Good news story of the day

D-Day veteran gets refund after his VA benefits slashed to $6 a month  (Fox News)  The Department of Veterans Affairs is making amends to an 89-year-old World War II vet whose monthly veteran benefit check was slashed from $300 to $6 to recoup an overpayment he never knew about.

Military Transition and Jobs News

MAP: Veteran Vs Non-Veteran Employment in CT  (Trumbull Patch)  In our fourth and final installment before we wrap up the series and designate the most patriotic towns in Connecticut in time for Independence Day, Patch has crunched the numbers behind veteran employment to see which towns and zip codes are supporting their troops when they come home.

Tactical Veteran: Frustrated job-seeker may need to adjust strategy  (Army Times)  A reader recently sent me this anguished email:  “I am a retired Marine Corps veteran and have built my résumé up considerably since I retired and also recently received two college degrees. I have a profile on LinkedIn. I have been applying for jobs for two years now and have officially quit!

Veterans News

Obama to name new VA chief  (USA Today)  President Obama intends to nominate West Point graduate Robert “Bob” McDonald — most recently chairman of Procter & Gamble, a Fortune 500 company — as secretary of the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs, wracked by a scandal of systemic delays in health care.

Three military veterans benefit from local center that offers horse therapy  (WQOW) A local center is making strides in its mission to help veterans heal.

Director finds jobs for Ohio’s veterans  (The Columbus Dispatch)  Ohio ranks sixth in the nation for veteran residents, and seventh nationally for reserve and National Guard members.

50 VA hospital workers claim retaliation for blowing whistle on the horrors they saw  (The Washington Times)  When Valerie Riviello, a nurse at a Veterans Affairs facility in New York, saw the clinic restrain a sexual assault survivor to a bed for seven consecutive hours, she released the woman.

73-Year-Old Vietnam Vet Fired from Cracker Barrel for Giving Away Cornbread   (People)  Joe Koblenzer is 73 years old. He’s a Vietnam veteran, and until recently, he worked as a host at a Cracker Barrel in Florida.

Bill aims to aid Camp Lejeune contamination victims  (Pilot Online)  Two North Carolina congressional leaders have introduced legislation they say will help people exposed to contaminated water near a closed Asheville factory and a Marines Corp base.

Vietnam veteran fabricated heroic acts during trial  (The Augusta Chronicle)  In pleading the case of Charles Chavous in April, defense attorney Scott Con­nell detailed his heroic acts during the Vietnam War in an attempt to convince Judge Mi­chael N. Annis that Cha­vous was deserving of leniency.

‘Corrosive culture,’ weak leadership cripple VA, report says  (CNN)  The Veterans Affairs health care system needs to be overhauled because of unresponsive leadership and a “corrosive culture” that affects the delivery of medical care, said a report delivered Friday to President Barack Obama.

Benefits News

What every American should know about veterans and their health care  (Daily Kos)  Last week I wrote about Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson voting against additional funding for the Veterans Health Administration.

GI Bill funds flow to for-profit colleges that fail state aid standards  (CIROnline)  Over the last five years, more than $600 million in college assistance for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has been spent on California schools so substandard that they have failed to qualify for state financial aid.

Whistleblower alleges VA improperly purged benefit applications  (Fox News)  Federal investigators are probing a whistleblower’s claims that applications for veterans seeking health care benefits may have been improperly purged from the VA’s Health Eligibility Center in suburban Atlanta.

Surge in patients outpaces fayetteville’s VA health care’s building boom  (FayObserver)  The Fayetteville VA Medical Center has been playing catchup for years.

The VA’s Secret Claims  (National Journal)  The long-standing slog within the Veterans Affairs Department to cut down its mountain of disability claims has been well documented.

VA investigates Atlanta enrollment office  (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)  Federal investigators are examining allegations that thousands of veterans who applied for health care benefits had their applications purged improperly by the national Veterans Affairs enrollment eligibility office based in Atlanta, according to VA employees interviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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Have a great day!