Morgan Watt has relied on dogs to save his life many times

He relied on dogs in the Air Force to save his life. As a veteran, he’s relying on one again

Bradenton Herald
Sara Nealeigh
January 16, 2019

“A guide dog will stand in front of them and not let someone interfere with their personal space. A guide dog will alert them when somebody’s coming up and make them more comfortable,” said retired U.S. Army General Doug Brown, the keynote speaker for the breakfast.

Pella, a black Labrador service dog from Southeastern Guide Dogs, lays on the stage near her veteran, Sean Brown while he speaks to a crowd gathered at the Southeastern Guide Dogs Heroes Breakfast on Wednesday at the Hyatt Regency Sarasota. Sara Nealeigh snealeigh@bradenton.com

SARASOTA
Morgan Watt has relied on dogs to save his life many times.

First, in the Air Force when he was a bomb dog handler, Watt relied on the dogs to detect dangerous explosives.

“Working a bomb dog you had to be 100 percent. I always knew in that position I was expendable, and just felt like if something’s going to blow up, I want it to blow up on me and not somebody else,” Watt said.

“So that was kind of the attitude I had going into all the bomb threats and everything that I worked. It was just high stress but I was relying on my dog for my life. So coming full-circle, it was really easy to rely on my dog again for my life.”
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Privacy Law protects first responders being treated for PTSD

New Law Protects Privacy of First Responders Seeking Mental Health Treatment

NECN
Karen Hensel
January 16, 2019

Those stories included the night that Boston Police Sgt. Brian Fleming recalled nearly took his own life. It was his first time the now-retired officer and peer support counselor talked about what happened. "I took a gun out, put it to my head," Fleming said. "I wanted to die."

Massachusetts police officers and firefighters say a new bill signed into law Wednesday will allow them to ask for help and will save lives.

Surrounded by first responders and lawmakers, Gov. Charlie Baker signed the bill allowing first responders to seek guidance from their peers confidentially. They say that one-on-one conversation with someone who has also been through similar experiences will help them cope with the traumatic events experienced in the line of duty.

They say they can now confide without fear the conversation will be used against them on the job.

"Providing law enforcement officers with the ability to confidentially seek guidance from their peers will help them cope with the events they experience in the line of duty," said Baker. "We are thankful for the Legislature and law enforcement for their advocacy on this bill to increase support for services and reduce stigma around mental health issues. I am glad people saw it through and got it done."
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Lakeland Fire Department taking on PTSD head on!

Lakeland Fire Department addressing post-traumatic stress in firefighters

FOX 13 News
Ken Suarez
January 14, 2019

Until recently, firefighters were expect to work out their problems on their own and not share them. The result can be post-traumatic stress, or in more severe cases, post-traumatic stress disorder.

LAKELAND, Fla. (FOX 13) - If you think you’re stressed at work, imagine being a firefighter. They deal with people during the lowest points of their lives, while their house is burning, or just moments after a terrible, possibly fatal car crash.

What’s worse, according to Assistant Chief Rick Hertzog of the Lakeland Fire Department, it is difficult for firefighters to move on after experiencing an especially traumatic situation.

“We pass by these locations where we run these calls over and over again,” he told FOX 13, noting the stress “continues to build up inside of us until sometimes we are just unable to cope.”

Traditionally, if firefighters confided that they were having a hard time emotionally, they would have been told to just deal with it and move on.

“That's how they handled it, they buried those feelings down,” said Tom Howard, a trainer from Illinois Firefighter Peer Support.
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THIS CRAP IS FUBAR

Veterans love their country but now you may understand why they fear the government

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 16, 2019


Erosion: The gradual destruction or diminution of something. The Latin version means to "wear or gnaw away." No one ever thought that this would be happening to the debt this nation owes our veterans, but some members of Congress are not even ashamed it is happening. 

They are actually pushing to do even more gnawing away of benefits disabled veterans fought for.

Veterans risked their lives for this country. They became disabled doing it. They were promised to be taken care of. Then they had to fight the government to have their claims approved. All too often, it took years of suffering medically and financially.

Once their compensation was granted with a "total and permanent" rating of 100%, they though this was a guarantee that they would never have to worry about again.

For the last few years, they have been discovering that word "permanent" was subject to change. 

Some want to say that cutting the "unemployable" percentages from ratings makes sense because senior disabled veterans were retired like everyone else. What they do not want to acknowledge is the fact that once the disabled veterans stopped working because of their disability, they stopped paying into the system.

Social Security benefits are based on how much they paid into the system. That means most of our disabled veterans, especially Vietnam veterans, will not be able to survive. If you think that the rate of senior veteran suicides is high now, this will push even more over the cliff.

What most people do not know is how far the rating goes.

A veteran with 100% disability receives $3,057.13 per month. If they are married, it is $3,227.58. For the rest of the breakdown, go to the VA chart.

If they cut the unemployable and reduce the claim, to 90%, that reduces the amount down to $1,833.62. At 80% it is $1,631.69. At 70% it is down to $1,403.71. 

How can they pay their mortgages and rents with that huge drop in compensation? They will not be able to.

We cannot make plans for our "golden age" when we do not know what Congress will pull next. We cannot depend on the VA when it is being sold piece by piece to private "providers" accountable to no one, being pushed into the healthcare system members of Congress keep trying to kill off.

THIS CRAP IS FUBAR

But, this gets even worse.

Losing that 100% rating, will also cause the loss of most of their medical coverage not tied to their claim, and for their spouses and kids. 

It will cost them college benefits and their kids. Not that they even have that working the way it should.

They lose real estate tax breaks from their states as well as reduced fees from their cities and towns.

Discounts offered from businesses to disabled veterans will end because they are no longer 100% disabled.

This is why veterans and families like mine are freaking out. 

Yet again, the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, has put out another report that this benefit should be cut to save money. They were not even ashamed to admit it December 13, 2018.

"End VA’s Individual Unemployability Payments to Disabled Veterans at the Full Retirement Age for Social Security"

And if you think I'm kidding on the Vietnam veterans part, here you go!

"VA's regulations require that IU benefits be based on a veteran's inability to maintain substantially gainful employment because of the severity of a service-connected disability and not because of age, voluntary withdrawal from work, or other factors. About 48 percent of veterans receiving the IU supplement were 67 or older in September 2017, up from about 40 percent in September 2010. That rise is attributed largely to the aging of Vietnam War veterans."

And then there is this part.

Option
This option consists of two alternatives, both beginning in January 2020. Under the first alternative, VA would stop making IU payments to veterans age 67 or older (the full retirement age for Social Security benefits for those born after 1959). That restriction would apply to both current and prospective recipients. Therefore, at age 67, VA disability payments would revert to the amount associated with the rated disability level.

Under the second alternative, veterans who begin receiving the IU supplement after January 2020 would no longer receive those payments once they reach age 67. In addition, no new applicants who are age 67 or older would be eligible for IU benefits after that date. Unlike under the first alternative, veterans who are already receiving IU payments and are age 67 or older after the effective date of the option would continue to collect the IU supplement.

Thank God they are no longer running Congress and did not push their through but what about the next time? Why should we have to worry about this one thing we were supposed to be able to trust from our government?

Here are a few thoughts I can actually publish other than the ones I am thinking: 

How about making permanent actually mean that? 
How about never subjecting our disabled veterans to these nightmarish threats ever again? 
How about actually making sure the veterans who have 100% rating right now, no matter how the VA has decided to break it up--down--all around, and make it a flat 100% they never have to worry about again?

As for when to reduce the ratings, start when you guys in Congress reduce the tax cuts you gave the wealthy first. You always manage to find the money for them...but not for our disabled veterans!

Those who serve...paying beyond what is acceptable

Supreme Court rejects appeal over military burn pits

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 14, 2019

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is rejecting appeals from military veterans who claim they suffer health problems because of open burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The justices on Monday left in place a federal appeals court ruling that more than 60 lawsuits over the burn pits could not go forward.

The lawsuits said military contractor KBR dumped tires, batteries, medical waste and other materials into open burn pits. The suits claimed the resulting smoke caused neurological problems, cancers and other health issues in more than 800 servicemembers. The complaints said at least 12 servicemembers died. #ExposedAndBetrayed
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Commandant tells Coast Guard families: ‘You have not, and will not, be forgotten’

By STARS AND STRIPES
Published: January 14, 2019

Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Karl Schultz drew attention to ongoing missions around the globe and expressed his support for Coast Guard families as the service prepared for about 41,000 members to go without paychecks on Tuesday as part of the ongoing partial government shutdown.

A Coast Guard Cutter Munro crewmember embraces his children after the cutter returned home to Alameda, Calif., Dec. 24, 2018. MATTHEW MASASCHI/U.S. COAST GUARD

"While our Coast Guard workforce is deployed, there are loved ones at home reviewing family finances, researching how to get support, and weighing childcare options—they are holding down the fort," Schultz wrote on Sunday. "Please know that we are doing everything we can to support and advocate for you while your loved one stands the watch. You have not, and will not, be forgotten."
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And then there is the latest news that the Congress is once again thinking about the term permanent and totally disabled should be followed up with "just kidding." They managed to cut the taxes on their wealthy friends, but now they want to cut the budgets of the disabled veterans who cannot afford to lose their compensation. Gee, wonder how much the heads of all the corporations get for their compensation after that sweetheart deal?

In other words folks...mostly cutting Vietnam veterans off at the knees!

Background

In 2017, 4.5 million veterans with medical conditions or injuries that were incurred or that worsened during active-duty service received disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The amount of compensation such veterans receive depends on the severity of their disabilities (which are rated between zero and 100 percent in increments of 10), the number of their dependents, and other factors—but not on their income or civilian employment history.

In addition, VA may increase certain veterans' disability compensation to the 100 percent level, even though VA has not rated their service-connected disabilities at that level. To receive the supplement, termed an Individual Unemployability (IU) payment, disabled veterans must apply for the benefit and meet two criteria. First, veterans generally must be rated between 60 percent and 90 percent disabled. Second, VA must determine that veterans' disabilities prevent them from maintaining substantially gainful employment—for instance, if their employment earnings would keep them below the poverty threshold for one person. In 2017, for veterans who received the supplement, it boosted their monthly VA disability payment by an average of about $1,200. In September 2017, about 380,000 veterans received IU payments. Of those veterans, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, about 180,000 were age 67 or older. That age group has been the largest driver of growth in the program.

VA's regulations require that IU benefits be based on a veteran's inability to maintain substantially gainful employment because of the severity of a service-connected disability and not because of age, voluntary withdrawal from work, or other factors. About 48 percent of veterans receiving the IU supplement were 67 or older in September 2017, up from about 40 percent in September 2010. That rise is attributed largely to the aging of Vietnam War veterans.

But the tax cuts for the wealthy they managed to make permanent!

House passes GOP bill to make new tax cuts permanent

• Republicans have sped legislation through the House to expand their massive new tax law, capping their session for the year as they rush out of town to face voters in the November elections.
• The new bill would make permanent the individual and small-business tax cuts in the law.
• It's the second tax-cut proposal that Republican leaders have pushed in less than a year.

MOH Retired Air Force Col. Joe M. Jackson passed away

Air Force legend, Medal of Honor recipient, Joe Jackson dies at 95

Air Force Times
Kyle Rempfer
January 15, 2019

Former Air Force Lt. Col. Joe Jackson, a legendary pilot and Medal of Honor recipient, attends an awards dinner in Arlington, Va., in 2015.(DoD)

Retired Air Force Col. Joe M. Jackson, a Medal of Honor recipient, veteran of three wars and Air Force legend, has died.

The 95-year-old Jackson passed away over the weekend, according to Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein, who made the announcement Monday morning.

His death leaves James P. Fleming as the only other living Air Force Medal of Honor recipient, according to Military Times Hall of Valor Curator Doug Sterner.

Jackson, a native of Newnan, Ga., was famous within the aviation and special operations community for his daring rescue of a team of Air Force combat controllers who were stranded at the besieged airfield of an abandoned Army Special Forces camp during the Tet Offensive.

His exploits saved the lives of three men, but risked his own, as the airfield had been the site of multiple U.S. aircraft shootdowns and aircrew fatalities over the past 24 hours.

Although Jackson has passed, his exploits and the significance of the battle he took part in were recorded in the Southeast Asia Monographs, Volume V-7, at the Airpower Research Institute of Maxwell Air Force Base, as well as first-person accounts archived by the Library of Congress.
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Family of Argo Buchanan, Flag has been found

UPDATE

Found burial flag reunited with family of fallen WWII veteran

Veteran discovers military burial flag, now is searching for rightful owners

KIVITV
Jessica Taylor
January 13, 2019

HOMEDALE, Idaho — One veteran's cleanup project in Nampa led to another's missing treasure.

While cleaning out a home in Nampa, veteran David Slawson Sr. found a military burial flag. 

All he had was the name of the owner, Mr. Argo Buchanan, but he says he knew immediately how special the flag was.

If you know any family members connected to this flag, please email us (news@kivitv.com) or reach out to us on our Facebook page.

read more here 

125,000 veterans — have been furloughed or forced to work without pay

VA secretary slams union comments on government shutdown as politicizing veterans’ suicide

Military Times
By: Leo Shane III
2 hours ago

In a news interview last week, AFGE Local President Edward Canales said that if the shutdown doesn’t stop soon, “we are going to have fatalities, we’re going to have suicides.”

American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. speaks to federal employees gathered outside the AFL-CIO headquarters about the partial government shutdown on Jan. 4, 2019. On Monday, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie demanded an apology for the union suggesting that the ongoing shutdown could caused mental health distress for some veterans. (Jessie Bur/Staff)

WASHINGTON — Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie on Monday accused union officials of politicizing veterans mental health care by saying the ongoing government shutdown could cost some veterans their lives.

In a letter to the American Federation of Government Employees leadership, Wilkie demanded an apology for the “reckless comments” and asked for officials to “outline the steps you plan to take to ensure AFGE leaders demonstrate proper respect for our nation’s heroes.”

The move is the latest chapter in ongoing friction between federal workers’ unions and President Donald Trump’s administration, and the VA leadership specifically. In a response statement, AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. called the Trump administration “one of the worst on record for our country’s heroes” and pushed back on Wilkie’s accusations.

“Federal government employed veterans are hurting right now,” he said. “Regardless of their continued service to our country the President and his cabinet have left them out in the cold, forcing them to work without pay or subjecting veterans and their families to the uncertainty of not knowing when or where their next paycheck will come from.”

At the heart of the dispute is the decision of congressional Democrats and other Trump critics to invoke the impact of the ongoing government shutdown on veterans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is fully funded for the year, meaning VA employees and veterans support programs are not affected by the ongoing partial shutdown. But about 800,000 employees from other departments — including more than 125,000 veterans — have been furloughed or forced to work without pay because of the ongoing budget dispute.

In a news interview last week, AFGE Local President Edward Canales said that if the shutdown doesn’t stop soon, “we are going to have fatalities, we’re going to have suicides.”
read more here

Veterans in other news

Iraq Vet Jailed For Angry Voicemails Will Remain Locked Up

KPBS News

Starting just after Thanksgiving, Eric Benson began leaving voicemails on the work line for his private psychiatrist, demanding medication and treatment for his anxiety. The psychiatrist terminated Benson from his practice.

Food Stamp Programs to Remain Available Through February for Troops, Vets

Military.com

In 2016, a total of more than 44 million low-income Americans received SNAP benefits, according to the Agriculture Department.The number of active-duty military households currently participating in SNAP has been difficult to track, but the most recent estimate by the Government Accounting Office in 2016 put the number at about 23,000.

‘Things are slipping’ as Coast Guard families brace for missed paychecks

Stars and Stripes 

“I have two teenagers and an 8-year-old. All I care about is just getting them fed and having gas to get to work so I can keep that paycheck,” said Murdock, 34. “It’s hard, because they know. The kids know about what’s going on. They ask for things and I have to tell them it’s too tight right now.”Petty Officer 1st Class Ron Murdock is one of roughly 41,000 Coast Guard members bracing for the partial government shutdown to continue through the weekend and to deny them paychecks on Tuesday.

Press release on prevention?

OP-ED: The VA is making real progress on suicide prevention for veterans

By Robert Wilkie, Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Press Release
Under President Trump, VA has done more in the last two years than it has in decades in reforming the department and improving care and benefits for our nation’s heroes.

VA has made groundbreaking progress, particularly in the areas of accountability, transparency and efficiency across the department while achieving an unprecedented series of legislative successes, including giving greater choice in care to our nation’s Veterans through the MISSION Act.

As part of these efforts, the department is making great strides in our top clinical priority -- suicide prevention -- and in improving mental health care for Veterans, including through Telehealth, and same-day mental health services.

In his first year in office, President Trump issued an executive order to support Veterans during their transition from uniformed service to civilian life. The order focuses on transitioning service members and Veterans in the first 12 months after separation from service, a critical period marked by a high risk for suicide.

This executive order helps ensure that service members learn about VA benefits and start enrollment before becoming Veterans, and any newly transitioned Veteran can go to a VA medical center or vet center and start receiving mental health care right away. Transitioning service members and Veterans will be able to find information quickly online about their eligibility for VA care. Former service members with other-than-honorable discharges can also receive mental health care from VA medical centers.

We’ve also taken a number of other important steps to reach Veterans at risk. Since becoming VA’s director of suicide prevention, Dr. Keita Franklin has added more than 20 staff to her team, worked to improve the office’s organizational structure and brought clear lines of responsibility and accountability to VA’s suicide prevention efforts.

We also ramped up our spending on suicide prevention outreach in a big way. VA spent $12.2 million on suicide prevention outreach in fiscal year 2018, including $1.5 million on paid media. During fiscal year 2019, our total budget for suicide prevention is approximately $47.5 million, and we plan to spend $20 million of that budget on outreach.

We’ve also made great use of unpaid media through our partnership with Johnson and Johnson to produce a public service announcement featuring Tom Hanks—at no cost to VA. That partnership helped put VA in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings for PSAs.

More and more Americans are taking advantage of VA’s suicide prevention resources. The Veterans Crisis Line helps about 2,000 callers every day. In the past 10 years, it has answered over 3.5 million calls, engaged in over 413,000 online chats, and responded to over 98,000 text messages. And our suicide prevention coordinators conducted over 22,000 outreach events last year, reaching 2.2 million Veterans and family members.

Also, a recent pilot study found that a Safety Planning Intervention program currently in use at five VA facilities has shown to reduce suicidal behavior by 45%, and this intervention will be expanded to all VA facilities nationwide.

Tragically, an average of 20 Veterans die by suicide each day. Of those 20, 14 have not received recent VA care. The goal of VA’s suicide prevention efforts is not to get every Veteran enrolled in VA care, but rather to equip communities to help Veterans get the right care, whenever and wherever they need it.

This means using prevention approaches that cut across all sectors in which Veterans may interact, and collaborating with Veterans Service Organizations, state and local leaders, medical professionals, criminal justice officials, private employers and many other stakeholders. We’re doing this through the Mayor’s Challenge in which we work with cities to develop community plans to end Veteran suicide, and we’re expanding that program to work with Governors on the same approach in their states in February.

Put simply, suicide prevention is much more than intervention at the point of crisis – it is about creating and fostering cultures where Veterans and their families thrive. We’re all in this together. We must approach this matter compassionately and clinically and build on the important lessons from the past, while expanding our efforts in new directions that make sense.

If any Veteran is in crisis, we encourage him or her to visit the closest VA facility, as all VA health care locations provide same-day urgent mental health care services, or call the Veterans crisis line at 800-273-8255.

While it is true that veterans are less likely to commit suicide if they go to the VA...and there are increasing calls to the crisis line, the rest, not so much on the facts.

Seems more like a push to send them into private care instead of the VA....but then again, we all remember this too.

WASHINGTON — Despite public pronouncements on their continued focus on preventing veterans suicide, Veterans Affairs officials failed to spend millions available for outreach campaigns in 2018 and severely curtailed their messaging efforts, according to a new report released Monday.

The Government Accountability Office study found that of $6.2 million set aside for suicide prevention media outreach in fiscal 2018, only $57,000 — less than 1 percent — was actually used.

In addition, social media content from VA officials on the subject dropped by more than two-thirds from fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2018. Two planned new public service announcements on the topic were delayed, and no public outreach messages were aired on national television or radio for more than a year. 

Then we have the 27 public suicides last year, plus a lot more.