Original Article:  Fox 8 News

AUSTIN, May 26/PR Newswire/ – More than 500,000 Texans served in the Vietnam War and 3,416 sacrificed their lives there. While the war is history for some, the healing continues for others. The Texas Capitol Vietnam War Monument is about the Honor these veterans deserve, and about the Welcome Home, they never received.

In 2005, the Texas Legislature approved the placement of a monument honoring Texas Vietnam Veterans on the Capitol grounds. Now these veterans need your help to build it. They are asking for $1,300,000 in private funds to build this special monument. No tax money will be used for this monument.

This granite and bronze monument will forever acknowledge the noble sacrifices of the U.S. military men and women, as well as the South Vietnamese military, during the Vietnam War.

Crowning the 14-foot tall monument will be five figures that represent the Dawn Patrol, a military defensive circle. They represent the ethnic and racial diversity of the more than one half million Texans that served during the Vietnam War, both in-country or stationed throughout the world.

The seated figure is a wounded Vietnamese Ranger representing the wounds and punishment that the people of South Vietnam suffered during America’s longest war. He is receiving blood, an American’s blood, from an African-American medic. The aid being given to the wounded Ranger symbolizes the aid given and US blood shed, to help the South Vietnamese forces and its people.

The radioman is a Native American. He is concentrating on the sky, looking up for help from our helicopters, our lifeline in Vietnam.

The kneeling figure with the scoped rifle is a Hispanic scout/sniper, watching for the enemy and protecting his fellow grunts.

The standing figure is a Caucasian soldier, a ground pounder with the 1,000-yard stare.

Five ethnic groups; the racial diversity of Texas and of the Vietnam War; one team: grunts looking out for each other.

Designed by nationally acclaimed western sculptor Duke Sundt, the monument not only reflects the ethnic diversity of Texas, but also the proud military tradition of Texas war veterans.

So far, $300,000 has been raised, the bulk of that amount coming from the corporate sector. Leading this effort is the Texas Capitol Vietnam War Monument Committee, composed exclusively of Vietnam Veterans, all personally committed to seeing the Monument brought from concept to reality.

Veteran Outreach Committee Chair John Miterko said, “Given that 572,000 Vietnam veterans now reside in Texas, the needed funds amount to only about $2 per veteran. If Texas veterans would show their willingness to support our Monument, others will most assuredly respond in kind. It’s now up to each of us to show our interest in the construction of this historic and lasting tribute to the proud military service of Texans in Vietnam.”

The Texas Capitol Vietnam War Monument is a non-profit 501(c) 3 project, the federal tax ID number is:  20-3113705. All donations are tax deductible, payable by cash, check, money order or credit card to the Texas Capitol Vietnam War Monument.

To learn more, or to donate by credit card visit our website:

http://www.buildthemonument.org

To donate by check or money order, mail to:

TCVM

c/o JHL Company

P.O. Box 12275

Austin, TX 78711

You can also e-mail the monument committee at:  rfloyd@hslawmail.com

Those of us that have already made the transition know just what a difference our military backgrounds can make in the civilian sector.  But if you haven’t already figured it out…this video will bring it home!  Don’t give up guys…there is a place for us when we come home!

by John McChesney

The Department of Veterans Affairs is struggling to cope with tens of thousands of veterans filing for disability benefits. Because there are applicants from two current wars — plus a new wave from the first Gulf War and Vietnam — thousands are now stuck in the clogged pipeline.

Although the department and its critics differ on exact numbers, everyone agrees that way too many vets are waiting way too long to get benefits.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki is experimenting with ways to get the old, crippled bureaucracy to do better.

A Tidal Wave Of Applicants

The number of outstanding claims at the VA for service-related disabilities — amputations, injured limbs, PTSD, brain trauma — hovers around 500,000. Nearly 40 percent of those have been waiting on a decision for more than four months.

And to make matters worse, another 100,000 claims are waiting for a decision at the Board of Veterans Appeals. The department has responded by hiring thousands of new claims adjudicators, a kind of brute force approach.

But Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense says that won’t solve the problem.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs is so complicated, it would drive a normal person insane in 3 minutes,” Sullivan says.

Sullivan has been battling the VA for years over the backlog issue. For six years, he worked inside the VA. Complexity, he says, is the department’s backbreaking burden, beginning with a veteran’s first perplexing hurdle: a 23-page application form.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs takes three years to train a new employee on how to read that 23-page claim form,” he says.

Because of the intense training, those new hires won’t be online for some time. And Sullivan says the department’s problems are only beginning — he says 440,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have filed disability claims.

“We expect that number to go up to about a million in the next four or five years,” he says. “And more tidal waves are right behind it.”

Those tidal waves will be rolled in by Secretary Shinseki’s new rules allowing claims from Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam and chemical exposure in the first Gulf War. The VA acknowledges that at least 200,000 new applicants will slow down claims processing even more in the future.

A Faceless Bureaucracy

Vietnam veteran John Wood knows something about how long it can take to get benefits. He served in the Army from 1969 to 1972. In Vietnam, he was a cavalry reconnaissance scout near the border with North Vietnam, where he saw several of his fellow soldiers cut down in combat.

“It took me from 1972 to 2006 for the VA to admit that I had post-traumatic stress disorder,” he says. “They were saying that I couldn’t prove that I had any combat status in Vietnam, and so it couldn’t possibly be post-traumatic stress disorder because I wasn’t in combat, which I was.”

The VA insisted that because he had been trained as a clerk, he would not have been sent into combat. But Wood was reassigned when he got to Vietnam. The burden was on Wood to prove that he had been in combat. He solicited testimonial letters from fellow soldiers and dug up after-action reports from Army records to make his case. Thirty-four years later, the VA Board of Appeals acknowledged that he had been in the shooting war and granted his claim.

Another veteran who faced a hard process was Tia Christopher, who was raped in her barracks while she was attending language school to learn Arabic. When she got out of the Navy, she went to a VA hospital for psychological help. Staff at the hospital advised her against filing for disability benefits.

“Even though we got really good health care, they told us it would be really traumatic, a re-traumatizing process to file a claim, and that you basically have to kind of defend yourself. You would basically be put on trial to do this claim. That idea scared the hell out of me,” Christopher says.

But it didn’t scare her enough to keep her from filing a claim, which was denied. Then, with the help of the veterans service organization Swords to Plowshares, she filed an appeal. Eight years later, she won.

For both of these vets, the VA remained a faceless bureaucracy throughout their ordeal.

Critics say it’s not surprising that the VA’s medical branch advised Christopher against filing a claim with the benefits branch because it would be too traumatic. There is a widespread perception that the VA stands against vets rather than for them, they say. And that’s something Secretary Shinseki has set out to change.

“When the new secretary came in, one of the first things that he said to us was a recognition of the fact that many veterans do perceive us that way,” says Michael Walcoff, the VA’s undersecretary for benefits, “and that we need to do whatever we can do to make sure that our people understand that their role is to be an advocate for the veteran, not an adversary.”

It’s a tall order to turn around a huge bureaucracy encumbered by a culture and rules developed over the decades since World War II. But the VA has launched a number of pilot programs to streamline and simplify the application process.

A Possible Solution: Team Delta

One program is in the VA regional office in downtown Pittsburgh. Downstairs in the service center, row after row of white file cabinets stretch across the room, and piled on top are thick bundles of files so big they can’t be put away. Paper rules at the VA; electronic files are years away as the VA builds a new system. All of this paper now lumbers back and forth between the veteran and the VA via snail mail, while veterans almost never have any face-to-face — or even telephone — contact with people handling their claims.

Beth McCoy, the regional office director, says the staff of the pilot program, known as Team Delta, aims to change that by actually making personal calls to veterans.

“We’re surprising them,” McCoy says. ” ‘Is this really the VA calling? No one from VA has ever called me before.’ It’s a positive experience for the veterans, and it’s really a positive experience for our employees. Rather than working with paper files, they’re working more directly with veterans.”

And there are almost unheard-of face to face contacts with veterans — contacts which, the team has discovered, can be wrenchingly emotional.

Vietnam veteran Arthur Rhone says his experience with Team Delta is the best he’s had with the VA.

“They all introduced themselves to me, they’re all nice people and they seem like they’re concerned for me,” he says. “They not here for a paycheck; they here for me.”

Rhone starts his session about a PTSD claim with a tense recitation of the horrors he witnessed in Vietnam, and he ends with a story about the time a mother and daughter were stopped at an American checkpoint. The mother was a Viet Cong suspect carrying a large sum of money. Rhone’s squad leader told him to use the daughter to pressure the mother to confess that she had more money hidden away.

“So they told me … it was during the rainy season … get the girl, jump down in the rice paddy. I’m up to here, I grabbed the girl, she’s about 8 years old, and I ducked her down in the rice paddy till the mama-san told where the money was. I almost drowned her. I live with that every day of my life, OK? It’s with me all the time. I wish you could take your hands and scrub it out my damn brain. You think you can do that for me? Y’all think you can help me do that?”

Rhone jams his chest with his thumb for emphasis. People in the office calm him, but when he sits to sign a document, his hand is shaking so badly he has to steady it with his other hand.

“I appreciate that, you guys. Thank you,” he says.

But Team Delta has only eight people in a bureaucracy of nearly 20,000. The jury is still out on whether its personalized approach is feasible for the entire Veterans Benefits Administration.

Article Source: Disabled Veterans

Received this in my email and just had to share with others…

When a soldier comes home, he finds it hard….
..to listen to his son whine about being bored.


…..to keep a straight face when people complain about potholes.


to be tolerant of people who complain about the hassle of getting ready for work.


…to be understanding when a co-worker complains about a bad night’s sleep.

..to be silent when people pray to God for a new car.


…to control his panic when his wife tells him he needs to drive slower.


…to be compassionate when a businessman expresses a fear of flying.

….to keep from laughing when anxious parents say they’re afraid to
send their kids off to summer camp.

….to keep from ridiculing someone who complains about hot weather.



…..to control his frustration when a colleague gripes about his coffee being cold.

….to remain calm when his daughter complains about having to walk the dog.



…..to be civil to people who complain about their jobs.



….to just walk away when someone says they only get two weeks of vacation a year.



….to be forgiving when someone says how hard it is to have a new baby in the house.

The only thing harder than being a Soldier…


Is loving one.

By Rod Taverna

Nearly 2 million veterans or their widows are missing out on as much as $22 billion a year in pensions, but the Department of Veterans Affairs has had only limited success in finding them. Widows are hardest hit. According to a VA estimate, only one in seven people who probably could qualify for the pension actually receive the monthly checks. A VA study said, that veterans generally “are completely unaware that the program exists.”

If you served during World War II, Korea, Vietnam or the Gulf War or are the surviving spouse of a veteran of one of those conflicts:

• You may qualify for a VA Pension without having a service connected disability.
• You could receive a pension that could be as high as $1950 per month for a married couple or $1100 per month for a surviving spouse, all TAX FREE.
• You may receive help to pay health insurance premiums, including Medicare Part B, or money to have friends or relatives provide home care services.

A third of all senior citizens in this country may qualify for this little known veterans disability income benefit called Pension. Pension is also called the Veterans Aid and Attendance Benefit. This benefit can pay up to $1,950 a month to qualifying veteran households to cover the cost of home care, assisted living or nursing home care. The income is paid in addition to all other household income to reimburse the family for their long term care medical costs. If younger than 65, the veteran must be totally disabled. If age 65 or older, there is no requirement for disability. There is no disability requirement for a single surviving spouse.

There are estimated to be about 7.1 million living veterans over the age of 65 who served during World War II, Korea, Vietnam or the Gulf War. In addition there are approximately 4.4 million surviving spouses of these war veterans over 65. The veterans could be eligible for Pension and their surviving dependents may be eligible for Death Pension as well. To receive a Veterans Pension Benefit, a veteran must have served on active duty, at least 90 days, with at least one day during a period of war. There must be an honorable discharge.

There are about 11.5 million potential beneficiaries for VA pension benefits in this country. The Census Bureau estimates there are approximately 35 million seniors over the age of 65. Comparing those who could receive pension over the total number of seniors means that about 33% of all seniors could be eligible for this veterans benefit income. Yet, according to government census statistics, only about 4.7% of the 11.5 million or so seniors who could qualify are actually receiving Pension or Death Pension.

For more detailed information on the VA Pension benefit, including detailed charts and downloadable forms, please visit the Smart Consumer Group VA Pension Page

Rod Taverna has been involved in financial planning for 20 years and has an MBA in Finance. Company web site http://www.FreedomFinancialSolutionsInc.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rod_Taverna
http://EzineArticles.com/?Veterans-and-Surviving-Spouses—The-VA-May-Owe-You-Money&id=1728087

U.S. Army Reserves Colonel Michael Mann was set to deploy to Kuwait in January of 2009, when his command received a last minute change of mission.

Instead the Expeditionary Sustainment Command (ESC), where Mann served as Deputy Commander, was sent into Afghanistan into an “intensely challenging theater of combat operations,” Mann’s award citation narrative states.

Mann earned a Bronze Star for his service during the 12 month deployment.

As the first ESC to deploy to the this area of operation in Afghanistan, Mann and his fellow soldiers were responsible for the Command and Control of more than 3,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Civilians. And they planned and executed full spectrum logistics support throughout the area of operations.

Upon his arrival in Afghanistan, there were no operational logistics practices in place, his award citation narrative states. But working to implement their principles of “anticipation, responsiveness, simplicity, economy, survivability, and improvisation,” according to the narrative, they were able to make “huge strides” in establishing and maintaining operations.

The command inherited the daunting task of conducting logistics support of ongoing combat operations while planning and organizing rapid theater expansion in support of more than 20,000 arriving US service members representing an increase to fifteen combat and combat support brigades in 2009. And their work environment upon arrival was truly expeditionary. There were virtually no work stations, communication equipment, or computers, which are the critical tools that the 300-man unit uses to function. Over the first few weeks the personnel worked to establish this infrastructure. The temperature in their tents at times exceeded 100 degrees. But the command also played a leading role in constructing eight new Forward Operating Bases and planning for the 2010 surge of an additional 30,000 US forces across Afghanistan.

“Unit personnel proceeded to construct the headquarters while at the same time the unit was operating full speed to sustain US forces,” the narrative states.

Deputy Commander General, Mann was “fully engaged in supporting virtually every aspect of the Commanding General’s successful efforts to command and control the 4,300 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, [and] Civilians in the command, as well as ensuring the health, welfare, safety of these personnel.

” But it was Mann’s leadership that contributed so much to these successes, the narrative states.

Mann was known for mentoring and guiding the staff, which was key to the unit’s success.

Mann led the senior leadership team, he routinely promoted personnel changes to improve unit operations. He played a large role in leading the pre-deployment training, as well.

“COL Mann’s leadership and performance in executing full-spectrum sustainment operations greatly assisted in the unmitigated success of the US mission in Afghanistan,” the narrative states.

Article Source:  Hero of the Week

U.S. Army Major Todd Buchheim spent his most recent deployment to Camp Bucca, Iraq serving as a Combat Operations Officer, supporting a hospital engaged in detainee healthcare.

In the role of Operations Office, Buchheim was responsible for running all the non-medical hospital operations, he said, a task which turned out to be something of a challenge.

When Buccheim arrived at Camp Bucca in May of 2008 there were more than 18,000 detainees at Camp Bucca, he said. And with so many detainees, there were a wide range of medical issues that the hospital staff needed to treat.

While there wasn’t a lot of trauma related healthcare to provide, the hospital treated a whole range of other health issues, from standard ailments to helping treat Iraqis who had previously lost limbs in the war between Iran and Iraq, he said.

“Our hospital had radiology, a physical therapist, prosthetics, an eye doctor, a six bed emergency room, a four bed Intensive Care Unit, and a 34 bed intermediate care ward…Anything that a person can do in the states, we did there,” he said.

“It was a good strategic mission,” Buccheim said of the assignment. “I felt good about that aspect.”

The mission, in part, was based around the idea that by working with and providing medical treatment for detainees the U.S. Military can demonstrate that they are in Iraq to help, he said. Part of the detainee program at Camp Bucca also included teaching job skills to the detainees as well.

“So by treating detainees they can go back into the field and spread word, basically,” he said.

Over the course of the deployment the number of detainees at Camp Bucca dropped from 18,000 to just 4,000, he said.

The best part of the deployment, he said, was “learning how to interact with other people, learning another culture, and preventing losses in the future as opposed to having to treat them.”

Buccheim earned a Bronze Star for his service in the deployment.

Major Michael Thiesfeld has a philosophy about his role as personnel officer in human resources (HR) for the U.S. Army.

“When you’re not infantry, you’re not the guy pulling the trigger. There’s a lot of times that HR guys feel like the redheaded stepchild,” Thiesfeld said. “But we don’t do it for ourselves, we do it to take care of [the soldiers down at the company level].”

During a 2005 to 2006 deployment to Iraq, in which Thiesfeld served the personnel officer for a battalion stationed in Mahmudiayah, in the area known as the “Sunni Triangle”. Leading a team of nine, Thiesfeld was responsible for the human resources needs for an average of 900 soldiers.

“I was in charge of all the HR related resources,” Thiesfeld said. Those resources spanned from payroll and accountability to awards and evaluations, from deployment operations to casualty operations.

“Everything in the HR related world, I did,” Thiesfeld said.

Commissioned in 1999, Thiesfeld had been working in HR for more than three years at the time of that first deployment.

But, he said, “what I was not trained or prepared for was the environment we were in. Doing [HR] in combat is a lot different from doing it at Fort Knox, Kentucky.”

One of the challenges, he said, was the limited connectivity. The battalion was broken up and spread out in a number of different locations, he said, which made transferring information difficult and complicated.

But the hardest part of the deployment, he said, was running casualty operations. When a soldier was killed in action, it was the duty of Thiesfeld and his team to handle a large part of that operation.

“It’s so easy in the schoolhouse. There’s a process for the reports you send up for KIA and WIA,” Thiesfeld said referring to soldiers killed and wounded in action.

When it becomes personal, again and again running the operations for soldiers killed in action becomes a “dreaded personal event,” he said.

“On our side of the house, it doesn’t end with the event. We end up preparing for the memorial service, sending out the letters of condolences, packing up the memorial gear to send to the next of kin,” Thiesfeld said. “Along with the commander, in some cases you end up being the face, the point of contact for that next of kin. It opens up reminders. That was the biggest drain.”

The Army does a good job, he said, of helping soldiers deal with the stress and hardships of deployment.

” We had a wonderful chaplain,” he said. “If you knew the person who was wounded or killed, he would come down and talk to our shop personally to see how we were doing.”

“It’s a tough job, but the philosophy is that we’re doing it for the soldiers,” he said. “I enjoy taking care of people. And I’ve met a lot of great people from putting them first before other things.”

“I love what I do,” he said.

Thiesfeld earned a Bronze Star Medal for his service during the deployment.

Article Source:  http://ourmilitaryheroes.defense.gov/profiles/thiesfeldM.html

On March 24, 2010, ArmedForcesEyewear.com, the military division of FramesDirect.com (the World’s Largest Online Optical Store), will unveil the first Virtual Eyewear Store at Goodfellow Air Force Base!

ArmedForcesEyewear.com is an online optical retailer for active duty and retired military personnel, as well as dependents. The site offers thousands of name brand eyeglasses, sunglasses, prescription sunglasses, and contact lenses at special military discount prices. They also offer a streamlined ordering process, a prescription lens guarantee and dependable customer service.

Goodfellow AFB serves as the pilot site for this project, and success in this location could lead to the implementation of additional kiosks in military installations worldwide.

For more information visit http://www.framesdirectblog.com/first-virtual-optical-store-serves-military-personnel/