Cautious optimism defines the feeling among supporters of jailed veteran Keith Roberts.

Optimism because Keith Roberts—an innocent Vietnam-era veteran wrongfully jailed through a Bush DOJ prosecution—has been granted a rare en banc hearing before seven members of the national veterans court, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC), for the appeal of his 12-years-long claim.

Anxiety because Roberts, who was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after seeing his friend, Gary Holland, crushed to death by a C-54 aircraft, and his family were relentlessly pursued by the Bush Department of Justice and Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) for Roberts’ "tenaciously pursuing a claim for benefits" and Roberts' whistle-blowing accusations that the VA was fraudulently altering his C-file, records containing documents related to his VA claims.

We all remember the Anthrax attacks after 9/11  that they ended up blaming on a scientist that worked at Fort Detrick and they changed the rules so there would be no more solo projects, everyone had to work in teams, all specimens had to be accounted for  etc.

Then they appropriated billions of dollars to open more level 4 labs, my favorite was at Galveston  Isaland and started hiring people  before the lab could open before experiments  this happened you all might remember it....it happened in 1900  but no one could forsee  Ike that would be to much to hope for.

In this story in the NY Times it explains that a company called Synthes Inc. improperly promoted a bone filler for purposes not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including encouraging its use in what prosecutors called "unauthorized" human trials.

The trials took place at a Veterans Administration Hospital on veterans, three of the men died. Four of the companies executives have been indicted by the US Attorney in Pennsylvania.

Many people are not aware that not all veterans can walk into a VA medical center and get medical care. Many people think because an American does 2 or more years in military service they get medical care for life. There is nothing anywhere that states that opinion as a fact.

The facts are that is you ARE injured or comedown with a medical condition that will affect you for your entire life, then the veteran files a compensation claim with the VA Regional Office this in itself can be a burdensome process as I detailed in this diary on June 11, 2009 which explains how there are close to one million claims in the appeals stages at the Veteran Affairs Regional Offices (VARO) or at the Board of Veteran Appeals  (BVA).

In the April report, the Army reported seven active duty potential suicides.  Since that time an additional suicide was reported, for a total of eight April potential suicides, three of which have been confirmed and five remain under investigation.  There have been 82 reported active duty suicides in the Army during calendar year 2009.  Of these, 45 have been confirmed as suicides, and 37 are pending final determination of manner death.  For the same period in 2008, there were 51 suicides among active duty soldiers.

These numbers are staggering, there have been more suicides than combat related deaths in the past few months in the two war zones, why? Even Fort Campbell, recently had a three day stand down for a "suicide intervention program" as the suicide rate at Fort Campbell became the highest in the nations military bases.

I have been a very outspoken critic of the Department of Veteran Affairs compensation and claim process, which has NOTHING to do with the health care side of the house, they are two different entities  the claims process is done thru the Veteran Affairs Regional Offices (VARO)  and health care is done thru the Veteran Affairs Medical Centers and clinics  (VAMC) I receive excellent  health care from a fine outstanding team of health professionals, a cardiologist, a primary care doctor and a psychiatrist, I have regular appointments, I see the cardiologist and primary care doctors every 6 months, and the shrink every 3 months, if I have immediate medical concerns, I call and I am worked in either the next day or told to go to an emergency room near my home, and the VA usually pays the bill for the ER care since it is for service connected medical issues (my heart) my severe heartburn is and has been caused by the VARO part of the system.

As an infantry NCO, I am deeply disappointed that a retired officer would make such a statement, even one as "respected" as he is. To claim that our President  his "Commander in Chief" retired officers are still officers, he takes a pay check from the government monthly and he also receives a special stipend for being awarded the Medal Of Honor.

Wether Colonel Bud Day likes it or not, President Obama is our President, he is not a our make-believe president.  Instead of condemning ex Vice President Cheney for endorsing torture, and ex President George W. Bush for even authorizing it, and forever blemishing the name and reputation of the United States, he attacks President Obama for saying that we as a nation will never again stoop to the level of Bush/Cheney and use a war crime to do our questioning.

As a veteran I am thoroughly disgusted by the following stories. I know it is naive to believe people are not going to make money off of war, but the amount of money being siphoned off in the wars of the Bush Administrations 8 years of power, would even shock  Harry S Truman.

The shucksters of WW2 and the flim flam man seemed like amatuers compared to KBR, Halliburton, and  Ze  formerly known as "Blackwater". Being paid to electricute American soldiers in their showers, and then being repaid to fix the faulty wiring they orginally installed, in the meantime being protected by the federal government from lawsuits by the dead soldiers families.  There out to be a law against this.

Below the jump I will go thru some of the cases that just jumped out at me after a quick Google search, surely Congress could do the same thing. Are there no Senators of Harry S Trumans caliber alive today?

I find it to be a GREAT day to be writing this diary. We have The Colbert Report taping live from the Green Zone and getting a GI haircut  rofl.  His suit made from camoflage material should be in a museum somewhere after the tour. It is priceless.

Many people are totally unaware of the effort he puts into charities for the soldiers families and their childrens education. I SALUTE him, he is a true champion. He came here to Fort Jackson for a "recruit session" a month or so ago  Fort Jackson for his warm up act. So if he can do this for the troops, surely we at Daily Kos can do our part.

I am a long time resident of California, I was raised them from 1963 when my father and mother moved us west after my dads leg was nearly torn off by a Buick on a GM assembly line, when the car jumped the assembly line.

I moved at a glorious time, the beach boys, the glory days of television being filmed in  Southern California, the shows like the Munsters, Batman, the Green Hornet, Chcuk Norris movies, music festivals real rock and roll, there were the downsides   Charles Manson, the Hllside Strangler, the Zodiac Killer, and Governor Ronald Reagan the man who taxed California to death in order to leave it 600 million dollars in the good when he left office. It was his property tax increases that let do Proposition 13 in the 70s to return proerty taxes to med 60s level so retired homeoweners weould quit being thrown out of their homes due to outlandish poperty taxes. My parents home went from 250,00 a month  to over 1000 a month all due to property taxes.

I never ask for anything usually except a few recs, or a letter now and then to your elected officials about one veterans issue or another, but today I am asking you to part with some cash for a very good cause, our troops overseas in either Iraq or Afghanistan, getting a package from home (the US) is a blessing for these guys, (how do I know, I used to be one of those guys, my wars were a long time ago, Vietnam and GW1) the best part of the time there, was mail call, people I had not heard from in years  (Aunts and Uncles and some others) all sent goody packages, I gained so much weight during GW1  I had to go on a diet and lose 30 pounds when I got back.

I realize I am old fashioned, but I was watching John King interview "Emily" a senior graduating today from Notre Dame about the controversy some have chosen to make about President Obama making his remarks to the graduating class and their family members on this day to highlight their achievement and milestone in their life, graduation from one of the nations famous colleges and expensive.

I am sure in their classes they were taught about language, titles and proper use and where and when to use them, and how it affects how people chose to decide if they are relevant or not. Emily showed me during her interview, her parents wasted their money. Not once did she address President Obama as the President, she just called him "Obama". She may not have voted for him, she may even dislike him, which is her right.

As an Army veteran who served this nation from the Nam Era thru what is called the First Gulf War, Nov 1990 - May 1991 when my Georgia National Guard unit was called up. I served 9 years on active duty and 6 years of national Guard service before I became physically unable to re-enlist.

I was taught in Basic Training that "torture" was against the geneva convention and was at the top of the list of no-no's that could NOT be done anywhere at anytime and if anyone ordered you to do it, it was an "illegal order" and it was your duty to disobey it. Kind of a simplistic deal, but in reality it is a right or wrong issue, there is no grey area in it.

Maybe it's just me, but a man who was at the center of the fiasco involving the death of a truly American Hero a man making multi-millions of year playing pro football who walked away from it to join the Army in the days following 9-11, to do his duty to the nation he loved, should not be forgiven and promoted to a 4 star General.

He died an unfortunate death and a death by mistake, he was killed by friendly fire, but the Department of Defense and the Bush Administration used his death as a propaganda tool, an attempt to revitalize enlistments. To make a "hero" out of a national icon, who did not need to be made a "hero" he was just because of his own actions, giving up millions of dollars to become an Army Ranger. Despite knowing his death was by friendly fire, the Army still awarded him the Silver Star, and wrote a bogus citation justifying it. LTG McChrystal was the Commander of the Special Operations Command that controlled the Ranger battalion in Afghanistan.

On CBS show "Face the Nation" a former Vice President who actually shot a man in the "face" and a lawyer no less, actually had the nerve to proclaim that he preferred Rush Limbaugh a drug addict and a man who carries around illegal Viagra over a former Secretary of State and a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell.

Why this surprises anyone and thinks it is news worthy is what makes me laugh. A General who has repudiated the "torture" that our five deferrment VP received during the Vietnam war endorses and has recently come out of his "undisclosed locations" to publicly endorse this war crime. On every news cast and radio station that allows him to appear or be heard.

I am on the mailing list for the House and Senate Veteran Affairs Committee, so when they put out press releases I get all of them, this one digusted me to no end.

It remninded me of during the campaign last year, when we learned that Sarah Palin had the Police Chief charging the rape victims for the rape kits when they were taken to the hospital after they were attacked.

In this case the Veterans Adminitstration is billing the victims of Military Sexual Trauma for counseling and any other bills related to medical or mental health care related to the incidents, regardless of service connection or not.  Senator Akaka of Hawaii has the VA Inspector General looking into it and it appears that it is pervasive in the system and they will now be checking all VA hospitals nationwide about their billing practices. After the jump I will post Senator Akaka's press release and a link to the PDF from the IG about their investigation.

IN a mind blowing story I heard tonight, on Keith Olberman, I went online looking for more information. To my knowledge Dick Cheney had never helped the little guys that I have ever heard of.

He ignored the soldiers used at Edgewood Arsenal in 1974 and 1975 while he and Donald Rumsfeld were involved in President Ford's White House, I will give him the fact that these experiments started during 1953 during the Eisenhower Administration but when President Ford inherited them his National Security Council could have protected the "little guy" the enlisted men and women being used in the chemical weapons and drug experiments at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland he has ignored these men and women for 34 years.

I don't know if any of you can understand how angry this makes me, as a subject of illegal and unethical experiments in another era that lasted thru many Presidencies  from Truman to Ford. There is no one party to blame, they are all guilty of condoning this and it's time for it to stop.

These experiments violate the Nuremberg Codes of 1947, it's that plain and simple. I was used in this set of Vietnam Veterans of America, et al. v. Central Intelligence Agency, et al. I was there from June 25, 1974 until August 22 1974, my med vol number is 6778. There were 7120 men and women used by the time the experiments were stopped in the summer of 1975, due to an Inspector General of the Army report on Human Experimentation was publicly released, and Congress and the public went ballistic, I was in Korea on the DMZ, and the Stars and Stripes did not report news that was detrimental to the government, so I never heard about this, until October 2002 after I became disabled and used the internet to search what happened to me in my 30s and 40s to make me have the health of a 75 year old man.