Friday, April 27, 2012

Petition: Help Iraq and Afghanistan Vets of America


Hello, online friends. Please support this IAVA petition http://iava.org/sign-open-letter-va-secretary-shinseki . Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) says, "DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY for military troops who need and deserve timely mental health care." See the letter below from Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of IAVA asking us to please help mentally challenged veterans have the care they need. Do not let our soldiers come home to become prisoners of war. Many of America's 1.25 million mentally ill inmates are veterans who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some inmates did not get timely mental health care to avoid behavior that led to their incarceration. Too many mentally challenged Americans, including veterans, endure homelessness and imprisonment. Avoidable deaths by suicide and murders also result from untreated mental illness. The IAVA ask you to help them to DEMAND CHANGE. Whether or not you agree with wars is irrelevant; please agree that our veterans deserve full support getting proper health care.

Mary,

The VA is clearly broken—and our vets deserve answers.  For years, we’ve heard from IAVA members that the VA is not delivering timely mental health care. This week, the VA’s own Inspector General confirmed it. What’s worse, the Inspector General found that the VA’s own records of wait times “had no real value.” Less than half of vets received a full evaluation within 14 days of seeking mental health care—despite VA claims that rate was 95 percent. [Six links and one embedded video in this article.]

Sign IAVA’s open letter to VA Secretary Shinseki demanding accountability for our nation’s veterans.
It’s estimated that 18 veterans commit suicide every day. VA Secretary Shinseki owes our community straight talk and a bold plan outlining how the VA will improve care for veterans of all generations. [Six links and one embedded video in this article]. As suicide rates skyrocket, delays at the VA should outrage every IAVA supporter —and the entire country. If you had a chest wound or broken leg, you wouldn’t tolerate waiting to see a doctor. Yet, an Afghanistan vet seeking care in Spokane, Washington faces an 80-day average wait for an appointment to see a VA psychiatrist.


Watch a quick video from the Inspector General’s Senate hearing this week. Then add your name to IAVA’s open letter demanding answers from VA Secretary Shinseki.

Every day we hear from IAVA members at local events and across Twitter and Facebook about the bureaucratic delays that they face. But IAVA refuses to let vets slip through the cracks in their toughest moments of need. All veterans deserve a dynamic 21st century VA system that is responsive to their needs from the first day they get home through the rest of their lives.[Six(6) links and one embedded video in this article]

Stand with us to demand answers and accountability.

Paul Rieckhoff
Founder and Executive Director
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

PS – Every year IAVA sends dozens of new vets to Storm the Hill. This past March, we met with over 140 Congressional offices to outline concrete solutions for improving VA care. Read our recommendations in IAVA’s 2012 Policy Agenda.

*****
Thank you for reading and sharing this advocacy post from Mary Neal, director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/aimi - I implore our representatives and everyone who reads this article to please show some gratitude to people who voluntarily served in the military at great risk to themselves. See the video embedded below. "Gratitude" is also on YouTube at this link: http://youtu.be/MSfFYxSdKdo . Thanks for signing the petition to support Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. It would be terrific if you help gather more signatures by sharing this article, which has six(6) links and one embedded video. Thank you!
///


2 comments:

  1. H.R.619 Advocacy Censored at AIMI
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTnBUYoJtk4

    Military families and friends, it would help me to stand up for veterans with mental illness if you would write to the Attorney General of the United States of America and ask Atty. Gen. Holder to stop the cyberstalkers who interfere with my freedom of press rights that our veterans and active duty military troops fight hard to protect. Email AskDOJ@usdoj.gov . If they let the link appear live for ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL at the bottom of the article "Petition: Help Iraq and Afghanistan Vets of America," then please click the link to visit our online group at Care2 where you can join the quest for decriminalization of mental illness. You should find much information there to help mentally challenged people, especially those who are incarcerated or who risk incarceration because of their "illegal" health condition.

    Approximately 1.25 million inmates are mentally ill, but they should be in hospitals or community care programs depending on their offenses and functionality. Congratulate the USDOJ for recently certifying Assistance Outpatient Programs (AOT) like Kendra's Law. AOTs provide community care and subsistence assistance for mentally challenged people and already proved to reduce homelessness, arrests, re-hospitalization, and incarceration by up to 85% among New York program participants. The percentage of improvement is derived by comparing their experiences while in the AOT program with their experiences three years before joining the AOT program. The significant improvement saved lives, restored people to wholesome lives, saved tax money on court and prison costs, and made communities safer. If the four assigned cyberstalkers who go online with me to interfere with my advocacy for decriminalizing mental illness make the link to AIMI inactive, please just Google us or copy and paste the link in your browser - http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/aimi .

    Please ask Attorney General Holder to investigate impediments to my freedom of press by emailing him at AskDOJ@usdoj.gov. See an example of interference to prevent my advocating for H.R.619, a congressional bill that was introduced in January 2009 to reinstate Medicaid for inpatient mental health care. Many people who need inpatient care are turned away every day because of lack of bed space since so many mental hospitals are closing or have already closed. No one should deny health care to use sick American citizens, especially veterans, for prison profits. No one should curtail an American's freedom of press to hide the secret arrest and unexplained jail death of her mentally and physically disabled brother, which is why I started being censored initially. Visit WRONGFUL DEATH OF LARRY NEAL website at http://WrongfulDeathOfLarryNeal.com for some of the details. As always, soldiers and Marines, we need your help. Stop domestic terrorism, please.

    H.R.619 Advocacy Censored at AIMI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTnBUYoJtk4 - Five more videos showing how challenging it is to stand up for veterans and others to have mental health care is in this article: SIX VIDEOS PROVE MARY NEAL'S CENSORSHIP http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/four-mary-neal-censorship-videos.html

    Thank you for helping me to help others.

    Blessings,

    Mary Neal, director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't yall think it is AWFUL the way stalkers turned the link to help IAVA gray to hide it in my MaryLovesJustice index list? They also had the link to the petition and other links gray within the article. The setting at MaryLovesJustice is for links to be blue. So when you see a link that is another color, I colored their gray, coded links so they might show up more. However, my coloring them does not nullify whatever the stalker coded the link to do - disappear? fail to copy? redirect people away from the targeted data? fail to link on cell phone view? I have found that cyberstalkers can make your links perform differently in a variety of ways other than they should. That would have been made legal under SOPA - redirecting links and taking over citizens' browsers. I think it is PITIFUL that they want to hurt veterans. I heard veterans are really being challenged regarding their rights to gun ownership, also. Umm. Wonder why they want vets to be unarmed? Interesting.

    Veterans and active duty military, your most trying times seem to be ahead AFTER returning home. We thank you for being willing to defend us and solute you who always will. Bless every one who is wounded mentally or physically. I pray that people stand by you and sign your petition, and that interference by cyberstalkers will cease and desist. It just is not right. Blessings!

    ReplyDelete