PTSD and the VA: A Disservice to Disabled Troops

In an editorial opinion published in the New York Times on May 26th entitled ”

QUOTE

The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have repeatedly promised to do a better job of handling the medical evaluations of wounded and disabled service members. Instead, they are doing worse.

The processing of disability cases is getting slower, not faster. Efforts to ensure a “seamless transition” out of the military are falling short. Men and women are languishing without treatment, struggling to readjust ...

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Military News Highlights: December 10, 2010

Report: Growing mental health problems in military

Never knew that the Department of Defense publishes a Medical Surveillance report , but even without the findings everyone knows that mental health problems are the number one health issue facing our troops.  That’s a no-brainer. The November report highlighted in this story by CNN points out the fact that mental health issues send male troops to the hospital than any other cause, and are the second highest for hospitalization amongst women ...

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U.S. Government Loses FOIA Ruling on Body Armor Records

Thanks to superb pro bono legal representation by a team from the NYC office of Kirkland & Ellis, LLC, a federal district judge has issued his ruling on SFTT’s editor’s request under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) for forensic records held by the Department of Defense regarding the performance of government-issued body armor. The ruling was characterized in the following way by a news service covering legal issues:

U.S. Loses FOIA Ruling on Body Armor Records

 (CN) – A ...

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Weapon Jamming Reported in Afghanistan

SFTT has had a single report from a credible source that a unit in Afghanistan has problems — jamming — with their government issued magazines for their 5.56mm weapons.    These single-spring magazines are jamming in Afghanistan firefights and some believe these government-issued magazines are inferior to the double-spring magazines currently available  commercially.

These problems appear to be due to the single-spring magazines not having sufficient force to work when exposed to sand, dirt, etc. — that is common during normal tactical conditions encountered in ...

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GAO Recommendations on Body Armor Testing

To determine what effect, if any, the problems GAO observed had on the test data and on the outcomes of First Article Testing, the Army should provide for an independent ballistics evaluation of the First Article Testing results by ballistics and statistical experts external to the Department of Defense before any armor is fielded to soldiers under this contract solicitation. Because DOD did not concur with this recommendation, GAO added a matter for congressional consideration to ...

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GAO Report Slams Body Armor Test Procedures

The October, 2009 Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) Report to Congressional Requesters, titled “Independent Expert Assessment of Army Body Armor Test Results and Procedures Needed Before Fielding,” contains this devastating observation:

“Due to these deviations [from approved testing protocols], the majority of which seem to make the testing easier to pass and favor the vendors, we continue to believe that it is necessary to have an independent external expert review the results of First Article Testing and the overall effect ...

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