posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:58 AM
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Also see the article - Chips in official IDs raise privacy fears
posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:28 AM
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posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:35 AM
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When the new GI Bill kicks in Aug. 1, the government's best-known education program for veterans will get the biggest boost since its World War II-era creation. But the benefit is hardly the "Government Issue," one-size-fits-all standard the name implies.
In fact, depending on where service members and veterans decide to attend college, they could receive a full ride, or very little.
An Associated Press review of state-by-state benefits under the new bill shows huge discrepancies in the amount veterans can receive.
For example:
• Veterans attending New Hampshire colleges like Dartmouth might get $25,000 from the government each year, and in Dartmouth's case essentially a free ride, thanks to an additional grant from the Ivy League school. But in neighboring Massachusetts, it is a different story. At that state's numerous private schools — many just as expensive as Dartmouth — the government's baseline tuition benefit is only about $2,200 a year.
• Veterans who choose a private school in Texas could get close to $20,000 a semester from the government for a typical course load. Those picking schools in California will get nothing for tuition.
The explanation stems from the formula the government created, as well as a much-criticized decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs on how to implement the law.
The new GI Bill covers full in-state undergraduate tuition and fees at any public college. That's far more generous than the old GI Bill, which provides a monthly stipend that is the same from state to state.
But Congress also wanted to help veterans attend often pricier private schools. So the new bill offers them an amount equal to the tuition at the most expensive public college in the same state.
That penalizes veterans going to private colleges in states that have kept their public university tuition low.
As a result, the new GI Bill is a great deal for such vets in states like New Hampshire, New York and Texas; a pretty good one in states like Ohio; and hardly any deal at all in Massachusetts and especially California, where the state constitution prohibits public universities from charging tuition. Instead, California's public universities typically charge "fees" of several thousand dollars per year.
Critics argue the Department of Veterans Affairs misinterpreted the law and should have combined tuition and fees in coming up with reimbursement levels. That would have put the total California benefit at around $13,000 per year.
Anthony Brooks, a 26-year-old former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, will get a mere $5,000 toward the $38,570 tuition charged at the private University of Southern California — and half of that comes from USC through the government's Yellow Ribbon matching-grant program.
"It's depressing, actually. It's putting states up against each other," said Brooks, who plans to become a doctor. He added: "We all fought for our country. It just seems unfair."
The VA says its hands were tied by Congress.
"It is a valid question concerning why we would pay X in State A versus how much we would pay in State B, but the statute defines the kinds of programs we would account for," said Keith Wilson, the department's director of educational services.
Congress passed the Post 9/11 GI Bill last year, offering veterans the most significant expansion of educational benefits since the original GI Bill in 1944. The VA expects nearly half a million veterans to participate in the coming year.
The benefits — including new, separate stipends for housing and books — kick in after three years of active duty, and some of them are transferable to family members.
Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., has introduced legislation that would correct the discrepancy in California.
"California's generosity on state tuition was intended to keep college costs down, not inadvertently increase costs for the state's veterans," said Lindsey Mask, a spokeswoman for McKeon.
In the meantime, education and veterans groups are fielding calls from veterans confused over how much they can get.
"What should be a simple number has turned into some kind of Frankenstein-like monster that nobody will be able to understand," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education.
About 80 percent of veterans tapping the new bill are expected to attend public institutions. But some of the remaining 20 percent — those planning to attend private colleges, graduate schools, and the for-profit institutions that are hugely popular with veterans — are angry.
"On paper, this is an amazing new GI bill. It's an amazing plan," said Matthew Collins, a former Army specialist who started a Facebook group criticizing the system.
He plans to attend California Baptist University, affordable only because it is making a $10,000-per-veteran contribution under Yellow Ribbon — something many California colleges are unable to offer.
"I just don't think they truly thought it through," Collins said.
posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:45 PM
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posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:10 AM
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posted by LoveMyTanker @ 4:31 PM
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The Army will place mental health counselors in two Defense Department school communities in Germany in the coming academic year to test a new program aimed at combating the stress students face when their parents go to war.
With soldiers’ repeated deployments, children in military families have begun to experience mental health problems similar to those seen in their parents, according to Maj. David Cabrera, acting director for the Europe Regional Medical Command’s soldier family support services office.
Some of the common effects seen in children are anxiety, generalized fear, and academic problems that even go as far as regression to previous developmental stages.
Younger children have a more difficult time understanding why their mom or dad is gone during a deployment. The concept of war can be difficult — or even inappropriate with young children — for many parents to explain, he said. Older children have become depressed or aggressive, and struggled at school and in social situations.
In a 2008 DOD survey of 13,000 active-duty spouses, 60 percent of parents reported increased levels of fear or anxiety in their children, and 23 percent felt their children coped poorly or very poorly while a parent was deployed.
“Some [children] were having behavorial issues in school, and some were coping well with the deployments,” Barbara Thompson, director of the Pentagon’s Family Policy/Children and Youth office, said in a DOD release this week. “It’s very clear that spouses were concerned about the cumulative effects of deployments on their children.”
Since fighting began in Afghanistan, deployments have affected nearly 2 million military children, according the release. There are about 234,000 children who currently have at least one parent deployed, the release said.
One of those parents, Britta Vasquez, was recently reunited with her husband, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Humberto Vasquez, when he returned from a 15-month deployment in Iraq. Humberto Vasquez serves with the Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment 793rd Military Police Battalion out of Bamberg, Germany.
Britta Vasquez said it’s become harder for her children — son Bobby, 15, and daughter Natasha, 12 — to deal with deployments as they’ve gotten older.
“Now that they are teenagers, they are more aware of what is going on. ... They are no longer in their little family bubble,” she said. “There is more to their lives now with friends and school.”
She supports the idea of placing counselors in the school.
“It depends on the counselor [and] how well they connect with the kids,” she said. “It will not hurt having something like that available.”
In an effort to make it easier for kids in Europe to get the help they need, mental health workers will be hired for the Baumholder and Grafenwöhr/Vilseck community schools.
The communities were chosen for the one-year pilot program because of their troop and family density levels and their willingness to participate in the program, said Cabrera. Three of the Army’s four main combat units in Europe are located in those communities. The 172nd Infantry Brigade out of Grafenwöhr is currently deployed to Iraq.
Grafenwöhr/Vilseck is home to some 13,650 troops, 1,000 civilians and 1,000 family members, according to the Army. Baumholder hosts about 7,100 troops, 400 civilians and 400 family members.
The idea of bringing the counselors to the students was developed after Gen. Carter F. Ham, U.S. Army Europe commander, visited a group of Heidelberg Middle School students earlier this year to see how deployments affect them.
During the visit, the general asked the students if services at their school, churches or in the community helped them prepare for and deal with deployments. He also asked whom they rely upon during the “really bad days.”
“I want to make sure that you have the people and the services available to you if you want them,” Ham told the students, according to an Army news release. “I want to make sure you have folks that you can talk to, and that you can do so anonymously if you’d like to.”
Ham’s plans to provide mental health care for all Department of Defense Dependents Schools students led to the medical command creating the pilot program.
The program, part of the Family Support Services, allows children — with parental permission — to be seen by mental health practitioners at the school and eliminates the time spent to go to a clinic.
The pilot program is set to take place in “highly deployed areas.” Those deployments take a heavy toll on children, said Harvey Gerry, chief of education for DODDS-Europe.
Gerry said that DODDS students have proved “remarkably resilient” in the face of frequent relocations and their parents’ deployments.
“Deployments either single or repeated require children to adapt to unexpected changes and events in their lives,” Gerry said. “Extended separation can distract students from their studies, from the social interaction they typically enjoy in school and we want to be able to give whatever support we can.”
That support will hopefully be established by bringing counselors to the students.
The goal of the program is to offer direct care for known behavioral health issues as well as to provide educational and preventive programs that will speak to the stressors associated with deployment and reunion, Cabrera said. Referrals for care can come from a variety of sources to include: the principal, assistant principal, school counselor, teacher, student services coordinator, psychologist, social worker, behavioral health specialists or parent, said Cabrera.
“Children have a hard time knowing that mom or dad is gone and sometimes they have concerns,” Cabrera said. Kids might face the same difficulties as a soldier or a spouse would, “so it’s our duty and obligation to care for them just like we would an individual that brought up an issue,” he said.
Knowing their families are getting the help they need also should comfort soldiers downrange, he said.
Hiring of personnel for both areas is still taking place, but the program will be ready to kick off at the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year in late August.
The clinicians will be dedicated full-time to the schools, according to Cabrera, although some of them will rotate among the schools within the community. They will be available during school hours, but can also meet with parents when they pick up their child.
The first year is the validation year, Cabrera said. The intent is for it to expand across the European community, he said.
posted by LoveMyTanker @ 10:20 PM
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The difficult task of finding a new home overseas just became easier for servicemembers in several European communities, with the expansion of a Defense Department-sponsored Web site that is similar to Craigslist.
The Automated Housing Referral Network Web site, used in the United States since 2004, now lists rental homes and apartments near the Kaiserslautern military community, Spangdahlem and Geilenkirchen air bases in Germany, and Aviano Air Base in Italy. The site provides details such as number of bedrooms, size, price and, importantly, whether there is a kitchen, which is not always the case in Europe. Landlords are able to post several photos with each ad.
“It’ll give people a real picture,” said Jo Cardenas, deputy director of Housing at Spangdahlem Air Base. “They will be able to have an idea about where they are going to put their children’s heads down before they even arrive.”
Since May, about 250 potential homes have been listed in the Spangdahlem area, Cardenas said, including apartments, duplexes, and houses. Karen Leonard, the Kaiserslautern military community housing director, said they have already transferred 10,000 listings to the AHRN site and it’s growing as landlords add more units.
Housing officials demonstrate how the Web site works for all new arrivals, Leonard said.
“It’s nicer because they don’t have to run to the housing office all the time,” she said. “Everybody — DODDS (Department of Defense Dependent Schools) teachers, civilians, Army and Air force personnel — can get online and see this information. People in the States can go in and start looking for houses before they even get here.”
Renters using the site must still work with housing officials to hammer out contracts with landlords. But the housing must fit established guidelines to be listed on the AHRN site.
Cardenas said the Web site is a vast improvement over the current system, which is a series of cards, listing different attributes about rental homes and apartments.
“How big is a square meter compared to a square foot? Someone moving overseas might not be able to visualize that,” Cardenas said. “And different places may make different use of spaces that are the same size.”
Because of the five photos, Cardenas added, renters can see the interior and exterior of the homes. The Web site also allows renters to search for places by number of rooms, price and a plethora of other categories.
“They’re not going through pages and pages of available units,” Leonard said.
Master Sgt. Kelley Stewart, who recently transferred to Spangdahlem Air Base, said the Web site was indispensable when she arrived because she did not have a U.S. Army Europe driver’s license and was reluctant to ask new colleagues to drive her around the countryside looking for potential places.
“It was nice to have it all at your fingertips,” she said.
She found a brand-new apartment in Bitburg with heated floors and three balconies.
“It fits all my stuff,” she said. “And it’s five minutes from the walking area.”
Other bases will be added to the Web site soon, officials said. For more information, people can call the local housing office or visit the Web site at www.ahrn.com.
posted by LoveMyTanker @ 10:14 PM
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Army Spc. Cameron Briggs washes down a cocktail of prescription drugs every day for post-traumatic stress disorder and a brain injury he suffered when four roadside bombs rocked his Humvee in Iraq.
Tramadol for pain. Midrin for debilitating headaches. Minipress to suppress nightmares. Klonopin to control anger and anxiety.
His next dose of treatment will come from an unlikely source: a purebred Golden Retriever.
A new Veterans Administration program adopts dogs from animal shelters, trains them and matches them with wounded warriors home from Iraq and Afghanistan to help with their recovery.
For Briggs, his dog will be trained to help him find his wallet, cell phone and keys, which he habitually loses because of cognitive memory loss. The dog also will brace Briggs, who has an ankle injury, so he doesn’t have to use a cane or walker in public.
“I call him my little battle buddy,” the 24-year-old Briggs said as he strapped his old camouflage assault vest onto Harper. It’s modified to store biscuits and toys instead of ammunition. “I most definitely think he’ll help me transfer back to civilian life.”
VA hospitals nationwide are integrating service dogs into treatment plans for disabled vets, said Will Baldwin, a vocational rehabilitation counselor for the VA in Denver. The program was formed after Freedom Service Dogs, a Denver-based nonprofit, recently partnered with the VA.
Training takes up to nine months and costs $23,000. Service Dogs doesn’t charge its clients but relies on private donations and foundation grants.
“The population is growing exponentially down in Fort Carson with the Wounded Warriors program,” said Freedom Service Dogs’ Diane Vertovec, referring to the Army unit that prepares wounded soldiers for civilian life. “We feel like a dog can help a vet meet physical challenges but, more importantly, can really, really help them overcome a lot of the mental instability that they’re feeling.”
Service Dogs can train 43 dogs per year — a number that doesn’t come close to meeting demand. There are about 450 soldiers in the Wounded Warrior Battalion at Fort Carson.
David Watson, a 43-year-old Gulf War veteran who lives in Strasburg, about 40 miles east of Denver, gets out of bed every morning with the help of Summer, a trained yellow lab. Watson’s knees were injured in the war, and daily tasks are painful.
Baldwin suggested Watson get a service dog so he also could take better care of his wife, Trish, a Navy veteran who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.
“The relationship is just one big circle. We just keep helping each other out,” said Watson. “If I can’t roll over or get out of bed, [Summer] will have a little toy that she uses and she’ll pull me up.
It’s a tug-of-war game for her.”
“Get shoe, Summer!” Watson commands. Summer drops them at his bedside so he can slip them on without bending.
Summer also helps Watson navigate a world that doesn’t always accommodate his disabilities.
“Uneven ground — she will notice that before I do and she will either nudge me over or step in front of me so I don’t trip,” Watson said.
Key, an 8-month-old mixed black Labrador puppy, is being trained to open and close doors, get food from the fridge, alert bark, pick up keys and other items and brace to provide support.
Key’s biggest service might be to “just snug up to a person in bed, which sometimes is very comforting, especially for someone that might have PTSD,” said head trainer Patti Yoensky. “Just knowing that the dog’s there helps the person feel more confident, feel that they’re not alone.”
At Fort Carson, Briggs hopes that Harper will help him adjust. “I don’t like large crowds of people,” Briggs said, alluding to a PTSD symptom. “I get really fidgety and I just hate it. So anytime a stranger comes into your personal bubble, the dog will always stand between you and the stranger.”
Stephanie Baigent, manager of dog training at Service Dogs, believes that Harper can give Briggs something “unconditional that a lot of us can’t give, because no matter what we hear about Cameron or his experiences, we can’t fully understand.
“Harper doesn’t have to understand. He just loves Cameron because he’s Cameron,” she said.
posted by LoveMyTanker @ 10:01 PM
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On the bright side, the cost to taxpayers will be minimal when no one actually participates.Now I am going to go out and drive my gas guzzler to the farm, load up our horses on the trailer and go out for a trail ride in a neighboring county. Our horses are likely the next taxable target. Next they will implement another tax on me for owning horses and say something like, methane produced impacts (warms) the earth more than CO2 so they are bad for the environment, owning "pets" is taxable, owning any type of pet is bringing you too much happiness and we can't have that without taxing you, vet care should be taxed, or maybe we could tax the crap out of people for universal vet care, blah, blah, blah. You have to know it is coming. Right?
posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:49 AM
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SourceBudget Requests Advance Privitization of Military Housing - Military housing has improved dramatically during the past 10 years, and the progress continues through privatization and other initiatives, a senior defense official told Congress yesterday. The fiscal 2010 budget request will bring the Defense Department's housing inventory in the United States that is funded for privatization to 98 percent, Wayne Arny, deputy undersecretary for installations and environment, told the Senate Armed Services Committee's readiness and management support subcommittee.
Taking Control of Your Finances Now - According to a recent survey sponsored by Charles Schwab roughly 40 percent of Americans aren’t currently saving for retirement and, despite market losses, 60 percent of Americans haven’t adjusted their thinking about their retirement age.
Online 'Freebies' Help Budgets - The Internet is full of free samples, coupons and other promotions that can help job seekers on a budget. Here’s how to find the deals.
The Housing Game: Buy, Hold Or Sell? These days, with national median existing-home prices down nearly 15% to $170,300, from January 2008 to January 2009, sellers put up "for sale" signs with trepidation. Buyers with good credit ratings hit the house-hunting trail with glee. Others happily stay put, focusing on making mortgage payments and upkeep. What's right for you??
Top Ten Financial Basics - The NFCC suggests that consumers review the top ten financial basics to see if their financial house is in order. Check your financial house now!
Resetting Your Recession Era Budget - According to the Financial Planning Association, there may be money in places you haven't checked. Get tips on resetting your recession era budget!
posted by LoveMyTanker @ 4:05 AM
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A few days before this year's Earth Day, America's ideological greens received a present they have been desiring for years: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – responding to a 2007 US Supreme Court ruling – officially designated carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant. That spurred Democrats in Congress to push a major climate change bill. In the next 25 years, their massive cap-and-trade scheme would, according to a Heritage Foundation study, inflict gross domestic product losses of $9.4 trillion, raise an average family's energy bill by $1,241, and destroy some 1,145,000 jobs. Democrats want it passed by July 4.
Get ready for a veritable Pandora's box of complications.
A generation ago, it was considered great progress against pollution when catalytic converters were added to automobile engines to change poisonous carbon monoxide to benign carbon dioxide. Now, CO2 has been demoted.
The EPA's characterization of CO2 as a pollutant brings into question the natural order of things. By the EPA's logic, either God or Mother Nature (whichever creator you believe in) seriously goofed. After all, CO2 is the base of our food chain. "Pollutants" are supposed to be harmful to life, not helpful to it, aren't they?
Of course, it is true (although environmentalists often ignore it when trying to ban such useful chemicals as pesticides, insecticides, Alar, PCBs, and others) that "the dose makes the poison." Too much oxygen, for example, poses danger to human life. So what is the "right" concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere? There is no right answer to this question. The concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere fluctuated greatly long before humans appeared on Earth, and that concentration has fluctuated since then, too.
The current concentration is approximately 385 parts per million. Some scientists maintain that 1,000 parts per million would provide an ideal atmosphere for plant life, accelerating plant growth and multiplying yields, thereby sustaining far more animal and human life than is currently possible. Whatever standard the EPA selects will be arbitrary.
"Forget about the plants," say the greens. "What we're trying to control is how warm Earth's atmosphere gets." To which I reply, "With all due respect, are you kidding me?"
As with a "right" concentration of CO2, what is the "right" average global temperature? For 7,000 of the past 10,000 years, Earth was cooler than it is now; mankind prospers more in warm climates than cold climates; and the Antarctic icecap was significantly larger during the warmer mid-Holocene period than it is today. Are you sure warmer is bad or wrong?
And how do you propose to regulate Earth's temperature when as much as three-quarters of the variability is due to variations in solar activity, with the remaining one-quarter due to changes in Earth's orbit, axis, and albedo (reflectivity)? This truly is "mission impossible." Mankind can no more regulate Earth's temperature than it can the tides.
Even if the "greenhouse effect" were greater than it actually is, the EPA and Congress would be powerless to alter it for several reasons:
1. Human activity accounts for less than 4 percent of global CO2 emissions.
2. CO2 itself accounts for only 10 or 20 percent of the greenhouse effect. This discloses the capricious nature of the EPA's decision to classify CO2 as a pollutant, for if CO2 is a pollutant because it is a greenhouse gas, then the most common greenhouse gas of all – water vapor, which accounts for more than three-quarters of the atmosphere's greenhouse effect – should be regulated, too. The EPA isn't going after water vapor, of course, because then everyone would realize how absurd climate-control regulation really is.
3. Even if Americans were to eliminate their CO2 emissions completely, total human emissions of CO2 would still increase as billions of people around the world continue to develop economically.
Clearly, it is beyond the ken of mortals to answer the metaquestions about the right concentration of CO2, or the optimal global average temperature, or to control CO2 levels in the atmosphere. I feel sorry for the professionals at the EPA who are now expected to come up with answers for these unanswerable questions.
However, I do not feel sorry for the political appointees, like climate czar Carol Browner, because it looks as if they are about to get what they evidently want – the power to increase their power over Americans' lives and pocketbooks via CO2 emission regulations.
From higher energy bills to lost jobs, the impact of CO2 regulations will hurt us far more than CO2 itself ever could. Let's nail shut the lid on this Pandora's box before it swings wide open.
posted by LoveMyTanker @ 7:55 AM
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A thirty-something active duty Army Wife. A mother and teacher. A believer of "knowledge is power" and that resourcing is key in all things - It helps you to stand on your OWN two feet. Proud member of the diverse milspouse sisterhood. A southern born girl. An independent conservative - sometimes I talk (or bash on) politics. What you will find most of here - resources. Love me or leave me - put simply - don't be a comment troll!
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