Top Stories This Week on the Our Troops Newsladder

by Jason Forrester Veterans For America, Sun May 04, 2008 at 11:28:46 PM EDT

Here are the top stories this week related to our soldiers here and abroad, taken from the Our Troops Newsladder.

A report released Thursday from the Department of Veterans Affairs showed long-term TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) care to be lacking for most soldiers afflicted with it. (marinecorpstimes.com)

Alternet reports on the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil strategy at the DoD's sixth annual Suicide Prevention Conference. (alternet.org)

Spc. Natasha McKinnon of Raleigh, NC lost part of her leg to an IED in Iraq. Now a college student stateside, her and other veterans face difficulty in the transition from soldier to student. (newsobserver.com)

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), with 15 co-sponsors, introduced a bill, the Military Honor and Decency Act, which would keep pornography off store shelves on military bases. (rawstory.com)

The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued new rules reversing a years-long policy where the VA opposed helping patients and residents of VA campuses from registering to vote and voting. Advocates for veterans' rights lauded the new rule. (alternet.org)

Veterans of America is proud to sponsor the Our Troops Newsladder, a new tool to find the top news and articles in the progressive community by, about and for our troops.

Tags: military, PTSD, TBI, troops (all tags)

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Re: Top Stories This Week on the Our Troops

Thanks for this diary.
We should consider counting the suicides as part of the combat deaths and wake the Faux News watchers to the tragedy going on right here at home.
It's disgusting that the man in charge of dealing with this is trying to hide the actual numbers from the public.

In San Francisco federal court Monday, attorneys for veterans' rights groups accused the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs of nothing less than a cover-up - deliberately concealing the real risk of suicide among veterans.

"The system is in crisis and unfortunately the VA is in denial," said veterans rights attorney Gordon Erspamer.

The charges were backed by internal e-mails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's head of Mental Health.

In the past, Katz has repeatedly insisted while the risk of suicide among veterans is serious, it's not outside the norm.

"There is no epidemic in suicide in VA," Katz told Keteyian in November.

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And it appears that Katz went out of his way to conceal these numbers.

First, he titled his e-mail: "Not for the CBS News Interview Request."

He opened it with "Shh!" - as in keep it quiet - before ending with
"Is this something we should (carefully) address ... before someone stumbles on it?"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/2 1/cbsnews_investigates/main4032921.shtml

by skohayes 2008-05-05 03:45AM | 0 recs
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Good diary!

Why haven't more people commented here.  There's so much going on - we have to pay attention.

Thank you.

by Xanthe 2008-05-05 05:22AM | 0 recs

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