Nice. From CREW's site:

This is an outrage.

CREW and VoteVets.org released an e-mail (May 1, 2008) obtained from a Veterans Affairs (VA) employee directing VA staff to refrain from diagnosing soldiers and veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Update: On a related note, see the NYT's Herbert's column on the new proposed GI Bill: "Politicians tend to talk very, very big about supporting our men and women in uniform. But time and again — whether it’s about providing armor for their safety or an education for their future — we find that talk to be very, very cheap."

via mal contends

The U.S. Dept of Veterans of Affairs (VA) has gone down the toilet.

This is what happens when the VA adopts the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) Dr. Sally Satel ethos that veterans need to just get over it, and not be enabled in a 'culture of trauma'.

From South Carolina, Paul Alongi reports:

The Kentucky News-Enterprise has a piece this week on jailed Wisconsin veteran, Keith Roberts.

Sister takes up brother’s fight for freedom

By JOSHUA COFFMAN

RADCLIFF —Sally Harrod is crunching numbers that stretch beyond her job as an accountant. She oversees a legal fund for her brother in two legal cases regarding benefits he sought as a Navy veteran.

Keith Roberts, 60, is in a Minnesota federal prison, convicted of fraudulently receiving electronic funds from the department of Veterans Affairs. ...

Harrod, her family members and other veterans’ advocates ... fear the VA sought retribution against Roberts for seeking decades of back pay for post-traumatic stress disorder and criticizing the agency’s slow response to approve or deny his medical claims. ...

And, once it is all settled, she hopes her family can help veterans in similar situations.

“It’s unbelievable to all of them,” she said. “If they can do it to my brother, they can do it to anyone at any time.”

via mal contends

Comes up every once in a while. My girlfriend so proud of her dad talking about what she knew of her late father's service in World War II. And from both of our parents (my father was a veteran recruited by the CIA but he went to grad school instead to have me), we hear of the society-wide, shared sacrifice to defeat some pig NAZIs and fascists.

War profiteers, they were a pariah. Not like today when they are protected by the Bush DOJ.

What happens when you deploy troops who
have seen high intensity combat time and time again with inadequate
dwell time between tours? You see skyrocketing mental health issues.

After months of investigative work,
talking to our troops and veterans, we released
a report on the situation at Fort Drum in Watertown, New York.
Since 9/11, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team has been deployed for more
than forty months, more than any other brigade in the Army, and we
are seeing what is nothing short of a cry for help from the men and
women on the base; a cry we will answer in Wisconsin, which has seen many of its soldiers deployed from Fort McCoy.

Around the United States, including here in the shadow of Fort McCoy, we see that the military is overwhelmed as it tries to assist servicemembers.

Here at Veterans For America, where I am proud to be Director of Policy, we are determined to do something to help the men and women who have served us. Part of our efforts include our easy-to-use registry that will help us get you the help you need (or help for someone you know).

Please click here to register with Veterans for America's Wounded Warrior Registry.

If you or someone you know needs help, we will work to make sure that you get it -- it's as simple as that. We will answer every single request we get. Sometimes it can be just knowing how to fight through the bureaucracy and get the mental health appointment you need or it might be how to get your family counseling.

Please let us help you or someone you know get the help you need and deserve.

Check out this NYT piece on how Berkeley is opposing the Iraq War.  

It's past time for municipalities to ramp up war resistance in as many creative ways as possible.

###

Update II: Minneapolis to open temporary VA clinic in Rice Lake

Update: Veterans Administration clinics in Hayward and Rice Lake may re-open Monday

Another exhibit demonstrating that health care ought not be a commodity to be sold for profit, especially for our veterans.

The VA contracted out health care services for veterans to Corporate Health & Wellness, Inc and the company subsequently closed down two VA clinics in Northern Wisconsin, complaining that they were not making a profit.

The VA and Corporate Health & Wellness, Inc's CEO Mary Cheek have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

I wonder how they received this VA contract.

Did Mary Cheek contribute money to Republicans? Readers who have a minute ought to look into this.

From Business Week, Dinesh Ramde reports:

My earlier post about Milwaukee's Veterans for Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War being banned from Milwaukee's Vaterans Day parade, which I also posted nationally on Daily Kos, has brought this observation from a Dkos reader:

All these quotes are gleaned from The Department of Veterans Affairs

Wison's speech from 1919

To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those

who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations...

From Congress in 1926

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and

A Vietnam vet writes:

When making out your Christmas Card List this year, if you would like to add a Recovering American Soldier to your list, you may do so via the following address:

A Recovering American Service Member

c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center

6900 George Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20307-5001

Why wait for Christmas? Veterans Day is this weekend.