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IAVA Daily News Brief - Friday August 8, 2014
Team IAVA was at Fort Belvoir yesterday with VA Secretary Bob McDonald for the president's VA Reform Bill signing, which will allow veterans to access non-VA hospitals, fire senior employees for mismanagement and fix the in-state tuition for the post-9/11 GI Bill. | IAVA Facebook >> |
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| TODAY'S TOP STORIES |
Boost for vets' health: Obama signs new law
Tens of thousands of military veterans who have been enduring long waits for medical care should be able to turn to private doctors almost immediately under a law signed Thursday by President Barack Obama. | Associated Press >>Americans wary as US military drawn to Iraq
Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of the IAVA, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, talks with Steve Kornacki about the concerns of American service members and veterans as they watch the response to the ISIS terror campaign in Iraq. | MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show >>
Did leadership by 'bold goals' spark VA wait-time crisis?
Until he resigned in May, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki led his department of more than 350,000 employees for five years by setting "bold goals" that looked impossible to achieve but that he knew, from his Army years, could inspire better performance and, from Congress, bigger budgets. But did a goal to cut wait times in half for patients seeking care finally put VA administrators under such pressure that many chose to manipulate performance data, compromise their integrity and even put patients at risk? | Stars and Stripes >>
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| AFGHANISTAN |
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Afghanistan late Thursday on an unannounced visit to press the country's two feuding presidential candidates on the urgency of ending a bitter dispute over June elections and forming a new government by early September. | Associated Press >> The body of Army Maj. Gen Harold Greene, the highest ranking American officer to be killed in the Afghan War, was returned to the United States on Thursday in a brief, solemn ceremony at Delaware's Dover Air Force Base. | USA Today >>
Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer killed in a war zone in four decades, died not at the hand of a sworn enemy but from a burst of gunfire by a soldier in an allied army who had been largely paid, trained and equipped with American and NATO support. | Washington Post >>
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| IRAQ |
Airstrikes on towns in northern Iraq seized by Islamist militants began late Thursday in what Kurdish and Iraqi officials called the first stage of an American-led intervention to blunt the militants' advance and provide emergency aid to tens of thousands of refugees. | New York Times >> President Obama has authorized humanitarian aid to trapped minorities in Iraq, and is weighing air strikes against Islamic militants who gave gained control over wide swaths of the country, government officials said Thursday. Airdrops of food, water and medicine began Wednesday, the officials said. | USA Today >>
Iraqi militants seized control Thursday of the country's largest Christian city -- reportedly telling its residents to leave, convert or die -- while members of another religious minority remained trapped on a mountain without enough food or water, circumstances that fueled calls for the U.S. and U.N. to get more involved. | Fox News >> |
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| MILITARY AFFAIRS |
The U.S. Army has begun interviewing Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl about his disappearance in Afghanistan that led to five years in captivity by the Taliban, his attorney and an Army spokeswoman said Wednesday. | NPR >> The U.S. Navy and NASA wrapped up the second round of practice recoveries of the Orion spacecraft, which is designed to bring humans to the moon, asteroids and, eventually, to Mars. The tests took place from Aug. 1 to Aug. 4 a few hundred miles off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, where the Orion will splash down Dec. 4 after reaching an altitude of 3,600 miles. | Associated Press >>
(Via Associated Press)
This letter arrived this morning. I am running it with the author's permission: My name is Major Charles V. Slider III and I am currently stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I am an African-American armor officer, proud father, and husband and graduate of Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. | Foreign Policy >>
Jim Frederick, a former foreign correspondent and editor whose 2010 book about an atrocity committed by American soldiers in Iraq was praised for its thorough reporting and acuity in parsing the psychological erosion of men in war, died on July 31 in Oakland, Calif. He was 42. | New York Times >>
Britain's Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, is going back to work, taking on a new role as an air ambulance pilot. The duke will start training in September, a year after leaving the Royal Air Force, where he flew search and rescue helicopters. He will have his first air ambulance shift in spring 2015. | CNN >>
For years, the Army National Guard has defended its cozy relationship with NASCAR, saying that its sponsorship of professional stock car racing would help it land recruits. The Guard's target audience included racing fans, and the tens of millions of dollars spent each year actually were a good deal, top Guard officials said. | Washington Post >>
The U.S. Marine Corps on Okinawa has spent more than two years helping Japan stand up an amphibious force geared toward defense of islands in the East China Sea, according to U.S. and Japanese officials. | Stars and Stripes >> |
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| NEW GREATEST GENERATION |
A group of about 50 people sat waiting for their share as volunteers unloaded, sorted and packed bags of groceries at a once-a-week food giveaway at Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church. Air Force veteran Frankie Morales, out of work and living at Veterans Village, pitched in with the heavy lifting. | Florida Today >> Two tours in Afghanistan took a toll on Joshua Ploetz.The former Marine was injured in a roadside bomb. He lost friends in combat, and later, to suicide. When the Winona, Minnesota, resident returned from the war eight years ago, he was coping with post-traumatic stress disorder, known as PTSD, the fallout from a minor stroke and other injuries. Adapting to civilian life proved difficult. Relationships failed, employment was hard to come by and, Ploetz said, he had an overwhelming feeling of being "lost." | Associated Press >>
 (Via Associated Press)
On Aug. 1, The Wounded Walk, a national nonprofit organization that raises funds and awareness for wounded veterans, began an attempt at the most treacherous walk to date - walking from Palm Springs to Phoenix through the Mojave Desert. | The Press Enterprise >>
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| INSIDE WASHINGTON |
A committee chaired by Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa issued a report on July 30, which, among other things, highlighted that eight of the 10 largest recipients of GI Bill money were for-profit education companies, yet more than half of students enrolled in the examined schools left before receiving a degree or certificate in the 2008-2009 school year. Additionally, "nearly all students who leave have student loan debt, even when they don't have a degree or diploma or increased earning power." | Task & Purpose >>
Montana U.S. Sen. John Walsh dropped his election campaign Thursday amid allegations he plagiarized large portions of a 2007 research project, leaving fellow Democrats to scramble for a replacement with the election less than three months away. | Washington Post >>
New Hampshire's first criminal court docket dedicated to veterans with mental health and substances abuse issues got underway Thursday with three veterans facing a judge sitting before a backdrop of military flags. | Washington Times >>
The VA bill was different. Its passage marked the end of a months-long negotiation process sparked by the revelation of scandalously long wait times for veterans' health care. The sides agreed to a fairly even trade. What made the legislation even more remarkable -- beyond its huge bipartisan backing -- was that it passed when every other recent attempt at congressional compromise has failed spectacularly. | Huffington Post >> |
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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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