Minnesota Veterans Home Hastings and The State's Growing, Progressive Program for Veterans Care
Friday, December 25, 2020
Thursday, October 01, 2020
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| Church members set up 660 American flags on the lawn of St. Peter’s Reformed Church Zelienople, Pa., on Aug. 30, 2019, to illustrate the number of veterans that commit suicide a year. (Keith Srakocic/AP) |
“MILITARY TIMES”By Anthony J. Principi, Secretary of Veterans Affairs 2001 to 2005
“The
legislation recognizes a deep truth that America needs to take
onboard if it is going to end veteran suicide: VA can’t do this job
alone and American communities want to help their veterans.
Of
the 20 veterans, reservists and guardsmen who take their lives each
day, 60 percent of them are not currently seeking care at VA…..”
_______________________________________________________________________
“In
February 2018, one of our nation’s best and brightest chose a path
that too many of our military leaders take after they leave the
service.
Cmdr.
John Scott Hannon, who had a distinguished career in U.S. Special
Operations Command and as a leader of SEAL Team Two, took his own
life.
I
never had the privilege of meeting this patriot, but as a Navy combat
veteran who served during the Vietnam War, I am proud to have served
in a branch that produces such fine men as Hannon. This nation is
equally proud of his record of service in Europe, the Middle East and
Asia.
As
a former secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, I am
especially troubled by his passing, and I remain concerned about the
ongoing tragedy of veteran suicide.
Fortunately,
before he left us, Hannon laid out a path this country would do well
to explore in order to end this tragedy once and for all. He found
comfort in working to improve the mental health of other veterans,
even as he was working on his own recovery.What he was trying to do
was rebuild connections between veterans and their communities that
can help heal the terrible wounds our men and women sometimes suffer
as they defend this nation. And I am pleased to see an attempt to
follow the advice Hannon left behind, which has the potential to save
thousands of veterans and spare their families a grief that no family
should have to bear.
In
August, the Senate took an important step toward that vision by
passing the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care
Improvement Act. The Senate’s unanimous vote shows how the power of
a good idea can cut through the usual partisan divide and win quick
support, and it’s critical that the House take up this work and
pass the bill as well.
This
legislation is a bipartisan push to implement many of the best ideas
about recovery, connection and community. It would establish a new
grant program that would let the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
fund community organizations across America that can work to identify
at-risk veterans and promote early intervention at the ground level.
It
would expand veterans’ access to alternative care programs and
provide grants to non-VA organizations that provide mental health
services.
It
would give guardsmen and reservists access to VA Vet Centers in their
communities for mental health screening, counseling and other
services.
And
it would boost the care that many veterans seek at VA, by ensuring
every VA hospital has at least one suicide prevention coordinator on
staff, increasing VA research on mental health, and increasing
capacity for telehealth services to reach rural veterans.
That
means we need to reach beyond VA and work closely with organizations
that can reach veterans where they live, and the Senate bill does
just that.
Anyone
who has led the VA knows that one of our toughest challenges is
making sure veterans return all the way home to a country that loves
them and respects their service.
The
Senate’s passage of this bill is a much-needed step in the right
direction that will give more organizations the tools to help, not
just VA. I urge House leaders to pass it quickly so all of America
can get to work and help our veterans in need.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2020/09/11/the-ongoing-tragedy-of-veteran-suicide-why-legislation-is-needed-now/
Anthony J. Principi served as secretary of Veterans Affairs 2001-2005.
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Friday, May 01, 2020
COVID-19′s Fiscal Impact Might Ironically Strengthen National Defense
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| Image: Aberdenvfw.org
"DEFENSE NEWS ” By Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis (ret.)
“Ending unnecessary forever wars, we could save more than $100 billion a year without cutting anything else in the defense budget.
We could redirect much more focus and resources on training and professional education, which would enable the armed forces to better deter — and if necessary defeat — major opponents. “
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“With an already massive national debt of $27 trillion, the combination of government spending and the loss of tax revenue is going to place serious pressure on future budgets for years to come.
As Congress and the White House cope with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic by passing multitrillion-dollar stimulus packages, many are already grappling with the thorny problem of how we’ll eventually pay for the spike in spending. While no one ever wants to be a bill-payer, the defense industry is predictably first out of the blocks seeking immunity from any future cuts by trotting out its favorite weapon: fear.
Don’t be fooled by this tried-and-true tactic: The claim that any cuts to the defense budget will imperil defense is gravely mistaken. Without changes in the foreign policy we enact — and a rational reform of how we spend our defense dollars — our national security will continue to decay.
First, the cold, hard economic reality: The damage done to our economy by the necessary measures federal and state governments have enacted to safeguard American lives has been breathtaking in its scope and severity. Some estimates suggest gross domestic product will contract this year by as much as 40 percent, and unemployment could balloon to 30 percent. To help stem the tide, Congress has already passed a $2 trillion stimulus package, with more yet to come.
Bills will eventually have to be paid, and no area of the budget will be free from scrutiny — including defense.
Though the Department of Defense should be funded to whatever level is required to ensure the ability of our armed forces to deter and, if necessary defeat any adversary that may seek to deprive our citizens of life or liberty, not all aspects of the status quo are helping keep us safe.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr recently co-wrote an article arguing that regardless of the financial strain imposed by the coronavirus stimulus bills, defense spending should be exempted. The reason, he says, is that the military today remains in a yearslong “free-fall” which “can’t be fixed in a year or even four.”
The last thing America’s leaders should do when responding to the financial constraints imposed by the coronavirus, he concludes, is to “weaken the military.” His implications that military readiness has been in free fall because of inadequate spending and that any reduction in defense spending weakens the military are beliefs held by many — and are inaccurate for several key reasons. Clinging to forever wars might be the biggest.
The DoD has to spend hundreds of billions annually to fight, maintain and prepare for subsequent deployments fighting the forever wars we’ve been waging for the better part of two decades.
Congress has allocated more than $2 trillion in direct outlays since 9/11 to fight so-called emergency requirements of overseas contingency operations, or OCO, and we have incurred an additional $4 trillion in associated and long-term costs. For fiscal 2020 alone, we will spend upward of an additional $137 billion on these OCO wars.
What is critical to understand, however, is that the perpetual continuation of these wars not only fails to improve our security — these fights negatively impact our ability to focus on and prepare for fighting adversaries that could one day pose an existential threat to us. The implications of this reality are considerable — and potential remedies can be of great help to our country.
“With prudent and necessary reforms in how we manage research and development, procurement, and acquisition, and in shedding unnecessary or outdated expenditures, tens of billions of additional savings could be realized.”
Perhaps more importantly we could redirect much more focus and resources on training and professional education, which would enable the armed forces to better deter — and if necessary defeat — major opponents. Those two major changes alone would end the weakening of our military and materially contribute to strengthening its key capabilities — while lessening pressure on the federal budget.
The financial pressures this coronavirus is already placing on our nation’s finances is real, and its effects will be felt for years. We will have to make hard decisions in the days ahead on where we spend our limited resources. If we are wise, we can reduce how much we spend on defense while simultaneously increasing our military power.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow for Defense Priorities. He retired from the Army in 2015 after 21 years in service that included four combat deployments.
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Saturday, February 01, 2020
How Veteran-Owned Small Businesses Keep America Strong
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| Image: Nerdwallet.com |
“Veterans are 45 percent more likely than non-veterans to start a small business.
Today, veterans own 2.52 million small businesses — nearly 1 in every 10 — while employing 6 million Americans and generating $1.14 trillion in receipts.
Veteran-owned small businesses have always been a pillar of America’s economy, but they are in a generational decline.
More than 1.1 million veteran business owners are over the age of 65, and in 2014, only 4.5 percent of Post-9/11 veterans started a business, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When considering that nearly half of World War II veterans and 40 percent of Korean War veterans started businesses, the differences are stark.
As an estimated 200,000 service members transition from the military every year, the Small Business Administration knows how imperative it is to connect service members, veterans and military spouses with the tools and resources they need to become business owners — and what the nation risks losing if they don’t.
Starting a successful small business is a tough mission. It requires tenacity, discipline and adaptability — all character traits found in a veteran, alongside many other skills. But being your own boss doesn’t mean going it alone.
Transitioning service members and veterans need ready access to business assistance services, resource networks, capital and market opportunities to ensure success. Empowering and regenerating America’s veteran entrepreneurs is one way to help reverse our declining trends in entrepreneurship while also facilitating the economic revitalization of small towns and rural America.
The SBA’s Office of Veterans Business Development works to formulate, implement and promote policies and programs that equip members of the military community with counseling, training and education, as well as access to capital to start their own businesses and assist them with contracting opportunities.
Since 2013, 50,000 transitioning service members and military spouses have participated in the Boots to Business program as part of the Defense Department’s Transition Assistance Program. B2B provided — for the first time since World War II — a strong, visible pipeline of potential veteran business owners.
Boots to Business provides free entrepreneurship training in more than 200 military installations and military communities. Graduates of these programs are 53 percent more likely to start a business, and 91 percent are still in business after a year, according to the Institute for Veterans and Military Families.
Resources like the Veterans Business Outreach Centers provide entrepreneurial development, counseling and mentoring, and referrals for eligible members of the military community. The Service-Disabled Entrepreneurship Development Training Program supports organizations that deliver entrepreneurship training to service-disabled veterans, and the Veterans Institute for Procurement is an accelerator-like program that focuses on procurement.
In addition to the resources listed above, female veterans, active duty, and military spouses can also access resources through Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship, or V-WISE.
Surveys of Post 9/11-era veterans show as many as 25 percent would like to own a business after leaving service. However, lack of seed capital can be a challenge. There are no grants for veteran-owned businesses, traditional SBA lending programs are not for new businesses and the SBA’s micro-lending intermediaries do not focus on veterans, leaving veteran entrepreneurs more likely than nonveterans to rely on personal savings and credit cards to fund their businesses.
Seeking to bridge the seed capital gap, Congress proposed the Veterans Entrepreneurial Transition, or VET, Act of 2016. It proposes an SBA program that would evaluate the use of Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits as seed capital for starting a new business, similar to the World War II era-GI Bill, connecting B2B and other technical assistance programs to GI Bill grants by leveraging existing SBA infrastructure and administration.
The SBA activates the entrepreneurial potential of military and veteran entrepreneurs. Recognized through the SBA’s annual celebration during National Veterans Small Business Week and beyond, generations of these brave women and men have answered the call to start their own small businesses. The Post-9/11 era of veterans represents the next great generation to continue this legacy of success.”
Veteran Owned Small Business Keeps America Strong
Monday, January 06, 2020
Autos, Entitlement and "The Technology Monkey"
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| Image: Coolcarshotgirls.com |
I am a pedestrian, now retired, who has walked the last 14 years by choice from a Veterans Home to a volunteer job at the local Library. The journey is 3 miles one way. Some of my journey takes me through city traffic.
I have found myself sprawled across the hood of a car after the driver turned right without looking to a green light crosswalk while making a cell phone call.
I have been cursed for being in the middle of the road in a clearly marked pedestrian right of way by a speeder late to work running a red light who had to brake to avoid killing me. I could recount other similar near- miss incidents, too numerous to mention.
I drove for 36 years both in the US and abroad, and having spent 2 hours a day for years in an automobile on the D.C. Beltway, I am very familiar with the driving experience.
I saw it all in Washington; from cars driving down in the ditch avoiding traffic jams to people late for a meeting, and, stuck in traffic, running wildly around their auto, screaming at the world in general.
During the sniper episode in D.C, I observed a man pull into a gas station, laying a high powered rifle across the top of his car while he filled up. The hammer on that 30/30 lever action was cocked. No one was going to hurt him or his chariot.
There is a new kind of monkey these days - the technology monkey. That sucker will bury us if we don't learn to deal with him. We are so busy tending our gadgets and feeling entitled that we lose site of priorities, get wound up in minutia and end up in a meaningless zoo. Road rage is becoming a certifiable illness.
Perhaps we should slow down, assess what is important, savor the time we have and consider respect for others.
It is not difficult. It can become habit forming. And it just might feel good.
Ken
http://about.me/smalltofeds
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