Tag Archives: transition

Transitionnews 11/26/13

Posted by Mike Grice on

Transitionnews for Tuesday, November 26 2013:

Good news story of the day:

Healing veterans: Saginaw’s VA Medical Center pours nearly $30 million into renovations  (Michigan Live) After six decades of service, the Aleda E. Lutz VA Medical Center in Saginaw was showing its age. But thanks to some timely renovation work, the health care center that serves veterans throughout central and northern Michigan has a bright future.

Military Transition

Transition Readiness Seminar prepares service members (DVIDS) The military transition assistance program, part of Transition Assistance Management Program, underwent changes March 2012, and is now known as the Transition Readiness Seminar.

800 lieutenant colonels and colonels face SERB (Air Force Times) About 90 lieutenant colonels and 150 colonels could be selected for early retirement when the Selective Early Retirement Board meets Dec. 9.

Veterans

Huntington Beach Bar Fights To Save Sign That Salutes Veterans (CBS Los Angeles) Veterans are rallying around a local bar whose owners say they have been ordered to removed a sign that salutes their service.

Student veterans face challenges when reintegrating into campus life (The Daily Texan) For a small population of UT students, campus life comes with several realizations — being the oldest student in class or that, unlike their peers, they are balancing a family life and their studies.

National veterans’ charity sues local Indiana veterans’ charity (Fox 59) A national nonprofit group that pulls in more than $150 million annually for veterans has sued local group Help Indiana Vets.

Veterans Administration

Scammers target veterans attempting to call the VA  (WVNSTV) A fraud alert was issued recently letting veterans know about a scam that targets people who are attempting to call two Department of Veterans Affairs hotlines.

Veteran advocacy groups want justice for deaths at Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center (The Augusta Chronicle) The outrage surrounding the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center’s botched gastrointestinal program reached the national stage Monday, with representatives from two veteran advocacy groups demanding justice for the three cancer patients who died needlessly because of the clinic’s lack of care.

Indy VA office one of worst in country (WISHTV) Some veterans are fighting to their graves, not living to see benefits promised to them as young troops.

Benefits

Overtime, new computer system put sizable dent in VA benefits backlog (The Denver Post) Far fewer veterans are facing long waits for disability compensation after the Department of Veterans Affairs spent the past six months focusing on the backlog, including mandating case worker overtime and rolling out a new computer system.

 Conn. veteran sues Army over diagnosis, benefits (SFGate) A Connecticut veteran of the Iraq War has sued the Army, saying he was denied full education and retirement benefits after he was diagnosed with adjustment disorder while actually suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Have a great day!

 

Transitionnews 11/25/13

Posted by Mike Grice on

Transitionnews for Monday, November 25 2013:

Good news story of the day:

Easter Seals Groups Ramp up Help to Veterans  (ABC News) Like many people, Gary Staten typically thought of the nonprofit group Easter Seals as mainly helping children and adults with disabilities and special needs.

Military Transition

‘Mission:Transition’ draws military members to Home Depot’s ranks (Washington Post)  Donald Sullivan strolled contentedly amid the bustle of contractors wheeling carts stacked with lumber at the Home Depot in Hyattsville, Md.

New state law eases transition for military police (KARE 11) A new change in state law makes it easier for military police to transfer their law enforcement skills to the streets of Minnesota.

Ex-UFC fighter Caros Fodor and the cruel transition from soldier to civilian (Fox Sports) It was a routine convoy, a movement of military vehicles through the dark Iraq desert. But what is really routine about combat in a foreign land?

A Military Wife No More (The New York Times) Today I got divorced.

Veterans

A Pacifist’s Take on Veterans’ Rights (The Huffington Post) I spent my fall break in our nation’s capital, sponsored by Princeton’s Pace Center for Civic Engagement, visiting congressional lobbies, vocational employment centers, and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where I saw, firsthand, those who had experienced the casualties of war. Eating in the hospital cafeteria, I sat among masses of amputees, the people who actually comprise the looming, abstract statistics we hear always on the news.

‘Stand down’ event assists area veterans (Gainesville Times) When veterans return home, the transition into civilian life can be difficult for some. Yet there are organizations to help them make it as smooth as possible.

Veterans volunteer to provide military funeral honors at Washington Crossing National Cemetery in Pa.  (NJ.com) Several times a day, a solemn ceremony takes place at Washington Crossing National Cemetery in Newtown, Pa.

Report finds more of state’s veterans homeless (Charlston Daily Mail)   Jason Wood is happy he has a part-time job at the Charleston Civic Center.  It means the 40-year-old veteran is a step closer to finding his first permanent housing in a year.  But it’s not enough.

Veterans Administration 

Veterans Dying Waiting On Disability Benefits (CBS DFW)

The Veterans Administration says they’re working hard to fix their backlog of medical claims.  But the CBS 11 I-Team has uncovered a new problem faced by veterans and their families. Disability benefits denied and the appeals process taking years, even decades to be approved.

Veterans Affairs woes not just regional concern  (TribLive) First, waterborne bacteria in Pittsburgh Veterans Affairs hospitals led to at least five deaths from Legionnaires’ disease.

Dogs ease veterans’ trauma at VA center (Anchorage Daily News) The black Labrador retriever knew something was wrong. He refused to leave the side of Sandro Navarro, repeatedly nuzzling the troubled man, trying to comfort him.

Have a great day!

 

Transitionnews

Posted by Mike Grice on

I have been a reader of the Department of Defense’s Early Bird for a long time.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Early Bird, it is a daily roundup of items in the news that are related to the military.  Although it is a purveyor of news, it has also been in the news lately because it became a victim of the budgetman’s axe. Although the official Early Bird may have gone the way of the Dodo, it has been replaced by versions created by non-military agencies.

Anyhow, the Early Bird was great because it provided a single location to check out the news of the day for those in uniform.  I eagerly read it while still on active duty and I still read it (well, the son of the official Early Bird at any rate) today.  Since I got out, however, my interest in the Early Bird has changed from following the goings on in foreign lands to more pressing issues here at home. It occasionally contains links to stories about transition and veteran’s issues, but not always.  I found the lack of daily coverage is transition and veteran’s issues to be disappointing.

So I decided to start writing my own version of the Early Bird, except that it will focus on veteran/transition stories that are bouncing around the internet and in print.  You are one of the luckiest readers on the planet because you get to read the inaugural post — the post you are reading right now. My goal is to post links to news stories and blogs about vets and transitioning servicemembers as frequently as I can, and today is the first of them all.  If you have any feedback or recommendations, please post a comment!

TRANSITIONNEWS 11/22/13

Good News Story of the day

GOOD NEWS! Salvation Army Thanksgiving eve feast assured after flood of donations (Peninsula Daily News) Two weeks after putting out the word that it didn’t have any turkeys for the annual Thanksgiving feast, the Port Angeles Salvation Army’s soup kitchen now has enough for the 200 expected at the holiday meal.

Transition

Workshop advises service members in transition (Army.mil) Whether a service member retires after 20 years or gets out after just one tour, the Army’s Transition Assistance Program helps service members and their families transition into civilian life by offering job-search assistance, financial readiness planning and related services.

Tech sector salutes military in transition to civilian jobs (Seattle Times) Microsoft and other companies are sponsoring intensive programs to help service members learn the skills to help them land high-tech civilian jobs.

Government, Military and Business Leaders Come Together to Help Veterans Transition to Private Sector Careers (Digital Journal) More than 100 employers from Canada’s private sector will gather this week for Canada Company’s inaugural Military Employment Transition (MET) Employer Partner Coalition Conference in Toronto on November 21 and 22. Focused exclusively on veteran employment, the conference is designed to help bridge the gap between the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and corporate Canada by serving as a platform to share successful techniques and best practices that assist transitioning and transitioned CAF members entering the private sector.

Benefits

Pentagon requests plan to close stateside commissaries  (Stars and Stripes) Tasked by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to find ways to preserve force readiness amid sharply falling budgets, his comptroller and the Joint Staff have asked the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) for a plan to close all stateside base grocery stores, say military resale community sources.

Obama enacts 1.5 percent veterans’ COLA (Army Times) President Obama has signed into law a measure providing a 1.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment to disabled veterans and their survivors.

Drawdown

Military leaders: Drawdown plan aggressive (USA Today) President Obama’s own military commanders said Thursday that his plan for a drawdown of troops went beyond what they had recommended but will still be able to achieve U.S. goals for a stable Afghanistan. Critics however say the drawdown risks reversing hard-won gains against the Taliban.

U.S. military says it may have to cut Europe budget by fifth (Reuters) The United States may be compelled to cut its military spending in Europe next year by as much as a fifth in the latest round of reductions under “sequestration”, America’s top general in the region said on Thursday.

Veterans Administration

Paralyzed Army vet awarded $8.3M in VA hospital lawsuit (Army Times) An Army veteran who lost a leg and suffered severe brain damage when a routine surgical procedure at the John Cochran VA Medical Center went wrong has been awarded $8.3 million in a medical negligence lawsuit.

Hospital delays are killing America’s war veterans (CNN)  Military veterans are dying needlessly because of long waits and delayed care at U.S. veterans hospitals, a CNN investigation has found.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ catching up on benefits backlog (The Gazette) Far fewer veterans are facing long waits for disability compensation after the Department of Veterans Affairs spent the past six months focusing on the backlog, including mandating case worker overtime and rolling out a new computer system.

Thanks for reading the first ever edition of Transitionnews!

Low Hanging Fruit

Posted by Mike Grice on

The inevitability of a smaller military is beginning to settle in across the Department of Defense.  With the impending end of the second counterinsurgent war and fiscal cuts that accompany it, the services must live within the means of their dwindling budgets and the quickest way to do so is to reduce the number of people who are drawing pay and benefits.  In the system that is our military industrial complex the variable cost of personnel is the management tool of choice to reduce costs because of the fixed nature of weapon, infrastructure, and systems contracts.  It is far easier to trim the number of people in uniform than it is to break a contract for a weapon system or a construction project.

As I have written previously the reduction of personnel is completely understandable and necessary. When there are no wars to actively fight the necessity for a military big enough to fight one becomes an untenable and costly argument that will always lose to other domestic priorities.  With the end of war comes the need for the DOD to shrink.

The services are all wrestling with how to reduce their respective endstrengths.  Natural attrition through discharges and retirements, coupled with reductions in recruiting are one way to get smaller, but that is not enough.  People who are currently serving need to go.

But who, exactly, gets the boot?  The armed forces obviously want to keep their best people, so those who are not in that category become the low hanging fruit to be plucked from the manpower tree.  The army has announced that it is going to be discharging convicted sex offenders (which is really a pretty good idea) and the services are cutting those who are overweight and cannot get into standards (which has resulted in a spike in liposuction for those who want to stay in but can’t meet standards).

So the word is out.  If you are one of the apples hanging from the bottom branch of the tree you may want to take a hard look at your future in the service.  You may be “picked” before you are ready if you don’t move up a few branches…

Team Rubicon

Posted by Mike Grice on

There are very few organizations or people in the world that do truly wonderful things without any expectation of recognition of personal reward.  Team Rubicon is one of the magnificent few.

Team Rubicon is a Disaster Response Veteran Service Organization.  As in responding to disasters in places like the typhoon wracked islands of the Philippines, Haiti, Chile, Burma, Pakistan, Sudan, and in the United States.  They are a growing group of dedicated veterans who bring the skills they learned in uniform (things like flexibility, teamwork, leadership, work ethic, dedication, sense of duty and commitment to duty) to a new form of warfare: fighting against the disasters that ravage communities and threaten the lives of innocent men, women, and children.

They are incredibly agile, and are often among the first relief and assistance agencies to hit the ground.  The credit for such agility is the committed deployability of the members of the team; they have all answered the call to arms for their nation and in doing so have become incredibly motivated, proactive, and prepared to grab their gear and catch a flight to wherever in the world disaster strikes.

Today they are conducting Operation SEABIRD in the Philippines at the same time that Operation HONEST ABE is underway to help with the damage wrought by the tornadoes that blew through the region this past weekend. To say that they do amazing work is an understatement of epic proportions.  They are the best our country has to offer, continuing to serve after hanging up the cloth of the nation.

My hat’s off to them.

To learn more, go to their website.  Also, here is a link to a great story in Stars and Stripes.

Good news for Guard and reserve members about retirement

Posted by Mike Grice on

Here is a good news story about Guard and reserve retirement from the Army Times:

Senators take new crack at expanding reserve retirement credit

Good stuff.  Not all the news about military pay and benefits is bad!

TRICARE service centers to close soon

Posted by Mike Grice on

During my transition from active duty to the civilian world I found myself in the position of deciding just how I would procure health insurance for my family and I.  As a uniform wearing Marine my healthcare was covered by the local aid station, clinic, or hospital, but once I hung it all up that option vanished when my ID card switched from “Active” to “Retired”.

I have never had to make such a decision before; after all, medical care was part of the benefits package for those in uniform.  Fortunately, at my local Naval Hospital there was a TRICARE service center.  In the TRICARE service center was a real live human being who was both cheerful and helpful, and after spending a half hour or so with her I was able to make the right decisions and sign up for TRICARE Prime so that both my family and I would be covered once my HMMWV chariot turned into a pumpkin.

Unfortunately, that service center and the 188 others that are spread across the continental United States will be closing next year.  They will be replaced by a call center.  Although TRICARE states that customers will receive better service by calling a 1-800 number I somehow doubt it.  There is nothing like sitting down with a real person to get your questions fully answered.

Sadly the cheerful and helpful lady who helped me out will likely be out of a job next year.  Although TRICARE administrators project a $250 million savings by cutting the centers, the cost in terms of jobs and true customer satisfaction are going to be high.

At least in my humble opinion.

It’s here! Orders to Nowhere is now a book!

Posted by Mike Grice on

It’s finally here!  The first edition of Orders to Nowhere is available in print.  It will be six to eight weeks before it shows up in bookstores, and a week or so before it hits Amazon.com.  If you want to avoid the wait, you can order it straight from the printer by clicking the cover:

Orders to Nowhere

Since you are a loyal reader and follower of the blog that got it all started, you can use the discount code ZVGYFQ28 and save 10% off the cover price.

Thank each and every one of you for reading and following my journey through transition!

A tragic but true story of a Marine in trouble

Posted by Mike Grice on

This morning a friend emailed me a link to a particularly disturbing story.  It is a very well written blog post  in the New York Times that provides an unusually unvarnished look into the dark pit that is PTSD.

There are plenty of articles and blog posts about PTSD bouncing around the internet, but this one is compelling in a way that so many others are not.  In this post the author candidly and openly describes how he attempted to end his own life because the lingering effects of his wartime experiences on his psyche.  He takes the reader with him as he writes the note that his wife will find with his cold and lifeless body and as he swallows an entire bottle of pills.

I won’t give the whole article away because it is too well written and too insightful for my humble efforts to recount it.  You can read it here.  I will say that it is an articulate indictment of how this Marine was treated by his supposed leaders when he reached out for help; if his treatment is indicative of how others are treated when they try to overcome PTSD while still in uniform then a lot of so called “leaders” need to look long and hard in the mirror.

They are not leaders.  They are anything but, and are a wretched example of what some implacable and soulless men and women in positions of responsibility can do to those that they have been entrusted to lead.

Sad.

What’s next for military pay and benefits?

Posted by Mike Grice on

My last post was about the impending — and expected — drawdown of the military.  The United States is following the path of many other western nations as they shed soldiers and sailors in an effort to curtail the expense of national treasure and return their armed forces to the size they deem more appropriate for a post-war world.

It does make sense.  After all, standing armies, navies, and air forces are extremely expensive and tough to justify in times of peace (or at least of times of non-war, which seems to be a more apropos description of the 21st century age in which we live).  It has all happened before, and it will surely happen again.

For those who remain in uniform, however, things may well be changing as well.  The Department of Defense is considering pretty much any idea or option that comes to the table in terms of reigning in the costs of personnel, consume about a quarter of the DOD budget.  Various studies and commissions have examined the issue of military and military retiree compensation, and with the austerity brought on by the economy and sequestration such benefits come under greater scrutiny.

One of the latest efforts is the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission, a congressionally mandated effort to determine the “long term viability” of  military compensation (for more information, read today’s Stars and Stripes coverage of the commission here).  All things considered, looking under the hood of the military compensation machine is not in and of itself a bad thing.  It happens after every war, but this time the scalpels are sharp and the desire to perform some cost cutting surgery is possibly stronger than ever.

Efforts to change pension benefits, pay structures for serving personnel, medical coverage for retirees, and countless other benefits have been in the news lately and the new congressional panel is yet another bureaucratic mechanic crowded under the hood of the machine trying to dismantle what they can.

As I wrote earlier, a reasonable review is perfectly appropriate as the wars draw to a close.  The moral imperative of meeting the obligations of the nation to those who serve it, however, should be paramount in any discussion about tinkering with or cutting compensation.

I sincerely hope that the commission keeps that in mind.