At Fort Meade, Md., approximately 70 ill or disabled soldiers have come together from around the nation to compete for a spot in the third annual Warrior Games.
The soldiers trained and competed at Fort Meade from March 8 through 12. They are training in sitting volleyball, track and field, and cycling. Swimming trials are taking place at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. At other locations around the country, participants are training in archery, shooting, and wheelchair basketball.
Some participants are first-time competitors. Others, like Spc. Jasmine Perry, are back for a second year.
She stated: “I’m excited. I did seated shot put last year and got the gold in that.” This year, her rehabilitation has progressed, so she is standing to compete in shooting.
Only about 50 participants will be selected from the Army to compete at the Joint Services Warrior Games competition, which will be held from April 30 to May 5 inColorado Springs.
They will compete against 150 others representing the Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard. The soldiers will find out at the end of March whether they have been chosen for the Warrior Games.
The Warrior Games are hosted by the U.S. Olympic Committee. The competition is designed to be an introduction to Paralympic sports for injured service members and Veterans.
The Marine Corps has won the Chairman’s Cup in the past two Warrior Games.
As one participant explained: “Whether you’re an amputee or have brain injury or PTSD, in [the Warrior Games], you get a chance to show your ability over your disability. It’s not about the obstacles life puts in front of you. It’s what you do with them.”
Millions of gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides were sprayed on the jungles of Vietnam, exposing service members to toxic chemicals.: Photo by U.S. Army Operations in Vietnam
After having their disability claims unjustly denied for nearly a decade, the plight of ailing Blue Water Veterans is finally receiving attention from lawmakers in Washington.
Representatives Chris Gibson (R-NY), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Tim Walz (D-MN) and Denny Rehberg (R-MT) introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that would make it easier for Navy Veterans who served in Vietnam to receive compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for Agent Orange-related illnesses.
The bill is a companion to similar legislation introduced in the Senate in September by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“Our veterans, whether they served a week ago or half-a-century ago, deserve to know that we will make good on our promise to them by preserving fundamental benefits like healthcare,” Doggett said in a statement. “This bipartisan effort to ensure that blue water Vietnam veterans are given all that they earned is a necessary step in ensuring that our obligation to our veterans does not end when they step off the battlefield.”
Agent Orange and the Vietnam War
The U.S. military sprayed millions of gallons of herbicides on Vietnam during the 1960s and 70s. Although originally claimed to be safe, the herbicides, which included Agent Orange, were later found to contain the toxic chemical dioxin.
The effects of Agent Orange exposure among Veterans of the Vietnam War has long been a contentious issue. Veterans suffering from illnesses caused by the toxic chemicals have had to fight tooth and nail for every benefit.
After the passage of the Agent Orange Act of 1991, which finally forced a reluctant VA to properly compensate Vietnam Veterans for illnesses caused by herbicides, all Vietnam Veterans were presumed to have been exposed to herbicides. This presumption means that a Veteran was not required to provide proof they were exposed to Agent Orange.
Stripping Veterans of their Benefits
Unfortunately that changed in 2002 when the Department of Veterans Affairs changed its policy, limiting who would be granted presumption. The new policy determined that only Vietnam Veterans who had “boots on the ground” or Brown Water Veterans who had served in inland waterways had been exposed to the toxins.
This decision not only prevented Veterans from receiving service connection for the myriad health problems caused by the herbicides, it also allowed VA to sever benefits for Navy Veterans who had already been granted compensation for their conditions.
According to Rep. Gibson’s office, VA has denied 32,880 Agent Orange claims through 2009 due to this policy.
Finally Ending an Injustice
The time is long overdue for Congressional involvement on behalf of Blue Water Veterans. VA has continuously ignored scientific facts when it comes to Agent Orange. While the very fact that this legislation has been introduced in Congress is progress, legislators have a long way to go before Blue Water Veterans are finally granted to benefits they earned.
Before a bill can be approved or rejected by the legislature, it must be voted out of committee. It has been estimated that 90 percent of legislation introduced in Congress never makes it past committee.
It is up to our lawmakers to ensure that this bill does not simply languish in committee, and the Veterans who desperately need and deserve their help receive it.
The USS Enterprise celebrated its 50th birthday last month. The ship is set to be decommissioned in 2015.: Photo by the United States Navy.
Veterans from the USS Enterprise’s 50 years in service congregated at Pier 13 at the Norfolk Naval Station. The scene was slightly different from the normal carrier homecoming as sailors look forward to being back on land. Instead Veterans were waiting to make their way back on the ship.
Among the former crew members who congregated to celebrate the 50th birthday of the Enterprise were many who had been assigned to the ship during its first tour in 1961.
At its commissioning, the USS Enterprise was a technological wonder – the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, which sported mattresses and air conditioning for the crew, but it has also shown the change that the navy has gone through over the years.
One Veteran recounted his position as a gunner’s mate technician, where he was responsible for maintaining the carrier’s nuclear stockpiles. That position was eliminated when the Navy removed the nuclear arsenal from surface ships. Another Veteran was making his way to his old bunk, when he was stopped and informed that that area of the chip was now the women’s berthing area.
The USS Enterprise has been in every armed conflict since its commissioning, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to launching some of the first sorties into Afghanistan after 9/11. The ship is expected to be decommissioned in 2015.
The USS Arizona was one of the battleships destroyed by the Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Most of the Arizona's 1,400 crewmen went down with the ship.: Photo courtesy of the National Archives.
As the nation marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attacks on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, the dwindling number of survivors from that day worry about who will remember their legacy once they are all gone.
Harry R. Kerr, director of the Southeast Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association shared an anecdote that exemplifies this concern.
“I was talking in a school two years ago, and I was being introduced by a male teacher, and he said, ‘Mr. Kerr will be talking about Pearl Harbor,’” Kerr told The New York Times. “And one of these little girls said, ‘Pearl Harbor? Who is she?’”
Three thousand people, including 120 survivors are expected to take part in a moment of silence at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center.
The attack, which killed 2,402 Americans, wounded 1,282 and damaged or destroyed much of the U.S. Pacific fleet, led to the U.S. declaring war on Japan and entering World War II on the side of the Allies.
The memorial to the USS Arizona floats atop the sunken remains of the ship. 70 years after the ship sank, oil still seeps up from the wreckage. : Photo by Jayme Pastoric of the U.S. Navy.
VA has released a list of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships that may have been exposed to Agent Orange during military service in Vietnam. The list is based on U.S. military records, and includes Blue Water Veterans (who served on open sea ships off the shore of Vietnam). Veterans seeking benefits for Agent Orange exposure need to show they served in an affected area.
VA has also provided Veterans with a more practical way to determine if they can receive benefits for Agent Orange exposure: search by ship. On VA’s website you can search by ship type and name to see if you should be receiving benefits.
Hopefully, Vietnam Veterans and those who represent Veterans will be able to use these tools to get Veterans the benefits they deserve.
Read more here.
The White House announced Friday that Dakota Meyer will be awarded the Medal of Honor on September 15. The White House ceremony will be held nearly two years to the day that Meyer braved enemy fire multiple times after fellow members of Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8 were pinned down in a fierce ambush. The incident happened Sept. 8, 2009, in Ganjgal, a village in eastern Afghanistan’s volatile Kunar province. Meyer, who left active-duty service in June 2010 as a corporal, is credited with braving enemy fire multiple times to find three Marines and a Navy corpsman who had gone missing in the battle and to pull Afghan soldiers his unit was training from harm.
Only two living recipients, both Army soldiers, have received the award for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan: Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta and Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry. Cpl. Jason Dunham is the only Marine to receive the medal for the current conflicts, and he received it posthumously after throwing himself on a grenade in Husaybah, Iraq, in 2004 to save the lives of fellow Marines.
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