March 15, 2007 By You Served Editorial Staff
Posted in Military News, News
WASHINGTON - A former Navy sailor is accused of supporting terrorism by disclosing secret information about the location of Navy ships and the best ways to attack them.
The secrets wound up with a suspected terrorism financier, investigators say.
During an initial appearance Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Ariz., Hassan Abujihaad, 31, accepted removal to Connecticut, where he is charged with supporting terrorism with intent to kill U.S. citizens and transmitting classified information to unauthorized people.
Read more at Newsvine.com
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March 14, 2007 By You Served Editorial Staff
Posted in Military News, News, Veteran Benefits
A semiannual report from the Congressional Budget Office called “Budget Options” might as well be called “250 Ways for Lawmakers to Lose Re-election” - because that would almost certainly be the outcome if its suggestions were followed.
Among the ideas in the 2007 report, released earlier this week, is cutting veterans’ disability payments for all but the most seriously injured, making active-duty service members pay more than three times as much as they now do for the right to post-service education benefits, limiting annual military pay increases to 0.5 percent while paying bigger bonuses to people in critically needed skills, and charging more for older retirees who use the Tricare for Life insurance plan.
Read more at MarineCorpsTimes.com
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March 13, 2007 By DougT
Posted in Guest Blogger
[Here is another fantastic post from guest blogger Capt Doug Traversa].
I’m not the same man I was a year ago. Not even close. I have been through the wringer of life, survived, and come out very different. Afghanistan does that to you.
One year ago I was sitting at my desk at Arnold AFB, and going to Afghanistan was the farthest thing from my mind. Iraq was very possible, but I never really gave Afghanistan a thought. Yet I was suddenly tasked for a year-long tour in Kabul, and not only that, I’d be embedded with the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) as a mentor and trainer. So I wouldn’t only be out at an American base in a foreign country at war, I’d be traveling around daily, working closely with the Afghans.
I certainly had mixed feelings about this. First of all, it would clearly be dangerous, as I would be filling an Army position, not exactly what I signed up for when I joined the Air Force. I’d get to go to Army combat skills training, I’d be wearing body armor and carrying a weapon every day. I was 44 years old, and the thought of going through combat training was scary enough, never mind then going into a war zone. I was also not happy about leaving my family for a year, but I knew that was part of being in the military.
On the plus side, I would be doing something very few Air Force personnel had ever done. The sheer uniqueness of this was fascinating, and I was eager to see Afghanistan. If I survived, I’d certainly have some good stories to tell.
Step one was getting through a month of training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The training was nothing like boot camp, so my worst fears were not realized. However, the heat was staggering, with many days well over 100 degrees. We often joked about how we couldn’t wait to get to Afghanistan or Iraq. It had to be better than this. One month later I was deemed fit to go into combat, though I would beg to differ. However, it was over, and we went our separate ways.
Once I got to Afghanistan, my world was turned upside down. As we drove through villages and towns crumbling from 25 years of war, my jaw hung open. Intellectually I knew such places existed, but seeing them with my own eyes was still pretty amazing.
The fact that I was viewing them through the bullet-proof window of a Humvee while wearing body armor and holding my loaded weapon just made the experience that much more intense.
My home for the next year would be Camp Phoenix, a series of plywood huts on a former Russian transport base. My “room”
would be an 8′ by 12′ corner of the hut, and ultimately seven officers would share this modest abode. Showers and latrines were 30 yards away in a trailer, and the chow hall was a couple of hundred away, at least. And that was about it. Things would be pretty spartan over the next year.
I work at Central Movements Agency (CMA), an ANA transportation base in Kabul. I am part of an Embedded Training Team, assigned to help CMA evolve into the main transportation unit for the ANA. Our job would include training, mentoring, and advising CMA personnel on a day-to-day basis, working closely with them without actually running things. For an Air Force officer like me, it was a unique and amazing experience.
In order to explain how I’ve changed, I needed to provide the history first. Now let me tell you why this experience, while certainly trying and exhausting at times, has had a significant impact on who I am.
First of all, I have lived for a year in the poorest country outside of sub-Saharan Africa. I have befriended many people who live a life of such poverty it boggles the mind. Each day I hear about their lives, and the struggles they go through. My main interpreter lives in a two-room house with five other people. They have no plumbing other than a single water faucet. If they are lucky, they have three hours of electricity a night. He eats the same meal almost every day. He has no car of his own, no refrigerator, no bed (just a mat), no computer, no luxuries of any sort, and little hope of a better life. He assures me that they are middle class citizens. At least they have a water faucet.
Medical care is poor, if you get it at all. You visit the dentist when you can’t stand the pain anymore. My interpreter had to have two crowns put on his teeth. His teeth were ground down with no Novocain or other painkillers. Then I watched him suffer for a week waiting for the crowns to be made and put on what remained of his teeth.
When you spend a year of your life listening to the stories of the local people, problems back in the states start to seem very small indeed. My perspective on what constitutes a major problem has changed dramatically, and I think when I get back home I will be able to face life’s little challenges with much greater equanimity.
The other thing I’ve been forced to do is think about dying, each and every day. When I first got here, the threat seemed low. But last fall suicide bombings started occurring with great frequency. A massive car bomb exploded near our base, and I felt the ground shake and saw the huge cloud of smoke climbing into the sky. I assure you, that is a significant emotional event. We all started thinking more and more about how much risk we faced each day as we went outside the wire. Some even wrote death letters, to be delivered to their families if they died. I remember one night vividly. It was the night before the anniversary of 9/11. We assumed that there would be an attack the next day (we were wrong), and that night I was sure I would die the next day. It was a night unlike any other I’ve ever had.
However, as time went on, I made my peace with the universe. I had lived a happy life, and if I were to die here, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Slowly I was able to overcome my fears, so much so that even when a suicide bomber rammed a car full of explosives into our front gate at Camp Phoenix, it didn’t really faze me. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to die here.
I want very much to go home to my family and life for many more years. But I’ve faced the possibility of imminent death so often, and thought about it so much, that the terror is gone.
My year here is almost up. Soon I will head home, a very different person, and in my opinion, a better one. The cost was high. I spent a year away from my family. I missed the college graduation of two of my children. I missed my son’s first season of high school football. I lived in a plywood box for a year. Yet, if I manage to get through it alive, I’ll have had a part in rebuilding Afghanistan, made many friends with people I would never have had a chance to meet, and most importantly, literally have become a changed man.
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By You Served Editorial Staff
Posted in Veteran Benefits
Veterans actively serving or who have served in our nation’s military are entitled to provided benefits. Many benefits are available to you. The following are the Top 10 benefits available to you:
1. Health
Many different health programs are available for veterans of the military. There are various programs available that pertain to the following:
-Blind Rehabilitation
-Cancer
-Cardiac Surgery
-Women’s Care
-Gulf War
-Diabetes
-Elderly
-Mental Health
-Post Traumatic Stress
-War Related Injury and Illness
2. Home Loan
VA home loans are available to veterans and surviving spouses. VA Loans are usually better than conventional loans because they do not require mortgage insurance, you generally don’t have to put any money down, and if you have poor credit, you will usually get a better rate compared to a conventional loan.
3. Education
The GI Bill provides assistance for your education. The GI Bill will provide you with a monthly living allowance, benefits paid for 36 months of education and is payable for 10 years after your discharge.
4. Pharmaceutical
As a Veteran, you and your family will be able to obtain reasonably priced pharmaceuticals.
5. Insurance
The Service Members Group Life Insurance offers low cost life insurance for service men and women on active duty and reservists. Certain veterans with service related disabilities might be eligible for the Service Disabled Insurance plan. If you are a severely disabled veteran and a homeowner, you may be able for the Veteran’s Mortgage Life Insurance plan. This plan will pay off your mortgage in the event of your death.
6. Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Services
These programs are available to those service veterans with disabilities related to service. The services assist veterans transition from service to the work force.
7. Veteran Owned Business
Entrepreneurial assistance is available to qualified disabled veterans. Services include planning for your business development and financial counseling services. Loans are not granted by The Department of Veteran’s Affairs, however the Small Business Administration has programs available to assist you with loan services.
8. Pension
Several Pension programs exist. The Disability Pension is available for veterans permanently disabled or age 65 and older and the Medal of Honor Pension is available for those veterans that are recipients of the Medal of Honor. However, there are other pension programs as well.
9. Burial
Burial benefits are available for both government and private cemeteries and as a veteran you also may be eligible for burial allowances. Spouse and dependents may also qualify for burial benefits.
10. Survivors
There are benefits and services available to surviving spouses and dependents of deceased veterans. Many may not be aware of what is available to them if death should occur during service. Survivors may be eligible for either lump some or monthly income benefits. Educational, housing, and burial benefits are also available for surviving families of veterans.
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By You Served Editorial Staff
Posted in Military News
WEST POINT, N.Y. - The Army, forced by five years of war to expand its ranks, faces a critical shortage of midlevel officers, interviews and military records show.
Those officers - majors and lieutenant colonels - manage troops at war. The Army estimates it has about 13,900 majors and 8,750 lieutenant colonels this year. It expects to have an annual shortage of 3,000 such officers through 2013 as it increases its ranks by 40,000 soldiers.
Read more at USAtoday.com
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By You Served Editorial Staff
Posted in Military News, News
Peter Damon spent 15 months at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., after losing his right arm and left hand in an explosion in Iraq and now shuttles from his Middleboro home to Veterans Administration hospitals in Brockton and the Boston area for medical care.
“As far as dealing with the VA and Walter Reed, my experience has been good,” Damon said. “My experiences have been fine.”
Damon, who had been a helicopter mechanic with the 126th Aviation Unit of the Massachusetts National Guard when he was injured in 2003, said he was surprised by allegations of squalid conditions at Walter Reed, reports that sparked Congressional hearings and the ouster of the hospital commander.
Read more at SouthofBoston.com
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March 10, 2007 By You Served Editorial Staff
Posted in News, Veteran Benefits
WASHINGTON, March 8 - Staff Sgt. Gregory L. Wilson, from the Texas National Guard, waited nearly two years for his veterans’ disability check after he was injured in Iraq. If he had been an active-duty soldier, he would have gotten more help in cutting through the red tape.
Allen Curry of Chicago has fallen behind on his mortgage while waiting nearly two years for his disability check. If he had filed his claim in a state deploying fewer troops than Illinois, Mr. Curry, who was injured by a bomb blast when he was a staff sergeant in the Army Reserve in Iraq, would most likely have been paid sooner and gotten more in benefits.
Veterans face serious inequities in compensation for disabilities depending on where they live and whether they were on active duty or were members of the National Guard or the Reserve, an analysis by The New York Times has found.
Read more at NYtimes.com
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March 9, 2007 By Brant (VA Mortgage Center)
Posted in Military News, News, Veteran Benefits
Hillary Rodham Clinton offered a new GI “Bill of Rights” for men and women in uniform.
The New York senator, who leads early polls of Democratic contenders for the party’s nomination, said she would put together a package of proposals designed to ensure troops have all the equipment they need when they’re deployed, to ensure they receive proper health care, and to provide for families.
[Editorial comment: Unfortunately, she felt the need to integrate politics into her actions and also argued that Democrats can do a better job of protecting and providing for U.S. troops than the Republican administration. Attempting to help troops is admirable, taking stabs at the opposition at every opportunity is not. Do things because they are right, not solely for the purpose of advancing your political career.]
Read more at Newsvine.com
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