Veterans For America

The Defense Department is holding a live webcast family summit today to determine how best to support military families who have suffered the loss or injury of a service member. The summit will also tackle how best to coordinate actions by the state, local and federal agencies that all have a role to play in supporting our military families. To follow the summit online today, click HERE. At least one of those agencies responsible for caring for our military families is, instead, “an insult to veterans,” said Rep. Rep. Bob Filner, the California Democrat who chairs the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. He said he knows why veterans have lost confidence in the Department of Veterans Affairs: “they are bunglers.” Claims sent to the VA have been found in piles bound for the shredder, instead of being reviewed and approved.

A wounded Iraq veteran is taking her experience to the director’s job at the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, and has instituted a program that helps service members get the PTSD and traumatic brain injury treatment they deserve. “It was something that I approached our governor about doing when I realized that many of our returning veterans had never been screened for post traumatic stress disorder or specifically the traumatic brain injury component of it,” she said. One pilot project is already underway to help combat veterans fight combat stress in Pennsylvania. With PTSD, its often the moms who are first to know. How about establishing a Bill of Rights for American Veterans?

Retired Gen. Colin Powell, the Republican former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State in George W. Bush’s administration, endorses Sen. Barack Obama for President. It could mean a new administrative job for Powell should Obama win two weeks from tomorrow. Powell isn’t the only one in the military unafraid of being politically “blue” this year instead of “red.”

Tensions are growing between Iraq’s prime minister and the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Meanwhile, doubts are continuing to arise around a security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq. Victory does not look like this. “Victory” isn’t a word Gen. David Petraeus will ever use for Iraq. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is no bed of roses…more like a “hornet’s nest.”

Some of the faces of our bravest…