Found below are a few news items that caught my attention this past week. I am hopeful that the titles and short commentary will encourage our readers to click on the embedded links to read more on subjects that may be of interest to them.

Drop me an email at [email protected] if you believe that there are other subjects that are newsworthy.

Donald Trump Announces Contributions to Veteran Organizations
On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced that he’d given away the last of the $5.6 million that he raised four months ago, at a benefit for veterans’ causes in Iowa. In a bitter, combative press conference, Trump made clear that he’d been pressured into giving up these details by the news media, including The Washington Post.  Read more . . .

US Special Forces Wage Secret War
President Barack Obama is increasingly calling upon Special Operations forces to carry out so-called “small wars” across the Middle East and Africa to challenge both ISIS and al Qaeda in places where the U.S. maintains a footprint beyond Syria and Iraq.  Read more . . .

Why is the U.S. Arming Vietnam?
President Barack Obama’s announcement Monday that he was lifting the ban on the sale of weapons to Vietnam sent one message to the former U.S. wartime foe and another to the region. By ending the ban, the U.S. is signaling its desire to leave behind decades of tense post-war relations with Vietnam and start a new phase of closer economic and military ties — one facet of the “rebalance” toward Asia that’s central to the president’s foreign policy legacy.  Read more . . .

Work to Help Homeless Vets Continues
In 2010, federal officials launched an unprecedented plan to end veterans homelessness by late 2015. Now, six months after that deadline was missed, advocates are working to make sure the goal isn’t forgotten altogether.  This week, more than 500 community leaders joined with state and federal leaders to discuss progress and challenges in getting veterans off the streets as part of the annual National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.  Read more . . .

Justice Department Backs Fired VA Official
The Justice Department is siding with a legal argument by a fired Veterans Affairs Department official at the center of a nationwide scandal over long wait times for veterans seeking medical care and secret lists covering up the delays.  Sharon Helman, the former director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System, is suing the VA to win back her old job. Helman argues in court papers that a key portion of a 2014 law passed in response to the wait-time scandal is unconstitutional and denies her an important step to appeal her firing.  Read more . . .

New Study Finds More Veterans Suffering from PTSD
In a new study published today in the Journal of World Psychiatry, researchers from Yale say an alarming number of veterans are suffering from PTSD and specifically examines a condition known as sub-threshold PTSD.  Researchers studied 1,484 U.S. Veterans. Of those, 8% were diagnosed with PTSD. Another 22% met criteria for sub-threshold PTSD.  Read more . . .

Libertarians:  Congress Should Privatize the VA
Libertarian presidential and vice presidential candidates Gary Johnson and Bill Weld into which MSNBC interjected a telephone interview with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Clinton protests (starting at 4:20) that Congress should not privatize the VHA, while Bill Weld, a former two-term Republican governor of Massachusetts, gives one of the best explanations I’ve seen of why it should (10:00).  Read more . . .

Feel you should do more to help our brave men and women who wear the uniform or our Veterans? Consider becoming a member of Stand For The Troops.