Iraq veteran accuses VA of downgrading injuries

MISSOULA, Mont. — An Iraq war veteran has filed a complaint with the state and is asking federal lawmakers to investigate whether the VA Medical Center at Fort Harrison is downgrading diagnoses to cut treatment costs.

Former U.S. Army Capt. Charles Gatlin said a Veterans Affairs psychologist conducting an examination to determine Gatlin's service-related benefits found post-traumatic stress disorder was at the root of Gatlin's cognitive problems, not a previous diagnosis of traumatic brain injury.

Gatlin and his wife, Ariana Del Negro, said the exam was short, didn't involve any of the previous testing he'd had, and did not include information from those prior exams to determine the benefits he should receive, the Missoulian reported in a story published Monday.

The couple filed a grievance and also told a U.S. House Veterans Affairs Committee panel last month they believe the VA is intentionally reducing benefits for disabled veterans.

"They're arguing PTSD all the time. They're arguing medical literature that's not proven and finding the most convenient one and using it," Gatlin said.

The VA Montana Health Care System denies the claims, saying it has providers who are highly trained in the complexities of traumatic brain injuries. Federal officials are asking the Montana Department of Labor's Hearings Bureau to dismiss Gatlin's complaint, saying the state board lacks jurisdiction for actions against a federal worker.

Gatlin's accusations are specific to the VA medical center outside Helena, but the entire Veterans Affairs medical system is under review.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki has ordered an audit of access to care at all VA medical centers, and three executives of the veterans hospital in Phoenix have been placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into allegations of corruption and unnecessary deaths at the facility.

Gatlin was injured by an improvised explosive device in 2006 while on patrol near Kirkuk. He was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, and over the next three years testing by neuropsychologists found cognitive deficits such as impaired visual attention, fine motor skills and information processing.

The final test conducted in 2009 found the brain injury had stabilized but Gatlin's problems would likely be permanent, and he was medically retired from the Army with a 70 percent disability rating. That benefit will be less after the new diagnosis, though the difference in the amount isn't clear.

After his 2011 Fort Harrison exam, the VA psychologist reported Gatlin's test scores were average and his diagnosis suggested PTSD was the problem. Any cognitive disorder "has apparently resolved," the psychologist found.

The findings were confirmed by a doctor with the Defense Department's Mental Health Services. Gatlin and his wife disputed the finding and filed the grievance.

"He's a psychologist making neuropsychological observations," Del Negro said of the VA doctor. "It's as if the VA sends a patient with cancer to an eye doctor for assessment."

In November, a screening panel with the Montana Board of Psychologists found reasonable evidence the psychologist caused Gatlin unreasonable risk of mental harm and financial loss by using the incorrect panel of tools to assess the residuals of his traumatic brain injury.

A hearing has been set for June.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Victoria Fancis has asked the state Labor Department's hearings bureau to dismiss the case.

"If the U.S. attorney is correct, that would strip the board of jurisdiction," said David Scrimm, chief of the Hearings Bureau in Helena. "If not, we'll move forward with the hearing."

VA hospital wait time concerns spread to South Texas

AUSTIN, Texas — Concerns about scheduling practices at veterans' hospitals in Central Texas and San Antonio have spread to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.

A former top official at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Harlingen told investigators that unreliable tests were substituted for colonoscopies, according to documents obtained by the Austin American-Statesman. The closest VA provider who performed colonoscopies was four hours from Harlingen, and the VA did not want to pay to provide them closer, Dr. Richard Krugman, former associate chief of staff at the hospital, told investigators.

"Patient care was impacted by the VA's requirements to cut costs," Krugman said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is investigating scheduling practices at its hospitals in Texas as part of a nationwide audit of access to care. A whistleblower at San Antonio's North Central Federal Clinic, Brian Turner, said he and other clerks were instructed to manipulate scheduling data so it appeared there were no wait times.

State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, chairs the Texas Senate's veterans affairs committee. On Monday, she called for an independent investigation of the wait time concerns at the clinics. She demanded accountability from top VA officials over Turner's allegations.

"If found true, these actions represent a terrible breach of trust with veterans who rely on the VA health care system," Van de Putte said in a statement.

"The performance standard for veterans to see a doctor is 14 days," Van de Putte said. "However, my own staff has been told that the nearest appointment was 4 months away."

Van de Putte said she intends to hold hearings on the matter.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn called the allegations "outrageous and absolutely unacceptable, and the Administration's response to this ongoing scandal has been tepid at best.

"Our veterans deserve the highest level of treatment, and it is becoming clear that leadership at the VA has been more concerned with the appearance of care rather than how they provided it," the Texas Republican said in a written statement.

Is Iran's threat to US carriers real?

The United States hasn't lost an aircraft carrier to hostile action since 1945, when the USS Bismarck Sea, a small escort carrier, was hit by a pair of Japanese kamikaze planes in February 1945, seven months before the end of World War II.

In the seven decades since, the giant warships — floating cities powered by nuclear reactors that boast scores of aircraft, an array of advanced weapons systems and thousands of crew members — have roamed the world's seas as the ultimate projection of American sea power.

That nautical pre-eminence makes the carriers attractive military and rhetorical targets for U.S. foes, including Iran, which made headlines last week by announcing it was building a full-scale mock-up of the nearly 1,100-foot-long USS Nimitz to train against and that carriers in the Persian Gulf would be singled out in the event of a war — a notion that some military analysts believe China had embraced as well.

Adm. Ali Fadavi of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's naval forces told the country's semi-official Fars news agency that the carriers' size makes them "easy targets" that could be sunk quickly.

"[Americans] know nothing. We have been making and sinking replicas of U.S. destroyers, frigates and warships for long years, and we have sunk the replica of their vessels in 50 seconds through a series of operational measures," Adm. Fadavi said. "We practice the same drills on replica aircraft carriers because sinking and destroying U.S. warships has, is and will be on our agenda."

In dismissing the saber-rattling, U.S. Navy and Pentagon officials have pointed out that sinking a replica and a real ship are far from the same thing.

Lt. Joe W. Hontz, a spokesman for the Navy's Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain on the Persian Gulf, said the fleet has one carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, operating in its area of responsibility, which also includes the Arabian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Oman and parts of the Indian Ocean. The ship operates as part of a strike group that includes a guided-missile cruiser, two guided-missile destroyers and a destroyer squadron.

In a statement, Cmdr. Jason Salata, a public affairs officer for the fleet, said Iran's mock-up will have "zero impact on U.S. Navy operations in the gulf."

"Firing weapons at a stationary structure floating on pontoons is not a realistic representation of having the capability to target a 100,000-ton warship, with organic defenses, maneuvering at speeds in excess of 30 knots," Cmdr. Salata said.

"This is kind of a unique story, which is why it's getting a lot of legs," said Eric Wertheim, a defense consultant, specialist in international navies with U.S. Naval Institute and author of "Combat Fleets of the World," a reference book now in its 16th edition.

"It doesn't change the dynamic in any way. ... I don't think that our carriers are in danger of going to the bottom tomorrow because they are exercising on a mock-up."

Mr. Wertheim said the U.S. Navy has been dealing with the threat of Iran for more than 30 years, including Operation Praying Mantis in 1988, when American warships destroyed Iranian oil platforms and ships in retaliation after a U.S. guided-missile frigate, the Samuel B. Roberts, was hit by an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf.

Since then, Iran has been working to modernize its weaponry, including small, swift missile boats used for "swarm attacks" on larger vessels, Kilo-class Russian submarines, smaller "midget submarines" and Chinese-supplied anti-ship missiles, Mr. Wertheim said.

He added that the Iranian Navy has no ship bigger than a frigate, a warship of about 4,000 tons that is smaller than a destroyer.

"The Iranian Navy's capabilities are not first class," Mr. Wertheim said. "They'll get their stuff from wherever they can. They even are modernizing stuff the U.S. and the U.K. sold them decades ago."

Iran has also boasted of the capabilities and firepower of its own drones on state television.

"I think it's fair to say that the Iranian Navy could be a thorn in the side of allied forces, and they would be able to possibly inflict a bloody nose or so under the worse-case scenario, but their naval power would be very quickly overwhelmed," Mr. Wertheim said, partly as a result of U.S. air superiority.

"It doesn't mean they can't do harm, it just means the endgame is very unlikely to be in doubt," he said.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and director of research for the Brookings Institution's foreign policy program, agreed that Iran's warships and submarines wouldn't survive long during a "significant military operation" by the United States.

"However, that doesn't mean the situation would be easy under all circumstances," Mr. O'Hanlon wrote in an e-mail, citing the threat of an ambush before or as a conflict begins, the hazard posed by sea mines hidden near the Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and small boats armed with anti-ship missiles. "They could, in other words, 'go guerrilla' on us, with some considerable risk of hurting warships and/or oil tankers."

The scenario that should worry the American fleet, Mr. O'Hanlon said, is that presented during a 2002 war game in the Persian Gulf, during which an opposition force commanded by a retired Marine general successfully used swarm boat tactics and missile barrages to "sink" 16 U.S. ships, including an aircraft carrier, The New York Times reported.

Mr. O'Hanlon said in the event of a conflict, U.S. carriers would be best positioned just outside the Persian Gulf.

"They are protected fairly well against aircraft and small numbers of missiles, but the best defense is always to operate out of range of plausible enemy threats, and as such, I doubt they'd enter the Gulf during a war," he said.

Aircraft carriers travel in battle groups that generally include frigates, cruisers and destroyers that screen and protect them with anti-surface, anti-aircraft and anti-submarine systems, providing an outer layer of defense in addition to the carrier's own considerable armament.

"Aircraft carriers are probably the most-protected ships in the world," Mr. Wertheim said, adding that the U.S. Navy's 10 Nimitz-class carriers, which weigh nearly 100,000 tons each, were designed to fight a war with the Soviet Union.

"They're meant to be able to take and put out a lot of punishment. That doesn't mean they can't be damaged. But they are far less vulnerable than a lot of other warships," he added.

He noted that American sailors frequently train to deal with the type of "asymmetric attack" that might be mounted by a technologically inferior and outgunned adversary.

In March, the Fifth Fleet posted photo and video on its website of sailors practicing a Griffin missile live-fire exercise to prepare against small boat attacks. The U.S. Navy also routinely monitors Iranian naval operations and frequently communicates their counterparts on the other side of the Persian Gulf.

Adm. Fadavi, who also claimed that Iran is in full control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf, said Americans have formally demanded a hotline to contact Iranians in case of emergency, but the Guard has turned down the request.

"Nothing [bad] will happen if they leave [the region]," he said.

The rhetoric was delivered as diplomats prepared for a new round of talks this week over a deal to limit Iran's ability to produce nuclear weapons.

Though he cautioned that "overconfidence is a great risk," Mr. Wertheim doubted that the model the Iranians are building would make them any more effective against a real U.S. carrier.

"That doesn't mean we should ignore it," he said. "Iran is about a lot of bluster. ... This gives us a little glimpse into how the Iranian Navy prepares the public and their navy for the event of hostilities, but we shouldn't read too much into it."

The Associated Press contributed.

rzullo@post-gazette.com

Georgia online tuition decreasing for 1st time

ATLANTA — Jenni Small has good reason for avoiding 8 a.m. world literature classes at Dalton State College in northern Georgia. The 23-year-old works night shifts as an operator for carpet manufacturer Shaw while finishing her bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

Instead of heading straight to class from work, she uses eCore — an online system that focuses on “core” classes that every Georgia state college or university student must take — for one or two courses each semester.

Cost was the only thing that kept her from taking even more classes online, Small said. On-campus credit hour charges at Dalton State this year are $97.27, compared to $189 for eCore.

“Having to pay out of pocket, at least at first, for school was a factor,” she said.

System officials are hoping to address that in the fall, when the cost of eCore classes will drop $20 per credit hour. It’s the first time the system’s Board of Regents has lowered tuition for the online program since its 1999 launch, and a stark contrast to the tuition increases also approved in April at all 31 brick-and-mortar state campuses.

Traditional students like Small could benefit from the tuition cut, but the change is primarily aimed at adults who never earned a college degree. Georgia is in the midst of an effort to boost the number of residents with degrees. Less than 30 percent of Georgians had obtained a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to 2010 Census results.

As that push began, eCore staff worried that classes were too expensive for those nontraditional students, said Mike Rogers, assistant vice chancellor of faculty development. Online faculty members also are being encouraged to consider free resources, or at least more affordable textbooks.

“I have students in my class who say if it’s a choice between spending $100 on a textbook and groceries, they’re going to choose groceries,” said Rogers, who teaches a communications course through eCore.

Karen Duke started taking eCore classes just before her 50th birthday, encouraged to get a college degree by her kids and grandkids. About three years later, Duke is halfway to a business management degree and working full time as an office manager for the nursing school at the University of West Georgia.

As a system employee, she gets a break on tuition but hopes that lower costs will encourage other nontraditional students to use online classes.

“It was something on my bucket list, but you start wondering how much it will cost me to check it off,” Duke said.

WWII Navy vet skips honor trip to be with wife on 70th anniversary

BERKELEY -- Jerry Thomas got the phone call in early April. He'd been chosen by a nonprofit to join a few dozen other aging veterans on a trip to Washington, D.C., honoring his World War II service.

The 92-year-old decorated Navy officer was ecstatic, until he heard the date: April 5, his 70th wedding anniversary. Without hesitating, he politely declined.

"I had a choice: Go there or stay here with my wife," Thomas recalled recently. "There wasn't really a choice."

His wife Rosemary, two years his senior, has an Alzheimer's-like disease that has slowly robbed her memory and mental faculties. Thomas is determined to spend as much time with her as possible, even if most days Rosemary simply sits in her wheelchair looking out a window while Thomas works a crossword puzzle nearby.

Such is the difficult end of a 70-year-long love story, one Thomas recounted on a recent, overcast day from the Berkeley hills home his beloved wife designed. Rather than lament the present, Thomas continues to celebrate the best years of their relationship, and his devotion filled the room as he spoke.

"She's good when the spirit moves her. When she starts to talk, you can't shut her up," Thomas said, softly leaning in for a kiss on Rosemary's cheek as she returned from a walk with her caretaker. "We still have our love sessions. I can hug her, and we can talk."

And every evening, the couple still enjoys "cocktail hour," said their daughter, Jerrie Reining, where her father makes himself a drink and some hors d'oeuvres and the pair hold hands and watch the 5 o'clock news on television.

It's a slow, sweet pace, but Jerry Thomas welcomes the chance to talk of more electric times.

The pair met in 1943 after Thomas was sent by the Navy to UC Berkeley for training in diesel engineering. Rosemary, who was studying humanities and art at Cal, served the G.I.s coffee and breakfast on campus.

"She was just one of the loveliest ladies in Berkeley," Thomas recalled.

Thomas had just six months for training, so he had to move quickly. He danced with Rosemary in San Francisco. He took her horseback riding, ice skating, to plays. By the time he had to head to the Boston Navy Yard, they were -- in his words -- "heavy dating."

On his final 10-day leave before heading to battle, Thomas phoned Rosemary and asked her to join him in his hometown of Chicago. He had a surprise, but his mother tipped his hand during dinner, blurting out: "So, what's this about a marriage?"

The pair married April 5, 1944, on the day before Good Friday. "In the Catholic Church, you just don't do that, but there was war, and we had to," said Thomas, a devout Catholic who attends 8 a.m. Mass every morning.

After Thomas shipped out, Rosemary joined the Coast Guard, driving supply trucks to help build warships. Thomas spent nearly two years in battle as the engineering officer of 33 men on LST 991, nicknamed the "Lady Bug," participating in six invasions, including Okinawa and Leyte Island in the Philippines.

Today, he still breaks down describing the harrowing moments when his landing ship slammed into the beach and men, equipment and tanks unloaded as enemy troops and pilots strafed the ships with bullets.

But there were lighter moments too, like when his skipper ordered him to take a boat ashore in Okinawa before the invasion to nab a decorative urn so the captain could use it as an ashtray.

When Thomas returned home from war, he and Rosemary started a family, ultimately raising nine children. He rarely spoke about his service over the years, but it was clear it still troubled him, Reining said.

On the couple's 50th wedding anniversary, Reining and her husband gave the couple tickets to Hawaii, but Thomas returned them. Visiting a beach was too traumatic.

Around 2006, Thomas first realized his wife's memory was slipping. The couple picked up a granddaughter at a Cal football game, and Rosemary clipped a student with her car as they slowly drove near a large crowd. Rosemary later insisted it never happened, Thomas said.

The couple's travels by train and steamboat grew less frequent, as did her help with orchid raising. The pair still signed up for art classes together, with Thomas setting up her easel when she no longer could.

"Things are very slow now," Thomas said as his wife, covered with a blue-and-yellow Cal blanket, looked off silently out a window, sleeping on and off.

For the longest time, Thomas was Rosemary's caregiver. But as his own strength faltered with age and he could no longer lift her if she fell, Thomas placed his wife in an assisted living facility, said son-in-law William Reining.

That didn't last. Thomas said he couldn't bear the thought of his wife dying there and brought her back a year ago, hiring a caretaker.

Still, Jerrie Reining said she was surprised to hear that her father canceled the trip to Washington, D.C., and a chance to reunite with the skipper of his ship.

"I said, 'Dad, I don't know if this will come up again.' And he said, 'No, my anniversary is more important,' " Reining said.

Tom Johnson with Honor Flight of Northern California said Thomas will get another chance. The group has handled other World War II veteran cancellations for reasons less inspiring (one veteran had a conflict with a bowling tournament).

When the 70th anniversary came, Jerry and Rosemary enjoyed a quiet dinner at their son's Walnut Creek home with some of their 21 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren and a Champagne toast.

As for how they lasted so long?

"I don't know," Thomas said with a smile. "I just love her."

Dempsey: Amidst cuts, Fort Bragg future is safe

As the military prepares to downsize, Fort Bragg will likely have to make some adjustments, but its future is safe, according to the military's top officer.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Saturday that although the military has a significant amount of excess infrastructure, the future of Fort Bragg is solid. Dempsey sat down with reporters at the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club in Durham, where he is in town to give the commencement address at Duke University today.

"If you're asking me is Fort Bragg in any way of risk," Dempsey said, "the answer is absolutely not."

But Dempsey said communities connected to Fort Bragg probably could expect layoffs.

The budget submitted to Congress by the Department of Defense, he said, includes cuts to both military and civilian personnel. But how those cuts will happen is up in the air. When the budget comes back marked up by lawmakers, he said, there could be restrictions placed on the manpower reductions.

"The restrictions could be on the number," he said. "The restrictions could be on the pace, and so we don't have it back yet."

The current task of reducing manpower and other resources is nothing new to the military, Dempsey said, noting similar episodes during his career after the Vietnam War and Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

"The armed forces are actually quite accustomed to increases and decreases in resources,'' he said. "That's not the issue for me. ... What they don't accept very well is uncertainty."

Dempsey said military leaders have told the nation's elected leaders both in the legislative and executive branches that they need three things: certainty, flexibility and time.

"The lack of certainty is what you're experiencing in people who live around places like Fort Bragg," he said. And in terms of flexibility, he added, "we've got to be able to get rid of some excess infrastructure. We estimate that we have about 20 percent excess infrastructure in terms of bases, camps and stations."

He called asking the Department of Defense to reduce its budget by $1 trillion over 10 years "extraordinarily irresponsible," a measure that, if the department meets it, will "put the nation at unacceptable risk," he said.

"I really do empathize and sympathize with the people that live around places like Fort Bragg, North Carolina," he said, "because we don't have certainty, we don't have flexibility, and we don't have time, and we need all three."

But Dempsey's message to the families, soldiers and airmen at Fort Bragg and Pope Airfield is that "this will settle out."

"I apologize for the uncertainty that they're suffering in the interim," he said. "But Fort Bragg is one of the cornerstones of our military strategy. As a power projection platform, and of course as the home for some of our most elite units in the Army and the Air Force."

Patch stuns Ramstein in battle of unbeatens

Now that’s making a statement.

The Patch Panthers swept the Ramstein Royals in a softball doubleheader Saturday at Stuttgart, handing the previously-undefeated two-time defending champions 8-3 and 16-0 losses.

Colleen Fenton and Amber Marvin provided the two-way heroics for the Panthers in the opener. Fenton earned the pitching win with seven strikeouts and went 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI. Marvin earned the save and went 2-for-4 with a triple and three RBIs at the plate.

Marvin went 3-for-4 with four RBIs and recorded the pitching win in the late game, while teammate Sarah Kemp went 3-for-4 and drove in five Panther runs.

With Ramstein vanquished for the regular season, it’s the Panthers that are in position to enter the postseason as the undefeated top seed in Division I. Patch plays at Wiesbaden next Saturday to complete its season.

The Royals likely won’t stay down for long. Ramstein has won five of the last six European Division I crowns, including the last two. The Royals beat Patch 10-3 in last year’s title game. They’ll play Kaiserslautern on Friday to complete their regular-season schedule.

Lakenheath 16/18, Bitburg 8/3: Friday at Bitburg, the Lancers swept the Barons to break a slide of three losses in four games.

Bitburg 14/4, AFNORTH 7/14: Saturday at Bitburg, the Barons earned their first win of the season in the opening game of a Division II doubleheader. The Lions evened the score in the late game.

Bitburg finally broke through for a victory after an 0-8 start that included two losses each to Division I rivals Ramstein, Wiesbaden and Lakenheath.

Alexa Landenburger earned the pitching win for the Barons.

Hohenfels 20/16, Ansbach 7/2: Friday at Ansbach, the visiting Tigers mauled the Cougars in both halves of a Division II doubleheader.

Elexianna Artiaga and Latisha Williams worked five quality innings in the first and second games, respectively, to earn pitching victories for Hohenfels. Peyton Chandler turned in a stellar 8-for-9 performance at the plate with two home runs, two triples, a double and seven runs scored on the day to pace the offense.

The 6-2 Tigers move on to host Division I Vilseck in the regular season’s final weekend. Ansbach’s regular-season schedule is complete.

Vicenza 15/14, Aviano 0/13: Saturday at Aviano, the defending Division II champion Cougars triumphed in a runaway win and a tight finish.

Megan Buffington carried Vicenza, throwing three strong innings in each game and launching a home run in the opener. Teammate Bayleigh Hall went a combined 4-for-8 and drove in six runs.

Kaiserslautern 14/10, Wiesbaden 4/2: Saturday at Wiesbaden, the visiting Raiders handled the Warriors in consecutive wins.

Kaiserslautern improved to 11-1 on the season entering Friday’s season-ending showdown with defending champion Ramstein. Wiesbaden has an equal test next weekend, hosting Patch on Saturday.