I’m trying to help a fellow Veteran with their disability claim. They currently have a %, however, as a Vietnam Veteran, I am quite confident they rate more than the 30% they’ve been rated in the recent past.
This Veteran has completed and signed the required VBA-21-22A form naming me as their Personal Representative (not Registered Agent nor Attorney). I’m looking to be able to upload this and other documents on the Veteran’s behalf, however, I do not see how I can do so on any VA.GOV site.
Does anyone here have any knowledge and/or experience with this, or point me in the right direction?
Laszlo Foeldy (former Member of Hungarian Nationel TT-Team (Nr. 1420) lefthanded http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laszlo_F%C3%B6ldy The very first European …
In his 38 years as a soldier, across theaters ranging from the Middle East to Europe, the commander of Special Operations Command says he never had to look up. But those days are ending.
“I never had to look up because the U.S. always maintained air superiority,” Army Gen. Richard D. Clarke said during a discussion Friday at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado. “We won’t always have that luxury,” he added.
Low-cost quadcopters and larger unmanned aerial vehicles are disrupting the status quo as militaries and insurgents increasingly rely on them, the general said.
“When Russia is running out of them for Ukraine, and they’re going to Iran to go buy more, [that] should cause us all a bit of concern because you can see how valuable that they can be in the future fight,” he said.
U.S. and partner forces have largely focused on ways to defeat enemy drones after takeoff, but Clarke said there is also a need for interagency discussions on ways to disrupt supply chains to prevent them from taking off.
But first, there must be a discussion on norms and authorities for their use, he said. With a “very low” cost of entry for some of the small unmanned systems, the general said some countries may want to use drones to move patients or supplies. Medical transport vehicles are protected under the Geneva Conventions.
Chemical, Biological Weapons
Clarke said the Defense Department has charged Socom with looking at another threat that is inexpensive to produce and use — chemical and biological weapons.
ISIS used chlorine and mustard gases in Iraq and Syria, he said. Russia has used chemical weapons against its political allies — on its own soil and elsewhere, Clarke added.
“The fact that someone in the basement in Mosul [Iraq] with a few lab sets can do this,” proved that it’s a simple process to create these weapons, the general said. Chemical and biological weapons are a terrorist weapon system, he said, and ISIS and al-Qaida will continue to use them because they instill fear.
“As we go into the future, we have to be prepared for that eventuality … and look for methods to continue to combat it,” Clarke said.
Cyber Threats
Though U.S. officials have said government and other critical systems are receiving daily cyberattacks, the general said he’s equally concerned with the way adversaries are using cyber to exploit the information space.
Malign actors are spreading misinformation and disinformation online, and these have had an impact on elections, he said.
Misinformation is false or misleading information — a mistaken breaking news announcement, for example. Disinformation is meant to intentionally deceive the recipient.
Clarke said cyber gives adversaries a quick route to spread false information that can damage the U.S. cause.
“The message, if you look at the internet and what is happening from the African countries, its U.S. sanctions against Russia are causing food shortages in Africa,” the general said. “So we’re being blamed for people in Africa not getting to eat. … We have to look at what is on the internet and get the truth out about what is happening. And I think we have to be able to do that as a government a little bit faster than what we’re doing today.”
The Army really needs more soldiers, but it’s having trouble bringing them in.
The Army expects to be short of its goals by 10,000 recruits this fiscal year. It’s trying a lot of methods to boost last-minute recruitment. But the one strategy it won’t do is drop the standards to expand eligibility, according to General James C. McConville, the Army’s chief of staff. At least, not again.
“What I don’t want to do, and we’ve done this historically, is lower standards and convince ourselves that’s the right thing to do,” Military.com reported McConville telling reporters on Thursday, July 28. Doing so would “achieve squat,” McConville added.
He’s not wrong. The Pentagon has, in the 21st Century, changed its eligibility standards several times to help meet troop goals. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the campaigns dragged on, it eased age restrictions to widen the applicant base. It also increased the cap on “Category IV” recruits who received low scores on aptitude tests. That was as negative feedback toward the wars hurt the military’s public image.
That’s not a strategy McConville and the Army are seeking to revisit. Even in June, the Army briefly toyed with dropping the need for recruits to have a high school diploma if they quickly went to boot camp, but reinstated the rule days later after criticism.
So instead the Army is trying to find ways to make potential recruits eligible for service. Fitness in particular has been weighing on the Army this year. Even though the Pentagon doesn’t think highly of the physical durability and fitness of Generation Z (or as it calls it for some reason, the “Nintendo Generation”), the Army has been focused on making sure those who do join are capable.
And the Army really wants to make sure recruits are up to the standards. Next month the Army launches its Future Soldier Preparatory Course, designed to help get potential recruits up to standards for aptitude and fitness tests. It’s at maximum 90 days, and if successful could be expanded to help get more recruits ready for boot camp and enlistment. As Task & Purpose reported this week, scores on aptitude tests have declined by as much as 9%.
To help overcome the recruiting woes, the Army is trying a lot of tactics to make it more appealing. The chief strategy has been money. Lots of money. The Army has been offering several different enlistment bonuses, with more money (up to $50,000) for the faster someone is willing to start training. Other changes have been easing regulations regarding tattoos. Right now it seems the Army wants to do as much as it can to open the ranks to new members without lowering what it wants.
The Army itself isn’t alone in the recruitment struggle. The other branches of the Pentagon are also trying to meet their enlistment goals, hampered by reports of poor morale and conditions. Efforts to bring in more troops have included even setting up information booths for the Navy and Air Force outside of screenings of Top Gun: Maverick. It’s not quite the media blitz the military did in the 1970s however.
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HONOLULU — A U.S. defense contractor and his wife charged with fraudulently living for decades under the stolen identities of two dead infants told family they were going into the witness protection program before abruptly abandoning their house and leaving Texas about 40 years ago, a federal prosecutor said Thursday.
At some point, Walter Glenn Primrose and Gwynn Darle Morrison reemerged with new names and other explanations for lives cloaked in mystery.
These undated photos provided by the United States District Court District of Hawaii show Walter Glenn Primose, also known as Bobby Edward Fort, left, and Gwynn Darle Morrison, aka Julie Lyn Montague, right. (United States District Court District of Hawaii via AP)
The couple told people they were dodging legal and financial trouble, Assistant U.S. Attorney Wayne Myers said. Primrose told someone he was a government agent who couldn’t be photographed.
Intriguing details that emerged during a bail hearing in a Honolulu court were enough to get Primrose detained without bail, but provided little clarity why the couple shed their past and whether the criminal case against them is more serious than identity theft.
Myers successfully sought to have Primrose detained because his “life has been a fraud for the last several decades,” including more than 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard where he earned a secret-level security clearance. After retiring in 2016, he used the secret clearance for his defense job.
A search of the couple’s Hawaii home turned up Polaroids of the couple wearing jackets that appear to be authentic Russian KGB uniforms, Myers said. An expert determined the snapshots were taken in the 1980s.
This combination of undated photos provided by the United States District Court District of Hawaii shows Walter Glenn Primose, left, also known as Bobby Edward Fort, and his wife Gwynn Darle Morrison, also known as Julie Lyn Montague, purportedly in KGB, the former Russian spy agency, uniforms. (United States District Court District of Hawaii via AP)
The search also yielded an invisible ink kit, documents with coded language and maps showing military bases, Myers said.
When the couple were left in a room together, they were recorded saying “things consistent with espionage,” Myers said.
“We think the defendant is obviously quite adept at impersonating other people, obtaining government ID documents, fraud, avoiding detection,” Myers said. “He may — we’re not saying for sure — but he may have some troubling foreign connections. And if he does, he might be able to use those to enlist help.”
Federal defender Craig Jerome said the government only provided “speculation and innuendo” that the couple was involved in something more nefarious than “purely white-collar nonviolent offenses.”
“If it wasn’t for the speculation that the government’s injected into these proceedings without providing any real evidence … he would certainly be released,” Jerome said.
Morrison faces a bail hearing Tuesday.
Her lawyer said the couple — regardless of their names — had lived law-abiding lives. Attorney Megan Kau told The Associated Press the couple posed for photos in the purported KGB jacket for fun.
“She wants everyone to know she’s not a spy,” Kau said. “This has all been blown way out of proportion. It’s government overreaching.”
The couple, who were arrested Friday, July 22, at their Kapolei home, are charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S., false statement in passport application and aggravated identity theft. They face up to 17 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
Inside their house, investigators discovered correspondence in which an associate believed Primrose had joined the CIA or had become a terrorist, Myers said.
When they left Texas in the early 1980s and claimed they were protected witnesses, they handed over the keys to their Nacogdoches house and told family members to take anything they wanted. The house was later foreclosed on.
In 1987, Primrose took on the identity of Bobby Edward Fort, an infant who died in 1967 in Burnet, Texas. Morrison took the identity of Julie Lyn Montague, who died in 1968 at the same hospital as Fort. Primrose and Morrison, both born in 1955, were more than a decade older than the birth dates listed on their new IDs.
“The defendant and his wife reportedly told yet other associates that they needed to change their names because of legal and financial reasons,” Myers said. “And that going forward they can be contacted using their new names, Fort and Montague.”
They remarried under their assumed names in 1988, according to court records.
Morrison used her real name to open a post office box, where she told family to contact her. When her father died, her family couldn’t reach her and enlisted local law enforcement to track her down.
“Even the defendant’s family cannot find him when they need to,” Myers said.
Prosecutors feared Primrose would flee if freed. They noted in court papers that he was an avionics electrical technician in the Coast Guard and was highly skilled to communicate secretly if released.
The judge said he based his detention order on the alleged fraud “over multiple occasions spanning a long period of time.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III emphasized the history that South Korea and the United States share as he welcomed South Korean National Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup to the Pentagon for talks, today.
The South Korean leader visited after participating in the dedication of the Korean War Veterans Memorial’s Wall of Remembrance yesterday. The wall contains both the names of Americans killed during the Korean War as well as the thousands of South Korean soldiers who served as augmentees for U.S. Army units during the conflict.
The wall honors those “who fought shoulder-to-shoulder together and made the ultimate sacrifice to forge a better future for both our countries,” Austin said. “We hope to honor their service and sacrifice today by further strengthening our alliance.”
Austin stressed that the U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea is “ironclad.” North Korea remains the greatest threat to peace and stability on the peninsula, but the alliance between the United States and South Korea continues to grow. South Korea is a positive, democratic ally that is a force for peace and the international order that has fostered that peace.
North Korea has engaged in the most active period of missile tests in its history, Austin said. “Our alliance remains resolute and ready in the face of these dangerous and destabilizing actions,” he said.
He also restated President Joe Biden’s assurance that the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to South Korea that includes nuclear, conventional and missile defense capabilities.
Lee noted that in his first visit to the Pentagon, he was a young officer taking notes in the back of the room and that he feels tremendous responsibility being back in the Pentagon Nunn-Lugar Room as national defense minister. “I hope today’s meeting is an opportunity for us to discuss about our deterrence options of North Korean nuclear tests, and also how to respond to a North Korean threats bilaterally between the United States and the Republic of Korea,” Lee said.
Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Army Air Forces Veteran George B. McMillan, who was a fighter pilot during World War II and served with the 1st American Volunteer Group.
George B. McMillan was born in 1916 in Winter Garden, Florida. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps after graduating from The Citadel in 1938. McMillan went on to earn his pilot’s wings in 1939 after graduating the Air Corps Advanced Flying School at Kelly Field, Texas. He later served as a fighter pilot with the 20th Pursuit Group, 55th Pursuit Squadron, at Moffett Field, California. This was followed by a station at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, where he served with the 23rd Composite Group, 1st Pursuit Squadron.
While serving at Eglin Air Force Base, McMillan was given the opportunity to join the 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG), also known as the Flying Tigers. This was a group of air units formed to aid the Chinese Nationalist government during the Second Sino-Japanese War. After accepting this opportunity, McMillan resigned his commission in the Army to serve as a flight leader in the 3rd Pursuit Squadron in China. There, he flew a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and scored four and a half aerial victories during his missions in China and Burma.
During an encounter on Christmas Day in 1941, McMillan faced intense enemy fire that damaged his plane and injured his shoulder and hand. Forced to crash-land, McMillan was miles away from the nearest village and only found help from local authorities after riding a horse for eight miles. He eventually made it to Mingaladon Airfield for medical aid.
Before returning to the U.S. in 1942, McMillan helped form the 23rd Fighter Group and then left China in July after the 1st AVG was disbanded. He recommissioned into the Army Air Forces as a major and visited his family before returning to China in 1943, where he briefly served in a Chinese-American Composite Wing and the 51st Fighter Group. McMillan also received command of the 449th Fighter Squadron during the fall of 1943. Flying a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, McMillan achieved four additional aerial victories during his missions with the 449th Fighter Squadron.
In April 1944, the Japanese launched the Ichigo Offensive to push into China. During this time, McMillan took part in several missions against the Japanese forces. During the early summer of 1944, McMillan took part in a strafing mission near the city of Pingxiang. As he approached his target, McMillan encountered enemy fire that landed several critical hits against his P-38, which forced him to attempt a crash landing. However, before he could do so, his engine burst into flames, killing him.
During his service, McMillan achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. His awards include a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Bronze Star and two Air Medals with Oak Leaf Clusters. He also received several foreign honors. McMillan is buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to other members of the Flying Tigers.
Do you want to light up the face of a special Veteran? Have you been wondering how to tell your Veteran they are special to you? VA’s #VeteranOfTheDay social media feature is an opportunity to highlight your Veteran and his/her service.
It’s easy to nominate a Veteran. Visit our blog post about nominating to learn how to create the best submission.
Veterans History Project
This #VeteranOfTheDay profile was created with interviews submitted to the Veterans History Project. The project collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war Veterans so that future generations may hear directly from Veterans and better understand the realities of war. Find out more at http://www.loc.gov/vets/.
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