News & Opinion

Members of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs were at Hunter Army Airfield making sure service men and women are being given every opportunity to successfully transition back to civilian life after serving their country.

Washington, D.C. - Representative Denham visited the Department of Veteran Affairs Community Outpatient Clinic in Oakhurst today.  Rep Denham was able to experience firsthand how the telehealth program and healthcare services are implemented at the Oakhurst facility for Veterans in the Central Sierra Nevada Mountain communities.  Combining health informatics, disease management and telehealth technologies, VA health care facilities have been able to target care and case management in order to better facilitate access to care and improve the health of veterans.

Cameron Baker, a 27-year-old Air Force veteran, knew it was finally time to make his exit from military life. After two deployments to Iraq and three additional years spent as a private contractor, Baker had grown not only hyper-vigilant, but plagued by anxiety, rage and despair. His days were pockmarked with what he describes as “pretty horrific violence occurring at regularly scheduled intervals.”

U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, D-6 Ohio, criticized Veterans Administration managers and supervisors for mismanagement and neglecting to use a system in place to catch cost overruns and potential fraud.

A day after officials at Arlington National Cemetery acknowledged discovering more problems with burials in the ongoing scandal there, members of Congress sharply questioned Army officials Thursday about why the cemetery’s former leadership wasn’t disciplined more severely.

Thousands of military retirees who were eligible to transfer GI Bill education benefits to family members but did not learn that until it was too late to apply are hoping Congress will give them a second chance.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is taking steps to create an out-patient mental health clinic in Fort Wayne, with a budget request for $2.85 million in the coming federal fiscal year and a projected opening in March 2015.