Two articles worth reading that have been in the news recently:
"How the VA Abandons Our Vets," by Joshua Kors, in The Nation, linked here; and the poorly-headlined but otherwise worthwhile"Military Town Newspaper Challenges U.S. Military on Murder of Military Women," by Ann Wright, in TruthOut.org on the Web, linked here.
Kors' article talks about the recent veterans' class-action lawsuit against the VA, fought in Federal court, and WHY it was necessary -- and there are some interesting and unexpected points, which didn't show up elsewhere in enough detail. The biggest one is about the "fuzzy math" the VA employs to calculate claim times, and how this uniformly works against veterans (no pun intended on the "uniformly" thing.) It also confirms a longheld impression on my part that a veteran who struggles intensely with the mammoth difficulty of being his or her own advocate in the process, and ends up committing suicide, is actually counted as a "victory" for the VA, who calls their claim "resolved" in the time it took them to kill themselves. In other words, fellow veterans killing themselves while waiting for their claims to be resolved actually makes the VA look "better and faster" at resolving claims, if you can believe that. Yikes. Talk about a system that needs to be overhauled and addressed...
Another great point Kors makes is that "someone" already attempted -- but was fired for her efforts. That "someone" is Frances Murphy, M.D., who in 2004, according to Kors, "helped draft the Mental Health Strategic Plan, a blueprint for overhauling the VA. The plan called for 256 changes to the organization, among them: installing a tracking system to stay in touch with suicidal veterans, creating rehabilitation programs that involved veterans' families, and streamlining the benefits process to resolve wounded veterans' immediate needs." However, after expressing her frustration in public (to mental health providers) about the barriers the VA erects to veterans' speedy care, and how this causes veterans to suffer additionally and unnecessarily -- she was summarily fired.
Read the Kors piece to understand what wounded veterans have to go through, and how unfair it is; and to get a better picture on the fuzzy math that's employed to make things seem much better than they are.
The Ann Wright piece talks about military wives and women servicemembers murdered recently by other servicemembers, and mainly serves to remind us of how this is a problem that isn't going away. The "news peg" for her article is a recent editorial in the Fayetteville, NC Observer -- Fayetteville is close to huge Army and Marine bases -- called "Our View: Military Domestic Violence Needs More Aggressive Prevention" (speaking of odd word choices). That editorial is linked here. The editorial references a recent vigil to memorialize the murdered women locally.
In conjunction with the Helen Benedict material and the other writings on Military Sexual Trauma, blogged about recently, here -- this is a topic worth keeping in the forefront of our minds. Collateral damage from combat trauma? Or just crimes committed by otherwise sick individuals who happen to be in the military? Either way, "more" needs to be done about this terrible problem. (A similar and related topic is the "non-combat deaths" one we discuss from time to time, which can sadly be what's used to describe what more actually is a victim's suicide or a "domestic violence" type murder, of one servicemember by another.) We're just about to add a series of blog posts about domestic violence, and why it's important to leave when you're at risk, but ideally how to do so in a way that preserves your life. Look for that shortly.
About the authors:
Joshua Kors is an investigative reporter for The Nation, where he covers military and veterans' issues. He is the winner of the National Magazine Award, George Polk Award, IRE Award, National Headliner Award, Casey Medal, Mental Health Media Award, and the Military Reporters and Editors Award. He was also a finalist for the Michael Kelly Award, Tom Renner Award, Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, and the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award.
Ann Wright is a retired US Army Reserves colonel with 29 years of military service. She also was a US diplomat who served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. She is the co-author of "Dissent: Voices of Conscience," profiles of government insiders who have spoken and acted on their concerns of their governments' policies.
