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Lawmakers Urge Obama To Bypass Congress To Confront Sexual Assault In The Military

By Hayes Brown on May 17, 2013 at 10:30 am

(Credit: AP)

The military’s sexual assault crisis has been in the headlines consistently for the past two weeks, leading two members of Congress to call on President Obama to take executive action and fix it.

Sen. John Tester (D-MT) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) introduced the Ruth Moore Act of 2013 earlier this year to help the victims of sexual assault receive benefits once they leave the military. At present, the burden of proof for victims of rape and sexual assault to qualify for disability benefits for conditions related to their trauma, including treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, is shockingly high, leaving many men and women unable to receive the care they need. A scheduled hearing on the bill was meant to take place on Wednesday, but has instead been delayed until June 3.

Rather than waiting for the Ruth Moore Act to pass, the bill’s sponsors sent Obama a letter on Thursday calling on him to use his authority as president to act now:

We commend your willingness to work with Congress to address the prevalence of sexual assault in the military. However, given the increasing rate of these assaults and the dramatic implications they are having on our service members, veterans, and their families, we strongly urge you to take further action to confront this crisis. In particular, you have the ability to provide justice for thousands of survivors of service-related sexual trauma by calling for more fairness in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability claims process, and increasing their ability to access the benefits they desperately need. [...]

Our legislation continues to garner support in Congress and has been endorsed by every major veterans’ service organization. Legislation, however, is not necessary to keep faith with these veterans. In 2010, the VA relaxed evidentiary standards to make it easier for combat veterans suffering from PTSD to get the disability benefits they need. It is past time the VA make a similar regulatory change for MST survivors. And you can direct them to do so.

Sexual assault and rape culture in the military has reached a tipping point in the last two weeks, with multiple stories about officials in positions to prevent assaults being charged or investigated for sexual assault themselves. “We’re losing the confidence of the women who serve that we can solve this problem,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Thursday. “That’s a crisis.”
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Security

Soldiers Sent Back Into Combat After Concussion Suffer Consequences Years Later

By Hayes Brown on May 6, 2013 at 1:24 pm

(Credit: Tyler Hicks, via Scientific American)

A report aired on 60 Minutes on Sunday shed light on the under-reported threat combat soldiers faced when sent back out into the theater with a concussion, a decision that has had long-lasting repercussions on American veterans.

For years, concussions have been an invisible and therefore neglected injury within the armed services. At the height of the Iraq War, the standard operating procedure was to have soldiers who had sustained head injuries from the explosion of IEDs or other trauma to go back out into the field soon thereafter. In doing so, these soldiers — suffering from symptoms including severe aches, double vision, and nausea — were put at risk of suffering a second concussion before the first had healed, an event that heightens the chance of permanent brain damage.

Maj. Ben Richards, a retired Army veteran, was one of the soldiers sent back out after a concussion who has now been diagnosed with brain injury. “If I could trade traumatic brain injury for a single-leg amputation, I’d probably do that in a second,” he told 60 Minutes, underscoring the difference between visible injuries and those hidden inside the brain. Before his new diagnosis, Richards was told he instead had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “If you have PTSD and you are not improving through counseling, then it’s your fault,” Richards said of the stigma that still accompanies such a diagnosis. “It was my fault that I wasn’t getting better.”

Watch the full segment here:

Dr. David Hovda, head of UCLA’s Brain Injury Research Center, tried to explain the severity of even mild concussions on soldiers to the Pentagon in 2008. Instead, he was told it was “bad medicine” to keep soldiers out of the field to rest after a concussion, with an assembled team of Army doctors claiming that, because of the stigma that would entail, allowing for rest before being sent back out would make soldiers worse. Gen. Peter Chiarrelli — then the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, now an advocate for mental health in the military — chose to side with Dr. Hovda in 2009 anyway, issuing an order saying that all forces who suffered concussions would be pulled from combat until their recovery.

Despite Chiarrelli’s decision, the numbers still aren’t good for veterans. 357,000 veterans — or about 20 percent of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan — have experienced a traumatic brain injury as of January 2009. Despite that, only 46 percent of those who experienced a mild traumatic brain injury were screened for a concussion. At its peak in 2011, the Department of Defense reported 16 new concussions were inflicted per day.

Last year, the NFL donated $30 million to study concussions, in partnership with the U.S. military. Efforts are also under way to raise some $90 million to construct more brain injury centers along the lines of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, the military’s most advanced brain injury evaluation center. Nine additional centers would enable the military to care for 9,000 brain injuries per year, the amount of new injuries officials expect as the war in Afghanistan winds down.

Security

Poll: Veterans Support Gun Background Checks & Ban On High-Capacity Clips

By John Halpin, Guest Blogger on Apr 12, 2013 at 3:00 pm

With accounts of accidental shooting deaths and injuries appearing almost daily, the question of irresponsible gun ownership is moving to the forefront of public discussion as the U.S. Congress continues to debate steps to reduce gun violence.  A fascinating new poll by the Global Strategy Group for Vote Vets and the Center for American Progress Action Fund sheds some light on what veterans, those Americans intimately familiar with responsible gun ownership, think of the current state of gun laws in the United States. The short version: not much.

Only 7 percent of American veterans say they are very confident that those who have not served in the military take seriously the responsibilities that come with gun ownership (57 percent somewhat or very confident).  By contrast, 46 percent of veterans say they are very confident that veterans in general take their gun ownership responsibilities seriously (92 percent somewhat or very confident):

Additionally, more than 8 in 10 veterans (85 percent) agree with the idea “that we can protect responsible gun owners’ Second Amendment rights while still making it more difficult for criminals and other dangerous people to obtain guns.” What do vets think about the gun violence reduction measures being discussed on Capitol Hill? Even though 50 percent of veterans self-identify as “conservative” in this poll, they are mostly all for them:

  • More than nine in 10 veterans (91 percent) support requiring a criminal background check of every person who wants to buy a firearm, including 74 percent who strongly support it.
  • Nearly all veterans (99 percent) support increasing criminal penalties for people convicted of illegally trafficking guns to criminals, including 91% who strongly support it.
  • More than six in 10 veterans (61 percent) support banning high-capacity ammunition magazines, including 45 percent who strongly support it.
  • Nearly six in 10 veterans (58 percent) support banning assault-style weapons, including 40 percent who strongly support it.

The message from America’s veterans is clear —  other Americans need to take more responsibility with their guns and sensible gun measures are consistent with our constitutional rights.

Security

National Security Brief: Report Says Vets Lack Adequate Care Upon Returning From War

By ThinkProgress on Mar 27, 2013 at 9:10 am


A new study released on Tuesday by the Institute of Medicine found that the Department of Defense and the Veterans Affairs Departments are not providing adequate care for the 44 percent of U.S. troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have “reported difficulties after they returned,” such as mental and physical ailments.

“Although several federal agencies are actively trying to address the support needs of current and former service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as their families, the response has been slow and has not matched the magnitude of this population’s requirements as many cope with a complex set of health, economic, and other challenges,” said report co-author George Rutherford.

Among its findings, the report said the VA and DOD should properly assess whether certain treatments for returning troops are effective and that they should “link and integrate” their databases to track personnel issues more closely. The report also said DOD and the VA should “expand its definition of family” to include unmarried partners, same sex couples, single parents and stepfamilies and it questioned the DOD’s policy that bans preventing vets access to private weapons “even if a service member is at risk from suicide.”

In other news:

  • The Wall Street Journal reports: Israel’s apology to Turkey over a deadly 2010 raid will boost cooperation over Syria’s civil war, but it also has a compelling economic incentive: the possible export of billions of dollars of Israeli natural gas to Turkey and beyond, say analysts and officials.
  • Britain’s Channel 4 news program aired a grim report this week from the Syrian city of Aleppo, where rebels have been engaged in a fierce battle with government forces for total control of Syria’s largest city. The report highlights the role children are playing in caring for wounded rebel fighters in mostly deplorable conditions. “In the beginning, when I saw blood, I would shiver and be frightened but now I see blood as water I don’t have any problem when I see it,” one child caregiver said. Watch the report (warning: very graphic scenes):

    • Health

    STUDY: States Refusing To Expand Medicaid Will Leave Over 200,000 Low-Income Veterans Uninsured

    By Sy Mukherjee on Mar 26, 2013 at 4:30 pm

    Adding to the extensive body of evidence that participating in Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion is both smart fiscal policy and the right move for securing poor Americans’ health care, a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Urban Institute study concludes that states refusing to expand Medicaid will leave over 200,000 low-income, uninsured veterans and two-thirds of uninsured veterans’ spouses without access to affordable health coverage.

    According to the report, out of America’s 1.3 million uninsured veterans, 40 percent could qualify for expanded Medicaid benefits under Obamacare, but “of the half-million uninsured veterans who would be potentially Medicaid eligible under the ACA, three-quarters—414,000 people—have incomes below 100 percent of FPL and would not qualify for exchange subsidies if their state does not expand Medicaid. Likewise, two-thirds of veterans’ spouses who could qualify for expanded Medicaid under the ACA would not be eligible for exchange subsidies should their state not expand Medicaid.”

    That’s bad news considering that the majority of those veterans live in states whose governors have either chosen not to expand Medicaid or have not yet decided whether to expand. That presents a massive burden for veterans — and veterans’ families — who don’t have health insurance, pricing them out of the medical system and forcing them to forgo or delay care due to its associated costs.

    And this study doesn’t even take into account the tens of thousands of veterans who have yet to return home from the waning Afghanistan war. Those veterans are mostly young Americans who will be forced to confront the widespread economic inequality, record homelessness, and unprecedented levels of PTSD and suicide that are plaguing veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars.

    Health

    New Mexico Will Provide Returning Veterans With Free Mental Health Care For A Year

    By Sy Mukherjee on Mar 15, 2013 at 1:50 pm

    Faced with a Veterans’ Affairs Department (VA) overwhelmed by medical claims and more and more American soldiers returning from the war in Afghanistan, the state of New Mexico has decided to provide recently-discharged veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with a critical resource: one year of free mental health services.

    As per New Mexico Department of Veterans’ Services Secretary Timothy Hale, “This is the first collaborative effort between private and state agencies in the country to provide statewide pro-bono mental health counseling for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. This means nearly 500 veterans in the state can receive the immediate help they need now rather than waiting for any veterans’ benefits paperwork to be filled out and processed – which can take awhile to be completed.”

    That’s crucial for the soldiers returning home from recent conflicts, considering that the VA has a backlog of over 900,000 unprocessed medical claims — and that’s just from current veterans. As the war in Afghanistan winds down, that problem will be exacerbated further, particularly for mental health care claims. By the VA’s own estimates, at least 15 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) — and that number could potentially be much higher considering the sky-high rates of suicide and homelessness among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

    The program is being sponsored by a combination of state and federal Access To Recovery (ATR) programs, as well as local providers and nonprofits. On the webpage for the new program, New Mexico ATR specifically cites VA backlogs and waiting periods associated with claims-processing as a major reason that New Mexican veterans might want to consider the program, along with “previous failures accessing and navigating the system,” transportation barriers, and “the stigma related with mental health care.”

    While the collaborative public-private partnership will relieve a major burden for New Mexican veterans by enhancing access to care and shielding them from the high costs of mental health treatment, such efforts aren’t necessarily fiscally feasible in other states. New Mexico’s ATR program — which is funded substantially through the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) — is one of the best in the nation, and therefore receives enhanced federal funding. So while New Mexico may be shielded from the effects of looming federal budget cuts to departments such as the SAMHSA and the VA, veterans in other states might not be so lucky.

    Health

    Military Leaders: Sequester Cuts Will Prevent Veterans From Accessing Mental Health Services

    By Sy Mukherjee on Mar 14, 2013 at 3:35 pm

    During a hearing before the House Military Personnel Subcommittee Wednesday, American civilian and military leaders issued lawmakers a stark warning: federal budget cutbacks under the so-called “sequester” will leave veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other mental illnesses without access to the health care that they desperately need.

    The sequester cuts will force multiple governmental departments to cut back on programs or eliminate them entirely. Charged with taking care of the staggering percentage of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans with PTSD, the Defense Department has had to increasingly rely on civilian mental health specialists to address the backlog. In fact, out of the 2,118 psychologists, 809 psychiatrists, and 2,533 social workers now employed by the military — a substantial increase over past years — over half are civilians. But under sequestration, the Department has been bracing for massive cuts to this civilian workforce, and is preparing to send notices to “more than 800,000 Defense Department civilian workers telling them that once-a-week unpaid furloughs will begin in April and continue for 22 weeks.”

    As Military.com reports, that is particularly problematic for the military when it comes to these civilian mental health specialists because “they have options to seek employment elsewhere” and might be tempted to do so seeing as they are not exempt from the furloughs:

    Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, the Army’s surgeon general, has lobbied to exempt the mental health specialists from furloughs to retain them for treating PTSD. The Pentagon has said that 20 percent of the civilian workforce will be exempt from furloughs. However, it did not look like the mental health specialists would receive that exemption, said Col. Rebecca Porter, the chief of Behavioral Health in Horoho’s office.

    “We value these individuals greatly,” Porter said of the mental health workers. “If they start to go out the door, it’s going to take a lot longer for us to rebuild that” mental health workforce, Porter told a defense writers breakfast Tuesday.

    “We have in the past offered retention bonuses, but that’s not specifically on the table now,” said Porter, a former military police officer and now a clinical psychologist whose main task is treating PTSD in the Army.

    Her comments echoed those of Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, who told a Senate hearing last month that “before sequestration, we allocated the dollars and positions to increase military and civilian mental health providers.”

    “The problem is there are not enough out there,” Odierno said. “Now what’s going to happen is we’re going to have to reduce the number we already have.”

    The officials’ testimony is a clear-cut demonstration of the real world consequences brought on by budget cuts that lawmakers and the media tend to discuss in rather shallow terms. Budget cuts to military health care programs are also particularly cruel considering the already-massive backlog of over 900,000 veterans’ benefit claims — a problem that will be exacerbated as more military personnel return home from the waning Afghan war. Those veterans will already be plagued by poverty and a bleak economic outlook when they return home — and under sequestration, their mental health care outlook is even worse.

    Health

    How Economic Inequality Could Take A Bigger Toll On Veterans’ Mental Health Than Warfare Itself

    By Sy Mukherjee on Mar 11, 2013 at 3:35 pm

    A new study on mental health in war-ravaged Afghanistan conducted by researchers at the Washington University in St. Louis comes to a jarring conclusion: socioeconomic indicators such as poverty and social vulnerability are more telling risk factors for mental illness than even exposure to warfare. While the study in question is centered on Afghans’ mental health outlooks in the waning years of the Afghan war, its lessons — and implications — are just as applicable to another group in the region that has been living with a decade’s worth of violent and traumatic experiences: the enlisted men and women of the United States military.

    The report is quick to point out that it’s not claiming that warfare isn’t a significant contributor to mental health concerns. But as an issue of systemic public health risk, underlying socioeconomic insecurity in the Afghan people was found to be a more significant and lasting indicator of mental wellness:

    “War exposure is undisputedly a factor of mental distress and anxiety, but other predictors, such as poverty and vulnerability, are stronger and probably more persistent risk factors that have not received deserved attention in policy decisions,” says Jean-Francois Trani, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University and lead author of a new study published in the online first edition of Transcultural Psychiatry.

    “Political unrest and violence is fueled by despair and frustrations often associated with mental distress,” Trani says. “A lack of resources or inability to find work make it impossible to assume one’s social status. That, in turn, leads to distress that can conduct to young men choosing a path of violent opposition to authorities and an international presence.”

    The study… shows that even in a time of war, mental health is influenced by a combination of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics linked to social exclusion mechanisms — factors that were in place before war began.

    “The conflict magnifies factors that were already in place,” Trani says, “and are redefined in relation to the changing social, cultural and economic contexts.”

    To state the obvious, the report was done in the context of Afghanistan, a country with a high level of unrest and generally weak institutions. But the trends outlined in the study may also resonate with Afghanistan war veterans — a group that skews younger and more racially diverse than the general population — considering the socioeconomic exclusions and insecurities that they face here in the U.S. after returning home from combat:

    The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans estimates that some 1.5 million veterans are at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks and dismal, overcrowded, living conditions. Veterans are much more likely than the population at large to suffer from homelessness, comprising 23 percent of the homeless population even though only 8 percent of the population at large can claim veteran status.

    Afghanistan War veterans are particularly at risk because of their young age and their exposure to combat with its psychological effects. Some seventy percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans had exposure to combat. About 30,700 are expected to leave the military in each of the next four years as the military reduces its ranks. About 13 percent of homeless Afghan and Iraq war veterans are women, and almost 50 percent of all homeless veterans are African American.

    Read more

    Security

    Veterans Disability Costs Double After Iraq And Afghanistan

    By Hayes Brown on Jan 16, 2013 at 10:28 am

    Though the war in Iraq has ended and combat in Afghanistan is winding down, the cost of providing disability coverage to those who fought those battles has doubled since 2000, USA Today reports. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, granting adequate coverage to military veterans has ballooned in cost from $14.8 billion in 2000 to $39.4 billion in 2011. That number tracks with previous statistics that showed 45 percent of 1.6 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have sought disability benefits.

    A large portion of that increase comes from more awareness of the benefits afforded to veterans — due to legislation since the Vietnam war — and a boost in the number of conditions covered by the VA, including PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. The result is a higher number of claims across the board for more conditions:

    The average number of conditions compensated for each veteran has grown from 2.3 for the World War II generation to 3.5 for those from the Vietnam War to six for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the VA says.

    About one in seven disabled veterans were rated more than 70% disabled in 2000; today, that ratio is more than one in four, data show. Average annual payouts per veteran have risen to $11,737 in 2011 — an increase of nearly 40% after adjusting for inflation.

    USA Today charts the numbers:

    The rise in disability costs in a time of potential budget cuts add to the difficulties veterans continue to face in transitioning from service to private life. The rising rate and complexity of their cases has caused a backlog for those seeking benefits from the VA, with the average case requiring over two hundred days to be resolved. Meanwhile, while veteran unemployment fell to its lowest number in the Obama presidency in August, the rate for post-9/11 veterans continues to be higher than the national average, impacting the strain on the VA benefits system.

    Security

    Walmart Pledges To Hire Veterans Seeking Employment

    By Ben Armbruster on Jan 15, 2013 at 9:57 am

    Walmart U.S. president and CEO William Simon is expected to announce on Tuesday that the company will hire any U.S. veteran who wants a job provided that the veteran has left the military within the last year and has not been dishonorably discharged.

    “Let’s be clear; hiring a veteran can be one of the best decisions any of us can make,” Simon will say according to his prepared remarks. “Veterans have a record of performance under pressure. They’re quick learners, and they’re team players. These are leaders with discipline, training, and a passion for service. There is a seriousness and sense of purpose that the military instills, and we need it today more than ever.”

    First Lady Michele Obama, who, along with Dr. Jill Biden, heads up the Obama administration’s “Joining Forces” program designed to put returning veterans to work, applauded Walmart’s “historic” decision. “We all believe that no one who serves our country should have to fight for a job once they return home,” Mrs. Obama said in a statement. “Wal-Mart is setting a groundbreaking example for the private sector to follow.”

    The unemployment rate for veterans, while steadily falling, has remained much higher than the national average, as servicemembers returning from war have struggled to find work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this month that he unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans was at 10.8 percent (well above the national average of 7.8 percent). However Veterans Affairs noted that “the annual jobless rate for post-9/11 Vets was 9.9 percent in 2012; a significant drop from the annual average in 2011 of 12.1 percent.”

    “The military instilled in you a sense of pride, honed your leadership skills and drew on the deep sense of purpose you carry throughout everything you do,” says Walmart’s “Careers With A Mission” website, “Continue making the most of these traits without compromise at Walmart.” The company says it hopes to hire more than 100,000 veterans under the new program.

    Walmart became involved in the Obama administration’s “Joining Forces” program in 2011, announcing that it “guarantees a job at a nearby store or club for all military personnel, and military spouses, employed at Walmart and Sam’s Club who move to a different part of the country because they or their spouse have been transferred by the United States military.”

    “They like military people because they have a sense of hierarchy and a commitment to the organization they are in,” Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California who wrote a book on Walmart, told the New York Times. “And that’s important to Wal-Mart.”

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