Remember                                                        In Memory of Bill Wolf  and all of our fallen brothers.....       

CAPITOL CITY
VETERAN

Newsletter for Sacramento Valley's Chapter 500 of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc.

"We remember!"  JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 2007 "Be Proud"

               
                             

     Happy New Year Everyone!  Boy, we had a big year last year.  And we are going to have another one this year.  As you know Chapter 500 hosted the Veteran's Day Parade in Sacramento.  Great turn out!  Mary Lou did a super job coordinating the parade.  Hats off to you, Mary Lou and thank you.  And then we had the Christmas party and awards to the winners in the parade, and another great turn out.
     We also have a new board member, Hank Davis.  He is also the Color Guard Captain.  If anyone would like to join and be part of our permanent color guard, please call the office.  I would like to thank all of you who made 2006 a really great year for Chapter 500.  With you guys 2006 would not have been that great.  Again thank you, hope to see more of you this year.
                                                          Your President, Ted Adams.

IMPORTANT NOTICE!
GENERAL MEETING FORMAT CHANGE!!!

     VVA500's Board has made some changes which we think you all will like.  One good result of these changes is that the meetings should be shorter so you all can get home at a reasonable hour and enough sleep if you work the next day.  We won't be having a long agenda with all of the verbal reports.  Members will be given a hand-out report of the Chapter activities, Board Decisions and Upcoming Events, that you can take home and read at your leisure.  There will always be an informative speaker and a question and answer period following.  Members will have the opportunity to bring up questions to be answered by the officers.  Now, the best of all, we will have pizza!  Along with that a raffle for miscellaneous items, which will help pay for the cost of the pizza.  So, come for a meeting and see how you like it, learn something, and get to know each other.
     And, re:  the raffle....if you have any items you want to donate, or know businesses, stores, etc. that will donate small items, bring them to the meetings or let the office know who to call.    

        CURRENT NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
GENERAL MEETING
TUESDAY, January 16, 2007 - 7PM.

GUEST SPEAKER
KAREN BORREGO
ACTING CHIEF OF SOCIAL SERVICE WORK AT MATHER

     Few Veterans know what a Social Worker does at Mather Veterans Hospital, or even that one is available.  Social Workers can help Veterans acquire services that they need, make arrangements for care at home, direct homeless to shelter.  There are many more and that is what this meeting is for.  Come and find out how the Social Worker can help you when you need it.

FEBRUARY GENERAL MEETING
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2007 - 7PM

GUEST SPEAKER
JAN RALLINGS
VA REHABILITATION COUNSELOR
Jan will explain to the members the Veterans Rehabilitation Program .  A Veteran must be at least 20% rated for compensation and then can seek education funding for a (new) career.  Many Veterans may have jobs that are difficult to perform due to age or their disability, but still want to work.  This could be the opportunity to be reeducated in another field.  Come and learn about the possibilities.

VIETNAMESE NEW YEAR'S PARADE
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2007

The Chapter will be marching in the parade.  It takes place on Stockton Blvd.  The parade begins at 10AM.  We don't have the information yet on where to assemble or assembly time.  We will e-mail the information to those who have e-mail.  Call the office sometime during the first week in February and we should have the information by that time.

SUN

MON

TUES

WED

THURS

FRI

SAT

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TUES

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THURS

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11

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Operation Homecoming Began 1973
 

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Happy Valentines Day!

15

 

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Young Marine Tr.
Purple Heart Meeting

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President's Day

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Marine Corps League Meeting

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VVA500 General Meeting
Begins 1967

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Operation Junction City Began 1967

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Post-Tet Offensive Began 1969
 

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March 1

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Raid on North Vietnam Began 1965

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Young Marines Training

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Operation Utah 1966

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VVA500 Board Meeting

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                 MORE VA NEWS, cont. from Page 2

      Another program being planned is an intensive program for mental health, where the veteran can stay at home with monitoring during treatment.  More funding is anticipated for mental health (PTSD) programs for current veterans. 
     A program is already set up in the Northern Region for post deployed veterans to make the transition seamless and timely.  Arrangements are also being made for those coming home severely injured to assist the families in the homecoming as well as the veteran.  An outreach program is in effect with a social worker going to colleges, organization meetings to explain the program.  If anyone knows of a post deployed veteran that needs assistance, have them call Jo Ann Pinotti at 916-843-9075.  Her office is located in the Enrollment office.  She is the Combat Veteran Case Manager for those coming home.  Jo Ann has moved up from the Bay area where she worked with Vietnam Veterans, so is well aware of the problems veterans face coming back to the world. 
     From now on VA patients will be receiving postcards to remind, inform them regarding appointments as opposed to letters.  This should represent a significant cost savings for the system.
     Some billing processing has been changed.  If you have a billing problem, the number to call is:  916-843-9373.
     One good note is that out of 156 Veterans Hospitals, Mather is considered to be in the top 20.

                                   PTSD CAN CAUSE HEART PROBLEMS
     You probably only needed to look at the increasing rate of death related to heart problems of the Vietnam Veterans to know this, but a first step study has been done re:  the issue.   Here is an article by Carla K. Johnson, Associated Press.
     Chicago - A groundbreaking study of 1,946 male veterans of World War II and Korea suggests that vets with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are a greater risk of heart attacks as they age.
     The study is the first to document a link between PTSD symptoms and future heart disease, and joins existing evidence that vets with PTSD also have more autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and psoriasis.
     A second study, funded by the Army, found that soldiers returning from combat in Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder reported worse physical health, more doctor visits and more missed workdays.  The Army study is based on a survey of 2, 963 soldiers one year after combat.
     "The burden of war may be even greater than people think," said the first study's lead author, Laura Kubzansky of the Harvard School of Public Health, who studies anxiety, depression and anger as risk factors for heart disease.  Her work, with colleagues from Harvard and Boston University, appears in the archives of General Psychiatry.  Their study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs.  The Army study appears in the American Journal of Psychiatry.  The possible link with heart disease didn't surprise an Iraq veteran diagnosed with PTSD.  "It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out," said John Oliveira of New Bedford, Mass., a former Navy public affairs officer and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Continued on Page 8............................

                                       AFTER ACTION REPORT

11/18 - Young Marine Training Day - Attended by VP Karen McNeill, AVVA member Kris Hollinger, and Sec. Gregory McNeill.
11/20 - Marine Corps League Meeting - Attended by Sec. McNeill.
11/21 - VVA500 General Meeting - Speaker, Sandy Moreno, Counselor from the Vet Center updated the members on activities and influx of new Veterans, etc.
11/20 - E.D. McNeill attended the quarterly Veterans Advisory Council held at Mather Hospital.
12/2 - Young Marine Training Day - Attendance as above and Hank Davis
12/5 - VVA500 regular Board Meeting.
12/19 - VVA500 Christmas Party and Awarding of Trophies to Winners from the Veterans Day Parade.
1/2/2007 - VVA500 regular Board Meeting.  See page eight for further information.

CHAPTER ELECTIONS COMING UP

     It's that time again!!!  Each year seems to go by faster.  But February is the time to announce that Chapter elections will be held at the April, 2007 General Meeting.  Nominations will be accepted beginning in February and must be in by February 28th for announcement to the members in March.  The following offices are up for elections:  President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and three Board Members.  A nominating Committee of three must also be elected as well as a Delegate to the California State Council.  AVVA members must elect a representative.  All nominees for VVA offices must be paid up members and present a valid DD214 if not on file.  AVVA members must be paid up members.  Any member of VVA or AVVA may nominate themselves.
    Committee chairs are appointed by the elected President.  The Chairs will appoint members to the Committees.  The Chair appointments need to be completed as soon as possible after the election due to a 30 day filing requirement after the elections.  So, if anyone is interested in chairing a committee, check out the committees on the VVA website, www.norcaltrav.com/vva500.htm.  then go the link "Members - Committee Listings".
     So, if you would like to be involved in the direction, business, planning and decision making of your Chapter, VVA500,  now is the time to get your name on the election roster.  Call the office with your nominations at 916-481-6020.

                                                         SICK CALL
     Several members are on the mend for various maladies.  The list is long, so everyone just say a prayer for all.  You know who you are, members.  Get well, all of you!

LAST MINUTE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!
     JOB FAIR AND VETERANS BRIEFING! - University of Phoenix, Roseville Campus - 516 Gibson Dr. (behind the Galleria Mall)  Wed. Jan. 17, 10-3.  "Teaching you techniques and strategies for competing in today's labor market." For more information call:  916-774-4013
 

SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS

     This month we are publishing the 3rd winner of our Scholarship Awards 0f 2006.  This essay was written by Michael Mackenzie Callahan Williamson, who graduated  from Jesuit High School.  He is from Fair Oaks and is attending UC Santa Cruz.  His goals are to obtain a Bachelor's degree in Business Management Economics in four years, obtain a minor degree in Spanish, study abroad in South America during the summer of 2008, be extremely active in UC Santa Cruz's social justice programs, and become highly involved in UC Santa Cruz sports programs.  Remember the topic of the essay for this year...."How Vietnam Veterans paved the Way for a Psychological Definition, as well as Treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for Themselves, Future Generations of Servicemen and Women, as well as the Public at large".  Here is Michael's essay:
     Although Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is not a new disorder, extensive research and documentation of the condition began to come about shortly after the Vietnam War.  There are many descriptive accounts of PTSD-like disorders from almost all military conflicts in history including ancient times, the Civil War and World War II ad Holocaust survivors.  Even though PTSD is not solely a problem for military combatants, the psychological definition and methods of treatment stem from the massive amount of veterans from the Vietnam War that suffered from the condition.
     Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a "psychiatric disorder that can occur following the experiences or witnessing of life-threatening events such as military combat, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, serious accidents or violent personal assaults such as rape (What is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?)."  It is diagnosed through a multiple method approach consisting of interviews and questionnaires with physiological assessments.
     The condition is treated through many different forms of psychotherapy and drug therapy.  Even though there is no definitive treatment, cognitive-behavioral therapy, group therapy, exposure therapy, and drug therapy are the most widely used and considered to be the most effective.  "Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do.  It teaches that it is our thinking that causes how we feel and what we do (What is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy),"  Exposure therapy has the patient repeatedly relive the experiences that cause his or her PTSD in order to enable the patient to work through the trauma.
     Because of the magnitude of stress, intensity unpredictability, uncontrollability, perceived threat of danger, suffering, terror, and fear, it is of no surprise how veterans can often experience the symptoms of PTSD.  The stress of war has been apparent in every war in American history, but PTSD had never before been researched or treated until the Vietnam War.  It was this war that truly caused concern for all returning veterans as well as the general public.  Studies performed after the Vietnam War are the first indications of the serious condition.  One such  study is the Matsunaga Vietnam Veterans Project.
                          Continued in the next column►►►

SCHOLARSHIP ESSAY, cont.

     The Matsunaga Vietnam Veterans Project focuses on the military personnel of many ethnic backgrounds served with distinction in the Vietnam War.  Concerned for his returning veterans, Sparks Matsunaga, then the senator of Hawaii, initiated a major project to assess the readjustment experiences of American Indian, Japanese American, and Native Hawaiian veterans of the Vietnam War.  The project involved two studies:  the America Indian Vietnam Veterans Project and the Hawaii Vietnam Veterans Project.  Each study surveyed, observed, and interviewed Veterans and focused on their prewar, wartime, and postwar lives.  These interviews focused on their personal and health problems.  As a result of the study, the Veterans Association found that many veterans are unable to leave behind the trauma of Vietnam and psychologically return home.  "They (tend) to struggle with a variety of extremely severe problems that they and their families are unable to understand such as fears, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, rage, irritability, isolation, and addiction (The legacy of Psychological Trauma from the Vietnam War for American Indian Military Personnel)".  As a result PTSD does not only affect the patient it also has a profoundly negative affect on family and social life.
     Because of the serious affects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the general public must be highly concerned for all veterans and future veterans returning home from service.  It is because of the Vietnam Veterans who suffer from the disorder that we are now able to diagnose and treat others who bear the condition.

Congratulations Michael!

     This is the last of the scholarships awarded in 2006.  By the time of the next newsletter, we will have a new topic for the scholarships to be awarded in 2007.  Notices and the criteria for receiving a scholarship from the Chapter are sent out yearly to schools and also to individuals that request the information.  If you know of someone that would like to submit their entry for a scholarship next year, notify the office and we will send them the information.  The basics are always, a relative of a Vietnam Veteran, proof of entry into a college, university or vocational school is required.  The cut-off date is July 1, 2007.  We will announce the essay topic in the next newsletter.

VIETNAM:  OCTOBER 3, 2006

     (This article was submitted by our member Doug Haney, Environmental Expert and Researcher on Mold and the Vietnam Veteran).

     BIEN HOA, Vietnam - Doctors warn people living near the Bien Hoa military airport not to drink the water, eat the fish or grow fruit and vegetables because of wartime dioxin poisoning.
     Brain-damaged babies and children with shortened limbs and other physical deformities are still being brought to hospitals for specialized care, four decades after the United States sprayed Vietnam with the highly toxic defoliant.
     In recent months, Vietnam and the United States have started to overcome years of frustration in both governments about how to deal with environmental and health effects of the poison code-named "agent orange".
     Americans and Vietnamese say they are perhaps just months from planning environment clean-up and containment of dioxin, beginning at the former US air base in central city of Danang.
     "Assisting Vietnam with this issue will help clear the conscience of the US government," said Le Ke Son, director of "The Committee 33" working on impacts of an estimated 70 million liters of toxic chemicals used from 1961 to 1971 by the US military and the South Vietnam government it supported.
     The war ended on April 30, 1975 when communist North Vietnam took Saigon, re-named it Ho Chi Minh City, and unified the Southeast Asian country.
     Hanoi and Washington restored diplomatic ties in 1995 and they are now cementing a friendship founded on growing trade and business ties as Vietnam introduces market reforms.
     But the consequences of the toxic war remain a painful sore in the relationship that both governments and non-governmental organizations dearly wish to repair.
     "There has been a lot of work on the issue," said Michael Marine, US ambassador to Hanoi.  "The question is very complex.  What you do is in part driven by how you intend to use the site, the land, the cost for the clean-up".
     HOT SPOTS - Scientists identify coastal Danang, Vietnam's fourth largest city with about 1 million people, the south-central town of Phu Cat in Binh Dinh province and Bien Hoa in the southern province of Dong Nai as "hot spots", wartime bases where the chemicals were stored and spilled.
     Bien Hoa is a bustling city of 500,000 people about 40 km (25 miles) north of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam's industrial heart.
     It is a typical Vietnamese city, teeming with motorbikes, construction sites and Internet cafes alongside displays of communist hammer and sickle symbols and party slogans.
     A study by Vietnamese and Canadian scientists of Hatfield environmental consultants in West Vancouver, British Columbia, measured dioxin levels in the soil that are hundreds of times higher than is acceptable in other countries.
     "My dream is to conclude work on these hot spots in the next five years," said Son, a scientist at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment who serves on a joint Vietnam-US panel of technical experts who met for the first time in June.                Cont. in the next column..........................

AGENT ORANGE EFFECTS IN VIETNAM, CONT.

     Washington has ruled out paying compensation but is willing to share technical advice with Vietnamese counterparts.
     The non-governmental Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation provides expertise and the Ford Foundation, a US philanthropic group, has made grants for environmental and health research.
     "Part of the reason we are making these grants is so that they can develop a more accurate view of the nature of the threat," says Charles Bailey, Ford Foundation representative in Vietnam.
     BUSH VISIT  (Note:  this article was written shortly before President Bush visited Vietnam re:  trade issues, US/Vietnam relationship, etc.)
     The subject could come up when US President George W. Bush visits in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit.
    But the issue is also legally sensitive because a Vietnamese victims group is suing 37 American chemical companies in a US federal court.  The class action lawsuit was thrown out in March 2005 and the group is appealing the ruling.
     Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and South Koreans who served in the war were also exposed to dioxin.  They have all had some success in obtaining services and care for themselves.
     It is only with increasing economic prosperity that poor, under-developed Vietnam has sought to improve assistance to Vietnamese victims and to try to find out how many there are.
     Children of people exposed to dioxin during the war have also been sickened or deformed, but researchers say no one can yet accurately quantify the total number of victims.  The National Academy of Sciences in the United States found that up to 4.8million people "would have been present" during spraying.
     In another recent development, the United Nations has become involved for the first time.  The United Nations Development Programme in Hanoi proposes the establishment of a transparently governed trust fund where international donors, companies and governments could put money for dioxin-related environmental and health work.  "The stars really are aligned.  I think we are getting there," says Koos Neefjes, senior advisor at UNDP in Vietnam.
     DOCTORS AND VICTIMS - The doctors who work daily with the victims or live with environmental and health impacts welcome the progress being made towards reducing contamination and eventually ridding the country of dioxin.  "I don't hold any grudges or anger and I am of a view of letting the past go and if we can do something now then we should do what we can to help," said Nguyen Thi Phuong Tan, head of the "Peace Village" for the disabled in Ho Chi Minh City, one of 12 nationwide.

SANDY MORENO, COUNSELOR FROM THE VET CENTER UPDATES THE MEMBERS IN NOVEMBER ON ACTIVITIES, SERVICES AT THE CENTER

MEMBER CHARLIE PETERSON BUSY AT THE MOVE AMERICA FORWARD OFFICE PACKING UP GOODIES TO SEND TO THE TROOPS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN FOR CHRISTMAS CHEER

VICE-PRESIDENT'S SERVICE DOG JANIE ARRIVES ALL DECKED OUT FOR THE CHRISTMAS PARTY

FLORIN HIGH SCHOOL NJROTC ACCEPTS THEIR TROPHY

US NAVAL SEA CADET CORP-TICONDEROGA ACCEPTS THEIR TROPHY

MEMBERS, TROPHY WINNERS AND FRIENDS ENJOY THE VVA500 CHRISTMAS PARTY