Author: jimstaro

Upfront: I’m not attached to nor have anything to do with the group below, except as an Old Voting Adult.

Yesterday I received a little booklet in the mail, I’m sure many others have as well. In case you hadn’t I thought I’d pass on who sent it and how you can get one.

If you can’t make it out this booklet comes from Black Box Voting.org who have been, along with others these last few years, been doing a stellar job on getting information and passing it along about this Countries Broken and Breaking Election Process.

ABOUT BLACK BOX VOTING
Black Box Voting is a national nonprofit, nonpartisan elections watchdog group.
Contact information: 425-793-1030 (office line);
206-335-7747 (mobile phone – Director, Bev Harris);
206-354-5723 (backup line)
E-mail: Black Box Voting

When you go to the site you’ll find alot of information on what they’ve been doing these last years and actions/reports now.

You’ll also find, in the upper left hand corner of your screen, the link to get this little booklet, about the size of a paperback but only 3/16th thick.

On the front page now is this:

“MY BALLOT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.” CONSTRUCTION WORKERS DISCOVER THEIR SECRET BALLOT INVADED (VIDEO)

The first county in the USA to do away with the secret ballot is San Juan County, Washington.

This is a true story. A construction worker who lives in a small cabin in the woods discovers that his ballot — not the envelope for the absentee, but the ballot itself — is being traced. This began a three-year odyssey which has led to litigation, local news coverage, and the successful fight to block removal of the secret ballot in million-voter King County. This video — just two ordinary guys telling a story, is a riveting example of American citizenship. A must see and a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks absentee voting is cool.

The Five Things in the booklet are:

*1. Get Involved

2. Hook Up With Experianced Groups

3. Protect and Defend Against Deceptive Practices

4. Protect and Defend Voter Lists

*5. Voting Machines: Protect and Defend the Vote Counts

Under each of the above you are given a Host of Information, that which couldn’t be added, to keep it as a booklet, you are given url’s back to the site for that which would be covered under each topic.

I’ve been doing abit of reading and some glancing through and it’s a very informative useful booklet.

Take a visit over to the site to see what they offer and if you might be interested.

As they are a small operation, opperating on a shoestring, you might also consider dropping a few of those campaign duckets into their coffers to cover their costs and help out.

A Photo Safari of Wasilla, Alaska – Home of Sarah Palin.

In the last couple of days many have found a blogger from Alaska that does a bang up job writing about his state and it’s politics, he was thrown into the politics of the Presidential Campaign much like Senator John McCain threw out his running mate Sarah Palin, I can only guess, but I doubt his site and writings were seen by many outside of Alaska, they are now.

Yesterday, on a trip back home, he and his wife shot some photo’s of Wasilla Alaska, where Sarah Palin is from and was mayor of for a few years.

Under the above photo, which he leads his most recent post off with, he writes this: Time for a caption contest!  Anyone?.

Very apt, don’t ya think.

He’s got a number of photo’s in this post, take a trip over for a visit, and as mentioned in the comments the photo’s might remind many of a certain town from a TV show that frankly is one I miss.

If you haven’t visited his site in the last few days, since the announcement of Palin as the Republican VP candidate, read through his recent posts to get a better feel his take on Alaska and the Politics within.

He has a list of other Alaskan Bloggers that are worth a visit, whether or not Palin is still around in a couple of days, giving the ability for us below to find out much more about Alaska, even with the recent Corruption Investigations, and other reports, most of us have little knowledge of.

Alaskan Abroad

Begich Blog

Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis

I Eat Gravel

Progressive Alaska Blog

The Immoral Minority

*Zaki Blog

And as would be expected each of the above have links to other Alaskan Bloggers and sites.

We’ve all absorbed an awful lot of breaking news about the Vice Presidential pick, one time mayor now first term governor of Alaska, it’s high time we got to know the people and state better, again whether she’s still around in a few days or not. With all the also breaking news, recently, about the alleged political corruption, though that seems to be all over this country, they could use the help of us in the lower 49 in bringing honest leadership and direction to their state.

I almost moved there years ago, when the oil was discovered and the construction started on the original pipeline. Don’t remember why I didn’t except possibly being very busy at the time in central New York construction and traveling to other states building stores in a relatively new concept of enclosed malls. Always wish I had, it’s a beautiful state, as this blogger seems to have found out after he moved there many years back.

Hope he doesn’t mind my sharing his photo, and link to the others. Normally wouldn’t do so but after these last couple of days I feel these and his post should be shared and visited.

What New News Will Break Today??

Many of us, especially Veterans who are Advocates for our brothers and sisters and those Civilians who join that advocacy, have been writing about the Veterans Administration and especially Veterans Care, which in these times of conflicts also encompass the Military Care system as well. With this technology we can push our advocacy untill it’s paid the attention it should already have by those who do the job of reporting as a profession. And because of the extreme lack of oversight and concern by the representatives we hire, as the drums of war were first pounding and the years following, we find breaking stories far to often in these last months. Months that have brought out the problems with the care, the overwelming numbers needing care and being denied for months or just denied, the living conditions of those receiving the care and even serving, and so much more.

When we write about the needs or the lack oversight and funds we far to often, myself included though I try and remember in my rage, leave out the facts of the true dedication of the workers in the VA System. The workers, who like most of us working stiffs, give their all to the jobs and professions they perform and have to deal with what’s lacking from the administrations, top on down, of these agencies. In the government that administration starts with the Executive Branch, the Congress, the Political Appointee’s to head and the Political Appointee’s they bring in, and Especially to the Governed, Us, who fight the costs needed or follow political ideology leadership if not wanted.

Every once in awhile a report will surface of that dedication within:

VA nurse pens book of poems

Drea Horton tends to America’s war wounded during the day and writes about them at night.

Like in the poem she wrote about “a young Joe” who cried in her arms in the Louis B. Stokes Veterans Administration Medical Center in Brecksville, Ohio, where she works:

“Anxiety and nightmares take turns taunting him
    Scattered sand and ghosts visit almost every day
    Substance abuse, PTSD; the diagnosis given to him
    He cried as he told me this. He said do they know?”

The poem is included in Horton’s second book, “Her Stars and Stripes: A nurse’s diary”, published by Author House. It’s full of prayers and thoughts for the men and women who pass through those VA hospital halls where she has toiled for the past 10 years. Horton, 45, says she has been taking care of others since she was 7 years old and going to work with her mother, who was a nursing assistant.

“She had three girls,” Horton said during a phone interview from her Akron, Ohio, home. “All of us are nurses now.”

Nursing can be a frustrating life, she said, especially in VA hospitals.

“We have a lot of homeless veterans here,” she said. “They came back from the war, got discharged and then couldn’t find a job. We patch them up, get them a place to live and do everything we can to get them back on their feet.

“But just a small percentage actually make it.”

Like the Vietnam veteran who flagged her down for a ride to the hospital one day:

“On my way to work I stopped at a traffic light
    There stood a man on the corner to the right
    He was pushing a buggy full of his belongings
    Looking for what I thought were cans …”

The vet needed a ride to the VA medical center. “In his travels he had injured his right hand,” Horton wrote. She took him to the emergency room and handed him over to an on-duty nurse.

“He winked and smiled weakly at me
    With all that pain in his hand
    Thank you nurse, he said
    For not passing me by like the others.”

The book of poetry reads like a diary. It’s an accounting of the battlefield heroes who awaken in the middle of the night screaming at shadows and the men and women who care for them while trying to not get too close, too personal, lest they begin to share in their suffering.

“My heart bleeds
    For my patients and their families
    I store those memories in my heart …
    Drying their tears;
    While we cry only in our hearts.”

Horton said she has self-published one other book of poetry and has several other manuscripts, including a novel, in the works. But “Her Stars and Stripes” was not planned.

“It just happened,” she said. “I started writing a poem about the bond formed between a nurse and a wounded soldier and suddenly saw I had 11 poems completed about these heroes.”

Horton said she wanted to give human faces to the veterans and the people who care for them.

“We read in the papers about someone being wounded and then never hear about them again. This book is about what happens next,” she said. “We nurses become their mothers, their sisters, their families. When they’re crying, we’re there holding and rocking them.

“We’re not supposed to cry. We were taught in school not to cry, to be their stoic helpmates. But sometimes you just can’t hold it in.”

Horton said she’s been writing since age 11, but abandoned the craft while she embarked upon a career of nursing, married and raised two daughters and a son.

Now, with her children grown and the marriage ended, she has picked up her pen and returned to her first love — writing.

    “Finally I am able to tell it as I see it
    Forever now I can sing my own song …
    I’m happy for my missing piece that suddenly awakened
    Look as I stretch and spread my wings.”

The book is available at most major online bookstores and from her Web site at Drea Horton.

Reviews at her site and I’m sure she’d be willing to add yours.

Publisher AuthorHouse is at Author House.

Topic: Loss of Limb/Post-Traumatic Stress War Scar Chapter 1

Jerry Cortinas
Army Veteran

Lonnie C. Moore
Program Analyst
U.S. Army Warrior Transition Office

Jerry Cortinas

Jerry Cortinas served as a Green Beret in the U.S. Army Special Forces from 1997 to 2004. The focused and challenging work of a Green Beret was what he knew and what he loved. While operating a rocket propelled grenade in Afghanistan in December 2002, the device malfunctioned and exploded, taking his left forearm and hand. Jerry could no longer do his job. He felt like an outsider in his own hometown. And every day, as a husband and father of two girls, he was reminded of his limitations. Until, that is, he got on a snowboard.

Celina Cortinas

Celina Cortinas, Army wife and mother of two, was baking Christmas cookies in her Brownsville, Texas home when she got the call. The colonel on the other line gave her the news. Her husband of 12 years, Jerry, had been injured in Afghanistan. As a wife of an Army Special Forces soldier, she always knew it could happen, but wasn’t prepared for how much her life would change when her husband returned home with his right hand and forearm amputated. She would now face the challenge of helping her husband adapt to civilian life and supporting him as he returned to his role as husband and father.

And could the Iraq Theater dangerously implode once again, despite the walled in neighborhoods and the paying of the Iraqi insurgents and more?

Loyalists of Iraq’s Sadr sign blood oaths to continue fighting

Dozens of Shiite radicals scrambled on Friday to sign blood oaths to continue their fight against US forces in Iraq despite an order from their leader Moqtada al-Sadr for them to lay down their arms.

In case you missed these powerful words from Two of our Countries Dedicated Veterans of the Current Occupation Theaters.

Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan can be Proud of these two, your brother and sister Veterans, as can the Families of All who are Serving and have Served, for You All are the Only Ones Sacrificing as this Country refuses to understand that Sacrifice!

The ‘Honorable Cause’ is the protection of your brother’s and sister’s as they protect you, in any conflict theater this nation sends those that serve it, wrong or right!

This Country must Now make it Right for All of You, it has Shirked It’s Full Responsibility for far too long, from Korea to the Present Day, that must End!!

Tammy Duckworth

Four years ago, I was co-piloting a Blackhawk helicopter north of Baghdad when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the cockpit. My buddies carried my body out not knowing if I was dead or alive. They knew the soldier’s creed: never leave a fallen comrade behind. They lived up to it. They risked their own lives to save mine. Because of them, I am here today, an Iraq war veteran, a female helicopter pilot and a wounded warrior-living in a country where people with disabilities have rights. Because of them, I am here today, an Asian American, a Daughter of the American Revolution as well as a daughter of an immigrant.

Acts of courage like theirs happen everywhere American troops serve. They are happening right now. I know that-so does my family. My father served in Vietnam, my brother served in the Coast Guard, my husband just returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom. We served because we believe in this great nation and the opportunities it has given us. And because our service members support us, we must always keep the faith with them.

The administration of George Bush-supported by John McCain every step of the way-has let our warriors down. Our troops are courageous, strong and fierce. This administration has re-deployed them until they are overstretched, stressed and strained.

Our warriors should fight in Afghanistan where al-Qaida and the Taliban are on the offensive.

But instead of destroying the enemies who attacked us on 9/11, we have diverted our military might to Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. When our warriors come home they deserve the best VA medical care, but too often they get bureaucracy, not benefits. They find inadequate access, inferior facilities and infuriating paperwork.

And now, John McCain wants to ration care. Under his plan, the VA will serve combat injuries, but everyone else gets an insurance card. Barack Obama and the Democrats have a different idea. Barack Obama will live up to their tradition of honor and sacrifice. Barack Obama will use war not as a first choice, but a last resort. Barack Obama understands that for a commander-in- chief to support the military, he needs more than a “Mission Accomplished” banner, more than wearing a borrowed flight suit, and definitely more than four more years of the same failed foreign policy.

President Obama will restore the might of the military, invest in our troops and only send our sons and daughters to war if they have a clearly defined mission and the tools they need to succeed.

I speak from more than a gut feeling on this. I know Barack Obama. I met him when he visited me and other wounded troops at Walter Reed. He came without reporters. He wasn’t looking for credit. He just cared about how we were doing. He knew that wherever you stand on the war, you must love the warrior, and he does.

I testified before his committee; I listened to him talk, but then I watched what he did and how he voted. As a Senator, Barack Obama worked to improve the lives of all our veterans. He fought to fix our rundown hospitals. He fought to cut through the red tape. Unlike John McCain, Barack Obama fought for a new GI bill-and won-so that every veteran has the same opportunity to pursue their American dream just like his grandfather had after World War II. So I know what he’ll do as president.

An America with President Obama will have a 21st century VA. He’ll improve access to health care. He’ll speed up disability claims. He’ll increase services for nationwide post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries as we have already done in Illinois under Governor Blagojevich’s leadership.

And Barack Obama will have a simple principle for homeless veterans: zero tolerance, because we are all dishonored when those who’ve worn the uniform sleep on our streets. But here’s what he won’t do: President Obama will reject John McCain’s plan to privatize the VA system. We won’t force veterans to search for medical care with nothing but a plastic card and the promise of payment. We won’t have means testing for access to the VA. Why? Because Barack Obama knows this: no one asked us where we lived or how much money we had when we enlisted, and no one should ask us that after we’ve bled for our country.

Fellow Democrats, fellow Americans: I believe in this nation that I love more than my own life.

Today we have an opportunity to honor our military men and women by living up to that soldier’s creed. Today we have an opportunity to give our veterans the benefits they rightfully earned. Today we have the opportunity to change our relations with the world.

I believe that America will elect the leader who has always fought to keep our nation’s promise to our veterans. I believe America will elect the leader who can best keep this nation strong.

Barack Obama is right for our military. Barack Obama is right for our veterans. Barack Obama is right for our country. And that’s why Barack Obama will be our next commander-in-chief.

God bless you, and always, God bless America.

The Honorable Patrick Murphy, Democratic National Convention, Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Patrick Murphy

We called it fire month. It was 138 degrees inBaghdad in August of 2003, and my fellow paratroopers and I were running convoys up and down Ambush Alley. We were scouting for roadside bombs and rooftop snipers while riding in a humvee without any doors.

One day, my gunner said to me, “Sir, what are we doing here?”Baghdad was a stop on a journey that began for me 15 years ago when I first put on the uniform of the United States Army. My journey took me from ROTC cadet to West Point professor to captain in the 82nd Airborne Division and eventually to the United States Congress. For me, a blue-collar kid from a row house in northeastPhiladelphia, this was the chance to not only serve the country I love, but to live the American dream.

When I returned fromIraq, I realized we didn’t just need change over there, we also needed to change how we treat our veterans here at home. For eight long years, we’ve had a president who rushed to stand with soldiers at political rallies but abandoned them at Walter Reed. We’ve had a president who spent billions on private contractors but not on body armor for our troops. We’ve had a president who was there for the photo ops, but AWOL when it came to doing right by our veterans. It is time for a change.

In the Army, we have a saying: “Lead, follow or get out of the way.” It is time for a president who leads. And it’s time for a commander-in-chief who knows that leadership means serving our troops as well as they serve our country.

Barack Obama will be that commander-in-chief. With a grandfather who marched in General Patton’s army, Senator Obama understands the needs of our nation and our military. That’s why he led the fight to end the injustice at Walter Reed and end homelessness among our veterans. That’s why he led the fight to make sure that returning veterans get the mental health care they deserve. And that’s why I am proud to stand with him as he leads the fight for a smarter and tougher foreign policy, so that we can finally end the war in Iraq, go after the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and defeat them where they are strongest, inAfghanistan.

Our brave men and women in uniform and our great country cannot afford more of the same. It is time for the change our troops, our veterans and our country need. It is time for Barack Obama.

As many have already found out the Battles Aren’t Over and we Veterans of our past conflicts and failed leadership policies are there with you, fighting alongside!!

And Success

Veterans March, Deliver Letter to Obama Campaign
Member of Rage Against Machine join procession as it makes four-mile, four-hour trek to Pepsi Center

“We’re unique,” Earl said. “We have the credentials to back us up. We’re soldiers.”
Members of IVAW said they were committed to having a peaceful protest. Earl said the groups was lucky that the police were willing to work with them and escort them throughout the march.

Word soon circulated that Obama’s campaign agreed to meet in a more strategic place.

Lt. Vince Porter of the Denver Police Department said the department coordinated the meeting with the secret service and Obama’s office.

The two sides finally met about half an hour after plans for a meeting were announced to a chorus of cheers, Porter said, at the same intersection where the protest ended.

Matt Chandler, spokesman with Obama For America campaign in Colorado, confirmed that campaign’s veterans outreach director did meet with representatives from the march.

“He was able to accept the letter from them,” Chandler said. “He was able to talk to them a little bit.”

And so the march, the largest protest of the DNC so far, came to a peaceful conclusion.

Do We Need Change, You’re Damn Right We Do, And The World Needs Us To Change, Now!!

I had planned on putting up another post covering what’s good about people and the dedication of, but with the breaking news last night, 8-25-08, we probably are seeing a continuation of recent reports about the reality of the world we live in. A reality that’s been mostly under the surface of this countries citizens but has been rearing it’s ugly face these last few years, pushed on by what we as a society have been allowing to come across our airwaves in the name of ‘free speach’!

The story line broke, on some of the interactive boards, with an initial report from a local Denver Colo. News Channel CBS 4 Denver Colorado about the arrest of a couple of very suspicious characters and has grown from there into a possible assassination attempt on the Democratic Candidate for the Presidency at the Democratic National Convention.

This first video contains the first three reports from the CBS 4 News Site as the story was growing:

Gartrell, who has no known address, was being held at the Arapahoe County jail on $50,000 bail on drug and weapons charges. The jail said he was due in court Thursday.

This video is the initial Police Press Conference giving further details about the arrests, those arrested, 4, and some of what was found as evidence and much more:

If these reports are true, about one or more are talking, are these methheads just blowing smoke to make themselves look like big tough guys to whoever they hang with or whatever groups they might belong to?

If so they lit a huge fire for that smoke, they crossed the big line from local charges to extremely damaging federal charges by just mentioning any type of plot of an assassination attempt on a Presidential Candidate!

The Secret Service, FBI, ATF and the joint terrorism task force are all investigating the alleged plot. Dudley didn’t say what tied the men together but said more arrests were possible.

While putting this together I revisited the CBS 4 News Site and they had this video report from this morning posted: Speaking to one of the suspects

Wether true or not, about a planned plot of assassination, we are about to find out much more at a Press Conference slated for about 4PM today, 8-26-08.

We’ve had a number of reports recently about terrorism within our own borders or the possibility of. Grey Hawk has compiled a few of them and placed a post over at ePluribus Media with a shoutout This is a call for action and more researchers. on these recent incidents and possible past incidents that may not have hit the MSM radar. Visit the post and if possible help out compiling any suspicious reports or timelines.

We recently had this report:

Jail inmate charged in McCain office threat

Than we heard little about it. What I wonder about this report was how it was possible for a prison inmate to mail two letters, with the addresses obviously sending them to a Presidential Candidates campaign headquarters in this day and age of ‘Homeland Security’ and possible threats without the prison staff checking the letters out as to intent.

We had this recent report:

Man arrested with weapons at Pelosi hotel

Apparently he is still being held as of sunday night. Wether or not this was a possible threat, he had two long guns and two pistols, it was reported that he was a businessman. Well if I had his name in my business contacts a big question mark would go right beside his name. Again, in this day and age of ‘Homeland Security’, why didn’t he inform the hotel staff about the guns, ask they be locked up, and made the arrangements with the supposed gun shop he apparently said were going to prep them for his coming hunting trip, this businessman lacked simple common sense, or there’s more to the story.

And we had this Very Tragic recent incident Man charged in Tenn. church shooting that killed 2 of which, with all the information that has come from, can only be labeled as Pure Criminal Terrorism!

And another Very Tragic incident that has left many with questions as to intent: Murder of Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney at a local political party headquaters!

Very recently we’ve had a lacky rightwing fringe group, supposedly not tied to the GOP Presidential Campaign, pay for and run an ad trying to connect the Democratic Presidential Candidate to a 60’s radical and labeling the candidate as a terrorists supporter: Obama asks Justice to investigate ‘terrorist’ ad

Well there are alot of people, in this country, that have been waiting years to get answers as to why the present Administration, and others, have been protecting a known terrorist within our borders when a South American country has been demanding his extradition to stand trial for a Mass Murder, the blowing up of a commercial airline: When America’s Ally is a Terrorist, and who those others are in the protection of this known criminal terrorist!

There is one organization that trys to follow the possibilities of Criminal Terrorism within our borders, and that’s the Southern Poverty Law Center. They follow the reports, they research suspected hate groups and hate speach, they bring lawsuits when the need is seen, they are there to hopefully make this a better and safer society for us all and they have been for a long time.

Do We Need Change, You Bet We Do, And The World Needs Us To Change!!

Disability Rights Advocates has been conducting an investigation into VA hospital access.

While their investigation is being targeted on the Veterans Care issue with the below recent report we can see that the Military Care issue, i.e. Walter Reed and More, is still having the same problems that finally came forward through great investigative reporting and shouldn’t have existed nor still exist as to care for the returning active duty Military Personal especially from these theaters of occupations.

Mold infests Okla. barracks for wounded

LAWTON, Okla. — Mold infests the barracks that were set up here a year ago for wounded soldiers after poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center triggered a system wide overhaul, soldiers say.

Military and Veterans Care were a major issue for us returning Vietnam Veterans, a Major Issue!

While things improved, through the fights for change that the veterans brought to the Veterans Administration they’ve never changed enough for those who sacrifice their years and lives for service to the country. And far to often those changes have slipped back into the problems that existed before and the need to fight for the improvements is once again waged, over and over and over…………….., as we Veterans are finding we are Re-Fighting the battles once again for another generation of Military Personal and Military Veteran, with the help of caring civilians, caring civilians who’s numbers are way to small in a society that owes much more to those who serve it for it’s National Security.

When this country supposedly switched to a Professional Military many thought every facet would be Professional, especially as to care, we’re once again finding a failed system, a failed system lacking the funding and administration that still stays a political tool of party politics and apathy of the civilian population.

In these present times All of this should have been set into place, starting to upgrade the Military and Veterans hospitals and clinics, well before Any Invasion of anothers country, and we have two long running occupations, was started, by the Previous Congresses who were beating the Drums Of War, and the Civilian Population should have Sacrificed and Supported these upgrades as they were Supporting the coming Invasions and occupations.

The problems Finally coming to light in the present Congress, that are Finally conducting the Investigations and Over site, we hire our representatives to do, are once again being shown as they were before, Failed Civilian and Military Leadership playing the same Political Games with those who serve this country and the country not willing to support the military personal and demand these problems are correctly fixed. They are coming about due to the Privatizing of the ‘Preventive Maintenance’, once taken care of with the ranks of the military, but now farmed out to private firms for profit, many publicly owned. They are happening because of the Political Appointed leadership and hiring of political personal in the administrations under them, not being hired due to knowledge of how to administer the government programs but on political ideology.

If still active duty and under the military physical and mental care, especially from either theater of occupation, and find problems with or difficulties in yours and others care, and your chain of command doesn’t seem to be taking care of these problems,  you should also contact DRA to help in their investigation, the above report shows the need!

This Country Owes It’s Military and Veterans of!

Now to the battle, Again, and the DRA information:

As background, DRA is one of the two law firms that challenged the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) practices in failing to adequately treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and we also have a longstanding interest hospital access for individuals with disabilities.  We have brought and successfully settled several lawsuits addressing hospital access, including an action against Kaiser and one against Sutter Health, which runs a large hospital chain in Northern California.  We are also working on hospital access issues in other parts of the country.  Now, Disability Rights Advocates is conducting an investigation of whether or not VA hospitals and clinics are accessible to patients with physical disabilities, specifically those who use a wheelchair or have other mobility limitations, and those who are blind or deaf.  We would like to hear from disabled veterans who use VA hospitals and clinics about their experiences at these facilities.
 

We have come up with a list of the features that are part of this investigation.  This list will provide veterans with more information about us and what we are looking for.  We are asking for your help by posting this flier on your website and distributing it to your membership.

Please post and email as you see fit, and feel free to encourage others to forward the notice as they think appropriate.

I’m happy to discuss the investigation in greater detail with you or anyone else, both to clarify any questions and to discuss potential additional involvement.  You can reach either me or Melissa at the number below.  We really appreciate your help.

Thank you in advance for your assistance with our outreach.

Best,

Stephanie A. Biedermann

Arthur Liman Fellowship Attorney

Disability Rights Advocates
2001 Center Street, Third Floor
Berkeley, California 94704-1204
510.665.8644
510.665.8716 (TTY)
510.665.8511 (Fax)
Stephanie A. Biedermann

The following is the most recent file that I recieved from DRA and Stephanie and Melissa.

ATTENTION VETERANS WITH DISABILITIES

What:  Disability Rights Advocates is conducting an investigation into the accessibility of VA hospitals and clinics around the country.  

Who: If you have a mobility disability, a vision disability, a hearing disability, and/or a Traumatic Brain Injury, we would like to hear about your experiences.

Why: You are entitled to full access to VA hospitals and clinics and reasonable accommodations, whether or not your disability is service connected.  We want to make sure that you are able to access VA medical facilities and services.

Architectural Barriers: Can you access VA hospitals and clinics?  This includes all physical access to buildings, including entrances, parking lots, elevators, restrooms, waiting rooms, exam or treatment rooms, laboratories and pharmacies.

Access to Medical Equipment: Can you independently access medical equipment?  This includes exam tables, exam chairs, scales, diagnostic testing equipment (such as x-ray machines, MRI machines, CT scans or Pet Scans), rehabilitation equipment, and other diagnostic treatment devices.

Experiences with the Staff: Have the people staffing VA hospitals and clinics been able to respond to your needs as a person with a disability? This includes information about whether the staff was knowledgeable and helpful in responding to any obstacles you may have faced due to your disability, whether architectural, communication related, or otherwise.

To set up at time to talk about your experiences at VA hospitals and/or clinics, please email VA Access, or call toll-free at 800/332-6177 (or TTY at 510/665-8716).  None of the information you provide us will be disclosed without your permission.

DRA is one of the two law firms that is challenging the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) practices in failing to adequately treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and we also have a longstanding interest in ensuring disabled individuals’ equal access to medical care.  For more information about DRA, please visit DRA Legal.

I have uploaded the files I’ve received from DRA to an online file sharing site, you will find the links to each below. You can download these files to your computers and use them yourself or to pass along to others who might aid in DRA’s research and investigation.

This link will give you the most recent file, posted above in the quote box.

This link gives you a PDFile previously received and passed along

This link gives you a RTFile also previously received and passed along

Please use the files above to help in the DRA research and investigation, not only meant for Veterans and Military personal, and their families, but also in seeking the help of the civilian population who may observe problems that Disabled Veterans and Military personal might be experiencing in their care that the country owes them.

Improving Military and Veterans care, as it should have always been, will help in the Improvements needed in the countries population as a whole and care of!

Ilona Meagher has just posted on her blog site, PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within, an outstanding collection of links and a few video’s on what the subject title describes “Art For, By And About Veterans Begins Sunday” and the link just above will take you to it.
She starts it out with this:

An Iraq infantryman named Zero offers a compelling introduction to this post, which brings together a number of art programs and exhibits taking place on television and in galleries and statehouses and theaters across the country this summer and fall.

The one common denominator: the fusion of expression through art and the experience of war. Here, Zero explains how he uses his artwork to express himself and what he knows of combat:

I couldn’t do the justice Ilona has in bringing this to the public concious so please visit her post and find out more as well as if there are showings near you or within easier traveling distance and for how long they will be on display, and more.

Heal the Country.

I most certainly am not an Edward Tick, author of War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation’s Veterans from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and a few other books, as well as the article in Yes Magazine linked above. He is also the director and senior psychotherapist of Soldier’s Heart: Veteran’s Safe Return Initiatives.

So I’ll give a few of the cuts from the article and add some other related information I’ve recently received.
Breaking the cycle of war making: our country will not find peace until we take responsibility for our wars.

He starts out the article with the above quote and this:

Guilt, shame, slaughter without purpose, alienation from homeland and life itself–this was the legacy that Günter passed on to his son Walt from his World War II combat service in Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Walt, “the only child born in freedom,” was born in the United States shortly after his parents emigrated here from Germany. Growing up in the Cold War 1950s, Walt longed to be an all-American boy, but was always the Indian to his friends’ cowboys and the “Kraut” to their G.I. Joes.

The Warrior’s Path

Our troops do not enlist because they want to destroy or kill. No matter the political climate, most troops seek to serve traditional warrior values: to protect the country they love, its ideals, and especially their families, communities, and each other. If they must kill or be killed, they need transcendent reasons to do so. Throughout history, the only reason for fighting that has survived moral scrutiny is a direct attack with real, immediate threat to one’s people. PTSD is, in part, the tortured conscience of good people who did their best under conditions that would dehumanize anyone.

Warriorhood, however, is not so valued or nurtured in modern society. “Warrior” is not even a recognized social class. A veteran, especially one with disabilities, appears to many, and sometimes to him or herself, as a failure in terms of normal civilian identity. Michael fears that, as an experienced combat veteran, the only place on the planet he now fits is in the French Foreign Legion.

The Echoes of War

War abroad fosters war at home. When we go to war, we inevitably bring its violence and horror back to our homes and streets. We cannot help it.

Cleansing the Warrior

War poisons the spirit, and warriors return tainted. This is why, among Native American, Zulu, Buddhist, ancient Israeli, and other traditional cultures, returning warriors were put through significant rituals of purification before re-entering their families and communities. Traditional cultures recognized that unpurified warriors could, in fact, be dangerous. The absence of these rituals in modern society helps explain why suicide, homicide, and other destructive acts are common among veterans.

A Double Wound

Sitting Bull and his warriors, and other bands from innumerable traditional cultures, were never plagued with self-doubt about the value of their mission, as many of our soldiers are today. In order to do battle with a whole heart, the danger and threat to one’s home must be real, and the people must experience it as immediate and about to threaten their total existence; there must be no alternative. A people and their warriors must be in unity.

Ed goes on to explain further each of the topics above and has a few more topics of explaination below those. He closes with this:

I asked Walt’s permission to tell his story during our farewell visit in the hospital where he was dying of Agent Orange cancers. He was surprised at first, but finally said, “I was afraid my life was worthless. But please tell my story. Please make it mean something. Maybe it can help some other poor souls avoid my fate.”

 Read an excerpt from conscientious objector Aidan Delgado’s The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq

Read the Rest of Edward Ticks article Here

And some links:

Pentagon spends record on TBI, PTSD research, a drop in the bucket of what’s needed, was needed long ago, and will cost even more if not taken seriously this time!

MOAA & USNI Host Wounded Warrior Defense Forum in D.C.

Substance Use Disorders and Clinical Management of Traumatic Brain Injury and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Prevalence of Chronic Pain After Traumatic Brain Injury

Stress Management Important Throughout Military Careers

Computer-based program helps retrain the brain after injury

I caught this report over at Huffington:

US Vets Return to Middle East to Help Iraqi Refugees

I’m on the first day of a rapid-fire visit to Jordan, the kingdom in the Middle East which has provided a safe haven for an estimated 750,000 refugees from Iraq who have traveled the shorter but more dangerous route to get here.

I’m traveling with a small delegation from the newly founded Iraq Veterans Refugee Aid Association (IVRAA) — co-founders of the organization, Luis Montalvan, a former US Army captain, and former US Marine captain Tyler Boudreau, plus photographer Paul Park — on a mission to try to assess the situation faced by Iraqi refugees, and the burden that hosting those refugees has placed on the Hashemite kingdom.

We also hope to work out what, if anything, we can do to help provide relief to either or both.

And when I did a quick google search I found this link Iraq Veterans Refugee Aid Association (IVRAA), which is placed in the quote above also.

Visiting the link you will find it’s their fundraising site and more information:

A Personal Message from Physicians for Social Responsibility

The Iraq Veterans’ Refugee Aid Association (IVRAA) is a newly established non-profit organization set up by two veterans of the Iraq war, former Marine Capt. Tyler Boudreau and former Army Capt. Luis Carlos Montalván.

IVRAA is sponsored by the Nobel Peace Prize award-winning organization, Physicians for Social Responsibility.  Your tax-deductible donations will be routed through them to IVRAA.

Snip

The two founders of IVRAA recently co-authored opinion articles about the Iraqi humanitarian crisis that were published in:

“The International Herald Tribune”

“The Seattle Times” , scroll down just abit to read the LTE.

“The Daily Hampshire Gazette” recently wrote a piece about IVRAA

In These Times wrote a piece about IVRAA

They will author articles and hold media briefings during the trip and afterwards, aimed at boosting awareness of a side of the Iraq war that has long been overlooked, if not ignored: the mass displacement of the Iraqi people which has resulted in their loss of humanity and dignity.

Snip

Your tax-deductible donation will help IVRAA launch this first humanitarian mission, during which Boudreau and Montalván will:

* Assess the situation faced by Iraqi refugees;

Educate the public as to the urgency of the humanitarian crisis;

Establish workshops for Iraqis seeking asylum in the United States;

Render assistance to Ali, an Iraqi refugee who has languished in Jordan for two years after aiding the US military as an interpreter;

*Report the findings of the mission to heighten awareness to develop new relief strategies.

Unlike missions by veterans of wars past, the IVRAA visit will take place as the Iraq war continues.

At their donation site you can Grab a fundraising widget, or grab it right here with this link, to place on your sites to help them out.
 

This is Tyler Boudreau’s – Deeper Than War Blogspot.

And this is apparently Their Face Book Page

Meanwhile inside of Iraq:

Squatters in Iraqi buildings fear they’ll soon be on the street

Tens of thousands of Iraqis found shelter in government and abandoned public properties after the U.S.-led invasion upended their lives. Now the government has ordered many out of their temporary homes, from Kirkuk in the north to Basra in the south, worsening Iraq’s already enormous problem of displaced people.

Veterans, doing once again what we’ve done before, sadly after we participated in the destruction, helping the people who’s lives were destroyed, or trying to. But It Is A Great Step Forward, same step that helped alot of ‘Nam Vets and the Vietnamesse people, either those going directly back to Vietnam or the brothers supporting them!!