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Federal News Radio
Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., has joined forces with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on a bill that would give federal and military retirees a one-time cost-of-living adjustment in 2016 equal to a 3.9 percent increase for most recipients. "The Social Security Administration announced in October that federal and military retirees would receive no COLA in 2016, at a time when Medicare costs were expected to rise. "It would be only the third time in 40 years the federal government would not pay out a COLA."
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Veterans Association of America wants to know...
How many veterans do you know that have committed suicide within the last 3 years, and have they received the proper medical attention prior?
- 10 or more veterans, with limited medical assistance
- 7 or more veterans, with moderate medical attention.
- 3 or more veterans, which haven't received any medical determination on their condition.
- None that I'm currently aware of or that has been brought to my attention.
Click here to give Veterans Association of America your answer.
Respond today — survey results revealed in next week's VAA Dispatch.
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Military Times
Coalition valued associate partners were on Capitol Hill this week to address military health care benefit reforms. House Armed Services personnel subcommittee chairman Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., said the committee is "looking to identify areas that need improvement." Heck said, "We are using the same format we used in the successful review of military retirement, which was not driven by budget but by what will produce the best possible benefit to recruit and retain the all-volunteer force."
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Military Times
Jack Ferguson had no idea it was going to be this hard. Replacing your rucksack with a book bag full of college textbooks is no easy thing, he says. But it's all the harder when you're lugging around a diaper bag, as well. And helping the older kids with their homework, even while you're trying to crank out your own term papers. Ferguson and his wife, Stefanie, are both Army veterans and both full-time students at the University of Washington in Seattle. And with three kids — all under the age of 8 — they're very much full-time parents as well.
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The Florida Times-Union
On average, approximately 200,000 service members transition out of the military every year. One of the greatest challenges that service members and veterans in transition face is finding and retaining meaningful employment. Many bills have been signed into law to help veterans enter the workforce, including the Veterans Opportunity to Work Act and the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act. Creating a higher percentage of veteran-owned small businesses and service-disabled veteran owned small businesses seems like a laudable goal. However, as enacted into law, current legislation has failed to employee veterans themselves in large numbers.
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Staten Island Live
For many veterans just coming out of service, finding a job can be difficult, but one program is making it easier. From Marine corporal to steamfitter, Jason Price is one of many veterans who is a member of Helmets to Hardhats, a national nonprofit program that connects retired and transitioning active-duty military service members to federally-approved apprenticeship training programs in the construction industry.
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TV Technology
It's not always easy for military veterans to find a job after coming back from deployment. That is why Harmonic created its veterans employment program, V.E.T.S., which is run by technology consulting firm Sharp Decisions. V.E.T.S. workers are Sharp employees who are contracted out to companies. The program is designed to ease the transition for a veteran back into the civilian workforce by mimicking aspects of military environment.
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El Paso Inc.
Frank Herrera was a cook aboard the USS Enterprise when the aircraft carrier, the longest warship ever built, played a role in the 1986 film "Top Gun." But that's all in the past, and the 50-year-old sailor who is now rebuilding his life after a brush with homelessness. "I was practically going to go homeless," Herrera said. With more veterans finding work and veteran homelessness declining, local El Paso, Texas, organizations are now grappling with a more stubborn problem: unemployment among at-risk veterans who employers sometimes overlook.
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The Huffington Post
As the deadline to end veteran homelessness fast approaches, additional research has proven that eliminating the issue lay in a simple approach: providing housing. Numerous studies have concluded that giving housing to homeless people is a cost-effective and surefire way to keep them off of the streets. And a new report has found that that same approach also works to keep at-risk veterans housed, healthy and better equipped to get jobs, despite the fact that this demographic often faces greater medical and disability issues than the general population.
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Marine Corps Times
Justin Constantine defied the odds when he made it home from Iraq. A lawyer by trade, then-Maj. Constantine deployed to Anbar province in 2006 with a small Marine civil affairs team. The team was attached to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines and worked to rebuild infrastructure in a volatile area between Ramadi and Fallujah that had proved perilous to Marines. Under attack by an enemy sniper, Constantine was hit behind his ear and exploded out his mouth. He credits the Marines and corpsman in the field with saving his life. Now, after celebrating his ninth annual "alive day," Constantine is on a new mission. A motivational speaker, he wants to get Americans thinking about how they talk to wounded warriors with physical and invisible wounds.
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