This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Veterans Issues

  • Defense budget near passage in both Houses

    The National Defense Authorization Act is almost passed in both Houses of Congress according to the link that Pat sent us from Military.com. It secured a whopping 1% pay raise for the troops and, the best news is that retirees who were booted from Tricare prime are being given an opportunity to re-enroll;

    Patricia Kime of the Military Times is reporting that the 2014 Defense Act includes a provision to allow the 171,000 military retirees who were kicked off TRICARE Prime last October, a onetime shot at reenrolling.

    The National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 is very close to passing both houses of Congress. Some of the hot button issues of the last year will make it in. Others, like the concern about closing commissaries, were not even addressed in the current NDAA.

    I remember my workmates complaining that Bush gave us “only” a 3.8% pay raise a few years back, but those same people are strangely silent this year. And, oh, the troops are getting a .5% less raise than retirees and folks getting a disability pension and it’s also a .5% less than inflation.

    I guess the best news is that those retirees will be able to re-enroll in Tricare Prime. When I mentioned that problem to Mitt Romney’s veteran adviser during the election season, he didn’t even know what I was talking about, so I’m glad that the Congress remembered those folks.

    Of course, there still a chance that the White House would veto the defense bill because they’re so set on making veterans pay for the defense operations. We’ll see, won’t we?

  • Sailor cleared of drug charges

    Washington Post‘s Robert McCartney writes about Graciela Saraiva, who was an enlisted sailor a few years back when she popped hot on a piss test. Apparently, she was on prescription pain killers for some recent dental work and the Navy knew that when they booted her for the urinalysis results. After three years, the Navy has corrected her records and is willing to allow her back into the Navy;

    “I’m so excited. I’m really relieved that it’s finally over,” Saraiva said. She may try to rejoin the military, possibly as an officer, when she graduates from college in a year or two.

    The Navy kicked out Saraiva, a junior logistics specialist (E-3 rating), after her urine tested positive for codeine and morphine. It wouldn’t let her back, even after it conceded that she failed the test only because she was taking a prescription painkiller after oral surgery.

    Saraiva credits media attention, here and elsewhere, for reversing the decision — and the Navy memo admitted as much. It said the Navy didn’t look good barring her reenlistment while conceding that she hadn’t abused drugs.

    McCartney blames recent policy changes which make the services more eager to spit out military personnel than to retain their expertise using minor, or as in this case, nonexistent, offenses to meet DoD cuts in spending. Of course, this has happened before. I remember in the early 80s a DWI some time during a soldier’s last enlistment would earn him a bar to reenlistment, prior to that, a DWI was treated like a parking ticket. The overweight program, after six years of waiverable excuses was suddenly enforced – we lost a lot of Vietnam experience on that one.

    But, Ms. Saraiva’s situation is totally beyond the limits of common sense. Should troops avoid taking medication prescribed by their military doctors just to avoid popping hot? Apparently, the troops are guilty until they prove their innocence under the military’s administrative system. I’m glad that this worked out for Ms. Saraiva, but I have to think there are more cases out there like this who don’t have the benefit of the Washington Post’s megaphone.

    Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.

  • Dems; “We can have it all”

    The Washington Times reports that the Democrat Party is salivating that they can finally “have it all” in the current political climate in regards to entitlements. They’re eating their own when not everyone in their party agrees with them;

    Christy Setzer, a Democratic consultant, said that “the safety net’s making a comeback.”

    “Polls show that not only do Americans want to preserve Social Security, they want to see it expanded — not just in NYC, but in Colorado,” Ms. Setzer said. “That means that moving to the left is a viable position for Democrats in blue and red states alike.”

    The internal bickering is similar to the squabbles that have played out on the Republican side of the aisle, where some of the darlings of the tea party and conservative movement have accused GOP leaders of habitually selling out basic conservative principles.

    Mrs. Warren and Mr. de Blasio have energized the liberal base of the Democratic ranks, which has accused the Obama administration of not fighting hard enough for the issues that they care about most.

    Mr. de Blasio won the New York mayoral race Nov. 5 with more than 73 percent of the vote after vowing to raise taxes on the city’s wealthier residents to cover the cost of expanded government programs — including universal pre-kindergarten — and to reduce inequality.

    Speaking on the floor of the Senate two weeks later, Mrs. Warren said that if the nation wants a real middle class then Congress must get serious about the nation’s retirement system because more people than ever are on the edge of financial disaster once they retire.

    “That is why we should be talking about expanding Social Security benefits, not cutting them,” she said.

    It’s really too bad that they’re not this rabid over helping veterans just keep the benefits that they’ve earned. Healthcare costs are rising on retirees, they’re losing some of their benefits, Congress is perfectly happy to cut their pay, the Department of Defense raids our $770 million Tricare surplus and then doesn’t bat an eye when they push us off of Tricare Prime and raise our premiums and co-pays.

    And here are the Democrats expanding their social programs. Before you think I’m talking about retirees on Social Security, I’m not. I’m talking about the people on SSI because they can’t find a job because they were busted for smoking pot on their last job (yes, I know one). I’m talking about people who game the system – that’s who the Democrats want to “expand” the program to include.

    And then they tell us how the things we were promised are standing in the way of readiness.

    Someone whose name would surprise you, asked me today about issues that affect the military. This is issue number one. The Department of Defense and Congress won’t keep their promises to veterans, but they’ll make new promises to the professionally indigent.

  • Hagel to cut in his own office

    Stars & Stripes reports that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that he’s going to cut his own office’s budget by 20% to save tax payers a billion bucks over the next 5 years. He claims to be reducing his staff by 8%, mostly contractors and civilian personnel;

    Hagel said the staff cuts are designed to occur primarily through workforce attrition rather than layoffs, but a DOD fact sheet distributed to reporters indicated that more abrupt cuts might be necessary if the Congress’ sequestration budget framework remains in place.

    I’m pretty sure that he can cut deeper if he really tries, and the folks in the field won’t miss that staff, because that’s what they really want to do, right? I mean they’re pitting retirees against active force readiness in these draconian cuts to the Defense budget – you know cuts, that no other group of retirees would accept.

    Speaking of which, Army Times, in a link sent to us by Chief Tango, reports that Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., an Iraq and Afghanistan Navy pilot veteran, is proposing that DoD cut COLA payments to retirees as a way to save money. To be fair, he’s also proposing cuts to cost of living allowances to Social Security and Federal employees as well. That only insures that his proposal won’t pass, unless he only makes the pain felt by military retirees.

  • NRA News; Dom Raso: Vets

    The folks at the NRA send us their latest commentary from former Navy SEAL Dom Raso who talks about veterans losing their Second Amendment rights;

    When a vet is eligible for disability compensation or other benefits, they go through an evaluation process. The way it’s set up right now, if the vet has someone else appointed to manage those benefits on their behalf, they somehow get labeled “mentally defective” and are entered into a background check system as someone unable to buy a gun. This is absolutely wrong. The VA’s review process for assigning a bookkeeper to a veteran in no way determines whether that veteran poses a risk to himself or others. It’s only meant to determine whether or not a veteran needs help managing his or her VA benefits. That has nothing to do with their ability to safely exercise their Second Amendment rights.

  • VA disinters cop killer

    The Oregonian reports that the earthly remains of 88-year-old Lawrence Cambra have been removed from a veterans’ cemetery in Willamette, OR. Cambra killed Officer Robert Libke after the officer responded to the fire that Cambra started in his house, then Cambra killed himself. According to the Stars & Stripes, the Hillside Chapel, which acted as Cambra’s next of kin, lied on the application for a veterans burial;

    After a story in The Oregonian alerted the VA that Cambra might not qualify for placement at a military cemetery, the VA contacted Hillside, which took possession of the remains, Phillips said.

    Hillside Chapel owner David Bone declined comment. “I have nothing to say,” Bone said.

    It is unclear what will become of Lawrence Cambra’s ashes.

    Public records indicate that Cambra enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in Hawaii on Dec. 15, 1945.

    That’s good. I don’t want to spend eternity next to a criminal, especially a cop-killer.

  • Servicemembers Mental Health Review Act

    Our buddy, Kris Goldsmith, has completely turned his life around. While Kris was in the Army, he had trouble adjusting when he returned from his deployment to Iraq. He attempted suicide once that we know of, and like many combat veterans, he self-medicated with alcohol. In response to his bad behavior, the Army booted him with a less than honorable discharge making him ineligible for veterans benefits which froze him out of the treatment that he so desperately needed.

    So, Kris has taken up the charge to reform the review process for discharges. There’s a bill in Congress to do just that – H.R. 975 and S.628 – you can read the text of the bill at this link. Kris doesn’t think the bill goes far enough, though;

    : Thousands of servicemembers have been erroneously discharged from the United States Armed Forces since September 11, 2001 due to the systemic under-diagnosis of “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” (PTSD) and “Traumatic Brain Injury” (TBI). In an effort to quickly remove servicemembers as a “burden” to the service, the military has, instead, improperly used the diagnoses of “Adjustment Disorder” and “Personality Disorder” to discharge servicemembers in a manner that has denied, and in some instances continues to deny, servicemembers the medical care to which they are entitled.

    These administrative discharges typically fall under the broad categories of “Convenience of the Government” or “Misconduct” and has resulted in veterans’ discharge characterizations being less than “Honorable.” Discharges other than “Honorable” limit or eliminate the federal and state benefits available to veterans upon separation from the military.

    Therefore, the more appropriate diagnoses of PTSD or TBI would allow for medical retirement of servicemembers, thereby granting them a broader array of federal benefits than does an administrative discharge. Nevertheless, many servicemembers who have been diagnosed with an Adjustment Disorder or Personality Disorder have a history of deployment into combat zones, and like those properly diagnosed with PTSD, suffered psychological impairment in the course of serving their country in combat and are in need of the support services afforded to servicemembers diagnosed with PTSD.

    We are, therefore, seeking a modification of the Servicemembers Mental Health Review Act (SMHRA), H.R. 975/S.628, to clarify that the review procedures established by that act would apply equally to all discharged servicemembers who received a diagnosis of Personality Disorder or Adjustment Disorder while in service since September 11, 2001, including those who have received discharges other than “Honorable.”

    If SMHRA is enacted and includes the proposed modification, then such servicemembers would be allowed to submit testimony from psychologists and psychiatrists that support a more accurate diagnosis of PTSD or TBI. This change to the review procedures established by the SMHRA would then make these servicemembers eligible for a change of their military records to reflect medical retirement and an Honorable discharge. We would also ask, in light of the fact that the current wait time for decisions by the Disability Review Board (DRB), which is the body that would review the testimony, is 401 days, that this legislation be accompanied by the additional funding necessary to accommodate this additional caseload.

    Kris sends this small correction to my editorializing;

    I personally didn’t get frozen out of access to the VA, because I had a General, not an OTH discharge. I did, however, lose the Post 9-11 GI Bill, my 3.5 years of government service credits, and access to unemployment benefits (which was particularly rough on me, since I was essentially unemployable for a long time).

  • String ‘Em Up by Their Ponytails

    In a recent O’Reilly “Mad as Hell” segment, a student-viewer expressed his anger at being unable to voice his conservative views in the college classroom without fear of reprisal from his liberal professors.

    Think about that for a moment. We send our youth to college so that they can lead more productive and lucrative lives, to become contributing citizens who help weave more strength into the fabric of this nation. In that context, every stout thread has value, whether it warps left or right.

    And the key word in that sentence is “value,” and even more particularly, “future value.”

    Now consider that in many personal injury lawsuits, a key factor in establishing damages against a defendant is the degree to which his actions have limited the future earnings of the plaintiff. By that measure, very large amounts can be calculated that juries must weigh in the process of redressing the wrong. This is one reason why so many medical malpractice judgments and awards are so large.

    Now gather those two truths into one line of thinking: those pursuing college degrees are doing so in order to better their life experience, and the best way to do that is to increase one’s earning ability. And since one’s college transcript can be a decisive determinant in the hiring process, those who control what ends up in that transcript have a definite influence and impact on any student’s career path and earning capacity.

    Test case: a former paratrooper who served in Iraq and Afghanistan is pursuing a degree in an American university, and he finds that his world and political views, formed on the basis of his extensive on-the-ground, life-and-death experiences and participation in key world events, are considered unacceptable and unworthy to the gray-ponytailed remnants of Woodstock who reign in the classrooms, the limp, life-impotent wimps totally lacking in similar real-life experiences, who conduct his courses. And because those old failed and fading hippies find his views offensive to their own hard-left positions, his classwork is shaded in the shadow of their political bias. An otherwise perfectly well-reasoned paper is D-graded or even failed because the premise offends the political sensibilities of the ponytailed Bolsheviks.

    At the end of four years, what is the effect of those politically determined grades on the overall numeric accounting of that soldier’s scholastic performance? If the effect is to drop the grade point average from A to B — or worse, A to C or even D — how does that appear to those who will then be using that grade from that transcript to form their initial opinions in granting that applicant an interview?

    Have those liberal professors not had a direct negative impact on that young veteran’s ability to be hired? Have they not had a direct negative impact on his ability to maximize his earning ability? Of course they have.

    So I suggest that people in the soldier’s position sue the offending school for the loss of future earnings. If multiple suits of this nature are filed, it will take only one courtroom success to set all the loss-prevention specialists at universities all over the country to pondering their future financial threat. From that point I cannot predict, but knowing the reflexively defensive nature of these institutions to anything that threatens their financial bases, some changes will surely be made.

    Will such changes end the problem? Nope, not entirely, but they will unquestionably ensconce a watchful, wary administrative eye over the classroom conduct and the course grading of that gray-ponytailed communist cohort who presently contaminates the campus. When such lefties become a legal liability to their employing institutions, their own future employment and earning capabilities become problematic.

    Will some stout Iraq-Afghanistan veteran out there going to college on G.I. benefits and facing this kind of leftist oppression please file the first precedent-setting suit? Or better yet, a graduate who was low-graded by his leftist professors and who has found that the low grading has had impact on his hirability? One win is all it will take to begin the change to this perversity that now pollutes honest educating all across this country.

    Veteran, G.I. Bill status will lend great weight to the truth of a plaintiff’s claim to exposing ongoing injustice in the educational environment. I know, I know — as an old soldier myself, never, never volunteer, but some courageous warrior needs to stand tall for himself and his vast Band of Brothers whose post-combat careers should not be limited and diminished by these hellish covens of tenure-protected pinko professors.

    Dare I suggest they be strung up by their ponytails?

    Crossposted at American Thinker