Help a wounded Soldier: 2007

I have been going through some challenging times as of late.

I have been going through some challenging times as of late. The demons come back and I must take evasive action to resolve.

Knowledge without action is worthless. I don't usually get personal with my blogs, today is the exception. I know I am blessed and "this too shall pass" (like a kidney stone, but it will pass).

I cannot thank all of you enough for passing my first book along to people who can benefit from it. I am not "a writer" per say. I write to keep me focused and in great hopes to assist others because Living is the secret to giving.

I am so grateful that my lifes work is not finished yet. Hell when I coach people I don't even charge them. I get more out of it than they do,(especially veterans). I have many riches and am honered to call all of you my cyber friends. The message that was sent to me is a reminder of how unique each of us are and kept me above the ground for another day

Thank you

A brief excerpt from The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale

George Bernard Shaw said, "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."

Well, it's pretty apparent, isn't it? And every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he was the first one to work it out. We become what we think about.

Now, it stands to reason that a person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that's what he's thinking about. And we become what we think about.

Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear and worry – his life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing...he becomes nothing.

How does it work? Why do we become what we think about? Well, I'll tell you how it works, as far as we know. To do this, I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind.

Suppose a farmer has some land, and it's good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn't care. It's up to the farmer to make the decision.

We're comparing the human mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn't care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn't care what you plant.

Now, let's say that the farmer has two seeds in his hand – one is a seed of corn, the other is nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two little holes in the earth and he plants both seeds – one corn, the other nightshade. He covers up the holes, waters and takes care of the land...and what will happen? Invariably, the land will return what was planted.

Remember, the land doesn't care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants – one corn, one poison. The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn't care what we plant...success...or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal...or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety, and so on. But what we plant it must return to us.

You see, the human mind is the last great, unexplored continent on earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant.

Data sought on veterans' suicide

Data sought on veterans' suicide By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer

The parents of an Iraq war veteran who committed suicide and members of Congress on Wednesday questioned why there's not a comprehensive tracking system of suicide among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Mike Bowman, of Forreston, Ill., said his son, Spc. Timothy Bowman, 23, is a member of the "unknown fallen" not counted in statistics. His son, a member of the Illinois National Guard, took his own life in 2005 eight months after returning from war. Bowman said he considers his son a "KBA" — killed because of action.

"If the veteran suicide rate is not classified as an epidemic that needs immediate and drastic attention, then the American fighting soldier needs someone in Washington who thinks it is," Bowman said.

Bowman was one of several witnesses who testified before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee on the issue.

Rep. Bob Filner, the committee chairman, questioned why the comprehensive tracking wasn't already being done.

"They don't want to know this, it looks to me," said Filner, D-Calif. "This could be tracked."

Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's deputy chief patient care service officer for mental health at the Department of Veterans Affairs, defended the work being done by his agency to tackle the issue, including implementing a suicide prevention hotline.

"We have a major suicide prevention program, the most comprehensive in the nation," Katz said. Katz questioned why Filner was focusing on the number of suicides instead of looking at treatment programs implemented to help prevent suicide.

Awareness of suicide among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans was heightened earlier this year when the Army said its suicide rate in 2006 rose to 17.3 per 100,000 troops — the highest level in 26 years of record-keeping.

The Department of Veterans Affairs tracks the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who commit suicide, but only if they have been discharged from the military.

The Pentagon tracks the number of suicides in Iraq and Afghanistan. For an earlier story, a Pentagon spokeswoman told The Associated Press the military does not keep track of whether active duty troops who took who took their own lives served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In an e-mail on Wednesday, the same spokeswoman, Cynthia Smith, said, "We track all suicides, I just don't have combat service information readily available."

At least 152 troops have committed suicide in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center, which tracks casualties for the Pentagon.

On Oct. 31, the AP reported that preliminary research from the Department of Veterans Affairs had found that from the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and the end of 2005, 283 troops who served in the wars who had been discharged from the military had committed suicide. On Wednesday, Katz said the VA's number had been changed to 144 because some of the veterans counted were actually in the active military and not discharged on the day they committed suicide.

Smith said that the military's suicide rate is still lower than that of the general population.

After leaving the military, however, veterans appear to be at greater risk for suicide than those who didn't serve. Earlier this year, researchers at Portland State University in Oregon found male veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide as their civilian counterparts.

In a report last May, the VA Inspector General said VA officials estimate 1,000 suicides per year among veterans receiving care within the agency and as many as 5,000 per year among all veterans.

"When decision makers do no have reliable data, we must rely on anecdotal evidence," said Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind. "While these may help inform us, it does not help us to develop strategies to diminish the risk and prevent incidents of suicide."

Mrs. Meagher Goes to Washington - PTSD Combat : Winning the War Within

Lawyers step up to help veterans gratis

Lawyers step up to help veterans gratis

WASHINGTON — The scene resembled Hollywood's v.ersion of how a multibillion-dollar legal deal might be negotiated. Big-name corporate law firm. Posh conference room, with a conference table so large 70 attorneys fit easily around it. Video technicians, hovering nearby, beam the meeting to other big law firms from Boston to Seattle.

Yet there was no deal to cut. Instead, the high-powered lawyers were getting a tutorial in the arcane vagaries of veterans law.

"This could be the VA's worst nightmare," Bart Stichman, one of the organizers, enthused from the podium. "Hundreds of attorneys from around the country providing legal service to veterans for free."

The recent gathering at Sidley Austin, a firm with 1,700 lawyers around the globe, is part of a growing effort to provide free legal help to thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who are trying to win disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

"There are 100,000 veterans seeking benefits, and too many of them are waiting too long to get them," says Ron Abrams, who, with Stichman, directs the National Veterans Legal Services Program, a non-profit group in Washington spearheading the effort. "These lawyers are going to treat these veterans the way they would treat their corporate clients."
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Va | Lawyers | Department of Veterans Affairs | Vietnam veterans | American Legion | BART | Veterans of Foreign Wars | Legion | Legal Services

The approach marks the first time since the Civil War that attorneys have been recruited in large numbers to represent veterans. The lawyers hope their legal expertise will speed consideration of claims and result in better benefits for veterans, Stichman says. More than 50 of the largest law firms in the USA and more than 400 attorneys have signed up. Stichman and Abrams hope to start assigning veterans to the attorneys early next month.

Law schools join cause

Amanda Smith, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based firm Morgan Lewis, says many of the participating lawyers are Vietnam veterans and "are appalled at the circumstances that they find veterans in today."

Besides the push by big law firms, law schools in states such as the Carolinas, Virginia, Delaware, Michigan and Illinois also are offering free services to veterans.

Craig Kabatchnick, who worked as a VA appellate attorney from 1990 until 1995, launched a clinic last January for veterans at North Carolina Central University's law school, where he now teaches.

"We had all kinds of veterans who were very disabled, litigating against trained attorneys like myself who were defending the VA," Kabatchnick says. The VA would "win" if the claim was denied, Kabatchnick says. "Did we litigate to win? Absolutely. In cases where the veteran was representing himself, the win ratio was very high."

Paul Hutter, the VA's general counsel, says its attorneys have "an ethical obligation to fairly and justly" review claims and settle "meritorious cases quickly."

"Our job is to ensure that veterans get the benefits allowed them by law," he says in an e-mail.

Disability claims have increased from 578,773 in fiscal 2000 to 838,141 this year, according to VA figures. There are about 407,000 pending. The average processing time is 177 days, the VA says.

Change in law lifted restrictions

Traditionally, veterans have represented themselves or sought assistance from a service organization, such as the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars. But many of the caseworkers in those groups are overloaded with cases, Stichman says, and sometimes one volunteer oversees 1,000 veterans' claims.

The approach has not led to quick compensation for veterans. Evidence supporting a veteran's claim — medical records or letters from colleagues — is not always submitted with the original claim. When that evidence is added later, it can lead to reversals or requests for reconsideration. That can add more than a year to the appeals process, the VA says.

The Board of Veterans Appeals either reverses or orders reconsideration of decisions made by VA regional offices 56% of the time, according to an analysis of VA figures by Stichman's group. Congress has long kept attorneys at arms-length from the veterans' disability process. Until last June, when federal law changed, paid attorneys could not work on cases until after a final decision by the Board of Veterans' Appeals. The VA is now considering regulations that would require all attorneys to pass a test in order to qualify to handle veterans' claims, according to Phil Budahn, a department spokesman.

Service organizations, including the Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars, vigorously fought the change in law. They are now pushing to repeal the law and support requiring a test, arguing that lawyers could turn what is supposed to be a non-adversarial process into a litigious one.

"The fear was lawyers will dominate, and they'll ruin everything," says Thomas Reed, a law professor at Widener University in Wilmington, Del., who began offering free legal services to veterans in 1997.

Lawyers not the cure-all

Joe Violante, national legislative director of the Disabled American Veterans, which represents 1.3 million veterans, says trained volunteers from the service organizations are far more experienced at representing veterans' claims than the newly recruited lawyers.

"If the veteran is under the impression that an attorney is going to get their claim through faster, there's no proof of that," he says.

Ron Flagg, a Sidley attorney involved in the pro bono veterans' project, says there are so many claims that the system is overwhelmed.

"Lawyers are not the cure to all ills," he says. "But this is a problem where lawyers can be helpful."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

CLAIMS PROCESS CAN DRAG ON

Veterans' disability requests average 177 days to process but it can take years if claims are rejected and appealed. The disability claim's process at a glance:

1) A veteran applies for disability benefits at one of 57 regional Veterans Affairs offices. At best, this process takes 30 days, but that time can stretch into years if additional documentation is needed to link the disability with a service-related event.

2) If the veteran's claim is rejected, he or she can formally disagree and ask the regional office to reinvestigate the claim. This process can take 30 days to several years. After the VA issues a formal Statement of the Case, a rejected claim can be appealed to the Board of Veterans' Appeals in Washington, D.C. This step can take more than a year.

3) If the veteran's claim is rejected by the appeals board, it can be contested further in court. The process in each court, listed in order of escalation, can take six months to several years:

• U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims

• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

• U.S. Supreme Court

Sources: National Veterans Legal Services Program and Veterans Affairs Department

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

APPEALS GET SECOND LOOK

More than half of the disability cases decided by the 57 regional offices of the Department of Veterans Afairs are reversed or returned for reconsideration upon appeal. In fiscal 2007, the Board of Veterans' Appeals heard 40,401 cases. Of those, 22,817 or 56% were overturned or sent back to regional offices. Status of appealed cases at the 10 largest regional VA offices:
City Reversed{+1} Sent back{+2} Total{+3}
Atlanta 23% 40% 63%
St. Petersburg, Fla. 26% 37% 63%
Little Rock 22% 39% 61%
New York 22% 38% 60%
Nashville 23% 37% 60%
Montgomery, Ala. 20% 38% 58%
Winston-Salem, N.C. 23% 34% 57%
Houston 18% 36% 54%
Waco, Texas 19% 33% 52%
St. Louis 18% 33% 51%
National average 21% 35% 56%

1 - Claim granted by the Board of Veterans' Appeals after being rejected by the regional office.

2 - Claim sent back to the regional office for further review.

3 - Total percentage of claims reversed or sent back.

Source: National Veterans Legal Services Program analysis of Board of Veterans' Appeals figures for fiscal year 2007

Soldiers Angels Network: www.kansascity.com | 11/20/2007 | Volunteers make sure soldiers aren’t forgotten

WHY WE FIGHT

by Timothy Kendrick

First, we fight because we took an oath. Most importantly, we fight for our buddy next to us. Duty, Honor, Country, yes, ultimately it is for each other’s survival.
From my experience in dealing with the VA (Veterans Administration) the only people who are going to fight any battles for you with them (and win) is AMVETS or the DAV. Do not attempt to get through the red tape and political bureaucracy of the VA by yourself. Let AMVETS or the DAV do it for you. The best part, it will not cost you a dime!

I finally went to see an AMVETS representative, he was gracious, helpful and did almost all of the paperwork for me (hell, I could hardly write my name). I received my compensation within 6 months. It would have taken the VA 3 or 4 years because of the backlog. The VA has assisted millions of returning veterans and I praise them for what they accomplish with their limited resources and funding.

If you were like me, you would keep putting off contacting the Veterans Administration until finally you gained enough leverage (pain) to take action. The VA much like our great countries political system has become a career for far too many who have far too little to offer. In all fairness, I have met angels and heroes at the VA that have passion for what they do by taking care of the great warriors who have served this nation.

I did go to a couple “Vet Centers” looking for help, but I did not find anything. You might, but I did not. It is not for everybody. In addition, AMVETS and the DAV can point you in the right direction with the VA as far as Vocational Rehabilitation and countless other benefits you have earned. Use whatever works for you. Alcoholics Anonymous is a great program also.

NPR: Army Personality Disorder Discharges Rocket 40% in Iraq War Era - PTSD Combat : Winning the War Within

NIU Veterans Day Ceremony Calls Upon Nation to Care for Its Heroes - PTSD Combat : Winning the War Within

A Thank You to Amherst - PTSD Combat : Winning the War Within