Vietnam Veterans of America Pinellas County Chapter 522 Five Double Deuce

Transcription

1 Vietnam Veterans of America Pinellas County Chapter 522 Five Double Deuce Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another. Serving Veterans and the Community October, 2015 Volume 24 Issue Number 10 Mailing Address PO box 551 Indian Rocks Beach, FL Meeting Location VFW Post Gulf Boulevard Madeira Beach Florida Chapter 522 had another very successful fund raising event, serving beer at the First Friday event in St. Petersburg on September 4th. Pictures from the event are on pages 1 and 2 of the newsletter. Our chapter has a very full calendar of events upcoming as shown on page 3. We are looking for volunteers at events such as Make-A-Difference and the annual golf tournament. The Gold Star Mothers Dinner is scheduled for Sunday, September 20th and members are welcome to attend. Your input and suggestions are always welcome. If you have any information that you would like to share with members, please send it along and we will try to publish in the next newsletter.

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3 V O L U M E 2 4, I S S U E 1 0 F I V E D O U B L E D E U C E PAGE 3 Important Dates POW/MIA Flag Day Bay Pines (Bill Young) Medical Center (At Entrances) Friday, September 18th hours Gold Star Mothers Dinner Sunday, September 20th, 1600 hours Bon Appetit Restaurant 150 Marina Plaza, Dunedin, Florida Gold Star Mothers Day Ceremonies (Chapter 522 Color Guard) Sunday, September 27th, 1000 hours Oldsmar Veterans Park Oldsmar, Florida One Community Now Stand Down Pasco County Friday-Sunday, October 2-4 Veterans Memorial Park Hicks Road Make-A-Difference Fishing Tournament Saturday, October 3rd, 0830 hours Clearwater Fishing Pier October Monthly Meeting Monday, October 5th, 1900 hours Gulf Boulevard, Madeira Beach, FL Grouper Tuesday Sponsored by VFW Tuesday, October 6th, 1200 hours VFW Gulf Boulevard, Madeira Beach, FL th Annual Dwight Harrah Memorial Golf Tournament Sunday, October 18th, 1200 hours Belleview Bitmore Golf Club 1501 Indian Rocks Road Belleair, Florida Veterans Parade Orlando Chapter 522 Color Guard Saturday, November 14th Time and Place TBD

4 PAGE 4 F I V E D O U B L E D E U C E V O L U M E 2 4, I S S U E 1 0 VA Chief Counterpunches Over Community Care Costs By Tom Philpott July 23, 2015 The Veterans Choice, Access and Accountability Act of 2014, which Congress rushed to pass last summer to address a patient wait-time scandal at dozens of VA hospitals and clinics, spurred VA to broaden access to care. Turns out it did so largely through use of existing and often costly contract authorities and partnerships for non-va health care with local communities rather than the new, more complex Choice Card plan. The result was seven million new health care appointments for veterans the past year, but also a flood of new enrollees into VA care, an accounting nightmare for health care administrators and a surprising budget shortfall, which VA officials concede they failed to forecast and which angry lawmakers realize they must repair before going on August recess. If not, VA leaders warn, VA medical facilities will shut their doors. VA Secretary Bob McDonald came before the Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday to explain why VA needs emergency authority to shift $3 billion from an account fenced for the Choice Card program, and use it instead for other burgeoning community care costs, plus a $500 million tab VA faces to buy new wonder drugs for treatment of late-stage Hepatitis C. If denied flexibility to access Choice fund, McDonald said, we will have no option at the end of July but to defer all remaining non-choice-care-in-the-community authorizations until October, provide staff furlough notices, and notify vendors we cannot pay them as we begin an orderly shutdown of hospitals and clinics across the country. McDonald issued his blunt warning knowing he had support of the nation s largest veteran service organizations for the funding shift. VSO leaders had written in the past week to Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) and other chairmen and ranking members of key congressional committees, urging swift transfer of funds to avoid any interruption in veterans health services. They largely praised McDonald for expanding access to care without regard to cost. By Tuesday, Miller and Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee on military construction and veterans affairs, released a joint statement citing blatant mismanagement at VA for the surprise budget shortfall. But they added their assurances that no veterans will be denied the care they need and deserve. Two weeks ago, they angrily added, the VA couldn t tell Congress it would be shutting down hospitals next month. No viable organization can function this way. The VA s continued lack of transparency and refusal to be forthright with Congress and the American people is unacceptable. Miller continued to disparage McDonald and his team in opening his hearing, saying never before can I recall VA or any agency completely exhausting its operational funds prior to the end of the fiscal year, with the consequences for VA being the cessation of hospital operations. Though vowing to protect veterans once more from VA management failures, Miller also warned the days when VA can come to Congress and just say Cut us a check are gone. McDonald was unapologetic. He said Congress shares blame for the budget shortfall. It passed the Choice Act promising to reduce veterans wait times for care, so McDonald de-

5 V O L U M E 2 4, I S S U E 1 0 F I V E D O U B L E D E U C E PAGE 5 cided to manage his department to address those pressing care requirements rather manage to a hobbled budget. Still, he said, VA would have been able to give more timely warning of a budget shortfall except for another provision of Choice Act that forced VA to consolidate accounting processes for seven different community care programs under a single central office. That hampered VA s ability to track rising non-va or community care costs using regional budget expertise resident at VA medical centers, even as those centers were urged to refer many more patients to outside providers to ensure timely access to care. When you passed the Choice Act you demanded that we account for care in the community in a different way than we did previously, McDonald said. You asked us to centralize that at our business office. I m sure you did that to keep control of that money and make sure we weren t spending it for something else. But it helped to exacerbate the situation, McDonald said. Without medical centers monitoring community care costs, we lost a lot of intelligence about the obligations that were being made, added Dr. James Tuchschmidt, VA s principal deputy under secretary for health. Those regional experts even knew how to use VA s clunky financial management system, he said. And when we centralized that, maybe we should have anticipated some of the problems. But we didn t. Instead, as VA began buying an unprecedented volume of care from caregivers in local communities, VA authorizations for such care were being loaded onto one computer system and cost obligations being incurred were tracked on a different system, Tuchschmidt said. We tried through brute force to keep that accounting whole so that we could understand what s going on, McDonald said. But there s no question that we ve got to do a better job. Before Congress added the Choice program last year, VA already operated six other programs under separate authorities to provide patient access to outside care, including its Patient Centered Community Program (PC3) and Project Arch (Access Received Closer to Home), a pilot program for expanding access to health care for veterans in rural areas. What makes Choice unique is veterans living more than 40 miles from a VA medical facility or facing waits for VA care longer than 30 days get to decide themselves to use outside care. McDonald said that makes VA budgeting more unpredictable, particularly as Congress has insisted on keeping Choice dollars separate from other VA health care funding needs. Some committee members conceded that would have to change. Meanwhile, McDonald counterpunched every charge from irate lawmakers, mostly Republicans, that mismanagement had created a VA budget crisis. The simple fix VA proposes, he said, is to use part of the $10 billion that s already been appropriated by Congress for care in the community to pay for care in the community. That s the lunacy of why we are here talking about this. To comment, write Military Update, P.O. Box , Centreville, VA, or milupdate@aol.com or Read more: military.com/2015/07/va-chief-counterpunches-overcommunity-care-costs/#ixzz3ln3axwud MilitaryAdvantage.Military.com

6 PAGE 6 F I V E D O U B L E D E U C E V O L U M E 2 4, I S S U E 1 0 Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him had better take a closer look at the American Indian. Henry Ford

7 V O L U M E 2 4, I S S U E 1 0 F I V E D O U B L E D E U C E PAGE 7 Senior Computer Skills... Tech support: What kind of computer do you have? Customer: A white one... Tech support: Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen. Customer: Your left or my left? ************************ Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print. Every time I try, it says 'can t find printer. I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can't find it.. ************************* Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore. Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer? Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer. Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back. Customer: OK Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you? Customer: Yes Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. ************************* Customer: I can't get on the Internet. Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password? Customer: Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it. Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was? Customer: Five dots. ************************* Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use? Customer: Netscape. Tech support: That's not an anti-virus program. Customer: Oh, sorry... Internet Explorer. ************************* Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears. ************************* Tech support: How may I help you? Customer: I'm writing my first . Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem? Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the little circle around it? ************************* This one and the next are our personal favorites! A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer. Tech support: Are you running it under windows? Customer: 'No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine.' ************************ And last but not least! Tech support: 'Okay Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager.' Customer: I don't have a P. Tech support: On your keyboard, Bob. Customer: What do you mean? Tech support: 'P'...on your keyboard, Bob. Customer: I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!

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9 V O L U M E 2 4, I S S U E 1 0 F I V E D O U B L E D E U C E PAGE 9 Men Are Just Happier People NICKNAMES: If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah. If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Bubba and Wildman. EATING OUT: When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it's only for $ None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back. When the girls get their bill, outcome the pocket calculators...yep!!! MONEY: A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale. BATHROOMS: A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items. ARGUMENTS: A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument. FUTURE: A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife. MARRIAGE: A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does. DRESSING UP: A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail. A man will dress up for weddings and funerals. NATURAL: Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed. Women somehow deteriorate during the night. OFFSPRINGS: Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house. THOUGHT FOR THE DAY A married man can forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing! A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand. Ignorance never settles a question. One should never spoil a good theory by explaining it. Oliver Wedell Holmes

10 PAGE 10 F I V E D O U B L E D E U C E Army Ranger PFT by Stew Smith V O L U M E 2 4, I S S U E 1 0 As with any of the Special Operations units in the U.S. military, it takes endurance, stamina, intelligence and mental toughness to become a Ranger. The Army Rangers require their candidates to score the following prior to attending Ranger School. The most important pre-training exercise to do prior to Ranger school is walking fast in your boots with 50 pounds of weight on your back. You will do this everyday you are at Ranger School. Running at least 5 miles, 3-4 times a week and swimming in uniform 2-3 times a week is recommended as well. Pack on 5-10 pounds of body weight prior to going so you have a little to lose when you are consuming fewer calories a day. Ranger PFT Minimum Scores Push-ups in 2:00 49 in 2:00 Sit-ups in 2:00 59 Pull-ups 6 Two-mile run 15:12 5 Mile run 40:00 16-mile hike w/65lb pack 15-meter swim with gear 5 hours 20 minutes Pass/Fail Once selected, Ranger candidates attend three separate phases of Ranger School: Fort Benning Phase, Mountain Phase, and Florida Phase. The Benning Phase: The Benning Phase is executed in two parts and lasts for a total of 20 days. As with most Special Operations units, the first phase is very physical. To be competitive in any of these physical tests, the future Ranger students must not strive for the minimum standards listed above, but must maximize their personal physical effort and strive for the following recommended scores: Ranger PFT Recommended Scores Push-ups in 2:00 80 Sit-ups in 2:00 80 Pull-ups 12 Two-mile run Sub 13:00 5 Mile run 35:00 16-mile hike w/65lb pack 15-meter swim with gear 4-5 hours Pass/Fail The second part of First Phase has obstacle courses and long ruck (full gear) marches as a major part of the physical fitness requirements. However, the fundamentals of patrolling and small unit tactics are the focus of this part of the Benning Phase. These graded field exercises include ambush and reconnaissance patrols, close quarters combat, airborne operations, and air assault operations. The Ranger student must then demonstrate his expertise through a series of cadre and student-led tactical patrol operations. Mountain Phase: The Second Phase, or Mountain Phase lasts 20 days and nights and teaches students to operate in small units while sustaining themselves and their subordinates in the adverse conditions of the mountains. The rugged terrain, hunger, and sleep deprivation are the biggest causes of emotional stress that students encounter. Students will eat, sleep and operate in these conditions for 3 weeks, usually eating no more than 1-2 MREs a day (Meals Ready to Eat). Florida Phase: The Third Phase, or Florida Phase, teaches small boat operations, ship to shore operations, stream-crossing techniques, and skills needed to survive and operate in a jungle and swamp environment. This phase lasts 16 days and nights and tests the patrolling and leadership techniques of every Ranger. Ranger School is a grueling school due to the long hours of walking with your gear, sleeping in the field and eating 1-2 meals less a day than normal. Many students lose pounds in the 56 day school. But the school teaches the Ranger he can overcome insurmountable challenges while under simulated combat conditions. Ranger school has honed the professional skills and techniques necessary to conduct small unit operations. And of course, he (she) can wear the well-deserved Ranger Tab on his (her) shoulder.

11 V O L U M E 2 4, I S S U E 1 0 F I V E D O U B L E D E U C E PAGE 11 By Jonathan Serrie, August 21, 2015, FoxNews.com FORT BENNING, Ga. They are the first women to wear the prestigious Ranger tab. In a Friday morning ceremony at the Army's Ranger headquarters in Fort Benning, Georgia, 1st Lt. Shaye Haver and Capt. Kristen Griest graduated from the Army s elite Ranger School, ending its six decade history as an allmale institution. I think that if females continue to come to this course that they can be encouraged by what we have accomplished, Haver said. But hopefully they're encouraged by the legacy of the Rangers community as well. It was good enough to make us come. It was good enough to help force ourselves through. Both female and male members of the Ranger class endured weeks of limited food and sleep, while performing combat-related tasks in rugged environments -- including woods, mountains and swamps. Army officials say they were under no pressure to give the women preferential treatment. What we've been very consistent on is we said there would be no change in standards, Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commander of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, said. Both male and female soldiers say they would not have wanted it any other way. No woman that I know wanted to go to Ranger School if they changed the standards, because then it degrades what the tab means, Griest said. It would lower training for everyone and reduce that quality of training for the entire Army. Some of the male Rangers admit they were initially skeptical about their female counterparts ability to succeed on the rugged course. But that quickly changed for 2nd Lt. Michael Janowski, when he had to ask his fellow soldiers to help him haul a particularly heavy load. I got a lot of deer in the headlights looks, Janowski recalled. A lot of people were like, I can't take any more weight. Shay was the only one who volunteered to take that weight. She took the weight off me. She carried it up the last half of the road. It literally saved me. I probably wouldn't be sitting here now if it weren't for Shay. Although the female graduates now wear the prestigious tab and are considered Rangers, they are still barred from serving in the infantry and Special Operations units, including the 75th Ranger Regiment. However, that may change as the military assesses plans to integrate women into positions traditionally restricted to men only. "I think the decisions to open up further combat units, of course, will be up to senior leaders in the military, Griest said. But I do hope that my performance in Ranger School has been able to inform that decision, as to what they can expect from women in the military -- that we can handle things physically and mentally on the same level as men. Jonathan Serrie joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in April 1999 and currently serves as a correspondent based in the Atlanta bureau. Rangers Lead The Way Army Graduates First Female Rangers

12 PAGE 12 F I V E D O U B L E D E U C E VVA Chapter 522 Contact Information V O L U M E 2 4, I S S U E 1 0 Position Name Telephone Address President Mike Bousher mikro76@msn.com Vice President Dick Ammon daranger@verizon.net Secretary Paul Laurence PaulRN7@me.com Treasurer Jack Meyers jackmimiparadise@yahoo.com Chaplain Larry Lee cashequity@aol.com Director Bruce Witham Newsletter Publisher Mike Bousher Director Rick Goodfellow Newsletter Editor Dick Ammon Director Joe Ellenberger Website Administrator Dick Ammon For additional information, please visit our website at Disclosure Statements 100% of your gift/donation will be used by VVA, Chapter 522 of Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc., Pinellas County, Florida. Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Registration Number CH Registration does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation by the state. Call HELPFLA ( ) for a copy of the official registration and financial information. Disclaimer The views or opinions expressed within this publication are not necessarily the opinions of the publishers, advertisers, members, National Headquarters or that of Pinellas County Chapter 522.