5-07-08, NPR's Talk of the Nation had a followup to a previous NPR Report on this, a Veterans Court setup in Buffalo NY. I previously did a post on the first report, and that report can also be found at todays Talk of the Nation site page, in the link below.

Vets in Legal Trouble Find Help in Buffalo Court

Back in January Ilona Meagher, of PTSD Combat-Winning The War Within posted about a Justice Court being set up in Buffalo NY to help Veterans who get into legal trouble you can read her post Here

This Court came together with the help of the local Buffalo chapter membership of Vietnam Veterans of America:

This Sunday on NPR radio's This I Believe Weekend Edition Sunday segment, astronaut Dan Tani shared his thoughts on our beleagured planet. A transcript of his remarks are available online, as is a podcast of his actual broadcast. I found it quite inspiring.

He describes himself as an optimist--

Like many people, I have a job that requires me to take a business trip every now and then. I'm on one right now. As I write this, I'm flying over New Zealand; it looks so beautiful out the window. Unlike most people, however, I'm traveling over 200 miles above the Earth, and I'm going 17,500 miles an hour.

Here are a few more excerpts from this remarks but I recommend listening to his full talk. It is quite brief.

First, I accept the statistical probability that I am not likely to be killed by a terrorist or contract some horrible disease. It's not that I think that everything will work out OK; it's that I think that everything will probably work out OK.

And second, trust. I learned trust from my mother, and in a way, this essay is for her. Two months ago, while I was up here, she died in an accident and of course I have been unable to return to honor her. I have been thinking about her life, which was not an easy one. She was born into poverty, forcibly relocated during World War II, survived the premature deaths of her husband and a son — and yet, her outlook was so life-affirming. She felt that people were good and well-meaning. Sometimes I felt that she trusted too easily, and I was afraid that that stranger she talked to on the street or the airplane might not be as nice as she thought. But I was almost always proven wrong, and I'm so grateful for her example.

His mother was one of the Japanese-Americans who spent WWII in an American concentration camp, so she her trust and optimism were clearly hard fought and impressive.

I Think Not!

Today we get another followup report Report Faults Mental Care for Iraq Veterans at Upstate Base

Seems as these reports keep coming they all can be considered 'followups', one after the other after the other after the other....., building to what is actually happening to our Military, but Especially the Military Personal that serve, so it seems, not the Country but the whims of the Civilian and some Military Leadership as well as Ideologies not followed by the Majority, as the Nation of Apathy tunes out to their Service and the Care given for same!

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — The four tours in Iraq served by the Second Brigade at Fort Drum here have created an unusual level of stress, especially after the standard Iraq tour was increased to 15 months from 12. Yet according to a new report on the shortcomings of mental health care at the base, a soldier’s wait to be seen for psychological help can take more than a month.

This morning on NPR's Morning Edition they had this report:

Iraq Vets Charged with Murder of Fellow Soldier

A soldier who had survived two tours in Iraq and had been sent home after suffering traumatic brain injury was murdered in December in Colorado Springs near Fort Carson, Colo. Army Spc. Kevin Shields was killed, according to police, by three fellow soldiers who had served with him in Iraq.

Army Spc. Kevin Shields was laid to rest on Dec. 15th. 2007

Back on the 29th I put up a post about an NPR Morning Edition report Army Blocks Disability Paperwork Aid at Fort Drum, the link is to my sites post which I put up on a few others with some added content..
Here is the link to that NPR report.

A soldier described his first briefing with the VA office on base: