VERMONT VETERANS GET $1 MILLION GRANT FOR REINTEGRATION

SERVICES -- Will provide services to returning

Iraq and Afghanistan vets.

Story here... http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=
/20060801/NEWS02/608010307/1007/NEWS05

Story below:

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$1 million will help returning soldiers

By Nancy Remsen
Free Press Staff Writer

COLCHESTER -- Vermont veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are guaranteed services to help them reintegrate at home and at work thanks to a $1 million grant included in a U.S. Defense Department budget.

Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., joined Vermont Adjutant General Michael Dubie and Gary DeGasta, director of veteran programs in Vermont, at the veterans clinic in Colchester on Monday to announce the new funding. The U.S. House has approved the money and Sanders predicted swift action in the Senate.

The grant is the third that Sanders has secured for veterans health and support services in the past four years. Previous funding has been used to set up a network of supports for families of soldiers deployed abroad as well as for the military members after their return.

"What is going on here in Vermont in terms of dealing with returning soldiers and their families has become a national model," Sanders said.

"It is the outreach piece that is so innovative," Dubie said. The Veterans Administration and the National Guard have worked together to make it easy for soldiers and families to seek counseling and other supports close to home.

"The money is important," Dubie said, "but it isn't just the money, it is the message that people care. That also helps in the healing process."
Jonathan Coffin, a psychologist and counselor at the Howard Center for Human Services and colonel in the U.S. Army, is one of the people trying to ease soldiers' return to Vermont.

He and members of a mental-health team have met every Vermont unit as they returned from their overseas assignments. "We do debriefings within 72 hours," Coffin said. The sessions are times to talk about the soldiers' hopes and expectations upon returning home and to discuss within the safety of their units some of the most upsetting experiences of their deployments. "It brings a lot of closure."

Coffin and his team encourage returning soldiers to adopt a battle-buddy system so they can continue to watch out for each other after they get home. If someone begins to struggle, Coffin said he hopes a buddy will take steps to help, including advising him to make a visit.

Coffin said he has tried to remove the stigma from seeking counseling. "I try to make it the norm. I talk about it like an oil change," he said.

The new money will help Coffin and others continue to connect with the war veterans, Dubie said. He recounted how one soldier has asked him shortly after returning to American soil if services would continue to be available to him in six months.

"Our response was we are going to be here for as many years as it takes," Dubie said.

Political overtone?

Sanders is in the midst of a campaign for one of the state's two U.S. Senate seats, which led one of his opponents to charge that Monday's event had political overtones.

A spokesman for Richard Tarrant, one of two Republicans also seeking the Senate seat opening up because of retirement of Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., suggested Sanders held the grant announcement to counter adverse publicity about his record on veterans affairs.

Last week, Tarrant held a news conference to introduce Vermont veterans who were critical of Sanders record. They complained, for example, about his failure to support legislation that would ban desecration of the American flag.

"No one is criticizing more money coming to Vermont," said Tim Lennon, Tarrant's campaign manager, "but Congressman Sanders has to do a lot more to live up to his rhetoric."

Erin Campbell in Sanders' Washington, D.C., office countered that the timing of the grant announcement had nothing to do with the senate campaign. She said it was scheduled as soon after the House approved the appropriation as Sanders, Dubie and DeGasta could coordinate their schedules.

Contact Nancy Remsen at 651-4888 or nremsen@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com 

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Larry Scott

email Larry  PGP key on request

(go back to VA Watchdog dot Org Home Page)

 


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