1st US 'Veterans Court' Comes to Order

A welcome counter to today's NYT report from The Buffalo News:

A small army of veterans advocates is putting the finishing touches on what is believed to be the country’s first Veterans Court, where military veterans having problems adjusting to civilian life will get special attention.

The goal is to intercept troubled veterans before they plunge further into an already overwhelmed criminal justice system, which lacks the resources to help them get their lives back on track.

“Rather than be reactionary, we thought if we could be proactive, we could design a system that would better serve our community, the veterans and their families,” said Buffalo City Court Judge Robert T. Russell Jr., who will preside over Veterans Court when it starts Tuesday.

121 OEF/OIF Vets Charged, Committed Murder After Return to States

From the New York Times, the first in a series ('War Torn') looking at some -- statistically but the slightest sliver of those who have served and returned without incident -- of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have been charged with or committed murder, murder/suicide, manslaughter, etc.

This is difficult information and should not be used to demonize our veterans. Rather, we need to use such accounts to better understand our collective role in not doing more to ensure our returning troops have all the tools and help necessary to make their post-combat deployments as successful as possible.

Vets' Legal Challenge to VA Health Care System Shortfalls Proceeds Forward

Latest updates on this and related VA/Army lawsuits posted in "As Second Legal Attempt Fails to Force VA Hand on Disability Claims Processing, Army Sued Over Discharged Veteran PTSD Disability Ratings." -- Ilona Meagher, 12/17/08

Good to see our veterans will get their day in court. From Time:

When veterans of America's two current wars — Iraq and Afghanistan — tried to sue the Department of Veterans Affairs for failing to process thousands of claims for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the Department waved them off saying they had no right to do so. The VA said that Congress had set up an administrative — not judicial — process for evaluating individual disability claims. The veterans, it declared, just had to wait for bureaucracy to take its course — no matter that it has a backlog of 600,000 unresolved claims, each of which can take up to six months or more to process.

Now, however, a federal judge in San Francisco has cleared the way for a dramatic challenge to the constitutionality of the VA's claims system. Judge Samuel Conti of the Northern District of California ruled that the administrative system is not "adequate" for reviewing claims of organizations suing on behalf of a broad class of veterans (the class-action lawsuit was filed in July by two veterans organizations). Nor is that bureaucratic process empowered to grant the kind of relief sought by the veterans groups: systemic changes in the VA's processing of disability claims, strengthened rights of individual veterans to press their claims and immediate medical and psychological help for returning troops complaining of PTSD symptoms.

What Will 2008 Hold for OEF/OIF Vets?

Happy belated New Year to everyone.

Apologies for being so silent on this end over the holiday season. While the media has this past year done a better job of investigating and reporting on the issues that concern our returning troops and military families, I've been able to take some much-needed time off following an incredibly busy year.

Last month's weeks of completing finals, preparing and testifying before Congress, my birthday, the holiday rush of commitments and gatherings, and being under the weather for most of that period, was a remarkable culmination of an even more incredible year for me personally -- and for the issue of combat PTSD.

Remarkable, yes, but exhausting, too!

And so, I'm late in posting my review of all we've accomplished in 2007, but hope to have that for you soon. What will 2008 hold for our returning veterans? We now find their needs examined and more fully brought to light in the public sphere.

Will we be smart enough to act on what we've learned?