MOSTLY, do you have any ideas for a facebook page for disabled veterans and their families that are getting the run around from the V.A. to come together??????? That would be something. I need a good title and any insight that I may glean from your own experiences.

Please let me know. I am willing to do that, but I want it to be done right and to be well thought out and efficient.

I believe that these people going through their own isolated, grinding and discouraging process with the V.A. to come together could be incredibly powerful.

Again, thanks so much for all that you do.

Also, what lines do you think would be a good facebook page for veterans and troops and military families to come together?

MOSTLY, do you have any ideas for a facebook page for disabled veterans and their families that are getting the run around from the V.A. to come together??????? That would be something. I need a good title and any insight that I may glean from your own experiences.

Please let me know. I am willing to do that, but I want it to be done right and to be well thought out and efficient.

I believe that these people going through their own isolated, grinding and discouraging process with the V.A. to come together would be incredibly powerful.

Thank you DS Nurse for all that you are doing…

Oh… if going to the newspapers, media… I may be wrong… but, from my own experiences in different matters is… some of of these sources are in bed with local politicians and organizations down to the lowest levels… A media will not print or run something if the editor says ‘no’… (if that editor has a ‘special relationship’ with anyone that may be in a story… they will only run stories glowing with praises… even if it is lies… even if people’s … even if children’s well-being are at risk…) IF the editor says ‘no’… the story is killed… no matter what any reporter thinks of the story… their hands are tied…. SO… find the reporter that you respect… go to that reporter… talk to them… and let them deal with the editors……. It is so sad… but true… even little town papers can be crooked and help hurt a community by not printing much needed news to it’s public…. It can be sick.

Oh… and so far my congressperson is seemingly useless…………….. but I am taking names and numbers along the way……………………

Boy, they are watching the activity… I had no idea… way to go Denise! http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h482/show [www.opencongress.org]

So maybe this can work.  All we just have to keep working together and keep the issues out there and alive.

If your senator or Rep doesnt listen do not give up!  Maybe with your help and comments I can develop a story or two and name names and put a little heat to the pot but it takes all of us to get that pot to boil and get action!

If you find other good Facebook pages let me know….part of communications and info flow C3I

WE need to keep developing facebook pages for specific gulf war veterans units 1990-91 so we can continue to build OPERATION REUNITE

See my notes section on my facebook page or go to right here on veterans today and click on my name Denise Nichols under the list of writers in right hang column  to catch up on what I have been doing

We are all busy with Xmas but many of your writers here at Veterans Today will keep trying to divide our times with family etc to stay in touch thru Christmas and end of year.

If you have not joined support for MOH Barfoot and Cpl Buckles please go to facebook and do so by joining their pages.

Need someone to develop facebook page re Support of American Flags to Be made in USA and the bill.

So there is something you can do, if you do take up the action please let me know   DSNurse1@yahoo.com or here at Veteranstoday comments or on my facebook site

Please keep copying the story and posting to your facebook or emailing your contacts Let us see if we can build a force out here in virtual land!

All please share your thoughts this is needed to develop and fine tune plans!

I agree with you on 96% here.

- to be cont. later.

Again, thanks for everything that you are doing.

P.S. Those foreign made flags really stump me. Really, what the heck? That is just plain wrong!

Put lets try to make a difference help each other with advise and support and guidance to good resources and information.  Try to help each individual veteran as we can.

Speak out mobilize call your local TV and newspapers ask them to cover your situation.

Speak out and call your US REP AND SENATOR both local offices and DC offices,  Use the internet and their web sites to write and write some more.  Fax them.  GO to their town hall meetings and push them to do more.

Network with others and support them and ask for their support!

Educate/Inform others what they can do to help  Be creative!

Use the power of the internet and network….you can put a facebook page up and ask for support

and what support is needed but be specific individual needs to guidance to resources to bigger action to make a change.

Join forces!  There are a million claims pending at the VA and this is unacceptable.

It is unacceptable that the claims have to go thru over and over and that some vets just give up!

It is unacceptable to have doctors not informed on Gulf War Illness or Agent Orange and not to give appropriate screening and testing and care! 

It is unappropriate that veterans dont harness the power and file complaints re Form 9 at VA and to then forward to VA OIG for action and not to follow thru and notify their elected officials that something must be done not just for that individual but for others.

IT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO REMAIN A VICTIM!

IT is unacceptable for DRS or claims raters to not provide the services correctly without bias or incomplete  information to cloud their actions that not only affects one veteran but hundreds!

It is unacceptable to elected officials to let this go on for decades.

It is unacceptable to think that they can not make the VA work right and think they can now go solve the health problems of all the rest of the citizens when they can not get the veterans and active duty health care right.

WEll enough of my rant!

AS a Gulf war veteran ill with GWI and a VN era vet with family members that served also VN, Peace time, WW2, WW 1 believe me I know what yu are saying loud and clear!  I have been actively advocating for GWI since 1992!  I connected with VN vets and atomic vets and even our current troops and know this is a history long bad situation!  When we started in 1992 the internet was in its infancy and we did alot to share information and guidance and organize gulf war veterans…emails, bulletin boards, phone calls, faxes, websites…even hand typing government reports in and then scanning them with hand held devices to try to get the information and communications haring out to all…and guiding to resources, as a nurse officer answering questions leading them to resources as needed, assessing health over phone, over internet, in person etc etc.

Now we have social networks and social interactions and having seen how this can affect elections and fund raising of the different parties and other efforts.  I see sites of support for these different efforts with tens of thousands signed on.  Now is the time to continue the education connect these groups to real action!  REAL ACTION MEANS ORGANIZING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE WIDELY

IT MEANS keeping all people including veterans and active duty.  It means asking citizens and teachers and college students to get informed what active duty and veterans have done for them and asking them to get involved and help.  It means spelling out actions of how they can help!  To join efforts!

To mobilize that force to be heard in DC and this mess to be corrected!  It takes the individual, the individual veteran, their family members, their extended family, their employers, their employees, the teachers of the world, the young college students to be informed and want better for those that serve and to get them activated to help! 

It takes writing the stories of the veterans and their familes and getting input so we can tell those stories and document them, it takes reaching out and networking to authors and film people, to people on the hill staffers and elected representatives to get everyone to do something to educate inform and get action.  It takes testifying, educating, informing, asking for help, networking…suggesting actions to help make it happen.

I said sign up to the pages, ask others to do it, start networking, start unifying and education process and reaching out, give clear steps to show action ie CALL YOUR SENATOR in DC to get them to pass these 5 bills which are no cost items that show support to veteran wishes.  That is the test!  Then we start step by step to use this total network to get real action!  AND TO FIX IT using concrete steps and actions!  Calling your US Reps and US Senators in DC and home offices to support existing bills is a way to show them we are alive and a growing force to be heard!  But we have to get others ie citizens and press to gt involved to make it happen.  WE use our voices in an organized way to be heard, we network and build that force to work together to better the situation for our veterans and our active duty.

When we need people to be present in person we get the word out and we go out in public to do the same in mass.  It is consistent and getting a building awareness, and networking, and attack from all levels to get this mess corrected. 

It should not take each veteran battling over and over to get their rating and to get the best care possible, to get them the financial ability to continue their lives, to get the medical researchers to get us better treatments available .  It is time for change!

It also takes guiding the veterans and their family members etc to use the tools, be it to get educated on steps to take on their claims, to share info among the veterans and the help and guidance that is there.  That they also have to not only fight for themselves but join the effort and to not go away when they win their claim but to help others!!!!

It takes the veterans and their family and friends to submit their stories so others can publish it and push those stories out to the media as examples.  It takes each of us to use all our skills and develop more skills to make a bigger difference!

I am talking about mobilizing to get that change to happen for each active duty and veteran!  What I put out was a method for us to start that process. 

Alot of people do not understand that the media is watching facebook and twitter for trends and news to cover.  So we use those tools and test the system and keep building!  By signing up on those sites you offer the numbers to build, by asking your netowrk of friends to do the same all that pops those sites up to media as a story…then we use all those networks to educate and ask them to support the next effort.   Again this was a proposal to see if we can make this all work just like the campaigns for election and tea parties do!

I see and am dismayed with the seemingly disconnect of the majority of our citizens in regards to our troops and veterans. “Support the Troops” is a bumper sticker to me. Okay, we don’t hate them and send them cookies and write them letters… but if we really supported our veterans and troops… we would be more involved in the wars that our country is involved in BEFORE there is a draft.

May I say something? With all due respect to Corporal Buckles… when you write,

“Support another forgotten veteran that defended and stood tall for our country.”

… I think of the forgotten veteran who defended and stood tall for our country living right here in my home who is sick with diabetes and heart disease from Agent Orange… who has his fifteen year old PTSD claim going through for the fourth time and currently having the V.A. do every stall technique imaginable while we have no income for quite some time now and have a home only because of the graciousness of our landlord. It would not be so bad except that it is not just he and I that are affected. We have minor children. It is them that my heart goes out to right now, even though they are so strong and patient.

Finding out the dirty tricks that the V.A. has played on this man for the past fifteen years and seeing even more up front and personally… makes me sick. It is STILL going on.

So… it is very difficult for me to get all excited about medals and flags right now… I’m just trying to make a good life here as we are treading water everyday.

My heart goes out to the men that are in the same position as my husband… the newer veterans and troops that we have now… knowing what I know… the V.A. is a maze that is difficult enough to manage without TBI and/or PTSD… it is made that way on purpose… to protect the taxpayers’ money. It is a bureaucracy that makes all the rules in its favor and takes veterans rights away that other citizens have. The V.A. will prove a veteran wrong BEFORE it even considers to try to prove the veteran is right. The V.A. will deny a veteran EVEN when that veteran submits proof that can be substantiated and proved correct… hoping the veteran will be discouraged and give up. The burden of proof is on the veteran to prove his claim and the not on the government. Try that when there are few, if any records for their tour of duty.

Although they believe they were ‘just doing their job’… all of the men in my husband’s Combat Aviation Group were heroes. They may not all have ribbons and medals, but they are heroes… and so many of them are abandoned by the very country they loved so much and served proudly. Who’s networking for them and the younger generations of abandoned and forgotten heroes?

Truly, the only website that made sense to ME was the ‘Veterans Helping Veterans’ which addresses homeless veterans.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=14523&post=109605&uid=125208941896#/group.php?gid=303228380472

Really and truly, I appreciate everything you are doing… I hope that this works as well for addressing our disabled and forgotten warriors and their families.

I just needed to get this said.