FW: IAVA Daily News Brief- August 4, 2014

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Robert Serge

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From: gretchen@mail.iava.org
To: booperser@live.com
Subject: IAVA Daily News Brief- August 4, 2014
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 08:33:10 -0600

Today's Top Stories

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Daily News Brief Press Contact: Gretchen Andersen | press@iava.org

IAVA Daily News Brief - Monday August 4, 2014 The Leyte Gulf, based in Norfolk, Va., arrives off Herring Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, through thick fog. Ships from the navies of the United States, Germany and Turkey are arriving in Halifax to begin training exercises with their Canadian counterparts. | Military Times >>

TODAY'S TOP STORIES

Advocates list 7 things to fix at Veterans Affairs Congress has confirmed a new secretary and sent billions of dollars into the coffers of the Department of Veterans Affairs, but after months of scandals, what would success look like? | USA Today >> VA Committee Chair: What Went Wrong at VA, and What Must Be Done To Fix It By now, nearly everyone knows the Department of Veterans Affairs is in dire need of reform. Oversight by the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and whistleblower revelations have exposed widespread corruption, systemic delays in access to medical care and failures in accountability across the board at our nation's second largest federal agency. | NBC News >> Obama Moves To Overhaul VA With Compromise Measure Two months after VA Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned, President Obama looks set to sign legislation to overhaul the Department of Veterans Affairs, to the tune of nearly $17 billion. | NPR >>

AFGHANISTAN

Lance Cpl. Jordan Pettid, a mortarman with 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, has a pretty busy daily routine. You may be asking yourself, "why is he so busy,"and "what does a mortarman actually do?" Pettid takes us to Helmand Province in Afghanistan to answer those questions and explain what it's like to be a Marine mortarman. | DoD Live >> Election officials in Afghanistan are preparing for an audit of all the votes cast in the June election after the two candidates disagreed on how to determine which votes were fraudulent. | NPR >>

IRAQ

The Islamic State threatens Baghdad and hopes to provoke a new civil war. But Iraq's capital won't fall without a bloody fight. | The Daily Beast >>Sunni extremists seized control of three towns in northern Iraq on Sunday after fierce battles with Kurdish security forces, sending thousands of people fleeing to the nearby mountains and threatening the country's largest dam. | New York Times >> In early July, hundreds of mourners gathered for the funeral of Kamal Shirkhani in Lavasan, a small town northeast of the Iranian capital Tehran. The crowd carried the coffin past posters which showed Shirkhani in the green uniform of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and identified him as a colonel. | Reuters >>

MILITARY AFFAIRS

About 550 Army majors, including some serving in Afghanistan, will soon be told they have to leave the service by next spring as part of a budget-driven downsizing of the service. | Associated Press >> The superintendent of the Air Force Academy has called for a new investigation into her school's athletic department in light of alleged misconduct by student athletes that included smoking synthetic marijuana, binge drinking and possibly using date-rape drugs to sexually assault women. | Washington Post >> (Via Washington Post) Commanders will now test Marines for alcohol and drug use during the same screening, a shift that replaces the previous Corps-wide policy requiring all members of a unit to take a breathalyzer test twice a year. | Marine Corps Times >>

NEW GREATEST GENERATION

Leave it to Comanche. In the wake of war, that's what veteran Roy McKeen has learned to do. "He gives me a calmness," McKeen said, smiling at the furry mound by his feet. "I feel safe with him, like I'm protected." | Crowley Star >> A signature-covered Ford Mustang is travelling the country, and stopped by Nampa Saturday. It's a part of the High Five Tour 2014, which is raising funds to build two "smart homes" for wounded warriors and their families. The tour is put on by Wounded Warriors Family Support. | KTVB 7 >> (Via KTVB 7) A special group of veterans received a well-deserved helping hand on Saturday in Erie as the nonprofit group "Outdoor Buddies" hosted 25 disabled veterans, and others, at a shooting range For some veterans it was a life-changing event. | CBS 4 Denver >>

INSIDE WASHINGTON

Before they jetted out for their urgent, desperately needed summer vacation, our tireless, selfless, oh-so-humble representatives in Congress managed to pass a bill that will inject some $17 billion and a measure of flexibility into the Veterans Administration. | Boston Globe >> If Republicans take the Senate in November, it could be thanks to two candidates who could form their own first-of-its-kind caucus: combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan elected to the Senate. | National Journal >> Appealing a Tricare decision to the highest level within the Defense Health Agency may take nearly a year but that doesn't necessarily mean those decisions go against beneficiaries in the end, according to a report recently provided to Congress. | Military Times >>

A wide range of views, positions and publications are represented in these articles. These views, positions and publications are not endorsed by nor do they necessarily represent the views of IAVA.

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