Report: 8,763 vets died waiting for benefits

Posted : Thursday Jul 17, 2008 6:58:56 EDT
  
The title of the House committee report sums up what happened: “Die or Give Up Trying: How Poor Contractor Performance, Government Mismanagement and the Erosion of Quality Controls Denied Thousands of Disabled Veterans Timely and Accurate Retroactive Retired Pay Awards.”

The report by the majority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform domestic policy panel, released Tuesday, concluded that at least 28,283 disabled retirees were denied retroactive pay awards because rushed efforts to clear a huge backlog of claims led program administrators to stop doing quality assurance checks on the claims decisions.

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Enlisted valor-award recipients often don’t get ‘full’ ceremony.

An enlisted service member killed in battle and posthumously awarded the Silver Star for heroism is rendered lesser honors at Arlington National Cemetery than an officer who dies in a car crash the day after being commissioned.

That statement took officials at several veterans’ organizations by surprise. But it is true: Burial honors at Arlington, the nation’s most storied military cemetery and home of the Tomb of the Unknowns, are accorded strictly by rank, not by the circumstances of death.

"That is the custom that has been prescribed," said Jack Metzler, the superintendent at Arlington for the past 17 years.

Most enlisted troops receive "standard honors" — military pallbearers, a firing party led by a noncommissioned officer, a bugler and, on request, a chaplain.

All others receive variations on "full honors," which also include a horse-drawn caisson, a band and, if requested, escort troops. The only enlisted troops who may receive full honors are those in the highest enlisted grade, E-9.

Medal of Honor recipients, regardless of rank, also rate the caisson in addition to standard honors.

That custom is due for a change, Sgt. 1st Class Robert Durbin wrote in an e-mail to Military Times:

"The two types of funerals are dramatically different," said Durbin, referring to standard versus full-honors military funerals. "In a place our nation considers to be the ‘most hallowed grounds in America,’ a place that demands our respect, I think this issue deserves to be looked at.

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The night before he was to enter a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, Army Pfc. Chris Eckert swallowed a pill prescribed to help him sleep without the nightmares that have tormented him since he left Iraq.

Then, sitting in his barracks at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Jan. 17, he counted out seven methadone tablets and popped them into his mouth.

The next morning, his squad leader found him on the floor in a puddle of his own vomit, but still alive.

“They told me, ‘Your son is not going to make it,’ ” said Eckert’s mother, Rose Szymborski. “He was on life support for five days.”

Since June 2007, 11 troops have died in the Army’s Wounded Warrior units, according to Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army’s Surgeon General.

Eckert’s mother blames the Army for not looking out for him, while Army officials say Eckert needed to do more to help himself. But both sides agree his case is an example of the difficulties of treating troops working through substance-abuse issues linked to post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries.

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Knight Ridder | January 28, 2008

For St. Paul’s last VFW hall, it’s closing time.

On one recent afternoon, 84-year-old Gordon Kirk, commander of VFW Post 8854, was the only veteran in the place.

He drifted past the war memorabilia and a case packed with sports trophies from the 1960s. “We had some wonderful times here,” he murmured.

Those memories, like the VFW, are fading. Kirk is planning to sell the building as soon as he can find a buyer.

It will be the last of about 15 halls to close, making all nine of the city’s VFW posts homeless, meeting in community centers or libraries.

Across the country, the number of VFW posts is dropping, as an estimated 1,500 World War II veterans die each day. Membership has dropped about 17 percent since 1992 to 1.8 million members.

Minnesota is losing about six VFW posts a year and now has 268 — down by one-third from the peak.

The exceptions are VFW clubs that successfully recruit veterans of Vietnam and the Middle East conflicts, and the American Legion posts.

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By Marilynn Marchione – The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jan 31, 2008 5:50:07 EST
(Emphasis added)

The role of traumatic brain injury — blamed for symptoms plaguing thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq — might be overstated, contends a provocative military study that offers hope for successful treatment.

In many cases, post-traumatic stress and depression may be driving the symptoms, doctors reported Wednesday. And that’s good news because those are treatable.

Returning soldiers have struggled with memory loss, irritability, trouble sleeping and other problems. Many have suffered mild blast-related concussions, but there is no easy way to separate which symptoms are due to physical damage and which are from mental problems caused by the traumatic stress of war. Imaging of the brain is being tested, but hasn’t yet proven to be helpful.

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