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O7 Florida Hispanic Yearbook, FLHY
Invitation
Service in Iraq:
Just How Risky?
Arlington National Cemetery
VHA Information Letter 10-2006-010,
Potential Health Effects Among Veterans Involved in Military
Chemical Warfare Agents Experiments Conducted from 1955 to
1975
VHA Handbook 1170.1, Accreditation of
Veterans Health Administration Rehabilitation Programs
Released Testimony: Privacy:
Preventing and Responding to Improper Disclosures of
Personal Information
NHLA OPM REPORT
Veterans History Project (VHP)
Purchased Health Care Services
Procedures Handbook
VHA Directive 2006-037 approved for
distribution
U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History
Project
Agent Orange - Court of Appeals
- August 16, 2006
August 10, 2006
- Statement by the Hispanic War Veterans
of America about today's Senate event on protecting Vet's
Data
Unquiet
Minority
Police
Holding Three in Connection With VA Computer Theft
statement by HOMELAND SECURITY
SECRETARY MICHAEL CHERTOFF announcing a change to the
nation’s threat level for the aviation sector
Our Veterans' Missing Medals
National
Symposium for Young Veterans
Puerto Rico Plight
HR 4992 - Veterans
Medicare Assistance Act - Medicare Coverage for Veterans at
VA Hospitals
DD 214
Now Online for Veterans
It's
official, DD-214's are NOW Online.
Airborne
Chaplains Corp Oldest in Military
DoD
identifies Corps’ third woman KIA
WARNING
TO VETERANS
Service in Iraq:
Just How Risky?
Washington Post Article
By Samuel H. Preston and Emily Buzzell
Saturday, August 26, 2006; Page A21
The
consequences of Operation Iraqi Freedom for U.S. forces are
being documented by the Defense Department with an
exceptional degree of openness and transparency. Its daily
and cumulative counts of deaths receive a great deal of
publicity. But deaths alone don't indicate the risk for an
individual. For this purpose, the number of deaths must be
compared with the number of individuals exposed to the risk
of death. The Defense Department has supplied us with
appropriate data on exposure, and we take advantage of it to
provide the first profile of military mortality in Iraq.
Between
March 21, 2003, when the first military death was recorded
in Iraq, and March 31, 2006, there were 2,321 deaths among
American troops in Iraq. Seventy-nine percent were a result
of action by hostile forces. Troops spent a total of 592,002
"person-years" in Iraq during this period. The ratio of
deaths to person-years, .00392, or 3.92 deaths per 1,000
person-years, is the death rate of military personnel in
Iraq.
How does
this rate compare with that in other groups? One meaningful
comparison is to the civilian population of the United
States. That rate was 8.42 per 1,000 in 2003, more than
twice that for military personnel in Iraq.
The
comparison is imperfect, of course, because a much higher
fraction of the American population is elderly and subject
to higher death rates from degenerative diseases. The death
rate for U.S. men ages 18 to 39 in 2003 was 1.53 per 1,000
-- 39 percent of that of troops in Iraq. But one can also
find something equivalent to combat conditions on home soil.
The death rate for African American men ages 20 to 34 in
Philadelphia was 4.37 per 1,000 in 2002, 11 percent higher
than among troops in Iraq. Slightly more than half the
Philadelphia deaths were homicides.
The death
rate of American troops in Vietnam was 5.6 times that
observed in Iraq. Part of the reduction in the death rate is
attributable to improvements in military medicine and such
things as the use of body armor. These have reduced the
ratio of deaths to wounds from 24 percent in Vietnam to 13
percent in Iraq. Some other factors to be considered:
Branch of
service: Marines are paying the highest toll in Iraq. Their
death rate is more than double that of the Army, 10 times
higher than that of the Navy and 20 times higher than for
the Air Force. In fact, those in the Navy and Air Force have
substantially lower death rates than civilian men ages 20 to
34.
Among the
Marines, there is in effect no difference in the mortality
risks for members on active duty and those in the reserve.
In the Army, on the other hand, reservists have 33 percent
of the death rate of those in active service because they
are not assigned to combat positions. Members of the Army
National Guard are intermediate in assignments and in
mortality.
Rank: In
both the Army and the Marines, enlisted personnel have 40
percent higher mortality than officers. The excess mortality
of enlisted soldiers is diminished by the high mortality of
the lowest-ranking officers, lieutenants, who are typically
the leaders of combat patrols. Lieutenants have the highest
mortality of any rank in the Army, 19 percent higher than
all Army troops combined. Marine Corps lieutenants have 11
percent higher mortality than all Marines. But the single
highest-mortality group in any service consists of lance
corporals in the Marines, whose death risk is 3.3 times that
of all troops in Iraq.
Age, sex ,
race and ethnicity: In contrast to the civilian population,
mortality rates decline precipitously with age. Troops ages
17 to 19 have a death risk 4.6 times that of those 50 and
older. Differences in rank by age undoubtedly contribute to
this pattern, and so do differences in branch of service.
Sixty-five percent of Marine deployments to Iraq were of
those age 24 or younger, compared with only 39 percent of
Army deployments. Women are not assigned to combat
specialties in Iraq, although they do see enemy fire; their
death rate is 18 percent that of men.
Identifying racial and ethnic differences in mortality is
not straightforward because the Defense Department uses a
different classification system for deaths than for
deployments. Nevertheless, all attempts we have made to
reconcile the two systems reach the same conclusion:
Hispanics have a death risk about 20 percent higher than
non-Hispanics, and blacks have a death risk about 30 to 40
percent lower than that of non-blacks. That low death rate
appears to result from an overrepresentation of blacks in
low-risk categories: For example, 19 percent of blacks in
Iraq are women, compared with 9 percent of non-blacks, while
7 percent of blacks in Iraq are Marines, compared with 13
percent of non-blacks.
Other
casualties: The number of wounded in Iraq through March 31,
2006, was 7.5 times the number of dead; the rate at which
wounds are incurred was one per 33 troops per year. We do
not have the same information about the characteristics of
those wounded as we have about those killed. But given the
overwhelming importance of hostile encounters in both wounds
and deaths, it is likely that variations in the risk of
being wounded are quite similar to those presented here.
Samuel H. Preston is the Frederick J. Warren professor of
demography at the University of Pennsylvania. Emily Buzzell
is a student in the Health and Societies Program at Penn.
Veterans History
Project (VHP)
The
Library of Congress is collecting oral/written histories
from our
veterans. A PDF of their
brochure can be viewed by clicking on this link
VHP_bro_update8_March_27_2006.pdf
I'll
be doing a number of veterans' groups this Fall and I plan
to tell them about the Veterans' History Project and hand
out the printed brochures so that they can tell their
stories and be included. I think this is an important
project and worth our involvement with very little effort on
our part. If you want printed brochures, please contact
Jeffrey Lofton and he'll be happy to send them.
Jeffrey Lofton, APR
Public Affairs Specialist, Veterans History Project
The Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540-4615
Tel: 202-707-6432
Fax: 202-252-2046
jlof@loc.gov
www.loc.gov/vets
U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project

Since 1999, the U.S. Latino & Latina
WWII Oral History Project at the University of Texas at
Austin has captured the untold stories of this WWII
generation. Altogether, the project videotaped more than
five hundred interviews throughout the country and in Puerto
Rico and Mexico.
This volume features summaries of the
interviews and photographs of the individuals. Among the
people included are Mexican American civil rights leaders
such as Pete Tijerina and Albert Armendariz of the Mexican
American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and
Virgilio Roel of the League of United Latin American
Citizens (LULAC). Others are community leaders such as Pete
and Elena Gallego of Alpine, Texas, and military leaders
such as Colonel Hank Cervantes and flying ace Richard
Candelaria.
Women who served in the military are
also included. There are academic trailblazers, too, such as
Frank Bonilla, who became a major figure in Puerto Rican
studies. And there are a few Latinos who describe serving in
segregated "colored" units during the war, as their physical
features placed them in African American communities.
Overall, the vast majority of the men
and women interviewed in
A
Legacy Greater Than Words led private lives, and
their stories chronicle the everyday existence of Latinos in
the 1930s and 1940s—stories that generally have been omitted
from historical accounts of either the Great Depression or
World War II.
Reviews on " A Legacy Greater than
Words".
It's
summaries of most of our interviews, with thumbnail photos
of most interview subjects. There are 20 chapters and
subchapters with lengthy historical intros, featuring quotes
from our interviews. We didn't stint on paper, used a more
expensive paper so that it would reproduce better, and a
better binding, so it would last. There are only paperbacks
and they're available for $30 donations-- plus $5 if we need
to ship it. We wish we could give them all away free, but it
took us a small chunk of change to produce it -- We worked
on it since last spring, through the summer, the fall and
over Christmas break, we had 5 people plowing away to square
away the zillions of details, like DOB, names of spouses,
children, units, etc. So, in producing the book, we also
added to the accuracy and detail within our files. It's
self-published, but UT Press is distributing it.
We are hoping some folks might buy multiple copies. Carlos
Velez-Ibanez, at ASU, in fact, just bought his first 50
copies. So, for your single or multiple copies, send us a
check and we'll send you the book/s. If you want them
inscribed, let us know what you want the inscription to say.
Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, School of Journalism
University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station A1000
Austin, Texas, 78712
A
Legacy Greater than Words is a book that should be read and
available in all libraries and used as a reader in
Chicano/Latino Studies classes. Thanks to the U.S. Latino &
Latina WWII Oral History Project the contributions and
sacrifices of our WWII Chicano/Latino veterans are now well
documented and available to the public. The book is timely
given the current immigration debate and debacle in our
nation. I encourage you to purchase the book.
Gus Chavez
Former Director (retired)
Office of EOP & Ethnic Affairs
San Diego State University
Agent Orange - Court of Appeals
August 16, 2006
The
Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims recently held that VA
regulations defining who had service in Vietnam for the
purpose of establishing a presumption to exposure to
herbicides (e.g. Agent Orange) were too restrictive.
Consequently, those who served in Thailand, Laos and
Cambodia or on Navy ships off the coast of Vietnam may be
eligible for service connection of certain cancers,
including lung and prostate cancer, as well as Type 2
Diabetes.
Veterans who were previously denied service connection for a
presumptive disability should reopen their claim with the
VA. Those who have a presumptive disability should apply
immediately for service connection.
Those
who receive service connection for any disability are
entitled to free
treatment for that condition at any VA medical facility and
may be entitled
to a
monthly payment from the VA.”
Refer
to Haas vs. Nicholson No. 04-0491 Decided August 16, 2006
Unquiet Minority
August 1, 2006
By Karen Rutzick
Hispanics
hold a smaller percentage of jobs in federal agencies than
in the private sector, and they're not happy.
At Gilbert Sandate's [from Newton Kansas - aws] retirement
celebration of a three-decade career in federal service,
Democratic Rep. Charles Gonzalez, a fellow Texan, rose to
make a speech. In Sandate, he said, the Library of Congress
was not only losing an accomplished employee, but a rare
breed in the federal government: an executive of Hispanic
origin. Gonzalez, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus' task force on the census and civil rights, announced
at the May 23 party that he and several other
representatives have asked the Government Accountability
Office to find out just why the Sandates of government are
so uncommon.
The numbers are clear, even if the reasons for them are
not. According to the Office of Personnel Management's most
recent figures, in "Hispanic Employment Program Statistical
Report, February 2006" Hispanics comprise 7.4 percent of the
federal workforce compared with 12.6 percent of the general
workforce - a five percentage-point gap. They are the only
minority that is underrepresented. At the executive level,
the problem is even more pronounced. Hispanics account for
only 3.5 percent of senior-level federal employees and 4.6
percent of GS-13 to GS-15 managers.
Sandate spent 20 years bottlenecked as a GS-15. He applied,
unsuccessfully, for about 30 Senior Executive Service
positions, and bounced from the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission to the Internal Revenue Service to the
Transportation Department and finally to the Library of
Congress in an effort to move up. He left government as the
library's director of workforce diversity
"Reaching the SES level is without question the hardest
thing imaginable," says Sandate, who has held a number of
leadership roles in groups promoting Hispanic em-ployment in
government and is chairman of the Coalition for Fairness for
Hispanics in Government. "I had so many doors slammed in my
face, generally because there was always someone, ostensibly
at least, better qualified."
Their scarcity at the top of government is alarming
Hispanics. "Candidly, the federal government and government
service has always been the door to opportunity for
minorities," Gonzalez says. "We know that, and that is a
historical fact. Hispanics can't really lag behind in what
should be the widest and most open door. I guess the crux of
it really is, wait a minute, this is probably where we have
the greatest opportunity to come into the great middle class
of America."
A lack of Hispanics where decisions about the allocation of
federal dollars are made has repercussions beyond missed job
opportunities, according to another attendee at Sandate's
send-off. Jose Osegueda, an executive at the Agriculture
Department, is president of the National Association of
Hispanic Federal Executives. "Those decisions are more than
likely being made without our input, our voice and our
recommendations," Osegueda says. "We think our community
will continue to have limited access to education, health
care and social services" without increased Hispanic federal
representation.
Survival Issue
As the Hispanic population rapidly grows - census data has
Hispanics making up a quarter of the population by 2050 -
the federal-civilian gap could widen. "What does it mean
when you have 50 percent of the kids in Texas and 50 percent
of the kids in California who are Latino in the first grade,
and you have less than 3 percent representation in the
Department of Education? A lack of awareness of the
bilingual, bicultural issues that are facing America," says
Harry Pachon, professor of public policy at the University
of Southern California and a former federal employee.
OPM puts Hispanic representation in the Education
Department at 4.2 percent for fiscal 2005, down slightly
from the year before. Data supporting Osegueda's and
Pachon's claims about funding allocation remains largely
anecdotal, yet potent in the community. "Government jobs in
particular are very important to our community because the
government has control of the purse strings," says Brent A.
Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin
American Citizens. "We end up losing out on all the federal
grants and opportunities that are there for the entire
country." LULAC, the largest Hispanic organization in the
country and one that deals with every Hispanic issue from
immigration reform to civil rights, runs an annual training
institute to encourage Hispanic federal job seekers.
Sandate's career illustrates the importance of having a
presence in government. When he began working at the Library
of Congress in 2002, he noticed that the Veterans History
Project included testimony from few Hispanic veterans - a
group, Sandate says, that has earned more Congressional
Medals of Honor - 39 - than any other identifiable ethnic
minority and that accounts for 13 percent of the casualties
in Iraq.
"There had never been any effort to reach out to the
Hispanic veteran community to try to include some of those
histories in the American archives," Sandate says. "We were
able to connect that program staff with some of the key
Hispanic organizations." As a Hispanic executive, Sandate
was there to observe the problem and had the power to fix
it.
Public-private Hispanic employment disparity has caught the
attention of human resources thinkers outside the Hispanic
community, too. As baby boomers retire and Hispanics'
numbers boom, agencies will need them, says Max Stier,
president of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service in
Washington. "When you consider that [the Hispanic] talent
cohort is growing very quickly, this is vital for the future
of the federal government," he says. "If the federal
government is going to get the talent it needs, it needs to
recruit the talent that exists."
Sean Clayton, an African American who chairs the National
Council of Hispanic Employment Program Managers, echoes
Stier. "It's . . a survival issue, although not just the
survival of a community but the survival of the nation," he
says. "If you look at where the job growth is taking place
and who is going to be in the workforce of the future, you
are definitely going to see that one out of four new hires
[is] going to be Hispanic within the next 40 years."
Keep at It
Richard Nixon was the first to address the relative dearth
of Hispanics in government with his 1970 Sixteen-Point
Program for the Spanish-Speaking. President Bill Clinton
created an interagency task force on Hispanic federal
employment in the 1990s. And yet, in 2006, the gap remains.
Demographic shifts, however, including the impending
retirement wave and Hispanic population growth, have given
solution-makers hope. Gonzalez's GAO report, due out at the
end of July, is just one of several new looks at the issue.
The Merit Systems Protection Board is initiating a set of
studies on federal diversity, including focus groups and
statistical surveys, and Hispanic representation is on the
list. "We are concerned with why Hispanics are really the
primary underrepresented group in the country," says John
Crum, MSPB deputy director. "Why is that occurring? We don't
really know. We may or may not get an answer. When you start
this research, you don't always know what you'll find."
But Crum and his staff have some hypotheses that, if proved
true, could guide a shift in how agencies approach Hispanic
recruitment. One has to do with the average age of an
employee hired into federal service: 35. "We think there may
be assessment issues," Crum says. "The government may reward
training and experience too much. Hispanics tend to be
younger on average . . . does that make them less capable to
do the job? Not necessarily. We may not be getting at a
person's potential, but really how old they are."
In May, Stier's group released a report on rethinking
college campus recruitment for federal jobs. One of the
targets was Hispanics, and one of the target institutions
was the University of New Mexico, picked for its high
percentage of Hispanic students. The Partnership for Public
Service found that of white, Asian, black and Hispanic
students surveyed, Hispanics showed the highest interest in
government careers, with 51 percent indicating they were
"extremely" or "very interested." At the same time, they
were the least knowledgeable about government opportunities,
with 62 percent rated "not knowledgeable."
"There is a huge opportunity that has not been realized,"
Stier says.
Sandate says he had such difficulty rising in government
because there were no Hispanic executives to mentor him. He
has mentored about 100 up-and-coming Hispanic federal
employees, calling them on the phone two or three times a
week to check in. One of them became the first Hispanic, and
bilingual, administrative law judge in the Social Security
Administration's Office of Appeals. Sandate's son works for
the Forest Service.
Not Everyone Agrees
"What we need is a comprehensive strategy developed by OPM
to say that [under-representation] is an issue of concern,"
says Pachon, the USC professor. LULAC's Wilkes says OPM,
which leads the Clinton-initiated task force and is
responsible for guiding agencies' Hispanic recruitment
initiatives, should demand accountability from agencies.
"I think that you had folks out there that basically were
trying to go through these process objectives instead of
talking about results," Wilkes says. They say, " 'Hey, we
went to that LULAC conference and exhibited, we got 600
applications.' None of them got jobs, but we don't say that.
'We took a Spanish ad out in a Spanish magazine.' They talk
about all the great things they're doing other than the fact
there is no progress in closing the gap. You can show
yourself looking busy, but [you are] really just treading
water."
Legally, there is only so much OPM can do, says Antonio San
Martin Jr., a lawyer in the general counsel's office who
coordinates OPM's interaction with many Hispanic advocacy
groups. Policies aimed at specific goals, such as parity
with the civilian labor force, are not legal. "I can't show
up to a conference with 50 jobs in my pocket and give them
out to the people there as door prizes," San Martin says.
"What we can give them is the information, the
accessibility, the opportunity, the encouragement to know
they will be treated fairly by the federal government. They
will be treated fairly on the merits."
A June GAO report (GAO-06-214) on the intertwined roles of
OPM and EEOC in guiding federal workplace diversity found
managers had mixed opinions of OPM's guidance on the
Hispanic issue. Forty-three percent received zero feedback
from OPM on their agency's Hispanic employment initiatives.
Of those who heard from the agency, only about 7 percent
found the information very useful and 11 percent somewhat
useful.
Not everyone believes OPM should do more. Curt Levey, a
private attorney, was involved in a 2002 reverse
discrimination lawsuit against the Housing and Urban
Development Department. He argued HUD was discriminating
against whites in order to increase minority representation,
even though there was no evidence of actual discrimination
against the minority groups. "The fact that the numbers are
not proportionate to the population does not mean there is
anything wrong," Levey says. "Different subgroups of people,
whether divided by gender or race, gravitate toward
different professions in different proportions. So to assume
that there is something that needs to be remedied is often a
fallacy."
Parity might not even be a realistic goal. Federal jobs
require U.S. citizenship, something not every Hispanic
working in the private sector has or needs. And many federal
jobs require higher levels of education than are common
among Hispanics, 57 percent of whom had high school diplomas
and 11 percent of whom held bachelor's degrees, according to
the 2000 census.
You can't slice it simply by race, says Roger Clegg of the
Center for Equal Opportunity, a Washington think tank
opposed to race-based preferences. "Let's suppose that the
problem is that the people who have not been in the United
States for as long a period of time are, for whatever
reason, less likely to apply to the federal government,"
Clegg says, "and a disproportionate number of Hispanics are
recent immigrants. Then what the federal government should
do is not reach out to Hispanics qua Hispanics; what
they should be doing is reaching out to recent immigrants.
There are obviously lots of recent immigrants who aren't
Hispanic."
The National Association of Hispanic Federal Executives,
Osegueda's group, thinks otherwise, and they are not waiting
around for OPM to close the gap. "What are we doing
ourselves?" asks Al Gallegos, president of the Washington
chapter of the association. "Not just going out there
complaining. We're trying to be proactive."
The association is developing a workshop, scheduled to be
rolled out in November. Current Hispanic SES members will
lead it in their own agencies to help lower-level Hispanics
rise to the executive corps. The workshop will focus on
qualifications necessary to achieve SES positions and will
help participants plan years in advance to get into the
executive ranks.
The National Council of Hispanic Employment Program
Managers is taking things into its own hands, too. The group
started the annual Hispanic Youth Symposium, which this year
will host 550 high school students for three days at sites
in California, Maryland and Washington. A joint effort with
funding from corporations such as Kaiser Permanente and BB&T
bank, its aim is to plant the seeds of federal service
early. "We first [have] got to build a legacy of education
for these students, ensuring that they believe in college,"
says Jeffrey Vargas, an Energy Department employee and
former head of the council. "And then provide the bridge
between education and careers."
Some of the innovation comes from within agencies. The
Social Security Administration has 12.5 percent Hispanic
representation, right on par with the private sector, and
7.9 percent in the SES. What's the SSA's secret? Felicita
Sola-Carter, assistant deputy commissioner for human
resources and the first female Puerto Rican senior executive
in the agency, says it is leadership commitment, workforce
planning, aggressive recruitment and a business case hinged
on diversity. "We set out to represent the public we serve,"
Sola-Carter says. "That really has been our mantra."
SSA seeks employees fluent in Spanish to eliminate the need
to hire translators, making the agency more efficient.
Sola-Carter says Hispanic employees also have community
connections, which help in reaching out to customers. SSA
uses field offices as recruitment tools and its Hispanic
employees as recruiters. The agency also has a Hispanic
advisory council that meets periodically to suggest how to
better serve this group. SSA actively recruits on college
campuses with heavy Hispanic representation such as
California State University at Los Angeles, and engages in
national ad campaigns.
Sola-Carter, who began her career in 1971 in an SSA field
office in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York,
says, "We have come a long way from occasionally showing up
at a college fair with a few handouts and a few applications
for employment."
Much of the rest of government still is catching up.
7.4% of the federal workforce is Hispanic
3.5% of senior-level federal employees are Hispanic
12.6% of the general workforce is Hispanic
12.5% of employees at the Social Security Administration are
Hispanic
13% of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq were Hispanic
39 Hispanics have earned Congressional Medals of Honor
©2006 by National Journal Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Site URL:
http://wwwgovexec.com/features/0806-01/0806-01s2.htm
Police Holding Three in
Connection With VA Computer Theft
By Karin
Brulliard and Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 5, 2006; 5:06 PM
Three
people are in the custody of Montgomery County police in
connection with the May theft of computer equipment from the
home of a Veterans Administration analyst in Aspen Hill that
contained the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers
of millions of current and former service members.
The three
-- two Rockville 19-year-olds and a minor who was not
identified -- also stole jewelry and cash from the analyst's
home, and had no idea they had such sensitive information
from the computer and hard drive, Montgomery police said
today. The theft was the largest information security breach
in government history.
"As far as
we can determine, this was a random burglary," Police Chief
Thomas Manger said at an afternoon news conference. "They
did not know what they had."
Police
identified the two adults under arrest as Jesus Alex Pineda,
19, of the 13000 block of Grenoble Drive and Christian Brian
Montano, 19, of the 13100 block of Grenoble Drive. Pineda
has been charged with first degree burglary and theft over
$500. Montano faces those charges, as well as conspiracy to
commit burglary and theft.
Both were
arrested last night at a McDonald's restaurant, police said.
The juvenile, whose arrest in the case is pending, was
already jailed on another charge. Police did not release any
information about him.
Manger
said the case was solved with the help of a tip called in to
the FBI, which passed on the information to Montgomery
police. The trio are suspects in at least five other
burglaries, he said.
The
computer equipment was recovered on June 28 when the person
who had the laptop contacted U.S. Park Police after seeing
news accounts and notices of a $50,000 reward offered by
Montgomery County police. Federal authorities said then that
the sensitive personal information of 26.5 million veterans
and military personnel apparently had not been accessed.
Police
have not yet distributed the reward.
statement by
HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY MICHAEL CHERTOFF announcing
a change to the nation’s threat level for the aviation
sector
Press
Office
U.S.
Department of Homeland Security
Press
Release
August 10,
2006
Contact:
DHS Press Office, 202-282-8010
The
Department of Homeland Security is taking immediate steps to
increase security measures in the aviation sector in
coordination with heightened security precautions in the
United Kingdom. Over the last few hours, British
authorities have arrested a significant number of extremists
engaged in a substantial plot to destroy multiple passenger
aircraft flying from the United Kingdom to the United
States. Currently, there is no indication, however, of
plotting within the United States. We believe that these
arrests have significantly disrupted the threat, but we
cannot be sure that the threat has been entirely eliminated
or the plot completely thwarted.
For that
reason, the United States Government has raised the nation’s
threat level to Severe, or Red, for commercial flights
originating in the United Kingdom bound for the United
States. This adjustment reflects the Critical, or highest,
alert level that has been implemented in the United Kingdom.
To defend further against any remaining threat from this
plot, we will also raise the threat level to High, or
Orange, for all commercial aviation operating in or destined
for the United States. Consistent with these higher threat
levels, the Transportation Security Administration is
coordinating with federal partners, airport authorities and
commercial airlines on expanding the intensity of existing
security requirements. Due to the nature of the threat
revealed by this investigation, we are prohibiting any
liquids, including beverages, hair gels, and lotions from
being carried on the airplane. This determination will be
constantly evaluated and updated when circumstances warrant.
These changes will take effect at 4:00 AM local time across
the country. Travelers should also anticipate additional
security measures within the airport and at screening
checkpoints.
These
measures will continue to assure that our aviation system
remains safe and secure. Travelers should go about their
plans confidently, while maintaining vigilance in their
surroundings and exercising patience with screening and
security officials.
The United
States and the United Kingdom are fully united and resolute
in this effort and in our ongoing efforts to secure our
respective homelands.
Our Veterans' Missing
Medals
THE NEW
YORK TIMES
August
8, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
By JOSEPH A. KINNEY
Pinehurst, N.C.
Captain
Brian Chontosh is the kind of soldier who, in years past,
would have received a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue.
As a
young lieutenant in 2003, he and his platoon were ambushed
near Baghdad. Machine gun fire, mortars and rocket-propelled
grenades spewed from every direction. Lieutenant Chontosh
ordered his Humvee directly into an enemy machine-gun
position, where his gunner destroyed the nest. He then
advanced on a trench, where he exited his vehicle and
scattered enemy fighters. After his ammunition was depleted,
he twice picked up an enemy's rifle and continued.
By the
time the smoke cleared, Lieutenant Chontosh had killed more
than 20 insurgents and saved the lives of dozens in his
platoon. For his incredible courage, he was awarded the Navy
Cross, the second-highest award given to Marines.
Second
highest?
For
reasons I can't fathom, the Pentagon top brass don't feel
that our heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan are especially
meritorious. President Bush has yet to award a single Medal
of Honor to a living veteran of combat in either place.
(Only one has been given posthumously.)
During
the Vietnam War, 245 Medals of Honor were awarded. If
President Bush awarded the medals at roughly the same rate
for service in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than two dozen
would have been bestowed by now.
When I
called the Department of Defense to inquire, a public
affairs officer said he wondered whether our fighting style
might be less risky today than it was in Vietnam. How lame.
Fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has been brutal, and many
of our troops have performed with incredible valor. Anyone
remember Falluja?
This is
more than an issue of justice denied. Tales of courage
inspire present and future warriors. They certainly
motivated my service in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. Today,
two of my four sons are good bets to join the Marines or
Special Forces. I don't want them to look to my generation
for heroes, but to their contemporaries.
I hope
President Bush will order a review of heroic acts performed
in Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of our freedom. Not
another minute should be lost in bestowing honors that are
overdue.
Joseph
A. Kinney is writing a book on the making of America's
soldiers.
National Symposium for
Young Veterans
To
address these problems of servicemembers returning from
Afghanistan and Iraq and their families, AMVETS is hosting
the National Symposium for the Needs of Young Veterans,
which is planned for October 18-22, 2006 in Chicago, Ill.
The symposium will bring together a diverse and
representative group of veterans to discuss how to ensure a
system of earned benefits that is both adequate and relevant
to the needs of younger veterans. Former Secretary of
Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi will co-chair the
symposium. For more information, visit
www.veteransnationalsymposium.org.
Puerto
Rico Plight
The
Washington Times
By
Lawrence A. Hunter
Published August 2, 2006
Congress struggles over what to do about illegal aliens
coming to the United States from Mexico and Central America.
Yet a huge problem within the Hispanic branch of our own
American family is overlooked. Four million American
citizens of Hispanic origin struggle in Puerto Rico under
circumstances that can only be described as totally
un-American. The Institute for Policy Innovation described
this in a report three years ago ("Leave No State or
Territory Behind"). The Brookings Institution is publishing
a book with virtually the same findings.
People
born in Puerto Rico are American citizens with U.S.
passports who have all the rights of citizenship, including
dying for their country in the American military -- all the
rights that is except the right of electing voting Members
of Congress or voting for the president. Few "mainlanders"
recognize the U.S. has a colony, which they can visit
without a passport and whose residents may freely come to
the mainland to visit, work or live permanently without
presenting a passport, obtaining a visa or a green card or
going through customs.
Between
1950 and the mid-1970s, Puerto Rico was considered by many a
showpiece of economic growth and educational advancement.
Since then, however, Puerto Rico's economy has been
stagnant, its standard of living has lagged, and the
educational system has deteriorated. Unemployment persists
at 11 percent, and labor force participation (60 percent) is
less than two-thirds the rate in the States, much lower than
any member country of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, including Mexico (82 percent).
Nearly
half of Puerto Rico's residents still live below the U.S.
poverty line, and the gap in income relative to the mainland
continues to widen.
The
Brookings book and the IPI report constitute a consensus
among economists. Puerto Rico's lack of prosperity derives
from flawed tax policy and a bloated welfare state
stimulated and perpetuated not only by the government of
Puerto Rico but also by very smart tax lawyers who designed
fatally flawed tax policy for the U.S. government, which
benefited large multinational firms with territorial tax
credits but barely benefited the people of Puerto Rico.
While
the strategy did attract multinationals to Puerto Rico and
demonstrated for the relatively few hired how productive the
Puerto Rican people can be, the strategy ultimately
backfired. It was immensely costly to the Federal Treasury
-- on the order of $2.67 in tax benefits received for every
dollar of labor compensation paid -- and not only distorted
Puerto Rico's local politics, by making the tax incentive
dependent upon Puerto Rico's continued territorial status,
but also distorted the structure of production and
employment in Puerto Rico. Big multinational companies got
large tax credits, often for income attributed to Puerto
Rico but produced by activities in the States, resulting in
very few jobs or small-business opportunities for Puerto
Rico residents. As a result, 4 million people born in Puerto
Rico now live in the States where they can find a job and
vote.
Special
tax breaks also exacerbated a willful blindness in
Washington of the urgent need to resolve the status debate.
Is Puerto Rico to become a state, remain a territory or gain
independence as a sovereign nation? The Bush administration
is to be commended for its recognition of the festering
political-status issue in its recent recommendations for
Congress to establish a formal process of Puerto Rico
self-determination to resolve permanent status in a timely
fashion.
In
1996, with a generous 10-year phase-out period, Congress
repealed those tax credits, and the multinational firms have
remained on the island. But the history of corporate welfare
had created an economic strategy with one pillar --
perpetual dependency. In this regard, Puerto Rico's economic
problems are not unique and are only compounded by the
uncertain status situation.
This is
why a new economic strategy is required for Puerto Rico, one
that incorporates wise federal policies rather than
handouts; that encourages Puerto Rico to get its welfare
state under control. Members of Congress should read the
Brookings Book and IPI report and, at a minimum, create
national enterprise zones including Puerto Rico. That would
make it possible for these American citizens to climb the
ladder of prosperity and achieve the American Dream.
Companion national enterprise zone bills including Puerto
Rico were introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin
Republican, and Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, in
the last Congress. And Puerto Rico's newly elected nonvoting
Member of the House, Luis Fortuno, introduced similar
legislation (H.R. 2182) in this Congress.
National enterprise zones provide a practical way to get tax
policy right, easing regulations and establishing incentives
for private capital and enterprise to invest and flourish in
these lagging sectors of America, whether on the mainland or
on that little corner island of America 1,000 miles off the
coast of Florida.
Lawrence A. Hunter is a senior fellow at the Institute for
Policy Innovation and former staff director of the
congressional Joint Economic Committee.
HR 4992 - Veterans Medicare
Assistance Act - Medicare Coverage for Veterans at VA
Hospitals
Under current law, Medicare-eligible veterans are not
allowed to use Medicare coverage at local VA hospitals.
Instead, they are forced to decide between receiving medical
care at a VA hospital without being able to use Medicare to
help them make their bill payments, or using Medicare at a
non-VA hospital and losing the personalized veterans’ care
of a VA hospital.
On March 16, 2006, Rep. Sue Kelly (NY) introduced HR 4992,
the Veterans Medicare Assistance Act, that would provide
Medicare eligible veterans with Medicare Subvention -- the
right to use Medicare benefits to help pay their bills at
local VA hospitals.
"Veterans pay into Medicare for most of their lives, yet
the law prohibits them from using Medicare benefits at a VA
hospital later in life," Kelly said. "VA hospitals
specialize in treating veterans’ needs, and veterans should
not be forced to choose between cost and comfort. Veterans
should be eligible for the same Medicare benefits at a VA
hospital that they would have at any other hospital."
"The federal government needs to keep the promises made to
veterans and ease their financial burden by providing
Medicare benefits at VA hospitals," Kelly said. "Veterans
have remarkably served our country, and in return they
should have every health care option available to them. They
should not be forced to make unfair and complicated
financial decisions about their quality of health care."
DD 214 Now Online for
Veterans
The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) has provided
the following website for veterans to gain access their
DD-214 online: vetrecs.archives.gov. This may be
particularly helpful when a veteran needs a copy of his
DD-214 for employment purposes. NPRC is working to make it
easier for veterans with computers and Internet access to
obtain copies of documents from their military files.
Military veterans and the next of kin of deceased former
military members may now use a new online military personnel
records system to request documents. Other individuals with
a need for documents must still complete the Standard Form
180, which can be downloaded from the online web site.
Because the requester will be asked to supply all
information essential for NPRC to process the request,
delays that normally occur when NPRC has to ask veterans for
additional information will be minimized. The new web-based
application was designed to provide better service on these
requests by eliminating the records center's mailroom
processing time.
It's official, DD-214's
are NOW Online.
The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) has provided
the following website for veterans to gain
access to their DD-214s online:
http://vetrecs.archives.gov/
This may be particularly helpful when a veteran needs a copy
of his DD-214 for employment purposes. NPRC is working to
make it easier for veterans with computers and Internet
access to obtain copies of documents from their military
files. Military veterans and the next of kin of deceased
former military members may now use a new online military
personnel records system to request documents.
Other individuals with a need for documents must still
complete the Standard Form 180, which can be downloaded from
the online web site. Because the requester will be asked to
supply all information essential for NPRC to process the
request, delays that normally occur when NPRC has to ask
veterans for additional information will be minimized. The
new web-based application was designed to provide better
service on these requests by eliminating the records
center's mailroom processing time.
Airborne Chaplains Corp
Oldest in Military
THE NEW
YORK TIMES
August
1, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:42 a.m. ET
FORT
BRAGG, N.C. (AP) -- They look like the other soldiers, but
the Army's airborne chaplains are noncombatants who carry
camo-clad Bibles instead of weapons when it's time to leap
from aircraft onto the battlefield.
Chaplains were authorized for the Army by the Continental
Congress in 1775, making the Army Chaplains Corps the oldest
in the American military. Today, chaplains are paired with
well-armed enlisted soldiers in a Unit Ministry Team, or UMT,
as they walk a line between the military and a supreme
being.
On
Monday, about 50 chaplains and their assistants from
airborne units jumped from the ramps of C-130 aircraft with
350 other soldiers at a sandy drop zone deep inside the huge
Fort Bragg post. Many of the other chaplains based at Bragg
didn't make the jump because they were deployed or preparing
to deploy.
''Soldiers regardless of their faith background have a deep
respect for the unit ministry team -- the chaplain and
chaplain's assistant -- because they see them as their
pastors on the battlefield,'' Sgt. Maj. Stephen Stott, 44,
the senior chaplain's assistant for the 18th Airborne Corps,
said last week.
Stott
said chaplain teams spend much of their time prior to a
deployment preparing soldiers for the harsh reality of
military life.
Across
the Army, there are 2,600 active-duty chaplains and
assistants and the same number of National Guard and Reserve
members, said Lt. Col. Randall Dolinger at the Army's Office
of Chief of Chaplains. The number includes Special
Operations, but the service doesn't talk about them, he
said.
No
chaplains have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, but one
was severely wounded. More than 200 denominations have had
chaplains in the Army, but Protestant are the most
prevalent.
The
daily life of a chaplain in a combat zone can be dangerous:
Lt. Col. Jerry Powell, a nondenominational minister from
Kansas City, was ambushed while riding in a convoy to
conduct a memorial service in Iraq for a member of the
civilian police force in Baghdad.
''It
was just part of doing ministry,'' Powell said. ''Gunfire
exchanged, we kept moving. It's a whole lot different from
getting caught in a traffic jam (at home) while doing
ministry.''
Col.
Pat Hash, chief chaplain for the 18th Airborne Corps and a
former Special Operations chaplain in Iraq and Afghanistan,
said military chaplains are different from those in civilian
churches because they are with soldiers ''out on the ranges
and jumping out of airplanes.''
A
former infantry officer who went to a Southern Baptist
seminary, Hash said there is no conflict between ministry
and combat. Soldiers have a job to do and ''we're there to
walk alongside those soldiers as they face some of the
challenges and turmoil of life,'' he said.
Chaplains don't seek converts but they rarely see a
committed atheist during combat, Hash said.
''It's
interesting how people, even though they say they're
atheists, are drawn to some type of faith when they have to
face stressful and difficult situations like war will
bring,'' he said.
DoD identifies Corps’ third
woman KIA
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