Veterans News Bureau

Friday’s Labor Department announcement that the U.S. economy grew 295,000 jobs in April includes some good news for post-9/11 veterans, whose unemployment rate dropped to 13.1 percent.

That is down from 14.7 percent reported in March for what the Labor Department describes as Gulf War-era II veterans, but it is still well above the April 2009 rate of 10.3 percent.

For veterans of all generations, the April unemployment rate was 9.1 percent, lower than the 9.9 percent national rate. While veterans are doing better overall than nonveterans, the job market still remains tougher today than one year ago, when the rate for all veterans was 8.5 percent.

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Veterans would get online access to their military personnel file and health and benefits records under legislation introduced in the House.

Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.), the sponsor of the Improving Veterans Electronic Transition Services (iVets) Act, wants to help ease the transition from military life to civilian life by enabling veterans to access their service records electronically in a veterans-only Web portal. The proposed Web portal also would offer a “white pages” directory of veterans, e-mail and a direct communications link with the Veterans Affairs Department.

Active duty military service members now use the Defense Department’s Defense Knowledge Online system to check their personnel records and benefits, but they lose access to the system once they become veterans.

For medical records, President Obama in April 2009 started efforts to create a joint DOD/VA seamless lifetime medical record for each service member that follows the person as he or she exits the military and becomes a veteran. Two pilot projects are currently taking place testing the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record and using the Health and Human Service Department’s Nationwide Health Information Network.

However, Tsongas, while recognizing those ongoing efforts, said her bill addresses a specific goal. Under Tsongas’ bill introduced May 5, an assessment would be made of whether a veterans Web portal can be created that is modeled after the Defense Knowledge Online system and able to access information from the DOD system.

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A former employee of a state veterans home in West Texas pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a felony charge of “striking, pushing, grabbing and forcefully handling” a resident in late 2007.

Bryson Vanderbilt, 25, entered the plea in Howard County District Court, where he was assigned a court-appointed attorney.

On March 25, a grand jury indicted Vanderbilt and Connie Mae Johnson, 52, both of whom were certified nursing aides, and charged them with harming residents in separate incidents at the Lamun-Lusk-Sanchez State Veterans Home in Big Spring.

Vanderbilt is accused of injuring John Harris, a World War II Navy veteran who died in May 2008 at age 98. Johnson is accused of hurting Albert Teague, a Marine who died in October 2009. Vanderbilt and Johnson were fired by the company the state hired to run the veterans home, Austin-based Senior Dimensions.

Johnson is expected to be arraigned soon, said Howard County District Attorney Hardy Wilkerson.

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TAMPA — The story of Cmdr. Howard Bonifacio and the missing officers of the U.S. Navy Veterans Association has taken a new twist.

After a search for Bonifacio and other officials of the charity turned up nothing but “dirt and mesquite” last month, the New Mexico attorney general declared that the officers appeared to be fictional and ordered the Navy Veterans to cease all fundraising in that state.

That might have put the matter to rest, except the Navy Veterans chose to write the office of New Mexico Attorney General Gary King to explain the confusion about Bonifacio’s address.

Now the attorney general has opened a formal investigation. A spokesman said he could not divulge details until “something becomes public, such as an indictment or a lawsuit.”

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Via The Pentagon Channel

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A former Carpinteria resident who posed as a military officer and fraudulently solicited donations has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, authorities said.

James Kent Barbee, 60, had been living in Carpinteria when he committed the offenses, which included setting up a foundation and soliciting donations that he told donors would be used to help veterans suffering from combat-related injuries and stress. Instead, investigators said he used significant amounts of donated money for personal expenses.

“The harm from Barbee’s conduct is that it weakens the public’s confidence in legitimate charitable organizations and is a disgrace to the honor of all who have served in the armed forces of this great nation,” Richard Gwin, a special agent with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, said in a news release.

During his guilty plea, the defendant reportedly told a U.S. District judge that he set up the Liberty Spirit Farm Foundation in Missouri before moving it to the Santa Ynez Valley.

In addition to collecting donations and claiming that the foundation was affiliated with Vandenberg Air Force Base, the defendant also claimed to be an active commander in the U.S. Navy.

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The Chicago Tribune examines the cost of PTSD and other psychological disorders:

Compensating veterans with psychological scars has helped fuel a 76 percent surge in service-related disability costs since 2003, the Tribune found, burdening an already overwhelmed system and underscoring the reality that the biggest costs of war are not often immediate or visible.

Studies suggest costs will continue to soar. The percentage of military evacuations from Iraq and Afghanistan that were attributed to mental disorders has increased sharply in the last four years, a recent Defense Department study shows. Another survey of about 100,000 Afghanistan and Iraq veterans found that 31 percent had been diagnosed with mental health or psychosocial problems.

“When you look at the epidemic of PTSD, you see the future,” said Harvard University’s Linda Bilmes, co-author of the 2008 book “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.”

The Tribune’s analysis of claim records from the Department of Veterans Affairs found that vets’ psychological wounds are by far the most expensive type of disability. Compensating wartime veterans since Vietnam for PTSD and other mental conditions is four to five times costlier than the average for all disability categories, the Tribune found. Victims of PTSD also are more likely to suffer other serious and costly health problems than other disabled veterans. In short, they are sicker.

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WASHINGTON, April 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — On Friday, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) held a press conference in San Diego, announcing the launch of a new program: Fix VA. The program focuses attention on problems with claims processing at the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), and seeks to work with the VA, the President, and Congress to implement a series of practical solutions.

VCS announced the launch of a new www.FixVA.org website at the press conference.

VCS Executive Director Paul Sullivan spoke. Congressman Bob Filner, Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, attended the press conference and made comments in support of the new program, VCS, and VBA reform.

“Too many people think that VA means ‘Veteran’s Adversary’,” said Congressman Filner. “What we want is to make VA mean ‘Veterans’ Advocate’. That’s our aim in all this.”

“More than one million veterans have a claim pending at VBA,” said Paul Sullivan. “Veterans with a pending claim wait, on average, six months for an initial answer to a disability claim. When VBA denies a veteran’s claim, then a veteran waits, on average, another four or five years for a decision. That’s wrong. That’s absolutely unacceptable.”

VCS presented nine VBA problems and nine solutions. The problems included the 23-page claim form that wounded and disabled veterans must complete to access benefits, the lack of VBA representatives at VA health facilities, the outdated reliance on a paper processing system, and a culture that is adversarial towards our nation’s veterans.

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