HOW CAN I GET BACK TO WORK? By Keith A. Robinson, Department Commander I had listed the subject of getting back to work in my article in the Department August Newsletter. As I had stated, most veterans want to get back to as normal a life as possible following either separation from the military or after a bought with a worsening disability. In New York State, the Department of Labor is given the responsibility of assisting veterans who are seeking employment. The service is free and can be used by any veteran who is looking for work, whether employed or not. All a veteran has to do is be willing to take the time to meet with the veteran representatives at the New York State Department of Labor and work with them. The New York State Department of Labor has a Veterans Employment Helpline to provide information: 1 (800) 342-3358. If you have internet access, the Veteran Employment Services at the New York State Department of Labor can be accessed online at http://www.labor.state.ny.us. You can locate the nearest Veterans Representative at these contact information addresses. Veteran Employment services are to be delivered by all NYS Department of Labor employees, however there are Veteran Employment Specialists assigned to every office. The NYS Department of Labor provides priority services to all veterans at their local offices and in all of their One-Stop Career Centers. The employment services available include job placement services, counseling and testing services, job search skills workshops and seminars, civil service information and training programs. The primary point of contact for veteran issues at any NYS Department of Labor office is the Local Veteran Employment Representative (LVER). It is their responsibility to assure veterans are receiving assistance at their office and provide extra service in addition to those done by each office. The other Veteran Services Representative employed by the NYS Department of Labor works exclusively with disabled veterans as a Disabled Veteran Outreach Program (DVOP) Specialist. These employees are disabled veterans themselves. The services they provide may not be available at every office location on any particular day. Veterans should call their local NYS Department of Labor office to find out their schedule. Many of the DVOP personnel are out stationed at locations where veterans usually go to provide direct services outside of the normal office location. Many of you are already aware of the services available, however, some are not. In any event, all chapters should know the LVER & DVOP personnel in their area. Each chapter can be familiar with the programs offered by the NYS Department of Labor enough to be able to know when they can be of assistance. You can assist by inviting the LVER or DVOP to attend your chapter meeting to give a presentation on employment services for veterans. If a chapter wants to go further, they can work on and join in on a veteran job fair in their area. These events are held periodically throughout New York State. By the way, this is also a great way to meet veterans, disabled veterans and provide other assistance and put your chapter out in the public eye. Who knows, you may even be able to recruit some new members. Obviously if a veteran cannot work due to any disability, service connected or not, it may not be a good idea to encourage direct employment. Perhaps they just need some retraining. There are several training programs through the VA. The biggest is the Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment (VR&E) for veterans with a service connected disability. New York State also has their own vocational program. The NYS office of Vocational & Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID) is run by the Education Department of the University of the State of New York. They work with any New York State resident who may have any type of disability, both service connected AND non service connected. They can be reached online at http://www.nysed.gov. By phone, each area office has a separate office toll free number. Consult your phone book under New York State listings for the office nearest you. I know all of this will take a little of your time, but the DAV is about service to disabled veterans and their families. I believe anything we can do to try to help our fellow disabled veterans obtain employment will prove valuable to our chapters and to the community. Give thanks for our country, the land of the free because of the brave. Thank a military service member, let them know you support them as they protect us all. Remember those of our comrades who are less fortunate than we each many be. Visit a veteran to assure them they are not forgotten. Enjoy your holiday season as you all work to continue to serve our country. Thank you all. MORNING REPORT By Sidney Siller, Sr., PDC, Department Adjutant The U.S. Constitution requires that a population tabulation be taken of our citizenry every decade. The search is on for WWI veterans. One WWI veteran in South Florida recently died; and the VA is rushing to find other WWI veterans that are still alive. Homer Anderson's death on September 23, at 108 years old, was a few month's shy of his 109th birthday. His passing left 12 men - soldiers and sailors, who 90 years ago lived through trench and early chemical warfare. Believe it or not, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs just began compiling the list a year ago. The authorities and historians believe there may be more WWI veterans whose ages are well past 100 years. SEC Delegate Joe Delgado, PC of Abe Wolkofsky - Bronx Chapter #23 comes from the same village as Emilio Mercado, of Puerto Rico, who at 115 is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's oldest human being. If he is able to travel, I hope that Joe Delgado can help us arrange to bring this surviving hero to New York, so that we may honor him. Records from WWI, are on paper and not in a database, which makes it more difficult to find those WWI veterans still living. We in DAV-NY salute the men and women who were the last of their kind: American Revolution 1775-1783 Number Served - 217,000 Battle Deaths - 4,435 Last Veteran - Daniel Bakeman (Died in 1869 at the age of 109) War of 1812 1812-1815 Number Served - 286,730 Battle Deaths - 2,260 Last Veteran - Hiram Crank (Died in 1905 at the age of 105) Civil War 1861-1865 Total Number Served (Union and Confederate) - 3.2 million Total Battle Deaths - About 215,000 Last Veteran - John Sailing, Confederate (Died in 1958 at the age of 112) Spanish American War 1889-1902 Number Served - 306,760 Battle Deaths - 385 Last Veteran - Nathan E. Cook (Died in 1992 at the age of 106) After I joined the DAV-NY following WWII, I met several Spanish American War Veterans; Capt. William B. . MacCouley, one of my mentors who was with General Pershing in 1914, in Texas and Mexico chasing Pancho Villa. Probably, the most interesting of my comrades from WWII was PDC Jimmy Schneider of Chapter #76. Jimmy enlisted at 13 years of age with the 7th Regiment, and was a machine gunner who lost his leg fighting in the Argonne. Knowing these men has enriched my life so much. Their histories are ours. So that's the "Morning Report," and I issue this admonition - Stay Off the "Sick List." EXPLORATIONS By Sidney Siller, Sr., PDC, Department Adjutant We at Department Headquarters - DAV-NY are always considering the ways and means to make our Annual Conventions, State Executive Committee Meetings, and other functions filled with the best traditions; fulfillment of our DAV mission; and fun activities. So, we would like your input and reaction if we factored into our future conventions a side trip to such wonderful and important places in New York such as Cooperstown (Baseball Hall of Fame); West Point (our Military Academy); or the newly opened Purple Heart Museum. There are numerous other famous places within a bus ride from our Convention Hotel that would serve to enrich us. Many of us have not had the time or opportunity to avail ourselves of these valuable excursions. Costs aside, although this is important, we would endeavor to keep the costs lower than if you took the trip individually. Most important, what do you think of this idea? Please let us know, so that if there is a real interest, we can begin to work out the details. Remember, think outside the box. VA CLAIM DELAY CAUSES Source: Armed Forces News, October 27, 2005 The National Security Archive, a nonpartisan research organization affiliated with George Washington University, has obtained figures about claims made by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan that portend an inundation of the VA claims system. The figures, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, indicate 32% of veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War have filed disability claims over 15 years, while five years into the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns, 27% of newly discharged veterans already have filed nearly 153,000 claims. The current deluge of claims is adding to a large existing backlog. To counter this, Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, proposed earlier this year to hire 200 more claims adjudicators and provide $400,000 for training. The VA has reduced its average processing time for initial benefits to 174 days, but the two wars continue to increase claims. Veterans' groups have criticized the VA for using emergency appropriations to fund veterans' benefits rather than realistically planning and budgeting for the veterans' needs. According to Veterans for America (VFA) the newly released data suggests official estimates dramatically understate the future cost of the current Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. If the current trend continues, then VA could receive as many as 400,000 disability claims from the 1.6 million deployed active duty and reserve service members in the Global War on Terrorism. Jonathan Powers, Associate Director of Veterans for America and an Iraq War veteran, warned, "VA already has a backlog, and the claims process is only going to get worse unless VA takes action now. VA has no plan or funding to process and pay existing and future claims to ensure our veterans promptly receive the disability benefits and healthcare care they earned." Veterans for America (VFA) posts FOIA documents at http://www.veteransforamerica.org/moduleid/114 to inform the public about the causes, conduct, and consequences of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The first FOIA law was enacted in 1966 to promote learning and understanding about government programs and policies. Congressman John Moss thought FOIA was essential to equip the American public with information so they could be responsible citizens. In its most recent FOIA annual report available at http://www.va.gov/foia/report/FY2005/Terms.html, the VA purported to process 1.9 million FOIA requests during FY 2005, with a median processing time of 11 days. For further information on FOIA, refer to http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB194/index.htm. For further information on VFA, refer to http://www.veteransforamerica.org/. For further information on the National Security Archive refer to http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html. VA COLA 2007 Source: NavyTimes Rick Maze article, October 18, 2006 Military retired pay and veterans' disability compensation will increase by 3.3% on December 1, marking an annual cost-of-living adjustment that is both less than expected and smaller than last year's 4.1% increase. The 3.3% increase will first appear in January checks. For the second straight year, it is larger than the January increase in military basic pay, which will be just 2.2%. The main reason the retirement COLA is below 4% is that energy prices and transportation costs have dropped in the last three months, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Labor's Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles consumer prices. In the past year, some consumer costs have risen by more than 4%. Health care costs increased an average of 4.2% and housing costs jumped by 4.1%, according to the BLS. Food price, on the other hand, rose by just 2.5%. At the same time, transportation costs have dropped by 3.2% from a year ago and overall energy costs have declined by 43%. Annual increases in military and federal civilian retired pay and military survivor benefits are automatic, linked by law to the increase in Social Security benefits. All the benefits are tied to a comparison of consumer prices from the last three months of each fiscal year, which ends on September 30, to the same period of the previous fiscal year. Veterans' disability benefits, veterans' dependency and indemnity compensation for survivors and veterans' pensions do not automatically increase. But Congress passed and President Bush signed a bill guaranteeing they would get the same December 1st increase. Military pay raises also are approved only by an act of Congress, but that is not the reason why the January 1st basic pay increase will be less than the retirement adjustment. Military and federal civilian pay raises are computed by law to keep pace with private-sector wage growth, not with inflation. Often, such as in 2002 through 2005, this results in military raises that are larger than retirement increases. But the January 1, 2006 military raise and now the coming January 1, 2007 military increase will be lower because private-sector wage growth has been lower than inflation. SSA COLA 2007 Source: SSA.gov press release, October 18, 2006 The Social Security Administration announced on October 18th that the monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits for more than 53 million Americans will increase 3.3% in 2007. Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits increase automatically each year based on the rise in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), from the third quarter of the prior year to the corresponding period of the current year. This year's increase in the CPI-W was 3.3%. The 3.3 percent Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) will begin with benefits that nearly 49 million Social Security beneficiaries receive in JAN 07. Increased payments to more than 7 million Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries will begin on 29 DEC. Some other changes that take effect in January of each year are based on the increase in average wages. Based on that increase, the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax (taxable maximum) will increase to $97,500 from $94,200. The retirement earnings test exempt amount applicable to earnings for months prior to attaining full retirement age will rise from $33,240 to $34,440 a year. For those who are fully retired this will rise from $12,480 to $12,950. Exceeding these limits will result in one dollar in benefits being withheld for every $3 or $2 in earnings respectively above the limit. Of the estimated 163 million workers who will pay Social Security taxes in 2007, about 11 million will pay higher taxes as a result of the increase in the taxable maximum in 2007. Information about Medicare changes for 2007 can be found at http://www.cms.hhs.gov. VA MENTAL HEALTH CARE Source: McClatchy Newspapers Kansas City Star David Goldstein article, October 19, 2006 A network of community-based walk-in veterans' treatment centers is under increasing pressure as more and more former troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have come looking for help. A report to be issued October 19th from the House Veterans Affairs Committee's Democratic staff says that nearly a third of all Vet Centers have seen the demand rise for outreach and other services. The report surveyed Vet Centers operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs. It found that the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have sought help for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) doubled, from nearly 4,500 to more than 9,000 from October 2005 through June 2006. The number of veterans with other types of possible mental health and readjustment problems also doubled, and in some cases tripled, the report said. Half of the Vet Centers sampled reported that their expanding caseloads have affected their ability to treat their current clientele. "The administration's failure to increase staffing and other resources for Vet Centers has put their capacity to meet the needs of veterans and their families at risk," the report said. Among the other findings in the report: 40% of the centers have sent veterans with readjustment issues who should be receiving individualized therapy into group therapy. 30% said they need more staff. 25% has taken or will take some action to manage their increasing workload, including limiting services and establishing waiting lists. 20% said they have either limited or no capability to provide counseling or therapy for families dealing with veterans suffering from PTSD or other mental health problems. Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, the House VA Committee member who requested the report said, "The Vet Centers' staff are dedicated and deeply committed to meeting the needs of veterans and their families, but without additional resources, even dedicated staff has limits." The study was obtained on the afternoon of 18 OCT and efforts to contact the VA for comment were unsuccessful. It was unclear when the VA received the report which can be viewed at http://veterans.house.gov/democratic/officialcorr/pdf/vetcenters.pdf. It is the result of a confidential survey of Vet Center staffs. The committee's Democratic staff contacted a sample of 64 centers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Urban and rural areas were represented. Sixty centers responded. In addition to this report, the GAO recently reported that the Administration failed to fund $300 million in resources which the Administration previously touted for veterans' mental health services in 2005 and 2006 (GAO-06-1119T). The centers, part of the VA's Readjustment Counseling Service, were created in 1979 under then-VA Administrator Max Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran. They were designed to be accessible, storefront clinics where veterans could be seen almost immediately by a staff largely composed of combat veterans. Vet Centers provide a host of readjustment counseling services to assist veterans in successfully transitioning from military service to civilian life. There are currently 207 Vet Centers located throughout the 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia, and Guam. Their core mission is to help veterans suffering from mental and emotional concerns. PTSD, which wasn't even recognized as a medical condition at the centers' founding, is the most widespread mental health problem experienced by soldiers in combat. It can cause nightmares, flashbacks, depression, survivor's guilt and other types of anxiety. Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America (a veterans advocacy group) said, "The Vet Center report was disturbing but not surprising. We've been saying that VA is in crisis. It shows that VA does not have a plan. This is additional evidence." The VA vastly underestimated the number of PTSD cases it expected to see this year, predicting it would see 2,900 cases. As of June 2006, it has seen more than 34,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans for PTSD. A recent VA report shows that more than 1 in 3 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who've gone to the agency for medical help report that they're under stress or have mental problems. A top Walter Reed Army Medical Center official told Congress last month that 41% of National Guard and Army Reservists reported mental health concerns up to six months after deployment, compared with 32% of the active-duty force. 15% of the Guard and reservists were at risk for PTSD, compared with 9% of active-duty troops. DAVNY Home Page / Hot Topics / Action Line / Join the DAV / Administration / Newsletter Newsletter Archive / Chapters / Events / DAV License Plates / Links of Interest / Send Us E-Mail / Page Last Reviewed/Modified: