Contact Us Free Sample

Search

New user tutorial

Log In

New subscriber?

Create your password

Not a subscriber?

Subscribe

OR

Log In

Email

Password

I forgot my password

Sorry... user email or password wrong, please try again!

We’re sorry, but that email address is not in our system. If you are certain that you have entered the address you used to register for your PTW account, please contact us to confirm that we have entered it correctly in our system.

User Account Expired

Uh-oh. According to our records your subscription to Prepare the Word is no longer active. Did you forget to renew? If so, please click the RENEW button below. If not and you believe there is an error with your account, please contact us here.

My Account

Renew My Susbcription

| Sign Up

Home
About
HOMILY PREP
LIBRARY
Take Five for Faith
How to
My Account

Home
About
HOMILY PREP
LIBRARY
Take Five for Faith
How to
My Account

Search

Search word or phrase

Search word or phrase

Any word Exact phrase

Limit results to the following...

Sundays

Exploring The Word

Homilies

Homily Stories

Take Five Daily and Weekly

Preaching the News

Pastoral trends

Quotes

Tags

Question Catholics Ask

Results

The human cost of war comes home

19 Jul 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Even walking in a dark valley, the psalmist fears no evil with the Lord at his side. Growing numbers of U.S. military veterans, however, report being plagued by fears, nightmares, angry outbursts, and other psychological problems. Their disability claims have created a huge backlog of cases for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The number of unprocessed claims for those disabilities is now more than 400,000, up from 253,000 six years ago. The department said its average time for processing those claims, 162 days, is better than it has been in at least eight years. But it did not deny that it has a major problem, with some claims languishing for many months in the department's overtaxed bureaucracy. "There are some positive signs in terms of what we're doing," said Michael Walcoff, deputy undersecretary for benefits in the Veterans Benefits Administration. "But we know that veterans deserve better." Walcoff said the vast majority of the 82,000 claims the department received each month were not from veterans returning from the current wars. "We're still getting a lot of Vietnam vets," he said. Post-traumatic stress disorder has emerged as one of the most prevalent disability claims, after ailments like back pain and knee injuries. Not only are many new veterans receiving a diagnosis of the disorder, but an increasing number of Vietnam veterans are also reporting symptoms for the first time, officials and advocates said. One group, Veterans for Common Sense, has obtained records showing that some veterans are calling suicide hotlines to talk about their delayed disability claims. The group has called on the department to replace processors who take exceedingly long to handle claims. "We're not saying vets are threatening to commit suicide over the claims issues," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of the group. "We're saying V.A.'s claim situation is so bad that it is exacerbating veterans' already difficult situations." Source: An article by James Dao for the New York Times

suicide veterans for common sense vietnam war veterans benefits administration michael walcoff claims disabilities department of veterans affairs veterans post-traumatic stress disorder paul sullivan

Restricted

Word of the Week

17 November 2024

Presider’s Chair

\'pri-sīd-ərs 'cher\

Also known as the presidential chair, the seat in a parish church from which the celebrant leads the assembly during Mass. Its meaning derives from the chair, or cathedra in Latin, from which the diocesan bishop presides (from Latin meaning “to protect” or literally “to sit before”). The chair is a liturgical symbol of authority and pastoral leadership.

Pronunciation Read more

© 2024 - TrueQuest Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

Website by ideaPort, LLC

Wait

Success

Error

We have detected that cookies are turned off in your browser settings. To ensure you have the best experience, we recommend that you change your settings to permit cookies for this website.

Get Help