Veteran Issues Digest Number 1688

[admin]

Messages In This Digest (4 Messages)

1. Dear Mr Isaiah Owens.... Thank You, Donation helps rebury Marine From: Colonel Dan

2. Army IDs 37,000 soldiers who have not gone From: Colonel Dan

3. Law Firms Massing to Help War Vets From: Colonel Dan

4. The VA's Claim Dodge , USS Calhoun County From: Colonel Dan
Messages

1. Dear Mr Isaiah Owens.... Thank You, Donation helps rebury Marine

Posted by: "Colonel Dan" colonel-dan@sbcglobal.net coloneldan1

Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:46 am (PST)

Dear Mr Isaiah Owens.... Thank You for taking care of Veterans.... (s)
Colonel Dan A number of articles were printed

http://www.newsday. com/news/ local/wire/ newyork/ny- bc-ny--graveerro r1112nov12
,0,7648458.story

Breaking News | Headline News | Current seven/10082007/
<http://www.nypost. com/seven/ 10082007/ news/regionalnew s/grave_offense. htm>
news/regionalnews/ grave_offense. htm

http://query. nytimes.com/ gst/fullpage. html?res= 9907EFDF103FF931 A35752C0A9659
C8B63
<http://query. nytimes.com/ gst/fullpage. html?res= 9907EFDF103FF931 A35752C0A965
9C8B63&sec=& spon=&pagewanted =print> &sec=&spon=& pagewanted= print

January 2, 2003, Living by a Creed: Death Be Not Ugly; Harlem Undertaker
Softens Grief By Taking Great Care in His Work

<http://www.washingt ontimes.com/ article/20071113 /NATION/11113003 4>
http://www.washingt ontimes.com/ article/20071113 /NATION/11113003 4

Donation helps rebury Marine

November 13, 2007

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) - A funeral director is giving a Veterans Day gift to a Marine he never met: A proper reburial.

The director, Isaiah Owens, said yesterday that he will pick up the reburial costs for a man who will be exhumed from a national cemetery nearly four years after he was mistakenly interred there in a bureaucratic blunder. Until Mr. Owens stepped up and volunteered to pay the $3,000 to $4,000 in funeral expenses, the man faced the prospect of being reburied in Potter's Field, a pauper's graveyard in New York City.

"Whoever he is, he can't do anything for himself anymore," Mr. Owens said. "I'd rather [do] this for him than having him go to Potter's Field."

The mix-up apparently is the first time that "somebody was buried who we thought was somebody else" in any of the national cemeteries, which date to the Civil War era, said Michael Nacincik, a spokesman for the National Cemetery Administration.

The error was discovered in late September when the family of Willie Hayes sought to have the Army veteran buried at Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island, only to find that a William Hayes had been buried there in 2003. Cemetery officials initially balked at the new request, but after being presented with overwhelming evidence that Willie Hayes was a legitimate war veteran, the burial proceeded.

Officials then began an investigation and announced last week that the
mix-up was apparently the result of a clerical error.

Both men served in the military during the Vietnam War, but William Hayes received an "other than honorable" discharge, making him ineligible for a military cemetery plot, Mr. Nacincik said. Details on the circumstances of the discharge were not available.

Willie Hayes of Harlem died Sept. 30. Born in 1948, he served in the Army from 1969 to 1970, earning several medals. William Hayes of the Bronx borough was born in 1943 and served in the Marine Corps from 1965 to 1969. He was buried on Christmas Eve 2003, about two months after dying in a nursing home.

No one came forward to claim his body, and the Bronx nursing home staff thought he was homeless.

"The names were very, very similar," and the year of birth was off by one
number, Calverton's director, Michael Picerno told Newsday.

Calverton was closed for the holiday yesterday.

Mr. Owens also handled the burial of Willie Hayes last month. And he's been to Potter's Field.

"It's a no man's land where everyone is buried in simple pine boxes," Mr.
Owens said. "I always get a real sad feeling when I leave that place."


Isaiah Owens Funeral Home http://isaiahowense nterprises. com/
216 Lenox Avenue
New York
New York 10027
Phone: (212) 427-7888


2. Army IDs 37,000 soldiers who have not gone

Posted by: "Colonel Dan" colonel-dan@sbcglobal.net coloneldan1

Tue Nov 13, 2007 10:09 am (PST)


Targeted for combat

http://www.armytime s.com/issues/ stories/0- ARMYPAPER- 3173352.php

Army IDs 37,000 soldiers who have not gone to war - and could spell relief for the heavily deployed
By Gina Cavallaro - gcavallaro@military times.com
Posted : November 19, 2007

Soldiers who haven't been downrange yet had better hone their warrior skills because the Army wants to see more combat patches in the ranks.

The Army has targeted 37,000 active-duty soldiers who have yet to serve a combat tour after more than six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Over that period, 59.4 percent of some 515,000 active-duty soldiers have deployed to the Central Command area of operations at least once, according to data compiled by Human Resources Command. Many of them have served three or four tours - some even more.

Another 33.4 percent have not served a war tour but are assigned to units with pending deployments; are not in deployable status because they are at basic training, school or other Army training; have medical or legal issues that keep them out of rotation; are serving as instructors, recruiters or drill sergeants; or are in transit or otherwise on hold.

But 7.2 percent, roughly 37,000 active-duty soldiers, have been identified by HRC as available for deployment and are facing transfer to operational units.

Soldiers charged with combing through the rolls at HRC indicated that many troops yet to deploy have been ready and willing to go, and many have volunteered but haven't had the opportunity. But the assignments officers also acknowledged that some homesteading and deployment-ducking have taken place.

"Certainly in a population of 37,000 you'll have soldiers who say, 'I'll
avoid this at any cost,'" said Col. Louis Henkel, deputy director of the
Enlisted Personnel Management Directorate at HRC.

"Does that mean the Army will give them cover? No," Henkel said.

But while some soldiers may not move toward the sound of the guns, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Dick Cody says he thinks they are in the minority.

"This far into the war, I think that is more of a perception than a
reality," Cody said, explaining that it has taken this long to get every
soldier an opportunity to go downrange while simultaneously creating
cohesive leadership in deploying units and in units that are being stood up.

"I think you could go to any post, camp or station and you could probably find someone who's been in the Army four years and hasn't deployed and that would be the exception, not the rule. Because when you look into it, that may be the best trainer for our medics down at [Brooke Army Medical Center]," Cody offered as an example. HRC officials were unable to provide a breakdown by major command of soldiers being considered for first-time deployments.

Of the Armywide 7.2 percent being looked at for first deployments, the
highest number without combat tours, 27.1 percent, work in health services, a field in which the need for specialists on the home front makes rotations less frequent.

The next largest group at 7.1 percent is considerably smaller and comprises soldiers who work in operations support in branches and career management fields that include space operations, foreign area officers, nuclear and counterproliferation, signal, telecommunication systems engineering, strategic plans and policy, simulation operations and information systems management.

Soldiers who work in transportation, ordnance quartermaster, logistics,
adjutant general, finance, human resources and acquisition make up 4.1
percent of the undeployed.

And the smallest group of undeployed soldiers, 3.5 percent, is in the
maneuver, fires and effects category, which includes all combat-arms
specialties, special operations and public affairs.

Many of these targeted soldiers work in places such as the Pentagon,
Installation Management Command, HRC and other units in the Military
District of Washington.

The long haul

Army leaders long have described what they believe will be persistent global conflict in which the Army will continue to play a major role.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have continued longer than projected,
requiring active-duty troops to serve back-to-back deployments and
reservists to serve as operational forces.

The relentless operations tempo has been the source of wide dissatisfaction inside the ranks and among family members, creating a stiff and ongoing challenge to recruiting and retaining troops.

To help ease the deployment strain, the Army has accelerated by two years, to 2010, its goal of growing active-duty end strength to 547,000, from the current 519,000. Also, the service is putting more money into addressing family support issues and looking for places where soldiers who are tired from relentless rotations can sit the game out for a while.

The Marine Corps embarked on a similar campaign close to a year ago with a Corps-wide message from the commandant ordering all hands into the fight and specifically targeting 66,000 leathernecks who had not deployed.

the Army has not issued any such message. Rather, the hunt for fresh
warriors has evolved as repeat deployments have become standard for much of the force and others have been reassigned to non-deploying billets before it was obvious the operations tempo was not going to slacken any time soon.

"Everybody wants to go downrange and be part of this because they know the importance of this war," Cody said, adding, "At the same time, there's a demand to make sure we have the right noncommissioned officer leaders and officer leaders at our training bases that are training up these young men and women to go to these units."

The need to get combat vets into training bases forced HRC to look deeper into the ranks for soldiers who could deploy and have not.

To help rotate people into those jobs, Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of Training and Doctrine Command, said he has asked the Army G-1, the TRADOC command sergeant major and HRC to see "where we can accept two-year assignments in TRADOC and to codify those assignments to the point where we can start moving people in and out without doing damage to our organizational structure in the process."

"I don't want to create so much turbulence in TRADOC that it becomes
inefficient in terms of moving people around, but there is great value, in
my judgment, in having combat veterans wearing the TRADOC patch because they bring credibility and they bring life, they bring energy into the organization, " he said in a recent interview.

Wallace said he doesn't expect it to be a blanket policy across the command because of the turbulence it could cause in training the force.

But, where it makes sense, he said, he'd "like to move people in and out of TRADOC in a more rapid fashion because I need the combat experience, and I think our combat veterans in some cases need a break."

Henkel said people who have been in TRADOC billets for six years will "be the first in the queue."

Some targeted TRADOC positions, Cody noted, won't be able to move into operational units until replacements whose deployments have been pushed to 15 months can return and get to the assignment.

"Obviously when job one is to fill fully trained, best-led units into
combat, with 20 brigades in Iraq, and three brigades in Afghanistan plus
another 4,500 senior leaders on military training teams, just that demand alone has driven us to make sure that we're balancing this force in terms of getting the right people in the right positions so we have trained and ready forces in this fight," Cody said.


3. Law Firms Massing to Help War Vets

Posted by: "Colonel Dan" colonel-dan@sbcglobal.net coloneldan1

Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:41 am (PST)



<http://malcontends. blogspot. com/2007/ 09/law-firms- rushing-to- veterans- aid.h
tml>
http://malcontends. blogspot. com/2007/ 09/law-firms- rushing-to- veterans- aid.ht
ml

Many links at the above URL

Good Attorney at:
http://www.lawyers. com/Michigan/ Battle-Creek/ Robert-P. -Walsh-3292774- f.html

Law Firms Massing to Help War Vets

A 'staggering' need for representation

Lynne Marek
<http://www.nlj. com/> The National Law Journal
September 26, 2007

<http://www.law. com/jsp/llf/ PubArticleLLF. jsp?id=119074542 2599>
http://www.law. com/jsp/llf/ PubArticleLLF. jsp?id=119074542 2599

The John Marshall Law School's Nicholas Henry

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr attorney John Harwood, who was a Marine Corps platoon leader in the Vietnam War, and Nicholas Henry, a third-year law student in Chicago and Iraq veteran, don't know each other, but they now have a common mission: providing legal services to wounded veterans.

They're not alone.

Law firms, corporate legal departments and law schools are setting out to help thousands of disabled soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan receive fair and timely benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Pro bono legal clinics and training sessions for lawyers have been cropping up across the country this year, from Illinois to North Carolina to California, in recognition of veterans' legal needs and a desire to create models for more programs. One national program currently being crafted will focus some of the country's largest law firms -- including WilmerHale and Sidley Austin -- on the issue.

"We've all become much more acutely aware over the past six to nine months of what's happening to our Marines and soldiers and of the needs they are going to have when they return," said Harwood, who is on the board of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, an organization that helps veterans apply for benefits.

DOZENS OF FIRMS

The Pro Bono Institute is enlisting support from 38 corporate legal
departments and law firms, including Morrison & Foerster and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, to assist discharged military personnel -- and those on the cusp of being discharged -- in filing claims. The program would train lawyers in the arcane area of veterans law and screen cases to identify those who would benefit most from legal representation.

"With the rise in need, we are working to develop a firmwide initiative,"
said Morgan Lewis pro bono counsel Amanda Smith, noting that about 40 interested attorneys at her firm was an "exceptionally strong response."

News reports earlier this year about the shabby treatment some veterans were receiving at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other reports about benefits being denied to some with post-traumatic stress disorder attracted attorneys to the cause, said Esther Lardent, president of the Pro Bono Institute. In July, a presidential commission recommended changes to address
those shortcomings.

"There's a sense, generally, that the sacrifices have fallen
disproportionately on a small number of people in uniform," said Ron Flagg, a Sidley attorney who is also chairman of the National Veterans Legal Services Program.

While veterans have long received support in making claims from veterans' organizations, pro bono lawyers aim to help ease an overload of cases that could grow worse as more veterans return from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to attorneys working in the area. The U.S. Department of Defense reported 29,415 service members had been wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan as of Sept. 12.

A 'STAGGERING NEED'

Veterans Affairs did not respond to requests for comment about its
processing of claims. It did provide data showing that the annual number of disability-related claims for compensation has risen 20 percent during the past six years, jumping to 806,382 last year from 674,219 in 2001.

"The need is staggering," said Gordon Erspamer, a Morrison & Foerster
attorney in Walnut Creek, Calif., who has worked on veterans' cases since
the 1970s.

The firm expects to participate in the institute's new program when it gets rolling. It is already involved in a Federal Circuit Bar Association pro bono program for vets that started in July and an older Swords to Plowshares program in San Francisco, said Kathi Pugh, Morrison & Foerster's pro bono counsel.

A law passed by Congress last year may also encourage more attorneys to take cases for a fee. Under the old law, attorneys couldn't charge a fee until after a final decision by the Board of Veterans' Appeals. As of June,
veterans can hire a lawyer as soon as they file a notice of disagreement in response to a department decision.

"Now lawyers can be hired earlier in the process, and they can be much more proactive in shaping the case," said Ron Abrams, a joint executive director for the National Veterans Legal Services Program who trains attorneys.

Whether or not attorneys or law students support the war or the Veterans Affairs Department, they share a belief that their skills and experience in handling complex matters, researching cases and advocacy will aid veterans.

"For many of them, having a lawyer will be the difference between whether they succeed or not," said Sidley's Flagg.

REPRESENTATION PAYS OFF

Veterans who had some kind of representation got $6,225 more annually, on average, than those who didn't, according to a 2005 Veterans Affairs Inspector General report. That principle held true in the first case resolved by the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law clinic, begun this month. The clinic helped a Vietnam War veteran increase his monthly disability compensation to $2,600 from $350 by helping him apply for a benefit related to his inability to work, said professor Joon Sung.

North Carolina Central University School of Law started a veterans claims clinic in January and is working on 30 cases, said Craig Kabatchnick, a law professor overseeing the clinic.

Henry, who has served in the Basra and Anbar regions of Iraq, and two fellow students at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago initiated a veterans pro bono program that this month won a $100,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Students and pro bono attorneys working with the clinic will start training next month and begin helping veterans file for disability and education benefits in January.

Henry said he believes that the clinic's focus on initial filings will
result in fewer rejections for incomplete information and fewer appeals.

"If we did this 10, 100, 10,000 times, we're going to know the ins and outs of it, whereas each individual veteran won't have faced the process before," Henry said. "You can get lost in it very easily because there is a great deal of proof that needs to happen."

The clinic will work with a network of lawyers being coordinated partly by the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism and with the Veterans Rights Project created in July by the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.

Abrams, who is conducting trainings in Chicago next month for the pro bono program, as well as for attorneys who want to work for a fee, also is giving courses this month at the University of Virginia Law School and an attorney group in Boston.

Katten Muchin Rosenman has two of its lawyers signed up for the training in Chicago, and they will, in turn, train other attorneys, said Jonathan Baum, that firm's director of pro bono work.

"We are very glad to be involved in this, but we are very sad that something like this is necessary," said Mike Summerhill, a former Marine and one of the Katten Muchin attorneys who will take the training.

Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice attorney Tim McClain, who joined the firm last year after leaving his post as senior legal officer for the U.S.
Veterans Affairs Department, helped his firm build a veterans law training program that so far has educated about 70 attorneys, including some from other firms, and 35 law students in Raleigh, N.C., and Washington, D.C. A third session is planned for this month.

Each of the classes was followed by a session during which veterans were
invited to meet with the lawyers and students about cases. There's a
particular need in the North Carolina area, where the firm was founded,
because of the many military bases there, said Craig Cannon, a senior
associate in the firm's Winston-Salem, N.C., office.

"We hope other firms will try to replicate this throughout the country
because it really helps veterans a lot," Cannon said.

Ultimately, the Pro Bono Institute program will also seek to address
systemic problems through legislation or litigation if necessary, Lardent
said.

Morrison & Foerster's Erspamer is already helping veterans take the more drastic step.

In July, Erspamer represented two veterans' organizations in their lawsuits against the Veterans Affairs Department, claiming that the department has a 600,000-claim backlog and sometimes takes more than 10 years to process a claim. Veterans for Common Sense v. Nicholson, No. 07-3758 (N.D. Calif.).


4. The VA's Claim Dodge , USS Calhoun County

Posted by: "Colonel Dan" colonel-dan@sbcglobal.net coloneldan1

Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:49 am (PST)



From: Michael Leon [mailto:maleon64@yahoo. com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 12:26 PM
To:
Cc: Col Dan; Dan Cedusky
Subject: "The VA's Claim Dodge: in The American Prospect

Have a gander at this piece from The American Porspect
http://www.prospect .org/cs/articles ?article= the_vas_claim_ dodge

The VA's Claim Dodge
<http://www.prospect .org/site/ _media/_common/ spacer.gif>

Beyond the awful conditions at Walter Reed hospital, something smells fishy in the government's handling of veterans' claims. One appalling case study suggests what might be happening and why.

<http://www.prospect .org/site/ _media/_common/ spacer.gif>

Deb Derrick | November 12, 2007 | web only
http://www.prospect .org/cs/articles ?article= the_vas_claim_ dodge

<http://www.prospect .org/site/ _media/_common/ spacer.gif>
<http://www.prospect .org/site/ _media/_common/ divider_h_ 752.gif>

The two signature injuries of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). An estimated 26,000 U.S. veterans from these wars have had their brains traumatized from nearby explosions. Another 45,000 have initiated post traumatic stress disorder claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

These claims concern real disabilities that are medically hard to prove. In each VA case, it is up to the military and the Department of Veterans'
Affairs to decide if and how much any given soldier's mental faculties have been impaired. These are also precisely the kinds of claims that the U.S. government has actively thwarted in the past -- and recent news and health articles suggest that a repeat performance is underway. The Defense Department is being accused of under-funding studies of traumatic brain injuries. The VA and Defense Departments are refusing to make their brain injury data public. Current PTSD claimants are finding their medical and service records missing, lost, or subject to challenge. A class action lawsuit was recently initiated on behalf of PTSD claimants.

My recent investigation on the VA claims of a Navy waste disposal ship, the USS Calhoun County, provides a cautionary tale about what might be happening and why.

Harvey Ray Lucas served in the late 1950s on the USS Calhoun County, a
low-ranking Navy ship whose primary mission was to dump atomic and other military waste into the Atlantic Ocean. Lucas spent four years heaving radioactive materials over the side of the ship. After leaving the military, he suffered from chronic health problems and sired five children with birth defects. Lucas's testimony made my jaw drop. He described one baby whose skin oozed "bloodwater. " He described the birth and death of another whom physicians termed an "anencephalic female monster." A couple years after his testimony, Lucas died of a rare cancer associated with radiation exposure.

I came across Lucas's story in 1998, when I worked in a U.S. Congressional office and read the transcript of his Board of Veterans Appeals hearing. Lucas's widow, Barbara, and my boss, Congressman David Skaggs (D-Colo.), both felt that Harvey Lucas and his family's illnesses stemmed from radiation exposure in the Navy. But Barbara Lucas had been pursuing a compensation claim with the VA for 18 years without success. The VA always seemed to need more or different evidence. When our office dug up a key final document and Barbara prevailed, I decided to write a book about the USS Calhoun County and her VA claim.

Deck logs and interviews with the ship's sailors, officers, and scientists
suggested that the USS Calhoun County had carried excessively radioactive material and that the ship's decks had been contaminated. When I discovered a number of other sailors had experienced odd health problems, I broadened my inquiry to look at the VA cases of other USS Calhoun County veterans.

I interviewed Deane Horne, whose teeth and hair had fallen out after he left the ship and whose eldest son was born without a femur. I interviewed Richard Tkaczyk, who had also lost his teeth and whose first born son had seizures and brain damage. I interviewed George Albernaz, who was half paralyzed after suffering from an odd brain disease that his physician called radiation necrosis. All had filed claims with the VA. None had made any headway.

In all cases, the VA began the claims process by asserting that there was no proof that the USS Calhoun County had even carried atomic waste -- even though there was ample evidence of the ship's mission in public federal archives. In all cases, the Navy forwarded personnel files to the VA that were missing a key radiation exposure document.

The treatment of these men's claims echoed what had happened with the Lucas claim. It was also entirely consistent with a vastly discouraging history of the VA's handling of hard-to-prove claims, including radiation, asbestos, Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, and PTSD-based injuries. All such cases were and are handled centrally out of a special office in VA headquarters. All required Congressional or court intervention to force the VA to grant claims.

In the case of radiation-based claims, the military was found omitting
incriminating documents from veterans' databases; veterans' documents were destroyed in a huge and mysterious fire at a military personnel records facility; the VA was found hiding and shredding more veterans' evidence; and whistleblowers were subjected to death threats and workplace retaliation.

As I unearthed this information, I was drawn into providing evidence for the claims of several USS Calhoun County veterans. In particular, I began helping George Albernaz, who had served with Lucas on the ship between 1957 and 1958.

To verify his claim, I sent the VA data on the ship's atomic loads, noting
that my information came from deck logs in the National Archives. The VA called my information unsubstantiated. I sent Navy documentation on them. The Navy and the VA said that they still had no proof that Albernaz himself had ever been exposed to radiation. I sent information from the Lucas claim that challenged such "zero dose" exposure estimates. It was deemed irrelevant.

Looking for more evidence on Albernaz's behalf, I dug deeper in the ship's administrative archives. I came across a memo to the ship's Commanding Officer from 1956, indicating that the deck of the USS Calhoun County had become radiologically contaminated. I found another from 1958 stating that all attempts to remove the contamination had failed. But my breath failed me when I read a final memo from 1962, stating that the Navy had never, in its history, been able to render such a ship safe for use and recommending that the USS Calhoun County be sunk.

If I thought that such evidence would help win the Albernaz case, however, I was quite mistaken. Albernaz and I submitted the incriminating documents between 2005 and 2007. Yet the VA omitted the documents from the "evidence of record;" the Navy re-asserted that they had no proof of Albernaz's exposure but that he'd likely only received safe doses; and the VA continued to take the Navy at its word. As of this month, the VA was demanding a long list of additional evidence to support Albernaz's claim -- much of which he and I had already submitted.

The treatment of these sailors exposes a U.S. veterans' claims adjudication system that enshrines military-produced evidence as the only "objective" arbiter of claims, even when there is ample reason to doubt it. Evidence --
even documents from the National Archives -- produced by the likes of Harvey Lucas and George Albernaz is viewed and treated as potentially fraudulent. And far from making any attempt to validate or verify claims through databases, "buddy statements," or consolidated claims reviews, the VA actively dismisses their compatriots' evidence as "irrelevant" to their claims. In sum, the veterans are treated as liars, told to prove their own cases to the government, and subject to having credible evidence dismissed when it contradicts military assertions.

Americans are now becoming increasingly concerned with the treatment of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and they ought to be. Because unless the U.S. revamps its veterans claims system to allow for decisions made independently of the U.S. military, we are headed for another series of large VA scandals.