Today is Veteran’s Day

In honor of our Veterans I am urging you to please take a few minutes out of your day to contact Senator Tom Coburn (R – OK).

There is an important and major bill regarding Veteran’s Benefits (S. 1963, the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009) that Sen. Coburn has placed on hold. The longer this bill goes un-passed the more our Veterans will suffer.

Here are several key things this bill will do:
•S. 1963 will allow VA to recruit and retain nurses, home health aides, and specialty care providers.

•S. 1963 also contains measures that would improve the efficiency of health care delivery to veterans, including a number of pilot programs designed to help VA find new and innovative ways to deliver better, faster, and more comprehensive treatment.

•S. 1963 would expand eligibility and authority for the Vet Centers to provide needed services, and would commission a comprehensive study on suicides among veterans so that we can improve efforts to prevent such tragedies.

•S. 1963 would also provide support for homeless veterans through a proposed series of innovative pilot programs. These programs are designed to significantly improve VA outreach to these veterans, in order to help them access the benefits and services provided by VA.

To read more about this comprehensive bill, click here and here.

Suicide rates are WAY UP, particularly among service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. This is awful, awful, AWFUL! We can NOT abandon the very people we have asked to serve three and four tours of duty in these war zones. OUR TROOPS NEED OUR SUPPORT.

Senator Coburn MUST be asked – “Do you support our troops?” If he says yes – then you MUST ask “Why then, are you blocking this important legislation S. 1963, the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009?”

You may contact Senator Coburn in the following places:
Washington D.C.:
Phone: 202-224-5754
Fax: 202-224-6008

Tulsa:
Phone: 918-581-7651
Fax: 918-581-7195

Oklahoma City:
Phone: 405-231-4941
Fax: 405-231-5051

Now more than ever our Veterans need us. PLEASE, let's do them this little favor and really show our support. Phone or fax Senator Coburn and help get this bill passed.

Thank you.

This is an atrocity - I don't even know what to do about it.

There's a story that came out yesterday on Bloomberg that says:
"The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said."

Suicides will exceed combat deaths?

Something needs to be done about this and I don't even know where to begin since the MSM don't seem to want to make this a major issue by plastering it all over their newscasts and front pages.

I don't even know what to say. Where do you start?

For the few people that happen to read my blog, please do pass this information around. And if you happen to be a vet that reads this and you're experiencing depression or PTSD, there is help for you out there in form of your fellow soldiers and Marines. PLEASE contact VETS 4 VETS and get the help you so deservedly need.

It was just Veteran's Day...

As I was driving home Tuesday night from the bus and listening to the news on my local CBS AM radio station, I caught the tail-end of a story they were simulcasting from the CBS Evening (TV) News. It was about the suicide rate among Iraq "War" Veterans and the information CBS News uncovered is astounding.

("CBS News did an investigation - asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information. And what it revealed was stunning. In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.)

I know this subject is kind of a bummer; However it gives me pause to think about the soldiers and Marines who managed to make it out of Iraq alive only to come home and kill themselves because of the inadequate support offered by the Veterans Administration, our government and the current administration who SWEARS they "Support the Troops"

It is clearly NOT okay that our returning troops don't get the care and support they so desprerately need and the information gets swept under the rug. This should be headline news!! EVERYONE should know about this!

That's why I'd like you (all three of my readers) to PLEASE go (I'm seriously begging here) read this story from CBS News and tell as many people as you know who will listen about this awful, awful thing. Ideally, the more people that know, the less the government can cover up what they're NOT doing for our armed forces.

And, if you happen to be a vet reading this, please check out Vets 4 Vets. It was started in 2005 "by a Marine Corps combat veteran of Vietnam" FOR other Veterans as a means of support. Who better to talk about your experiences in Iraq or Afghanistan with than your fellow troops?

If you claim to support the troops, this is something you CANNOT turn your back on.

Namaste