Route Mobile

"Aaron Ringel is the Republican Candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in Arlington (48th District), as well as a former Capitol Hill staffer and Marine Arabic linguist who served a tour of duty in the Al Anabar province of Iraq in 2005."

She wasn’t even five years old, yet she knew enough to understand her country was going through upheaval and that new men with guns replaced the old men with guns. Old enough to have only known a time when her family loved her and that was all that mattered. This was the natural order of things and it would never change. Her memories began when we got here and they ended before we had even left.

Our convoy was cruising down route Mobile, the largest and most dangerous east-west highway in Iraq. The Iraqis had a phrase for the people who drive this road, they would say “they work on the doorstep of God”. The insurgents focused their roadside IED’s on Mobile since it was one of the few places they ‘knew’ we would have to travel. Outside of the IEDs there was always some form of activity on this stretch of road. If you went west, there were men selling ice where the road split towards Syria or Jordan, go east and there were young boys and old men selling gas and sodas under the bridges, and there was always at least one stray donkey wandering away from its former life, trailing a leash behind it like a fishing boat trawls a net.

Yet on this singular day there were no donkeys, and the insurgents had slept in much too late to place any bombs on the side of this road. The only thing moving on this stretch of highway was our vehicles and the burden they carried. We got there too late, yet we didn’t feel that way. It had been twenty minutes since she had fallen in. The water level was higher than it had been in a long time due to the unseasonable rains that seemed to have been following my unit like the plague since we had begun workups in Camp Lejuene two months earlier. With so much water soaking into the arid land the fields along the road were glutted with the mud and runoff, which flowed into the storm drains abutting the road much too rapidly for them to handle.

It was at one of these drains that this hapless family decided to cross the road; a mother and her six or seven daughters ranging from fifteen down to that of not more than five years old. In the confusion of crossing the road her littlest daughter disappeared. With so much water rushing from the fields to the drain she had almost no time to cry out, yet her family had seen her fall.

We happened upon this scene, all of the women hysterically yelling and waving at our passing vehicles, crying out for any help that we could possibly provide. Naturally, our convoy stopped. It was the way we handled business, if it was out of the ordinary we looked into it regardless of the situation. It was a prudent rule we always followed and it had served us well in the past.

There was little we could do, but we did all we possibly could. One Marine ran down the side of the road where the water ran out of the drain while another went down the opposite side, both sprinting as hard as they could in hope of finding the child. This is difficult to maintain for any stretch of time with gear weighing close to forty pounds…they ran for nearly a kilometer, yet there was nothing at the end.

We all wanted to go into the drain. Our vehicles had winches on them and we were willing to hook one up to our belts and crawl in to look for her, yet the water was all the way to the top of the pipe and it was deemed too dangerous. The father of the child showed up a short time later, clearly in grief he shed his robe and attempted to climb in to find his daughter, his whole family had to restrain him.

Twenty minutes on the side of the road waving, twenty minutes on the busiest highway in all of Iraq, twenty minutes that must have felt like a lifetime to this family. No one had stopped, no one had slowed down, and no one had given it a second thought or a passing glance except our convoy. The family found the little girl’s body about a kilometer and a half down from where she had fallen in the drain. Sadly there was little we could have done to save her.

The fear from rockets and mortars that fell on our base and the IEDs that detonated next to our vehicles paled in comparison to how we all felt upon seeing the grief on this mother’s face when she knew there was nothing that would save her child. This needless death, in a country already full of violence and bloodshed, has led me to draw one conclusion about its people. When tragedy occurs they will turn to those most able to help, not their fellow Iraqis, not the Iraqi Police or National Guard, but us, the coalition forces.

This was the burden shouldered when we first set foot on this soil, it is the burden we carry when we went out on a convoy, and it is the burden we gladly accept when we see a family in distress. Not only are we protecting the freedoms of every American, but we are also trying to preserve and establish those of every Iraqi until the time their country is firm enough in its resolve and strong enough in its ideals that we are no longer needed. It is my hope that on that day I will no longer have to bear witness to a mother’s grief on the side of route Mobile.

http://www.ringelfordelegate.com/

German soldiers 'drink and complain too much to fight Taleban'

They have a beer ration of up to a litre a day, and wurst for dinner. Taleban or no Taleban, Germans take a little bit of home with them when they serve in trouble spots. Even their carefully sorted rubbish gets dumped in wheelie bins before being sent from Afghanistan to Germany for recycling.

Now Germany’s most senior officer has berated his troops for going soft. “We cannot guarantee soldiers that they will have an all-round feel-good experience,” said General Wolfgang Schneiderhan.

His outburst follows complaints made by German soldiers to the official ombudsman about their tours abroad. Some have grumbled about unsuitable sleeping bags for their Congo peace-keeping mission — “there is no reason why this issue should have come before Parliament,” said General Schneiderhan — while others moaned about the long hours, a lack of childcare for their families at home and poor medical care.

Army doctors say that they are on the brink of leaving because pay and conditions are so bad. So many have returned to civilian life that there is a shortage of medics in the field.

“We have to tell a professional soldier who complains about his third tour of overseas duty that he has to get a grip — this is his profession,” said General Schneiderhan.
“Perhaps the problem is down to the general tendency in society to delegate responsibility to someone else, or perhaps it is the stress associated with change,” he told several hundred army officers and politicians at an official reception.

It is a far cry from Germany’s old military traditions — the Prussian officers who helped to defeat Napoleon or the tactical flair of Rommel, the Desert Fox, but the troops’ reluctance will not come as a surprise to the country’s allies in combat zones such as Afghanistan, where German participation is limited by a host of caveats.

German Medevac helicopters have to be back at base by dusk. German Tornado aircraft are restricted to unarmed reconaissance. Der Spiegel magazine highlighted the case recently of a Taleban commander — nicknamed the Baghlan Bomber because of his role in blowing up a sugar factory in that northwestern province — who was cornered by the KSK German special service unit but allowed to escape; under the terms of engagement imposed by Parliament the KSK are not authorised to kill unless they are under attack.

Although the north of Afghanistan is not as quiet as it used to be — about 30 German soldiers have been killed since 2001 — other members of the ISAF force have voiced dissatisfaction about Germany’s contribution.

The reports of soldiers’ complaints made to parliament by Reinhold Robbe, the ombudsman, paint a picture of a force that is concentrating more on its own wellbeing than on the peace-keeping mission.

In 2007 German forces in Afghanistan consumed about 90,000 bottles of wine in addition to 1.7 million pints of beer; that figure has stayed constant. British and US bases by contrast have an alcohol ban.

The diet is heavy on carbohydrates, low on fruit and a higher proportion of soldiers are overweight than in the civilian population of Germany. Mr Robbe admitted that too many soldiers had a “passive lifestyle”. In short the soldiers are fat, they drink too much and spend a great deal of time moaning.

There are 3,500 German soldiers in Afghanistan. German troops also take part in missions in Kosovo, Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. For much of the postwar period Germans were constitutionally banned from serving on foreign missions.

Deployment still requires a parliamentary mandate and this gives complaining soldiers some clout. If they moan loud enough they can usually secure improvements but they continue to suffer equipment shortages, like their British counterparts.

From the Times Online

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=116408176954&h=qGt2X&u=8CLIq&ref=nf

Courtesy of: Ryan Mits

Virginia State Director of the Student Veterans of America and President of Education for Virginia Veteran on issues concerning Virginia's veterans

Joshua Lawton-Belous from Comcast Channel 28 on Vimeo.

The Stick it to Veterans Stimulus

How America’s veterans are getting short changed by the economic stimulus

A quick reading of the economic stimulus quickly reveals a lack of interest in stimulation for America’s veterans. As of May, there are more unemployed veterans then we have had in decades. To be exact there are 1,045,000 unemployed veterans across the United States. Of those, 180,000 are OEF/OIF veterans.

What does that mean? Well, there are more unemployed Iraq and Afghanistan veterans then there are men and women serving in those wars. One would think that with America’s heroes returning home from war to fight another on unemployment, our nation’s lawmakers would go full hog to help them out. Not really. So what did veterans gain from the stimulus.

A $250.00 windfall--Don't spend it all it once.

and

In fairness, the only decent provision veterans did receive was provided by freshman Virginia Representative Glenn Nye, which provides a tax break for employers that hire recently separated servicemembers.

So where are we getting shortchanged?

In reading today’s Washington Post metro section I was disappointed to say the least.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061603086.html

Two events are about to occur simultaneously. First, the State of Virginia is about to start issuing contracts for stimulus related projects. Once these companies receive these contracts they will start to employ individuals.

This my friends is where veterans receive the shaft. Currently, there are no Virginia specific laws that require companies receiving contracts to do anything for veterans, nor are there any requirements for these companies to do anything for veterans’ employment. But there are requirements for contractors receiving federal contracts. Additionally, 3 percent of all federal contracts are supposed to be awarded to small disabled veteran owned businesses (SDVOSB’s). But wait, isn’t stimulus money federal money? It would seem that these same requirements should apply to this grant money.

Thanks for asking but—No!

Indeed, so our federal tax dollars that otherwise would provide employment and contract opportunities for veterans are being bypassed in the stimulus! Since stimulus funds are technically state grants, the states are not required to adhere to the federal veteran requirements even though the money is federal.

When approached for a fix many of our legislators turned their back/ear/leg in fear it would slow the rate of recovery—no worries over the skyrocketing unemployment numbers of veterans, particularly recently separated servicemembers.

In conclusion, Virginia lawmakers need to stipulate that all companies receiving stimulus dollars have a veteran employment preference for those projects. Also, 3 percent of all Virginia contracts and sub-contracts being funded by federal stimulus money ought to be set-aside for small disabled veteran owned businesses from Virginia.

Anything less is sticking it to Virginia Veterans!

Gov. signs military, veterans bills

Gov. signs military,veterans bills

Tuesday, 16 Jun 2009, 2:03 PM EDT

RICHMOND, Va. - Gov. Tim Kaine Tuesday ceremonially signed several Virginia General Assembly bills providing assistance to military personnel and their families and honoring the Commonwealth’s veterans.

Among the bills signed was the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children. The compact, which has been signed into law in at least 10 other states, will allow for the uniform treatment, at the state and local district level, of military children transferring between school districts and states, and will also address the timely sharing of their educational records. According the the Governor's office, Virginia currently has more school-aged children of active duty military than any state in the nation (76,352).

Other bills signed provide tuition assistance for members of the National Guard that have a minimum of two years remaining on their service requirement, increase the homestead exemption for veterans with a 40% or greater service connected disability rating, and make it easier for military and overseas voters and their families to vote absentee.
Virginia is home to 156,000 active military personnel, as well as 26,000 reservists and 10,000 members of the Virginia National Guard. Additionally, 807,000 veterans call the Commonwealth home, meaning that one out of every ten Virginians is a veteran.

The bills signed Tuesday in detail are:

Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children -
HB 1727: Establishes a compact to remove barriers to educational success imposed on children of military families because of frequent moves and deployment of their parents. The compact is currently in effect as at least 10 states have enacted the compact into law.

Election -
HB 1881: Provides that the absentee ballot shall be sent by email to military and overseas voters and their families who are located outside the Commonwealth and who request the ballot be sent by email. However, the voted ballot must be returned by regular mail.

SB 993/HB 1712: Removes the requirement that a federal write-in absentee ballot will only be considered valid for purposes of simultaneously satisfying both an absentee ballot application and a completed absentee ballot for federal offices if the envelope contains the signature of a witness and his printed name and address. The bill provides that the envelope need only contain the signature of the witness in order for the ballot to be considered valid. The bill also provides that the ballot must be received no later than the closing of the polls rather than five days before the election and that the federal write-in absentee ballot may serve as a registration application if the voter is eligible to register in Virginia.

Active Duty Military Personnel and Reservists -
HB 2342: Provides that notwithstanding the eligibility requirement that a member of the National Guard have a minimum of two years remaining on his service requirement in order to receive a grant, if a member is activated or deployed for federal military service, an additional day, up to 365 days, must be added to the member's eligibility for the grant for each day of federal service. Additional credit, or credit for state duty, may be awarded at the discretion of the Adjutant General.

SB 1159: Extends from 72 hours to five business days the amount of time a person serving in the armed forces of the U.S. outside Virginia has to get his vehicle inspected upon returning to the Commonwealth.
Veterans -

HB 1667: Extends the American Former Prisoners of War Memorial Highway (U.S. Route 19) northward from the Russell/Tazewell County line to U.S. Route 460 at Claypool.

HB 1767: Requires that the Board of Education award an honorary high school diploma to veterans of the Vietnam War who, as secondary school students, enlisted or were drafted to serve in any branch of the United States Armed Forces during the war between 1959 and 1975, were subsequently honorably discharged, and were unable to complete their secondary education upon return to civilian life.

HB 1875: Requires the Virginia War Memorial Foundation Board of Trustees to establish criteria for those name and homes of records to be engraved on the War Memorial. The bill specifies the issues that the Board must address in its criteria. The bill requires the Board to report to the Governor and the General Assembly on or before November 1, 2009.

HB 2279: Requires the Commissioner of the Department of Veterans Services to ensure that benefit claims assistance is provided on a regular basis at locations other than established service offices. Current law specifies that the Commissioner shall ensure that the personnel assigned to process benefit claims shall provide these services at locations other than the service office at least one day per week

HB 2401: Designates the following bridges: the U.S. Route 29 bridge over the Rapidan River between Greene and Madison Counties as the "Fallen Heroes Memorial Bridge in honor of Corporal Adam J. Fargo
and Private First Class Edwin A. Andino" and the U.S. Route 340 bridge over Overall Run at the Warren County/Page County line as the "Corporal Larry E. Smedley (USMC) Memorial Bridge."
HB 2534: Authorizes the issuance of special license plates for veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom.

HB 2560: Increases the additional homestead exemption from $2,000 to $10,000 for veterans with a 40% or greater service-connected disability rating

HB 2639: Exempts from the mandatory disclosure provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (i) personal information contained in the Veterans Care Center Resident Trust Funds concerning residents or patients of the Department of Veterans Services care centers and (ii) certain records maintained in connection with fundraising activities by the Veterans Services Foundation

SB 1116: Requires health insurers, health care subscription plans, and health maintenance organizations to offer and make available coverage for medically necessary prosthetic devices, their repair, fitting, replacement, and components, to replace a limb.

A quick fix for veterans...

Within two years of the conclusion of World War II, more than 16 million service men and women were released from active duty. Millions filed claims with VA for compensation. Why wasn’t the VA overwhelmed? Perhaps it is time to recognize that better production and timeliness levels achieved by the VA in the 1950s and ‘60s may very well have been accomplished because there was less attention paid to procedural rights and that the VA may have exhibited a rather cavalier attitude when it came to interpreting the law and its own regulations.

Whether you agree with either view of history, it is clear the VA was able to make claim decisions quickly. Reexaminations were frequent and allowed VA to increase or reduce evaluations as disabilities worsened or improved.

Today, claims development takes longer. Quite simply, Congress recognized that past procedures and practices by VA were not always veteran friendly, did not adequately tell veterans what was needed and often led to decisions based on less than all the available evidence. Decisions are longer because Congress decided that veterans should be told what evidence was considered and why benefits were denied or granted. Appeals take longer to resolve because of increased evidentiary and notice requirements, the introduction of an additional review level with Decision Review Officers and the need to satisfy all judicial mandates.

The fact is there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these changes. Those decisions were all needed to fix recognized problems and abuses.

Having said that, how do you devise a system that allows VA to make decisions rapidly without increasing mistakes, is not costly either to the veteran or the American people, and continues to provide veterans with the protections that have been built into the law over the past 60 years?

Jerry Manar, who is the VFW’s Deputy Director of National Veterans Service, with assistance from VFW staff and VA alumni, has developed a process that incorporates the best practices of a post WWII claims system to make expedited provisional decisions based on existing records. This proposal, which calls for the creation of a test program entitled the Provisional Claims Processing Program, would grant benefits on limited information quickly but with quality.

Limited to servicemembers leaving the Armed Forces or recently discharged veterans, evaluations would be based on existing evidence, understanding that benefits for some conditions may be denied when further development would enable VA to grant service connection under existing law. Conversely, it is understood that benefits, based on existing evidence, may not be service connected when all evidence is eventually developed and considered. Consequently, a grant of benefits for any disability is not a grant of service connection entitling the veteran to protections afforded by existing law and regulation.

Under this program, full development, a VA examination and a new decision would be required four years after the initial provisional rating. Provisional decisions made under this program would have no precedent value, and service connection for all disabilities, including any new condition the veteran chooses to place into contention, would be made during the review at the four-year point.

This program would restore the rapid delivery of benefits based on current rating standards, while still maintaining veterans’ rights under a system of protections carefully crafted by Congress over the past 60 years. It should dramatically increase decisions on original claims while allowing the bulk of VFW’s field staff to concentrate on resolving the existing backlog.

More importantly, this program would provide a win for new veterans. In exchange for agreeing to wait for a final decision, they would receive a provisional decision and benefits in a matter of weeks instead of more than six months. If properly structured the VA could fulfill the promise it made with the BDD program that a decision could be made prior to discharge.

Further, veterans have the right to choose which program they participate in AFTER they know what the provisional decision awards. If they disagree with the provisional decision, they need not accept it. And, since they know that the current program may take six months or more to produce a decision, their conscious choice to accept the wait should reduce the number of complaints and consequent pressure on Congress.

Kibbeh

When coming to this blog to read about Virginia's veterans the question that should always come to your mind is "Why should I spend time reading and deciphering the minds of these bloggers"? Unlike many of us who are from Northern Virginia, and those who work in the D.C. Metropolitan Area, I do not feel the need to impress you with my position nor tell you about how wonderful of a person I am. I'd rather you read my posts and agree or disagree with me based on the post's merits alone. Yet to deny who we are and our personal story is to deny reality. My experiences have written my story which have shaped my opinions. Thus below is only one experience which may help you get to know me as a person. If the heart is the home of the soul and food is the key to a man's heart, it is only proper that I tell you about my favorite food and how I came to love it.

There are only some men in life who die only to be born again: Jesus and all those who go to war and come back. The only difference between Jesus and those warriors is that Jesus came back the same person while these warriors are unrecognizable from their past selves. And as Jesus broke bread with his disciples so to did the disciples of war break peace and eat of the local foods. Some found the new local tastes to be exotic and delightful while others found these tastes disgusting and could not deign on the delights of war.

I loved the delights of war. The tastes, the smells, the texture were all new and exciting to me. Maybe it is because I was young when I first went over to Iraq and naïve, that I found the tastes of Baghdad to be so exciting. Whatever the reasons for my new found love of Baghdad cuisine, I came to love a meat rolled dish called kibbeh. Kibbeh is a hodgepodge of meat. Most recognizable in its rolled torpedo shape, kibbeh is also sometimes shaped as meatballs. A main stay of Middle Eastern cuisine, kibbeh can be found from Lebanon to Iraq. There are few things that the Israelis and the Arabs share, but each cultures love of kibbeh is one of those things. If the Israelis and the Arabs can agree on how great kibbeh is, you know kibbeh has to be something special.

When I was first introduced to my new found love, I was throwing a placenta away in a trash bag. The birth of some destitute woman’s baby had gone well and her husband had thought to offer me money as a reward. I flatly refused him. My refusal was not so much out of the generosity of my heart, but rather my belief that 2,000 dinar was not worth my time. I was afraid that the next thing that would happen is that the Iraqis in my district would use me as a cheap and competent medical alternative to the incompetent and costly medical personnel in Baghdad. I neither had the time, the medical supplies, nor the patience to deal with that many people. My job was to take care of the men in my platoon and I was not going to let anything get in the way of my job.

Under the an upturned water bottle I was washing my hands off with antibacterial gel and water when one of the guys said, “Doc, the husband’s comin’ back.” Tapping me on my shoulder he thrust into my wet hands a hot, dripping with juice, paper wrapped gift. “Shukron, Shukron, Docteur,” he exclaimed while kissing me on the cheeks. Rather shocked and disgusted by this display of affection, I looked down at the dripping paper gift and back up at his big toothy grin and thought “Well it can’t be that bad.”

My saliva glands exploded with activity as I chewed my first bite of this delicious Arabic food. The smell of cumin and meat wafted through my nostrils and danced on the back of my tongue with every bite. This meat seemed as if it dissolved in my mouth when I tried to relish the taste. Before I knew it, I had finished the kibbeh.

Unfortunately I could not relish the aftertaste of the meat nor the cigarette that I had just lit because off in the distance a huge explosion was heard. Running back to throw on my gear and come to the assistance of whoever had just been hit, I thought to myself “Maybe if it’s Iraqis, I can get some more kibbeh.” Unfortunately for me, my hopes of free kibbeh died along with the family of Iraqis who were peacefully driving with their children in a van.

Four Unknown Facts about the Post 9/11 GI-Bill

Four Unknown Facts about the Post 9/11 GI-Bill

1. Exhaust the old GI-bill benefits and you get 12 additional months of the new GI-Bill! That is 48 months of educational benefit vice 36!

You must fully exhaust your Chapter 30 benefits to be eligible for the 12 additional months of Chapter 33 benefits and this does not work in reverse. As in, you cannot exhaust 36 months of Chapter 33 benefits and then have 12 months of Chapter 30 eligibility.

Also, keep in mind these additional 12 months would not have to be at your undergraduate institution they could be at any graduate institution and would pay up to the most expensive in state undergraduate rate-unless they are participating in the Yellow Ribbon Program which will split the difference between the highest in state rate and the full cost of the program. Depending on your situation you could use Chapter 30 and pay for a good portion of your graduate degree—or at least have a healthy stipend for 12 months and less debt.

http://www.gibill.va.gov/GI_Bill_Info/CH33/Yellow_ribbon.htm

2. The Big Loophole for Part-time Students

The above only applies if you are pursuing a full-time program. If you are interested in going to school part time then it is in your advantage to take 1 credit hour more than half-time, typically seven credit hours, and you will receive the full BAH rate but only be charged half a month of entitlement. At this rate you could receive up to 72 months of GI-Bill benefits and receive the full BAH rate for the entirety of these 72 months. This could also be utilized for the 12 additional months of Chapter 33 eligibility if you exhaust your Chapter 30 benefits.

3. Once You Leave Chapter 30 (the old GI-Bill) There is No Coming Back!

If you switch to Chapter 33 there is no returning to Chapter 30. So make sure that you are aware of this implication and have an idea of how it is you want to pursue your degree. If you have already registered to utilize Chapter 33 fall benefits this can be reversed up until the point you receive your first stipend deposit. If you would like to reverse this decision then you need to act now.

4. How are the student fees going to be paid to veterans?

You will receive $42.00 per credit hour of attendance with your first BAH direct deposit payment up to a max of $1,000 per a year.


If you need any additional information or have any other questions please feel free to contact me by email. jbrown@vfw.org


Justin Brown
A Virginia Vet

A Quick Glance

I am not going to lie. I have never read a blog before now. Therefore, I am not sure how to start off writing a blog. Intuitively, I want to keep it academic. I have been writing academic essays for too long and I have almost forgotten how to express my personal opinions in writing. When speaking about a subject I understand, I am at my best. I stopped expressing my thoughts and feelings through writing at an early age, after my parents learned about my misdeeds when reading my personal journal. Since then I have tried not to write anything personal, in fear of incriminating my-self. But I am going to try and write professionally and candidly about my experiences and opinions in a manner that will maintain your interest.

Since this is a veteran’s blog, I will begin by telling some stories about my military experiences. Boot camp was hell. Every day I paid for any lack of attention to detail and every day I had to convince my-self to keep going, I didn’t want to come home having failed. The highlights were breaking my nose, severe concussion, stitches above my eye, molars pulled out, and pneumonia. I only missed 2 days of training. So I don’t want to hear anything about this new Corp versus old Corp crap, I am pretty sure I rate my Eagle, Globe and Anchor.

Most the time I dreaded going to drill while being a reservist. You don’t think of it when you sign the contract, you don’t think of a lot of things, but giving up a fourth of your weekends is a real inconvenience. I would often have recreational plans, school, and professional work that would have to be put on hold and a lot of time we were merely playing “hurry up and wait” games. I was sometimes envious of active duty guys; they didn’t have to balance everything I did. I have to admit sometimes I enjoyed going to field, sleeping in the dirt and snow, throwing grenades and shooting machine guns (it gets less fun every time), eating with truck grease on my hands, being tear gassed, and the otherwise inexcusable talk Marines partake in. It allowed me to get away from the monotony of life.

I had to interrupt my university studies to go over to Iraq. What was most troubling to me is I really thought I would never accomplish my goal of earning my college diploma. I thought I was going to the sandbox and I was going to come back home in a box. So I lost my mind for a minute. I took sporadic trips to Park City, San Diego, Vegas, and Denver with money I couldn’t afford to spend. Picked fights with guys twice my size, just to prepare me for the fight. A fight I would never see. I probably displayed more symptoms of PTSD before I left, then when I got back.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. To put it bluntly, I enjoyed my deployment to Iraq. I had my life mapped out, what to eat, where to sleep, when to man the 50 cal. machine gun, I was told everything, but whom the enemy was. I had camaraderie, a workout schedule, books, and big flat screen next to my bed. Yes, I had flat screen television in my tin can full of 30 Marines. More guys got injured on my deployment at the gym then in combat.

I only had one Devil Dog in my platoon get sent home. An IED almost blew of his head and left a pretty nasty wound in his neck. But he still had his head, he wouldn’t have had is head if we would have been stuck with those worthless hummers they had during the invasion-- you can thank Donnie Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration for ill equipped armor, in what they thought would be an easy invasion. At the time I had never encountered anything like it, but I still thought just another day on the job. Nevertheless, the Marines before me did most of the fighting. The country was literally blown to pieces when I got there. When I left we handed over what was once the most dangerous province in Iraq over to local control.

I came home and to no offense to my family and friends, I wanted to be back in Iraq. I was just in cultural shock, I felt enormous pressure to get my life in line and I felt I was starting from scratch. Getting a car, job, enrolled in school, and spending time with everyone was more overwhelming then stepping outside the wire for the first time. Eventually, I finished school and was able to take an internship at the VFW’s National Legislative Office. Now I am have to find a career I enjoy, which in this economy has proved to be “mission impossible.” Going to Afghanistan is tempting and a real option for me.

VBA Claims Backlog: Self-evident Truths

I have worked for the VFW approximately 18 months. When I began working in my current position, a VFW colleague welcomed me, handed me a copy of the VA’s rating schedule, and explained that I would need to become acquainted with the material in order to understand how the VBA goes about conducting its business. If you are at all familiar with this voluminous manual you would, no doubt, understand the instant panic that set in as I began thumbing through the pages.

“How on earth can anyone make sense out of this?”

I imagine that a newly hired VA rating specialist probably feels pretty much the same way on their first day, understanding that he or she will have to spend a good two years of training and referring to this manual (and other VA regulations), and at least another year getting comfortable with the VA claims system to get to the point to where the rating specialist becomes somewhat proficient in assessing veterans claims. I note this because I believe it is important to understand that simply increasing the number of VA rating specialists (as the VA has done over the past couple years) will not significantly reduce the claims backlog in a fashion considered timely by Congress, the VSO community, and most importantly the very veterans this system was developed to serve. I use this example as a starting point in order to advance our discussion to what I believe is a self-evident truth:

There is no quick fix to VBA…only the opportunity for steady and deliberate improvement.

No Magic Bullet

Perhaps it is time we recognize that the world has changed. There has been a silent paradigm shift over the past 30 years. If for no other reason than judicial review, the Veterans Claims Assistance Act (VCAA) and the budgetary environment that exists today, it may be time to acknowledge that the VA cannot be staffed at such levels as will allow it to produce quality decisions in the same period those earlier generations of VA workers achieved.

The converse of this may be to acknowledge that the better production and timeliness levels achieved in the 1950s and ‘60s may very well have been accomplished because there was less attention paid to procedural rights and that the VA may have exhibited a rather cavalier attitude when it came to interpreting the law and its own regulations.

Whether you agree with either view of history, the initial point remains; the world in which the VA operates has changed and it may no longer be realistic to expect accurate benefit decisions in a short period of time. There are still things that can be done to improve production, reduce backlogs (although perhaps not at the rate we all would like to see) and ensure claims are completed with quality. In my next blog posting I’ll highlight a few ideas that may help VA emerge from is growing backlog of claims cases and improve the manner in which veterans receive the benefits they deserve.

Bob Jackson is the assistant director for National Legislative Services for the VFW. When he is not busy hatching up political schemes with his pal and fellow co-worker Justin Brown, Bob lobbies Congress to improve VA Compensation and Pension Benefits.

A Blog is Born

In today’s market there seems to be a blog for just about everything. Yes there are already blogs for veterans, some are even good. So how do we take The Virginia Veteran and make it the blog of all blogs. I think first we have to start with veterans. Add a touch of differing ideologies and we are heading in the right direction. In the landscape we might title that of veterans, their issues, and their politics, it would seem there are an extremely limited number of voices at the table. Many current conflict veterans are left to essentially look to one of two types of organizations; the iron handed big organizations that consistently look more like pyramid schemes and will lack any representation from current conflict veterans for at least a decade or two (at least on the national level), or the mouthpiece groups that are not really groups but individuals with followers who claim to represent everything about our generation.

In my conversations with multiple veterans at the local level our discussion is not being had. Too often in the states across the nation older local veteran leaders lead and control the local discussion. This can be clearly seen in Virginia as was made clear to me by one of our fellow bloggers that “OEF/OIF veterans’ priorities simply don’t make the short list”—and after a quick glance of the short list—I agree. I would assume this is also the case across the majority of the states. So with that said, I would both encourage other younger veterans to take on a similar cause, and to share your stories and similarities with the Virginia Veteran. In fairness, maybe there is good reason for our issues of import to lack attention. But that is exactly the purpose of such a blog. Opening up issues and ideas for positive criticisms will lead us to positive outcomes—we hope.

So in the end, while maintaining my memberships in organizations that have no elected national representatives that look like me, we have created this blog to potentially add our voices and opinions to the table. There are not really any rules—well maybe a few,

· Most importantly, be respectful.

· Make sure the discourse is relevant and of interest to veterans.

· Have fun and take everything with a grain of salt.

The majority of our writers will hail from Virginia, but I see no issues with an occasional guest writer, or a writer that concentrates on issues/opinions that affect all veterans. Politics are fair game, so is policy, religion I don’t care. We have quite a starting lineup and I don’t think you will consider any of them to have “soft bellies,” or at least they ought not, considering their past performances and future prospects.

In fact, I am quite excited and thankful to our writers that agreed to help me with this undertaking. I also don’t think they know what they got themselves into, so thanks again. I handpicked these individuals because I believe they have both the ability and the intellect to make for an interesting conversation. Also, we will be consistently looking for new writers/opinions so if you have something to add please feel free to submit something to us at vavet@live.com.

Sincerely,

Justin Brown
A Virginia Vet