Statement on the Death of Congressman John Murtha by Secretary of the Army John Mchugh

"I was greatly saddened to learn of the death of
Congressman John Murtha. His unwavering devotion to our men and
women in uniform strengthened our nation and will be his legacy.

"Although most will remember Congressman Murtha for
his public service first in the Marine Corps and then in Congress I
will remember him as someone who cared deeply for our men and women in
uniform.

"When I was a newly elected member of Congress, Jack
set aside partisan politics and joined me to visit Fort Drum and the
men and women of the 10th Mountain Division.

"During my nine terms in the U.S. House of
Representatives, I often worked with Jack to bring the necessary
resources to our troops. I'm grateful for the example he set, always
putting the interests of the military ahead of his own and never
losing sight of the individual service member for whom he felt a deep
sense of gratitude.

"The Army the entire military has lost one of its
most steadfast advocates in Congressman Murtha. His legacy of
devotion to the defense of our nation lives on in those he inspired
and in those for whom he dedicated his life. My thoughts and prayers
are with his family during this difficult time."

U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)

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Veterans Affairs Employee Union Offers Solutions to Tackle Million-Plus Claims Backlog

http://veterans-affairs-news.newslib.com/story/396-3222571/


WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 –
AFGE Testifies Before House Committee on Veterans Affairs on Veterans' Benefits Improvement Act

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- John McCray, a Rating Veterans Service Representative (RVSR) at the Veterans Benefits Administration, (VBA) in the Los Angeles Regional Office, testified on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) at a hearing held before the House of Representatives Committee on Veterans' Affairs. The hearing was aimed at updating Congress on the implementation on the Veterans' Benefits Improvement Act, P.L. 110-389.

The VBA, which has been inundated with benefits claims from service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, is facing a monumental challenge to deliver services in a timely manner. To address these systemic challenges AFGE  has worked closely with congressional leaders to enact legislation, P.L. 110-389, to modernize the VBA's disability claims process by improving quality assurance, certification and training procedures, and overhauling the current work credit and work management system.

"The Veterans' Benefits Improvement Act (P.L. 110-389), provides many valuable tools that will significantly reduce an inventory of one million claims by getting each claim processed accurately the first time," said McCray. "The urgency of putting these tools into practice grows greater with each new claim in the queue."

"VBA is under intense pressure to tackle the mounting claims backlog and ensure that every veteran's claim is processed timely and accurately," said McCray. "VBA employees are committed to ensuring that veterans receive the benefits they deserve, but you can't get blood from a turnip." VBA has been hampered in its ability to effectively reduce the backlog because far too many employees lack the appropriate training necessary to master the complex skill of processing claims.

AFGE urges VBA to ensure that managers, as well as, frontline employees are provided the proper training to accurately process claims the first time. Unfortunately, as is common now, managers without sufficient expertise are unable to carry out quality assurance duties, leading to greater errors, which in turn lead to greater delays. Therefore, it is critical that managers pass the same certification tests required of senior claims processors. AFGE is troubled that VBA may be considering excluding senior levels of management -- the very officials who have significant fiduciary duties --  from the supervisor skills certification requirement.

AFGE also recommends that VBA develop an accurate work credit system that could lay the foundation for an effective work credit system. To date, VBA has not adjusted individual employee production standards to reflect the increasing complexity and difficulty of the claims process. These production standards should be a reasonable reflection of how much an employee can be expected to perform with an acceptable level of accuracy.

"As long as employees are subject to arbitrary and unreasonable production standards, the claims development process will remain flawed by inefficiencies and incomplete claims developments," said McCray. "The ultimate harm falls upon the veterans, who are deprived of a full, fair and timely consideration of their claims."

The American Federation of Government Employees is the largest federal employee union representing 600,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia, including 180,000 employees in the VA.

posted by sean.eagan@gmail.com @ 1:11 AM Comments: 1

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HAC-D Chair Murtha Dies

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2010/02/08/hac-d-chair-murtha-dies/






HAC-D Chair Murtha Dies
By Christian Lowe Monday, February 8th, 2010 4:17 pm
Posted in Policy

Congressman John Murtha, one of the most powerful and influential Democratic lawmakers on defense issues in the House for more than three decades, died today in Arlington, Va., at the age of 77.

Murtha "passed away peacefully this afternoon. … At his bedside was his family," a statement from Murtha spokesman Matt Mazonkey said. Murtha had recently undergone gall bladder surgery and was hospitalized Feb. 2 after complications with his recovery. On Feb. 6 – two days before his death — Murtha passed the mark as Pennsylvania's longest serving member of Congress, representing the 12th district since 1974.

For the last two years, Murtha had served as the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense panel, which determines where and how much of the Pentagon's money is spent. In his position as the chairman and earlier as the ranking member of the so-called HAC-D, Murtha was able to steer hundreds of millions of dollars to defense programs in his district, prompting accusations of sweet-heart deals and influence peddling.

For all that, Murtha, known as a tough, back-room battler, also enjoyed bantering with reporters and was often much more accessible than many of his fellow cardinals, as appropriations subcommittee chairmen are known.

He famously came out against the Iraq war in 2005, shocking many defense experts on Capitol Hill and making the conservative Democrat an unlikely darlingof the party's more liberal wing. His May 2006 comments calling a squad of Marines who stormed a house in Haditha after a roadside bomb attack "cold blooded killers" eroded his image among many rank-and-file troops and veterans' groups who'd looked to the former Marine colonel and Vietnam vet for leadership on key issues.

But his strong advocacy for military spending during tough budget times ingratiated him among service chiefs and their civilian leaders. Last year, departing Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter awarded Murtha its highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Public Service Award.

Murtha was a former enlisted Marine who earned his commission in the mid-1950s and served in the Reserves until 1966 when he was activated for duties in Vietnam. During his service there as an intelligence officer, Murtha earned a Bronze Star with combat V and two purple hearts. He was the first Vietnam combat veteran elected to Congress, his biography says.

posted by sean.eagan@gmail.com @ 10:38 PM Comments: 0

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By Gene Kirk and C. Patrick Quinlan

The wind from the north was cold on Oct. 17 and the program long: six speakers, two bugle renditions of taps, and two volleys of rifle fire from the Elk River color guard. But more than 100 Zimmerman, Minnesota veterans, their families, and their friends turned out to honor their dead of four wars, and to recognize both the dead and the survivors of a little-known battle of June 8, 1967: the assault on the USS Liberty.

In Minnesota small-town fashion, after the ceremony participants adjourned to meet with many other townspeople at the American Legion Post, a major Zimmerman civic institution, for a Zimmerman catered meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy.

It was a colorful and moving expression of what U.S. presidential candidates would call traditional values. But this day was unlike virtually any other small town veterans' gathering in the United States.

The Zimmerman Legion Park memorial ceremony marked only the second commemoration in a quarter of a century of the 34 dead and 171 wounded of the USS Liberty, an American naval vessel attacked and almost sunk by Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Eleven Liberty survivors, three of them from Minnesota, attended. They included the Liberty's commander, Captain William McGonagle, one of only 204 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients in U.S. history.

Only one other American town has recognized the heroes of June 8, 1967. Grafton, Wisconsin named its library for the Liberty. Mayor Jim Grant of Grafton experienced a firestorm of criticism from Jewish organizations in nearby Milwaukee for that. Hardened by fire, he was in Zimmerman for this second USS Liberty civic memorial.

One of the speakers was former Illinois Congressman Paul Findley, author of the iconoclastic book on the Israel lobby's largely successful challenge to freedom of expression in America, They Dare to Speak Out. It was a chance reading of this book by Zimmerman Legionnaire Stan Wuolle which led to the Legion post's decision to create the Liberty memorial. (Another scheduled speaker, Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party Congressman James Oberstar, did not appear. Whether the cancellation resulted from a scheduling conflict, fear of offending the pro-Israel political action committees that have contributed $9,350 to his campaigns in four elections, or plain fear of controversy was not clear.)

Now the town of Zimmerman was challenging President Lyndon Johnson's incredible cover-up of one of the most controversial episodes in U.S. naval history. Johnson ordered the Liberty crew separated and silenced, on pain of dismissal from the Navy. Captain McGonagle was awarded his Congressional Medal of Honor at an obscure location, while on the same day Johnson honored a Vietnam War hero in the White House.

A Media Blackout

The Twin Cities media had been alerted to the occasion. But the Zimmerman ceremony was not reported on television or in the metropolitan media. The media blackout leads these writers, one a USS Liberty survivor, the other an American Embassy Cairo staff member in 1967 and a native of another Minnesota small town, to wonder whether the Zimmerman story was "good news" and therefore dull.

Or was it that small town and rural traditional values represent only a mythical Lake Wobegon and not the real-life contemporary metropolitan marketplace? Or was it another sordid defeat for freedom of expression of the kind chronicled in 1984 by Congressman Findley, who described U.S. media and academic reluctance to criticize Israel as "the great fear"?

The Legionnaires of Zimmerman are not complaining, however. They are content that they performed a long-overdue service. We, the writers, therefore can only suggest that such gestures of recognition of the sacrifices of the men of the USS Liberty are long overdue throughout the nation they served.

Gene Kirk, a USS Liberty survivor, lives in Albertville, MN. C. Patrick Quinlan, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, lives in Edina, MN.

http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/1292/9212064.html

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F-105 Thunderchief fighter used during the Cold War and Vietnam goes on display in Dixon Illinois

DIXON – Veterans Memorial Park is getting an F-105 Thunderchief fighter plane to add to its display.

"I wanted to get a good representation for the guys in the Air Force," said Al Wikoff, the park's artifact coordinator. "It's a fighter used during the Cold War and pressed into service during the Vietnam War. It's a supersonic plane and designed to carry the one big bullet [nuclear bomb].

"The Air Force offered us some trainers and some small Piper Cub planes, and I turned them down. I wanted something with a little more bite to it and more growl."

Dixon City Council member Ira "Clark" Kelly, also a member of the Veterans Memorial Park Commission, announced the acquisition at Monday's meeting.

This plane, coming from Jackson, Miss., was manufactured by Republic Aviation Corp. in 1955. Like all other "Thuds," it was designed to seat a pilot only. A second seat was added when it was refurbished.

It was retired from service in 1984, its camouflage coat painted white to weather the heat in Jackson, where it has been on display.

A team of local veterans plans to go to Aurora next week to see a similar fighter, to get an idea of how to break down the plane for transport, team member Jim Reubin said. They will go to Jackson in March to disassemble the Thud.

"They're using me as a tech adviser, because I was in the Air Force for 20 years," Reubin said.

He was an F-4 and F-15 mechanic from 1961 to 1981, and the F-105 is similar, said Reubin, adding that they'll need to take the wings and possibly part of the tail off to bring the plane to Dixon.

The artifacts

The Thunderchief will bring the number of artifacts on display at Veterans Memorial Park to six. There is a landing ship tank anchor; a 1967 modified 1F Cobra helicopter; a 1955 155-mm howitzer; a 1983 M-60-A-3 tank; and a 1967 Vietnam-era ambulance, model 37.

Such artifacts are donated by the military to veterans organizations, which pay only to transport them to their parks. Local veterans will pay to bring the Thunderchief to Dixon, although they're not yet sure how much it will cost.

http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2010/02/02/72019173/index.xml?__xsl=/print.xsl

posted by sean.eagan@gmail.com @ 11:13 PM Comments: 0

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Public Hearing Cold War Veteran Exemption

PUBLIC NOTICE  


NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that a public hearing will be held by the Town Board, Town of Yorktown, Westchester County, New York at the Town Hall, 363 Underhill Avenue, Yorktown Heights, New York on the 2nd day of February, 2010 at 7:30 o'clock PM, or as soon thereafter as the same can be heard for the purpose of amending Chapter 260, Section 260-36 of the Code of the Town of Yorktown by increasing the value of the Cold War Veterans Tax Exemption.

SECTION I. Chapter 260, Article X, Section 260-36 of the Code of the Town of Yorktown is hereby amended by increasing the value of the Cold War Veterans Tax Exemption as follows:

ARTICLE X
Cold War Veterans Tax Exemption

§260-36. Exemption granted.

A.      Qualifying residential real property shall be exempt from taxation to the extent of 15% of the assessed value of such property; provided however, that such exemption shall not exceed $54,000 or the product of $54,000 multiplied by the latest state equalization rate or in the case of a special assessing unit, the latest class ratio, whichever is less.

B.      In addition to the exemption provided by Subsection A above, where the Cold War veteran received a compensation rating from the United States Veterans Affairs or from the United States Department of Defense because of a service connected disability, qualifying residential real property shall be exempt from taxation to the extent of the product of the assessed value of such property, multiplied by 50% of the Cold War veteran disability rating; provided, however, that such exemption shall not exceed $180,000, or the product of $180,000 multiplied by the latest state equalization rate, or, in the case of a special assessing unit, the latest class ratio, whichever is less.

       All persons in interest and citizens may be heard at the public hearing to be held as aforesaid.

                                                              Alice E. Roker
                                                            
                                                              Town Clerk

                                                              Town of Yorktown

http://www.yorktownny.org/Public_Documents/YorktownNY_Clerk/ProposedLegislation/LL260CWVE.2010?textPage=1

posted by sean.eagan@gmail.com @ 10:48 PM Comments: 0

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