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The Washington Post via The Mercury News
The top leadership of the Department of Veterans Affairs is in turmoil, after President Donald Trump ousted his first secretary and nominated his personal doctor, who dropped out of consideration amid controversy. Trump has yet to nominate anyone else.
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FCW
After a June 2017 decision to switch to a commercial electronic health record system, the Department of Veterans Affairs has received $1.2 billion in appropriations for modernization and the agency is seeking another $1.2 billion in its fiscal year 2019 budget. But because of multiple delays in signing the contract, Senate appropriators are wondering when the money will be spent.
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Four month average turn around with the VA’s Pension with Aid and Attendance
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FedScoop
Within the next year, veterans' experiences in navigating benefit programs and applying for health care online will be much more like buying insurance through USAA or opening a checking account online with Bank of America, the Department of Veterans Affairs' chief technologist says.
The department in recent years has taken many simple but meaningful steps forward in providing a more modernized, streamlined and complete digital portal for veterans services — "improvements and little individual things," VA CTO Charles Worthington explained.
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Military.com
House lawmakers took a step forward to push the Department of Veterans Affairs to research the safety and effectiveness of medical marijuana.
The House Committee on Veterans' Affairs voted unanimously to advance the VA Medicinal Cannabis Research Act to the House floor — a bipartisan attempt to encourage the VA to study the drug as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain and other ailments that disproportionately affect veterans.
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Military Times
The next step in an ongoing Defense Department plan to consolidate the commissary and exchange systems is expected to begin in July, a Defense Department spokesman said.
A task force will delve into the financial feasibility of the move and develop organizational and operational plans for "above-the-store" structures of the Defense Commissary Agency, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, Navy Exchange Service Command, and Marine Corps Exchange. A memorandum establishing the task force is in draft form, said Christopher Sherwood, a DoD spokesman.
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Military.com
After months negotiating with Senate colleagues, the House Veterans Affairs Committee voted unanimously to send to the full House a bill likely to become the vehicle to qualify 90,000 ailing sea service veterans for Agent Orange-related disability pay and health care from Department of Veterans Affairs.
These former naval warriors of the Vietnam War, called "Blue Water Navy Veterans," have been pressuring Congress for decades to have their illnesses recognized as being caused, as likely as not, by exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides sprayed on forests and jungle areas during that long war.
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The Associated Press via The Daily News
A House committee approved a wide-ranging plan to give veterans more freedom to see doctors outside the Veterans Affairs health system and fix a budget crisis in its troubled Choice private-sector program, a major step toward fulfilling President Donald Trump's promise to expand private care options. The $51 billion plan includes $5.2 billion to avert a catastrophic shutdown of Choice.
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The Herald
Unfortunately, misunderstanding and ready access to a keyboard has made today's veterans too often foes and not friends of today's active-duty soldiers and recent veterans.
The central issue is that unfair judgment by yesterday's veterans about today's soldiers only leads to bitterness, contempt, a failure to teach and learn and a lack of leadership by example.
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Entrepreneur
When Mike Slagh told the military he was interested in working in Silicon Valley after finishing his service, they were shocked. Prior to the military, Slagh had helped start a company as a school project, but he had no idea how the skills he had learned in the military translated into something of value for future Silicon Valley employers.
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KPCC-FM
In June, the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles is returning to the Japanese Garden on the West Los Angeles VA campus for a production of Henry IV. The program beginning June 5 marks a return to the campus after a four-year hiatus. But before Tom Hanks takes the stage as Sir John Falstaff, dozens of military veterans are training behind-the-scenes with technical theater experts to bring the show to life.
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| | THIS WEEK'S POLL QUESTION |
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Veterans Association of America wants to know ...
What opportunities have been provided you for housing and or employment since leaving the military?
- Housing Vouchers from the your state or local municipality
- Employment leads that identify concrete job proposals.
- I haven't received much in the way of expedited assistance as expected.
- This process has become tiresome, time consuming and emotionally draining.
Click here to provide Veterans Association of America your answer.
We assess all answers with the utmost of care and consideration. Survey results revealed in next week's VAA Dispatch.
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'Food Stamps' Results
In the previous issues of VAA Dispatch, we asked, "Do you as a veteran rely on food stamps to help support your family?"
Here's how our readers responded:
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| | VAA RESOURCES — JOB SEARCH, GRANTS, RESEARCH |
 Get what you need with these resources available to veterans and family members.
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7701 Las Colinas Ridge, Ste. 800, Irving, TX 75063
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