Wednesday Deadline to Send Red Cross Holiday Mail for Heroes

Who says nothing's for free?

Tomorrow -- Wednesday, December 10 -- is the last day to participate in the Red Cross Holiday Mail for Heroes program. The program is a "partnership between the American Red Cross and Pitney Bowes to deliver one million holiday cards to American service members, veterans and their families in the United States and around the world."

Download free postcards [pdf] or mail your own to the address below, following all the rules listed in extended.

VA Begins Major Expansion of Outpatient Services

From the VA:

World-Class Health Care Brought Closer to More Veterans

WASHINGTON – Veterans will have easier access to world-class health care under a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) plan to open 31 new outpatient clinics in 16 states. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake announced [on December 4, 2008 the] VA will establish new clinics in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont. ...

With 153 hospitals and about 745 community-based clinics, VA operates the largest integrated health care system in the country. VA’s medical care budget of more than $41 billion this year will provide health care to about 5.8 million people during nearly 600,000 hospitalizations and more than 62 million outpatient visits.

“Community-based medicine is better medicine,” said Dr. Michael Kussman, VA’s Under Secretary for Health. “It makes preventative care easier for patients, helps health care professionals have closer relationships with their patients and permits easier follow-ups for patients with chronic health problems.”

The community-based outpatient clinics, or CBOCs, will become operational by late 2010, with some opening in 2009. Local VA officials will keep communities and their veterans informed of milestones in the creation of the new CBOCs.

Full list of proposed VA outpatient clinics.

The VA and the State of Louisiana also "jointly announced the selection of adjacent downtown sites for construction of their replacement medical center projects. The two projects, called the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Louisiana State University Academic Medical Center, restore greatly needed health care capability lost in New Orleans during flooding after Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005."

Talking Post Trauma Blues: Will Obama Make PTSD a Household Name?

One of my favorite female OIF vets, Abbie Pickett, shared the following video on her facebook page. (If you're a frequent reader of PTSD Combat and wish to connect with me via my facebook account, you're invited to do so; I frequently post PTSD-related content via that channel when I'm pressed for time -- which is often when my semesters are in full-swing).

The video is for a song called "Talking Post Trauma Blues."

Response to Rebuked Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki's Selection as Next VA Secretary

"You must love those you lead before you can be an effective leader. You can certainly command without that sense of commitment, but you cannot lead without it. And without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance." -- Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, June 2003 farewell speech

On Pearl Harbor Day, Obama makes a stellar choice.



From the BBC:

United States President-elect Barack Obama has chosen the former army chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, as his secretary of veterans' affairs.

Mr Obama told NBC television that General Shinseki was "exactly the right person" to honour returning soldiers. Gen Shinseki left his top army job after disagreeing with the defence secretary over troop levels needed in Iraq after the invasion. He was the first four-star general of Japanese-American ancestry.

Iraq disagreement
Mr Obama made his comments ahead of a press conference on Sunday in Chicago to announce the appointment. Gen Shinseki's time as chief of staff from 1999 to 2003 was marked by constant tensions with then-Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, particularly over the issue of Iraq.

In 2003 he testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand US troops to control Iraq after the invasion. His estimate was dismissed by Mr Rumsfeld, and he was ousted from his job within months.

But Mr Obama said he was suitable for the post of veteran affairs because he "was right" in predicting that the US would need more troops in Iraq than Mr Rumsfeld believed at the time.