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

Category: Veterans Issues

  • Shinseki apologizes for being an incompetent boob

    Continuing his long stream of apologies for being an incompetent leader, Eric Shinseki apologized that he’s been unable to influence his subordinates to begin paying out to caregivers who treat the troops, according to the Stars & Stripes;

    Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki apologized Thursday for delays in the new caregivers benefits plan, pledging that families of wounded troops remain a top priority for the department.

    Under legislation passed last year, the VA was mandated to begin awarding caregiver benefits — living stipends, medical training, and counseling support — to select families of wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans by Jan. 31. However, that deadline passed without officials even presenting basic details of how the program would be administered.

    When those details were released last week, veterans groups criticized the department’s narrow interpretation of the rules, which as written now would not cover many families caring for troops with traumatic brain injuries.

    Yeah, he’s a real leader.

    It seems to me that this administration is real good at signing ceremonies for veterans’ programs, but absolutely retarded when it come to delivering the benefits of the programs to veterans, and I hold Mr Black Beret personally responsible.

    If you wonder why I despise Shinseki so much, the story goes back about 11 years when the Army Times quoted an open letter I published on paratrooper.net in regards to the black beret issue. Reportedly, the Army Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki expressed to his staff his surprise that an infantry platoon sergeant knew how to use the internet.

    Now who’s the fucking retard, Eric?

  • Wells Fargo gets away with fraud against veterans

    Yeah, I know, everyone is focused on Chase banks and the total bullshit cheating of veterans, but it seems that Wells Fargo got away with the same shit, according to this link, sent to us by Just A Grunt. Wells Fargo hid their attorney fees in title research fees (according to the journalists in this piece, VA requires the lender to pay attorney fees);

    I-Team: VA Loans Lawsuit Settled: MyFoxATLANTA.com

    I don’t why everyone is so happy for veterans. The settlement is $10 million for 60,000 veterans – that’s $166 each. Do they think we’re so fucking destitute that their promise of $175 will have us dancing in the streets? In the video, a Wells Fargo rep says “…it’s the right thing to do”. No, the right thing to do was to not screw veterans on their refinance fees. Also in the video, they claim that attorney fees which veterans paid were as much as $1100 – but veterans should just be mollified with their $175 check.

    Oh, by the way, in the settlement, Wells Fargo admits no wrong doing.

  • WWII Vet victim of elder abuse

    YankeeMom sent us this link to an article about 93-year-old Arnold “Max” Bauer, a Pearl Harbor survivor who was found to be living in squalor in his El Cajon, CA home;

    Arnold Bauer’s caregiver, Milagros Angeles, has pleaded not guilty to felony elder abuse and false imprisonment. Authorities believe Angeles stole thousands of dollars from Bauer.

    Le Chevalier says Angeles had told her Bauer was fine and eating well.

    Sheriff’s elder abuse investigators found Bauer disoriented in a house full of rotting trash last week.

    According to the video at the link, several people have offered to clean Bauer’s house and yard for him, but nothing can be done because Bauer’s daughter, in Santa Barbara hasn’t responded to offers to help. I’m beginning to think that this abuse wasn’t the whole story. I’m sure the daughter is fairly old herself, but calls to the care-giver once-a-month isn’t exactly checking in on her father. If she’s not willing or capable to be a daughter, she ought to give power of attorney to someone else.

    Anyway, Max is being treated for prostate cancer at the local VA, and I’m sure he’d like to know that there are people out here who care about him, so YankeeMom sends along his mailing address if you want to send him a card;

    MAX BAUER
    VETERANS HOME OF CHULA VISTA
    700 EAST NAPLES COURT
    CHULA VISTA, CA.91911

  • It’s not ALWAYS the DVA’s fault

    I have to tell you that I’ve read this article no less than five times, and I still don’t understand what the Hell these people are talking about. But I will preface my opinions with the fact that it’s been my experience that Desert Storm veterans who stayed far from the fast-moving battle are the biggest crybabies on the planet. I, personally don’t believe in the “Gulf War Syndrome” because most of the people who complain of the vast, unrelated symptoms were far from the front. But here are my latest reasons to disbelieve;

    One solider trying to get help from the Veterans Administration for combat-related injuries says he has been turned down, because his records are missing. He says he has all the medical records for the time he was in the states, but the records for everything that happened outside of the country are gone.

    I don’t know what this ass clown is talking about. When I deployed, this time was like every other time I deployed – my medical records deployed. When I went back to my home station, the medical records jacket went back, too. Do you have any idea how labor intensive it would be for clerks to pour through every records jacket and pluck out the pages which referred to medical treatment for the time period of Desert Storm and destroy just those few pages just to save space?

    So, does he have his medical records, or does the VA have his medical records. See how I can get confused?

    When I had my second heart attack, the ambulance took me to the VA hospital. I didn’t have an ID card or anything. They checked my SSN and verified that I was eligible for treatment. So why is everyone else having all of these problems except me? I’m not saying the VA is infallible, I’m just saying there’s a right way and wrong way to do things.

    This Gulf War veteran served 20 years in the Army. The Veterans Administration has documentation he served in the 82nd Airborne division as an Army ranger and made 125 parachute jumps. All of his claims, including hearing loss, ankle and back injury, have been denied because efforts to obtain service medical records for all potential sources were unsuccessful. He says all his medical records are gone.

    Why would the VA have records of this guy being a “Ranger” in the 82d as well as his jump log? When I retired, the Army sent my MEDICAL records to the VA, the VA didn’t need to know where I served and what my job was (and the last time I checked, there was no “Ranger” duty position in the 82d – so what’s up with that?). My personnel file went to Record Center in St Louis, not the VA. The Army helped me file my claim with the VA before I retired and the claim went to the VA with my records.

    In the beginning of this article, the author explains that none of the soldiers wanted to give their names to the story because they know “what the government is capable of doing” insinuating that the government will send bureaucratic ninjas after them and kill them when they’re sleeping with wire-guided nuclear throwing stars. I’ll wait for the movie.

    Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to support all veterans all of the time, but sometimes I just can’t wade through the bullshit without saying something. I just think the story would have ended up differently if the “journalist”, Mike Deeson, would have checked out his interviewees more closely, rather than just printing what he wanted to hear.

  • JP Morgan-Chase answers before Congress.

    It looks like all the people that were taken advantaged of got to have their say including Captain Jonathon Rowles.

    Under terms of the SCRA, provisions are made to cap interest rates on home mortgages for active-duty military personnel. In a lawsuit filed on behalf of Jonathon Rowles and his wife, Julia, JPMorgan Chase is accused of continuing to charge the couple mortgage rates that exceeded the cap after Rowles joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and was called to active duty.

    What I also liked was that in the session it was called for those that represented to take personal responsibility rather then corporate responsibility. But what comes next is priceless.

    In her oral testimony before the HVAC, Mudick said JPMorgan Chase assumed “full responsibility” for the SCRA violations, characterizing the alleged 4,500 cases of mishandled interest rates and 18 wrongful foreclosures as products of human error. She said lack of internal training left many Chase employees with little, if any, knowledge of SCRA regulations and the intricacies of military documentation, saying that “military orders are sometimes hard to comprehend.”

    In response, Rep. Tim Walz, I-Minn., produced his iPad, upon which he exhibited a simple one-page set of military orders. In contrast, he held up a Chase credit card agreement spanning dozens of pages. He called Mudick’s statement “the weakest testimony I’ve ever heard in this committee.”

    Yea, you cannot say what is complicated when then things that you give out to your customers is more complex.

    Committee Chair Jeff Miller, R-Fla., summed up the proceedings. “Our nation’s war fighters and their families should not have to fight to keep their piece of the American Dream, while they are on foreign ground defending that fundamental right for all of us,” he said. “While I am heartened that JPMorgan Chase Bank is attempting to fix these errors with respect to wrongful foreclosures, and is refunding over $2.4 million in excessive interest charges, more must be done to ensure that this never happens again. I hope this is a wake-up call for the entire financial services industry.”

    Hopefully this is the last that we hear about this, but I am afraid that it will not be.

  • VA covers for phony POWs

    I know I’ve written about this before, but I’ve been recently made aware of a movement in Congress to end this travesty. We’re always discussing waste, fraud and abuse at the VA and this is the most easily solved case. The Department of Defense lists 545 living Vietnam POWs and 20 living POWs from the first Gulf War based on the stuff that you and I know to be credible information and personnel accountability reports from the eras.

    However, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs pays benefits to 966 claimants from Vietnam and 286 claimants from Desert Storm. That’s a total of 687 phonies collecting VA benefits designated for POWs. The problem is easy enough to fix…all it takes is for the DVA to compare the list from the DoD with a list of their claimants. But for the last ten years, the DVA has stonewalled any private or congressional investigation blaming their computers for being so outdated that they’re unable to generate a list of veterans who claim to be POWs. Isn’t that what computers are for?

    In an email last night, Navy Captain James McGrath, an actual Vietnam POW and former two-term president of NAM-POWS wrote to us;

    One VA administrator admitted to me that “the VA would rather error on the side of the POW claimant than to error against him by denying his claim that he was a POW.”

    Seein’s how there is an actual list of POWs from DoD, that’s just ridiculous.

    With all of the talk about slashing veterans’ benefits to balance the budget, this is a no-brainer place to start.

    The DVA ought to announce an amnesty program to all of the claimants and then after a reasonable period, start investigating and i volunteer to compare the lists. But initially, we should announce an amnesty period for the DVA, and then start investigating and prosecuting at the DVA for a decade of inaction.

    Just trust me when I tell you that the person influencing this new attack on the problem is someone most of you know and someone who won’t let go of this issue, like a pitbull on a mailman. Stay tuned for updates and things you can do to help.

  • Honoring MOH Recipient, Charles N. DeGlopper… again.

    This is posted via my blog, and the research comes from Kriste who posts there and wrote this piece.

    PFC Charles N. DeGlopper, Company C, 325th Glider Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division

    Thanks to the efforts of Paul Mullen, a 64-year-old Vietnam War veteran, Fort Bragg has stepped up and done the right thing. They’ve returned Private First Class Charles N. DeGlopper to his original place of honor on post. In June of 2010, a portion of “DeGlopper Street” on Fort Bragg was renamed “As Samawah Street” in honor of the battle fought in that Iraqi city by soldiers of the 325th Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division in April, 2003.

    (more…)

  • Bachmann removes cuts to vet benefits from proposal

    Last month, I wrote that Tea Party Congress woman, Michele Bachmann proposed cuts to some veteran payments as part of her $400k budget proposal.

    …Bachmann…has unveiled a plan for cutting $400 billion in federal spending that includes freezing Veterans Affairs Department health care spending and cutting veterans’ disability benefits.

    Her proposed VA budget cuts would account for $4.5 billion of the savings included in the plan, posted on her official House of Representatives website.

    She’s issued a statement dated Friday that she’s backed off from those proposals;

    “One point on my discussion list was a $4.5 billion proposal that would affect payments made to our veterans. That discussion point has received a lot of attention and I have decided to remove it from consideration. The problem of government spending must be solved, but not on the backs of our nation’s war heroes. I have always been a proud supporter of the United States military and I continue to stand with our veterans. In the months ahead I look forward to working with our Veterans Service Organizations to ensure that we fulfill our commitments to those who sacrificed so much in their brave service for our country.”

    This is good news, but there are others out there on both sides of the aisle who see veterans as easy targets for budget cuts.