Received the following from Paul Sutton VVA AO Committee regarding a proposed book by Dr. Paul R. Camacho and Praeger Press on the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Below that posting is my response to Dr. Camacho.
September 15, 2006
Dear Colleague:
I am engaged in a project with Praeger press to produce three volumes on veterans’ issues. The projected publishing date is September 2008. I am writing you to inquire whether such a project interests you enough that you would like to produce a paper, collaborate on a paper (I have also thought of “pairing” veteran activists with social science researchers), or be a reviewer for a paper. There is a small remuneration for the author(s) of competed articles.
Obviously, such a project can move in a variety of directions. I had initially developed a draft of the three volumes, but that has already changed. For example, the third volume is going to have much more input about the status of veterans of other nations. To that end I am working with research personnel in Holland to gather proposals and/or abstracts from around Europe and elsewhere. Also I want to be sure to include conservative as well as liberal viewpoints about these issues and particularly about the future of our national veterans’ policy. Ultimately of course we have to craft our approach with the response of participation we receive.
It is perhaps best if I just bullet below the kinds of themes and topics I have thought of including so far. I want to assure everyone that I want to be as inclusive and balanced as possible. I am very open to suggestions for alternative approaches.
If you have an interest please send me (1) a one-page abstract of the suggested paper and (2) a one-paragraph biography about yourself. Should you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to email (the best alternative) or call.
Sincerely,
Dr Paul R. Camacho
Director of Special Projects
617-287-5853
Tentative themes and topics of Volume I The Staple Issues Of Concern
Part One An Introduction To The Politics Of Veterans Affairs
Chapter One: A History Of Veterans’ Benefits And Activism
Chapter Two: The Status Of The Veterans Lobby
Part Two: The Perennial Topics Of Concern with an emphasis on the Future for the New Veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq
Chapter Three: The VA Benefits And Health Care System: Past, Present, And Future
Chapter Four: The Veteran on Campus - Educational Benefits from Vietnam to Present
Chapter Five: Employment And Reintegration To The Civilian Community
Chapter Six: A History Of The GI Home Loan Program And The Housing Issue
Part Three Political Activism And The Future Of The Veterans Lobby – Will There Be A Future?
Chapter Seven: Small Business Opportunity Structures – The New Litmus Test Of Veterans Power.
Chapter Eight: Veterans And Politics – A Synopsis Of The Veterans Role In The Presidential Election Of 2004.
Chapter Nine: The Growth Of The Veterans Community Based Organizations
Chapter Ten: The Future Of Veterans Programs and Benefits
Chapter Eleven: The Inevitability of Demographic Change and Passing of the Vietnam Veterans – What Will Be Their Legacy?
Tentative theme and topics of Volume II Particular Issues Of Concern
Part One An Introduction To The Politics Of Veterans Affairs
Chapter One: A History Of Veterans’ Benefits And Activism
Chapter Two: The Changing Status Of The Veterans Lobby
Part Two Minority Veterans Concerns – Will Minority Status Persist or Fade Away
Chapter Three: The African American Veterans Community
Chapter Four: The Puerto Rican Veterans – On the Island and in America
Chapter Five: Women Veterans – Can They Form a Politically Viable Organization
Chapter Six: Native American Veterans
Chapter Seven: Social Change – The Gay And Lesbian Veterans
Chapter Eight: Incarcerated Veterans
Part Three From Private Troubles Public Issues – Particular Problems In The Veterans Community
Chapter Nine: Programs To Assist The Homeless Veteran
Chapter Ten: An Overview Of The Agent Orange Issue
Chapter Eleven: An Overview Of The Gulf War Syndrome
Chapter Twelve: The Homecomer And Post Traumatic Stress
Chapter Thirteen: Depleted Uranium and Other Toxic Futures
Part Four Political Activism And The Future Of The Veterans Lobby
Chapter Fourteen: Will the Afghanistan/Iraq War Veterans Get Organized?
Tentative themes and topics of Volume III Themes of Experience and Reconciliation
[We are anticipating that part four below will be significantly expanded and that themes and topics of parts one through three will shift to volumes one and two.]
Part One Writing About War and Homecoming
Chapter One: Writing About War – Major Themes in the Literature of War
Chapter Two: Blood and Guts Poetry – Has Anything Changed?
Chapter Three: The Media and the Veterans’ Public Image
Part Two Citizenship and Political Activity
Chapter Four: An Overview of the History of the Traditional Veterans Organizations
Chapter Five: Vietnam Veterans: Radicals, Conservative, or Other?
Chapter Six: What is the Role of Veterans in Society?
Part Three Reconciliation with War and Former Enemies
Chapter Seven: Returning to the Battlefield as a Beginning of Closure
Chapter Eight: Constructing Clinics and Other Organizational Efforts at Reconciliation
Chapter Nine: Normalization, Globalization, and Attempts to do Business With Vietnam
Part Four Veterans Action in Other Nations [this will expand]
Chapter Ten: An Overview of the Status of the Former Peacekeeper From Europe.
Chapter Eleven: The Veterans of Great Britain – What Does the Future Hold
Chapter Twelve: American Veterans in Africa – A New Type of Sociopolitical Action
Chapter Thirteen: The World Veterans Organization - Past, Present, and Future
Chapter Fourteen: Is A Real Euro-Veterans Union Plausible
OTHER IDEAS
Can Veterans Promote Peace? – Would They Want To?
Are Veterans a Product of a Draft Military – Will the Veterans Lobby Die with Them?
RESPONSE:
Request for Authors, Researchers Chronologist, etc.
15 Sep 2006
Subject: Request for Authors on VA issues
To: Dr. Paul R. Camacho
From: Charles Kelley; Vietnam Veteran, DMZ 67-68 and author of "Vietnams Rain -
Agents Orange, White, and Blue (Weapons of Mass Destruction)"
http://www.2ndbattalion94thartillery.com/book/bookorders.htm
Dear Dr. Camacho,
I received a request for authors, chronologist, researchers, etc. for your
proposed book documenting the many aspects of the Department of Veterans
Affairs, Veterans History, and politics within the Department of Veterans
Affairs. Of which, I have spent the last five years researching the in and out
of this federal agency and the White House and even Congressional "March Order"
directions of this agency. Painted and portrayed "as advocate" when in fact it
seems to be only an advocate for directed White House/DoD budget control for
"government caused" mistakes of which no one in government can be held
accountable.
Without going back to my notes your name is familiar to me within the context of
reading what Ranch Hand transcripts, not the published lies, I could get my
hands on. As I recall you and about "two other scientists only" seem to be
trying to make some sense of what it was this absolutely totally government
biased waste of money was doing and some of the questionable protocols and
changes to the protocols as the evidence mounted against the government.
Obviously, I am well versed on the medical issues, statistics, and science and I
am currently doing what in my engineering world is called a "Failure Modes and
Effects" on the immune system damages I found in several studies and how that
can impact the many body systems.
In checking with some nationally known scientists, they seemed to think I am on
the right track and some have commented that there seems to be a concerted
government effort NOT to do what I am proposing as a former reliability and
component engineer involved with not only military hardware, as well as space
grade hardware; not only component issues but the ramifications at system level
integration.
Of course, I will volunteer as a single contributor or as a team effort to as
many issues as I feel comfortable in addressing with references and statistics;
not just subjective opinions on my part.
My only concern would be before wasting any more time in fighting a government
that could care less about its Veterans and the real cost of war and government
mistakes would be the following:
· Is this project government funded in any way shape or form "directly or
indirectly?"
· Are the chapters, as in Ranch Hand, going to be rewritten to de-emphasis facts
and statistics that are found and then not brought forward?
· Are concluding sentences going to change to the benefit of our own government?
· The first time you get a visit from the Secretary of the VA or his avenging
delegate or the FBI, are you going to fold up your project like so many have
done in the past including legal firms.
· Are you and your sponsors committed to getting at the "real truth" of what has
gone on and continues to go on in government collaborations against the finest
segment of society one nation has to offer?
In looking on your proposed items of interest I would suggest you have a
complete chapter on the "Feres Doctrine," which is in fact the Veterans, worst
enemy. Documenting how this insidious congressional approved Doctrine protects
the DoD and our government (especially
White House after White House)
against such things as the use of toxic chemicals, depleted uranium, biological
chemical warfare testing of Veterans such as Project 112 and the SHAD project.
This probably should be handled by someone with the Veterans Equal Rights
Protection Advocacy (VERPA) of whom I will be copying on this e-mail.
Although the introduction of my book also has the documented history of this
insidious congressional doctrine, written by VERPA, which may be used as a
starting point.
I would also suggest you have a chapter on this VA legal system created to stop
the flood of toxic chemical damage claims. A legal system within a legal system
that has no separation of powers and directed by the executive branch and what
it is the DoD can get away with.
This includes the congress giving all legal power in Veterans Issues to the
Department of Veterans Affairs, which includes according to USC 38 para 511 the
Department of Veterans Affairs, can ignore all court ordered mandamus legal
actions. Of course, in this convoluted legal system by default the Executive
Branch now has complete control.
Conflict of interest!
There are many more topics and/or subtopics that should be addressed including
the many "conflicts of government interest" in VA processes that pays the
government for VA ineptness, collusion, and lack of effort and timeliness.
Example:
If the Veteran dies before his claim is approved his claim is just as dead as
the Veteran.
Conflict of interest!
My guys lay in a VA hospital diagnosed with a cancer that was finally admitted
to after studying the issue to the death of 10's of thousands of our Veterans.
Yet, he dies within nine months and his claim is still not approved by our less
than efficient
with purpose
Department of Veterans Affairs. Why approve a dying veterans claim in a timely
manner to support him and his family while he fights the government caused
cancer when you can stall to the death of the Veteran and Congress then turns a
blind eye and deaf ear.
Conflict of interest!
When I argued the point in DC last year, Congressman Boozman of the house VAC
suggested that it took so much time because of an antiquated government system
and the complex medical decisions that had to be made.
He had no answer when I gave the scenario of my guys dying in a VA hospital
diagnosed with a government-associated cancer.
I can see no complex medical decisions here. Only the copy of the DD - 214
showing service in Vietnam - the list of decade stalled associated disorders -
and a medical diagnosis. This seems like a 10-minute job since two of the
requirements are pretty much given and already at hand.
Conflict of interest!
Another topic should be the BVA and how it has no order of precedence in legal
decisions.
Example:
The identical claim for Lt Charles Kelley is denied while the claim for
Specialist Charles Kelley is approved depending on where one lives and what
BVA.
Conflict of interest!
Rather than looking at similar claims over 10,000 strong and approving one and
then approving the other 10,000 based on legal precedence in a timely manner,
not decades, this court now tries and prosecutes 10,000 individual claims. Is
it any wonder why the BVA and the VA is close to a million claims behind?
Conflict of interest!
The lobby issue will be the shortest chapter in history.
Start of chapter -VSO's must sign what amounts to a political non-aggression
pact to get the federal benefits they as organizations receive. Beer, Bingo,
Barbeque, and bottom line VSO Bank Accounts are what matters. End of Chapter
Let me know how I can help in any way and any points you would like me to
address.
Charles Kelley
DMZ 67-68
Researcher on toxic chemical studies (ours as well as our allies) and author.