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

Category: Veterans Issues

  • Feds to help fast track medics to PAs

    According to Stars & Stripes, the part of the WHite House plans to get veterans hired is to help military medics and corpsmen to get on the fast track for certification as physicians’ assistants;

    The government has dedicated $45 million to support accelerated physician assistant training programs, and will now give priority for that money to universities that offer expedited programs for veterans with military medical training and that offer recruiting, retention and mentoring services aimed specifically at veterans.

    I have more confidence in a medical professional who has military experience than some yo-yo off the block, so you medics out there, take advantage of this program…we need you. Well, I need you.

  • Congress ready to screw veterans

    ROS sends us a link from the Army Times which quotes a bi-partisan letter from the House and Senate Veterans’ affairs committees that says veterans are the most vulnerable to massive government cuts…and we’re already bent over a greased up;

    “We believe no constituency better understands the challenge America faces, and no constituency is better suited to, again, lead by example by putting country first,” says a rare joint letter signed by the four top Democratic and Republican members of the veterans’ committees.

    Yeah, and no other cstituency has tken it so far up the ass every fucking time the government comes looking for spending cuts EVERY FUCKING TIME! And do you know why we’re supposed to just take it up the ass again? So the Congress desn’t have to do the tough work of actually cutting across the board spending in federal government.

    The top leaders of the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees are willing to cut funding for the Veterans Affairs Department in hopes of averting across-the-board cuts in federal spending.

    So veterans should take it in the ass so Congress doesn’t have to cut their staffs, cut their own benefit packages, cut the largesse of government offices and buy some more $16 muffins for the Justice Department so they can coordinate their purchases of firearms for the drug cartels.

  • Gay veteran sues for “wife’s” benefits

    I guess it was inevitable. Old Trooper and jerry920 send us a link to an article about a lesbian veteran who has decided to sue the VA to get VA benefits for her “wife”. I’m not even sure if the veteran can be called a “disabled veteran”, because according to the article, her condition didn’t occur until after she was discharged;

    Cardona, who maintained aircraft during her years of service, applied for and began receiving military-connected disability compensation from the VA for carpal tunnel syndrome, which she developed as a result of her duties following her honorable discharge in 2000. The Puerto Rican native is still able to work and subsequently became a correction officer in Connecticut; she currently works at the York Correctional Institution in Niantic.

    Of course, she says it’s not about the money;

    “We could use the help to pay our mortgage, but this is not only about the money,” Cardona’s statement continued. “President Obama is right that [the Defense of Marriage Act] discriminates against gay and lesbian people. There are many other veterans out there just like me. I am standing up and asking to be treated equally in part to let others know they are not alone.”

    Yeh, way to stick up for fellow veterans who are in danger of losing their benefits by nickels and dimes. Let’s just expand the pool of non-veterans to pay out from our shrinking stack of cash. And this wouldn’t open the system up for fraud or abuse at all, would it? All so gay veterans can feel accepted.

  • Purple Heart returned to family

    ROS sends us the story of a non-veterans’ search for the family of whose oldest brother gave the last full measure of devotion in the frozen forests outside of Bastogne;

    As Harris said in his soft Southern voice, it bothered him to see that medal — the award the nation gives to its wounded or killed military personnel — on a junk-filled shelf of old lapel pins and pendants.

    Harris asked to look at the Purple Heart more closely and saw the words “PFC Dewey A. Tafoya” and “1-7-45” engraved on the back. The clerk told him he could have it for just $95.

    “I thought about that medal every day for a week and it just didn’t seem right that it was just sitting there,” Harris said. “You knew that there was some family, somewhere, that would want that medal.”

    But, you need to read the whole story.

  • EPA to cut three brigades of lawyers

    No, just joking. Actually the Army is getting ready for the hatchet to fall on their troop strength according to a Fox News link from Old Trooper;

    Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, says officials are developing plans to cut spending, but are committed to ensuring the force is properly trained, staffed and equipped to defend the U.S.

    The Pentagon is slated to cut $450 billion over 10 years, but the reductions could be doubled if Congress fails to find $1.5 trillion in savings.

    Originally, the Ranger Battalions were supposed to provide a cadre of highly trained NCOs that would rebuild the Army in the next war after Vietnam. It might be time to revive that plan, not with the current Ranger Battalions, but another unit.

    The Washington Times warns that massive slashing of the defense budget will have an adverse effect on recruiting;

    On the table: higher health care premiums and a shift of the military’s guaranteed pension benefits to an investment-based 401(k)-type of retirement savings plan.

    John Raughter, spokesman for the 2.4-million-member American Legion, said the nation’s largest veterans group is increasingly concerned about how deep reductions will affect recruitment.

    “It is a major concern to us,” Mr. Raughter said. “When you start tinkering with Tricare [the military’s health care system] and the military retirement systems, it’s basically a slap in the face. The system is basically saying your service tomorrow is not as valuable as our service was yesterday.”

    Well, as long as the lawyers at EPA are safe, right?

  • Who do you think you’re fooling?

    ROS sent us this video last night. It’s two Marines supposedly at Occupy Wall Street. The one on your right, wearing captain’s bars, makes the statement that he’s burdened with student loans. When asked about the GI Bill, he claims that he only got enough to cover books.

    We all know he’s full of smelly shit. According to the VA website;

    For resident students at a public Institution of Higher Learning (IHL) all tuition & fee payments are reimbursed.
    For private and foreign IHLs tuition & fee reimbursement is capped at $17,500 per academic year.
    For students whose tuition & fees exceed $17,500 per academic year who are attending a private IHL in AZ, MI, NH, NY, PA, SC or TX and have been enrolled in the same program since January 4, 2011 schools will be reimbursed either the actual cost of the program or the maximum in-state tuition & fee reimbursement rate for the 2010-2011school year, whichever is greater.

    So, dickmunch is saying that his books cost $17k? You need to find another school, “Captain”.

  • Defense Policy Board changes

    ROS sends us a link to Bill Gertz’ Inside the Ring column this week in which Mr. gertz documents the changes to that odious panel known as the Defense Policy Board which prides itself on the recommendation to rework the military retirement system.

    ED NOTE: Mr Wolf writes to tell me I fucked up – it’s the Defense Business board that wants to dick with the retirement system. Well, with their latest additions to it’s membership, they remain odious;

    “[Defense Secretary Leon Panetta] made it more ‘Democratic,’” one board member quipped about the changes.

    Liberals added to the board include former Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, retired Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright and Jane Harman, a former Democratic congresswoman from California. Also added: former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead.

    Yeah, I recognize some of those names, too. At least one should be banned from government policy making into eternity – That Gorelick chick who built the wall which made it impossible to catch the 9/11 hijackers and then ran roadblocks for herself and the Clinton Administration while she was on the 9/11 Commission.

    Just to give us an idea of how much this administration is going to do for current and future veterans.

  • Data breach exposes 4 million veterans

    ROS sends a link to the news that some bonehead contractor had computer back up tapestolen which has exposed nearly 5 million veterans’ personal information to fraud;

    The information for some 4.6 million active and retired military personnel, as well as their families, was on back up-tapes from an electronic health care record used to capture and preserve patient data from 1992 through September 7 of this year, according to Science Applications International Corp (SAIC).

    The families used the federal government’s TRICARE health provider. SAIC is the suburban Washington firm that handles military health provider TRICARE’s data.

    The tapes went missing on September 14 when they were “among items stolen from an employee’s car in San Antonio,” SAIC spokesman Vernon Guidry told Reuters.

    Yeah, it happened more than two weeks ago, so why are we just finding out about it now?

    The SAIC statement said the company withheld information about the breach until Thursday so it could “determine the degree of risk this data loss represented before making notifications” so as “to not raise undue alarm in our beneficiaries.”

    Yeah, why don’t you let us beneficiaries evaluate the risk for ourselves – when it happens.

    It seems to me that this stuff happens every year – and it’s always a contractor. WHy were the tapes left unattended in a car if the contractor was transferring the tapes between facilities?

    That’s why I have LifeLock, because the government isn’t a good steward of my personal information.