Updated: 5:08 PM Aug 30, 2007
Military Suicide Rate Highest in 26 Years..Vets Urge Support
A local group of supporters, veterans and faith leaders met in Topeka Thursday morning to show support for a funding bill that would support troops in health care, injury research and job training.
Posted: 12:14 PM Aug 30, 2007
Reporter: Brian Dorman
Email Address: brian.dorman@wibw.com
A local group of supporters, veterans and faith leaders met in Topeka Thursday morning to show support for a funding bill that would support troops in health care, injury research and job training.
Veterans say it is necessary to support this bill and that Kansans need to urge local officials, especially Senator Brownback and Roberts to support this bill that is threatened to be vetoed by President Bush.
They stressed that this is not about whether we should be at war or not it is about what we need to be doing for those that are at war and those that will be going to war when they return.
An Army Suicide Event Report discovered that suicides in the Army has reached a 26 year high alarming local and national agencies. It will be up to support from Kansas Leaders like Brownback and Roberts to vote for the Labor HHS-Education appropriations bill to allow funds for programs of suicide prevention as well as job training and homelessness prevention services.
In the coming weeks it is expected that this bill will be up for vote in the U.S. Senate. The president has threatened to veto the bill that Thursday's group is calling critical for immediate needs for troops returning home from war.
http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/9474342.html
...The changes that Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki (click title to entry - thank you) will announce Monday fulfill "a solemn responsibility to provide our veterans and wounded warriors with the care and benefits they've earned when they come home," Obama said in his weekly radio and online address Saturday.
The new rules will apply not only to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but also those who served in previous conflicts.
No longer will veterans have to prove what caused their illness. Instead, they would have to show that the conditions surrounding the time and place of their service could have contributed to their illness.
"I don't think our troops on the battlefield should have to take notes to keep for a claims application," the president said. "And I've met enough veterans to know that you don't have to engage in a firefight to endure the trauma of war."...
