Independent News‘Veterans’ Archives
Legion supports executive order on student loans
Press release: A longstanding campaign by The American Legion to end the victimization of military veterans and families by some for-profit schools has culminated in an order by President Obama to halt the questionable practices. On April 27, President Barack Obama signed an executive [...]
100 Years of Marine Aviation
May 22 will mark the centennial birthday of Marine Aviation. In celebration, Marines are raising funds for a memorial to honor those that have served in Marine Aviation for the past 100 years at the Veterans Memorial Park. The Verdin Company will create a 30-feet tall memorial that will honor [...]
Military Veteran Hiring Increasing But Skills Jargon Still a Barrier
A new poll from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) released this week shows that the majority of organizations—64 percent—have hired military veterans during the past 36 months, an increase over the 53 percent that reported the same in 2010. Though more than six in 10 [...]
First Black Female Fighter Pilot follows her dream
By the time she was in fourth grade, young Shawna Rochelle Kimbrell knew she wanted to be a fighter pilot. What the now-Air Force major didn't know, however, was that she would knock down a racial barrier by becoming the first black female in the career field. Kimbrell was born in Lafayette, [...]
Miller links homeless vets & contraceptives
Yesterday, Congressman Jeff Miller (R-Chumuckla), who chairs the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, issued a statement regarding the President’s 2013 Budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs. In it, Miller warns, "VA’s goal to eliminate veteran homelessness by 2015, while laudable, is [...]
Veterans Bill of Rights
A Veterans Bill of Rights petition is being circulated by Project Foot, a charity for homeless veterans and military families. The Veterans Bill of Rights addresses key issues with the Department of Veterans Affairs such as veteran homelessness, PTSD, d iscrimination, reintegration and hidden [...]
Florida and Pensacola Unemployment rates continue to drop
Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in December 2011 was 9.9 percent, the lowest since April 2009 when the rate was 9.7 percent. This represented 913,000 jobless out of a labor force of 9,233,000. The state’s unemployment rate was down 0.1 percentage point from November 2011 and was [...]
Fact Sheet: Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior Tax Credits
From the White House: In August, President Obama called on Congress to enact tax credits that will help get veterans back to work. The Returning Heroes Tax Credit provides businesses that hire unemployed veterans with a maximum credit of $5,600 per veteran, and the Wounded Warriors Tax Credit [...]
More Army suicides
The Army released on Friday, Nov. 18 suicide data for the month of October. Among active-duty soldiers, there were 17 potential suicides: one has been confirmed as suicide and 16 remain under investigation. For September 2011, the Army reported 16 potential suicides among active-duty soldiers. [...]
Parents struggle with how Air Force treated son’s remains
A mother and father deal with how their son’s body was treated at Dover Air Force Base. Their son, Sgt. Daniel M. Angus, 28, married and daddy to a little girl, had been blown apart by a bomb in Afghanistan. According to the Washington Post, the Dover Air Force Base mortuary kept a painful [...]
Tribute to the troops
"We salute you, We remember you, We honor your service" ‘We have 25 year-old Sergeants leading Soldiers into the chaos of battle, responsible for bringing them home alive; we have 24 year-old Lieutenants flying multi-million dollar jets; we have 21 year-old sailors who are [...]
Current Vets face same PTSD risk factors as Vietnam-era brethren
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) researchers from Boston report in the November issue of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology that risk factors for posttraumatic stress symptomatology (PTSS, short of full-blown posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD) in Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans were found to [...]