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VVA Committee Reports, July/August 2015

Economic Opportunities Committee

BY FRANK BARRY, CHAIR

©Michael Keating One of the tasks of the Economic Opportunities Committee is to ask the VVA Board of Directors to support legislation. These are put in the form of motions. Here are the motions from the most recent meeting in April.

Motion 1: To have the VVA president send a letter to all state governors asking them to support recent legislation that allows any veteran who has served at least ninety days of active service to pay resident tuition rates in any state within three years of leaving the military. Rationale: While the current law gives an effective date of July 1, 2015, only a few states have complied, and some are asking for a one-year extension. The law applies to any public college or university receiving federal funding through the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

Motion 2: To have the VVA president send a letter to Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, calling for support of H.R.476, the GI Bill Education Quality Enhancement Act of 2015 (introduced by Wenstrup) and to consider the inclusion of language: “For any state, including the District of Columbia, wherein the VA represents itself as the State Approving Agency (SAA) for the approval of educational institutions, programs, and courses offered to GI Bill-eligible veterans, the VA Secretary can make the decision for approval without having to wait an additional two years.” Rationale: Currently, an institution must be approved and operating for two years, in accordance with its state approving agency, before being approved by the VA. However, in some states the VA serves as the state approving agency, yet current law requires an institution to wait an additional two years even if the VA deems the institution appropriate for GI Bill-eligible veterans.

Motion 3: For VVA to support H.R.1141, the GI Bill Fairness Act of 2015, introduced by Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), which calls for the consideration by DOD of time spent by members of the Guard and Reserves for medical care as active-duty time for purposes of Post-9/11 education assistance. Rationale: Presently, time spent by members of the Guard and Reserves while being treated for injuries incurred in the line of duty is not applied to their Post-9/11 GI Bill entitlement.

Motion 4: That VVA co-sponsor, at no additional cost to VVA, the Leave No Veteran Behind-Veterans Employment Opportunity Fair & Expo Initiative, which is intended to increase the number of veterans employed and doing business in the airport industry. Rationale: This initiative is being organized and implemented on behalf of veterans by the AVIS-Budget Group, Paradies Shops, VET-Force, VETS Group, and VETJobs.

This committee will continue to support legislation that benefits all veterans.

Membership Affairs Committee

BY CHARLIE HOBBS, CHAIR

©Michael Keating Starting the first of August, we’re making a Once in a Lifetime Membership offer. Until December 31, you can purchase a Vietnam Veterans of America life membership for just $100. There are no age restrictions, no small print, no contingencies. It’s that simple.

This has never happened before. It probably won’t happen again. Send us $100 by check or credit card and you will be made a life member.

Eligibility hasn’t changed. Membership is open to U.S. armed forces veterans who served on active duty (for other than training purposes) in the Republic of Vietnam between February 28, 1961, and May 7, 1975, or in any duty location between August 5, 1964, and May 7, 1975.

This deal applies only to those who apply for life membership between August 1 and December 31 of this year. There will be no refunds for those who applied before August 1, and no discounts for those who apply after the end of the year.

If you’ve been considering becoming a life member, now is the time to act. It’s such a good deal that even if you haven’t considered a life membership, you should take advantage of this limited-time offer. AVVA also is offering a reduction in life membership dues. See page 10 for details.

Make it easy on yourself. No more annual checks. No more missed issues of The VVA Veteran. Just smooth sailing from here on out. But remember: This is a Once in a Lifetime Membership offer. The clock starts ticking August 1 and ends New Year’s Eve. So act now: Fill out the application on page 4, attach your check and a copy of your DD-214, and mail it in. You won’t be sorry. That is, unless you wait until the new year.

Public Affairs Committee

BY TOM BURKE, CHAIR

©Michael Keating My dad once told me, “If you know nothing about your subject, surround yourself with people who do.” Well, I am not sure about knowing nothing about the subject, but surrounding myself with experts was true enough.

During the last two years, the Public Affairs Committee took on a variety of issues, some of our own creation, some assigned by the National President, and still others from the Board of Directors. To help me provide solutions to our challenges, I called on proven leaders of our organization and people in selected fields of knowledge.

Many thank-you’s are in order.

First off, let me recognize Dan Stenvold and his subcommittee for reviewing awards nominations and for the professional way in which they selected the best of the best.

Florida’s Tom Hall hammered out a new educational brochure in digital form with help from Director of Communications Mokie Pratt Porter and The Orange Factory’s Ellen Duckman. The brochure is on our website, along with a tremendous amount of information, such as news flashes on the Web Weekly. Porter and Duckman are keeping our website operational while a new one is being designed and built.

Tom Owen has worked to develop a fundraising program based on real estate commissions.

President John Rowan tasked us with our largest and most daunting project: creating a new website, one that is attractive and logical, and that explains to the outside world who we are and what we stand for. In an increasingly electronic age, we looked outdated and out of step. Quentin Butcher has coordinated efforts to develop this primary marketing tool to tell VVA’s story. He has worked closely with programmer Garrett Goeppinger to incorporate staff needs and expectations. I’m proud of the shape and design of the new website. I’m also proud of the fact that it has been developed without cost overruns.

Very soon, the new website will be up and running. It’s the culmination of a huge amount of work. Butcher, Goeppinger, and all the staff who worked on, contributed to, and oversaw its development have made us proud.

Rest assured that these words have been filtered by Mike Keating and Marc Leepson to make me look good. Thanks, guys.

I’d also like to mention Keith King, president of Keith King & Associates. He’s invested a tremendous amount of his time and money for the betterment of our organization. When it came to producing public service announcements, King volunteered without hesitation. As did Director of Planning Wes Guidry. Together, we created seven PSAs over the last two years at a fraction of the normal cost. Once we were done, Comcast agreed to provide three million dollars’ worth of free air time.

Finally, I’d like to thank my committee members for their thoughts, contributions, and honest discussions.

Women Veterans Committee

BY KATE O’HARE-PALMER, CHAIR

©Michael Keating On Memorial Day in Washington, D.C., I was honored to join National Treasurer Wayne Reynolds in placing the VVA wreath at the Vietnam Women’s Memorial. Women veterans’ oral histories were presented there this year, as usual. There also was another ceremony held by Diane Carlson Evans and her VNWMF board. Evans reminisced about the dedication of the memorial on November 11, 1993. She read the speech that Gen. John Shalikashvili, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave at Ft. Meyer on the day Carlson reviewed the troops.

Carlson thanked her board members for their service. She also thanked VVA and its members for financial and emotional support during the decade it took to get the memorial built. Eastern National has been selected to manage the memorial in conjunction with the National Park Service. More details are available at www.vietnamwomensmemorial.org

We need to look at the follow-up to the current reports from the National Defense Authorization Acts in regard to military sexual trauma (MST). The FY2014 SAPRO report of DOD shows that zero tolerance for sexual assault in the military has failed. The latest Pentagon survey found that 62 percent of the women who reported being sexually assaulted experienced retaliation. This has not changed since the 2012 reports. An average of fifty-two new cases are reported every day. Because they lack faith in the system, men and women often do not report assaults.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked for a review of cases from all branches of the service. Her office received only 107 cases. Of those, military spouses and civilian women near bases were shown to be part of the scope of violence. However, these numbers are not included in DOD’s MST statistics. Three-quarters of the military spouses declined to pursue justice in their cases.

The review also showed that the military culture continues to protect the accused and ostracize survivors. Commanders often make untrained evidentiary decisions. The original Military Justice Improvement Act called for independent, trained military prosecutors for an unbiased chain of command for judicial process. A revised Military Justice Improvement Act is being drafted to address these systemic failures.

Government Affairs Committee

Agent Orange Action

BY PETE PETERSON, CHAIR, AND STAFF

©Michael Keating The Toxic Exposure Research Act of 2015 has been introduced in the Senate and the House. The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs held a hearing on April 23, in which VVA National President John Rowan testified. He testified before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs on June 24.

All supporters of veterans and our families need to make their voices heard by going to http://capwiz.com/vva/home and sending a message to both of your senators asking them to co-sponsor S.901, introduced by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kans.) and Sen. Dick Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Similarly, your help is needed to secure more co-sponsors for H.R.1769, introduced by Reps. Dan Benishek (R-Mich.) and Mike Honda (D-Calif.).

Whether this long-awaited legislation is enacted is up to you. If you go to the above link and send the messages, it will likely be successful. If you follow up with phone calls to your congressional offices and urge your neighbors and colleagues to do the same, then it will happen.

NFL PAID TO HONOR VETS

“I think it’s really disgraceful that NFL teams whose profits are at an all-time high had to be paid to honor our veterans,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said during a press event in May. McCain and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) deserve thanks for exposing the hypocrisy of the National Football League. Flake uncovered documents detailing “marketing contracts” from 2011-14 between the New Jersey National Guard and multimillionaire Wood Johnson’s New York Jets.

The Jersey Guard paid $377,000 for tributes to veterans and active-duty troops: “Hometown Hero” salutes on stadium billboards, vets attending kickoff events with Jets players; and “free” game tickets for veterans and their families. All sincere expressions of appreciation for our vets? Well, not exactly.

The $377,000 is likely the tip of the flying wedge. By some accounts, more than $7 million—much more, actually—likely has been paid for such specious activities.

Sens. McCain, Flake, and Blumenthal drafted an amendment to the FY16 National Defense Authorization Act that bars federal contracts that would honor current and former military members at sporting events. Their colleagues adopted the amendment by unanimous consent. Well done.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell can do the right thing by convincing those clubs that took money to really honor the troops by returning the money. And by complying with a suggestion by Sens. Flake, Blumenthal, and McCain “to donate to charities supporting American troops, veterans, and their families.”

MAJOR MISMANAGEMENT

The new VA Medical Center in the greater Denver area must be completed. The five buildings on the new VAMC campus have already been constructed. The costs to finish and properly equip this facility, however, are far from over, and it will cost at least $1.7 billion before it is done.

There are angry charges of mismanagement and misdeeds, but the real problem is the failure of both the VA and Congress to face up to the costs of modern medicine. For a new, first-class, fully equipped facility, with specialized units to deal with the wounds of war and military service, to cost between $1.5 and $2.5 billion to construct is probably a reasonable estimate anywhere in the country.

In relation to the many hundreds of billions we were spending just on America’s latest wars, the cost of taking care of the veterans of all previous conflicts is also high. Professor Linda Bilmes of Harvard has warned the Executive branch and Congress repeatedly of the long-term financial cost of caring for the veterans of our two most recent wars.

PUSH FOR PRIVATIZATION

The spotlight on scandal (sometimes real and sometimes manufactured), as well as very real management incompetence illuminating poor practices at the VA, has brought forth very troubling deficiencies in the VA management structure. Some of the problems are structural, and some are due to the fact that there are just not enough clinicians at the VA to handle all the needs of veterans.

The last year has also shown a lousy corporate culture in which managers lie with impunity. Lying to one’s bosses, to veterans, and to Congress is inexcusable. All who engaged in this systematic lying need to be fired.

All of the sound and fury has opened a wedge in the call by some for greater privatization of VA operations. Some of this is logical and rational. For instance, the so-called Choice Act, passed by Congress last year, offers a solution for veterans who live more than forty miles from a VA facility equipped to meet their needs, or who are forced to wait in excess of thirty-one days for an appointment with a primary care clinician or a specialist.

VVA has always favored using private facilities when it makes sense. But only where it augments the VA medical system, not supplants it.

“There is an important role for outside care in the veteran health model to supplement VA’s own care, but that role should not diminish or obscure the importance of VA’s health care system,” VA Secretary Bob McDonald said. “Reforming VA health care cannot be achieved by dismantling it and preventing veterans from receiving the specialized care and services that can only be provided by VA.”

The VA is its own worst enemy. When its activities are less than transparent, when its senior officials lie before congressional committees, when the corporate culture resists change, these do not hold the VA in good stead. The institution is betrayed and so are veterans.

VA Secretary McDonald has a tough challenge. He is making progress, but that progress is slow. The VA tells us, “We can’t fire all of our managers!” Nor should they all be fired, as many are doing a good job. However, a number need to leave.

Secretary McDonald is reaching out to VSOs, but his underlings need to get the message and have VSO representatives offer their ideas and strategies to make the VA a truly veteran-centric operation, which will help shield it from those who would work toward its demise.?

IMPLEMENTING CHOICE

In the wake of the scandal that rocked the VA last year, Congress passed the Choice Act. The act was a congressional fix to a very real problem. But the situation underlying this scandal was well known to most VSOs since the turn of the century.

So when the droves of veterans unhappy with their treatment at their local VA medical centers or community-based outpatient clinics did not materialize to use their options under Choice, many in Congress were dismayed.

Certainly, the VA came in for criticism for not doing enough to promote Choice or—some contended—to undermine the intent of Congress. Much of this criticism was deserved. But could it be that a majority of veterans who use the VA for their health care are for the most part satisfied with the care and treatment?

One out of every ten healthcare dollars flies out of the VA system without rhyme or rationale. The late, unlamented five-year pilot Project HERO was perhaps the first relatively coordinated attempt to get a handle on so-called fee-basis care. It provided lessons in how not to spend dollars outside the VA system, lessons that were seemingly ignored as the VA continued to outsource medical care through two well-connected brokers, Tri-West and United Health Care. Some of the payments made to physicians are significantly less than the reimbursement rate for Medicare. Is it any wonder that many physicians decline to participate?

Fifty Years Ago: American Troops Land in Santo Domingo

Walter Anderson:
Excellent in the Arts