The Vietnam War Anniversary
The Defense Department plans to kick off any time now the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Vietnam War — even though we’re already three months into the 50th year.Like anything else involved with the war, it’s hard to figure out exactly when it started, because casualties go back to 1956. But I guess that Defense officials have decided the start of the war was 1960, the date on the Vietnam campaign ribbon. That would make the 50th anniversary 2010.
By Bob Brewin 03/25/10 05:23 pm ET
Congress established the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War Commemoration Commission in the 2008 Defense Authorization Act, which President Bush signed on Jan. 28, 2008.But it took until this week for Defense to get around to seek help to develop the 50th anniversary Web site.Hopefully, the site will be in operation before the year ends, but if not, it’s typical of my experience as a Marine Corps Vietnam Veteran who had to wait until Nov. 13, 1982, to have a parade in Washington. That was seven years after the last combat action.I have one suggestion for the commemoration commission: If you look carefully at the campaign ribbon above, you will quickly notice it has no end date. I think someone at the commission or Defense Secretary Robert Gates needs to come up with an end date before we end this anniversary year.
Man Who Posed as Hero Marine Is Sentenced
Richard C. Paddock San Francisco CorrespondentAOL NewsSAN FRANCISCO (March 15) — A Palm Springs bank employee who posed as a highly decorated Marine lieutenant colonel at his high school reunion was sentenced today to a year of probation and ordered to undergo mental health counseling.During a court hearing in Riverside, Steven Douglas Burton also was ordered to pay a fine of $250 by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips for wearing a medal he did not earn.Burton, 39, who wore a full-dress uniform with a prestigious Navy Cross, a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star to his school reunion in Martinez, was unmasked by a former classmate who was a Navy commander and became suspicious when she saw his stunning array of medals.
U.S. Attorney’s OfficeSteven Douglas Burton’s Web site contained photos of him wearing the Marine Corps uniform proudly. He had rows of medals, including a prestigious Navy Cross, a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.ALSO SEE: Military Impostors Are Neither Few Nor ProudBurton never served in the military but bought uniforms and at least 15 medals online and at military stores. He pleaded guilty in December to one misdemeanor count for the unauthorized wearing of a military medal.He had been facing up to a year in prison and a fine of $100,000 under the federal Stolen Valor Act.Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Akrotirianakis, who prosecuted the case, said the government did not seek jail time because there was no evidence that Burton enriched himself by posing as a military hero.However, citizen activists who track false claims of military heroism expressed disappointment that Burton did not receive a tougher sentence for engaging in his deception, and as a deterrent to others.”Disgusting,” Mary Schantag of the POW Network told AOL News after learning of the sentence. “Not near enough punishment. That just gives all the rest reason to continue.”Schantag said there are thousands of phony military heroes around the country who have never been prosecuted. Often, she said, their claims of valor are part of a larger fraud that includes stealing money and preying on vulnerable women.The POW Network Website lists more than 3,700 “phonies and wannabes” who falsely claim to be heroes, including supposed medal recipients, combat veterans and former prisoners of war.Don Shipley, a former Navy SEAL who runs the Extreme SEAL Experience training program for civilians in Virginia, became so upset by the growing number of fake heroes that he posted a video on YouTube showing photos of dozens of alleged phonies, including Burton.Doug Sterner, an independent watchdog who operates the Home of Heroes Web site, advocates tougher laws and the creation of an official registry of medal winners so the public can verify claims of heroism.He also expressed disappointment over Burton’s sentence, which he called “a slap on the wrist.”"The proliferation of this kind of identify theft and fraud will continue until the public begins to fully understand the depth to which this kind of fraud goes, and until judges begin handing out sentences that make this crime no longer profitable,” he told AOL News.In an opinion article for USA Today last week, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley questioned whether military imposters should be treated as criminals. He suggested that while their conduct was offensive, they might be engaging in constitutionally protected free speech.Sterner, however, strongly disagrees. He argues that most of the phony heroes are engaged in some sort of fraud and use their false claims of bravery as part of a charade to extract money from victims.”There is almost always fraud associated with these cases, but all too often it is not discovered until much later,” Sterner said.In Burton’s case, he admitted in his plea agreement that he wore his unearned medals at least three times in public, including at a Halloween party.During a visit to Coronado Island near San Diego, he posed as a master gunnery sergeant and later posted a photo of himself in uniform. He also blogged about imagined wartime experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. Claiming that he served four tours in Iraq, he wrote that he was at the Battle of Fallujah and praised doctors who “patched us up.”In his plea agreement, he said he selected the Marine Corps because he liked its uniforms more than those in the other services. He admitted that he wore the uniform of a lieutenant colonel to his 20th reunion at Alhambra High School in October 2008 to impress his former classmates.His downfall came when Navy Cmdr. Colleen Salonga saw his uniform and noticed the Navy Cross, which is one of the nation’s highest honors and is rarely awarded. She recalled Burton from high school as the kind of boy who was unlikely to join the Marines, much less become a highly decorated hero. She asked Burton if they could pose together for a photo and afterward sent the picture to the FBI.”At the time, defendant knew that his claims of military service were false,” the plea agreement says, “and that his wearing of military decorations for valor was a violation of federal law.”
Disabled veterans’ firms get a boost from California
By Cyndia ZwahlenFebruary 22, 2010
Recent changes encourage awarding more contracts to such companies.
With thousands of service members returning home to California after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new push is underway to help disabled veterans get more work — especially those who own or are launching small businesses.”These guys coming back need a start,” said Robert Brown, a disabled veteran who owns a business in San Clemente and is president of the California Disabled Veterans Business Alliance.U.S. veterans — particularly disabled ones — are eligible for a wide variety of government benefits for medical care, housing and education. In California, efforts to award more state contracts to small businesses owned by service-disabled veterans have been getting more attention recently.”The idea here is to help them succeed and make a successful transition from the military to civilian life — to productive, taxpaying employers who can hire people,” said J.P. Tremblay, deputy secretary for legislation and communications at the California Department of Veterans Affairs. Many veteran-owned businesses hire other former service members, he noted.Although the overall number of California veterans has declined from 2.3 million to just less than 2.1 million in the last few years, the state’s number of combat veterans has increased. And a higher proportion of them are disabled — because medical technology has improved the odds of surviving severe injuries, Tremblay said.In all, there are 243,443 veterans in California receiving monthly disability compensation, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And 1,119 businesses owned by disabled veterans are registered with the state.California has long had a goal to award at least 3% of its contract dollars to businesses owned by disabled veterans. It has not yet met that goal, advocates said, but it may be close. The figure is expected to be about 2.97% for fiscal year 2009.Activists are hopeful about the year ahead. Financial incentives have been on the books since 2006 to boost state agencies’ use of businesses owned by disabled veterans.Now, two recent developments are expected to help disabled-veteran business owners tap into more of the roughly $9 billion California spends each year on contracting and purchasing.One new law took effect Jan. 1. It requires proof from companies that win state contracts that they made good on their promises to use disabled-veteran-owned businesses as subcontractors. If they can’t, they face penalties of up to $25,000.The other legal change, approved last summer, eliminated a controversial provision of state law that critics said allowed the contractors to get around a requirement that they use businesses owned by disabled veterans.Called the “good-faith effort” provision, it let companies submit a form saying they had tried in good faith to hire firms owned by disabled veterans, even if they didn’t succeed.The elimination of the good-faith-effort provision was good news for Americal Contractors Corp., a painting company based in Pomona. The change took effect July 28. Within a week, co-owner Doug Nye said, Americal got its first state contract.Now the firm has $556,000 in contracts on the books and an additional $270,000 out to bid, said Nye, a Vietnam War veteran and former real estate broker who started Americal in 2008.”It has turned our business around,” Nye said. He said the new revenue would allow Americal to double its workforce to 70 painters by the end of the year.Not every disabled-veteran-owned business is expected to benefit so quickly, but activists are optimistic about the changes. “All the pieces are now working together,” said Richard Dryden, executive director of the California Disabled Veterans Business Alliance in Sacramento.
Army study explores deployment stress on soldiers’ children
A recent monograph published by the Strategic Studies Institute at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., sheds new light on how children are coping with parents’ multiple deployments after eight years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.The study, “The Effects of Multiple Deployments on Army Adolescents,” reinforces much of the conventional wisdom regarding stress and deployments, but it also breaks new ground, mainly in finding no clear link between the number of deployments soldiers undertake and the level of stress their children experience.”With almost a million children in Army families, the absence of a deployed parent will likely influence a generation of adolescents,” wrote authors Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras, both retired Army officers and now professors at the Army War College.Wong and Gerras examined the effects of multiple deployments through the eyes of the 2,006 soldiers they surveyed (all of whom had adolescent children and 36 percent of whom were deployed at the time), along with 718 spouses and 559 children between the ages of 11 and 17, who completed parallel versions of the study. In addition, the researchers interviewed more than 100 children at eight Army installations during the summer of 2009.Many previous studies relied exclusively on adult perspectives — usually from the spouse of the deployed soldier — to assess stress levels among children, the authors noted.Previous research showed that parents clearly associated multiple deployments with higher levels of stress among their children. Yet the Wong-Gerras study found that was not the case. Surprisingly, children aged 14 to 16 with a parent deployed reported lower stress levels than those without.”Why would soldiers perceive a cumulative effect of deployments while adolescents report a trend of decreasing stress with each deployment?” the researchers asked. “Perhaps soldiers tend to keep a teary farewell or an emotional phone call as the salient memory of their child during a deployment. Parents may tend to forget or at least not realize that children often mature through hardships.”Adolescents, on the other hand, may be reporting that instead of accumulating higher levels of stress with each new deployment, they have learned new coping strategies from previous experiences. In any case, the finding was unexpected, yet encouraging,” Wong and Gerras wrote.The researchers also found a surprising 56 percent of children reported they coped well or very well with a parent’s deployment, while 17 percent said they coped poorly or very poorly.”Before celebrating the unexpectedly high percentage of adolescents who claimed they handled deployments well, we must remember that the results can be extrapolated to imply that over 20,000 adolescent children in active-duty Army families alone are not coping well with deployments. … If one out of every six Army adolescents reports doing poorly with repeated deployments, the situation can hardly be considered acceptable,” Wong and Gerras wrote.Another interesting finding of the study was a majority of children did not know how many times their parent had deployed since Sept. 11, 2001.”While this lack of knowledge initially surprised us, upon reflection it made sense,” the report noted. “A 13-year-old girl, for example, may be unable to recount her experience with deployments from the time she was a 5-year-old. Nor is it unreasonable for a 12-year-old boy enduring his third deployment to be unsure whether his deployed father is currently in Iraq or Afghanistan.”The authors found that high participation levels in activities — especially sports, a strong family and an adolescent’s belief that the country supports the war in which his parent is fighting were important factors in lower stress levels. The strongest predictor of ability to cope, they noted, was the child’s perception that his parent was making a difference.”Multiple deployments have become a way of life for our soldiers,” wrote Gen. Charles Campbell, the top officer at Army Forces Command, in a foreword to the study. “This study goes beyond merely explaining the impact eight years of war is having on the children of our soldiers; rather, it explores specific factors that increase or alleviate stress on Army adolescents.”As such, the study and should influence policymakers, military leaders and parents “in this era of persistent conflict,” Campbell wrote.
By Katherine McIntire Peters kpeters@govexec.com February 10, 2010
U.S. Troops at Lowest Level in Iraq Since 2003 Invasion
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 The troop reduction comes at a critical time in Iraq as Washington questions the shaky democracy’s ability to maintain security in the tense period surrounding March 7 parliamentary elections. Those concerns have only grown with a decision by a vetting committee to bar hundreds of candidates from running because of suspected ties to Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party.The U.S. military plans on maintaining its current 98,000 boots on the ground in Iraq through the elections, 1st Lt. Elizabeth Feste, an army spokeswoman in Baghdad, told The Associated Press.That’s in line with what Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has said would remain in place until at least 60 days after the election — a period during which he believes Iraq’s new government will be at its most vulnerable.International observers fear that tension between the Shiite-dominated government and minority Sunnis may spill into the streets, re-igniting sectarian violence that could threaten the planned U.S. withdrawal.President Obama has ordered all but 50,000 troops to leave Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010, with the remainder pulling out by the end of next year under an Iraqi-American security agreement.”The withdrawal pace remains on target for about 50,000 at the end of August 2010,” Feste said.Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is running for re-election on a campaign promise to make Iraq independent from U.S. military help. At a campaign rally Tuesday, he signaled that the U.S. cannot expect to use Iraq as a launching pad for military action in the Middle East.He also cited a strong desire to improve relations with nations bordering Iraq that were seen as enemies during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Al-Maliki’s comments appeared to be directed at Iran, although he did not mention any countries by name.”We also confirm to all our neighboring and friendly countries that our constitution stipulates to not let the Iraqi territories be a springboard to harm security and interests of any state,” al-Maliki told supporters at a Baghdad hotel. A senior U.S. military official said Tuesday he expected the number of forces in the country by 2011 to be whittled down to between 20,000 and 30,000, with those remaining forces out by the end of 2011.Troop levels have fluctuated dramatically throughout the nearly seven-year war, shifts that generally reflected a change in U.S. strategy.During the height of the invasion in May 2003, about 150,000 U.S. forces were in Iraq. But that number quickly dropped off by January 2004, with American troops moving from a combat to occupation role.But by October 2005, the number climbed back up to 160,000 as the insurgency took hold in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. At the peak of the troop buildup in October 2007, there were roughly 170,000 troops on the ground as part of a counterinsurgency strategy known as the “surge.”Though the U.S. military has heavily touted the decline in overall violence and the success of Iraq’s security as the reason for its withdrawal, it also has repeatedly warned about an increase in attacks before the election.Commanders have said they do not expect violence to increase to levels that would require the return of U.S. troops onto the streets of Iraq’s cities. Privately, though, many question whether Iraq can keep the lid on violence once the U.S. pulls out completely by the end of 2011.A series of security lapses in recent months has allowed insurgents to repeatedly launch large-scale suicide bombing attacks against government sites as well as symbols of Western influence, such as hotels. Hundreds were killed in the attacks.Security forces have been the target of near daily, smaller attacks by insurgents seeking to derail public confidence.On Tuesday, a string of bombs targeted Iraqi army patrols and a police crime lab in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, an area where insurgents retain a foothold despite a sharp drop in violence across the rest of the country.In the first attack, a car bomb exploded outside a side entrance of the police crime lab in Mosul, said Lt. Col. Salim Ibrahim, an area commander. It killed two people and wounded seven, including five police officers, he said.Later, two roadside bombs struck separate Iraqi army patrols in eastern Mosul, killing two soldiers, an army official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release the information. Five people, including three civilians, were wounded.In recent weeks in and around Mosul, security checkpoints have been attacked in drive-by shootings and the motorcade of the provincial governor was attacked.Gunmen also opened fire Tuesday on two Christian college students waiting at a bus stop in Mosul, killing one and wounding the other, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
National Defense Week
Army study explores deployment stress on soldiers’ children By Katherine McIntire Peters
VA claims expected to take longer in 2011
By Rick Maze - Staff writerPosted : Tuesday Feb 2, 2010 11:41:28 EST The 2011 Veterans Affairs Department budget unveiled Monday by the White House includes what VA officials called an “unprecedented” 27 percent funding increase for the Veterans Benefits Administration, some of which will be used to hire 4,000 permanent employees to process benefits claims.The increase does not mean disability, pension and survivors claims will be processed faster, however.In an admission that comes as no surprise to few who have been watching VA struggle with a backlog of benefits claims, Michael Walcoff, VA’s acting undersecretary for benefits, said veterans should be prepared for the average claims processing time to be longer in fiscal 2011 than it is today.The reason? Even though more workers are being hired, VA officials expect a big jump in the number of Vietnam-era veterans filing Agent Orange-related claims due to newly expanded eligibility.It takes an average of 158 days to process a benefit claim today, Walcoff said. He expects that will rise to 190 days in 2011, at least for the first few months of the year, as new employees are hired and trained and a flood of complicated claims requesting retroactive benefits are received from Vietnam veterans.“Dealing with the claims backlog is complicated,” Walcoff said. “There is more involved than just the number of people we have handling claims.”VA officials expect to receive 1.3 million claims in 2011, part of a two-year, 30 percent jump that is greatly hampering VA’s efforts to achieve its goal of bringing the average claims processing time down to 125 days.In a statement, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said there are long-term plans to harness technology to speed claims, such as establishing a paperless processing system and changing procedures to reduce steps as part of promised transformation. But in the short term, there is no quick solution.In addition to the 27 percent increase in benefits funding, the proposed 2011 VA budget includes an 8.5 percent increase in medical funding.At a Monday press conference, VA Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould called the 2011 budget a “watershed moment” for veterans, citing the big funding increases and the fact that the budget includes, for the first time, advance funding for health care for the following fiscal year.The budget calls for 5,715 additional permanent employees, a 2 percent increase over the current workforce. This includes the 4,000 claims processors, about 1,300 medical care workers and a smattering of additional workers in other departments.The 4,000 claims processors are not necessarily new employees; about 1,800 are currently temporary employees whose positions would be made permanent, said W. Todd Grams, acting VA assistant secretary for management.VA expects big increases in patient loads in 2011 and 2012 as the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking treatment rises.About 382,500 recent combat veterans use VA today. A 15 percent increase is projected for 2011 and an additional 13 percent increase is expected in 2012, Grams said.
VA wants emergency GI Bill payouts back
By Rick Maze - Staff writerPosted : Tuesday Feb 2, 2010 15:13:47 EST The Veterans Affairs Department is seeking to recoup $3,000 emergency payments sent last year to about 80,000 people whose Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefits were delayed — including some active-duty members who were not supposed to get the checks.If the $3,000 checks were never cashed, they can simply be returned, VA officials said.If they were cashed, the $3,000 must be repaid either through reductions in spring semester GI Bill benefits for those who are attending school or by direct payments to VA for those who are not enrolled.People who got the payments, considered by VA to be advance pay of benefits, will be contacted about repayment options, officials said.Advance payments were issued from October through the end of December as an emergency measure after student veterans complained that delays in approving claims under the complex new program were leaving them unable to afford college. Student veterans advocates reported some students were paying out of their own pockets or considering dropping out of school.When VA officials announced the $3,000 payments, some congressional staffers raised concerns about the possibility of fraud and error. Paying people before certifying their eligibility and before they enrolled in qualified courses — two key steps of the claims process — would open the door to overpayments, House aides warned.Those concerns were overruled, however, when it became clear to VA officials that they would not be able to process claims in less than 30 days, the original goal, which guaranteed that student veterans who were counting on living stipends would not get them on time.Active-duty service members, who are eligible for Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, were not meant to be eligible for advance payments, but some received them anyway.The payments were aimed at covering monthly living stipends available to student veterans carrying more than a 50 percent course load, something not available to active-duty members who already receive either housing or a housing allowance from the military.But VA officials did not clearly indicate that active-duty members did not qualify for advance payments until December, creating a situation in which some active-duty members — the exact number is unknown — received payments that will have to be fully repaid.The $3,000 advance payments were discontinued at the end of the fall term, and VA officials have no plans to provide them for the spring term because they believe they have the claims process under control.VA has received about 132,000 spring enrollment applications and has processed more than 105,000.
National Defense Week
VA slips slightly in deployment of GI bill claims system
The Veterans Affairs Department is on track to unveil in late March the first version of a system to automate processing of educational benefit claims under the post-9/11 GI Bill, but its software capabilities will be more limited than originally planned, a top technology official told House lawmakers on Thursday.The first release of the rules-based software, which the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic is developing in four stages — will allow officials to manage simple claims, but not more complex ones, Roger Baker, chief information officer at VA, testified before the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. For example, the initial version will not be able to respond to situations in which veterans add or drop classes.The first release will be deployed to a limited number of claims examiners in March so they can gain real-world experience with the system while SPAWAR continues to develop additional rules to handle more complicated claims, according to Baker.Despite the more limited first release, VA expects to meet its original goal of having the system fully launched by December 2010, Baker told lawmakers. SPAWAR will have developed all the functionality originally intended for the first stage by the time it fields the second release in June, he said. That release will allow VA to move claims examiners off of an interim, semiautomated system launched in 2009.The third version of the software — which remains on target for a September release — will tie the claims processing technology to VA financial systems for payments to veterans, and the final step will provide a Web interface so veterans can manage their claims.Mark Krause, SPAWAR program manager for Veterans Affairs, said without the iterative development approach, VA could have faced a two-year delay in launching the system. “This is a good news story,” he said.VA failed to quickly process post-9/11 GI Bill claims for the fall 2009 semester, requiring the authorization of emergency payments of up to $3,000 per veteran at the end of September 2009.Keith Wilson, director of the Office of Education Service at the Veterans Benefits Administration, told lawmakers he does not expect any such problems in payments for veterans enrolled in college for the spring 2010 semester. As of last week, VA had received 115,000 claims for that semester, and it will have all those processed for payment by Feb. 1, according to Wilson.
By Bob Brewin 01/22/2010
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