VFA in the Media

Mental wounds are often burned into veterans’ psyches

Mike Urban, the Reading Eagle (Pennsylvania)

Society will pay a high price if mental health care for former troops doesn’t improve, activists from Berks say.

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Fort Drum Prints Photos After Arrests for D.W.I.

Lisa W. Foderaro, the New York Times

The Fort Drum Blizzard, the weekly newspaper for the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, is the place soldiers usually turn for stories about new wartime missions, community events and classified ads.

But this week, the…

Shortchanging Our Vets: Senate Probes Pentagon

Regional News Network (video)

A handful of US senators are calling on the Pentagon to review the Defense Department’s inability to provide equipment for our troops, including blast resistant vehicles. Along with Republican Kit Bond of Missouri, Democrats Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy…

Slow Response

The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)

Government pattern is to deny and downplay rather than act

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Fighting the Good Fight

Thomas Adcock, New York Lawyer

The newest entry into an emerging nexus of legal work on behalf of military personnel and their families affected by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is the Veterans Rights Project, set to open in April at…

Saturday Video: Drum Seeks Psychiatrists, Defends Mental Health Record

WWNY TV 7/ WNYF Fox 28 (Watertown, NY)

Fort Drum is recruiting psychiatrists, even as post officials defend the post’s record for helping soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental illnesses.

In advertisements placed in the medical community, psychiatrists are…

Soldier’s family pieces together German Sanabria’s last week

John Martins, the Press of Atlantic City

BRIDGETON - The only thing German Sanabria ever let slip to his big brother about the two tours of duty he served in Iraq was a chilling, guilt-laden admission.

“He said, ‘I’m responsible for hundreds…

Report Faults Mental Care for Iraq Veterans at Upstate Base

Lisa W. Foderaro, the New York Times

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — The four tours in Iraq served by the Second Brigade at Fort Drum here have created an unusual level of stress, especially after the standard Iraq tour was increased to 15…

Veterans group: AWOL soldier held too long

David Ovalle, the Miami Herald

A veterans rights group has criticized the military for allowing an Army specialist to stay in Miami-Dade County Jail for nearly two weeks without seeing a judge after his arrest on charges of going AWOL.

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Soldier’s mother fights for his proper health care

Ed Kemmick, the Billings Gazette

Young Montanan suffers war’s ’signature injury’ from 20 roadside blasts