March 20, 2008 by admin.

General: Army reliance on National Guard won’t diminish
By Megan Scully CongressDaily March 19, 2008

Despite efforts to increase the size of the active-duty Army to ease the strains of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Army officer predicted Wednesday that the military’s heavy reliance on the Army National Guard and Reserve will continue for “another generation.”
A larger force will mean significantly more time at home between overseas missions for all active and reserve combat units, but the Army’s reserve component will continue to function as an operational force for the foreseeable future, Gen. Charles Campbell, who heads U.S. Army Forces Command, said during a breakfast with reporters.
Although it is growing by 65,000 troops, the active-duty Army still is not large enough to handle what is expected to be an era of persistent conflict without its reserve, Campbell said. “To meet that demand, we are going to have to continue to be reliant on our reserve component,” he said. “That’s a reality. It’s been a reality that’s been true now for seven years and it’s likely to be true for another generation.”
The Army recently deployed five National Guard brigades to Iraq and expects to deploy seven more for overseas missions in the next rotation, said Campbell, whose command is responsible for training, equipping and deploying units mobilized for combat operations. The Army hopes to soon give reservists at least four years at home between deployments — a schedule that still would allow the Army to deploy five or six National Guard combat brigades each year.
The Army, Campbell said, has a few options to meet operational demands without repeatedly tapping its reserve forces for deployments, but none are affordable nor politically feasible. The active-duty Army would have to expand to 800,000 soldiers — 253,000 more than its current end-strength goal — to meet overseas demands on its own.
“I’m not suggesting that a large Army is not desirable,” Campbell said. “But I think there is a reality associated with whether or not you can recruit and sustain that large of an Army given today’s demographics. And then there’s the issue of affordability.” The other option, Campbell said, is reinstating the draft — a tremendously unpopular solution within the Army’s own ranks and the general public.
“If you don’t reinstate the draft and you don’t grow the Army to 800,000, what are your alternatives?” Campbell said. “Well, your alternative [is to] create predictable access to properly ready formations in the Guard and Reserve.”
Over the next two years, the Army Guard will receive $17 billion in new gear to replenish stateside equipment coffers that have diminished since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Billions of dollars more are expected to flow to Guard and Reserve units over the next several years, marking an unprecedented investment in these forces. With that investment, Campbell said, comes an expectation that those units will be ready for deployments.
“There has been a historical theme that as the federal government has infused more resources into the citizen soldier formation … that there is a commensurate expectation of greater access and utilization,” Campbell said. “I think that’s a fair expectation.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

March 18, 2008 by admin.

By Bob Brewin bbrewin@govexec.com March 14, 2008
The Veterans Affairs Department has started inching toward deployment of an online comprehensive health care and benefits portal recommended by the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors in an August 2007 report. VA expects to have a bare-bones site operating in the next few weeks on Army Knowledge On-Line (AKO), the Army’s enterprise Web portal.
The Wounded Warriors Commission recommended that VA and the Defense Department develop within a year a Web-based portal to provide patients with health care and benefits information from the two departments. On March 11, top VA and Defense officials told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that they intend to develop Web portals that integrate veterans’ heath records on a comprehensive Web site, which also provides information on follow-up services.
Retired Air Force Col. Peter Bunce, father of Justin Bunce, a medically retired Marine Corporal severely wounded in Iraq, said in an interview that a Web portal was only as good as the information it contained. He urged that Web-based systems established by Defense and VA contain information on a range of clinical resources, including care available outside the VA and Defense health systems. Bunce said he found health care and specialists for his son Justin, who also suffers from traumatic brain injury, without VA’s help.
Bunce said any comprehensive Web portal should provide information based on geography, and the departments needed to devise a way to supply specialized care and benefits information to patients and their families, rather than expecting them to find it. VA also should ensure that each patient had a case manager who coordinated care — including home visits — and one lead doctor to manage clinical care, he added.
Dr. Paul Tibbits, VA’s deputy chief information officer for enterprise development, wrote in an e-mail that the initial, unsecured eBenefits Web site available through AKO will link to other sites for use by wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans and their families. By this fall, he said, VA anticipates having a secure eBenefits portal site operational, based on the log-on model of Army Knowledge Online and its Defense Knowledge Online counterpart. This version of the eBenefits portal will present health care and benefits information as recommended by the Wounded Warriors Commission, Tibbits said.
Kevin Carroll, a consultant who previously served as program executive officer for Army’s enterprise information systems, said AKO was safer and more efficient because VA will be able to tap into the AKO and DKO personnel directories and leverage those portals’ already developed applications. The department then could take a “cut-and-paste” approach to development, rather than start from scratch, he said.
VA also is developing an advanced Web portal called My eBenefits, which is scheduled to go live in fiscal 2009, according to Tibbits.

Posted in job opportunities | Print | No Comments »

March 18, 2008 by admin.

Please check out the following link.

http://www.sdvob.coop/

Posted in job opportunities | Print | No Comments »

March 14, 2008 by admin.

Veteran Business Network Announces Public Launch of Online Community for Veteran Matters

Monday March 10, 2:30 pm ET

VetBizNetwork Exposes Veterans to Online Community Resources

PENNSYLVANIA – Veteran TALK (www.w3VetNet.net), a Veteran web site that connects users seeking regarding veteran matters to valuable online community resources, today announced its public launch. Veteran TALK is a portal providing a  wealth of information within the veteran online community that is easily accessible to average web users. With Veteran TALK, veterans quickly ask and receive answers and support for important veteran matters — including business health, legal, and money.

Posted in Veterans Business Opportunities | Print | No Comments »

March 10, 2008 by admin.

Navy Awards Contract for New Walter Reed Facility
American Forces Press Service
BETHESDA, Md., March 3, 2008 – A joint venture of Clark Construction of Bethesda, Md., and Balfour Beatty Construction, based in Atlanta, today received a $641.4 million from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command to design and build the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.
The Navy command will oversee the planning and construction.

“I am confident that the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center will be the crown jewel in an already illustrious military medical system. The most important mission for us is to provide the highest levels of care, comfort and convenience to our wounded heroes so they can focus on the most important mission of all, healing,†said Dr. S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.

The establishment of the new center on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center was congressionally mandated under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act, which recommended the realignment of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the relocation of all tertiary medical services to the Bethesda campus and the renaming of the facility as the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The law requires that all services be relocated by Sept. 15, 2011.

For the contractor to complete construction in accordance with BRAC legislation while minimizing impacts on ongoing patient care operations at the Bethesda complex, critical activities, most notably environmental isues, must be completed well in advance to the start of construction, officials said.

The final environmental impact statement is scheduled for release in early April. The required comment period under the National Environmental Policy Act ended Jan. 28, officials explained, and the official response to public comments will be included in the final economic impact statement.

Officials said the Defense Department is aware of the increased traffic concerns of the surrounding communities, and continues to consider measures to mitigate traffic issues that could arise during the period of construction, and work with local civilian leadership.

Plans call for the new, 345-bed medical center to be have the full range of intensive and complex specialty and subspecialty medical services, including specialized facilities for the most seriously war injured. It’s expected to become the U.S. military’s premier tertiary referral center for casualty and beneficiary care, to provide postgraduate education and other training, and to serve as a critical medical research center.

Concurrent to this project will be the construction of a new 120-bed military medical treatment facility at Fort Belvoir, Va.

“This is the next step in building the world-class medical center at the hub of the nation’s premier regional health care system,†said Navy Rear Adm. (Dr.) John M. Mateczun, commander of Joint Task Force Capital Region Medical. “The department intends to meet its obligation to ensure our service members and families receive the highest quality of care. There is nothing more important than taking care of our wounded warriors.â€

The new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center complex will include a mix of new outpatient and inpatient facilities as well as extensive renovations and upgrades to the existing hospital facilities. New circulation pathways, utility tunnels, and a parking structure are also included in the plans. Supporting facilities to be built under a separate contract include non-clinical and Warrior Transition administrative spaces, barracks, a gymnasium and additional parking.

About 2,200 staff positions will be added to the Bethesda campus; most of the new personnel added to the future facility will transfer from other DoD locations, officials said. Additionally, the Fisher House Foundation will build two new Fisher Houses and a National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health Diagnosis, Treatment, Clinical Training, and Related Services to support wounded veterans and their families.

(From a Joint Task Force Capital Region Medical news release.)

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

March 10, 2008 by admin.

 Hire Vets First - Job Opportunities.  Click the link below for more details.

http://www.hirevetsfirst.gov/ 

Posted in job opportunities | Print | No Comments »