Edward Hines VA Hospital

This story can be troubling for some so if you are squeamish then you may want to stop reading.

Last chance.

So, what I wanted to do with this blog was to bring a spotlight to veteran issues, perhaps bridge the veteran and civilian experience gap some, but I didn’t want this blog to focus on bashing the VA at every opportunity, because I want to believe that some good people work there, but this recent story out of Hines Illinois yet again makes me question that fundamental belief.

The short version of the issue is that the Edward Hines VA hospital has been leaving unclaimed deceased veterans in the morgue for months at a time, in some cases left to decompose in the lockers where they are kept before burial.

My first thought was that perhaps they just don’t have the resources to bury all the veterans who pass away at the clinic, but according to a whistle blower who revealed the issue, resources are available but the VA employees neglected the bodies anyway. In addition to general neglect, the local county where the hospital is located requires that the bodies be embalmed and frozen within three days by an embalmer or medical examiner  to prevent the body from decomposing before burial. However, the hospital neither employ embalmers or medical examiners, nor does it embalm the bodies.

One final indignity for a veteran who doesn’t have a family, who’s family can’t find them, or veteran who’s family didn’t want them anymore.

-Public Intel

-Updated 10/10/2016 to correct some grammar problems.

Something to believe in

Here we are again. I don’t want to talk about the same subject again so soon, but when the problem again rears it’s head in the news I fell that I must address it again.

With a self-admitted problem of veterans committing suicide at crisis levels, over 20 per day, with only 6 of those 20 bothering to ask the Veterans Administration for help in the first place, and of those who reached out for help, 1/3 of them had their pleas go unanswered, or dumped to voicemail.

After my years in the Marines I’ve become pretty cynical about many things, and with my day job at a federal agency, my first reaction to this situation is that the administration was not allocating the time and money it needed to the problem and the people there are doing the best they can with what they have.

However, the reports have specifically stated that the workers at the hotline answered fewer than five calls per day and would leave work early. While at some level I can understand if the number of answered calls were 5 per day, there is no metric that be placed on saving someone’s life and I don’t want factory type production numbers for a suicide crisis center. If a worker has to spend their entire shift on a single call helping a single veteran they should be thanked and celebrated. But leaving a shift early, allowing desperate veterans calls for help go unanswered is not only poor work habits, but unethical.

Where else in our society would we allow this? Would we allow 911 to route 1/3 of all emergency calls to voicemail and not have a public outcry?

I’m sure the workers at the cell center have saved many lives but these types of problem have not only caused me to questions their ability to help the veterans that have been placed in their care, it has also has me question their dedication and empathy for those people who dedicated their lives to protecting them.

It is exactly these types of events that cause veterans to questions their countries commitment to them.

Twenty-two years of mental tears
Cries a suicidal Vietnam vet
Who fought a losing war on a foreign shore
To find his country didn’t want him back

Their bullets took his best friend in Saigon
Our lawyers took his wife and kids, no regrets
In a time I don’t remember, in a war he can’t forget
He cried “Forgive me for what I’ve done there
Cause I never meant the things I did”

–Something to believe in Poison

-Public Intel

A spectrum of conversation

At a party, someone walks up to you and says NASA is planning a mission to Mars. After your brief reply, which could vary from genuine interest to a socially acceptable but nervous nod, that person continues to look at you expecting you to pick up the conversation.

Instead, lets say that person walks up to you and says that NASA is planning a mission to Mars, and wouldn’t that be a cool trip to be on?

Recently in our class, we read a series of articles by Mark Bittman that discussed the politics of food. While the topic of discussion was interesting, perhaps not as interesting as a trip to Mars, more relevant to our class was the theme of the articles, the spectrum of online conversation that have on opposite sides inform and persuade.

The reason why I say spectrum is because rarely can a discussion be just one or the other, but instead is on a slid-ruler with each concept at either end. I could write a blog post about the history of the G.I. Bill, and in addition to the blog post being dry and boring, it would be mostly informative but there still be an element of persuasiveness, perhaps nothing more than an element of opinion as to why this subject is important. Then I could write a blog post about why you should vote for a particular person for president, not going to pick a side so don’t ask, but the blog post will inevitably contain information that is also informative, mostly as to why you should vote the way I do.

Bittman works the entire spectrum of inform/persuade that makes his articles not only interesting to read, but interesting to deconstruct to examine so that you could improve your own writing.

In his article My Dream Food Label, Bittman comfortably drives the conversation between these two sides. He beings the article with persuade when he asks, of himself, what his perfect food label would contain, but then imminently switches to inform when he clarifies what he means by “ideal” for a food label and goes into why the current labels are lacking. For the remaining of the article he oscillates between inform and persuade but ends the article with his final persuasion, to get the conversation started. As a toolkit idea on how to format a blog post, starting with a persuasion, oscillating between inform and persuade while ending the blog with a persuasion.

It would be cool to take a trip to Mars, wouldn’t it?

 

-Public Intel

1st Amendment Protections

 

Stolen Valor.

Such a dirty and contentious issue within the veteran community, and some outside, that everyone has an opinion, from indifference to criminalization. While there have been numerous attempts by both state and federal officials to make Stolen Valor illegal, appeal courts have repeatedly struck down these provisions as violations of first amendment rights. So what is Stolen Valor?

To most people, Stolen Valor is when someone who was never in the military claims to have been and wears a uniform was evidence of that service. Or, someone who was in the military, but inflates their experiences or accomplishments. While distasteful, most people think the act is no more harmful than someone merely putting on a costume and pretending to be something they aren’t, which can’t be further from the truth.

Stolen Valor doesn’t happen when someone dresses up for Halloween, or a costume party, and doesn’t happen when someone tries to defraud the government and private organizations, which when it comes down to it is just fraud and covered by applicable laws. Stolen Valor is when someone who isn’t a veteran, or a veteran who distorts the character of their service, claims to be something they are not and negatively impacts how the public sees veterans, how veterans see each other, and how veterans see themselves.

I know what you’re thinking, how can someone playing dress up negatively impact someone else?

I could point out that we don’t allow, or tolerate, someone to impersonate, say, the police or doctors, but the easily reply would be that those situations are public safety concerns.

So, for the three points I mentioned above. First, how the public view veterans. I fell safe in saying that military service is a unique experience, and provides a unique perspective that isn’t provided by other experiences, that for better or worse it is an experience many Americans are interested to learn about. Recently, both political candidates announced how many retired or actively serving general or admirals support them, people also find it interesting when veterans become involved in social issues,  so it should not come as a surprise when those who claim to be something they are not behave badly, that stigma still impact veterans.

Stolen Valor also impacts how veterans treat each other. Since the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the instances of Stolen Valor have increased and have led to mistaken accusations that erode trust within our community. It is an old idiom within the veteran community that when you get multiple veterans together, they are going to drink coffee/beer/whiskey and tell each other lies, in a good-natured sense, once the community starts to suspect each other of Stolen Valor, that comradery will be gone forever.

That leads to the final problem with Stolen Valor, the veterans loss of identity with themselves. In American, we grow up learning that it is wrong to hurt others, a lesson some learn better than others, but when you join the military, you are expected to forget those lifelong lessons. Not only are you told that it is OK to hurting others, who meet certain criteria, but you are encouraged and expected to do so. Then you leave the military and are told to go back to your old mode of thinking, a transition some are better able to make than others.

With veterans questioning each others service, this leads to veterans not wanting to share their stories and experiences with the fear that these instead need to be forgotten or hidden. We saw this result after the Vietnam War to disgraceful effect.

There is no solution to this problem to had from the government, but the veteran community can negate the impact this effect has on us all by keeping the faith with each other and when you find a veteran in need just listen.

-Public Intel

 

 

The Alternative

Swim with sharks to reduce stress and anxiety. Yes, sharks. This is what some veterans who suffer from post tramatic stress disorder, PTSD, are doing to work through the war they brought back home. Recently, Dave Philipps of the New York Times wrote an article that talked what has become the iconic problem of returning veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afganistan.

PTSD has been a problem for returning veterans of any war, the symptoms of PTSD and the effects of war on those who fight it are presented in the Old Testament of the Bible, and while the acceptance of PTSD as a problem has enabled those who need help to receive it, like many attempts at solutions for veterans, then fix is almost as bad as the problem.

For most veterans, the standard solution is exposure therapy and drugs. A solution that has many seeking alternatives, abandoning therapy altogether, or ending their lives. The VA has even set up what they call CAM, Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, to study the benefits of alternative therapies for the treatment of PTSD.

While I have never swam with sharks, though it does sound fun, another therapy that David Philipps and the VA mention as helpful for PTSD is yoga, which I had done. PTSD is not a problem I personally have but the few times I’ve done yoga increased the respect I have for what can be a physically and mentally demanding experience. That is what therapy does, create new experiences to soften the hard memories.
-Public Intel

http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treatment/overview/complementary_alternative_for_ptsd.asp

Review of a website

https://www.iusb.edu/veteran/

I know, reviewing a website. That sounds about as exciting as reading one of those political pamphlets that arrive in the mail during the election cycle but Indiana University of South Bend does have a useful website for student veterans, though it fall short in some regards.

The website is compact and the layout is easy to navigate. The How to Get Started section is incredibly in that it provides a step by step guide that is useful for new students and those that have been in school for awhile. Then there are several more sections that provide useful definitions of benefits, information about the Student Veteran’s Organization and updated events for veterans.

The Helpful Links and News section falls short in many parts, not the least being there is no news posted on the page at all. There is a link to militarytimes.com but that site doesn’t always provide the best news for veterans. Also, there are no links to local veteran resources, such as the local VA clinic or area veteran organizations.

The biggest missed opportunity is that the site does not provide a section for non-veterans. The veteran population is small and widely misunderstood both by fellow students and professors so there should be a section provided for them to better understand the veterans that attend the university.

From my personal experience the university has always been supportive of veterans and when I had to leave for a year to go on deployment, both the university and my professors went out of their way to help me, which I cannot say for a friend of mine who attended a different university which had an Office of Veteran services that actively disliked veterans and didn’t have a problem telling them so. Indian University of South Bend, both its professors and administrators, have a tradition of being good to veterans so I hope recent changes do not endanger that tradition.

 

-Public Intel

 

New Paperwork

Two weeks ago I received an email from my university concerning my G.I. Bill benefits, which briefly stated that in order for me to receive them for the fall 2016 semester I had to fill out some paperwork. This came as a bit of a surprise since I’d been using my benefits for the last three years without having to fill out any additional paperwork.

So of course I’ve been dragging my feet completing the form that was attached to the email, which I will get to in a moment, but what confused me most was the necessity of the additional paperwork. In a previous blog entry I talked about the hindrance of an opt-in program versus an opt-out program so I went in search of why the policy changed. I re-read the email, which was helpful and businesslike in a way that I appreciated but did not provide the answer I was searching for. I scrubbed the Office of Veteran Student services website for the university, which I’ll cover in a future blog post, but even under the helpful links and news section there was no explanation to this drastic change.

I know to some it may seem a minor, insignificant change and as I review the form, which I wasn’t able to find on the website but only have it because of the original email, it could easily be completed in a few minutes. Instead of going into depth with the form I’ll just attach it to the blog and anyone interested can review it, like most paperwork it’s bland and to the point, though it does make me question what the previous university procedure had been. Some of the questions had never been asked of me before so either they now had just become important, or is the form also being used to gather demographics of the veteran students at the university? In previous years my G.I. Benefits were easily applied for by the university, with only a single problem over the years which was quickly resolved, and there was little I personally had to do to apply. I simply registered for classes, background things happened at the university and the VA paid for most of my tuition, after which I paid for the remaining.

I even took a semester off from school after I completed my undergraduate and the following semester went smoothly, which how most opt-out policies run. But now, with this opt-in policy, I wonder how many problems there are going to be and in the end it is only going to frustrate university administrators and create more burdens for student veterans. I guess we’ll see as I turn in the paperwork later this week.

Link to form: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7iKH6PnsV75dzRHXzQyYmotbHdXVjRCUWZZVkZWSzJVcm8w

 

-Public Intel

 

 

 

 

 

20 a day…

On August 3rd, the Veterans Administration released a report about the epidemic of veterans taking their own lives. The report goes into great detail of which veterans are taking their lives but the takeaway is that veterans commit suicide at a greater rate than non-veterans, with an average of 20 veterans committing suicide every day.

Of those 20 every day, 6 sought VA services before taking their lives.

Six.

Let’s add another few numbers, those being the number of veterans seeking services from the VA. In the same report, the VA states that of the 21.6 million veterans, only 8.5 million are enrolled with a VA health care provider.

I see one simple solution to this issue, instead of making VA health care an opt-in program, instead make it an opt-out program, meaning that all veterans have a VA health care provider unless they decide otherwise. The veteran should have the choice if they want VA health care, but the program should not be so burdensome that more than half of all veterans decide that the help isn’t worth the effort.

While this won’t solve the problem of veteran suicide, this change could help those fourteen veterans who didn’t seek VA health services and would be a positive change that could impact millions of veterans.

The military culture teaches discipline, self-reliance and toughness that does not leave much room for weakness, and this does not disappear when someone leaves the military. This culture makes it difficult for veterans to ask for help, so the burden is on our government to easily provide the services that respects this culture of our veterans.

 

-Public Intel

Link to report: http://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/2016suicidedatareport.pdf

The Public in Intellectual

Back in 2003, when blogging was still in its infancy and was still discovering what it wanted to be, Tim Dunlop wrote a post on his blog called If you build it they will come: Blogging and the new citizenship. There is more to this short paper, long blog post, than I could hope to unpack in a single blog entry, but this article is as important today as when it was written.

Much has been written about the roles of a Public Intellectual and Tim Dunlop’s argument is that many who call themselves public intellectuals are in reality social and academic elites who claim the mantle but only conduct discourse with each other. Let’s start with Intellectual first. Typically, most people associate the term Intellectual with the term expert, so the thought would go that someone who is an expert in American Politics is also an intellectual in American Politics. A reasonable expectation and in all likelihood correct. So the thought would also be inverted so that someone who claims to be an intellectual in American Politics almost has to be an expert, and this is where the association breaks down because there is no requirement to be an expert before becoming an intellectual.

The term public, on the other hand, has two meanings. First, the term public is used in opposition to private, to discourse in the realm of society, to share your ideas with everyone who would listen. If the ideas are kept to yourself, or to a small group of elites, then it cannot be said that the idea is in the realm of public discourse. The second meaning of public is inclusiveness of everyone who wishes to participate, not exclusive to an appointed elite.

So, in its rawest form, a Public Intellectual can be anyone from an American politician of 20 years experience commenting on a current political race, to a NASCAR fan examining the significant of the color of the race cars. What makes them the same is that they are both presenting their ideas to the greater society to either accept, reject, or generate more conversation on the subject.

Generate some conversation, go out and put the Public in Intellectual.

 

-Public Intel