems can also develop gradually after silent strokes that affect smaller blood vessels. These changes in brain function, which can range from mild to severe, are called vascular cognitive impairment. The brain is especially vulnerable to blocked or reduced

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blood flow depriving it of oxygen and essential nutrients. People with memory loss are at greater risk for stroke. And forgetfulness may be an early warning sign of stroke, found a study published in the journal Stroke.

3. Medications - Memory loss could be a sign that your medication needs to be adjusted. Several types of drugs can affect memory, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including:

sleeping pills antihistamines anti-anxiety medications antidepressants certain painkillers cholesterol-lowering medication diabetes medication

The FDA also cautions that cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins could slightly increase the risk for reversible cognitive side effects. These include memory loss and confusion. A commonly prescribed type 2 diabetes drug, metformin, has also been associated with memory problems. A study published in Diabetes Care found that people with diabetes who took the drug had worse cognitive performance than those who did not take it.

4. Nutritional Deficiency - A lack of sufficient B12, one of the B vitamins essential for normal nerve function, can lead to confusion and even dementia. Each day, you should get about 2.4 micrograms of B12 in your diet from natural sources like dairy products, meat, and fish, or from foods fortified with vitamin B12 — like fortified cereals. For a healthy meals planning guide that will give you the vitamins you need refer to http://www.everydayhealth.com/meal-planner.

5. Stress, Anxiety, and Depression - Significant stress or anxiety can lead to problems with attention and memory, cautions Constantine Lyketsos, one of the world’s experts on how best to treat and care for patients with dementia. This is particularly common among people who may be juggling home and work responsibilities and are not sleeping well. Usually, easing stress can improve memory, Lyketsos says. Untreated chronic stress can lead to depression, which could also affect brain function, according to research published in the Journal of Pharmacy & BioAllied Sciences. A mood disorder may improve with medication and counseling, notes the National Institute on Aging.

Less Common Causes of Memory Loss - Other conditions that can lead to problems with memory include:

Infection: Memory loss may be attributed to severe infection around the brain, including neurosyphilis, Gale says.

Head injury: Symptoms of a mild brain injury may include confusion and trouble with memory and concentration, according to the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Tumors: Memory and the ability to process information may be affected by brain tumors, the American Brain Tumor Association says. In addition, treatments for a tumor can affect your memory, including brain surgery, chemo, or radiation therapy.

Alcoholism, Substance Abuse: Both alcoholism and drug abuse can affect memory, says Lyketsos. A study published in Neurology found that men who drank heavily showed signs of mental decline one to six years earlier than light drinkers.

[Source: HealthDay News | Mary Elizabeth Dallas | Feb. 26, 2015++]

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Medicare Reimbursement Rates 2015 Update 02 ► Fix Bill Seniors Impact

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After decades of last-minute deals to patch the Medicare payments system, the House of Representatives passed a bill 26 MAR that would insure that Medicare doctors continue to be paid at current rates. “This relentless return to this issue was creating a sense of anxiety around Medicare, so this permanent solution may provide some peace of mind to both people in the program, and their physicians,” says Tricia Newman, senior vice president and director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the Kaiser Foundation. It appears that the bill will get approval from both the Senate when it returns from a two-week recess, and President Obama. The plan adds $141 billion to the federal deficit in the first decade, with costs rising more sharply after that. But it will also offset some of its costs by pushing some of the expenses onto Medicare customers. Here’s how it will affect seniors:

Higher Medicare premiums for the wealthiest: The bill will require wealthier patients to shoulder a larger percentage of the cost of their insurance starting in 2018. Those with a modified adjusted gross income of $133,500-$160,000 ($267,000-$320,000 for a couple) per year would pay 65 percent of their premium costs for Part B (outpatient services) and Part D (prescription drugs), up from 50 percent now. Those earning $160,000-$214,000 per year ($320,000-$428,000 for couples), would see their share of the premiums increase form 65 percent to 75 percent. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates this change would affect 2 percent of current enrollees. Individuals making $133,500-$160,000 currently pay $272.20 per month, while those making $320,000-$428,000 pay $313.90.

Higher premiums: Even those individuals making less than $133,500 per year will see their premiums rise. Since all enrollees pay a set percentage of premiums as doctor fees rise, those premiums are expected to increase as well. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that those premiums will increase under this bill by about $10 by 2025 to $181 per month.

Higher Medigap deductibles: About 20 percent of Medicare enrollees buy a supplemental Medigap plan, which helps with out-of-pocket costs and typically pays the deductible for outpatient services. The new Doc Fix plan would block Medigap plans from paying the deductible cost, currently capped at $147 per year, starting in 2020. “The idea is for people to have some exposure to healthcare expenditures when they’re making treatment decisions,” Neuman says.

More competitive Medicare Advantage plans: Most Medicare enrollees who don’t use Medigap opt for a Medicare Advantage (Part C) plan, which is typically either an HMO or a PPO and provides extra coverage for things like prescription drugs and vision or dental. Such plans offer the convenience of having just one plan and sometimes cost less than combining a Medigap Plan with Part D coverage, but they often have narrower networks and require co-payments. Plan operators may see the proposed Doc Fix changes as a way to grab market share by offering prices that can beat the higher premiums in traditional Medicare plans. “Medicare Advantage plan sponsors may try to absorb some of those premium increases in order to grow their enrollment,” says Paul Keckley, the managing director of the NavigantCenter for Healthcare Research and Policy Analysis.

[Source: The Fiscal Times | Beth Braverman | March 30, 2015 ++]

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THoR ► DARPA Takes Aim at Antibiotics Resistance

The Defense Department’s chief research agency is launching a new approach to helping the human body fight off diseases and illnesses. For years, the medical-professional community has grown increasingly concerned that antibiotics are becoming less effective in thwarting illnesses because patients’ bodies are harboring more resistant pathogens. Rather than continue chasing new antibiotics that likely will only foster development of new resistant strains, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to find ways to increase patients’ abilities to fight off illnesses. The program, called THoR (Technologies for Host Resistance), debuted 31 MAR. “Our aim … is to lay the foundation for new treatments that would enable the body to more easily and safely cope with infection,” said Army Col. Matt Hepburn, the project’s program manager. “These new treatments would prevent the body’s overreaction to infection and buy time for the individual’s natural recovery mechanisms to kick in,” Hepburn said. DARPA is seeking input from prospective research institutions and contractors, and will move forward with the best proposal concepts. The project will take three approaches:

Discovery of which animal populations are resistant or tolerant to infection. Identification of mechanisms for tolerance, within species, tissues or cells. Identification and validation of effective pro-tolerance intervention mechanisms among animal

populations.

[Source: FEDweek | April 03, 2015]

* Finances *

IRS Tax Payments ► Ways to Pay

If you owe federal tax, the IRS offers many convenient ways to pay. Make sure you pay by the April 15 deadline, even if you get an extension of time to file your 2014 tax return. Here are some of the ways to pay your tax:

Use Direct Pay. IRS Direct Pay offers individuals a free, secure and easy way to pay. You can schedule a payment in advance to pay your tax directly from your checking or savings account. You don't need to register, write a check or find a mailbox. Direct Pay gives you instant confirmation after you make a payment.

Pay by Debit or Credit Card. Choose an approved payment processor to make a tax payment online, by phone or by mobile device. It's safe and secure. The payment processor will charge a processing fee. The fees vary by service provider and may be tax deductible. No part of the fee goes to the IRS.

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Pay When You E-file. If you file your federal tax return electronically you can schedule a payment at the time that you file. You can pay directly from your bank account using Electronic Funds Withdrawal. You choose the date and amount of the payment, and as long as it is before your due date, it will be on time. Some software that you use to e-file also allows you to pay by debit or credit card with a processing fee.

Other Options to Pay. The IRS offers other ways to pay, including: Use the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System to pay your taxes online or by phone. This free

system provides security, convenience and accuracy. Pay by Check or Money Order. Make the check, money order or cashier's check payable to the

U.S. Treasury. Do not staple, clip or attach your payment to the tax form. Include your name, address, daytime phone number and Social Security number on the front of the payment. Use the SSN shown first if it's a joint return. Also include the tax year and related tax form or notice number. Do not send cash through the mail.

Can't Pay Now? If you are unable to pay in full you have options: Apply for an online payment agreement to pay your tax liability over time. Use the IRS.gov tool to

set up a direct debit installment agreement. With a direct debit plan there is no need to write a check and mail it each month.

Owe more than you can afford? An offer in compromise, or OIC, may allow you to settle for less than the full amount you owe. It may be an option for you if you can't pay your full tax liability. It may also be an option if paying in full creates a financial hardship. Not everyone qualifies, so you should explore all other ways to pay before submitting an OIC. Use the Offer in Compromise Pre-Qualifier tool to see if you are eligible for an OIC (http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Offer-in-Compromise-1).

In short, remember to pay your tax liability on time. If you are suffering a financial hardship, the IRS is willing to work with you. [Source: My Federal Retirement | April 2015 ++]

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Federal Pay Update 03 ► 1000 Highest Paid | How to Find

The 1,000 highest-paid federal employees in 2014 were mostly Veterans Administration doctors, two of whom have higher salaries than President Barack Obama, according to federal data. Among the highest-paid were 986 VA doctors, 13 doctors with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and one individual with the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities whose job was listed as "miscellaneous administration." The two best-paid employees were Thomas A. Burdon, a thoracic surgeon with the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California, who made $402,462, and Thomas V. Cacciarelli, a surgeon at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, who made $401,589. Since early last year, VA hospitals all over the country have been under scrutiny for delayed veteran care and employees who were fraudulently concealing long wait times. System-wide access audits in mid-2014 found that more than 37 percent of VA facilities in the country required a more in-depth review because of irregularities, including the New Jersey Health Care System's Lyons campus.

The payroll data obtained by DataUniverse.com, the public records site of the Asbury Park Press, do not include Department of Defense employees and don't include most employee merit bonuses. President Obama makes $400,000, not including other benefits. The state with the most high-paid employees was California with 124, followed by North Carolina with 81, Texas with 74 and Florida with 59. In New Jersey there were 12 employees who made the top 1,000. All were doctors at the VA New Jersey Health Care System in East Orange. However, the $325,672 average salary of the 12 top paid employees was lower than in all but three states. The states with the highest average salaries of employees in the top 1,000 were:

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Virginia: 33 employees averaging $354,836. Indiana: 11 employees averaging $354,711. Minnesota: 43 employees averaging $347,246. Rhode Island: four employees averaging $347,141. South Dakota: four employees averaging $346,840.

Joanne Edgar, who works for the Child Abuse and Neglect Commission, was the one employee on the list who was not a physician. She was paid a base salary of $313,050 in 2014, more than twice the salary of the next highest paid employee. Eight of the 10 total employees make about $147,000 and one makes $62,000, records show. All are listed as miscellaneous administrators. The commission was formed in 2013 after the Protect Our Kids Act of 2012 was passed to study and develop a strategy to prevent child deaths related to abuse and neglect, according to the commission's website. A commission employee said Edgar was a writer working on the project. Edgar could not be reached for comment. To search federal employees by name or state go to http://www.DataUniverse.com. Look under "What's New" for the link. [Source: Asbury Park Press | Kala Kachmar | March 24, 2015 ++]

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Social Security Benefits Update 03 ► Little-Known Facts

Most Americans watch their money go into the Social Security trust fund in the form of payroll deductions as soon as they begin working, when retirement seems a long way off. As a result, many go through their working lives without giving it much thought. Here are a few facts everyone should know about Social Security benefits before making any decisions about retirement.

1. One hard lesson about Social Security that when it's time to claim, you can't depend on the Social Security Administration to be your personal adviser. Social Security employees generally don't give case-specific advice. So that means you are on your own to make the most important financial decision of a lifetime. You have to read the rules and do the research yourself.

2. There are many ways a married couple can decide to take their Social Security benefits, according to Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. You can't ask Social Security to list them all, so what's the right choice? Munnell says it's hard to beat waiting until you're 70 to begin benefits because the monthly payment is 76 percent higher than it would be if you had started to take benefits at 62 and 32 percent higher than it would be if you claimed at age 66. On the other hand, some people advocate drawing Social Security benefits at the first opportunity. Doug Carey, who founded the financial planning software firm WealthTrace, says Social Security doesn't see itself as an oddsmaker, but it does require you to bet on your longevity. For example, the break-even point for a person who earned the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $70,000 per year for 35 years is about age 80. If this person waits until 70 to claim Social Security and lives until at least age 90, he'll accumulate almost $162,000 more in benefits than he would if he had claimed at 62. But there's a possibility of losing the bet and getting nothing. Retired law professor and Social Security expert Merton Bernstein says the longevity bet odds are bad, so claim early. "You never know when the bell will ring. In other words 'Take the money and run.'"

3. If you're not happy in your marriage after 9 1/2 years, hold off before hiring a divorce attorney. "Stay married for at least 10 years," says San Francisco-based Bank of America personal banker Raphael Gilbert. Why? That's what it takes to stake a claim to your ex-spouse's Social Security benefits. If you terminate the marriage after nine years and 11 months, you're out of luck. If you make it for 10 years, you can collect a Social Security benefit based on up to half of your ex's earnings or on the basis of your own earnings -- whichever is higher.

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4. You haven't remarried, chances are your ex-spouse is worth more to you dead than alive -- especially if he or she was a high earner. Once an ex-spouse passes away, you'll be treated just like a widow or widower. If you are at least 60, you'll be able to collect your late-spouse's benefit and allow your own benefit to grow unclaimed until you reach age 70, when you can switch if your own is higher, according to Carol Thomas, who worked for the Social Security Administration for 28 years and answers questions about Social Security at RetirementCommunity.com. Assuming your ex will dwell on Planet Earth to a ripe old age, the longer your ex-spouse delays claiming Social Security, the better it is for you. So, if you get a chance, encourage your ex to work until age 70. Then, when it's all over, you'll get to claim half of his or her maximum Social Security. Or once you and your ex-spouse reach full retirement age -- usually 66 -- you can claim half your ex's benefit and let your own grow untouched until you're 70, says Thomas. Consider it payback.

5. Social Security does a good job of explaining widow and widower benefits, but Dan Keady, director of financial planning for TIAA-CREF Financial Services, says it doesn't clearly spell out a key difference between widow/widower benefits and spousal benefits. A widow/widower can begin benefits based on his or her own earnings record and later switch to survivor’s benefits or begin with survivors benefits and later switch to benefits based on his or her own record -- even if the surviving spouse is filing before full retirement age. You can't do that with spousal benefits. In other words, a widow can begin drawing a survivors benefit on her late husband's Social Security when she is as young as 60, but only at a reduced rate. Then she can choose to leave her own Social Security alone, allowing it to grow in value until her full retirement age -- or even age 70. This works for widowers, too.

6. When you apply for disability insurance, Social Security doesn't tell you that your first step ought to be to hire a lawyer or other expert adviser. Allsup, a private firm that advises people about how to get SSDI, says Social Security doesn't even make it clear that an applicant can have representation from the very beginning of the application process. As a result, lots of people don't get help until they've been initially denied, and that slows down the process unnecessarily.

7. The Social Security website http://www.socialsecurity.gov/planners/benefitcalculators.html offers an explanation of how your benefits are calculated, but it's a little hard to follow. You can find a simpler explanation at http://www.myretirementpaycheck.org/social-security-retirement.aspx , a website sponsored by the National Endowment for Financial Education. Your Social Security payment is figured using a complex calculation based on a 35-year average of your covered wages. Each year's wages are adjusted for inflation before being averaged. If you worked longer than 35 years, the government will use the highest 35 years. If you worked fewer than 35 years, they'll average in zeros for the years you are lacking. You don't have to be a math genius to figure out the impact of that -- it drags down your average. If you can avoid zeros by working a couple of years longer, you'll increase your Social Security payment.

[Source: Bankrate.com | Marilyn Bowden | April 2015 ++]

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Saving Money ► Service Providers | Negotiate

A few minutes on the phone can save you $500 on your cable bill. Of course, while it doesn’t hurt to ask, it doesn’t guarantee results either. To help customers improve their odds when haggling with service providers, writer Eric Barker turned to a professional negotiator, Christopher Voss. The 24-year veteran of the FBI retired as its lead international hostage negotiator and now heads Black Swan Group Ltd., described on its website as “a strategic business advisory firm with a specific focus in negotiation.”

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As Barker put it on his blog: The customer service rep is reading from a script. I know somebody who has worked on producing those scripts — he’s a Harvard-trained negotiator. An expert. He makes sure the phrasing triggers reciprocity and subtly includes a number of other techniques to benefit them — and not you. So when you talk to the person reading that script, you’re basically going up against a top-tier negotiator. Totally not a fair fight. [Voss] has noted a number of methods he’s used [in] dealing with hostage takers, terrorists and other people almost as scary as Comcast. Specifically discussed how you can lower your cable bill, but these concepts will work for most any service provider you’re dealing with. Here’s how they break it down:

Do some homework. Knowing how your cable company’s prices compare to other companies’ prices can be helpful. But Voss recommends knowing how your current price compares to the price your company offers new customers.

Project calmness and warmth. Voss says this is simply a matter of speaking more slowly and smiling while you speak. “Customer service people are so used to being attacked that this has to be the first step. It’ll either prevent them from putting their guard up or make them less leery in dropping their guard,” he says.

Start by saying ‘I’m sorry’. These two words have two effects. “In a very non-threatening way, you have forced them to take a look at you to figure out what’s going on,” Voss says. You have also disarmed the customer service representative on the other end of the line by showing respect in a situation in which he or she is used to the opposite treatment.

Use the phrase ‘This is going to sound harsh’. Voss says that after hearing this phrase, we are expecting to have to deal with something huge. “Having braced ourselves for something terrible and horrifying, whatever comes next is always less than what we expected,” Voss says. “We feel relieved and it seems easy in comparison.”

Turn a complaint call into an appreciation call. The last thing hardened customer service reps expect is for a customer to thank them for the company’s product or service. “So start off by saying, ‘Your company provides phenomenal service. I’m getting a great bargain and I’m a little embarrassed that I’m calling in and asking for a better deal because what your company is providing is worth every single dime that you’re charging me,'” Voss says. This tactic, called “forced empathy,” brings down a customer service rep’s guard by making him or her see your point without the representative realizing it’s being forced on him or her.

Make a focused comparison with an open-ended question. Again, be gentle so the rep doesn’t feel you’re forcing your point on him or her, or backing him or her into a corner. “(One of Voss’ students) called in and he went on and on and on about how good the service was,” Voss tells Barker. “And then he said, ‘I’ve been a loyal customer and I’ve always paid my bill on time and then I find out that with the great value that I’m getting and the tremendous amount of loyalty that I’ve been providing that you guys are offering better deals to people who have never paid you a dime and never been a loyal customer.’ He said, ‘How am I supposed to live with that?’ “The next thing he heard was the sound of crickets. Because the person on the other end of the line had no answer, it was just dead silence.”

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[Source: MoneyTalksNews | Karla Bowsher } March 26, 2015 ++]

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IRS Forgiven Debt Policy Update 01: ► Why it is Taxable

To err may be human, but to forgive isn’t always divine. Turns out that when you have a forgiven debt — say, one written off by a student loan lender or credit card company — you’re likely to get a surprise: a big, fat tax bill. In general, if you owe money and it’s written off as uncollectible, as far as Uncle Sam is concerned, the destroyed debt is taxed like income. What happens is that forgiven debt is reported to the IRS by whoever forgave it. This results in the IRS sending the former debtee a 1099-C at the end of the year for the amount of the forgiven debt, which was reported to the IRS as taxable income.

To understand the logic, imagine another scenario, one in which forgiven loans aren’t taxable: MoneyTalksNews lends you $60,000. After a couple of months, they forgive the debt. Result? You just received $60,000 in tax-free income, and MoneyTalksNews just got a $60,000 tax deduction for an uncollectible debt. You win, MoneyTalksNews wins, and Uncle Sam loses. That’s why forgiven debt is normally taxable. Bad debts are deductible to the one losing the money and income to the one who doesn’t have to pay it back. That’s the rule and the logic behind it. But as with many rules, especially those relating to income taxes, there are many exceptions. Let’s look at a few.

Exception: insolvency. According to IRS publication 4681, if you’re insolvent, meaning you owe more than you own, forgiven debt isn’t counted as income. Their words… Do not include a canceled debt in income to the extent that you were insolvent immediately before the cancellation. You were insolvent immediately before the cancellation to the extent that the total of all of your liabilities was more than the FMV (Fair Market Value) of all of your assets immediately before the cancellation. To qualify for this exclusion, you will need to file Form 982. This is generally the form people file when they enter into debt forgiveness agreements, and it will probably be your best chance at avoiding paying taxes on the forgiven debt.

Exception: bankruptcy. Debt canceled through a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy typically isn’t taxable.

Exception: mortgage debt. A foreclosure often includes canceled mortgage debt: the amount of the mortgage not recouped when the home is taken back and resold. Because that results in forgiven debt, many homeowners who lose their home receive mail months later informing them they owe taxes on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of money they never received. Depending on state laws, the same could be true for those doing a short sale (selling their home for less than the mortgage balance) or participating in a program that reduces the principal on their mortgage. Sometimes Congress rides to the rescue. For example, after the housing market cratered and foreclosures were running rampant, they passed the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007. This law allowed tax-free forgiveness for certain types of forgiven mortgage debt during tax years 2007 through 2014.

Bottom line: seek assistance. These are some common exceptions that could help you avoid taxes on forgiven debt, but they’re not the only ones. There are also different rules for businesses, as well as for debts that are recourse (those for which you’re personally liable) and non-recourse. State laws can also play a part, and so can other laws. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed a law allowing those in affected areas to exclude forgiven nonbusiness debts from their income that year. As you know if you’ve read past articles like Tax Pros: “Are They a Waste of Money? (http://www.moneytalksnews.com/tax-pros-getting-what-you-pay-for) ”, I’m not a fan of paying people to do things you can do yourself. But this is a

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situation better addressed by the article 10 Things Worth Paying More For (http://www.moneytalksnews.com/10-things-worth-paying-more-for), which included, in certain cases, experienced professionals. Because of the detail (Publication 4681 titled Cancelled debts, Foreclosures, Repossessions, and Abandonments for individuals is 26 pages long) and the amount of money involved, this is a situation that calls for expertise. You should visit a local tax pro. In an ideal scenario, you would have done it before the debt was forgiven, but better late than never. [Source: MoneyTalksNews | Stacy Johnson | April 07, 2015 ++]

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Contact Lens ► Expensive | Manufacturers Now Setting Retail Prices

Did your last box of contact lenses seem unusually expensive? Don’t bother shopping around for a better price, because you probably won’t find it. Johnson & Johnson, Alcon, Bausch & Lomb and Cooper Vision, which together account for 97 percent of all contact lenses sold in the United States, have set price minimums for many of their contacts, so you’re unlikely to find them any cheaper, no matter how hard you look. “The manufacturers say the policies are intended to simplify the market and shift conversations between patients and optometrists away from the topic of pricing and toward the clinical benefits of their contact lenses,” The New York Times said.

Companies like Costco and 1-800-Contacts, which previously sold lenses at deep discounts to consumers, say the contact lens manufacturers’ policies amount to illegal price-fixing that limits competition and costs consumers big bucks, the Times noted. Several states are considering legislation that would prohibit contact lens manufacturers from setting retail price minimums. Consumer class action lawsuits have also been filed against contact lens manufacturers. Costco is suing industry giant Johnson & Johnson for alleged antitrust violations. Richard Chavez, a senior vice president at Costco, told KGW that the warehouse retail chain has been forced to increase its contact lens prices by 26 percent. He said the 39 million American consumers who wear contact lenses are now severely limited in their buying options. “They cannot go to any retailer of any size and try to buy their contact lenses at a lower price, which we used to do every day for many, many years,” Chavez said.

Although lens manufacturers claim the price policies are merely simplifying the market, opponents claim they’re intended to win approval from optometrists who decide which contact brand their patients will use. The Times said: Unlike medical doctors who prescribe a drug and then send their patients to a pharmacy to fill it, many optometrists make money on both the eye exam and the glasses and contact lenses they sell in-house. But ever since a 2003 law required optometrists to give patients their contact lens prescriptions free of charge, many of those sales have moved to online sellers and discounters like Costco, who often charge less. So if all retailers are charging the same price for contacts, it would be easiest to simply order from your optometrist’s office. This has not gone unnoticed by optometrists, the Times noted. Gary Gerber, an industry consultant who hosts the industry podcast “The Power Hour,” said in an episode last fall that the policies were “the coolest thing to happen in contact lenses in the last 20 years.” He added, “It allows the doctors to compete and be profitable.” [Source: MoneyTalksNews | Krystal Steinmetz | April 08, 2015 ++]

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Car Wrapping Con ► How it Works

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Looking for an easy way to supplement your income? Don't fall for fake emails that offer to pay you $300 a week for simply wrapping your car with a company logo.

How the Scam Works: You get an email that appears to be from a well-known drink brand. These latest scams use

Monster Energy's name, but scammers have also impersonated brands such as Coca Cola and Heineken.

The email claims to be offering you a chance to earn $300 (or more) a week. All you need to do is wrap your car with the Monster Energy logo and use the vehicle for your daily routine. Sounds easy! You reply and are asked to provide contact information and vehicle details. You are also promised an up-front payment.

When you receive your check, it's for far more than you were promised. Your new "boss" instructs you to deposit it and wire the difference to another person. This third party is allegedly responsible for designing the car wrap. Don't do it! It's a scam, and the check is a fake. If you deposit the check and withdraw the money, you will be responsible for the bank's losses.

How to Spot a Job Scam: Don't fall for an overpayment scam. No legitimate job would ever overpay an employee and ask

him/her wire the money elsewhere. This is a common trick used by scammers. Some positions are more likely to be scams: Always be wary of work from home, secret shopper

positions or any job with a generic title, such as admin assistant or customer service representative. These often don't require special training or licensing, so they appeal to a wide range of applicants. Scammers know this and use these otherwise legitimate titles in their fake ads.

If a job looks suspicious, search for it online. If the result comes up in many other cities with the exact same job post, it is likely a scam. Also, check the real company's job page to make sure the position is posted there.

Watch out for on-the-spot job offers. You may be an excellent candidate for the job, but beware of offers made without an interview. A real company will want to talk to a candidate before hiring him or her.

Look for typos and bad grammar: If the offer is really coming from a famous brand like Coca Cola, their email shouldn't be riddled with bad writing.

Learn more about car wrapping scams on the BBB blog www.bbb.org/blog/2012/05/putting-ads-on-your-car-scam-says-carol. To find out more about other scams, check out BBB Scam Stopper http://www.bbb.org/scam-stopper. [March 13, 2015]

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Arrest Warrant Attached Scam ► How it Works

Don't let this email scam scare you into downloading a malware-infected attachment. The Federal Trade Commission is warning about fake emails that claim to be from the made-up "Bureau of Defaulters," with an attached "arrest warrant" that is really malware.

How the Scam Works: You get an email that appears to come from a government agency called the "Bureau of

Defaulters." It says you've ignored previous attempts to contact you. Now, the federal government has placed your Social Security number on hold, and you'll be prosecuted for fraud.

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Want to fight the charges? Your "arrest warrant" is attached, and you've got just 24 hours to respond. If you don't reply, you will be prosecuted, found guilty and fined.

You may be very tempted to download the "warrant," but don't do it! There is no "Bureau of Defaulters," and you aren't under arrest. These emails are just a way to get you to download malware that can then hunt for personal financial information and passwords stored on your computer.

How to Spot a Government Imposter Scam: In general, it's best not to click on links that come in unsolicited emails. Here are some more ways to spot someone posing as a government agency.

1. Don't trust a name or number. Con artists use official-sounding names or mask their area codes to make you trust them. Don't fall for it.

2. Be wary if you are being asked to act immediately: Scammers typically try to push you into action before you have had time to think. Always be wary of emails urging you to act immediately or face a consequence.

3. Don't wire money or use a prepaid debit card: Scammers often pressure people into wiring money or putting cash on a prepaid debit card. Why? It's like sending cash: once it's gone, you can't trace it or get it back. But government agencies do not typically ask for money using these forms of payment, so consider that a "red flag."

4. Watch for typos, strange phrasing and bad grammar. Scammers can easily copy a government seal, but awkward wording and poor grammar are typically a give away that the message is a scam.

5. .When in doubt, contact the agency yourself. If you're not sure whether an email is real, you can always look up a phone number yourself and contact the court or government agency the email claims to be from.

Learn more about this scam on the FTC blog at http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/there-no-bureau-defaulters and read at http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0048-government-imposter-scams#howtorecognize the FTC's tips for dealing with government impostors. To find out more about other scams, check out BBB Scam Stopper at http://www.bbb.org/council/bbb-scam-stopper. [Source: Better Business Bureau | March 20, 2015 ++]

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Tax Burden for South Carolina Retired Vets ► As Apr 2015

Many people planning to retire use the presence or absence of a state income tax as a litmus test for a retirement destination. This is a serious miscalculation since higher sales and property taxes can more than offset the lack of a state income tax. The lack of a state income tax doesn’t necessarily ensure a low total tax burden. States raise revenue in many ways including sales taxes, excise taxes, license taxes, income taxes, intangible taxes, property taxes, estate taxes and inheritance taxes. Depending on where you live, you may end up paying all of them or just a few. Following are the taxes you can expect to pay if you retire in Rhode Island.

Sales TaxesState Sales Tax: 6% (prescription drugs and unprepared food items exempt); 25 counties impose an additional 1% local option sales tax; a number of counties impose a 2% sales tax or 3%.  Seniors 85 and

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older pay 5%.Gasoline Tax: 35.15 cents/gallon (Includes all taxes)Diesel Fuel Tax: 41.15 cents/gallon (Includes all taxes)Cigarette Tax: 57 cents/pack of 20

Personal Income Taxes Tax Rate Range: Low – 0%; High – 7%; No tax on the first $2,630 of taxable income in tax year 2007.Income Brackets: Six. Lowest – $2,880; Highest – $14,400. Personal Exemptions:  Single – $3,950; Married – $7,900; Dependents – $3,950. State allows personal exemption or standard deductions as provided in the Internal Revenue Code.Standard Deduction:  Single – $5,700; Married filing jointly – $11,400Medical/Dental Deduction: Federal amountFederal Income Tax Deduction:  NoneRetirement Income Taxes: Retirement income is taxed. Social Security is exempt.   Under age 65, $3,000 in pension income is exempt.  If you are 65 or older you may exempt $15,000 of retirement income.  You can take this deduction for income received from any qualified retirement plan.  If both spouses receive retirement income, each spouse is entitled to an individual deduction. The $15,000 deduction must be offset by any other retirement deduction that is claimed.  A surviving spouse may continue to take a retirement deduction on behalf of the deceased spouse. Some taxpayers age 65 and older may not have to file a tax return if they meet certain conditions.  Retired Military Pay: Retirees with 20 or more years of active duty can deduct up to $3,000 annually until age 65 and up to $10,000 per year after age 65.  This deduction extends to the surviving spouse.  Pension or retirement income received for time served in the National Guard or Reserve components is not taxable.  Survivor benefits are taxed following federal tax rules.Military Disability Retired Pay: Retirees who entered the military before Sept. 24, 1975, and members receiving disability retirements based on combat injuries or who could receive disability payments from the VA are covered by laws giving disability broad exemption from federal income tax. Most military retired pay based on service-related disabilities also is free from federal income tax, but there is no guarantee of total protection.VA Disability Dependency and Indemnity Compensation: VA benefits are not taxable because they generally are for disabilities and are not subject to federal or state taxes.Military SBP/SSBP/RCSBP/RSFPP: Generally subject to state taxes for those states with income tax. Check with state department of revenue office.

Property TaxesProperty tax is assessed and collected by local governments.  Both real and personal property are subject to tax. The market value of a legal residence and up to 5 acres of surrounding land is assessed at 4%.  For homeowners 65 and older, the state’s homestead exemption allows the first $50,000 of their property’s fair market value to be exempt from local property taxes.  South Carolina imposes a casual excise tax of 5% on the fair market value of all motor vehicles, motorcycles, boats, motors and airplanes transferred between individuals. 

Inheritance and Estate TaxesThere is no inheritance tax or estate tax.For further information, visit the South Carolina Department of Revenue site www.sctax.org or call 800-763-1295.  If you are planning to move to South Carolina, some helpful information is available at http://www.lex-co.sc.gov/departments/DeptAH/auditor/Documents/PUB192905.pdf.

[Source: http://www.retirementliving.com Apr 2015 ++]

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Tax Burden for Delaware Residents ► As Apr 2015

Personal income tax Delaware collects income taxes from its residents at the following rates.

No tax on the first $2,000. 2.2 percent on taxable income between $2,001 and $5,000. 3.9 percent on taxable income between $5,001 and $10,000. 4.8 percent on taxable income between $10,001 and $20,000. 5.2 percent on taxable income between $20,001 and $25,000. 5.55 percent on taxable income between $25,001 and $60,000. 6.6 percent on taxable income over $60,000.

Delaware residents must file Form 200-01, Individual Resident Tax Return, by April 30. When that date falls on a weekend or holiday, the due date is the next business day. You can download Delaware tax forms at http://www.revenue.delaware.gov/services/2014PITForms.shtml

Most Delaware taxpayers may electronically file personal income tax returns for the current tax year, as well as late returns for tax years 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Active firefighters, or members of fire company auxiliaries or rescue squads, can apply for a state tax credit up to $400 for the purchase of clothing, equipment, motor fuel and other items necessary to perform their duties. Credit details can be found in the Form 200-01 instructions at http://www.revenue.delaware.gov/services/current_pit/TY14_booklet_res.pdf

Sales taxes Delaware does not assess a sales tax on consumers. The state does, however, impose a tax on the gross receipts of most businesses. Business and

occupational license tax rates range from 0.1037 percent to 2.0736 percent, depending upon the category of business activity.

Unless otherwise specified, the term "gross receipts" means the total receipts of a business, with no deductions for the cost of goods or property sold, labor costs, interest expense, discounts paid, delivery costs, state or federal taxes or any other expenses.

Personal and real property taxes Delaware does not assess a state-level tax on real or personal property. Real estate is subject to county property taxes, school district property taxes, vocational school

district taxes and, if located within an incorporated area, municipal property taxes. Oct. 1 is the assessment date for all municipalities. All owners of personal property, other than

registered motor vehicles, must file a declaration with the assessor on or before Nov. 1. The variables differ for each geographical area, so contact the property tax office for your county

with specific questions. New Castle County Department of Finance: (302) 323-2600 Kent County Department of Finance: (302) 744-2386 Sussex County Property Tax Division: (302) 855-7871

Delaware offers various property tax relief programs for residents 65 years of age and older, as well as property tax exemptions for residents with disabilities. All senior property tax credit applications must be filed by Sept. 1 and include proof of age (driver's license or birth certificate) and separate applications for all qualified joint property owners.

Inheritance and estate taxes Estate tax is imposed for decedents dying on July 1, 2009, or thereafter.

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Due to the phase out of the federal estate tax, no Delaware estate tax was imposed on individuals who died between Jan. 1, 2005, and June 30, 2009.

There is no inheritance or gift tax in Delaware.

Other Delaware tax facts Taxpayers in the First State can track the status of their refunds online. By going to

https://dorweb.revenue.delaware.gov/refinq. The state maintains an online list of delinquent taxpayers at http://revenue.delaware.gov/ddt.shtml Intangible personal property taxes are not levied in Delaware.

[Source: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/state-taxes-delaware.aspx Apr 2015 ++]

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Thrift Savings Plan 2015 ► Share Prices + YTD Gain or Loss

TSP Share Prices as of April 13, 201515Close YTD

G Fund $14.6943 +0.53%F Fund $17.1159 +1.87%C Fund $27.7724 +2.23%S Fund $38.6273 +6.42%I Fund $26.2433 +8.36%L 2050 $15.6100 +4.35%L 2040 $27.4031 +3.88%L 2030 $25.6557 +3.42%L 2020 $23.5308 +2.76%

L Income $17.6956 +1.40%

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   Thrift Savings Plan Returns as of April 02, 2015

[Source: www.myfederalretirement.com/public/237.cfm & http://tspcenter.com/tspReturns.php?view=year April 14, 2014 ++]

* General Interest *

Notes of Interest ► 01 thru 15 Apr 2015

WWII Vet. The nation's oldest woman veteran, Lucy Coffey, died 19 MAR in San Antonio. She was 108.

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Michigan Vet Spending. Only 22% of Michigan's estimated 660,800 veterans used their health benefits from the U.S. Veterans Administration in 2013. Roughly 13% of Michigan veterans received disability checks.

Supermarkets. Wegmans topped Consumer Reports' rankings of 68 grocery stores nationwide. Wal-Mart was at the bottom - again.

Student Loans. In 22 U.S. states, authorities can suspend your driver's license or even professional license if you defaulted on your student loans if you are more than 270 days behind on paying your student loans, Bloomberg reports.

Food Nutrition. Want to find out the calories, fat, carbs, or protein the foods in the you eat go to Food-A-Pedia at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/en/nutrition-facts-calories/food-a-pedia and type into its search engine what you are looking for.

TRICARE. Health Net Federal Services, a subsidiary of Health Net, announced it has received a contract modification from the Defense Department to extend its support for the TRICARE health care program through the end of March 2018.

GI Bill. The Navy has announced an update to the instruction governing the Post-9/11 GI Bill Educational Assistance Program that outlines specific steps for sailors to follow to properly transfer their benefits to family members. Refer to http://www.navy.mil/docs/1780.4.pdf.

Smoking. The number of cigarettes sold in the United States is down, but smokeless tobacco sales (including dry snuff, moist snuff, plug/twist, and loose leaf chewing tobacco) are up. Meanwhile, the tobacco industry increased the money it spends on marketing to $9.6 billion in 2012. That’s comes out to more than $1 million spent each hour to push tobacco sales.

VA Claims Backlog. As of March 28, the disability compensation and pension claims backlog was at 193,662 claims, down from 611,073 claims in March 2013. Claims in the backlog have been pending for more than 125 days.

CA Tuition Fees. California waives tuition fees for the dependent children of veterans at State Colleges, and Community Colleges. This program does not cover the expense of books, parking or room and board. For more information contact the admissions office or the Veterans Affairs office of any California college systems campus. You can also get more information on the CALVET web page: www.calvet.ca.gov/Vet Services/Pages/College-fee-waiver.aspx

Sleep. Regularly logging more than nine hours of sleep a night may be a sign of an underlying medical condition, but it also puts you at risk for a whole host of health concerns,” the Huffington Post reports. some of the most deadly and costly include diabetics, obesity, and death.

Sleep. A new research report sponsored by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury confirms what many in the military have long suspected: service members don’t get nearly enough sleep. About a third of military members get by on five hours of sleep a night or less, and another third only manage six hours a night. Only 8 percent of

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civilians get by on five hours of sleep or less, as measured by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

USS Peleliu. The venerable "Iron Nickel" — the big deck amphibious assault ship that delivered the first Marines into Afghanistan in NOV 2001 — was decommissioned 31 MAR after nearly 35 years of service.

VAMC Denver. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will take over construction management at the new Denver veterans hospital amid an internal investigation into how the project ran $1 billion over budget, the Veterans Affairs Department said 2 APR… The 184-bed medical center will replace an old, crowded facility in Denver.

USN Fleet. The US Navy is now building towards a fleet goal of 308 ships, according to the latest 30-year shipbuilding plan - a small evolution from the previously-cited 306-ship target. The two ships added to the fleet total are a 12th LPD 17-class amphibious transport dock and a third Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB).

Vietnam Nostalgia. In country vets might be interested in checking out their former base sites at https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ll=13.432367%2C107.424316&msa=0&spn=12.457797%2C21.643066&mid=zQJPAeunyYc4.koiZlsflHgOg.

WWII Surrender Ceremony. Check out https://www.youtube.com/embed/vcnH_kF1zXc to view a nine minute narrated United News film of the surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri and hear Gen. MacArthur’s comment.

Disability Rates. Veterans Compensation Benefits Rate Tables for 2015 can be found at http://www.benefits.va.gov/COMPENSATION/resources_comp01.asp.

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Congress’ Double Standard ► Civilian Agencies vs. Military

There’s nothing like a good scandal involving waste, fraud and abuse to work members of Congress into a state of outrage. After an inspector general report revealed in 2012 that the General Services Administration spent $800,000 on an over-the-top conference at the M Resort Spa Casino in Las Vegas two years prior, lawmakers jumped into action. The report chronicled the $7 sushi rolls, a $75,000 team-building exercise that involved building a bicycle and a mind-reader entertainer. Within days, as images of an executive in a hot tub circulated social media, no fewer than four committees held hearings on the lavish get-together—both chambers’ government oversight panels as well as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the House Transportation Committee. Incredulous lawmakers demanded accountability. GSA Administrator Martha Johnson was forced to step down; other executives were fired and placed on administrative leave as a federal investigation mounted. Even the White House piled on and ordered all agencies to cut conference spending by 30 percent and banned conferences costing more than $500,000.

Imagine the outcry in Congress if senior leaders had been involved in a corruption scandal involving a foreign contractor, compromised classified information, prostitutes, cash bribes of $500,000 and lavish

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gifts. That’s exactly the scenario that’s been unfolding over the last 15 months in the Navy as federal investigators dig deeper into an outlandish scheme to soak taxpayers for tens of millions of dollars in bogus fees associated with resupplying Navy ships in foreign ports. A reported three dozen admirals are under federal investigation in the bribery scandal involving Singapore-based defense contractor Glenn Defense Marine Asia, a company that supplied deployed ships with food, fuel and other necessities. Countless media outlets have covered the story, which involves such salacious details as “yummy” prostitutes, Spanish suckling pigs, Lady Gaga concert passes and spa treatments.

In February, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus censured three admirals for accepting lavish gifts from company owner Leonard Glenn Francis, known as Fat Leonard for his corpulent profile and grandiose lifestyle. Two other admirals have been stripped of access to classified information while the investigation advances, and six lower-ranking personnel have been criminally charged. All indications are the prosecution is just getting started. The response from Congress to all this? Not much, at least publicly. Two of the most vociferous lawmakers on matters of agency accountability, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) requested and received briefings from the Navy in November 2013 and January 2014, respectively, but neither has held hearings.

Mandy Smithberger, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, says on military matters, most members of Congress take their cues from the Armed Services committees. McCaskill, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is monitoring the Navy’s response to the growing scandal, but given the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation, “there wasn’t a whole lot we could look into about the case specifically,” a staffer says. The muted response is striking, especially when compared to lawmakers’ response to the GSA scandal. “It is very absurd that this hasn’t gotten more attention on Capitol Hill. Usually prostitutes are enough,” says Smithberger.

Perhaps one reason for the disparity, she says, is that Navy leaders were demonstrably violating existing policies and laws. “It’s not clear what the policy solution is,” Smithberger says. “If the problem is we have a military and contracting culture that is far too cozy, it makes coming up with the right policy recommendations for a number of members a little too difficult because then you have to talk about a lot of uncomfortable issues like the revolving door, conflicts of interest, and it’s not as sexy.” Another reason: “Part of my instinct as well is that a lot of bashing of GSA is about federal employees and there is a real reluctance to be perceived as criticizing our troops,” she adds. “And who knows, maybe it’s just that there’s no video footage like you had with GSA.” At least not yet. [Source: Government Executive Magazine | Katherine McIntire Peters | April/May Edition ++]

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Iran Nuclear Threat ► Obama’s Report on Iran Deal

THE WHITE HOUSEWASHINGTON

 Today, the United States, together with our allies and partners, reached a historic understanding with Iran. If fully implemented, this framework will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, making our

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nation, our allies, and our world safer. For decades, Iran has been advancing its nuclear program. When I took office, Iran was operating thousands of centrifuges -- which can produce the materials for a nuclear bomb -- and was concealing a secret nuclear facility. I made it clear that the United States was prepared to find a diplomatic resolution, if Iran came to the table in a serious way. But that didn't happen.

So we rallied the world to impose the toughest sanctions in history, profoundly impacting Iran's economy. Sanctions couldn't stop Iran's nuclear program on their own, but they helped bring Iran to the negotiating table. And after many months of tough and principled diplomacy, the United States -- joined by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the European Union -- achieved the framework for a deal that will cut off every pathway Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon. I want you to understand exactly what this deal entails:

First, it stops Iran from pursuing a bomb using plutonium, because Iran will not develop weapons-grade plutonium. The core of its reactor at Arak will be dismantled and replaced. The spent fuel from that facility will be shipped out of Iran for the life of the reactor. Iran will not build a new heavy-water reactor. And Iran will never reprocess fuel from its existing reactors.

Second, it shuts down Iran's path to a bomb using enriched uranium. Iran has agreed to reduce its installed centrifuges by two-thirds. It will no longer enrich uranium at its Fordow facility, and it will not enrich uranium with its advanced centrifuges for at least the next 10 years. And the vast majority of its stockpile of enriched uranium will be neutralized.

Third, it provides the best possible defense against Iran's ability to pursue a nuclear weapon in secret. Iran has agreed to the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history. International inspectors will have unprecedented access not only to Iranian nuclear facilities, but to the entire supply chain that supports Iran's nuclear program -- from uranium mills that provide the raw materials, to the centrifuge production and storage facilities that support the program.

If Iran cheats, the world will know. In return for Iran's actions, the international community has agreed to provide Iran with relief from certain sanctions -- our own sanctions, and international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. This relief will be tied to the steps Iran takes to adhere to the deal. And if Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place. Meanwhile, other American sanctions on Iran -- for its support of terrorism, its human rights abuses, and its ballistic missile program -- will be fully enforced.

Now, our work is not yet done. Negotiators will continue to work through the details of how this framework will be fully implemented, and those details matter. And let me be clear: If Iran backslides, and the verification and inspection mechanisms don't meet the specifications of our nuclear and security experts, there will be no deal. But if we can get this done, and Iran follows through on the framework that our negotiators agreed to, we will be able to peacefully resolve one of the gravest threats to the security of our nation, our allies, and the world. Learn more about today's historic deal and how it will make the United States, our allies, and our world safer: https://www.whitehouse.gov/Iran-deal.

Thank you, President Barack Obama

[Source: White House Press Release | President | April 02, 2015 ++]

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Tax Freedom Day ► When Does it Arrive in Your State?

How much time does it take America to work to pay off taxes? It will take 114 days for Americans to earn enough to pay off their tax debt to all levels of government. Good job, America! You're almost to Tax Freedom Day. The Tax Foundation named April 24 as the day when taxpayers have finished paying off Big Brother and can get on to actually making money for themselves. The cost of feeding the leviathan is so high that Americans will spend more in paying taxes then they do in housing, clothing and food combined. Tax Foundation economist Kyle Pomerleau told CNS News, "Tax Freedom Day gives us a vivid representation of how much we pay for the goods and services provided by governments at all levels. Arguments can be made that the tax bill is too high or too low, but in order to have an honest discussion, it's important for taxpayers to understand cost of government." Of course, different states have different tax burdens, and you can see when you'll be hypothetically free from taxes in the map below. It's good news if you live in Louisiana, not so much for people in Connecticut. For 2015:

Americans will pay $3.3 trillion in federal taxes and $1.5 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total bill of more than $4.8 trillion, or 31 percent of the nation’s income.

Tax Freedom Day is one day later than last year due mainly to the country’s continued steady economic growth, which is expected to boost tax revenue especially from the corporate, payroll, and individual income tax.

Americans will collectively spend more on taxes in 2015 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.

If you include annual federal borrowing, which represents future taxes owed, Tax Freedom Day would occur 14 days later on May 8.

Tax Freedom Day is a significant date for taxpayers and lawmakers because it represents how long Americans as a whole have to work in order to pay the nation’s tax burden.

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[Source: http://taxfoundation.org/article/tax-freedom-day-2015-april-24th & The Patriot Post | April 02, 2015 ++]

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Student Loans Update 04 ► Repayment Strike | Corinthian Colleges

Sarah Dieffenbacher is on a debt strike. She's refusing to make payments on the more than $100,000 in federal and private loans she says she owes for studies at a for-profit college that she now considers so worthless she doesn't include it on her résumé. The "debt strike" sentiment is catching on. Calling themselves the "Corinthian 100" — named for the troubled Corinthian Colleges Inc., which operated Everest College, Heald College and WyoTech before agreeing last summer to sell or close its 100-plus campuses — about 100 current and former students are refusing to pay back their loans, according to the Debt Collective group behind the strike. They had a scheduled meeting 31 MAR with officials from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent government agency that already has asked the courts to grant relief to Corinthian students who collectively have taken out more than $500 million in private student loans.

The Education Department is the group's primary target, because they want the department to discharge their loans. A senior department official was scheduled to attend the meeting. Denise Horn, an Education Department spokeswoman, said the department has taken steps to help Corinthian students, but is urging them to make payments to avoid default. The department has income-based repayment options. By not paying back their loans, the former Corinthian students potentially face a host of financial problems, such as poor credit ratings and greater debt because of interest accrued. The former students argue that the department should have done a better job regulating the schools and informing students that they were under investigation. "I would like to see them have to answer for why they allowed these schools to continue to take federal loans out when they were under investigation for the fraudulent activity they were doing," said Dieffenbacher, 37.

Sarah Dieffenbacher who says her degree is worthless and some of the Corinthian 100 former and

current college students.

Dieffenbacher said she received an associate degree in paralegal studies from Everest College in Ontario, California, and later went back for a bachelor's in criminal justice before later dropping out. She said she left school with about $80,000 in federal loans and $30,000 in private loans, but when she went to apply for jobs at law firms she was told her studies didn't count for anything. Dieffenbacher, who works in collections for a property management company, said she was allowed at first to defer her loan payments, but now should be paying about $1,500 a month that she can't afford. Makenzie Vasquez of Santa Cruz,

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California, said she left an eight-month program to become a medical assistant at Everest College in San Jose after six months because she couldn't afford the monthly fees. She said she owes about $31,000 and went into default in November because she hasn't started repayment. "I just turned 22 and I have this much debt and I have nothing to show for it," said Vasquez, a server at an Italian restaurant.

Many of Corinthian's troubles came to light last year after the U.S. Education Department placed it on heightened cash monitoring with a 21-day waiting period for federal funds. That was after the department said the company failed to provide adequate paperwork and comply with requests to address concerns about its practices, which included allegations of falsifying job placement data used in marketing claims and of altered grades and attendance records. On 31 MAR, the Education Department released a list of 560 institutions — including for-profit, private and public colleges — that had been placed on heightened cash monitoring, meaning the department's Federal Student Aid Office is providing additional oversight of the schools for financial or compliance issues. The department said the effort was done to "increase transparency and accountability." The administration has taken other steps to crack down on the for-profit college industry, such as announcing a new rule last year that would require career training programs to show that students can earn enough money after graduation to pay off their loans. The rule has been challenged in court by the for-profit education sector. [Source: The Associated Press | Kimberly Hefling| March 31, 2015 ++|

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FOIA Update 02 ► CIA Panetta Review | Denied

A federal judge has determined that the CIA can keep secret a closely guarded internal analysis at the center of an intense fight between the agency and Congress. District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled against a journalist on 24 MAR who had tried to uncover the classified documents — known as the Panetta Review, because they was completed under orders from former agency Director Leon Panetta — under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The CIA had used “sound” reasoning in keeping the documents secret, Boasberg decided in a 19-page judgment, preventing it from making its way to the public. The documents “may be withheld in full,” Boasberg added.

At issue is a set of more than 40 draft memos about the CIA’s past use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques, such as waterboarding and the use of “stress positions,” which many consider to be torture. Panetta ordered the CIA to prepare the analysis after Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee announced in 2009 that they would begin working on an exhaustive study of the tactics, which were used during the Bush administration. The CIA effort was abandoned after only a year and remained secret until Senate staffers obtained the documents during work on their own analysis. The agency said that its half-finished review was an internal agency effort and should not have been passed along to the Senate. In response, the CIA attempted to search the Senate side of a walled-off computer, which it and the Senate panel had used to share information. Critics said the act amounted to the CIA spying on the Senate and called for Director John Brennan to resign.

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The internal analysis is believed to largely support the findings of the Intelligence Committee, which is that the interrogation program was cruel, ineffective and that the CIA lied to its overseers while carrying it out. In December of 2013, Vice journalist Jason Leopold filed a FOIA request to obtain the memos but had been denied on the grounds that the Panetta Review was an internal agency study, has been classified to protect national security and is specifically exempted from disclosure by other laws. Boasberg agreed that the report rightfully fits under the FOIA exemption for inter or intra-agency documents, which is supposed to protect the ability of staffers to have candid discussions. “In the end, requiring disclosure of the Reviews would cause the sort of harm that the deliberative-process privilege was designed to prevent — i.e., inhibiting frank and open communications among agency personnel,” he wrote. [Source: The Hill | Julian Hattem | March 31, 2015 ++]

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SSA Fraud, Waste & Abuse ► $500K+ to Sexual Predators

The Social Security Administration has paid more than $500,000 in benefits to sexual predators in recent years, according to a new report. In 1999, a new law was enacted that prevented SSA from providing any benefits to individuals held in institutions as “sexually dangerous persons.” The agency’s inspector general found 18 people in this category collected a total of $523,987 in benefits from 2006 to 2014. The individuals were being held involuntarily at “special commitment centers,” where sexual predators sometimes go at the end of their prison sentences when they are still deemed a danger to the public. The IG’s findings likely only represented a portion of the cases of illegal payments. The auditor was following up on a 2012 report that found sexual predators at 23 commitment centers were receiving benefits. The IG contacted all 23 for information on the sexual predators at their facilities so they could compare their names against SSA payment data. Only eight of the centers responded, where the IG found 18 individuals were receiving benefits.

In several examples provided in the report, individuals provided false addresses to SSA so the agency would not find out they were being held at the centers. “While benefit suspension provisions continued to apply to these individuals, SSA had not established a mechanism to ensure SCCs reported inmate information to SSA,” the IG found. “Consequently, SSA did not have the information it needed to prevent initiation of payments to these individuals.” SSA has since suspended payments to all 18 individuals. The agency’s Office of Data Exchange said it will “encourage” the special commitment centers to provide information about confined individuals “in exchange for potential incentive payments.” [Source: GovExec.com | Eric Katz | April 09, 2015 ++]

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Women On 20s ► All Bear Male Portraits | Time for a Change

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Benjamin Franklin—if you have ever used paper currency in the US, then you have at some point handled bills graced with portraits of some or all of these American leaders. While there’s nothing wrong with honoring this cadre of deceased white leaders—representing a who’s who of presidents, generals and state officials—their distinctly masculine visages are a constant reminder of the way American history quietly but consistently overlooks the contributions of 50% of its population. A particularly unnecessary form of patriarchal backwardness, the treasury’s boys’ club reinforces the idea that capitalism and governance is (white) men’s work.

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But it doesn’t have to be this way. That’s where Women On 20s comes in. Founded by Barbara Ortiz Howard and Susan Ades Stone just in time for Women’s History Month, Women On 20s is holding an online competition to choose a woman to eventually replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. “We think there’s no greater gender gap than on our money,” Stone told Quartz. “Of our print denominations, every single one bears portraits of men, something that hasn’t changed since 1929. I like to call that ‘Money 1.0.’ It’s time for a change.” While originally the duo aimed to replace Hamilton’s portrait on the $10, they decided to settle on Jackson instead due both to his checkered legacy as well as the symbolism of the denomination. Neither the most popular (that would be the $100) nor arguably the most useful, the $20 has come under heavy scrutiny due to Jackson’s role in the generally forced removal of Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the first half of the 19th century. Jackson was also a vocal opponent of a central bank, meaning “he probably would be the first person to say get me off of here,” Stone said.

Then there’s the rather auspicious alignment of the upcoming centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage in 2020. After a difficult, deliberate process in which Stone and Howard polled close to 200 leaders and historians, the final 15 candidates are a relatively diverse group, representing female intellectuals, politicians and activists from Sojourner Truth to Eleanor Roosevelt. Certainly not representative of the entire population (there are no Latina candidates, for instance), Stone and Howard have succeeded in shining a light on the many ways women have shaped who we are as a country.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: after convening the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, she inspired a generation of suffragists

Alice Paul: lawyer, social worker and leader of the suffrage movement

Throughout history, “women have driven transformational change and they deserved to be honored and valued in more than just a token way,” Stone noted. Of the current 15 frontrunners, online voting will winnow the field to the top three, after which a second and final round of voting will determine the top choice. With close to 50,000 online visitors and counting, Stone said the campaign already a lot to celebrate “We didn’t set out to become the end all, be all of women’s empowerment,” she noted. “There are a lot of groups already doing fantastic work. We can talk all we want about closing the gender gap and the pay gap, but this campaign allows people to do something proactive, it’s a simple act that can make some change and which might eventually lead to bigger change. And if we can educate just the 50,000 people who’ve come to our site so far, we’ve succeeded.”

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Eleanor Roosevelt: pioneering first lady and humanitarian

Sojourner Truth: 19th century abolitionist and women’s rights activist

While changing the national currency might seem like a fairly complicated endeavor, in fact due to an act of Congress back in 1862, secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew can make the change without Congressional approval. Additionally, every bill in circulation technically gets redesigned every seven to ten years in order to stay ahead of counterfeiters—and the $20 is due for a touch-up. Not bad timing. Plus, President Barack Obama has already expressed casual approval, remarking in July that putting women on US currency seemed like “a pretty good idea.” Conservative politicians have been trying for years to put former president Ronald Reagan on currency, most recently floating the idea of having the 40th president’s face replace Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant. “Every generation deserves its own heroes,” Stone notes. “That’s what this is about: we’re a very different country than we were in 1929 and our money should reflect that.”

Rosa Parks is one of the candidates.

A video produced by Women On 20s expands on this theme, featuring children realizing for the first time that their bills exclude girls (http://www.govexec.com/management/2015/03/campaign-get-woman-20-bill-gaining-traction/107502/?oref=govexec_today_nl). “I think it sends the message that we don’t value women as much as we value men, and that women haven’t accomplished as much as men have,” Stone explained. “Women already get short shrift in our history books, and they’re hardly ever seen in monuments or when kids are taken on field trips. We simply don’t memorialize women like we do with

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men.” Perhaps this is why children and their teachers are some of the organization’s biggest supporters. Educators have written in to the campaign at all levels, Stone noted, sharing stories of students suddenly interested in the democratic process, putting up posters and launching signature drives. But will it be enough to break this paper ceiling? Stone and Howard certainly think so. “I wouldn’t have spent a year of my life on it if I didn’t think it could work,” Stone laughed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton would be proud. [Source: GovExec.com | Meredith Bennett-Smith | March 15, 2015 ++]

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Photos That Say it All ► Daddy’s Gone

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WWII Advertising ► Greyhound Bus

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Normandy Then & Now ► Omaha Beach near Vierville sur Mer, France

American troops stand by with stores on Omaha Beach after the D-day landings and a view of Omaha Beach on May 6, 2014, near Vierville sur Mer, France.

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They Grew Up to Be? ► Kirsten Dunst

Kirsten Dunst (Interview With the Vampire 1994)

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Have You Heard? ► Doctor

A woman goes to the Doctor, worried about her husband's temper.

The Doctor asks: "What's the problem?

The woman says: "Doctor, I don't know what to do. Every day my husband seems to lose his temper for no reason, and it scares me."

The Doctor says: "I have a cure for that. When it seems that your husband is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish but don't swallow it until he either leaves the room or goes to bed and falls asleep."

Two weeks later the woman comes back to the doctor, looking fresh and reborn. The woman says: "Doctor that was a brilliant idea! Every time my husband started losing it, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and he calmed right down! How does a glass of water do that?"

The Doctor says: "The water itself does nothing. It's keeping your mouth shut that does the trick...."

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Interesting Inventions ► Door Lock

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You can find the keyhole even when drunk

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Moments in US History ► Divorce Court 1948

A man begging for his wife’s forgiveness inside Divorce Court. Chicago, 1948

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