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Michael J. Nieland
Dear Veterans,
Welcome to my web pages. I hope you came here hoping to find out how as a veteran, you can contribute to improving the lot of veterans everywhere. That is what I'm trying to do. Now I have been at this a while, you can see from this web page there is wealth of information available to veterans and to those wanting to help veterans. With our government, information changes sometimes daily so it is challenging to try and stay on top of everything in order to pass on important information for veterans. Our elected are always pondering bills that affect veterans. You can check the stats at any time and find out how much legislation is pending on veterans issues. It is truly amazing that there are hundreds of bills pertaining to veterans at any given time in House and Senate.I hope what you find here is helpful to you. It should be. I hope it opens your eyes to information that you may not have known after you were discharged. I know I didn’t know much when I got out. It was my involvement with the American Legion and AMVETS that opened my eyes. So hopefully we can all get educated together and help each other along the way. We must stick together as veterans because we all know that our government will not be there for us all the time. By standing together, sharing information and voicing our ideas and opinions to the elected we do make a difference. We stood by each other while in the military and we should stand together now as we have a strong voice when we all speak with one voice!
Advice on getting your VA benefits, click here.
Air fare information for traveling troops from "Blue Star Moms".
How to get the best price for your air fare home and back.
Veterans, read about the dismantling of the VA. VERY IMPORTANT
Petition to get proper health care for active duty service members
Veterans have been promised by our federal government many things over the years. The federal government has gone back on these promises many times. One of those promises has been healthcare for the rest of your life if you served your country in the military. For example I joined the military in 1976 because I would get the same GI Bill and other benefits such as health care at any VA hospital for the rest of my life. That was the incentive to get me to join then. I would have the same benefits that my Dad and the veterans who came before had.
But then the government took back some of those benefits. After I was out they took away my veterans preference for jobs. The US Postal service told me that even though I was a veteran I could not check the block for veterans points on their application because I hadn't served during certain dates or received a campaign medal! This is a slap in the face to all veterans. We have no control over what happens world-wide while we are on active duty. If I get hurt falling off a vehicle during peace time and end up with a permanent injury I will get out with certain percentage disability and be able to go to the VA for the rest of my life for anything related to that injury. But because I stayed healthy or didn't report every little problem I am penalized now from using the VA system. This is wrong.
Because I was on active duty three times I now have the benefits that they took away previously. But this should have never happened. We must ensure that the promises made are promises kept to our fellow service members. The very least the government can do for our fellow veterans is to ensure they have adequate healthcare when the return from their period of service. By placing your name on this petition we veterans are sending a message to our elected to stop screwing over the veteran and start upholding your end of the deal made with us at enlistment. Together we have strong voice. So lets make our voices heard loud and clear.
And ALL VETERANS need to register with the local VA hospital. Even if you can't get in due to the freeze placed on taking new veterans the government needs to know we veterans our here and this way they will know who we are and we want to have access to the VA system as promised during enlistment.
Veterans with Combat related disabilities READ THIS!
VA Means Test
For starters, here is a page that I hope will help you get the medical care you were promised by our government. It gives you a wealth of information about getting qualified via the VA Means test. This is where you need to start if you aren't already enrolled in a program.Here is a link for VA Pension Benefits that rarely get used:
http://www.military.com/MilitaryReport/0,12914,72624,00.htmlfor even more information on Earned Benefits please visit this blog topic:
Earned Benefits
Legal Aid for Homeless Veterans
Here is a really promising project happening in Philadelphia. It is a legal aid program geared towards helping homeless Veterans. This kind of thing should be happening in every major city, but it is not. This particular program won't be of much help to Veterans who live elsewhere, but here is the link to their site in the hope that this great idea will spread, Homelessadvocacyproject.org.Democrats AND Republicans DO YOUR JOB!!!If you have any comments about this project, either pro or con, please leave them in the blog in this topic (anyone can read, but you must register to post) http://www.squadron13.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=478
Here is another positive ongoing effort to aid severely wounded GI's after their return from combat WoundedWarriorProject.org
If you have any comments about this project, either pro or con, please leave them in the blog in this topic (anyone can read, but you must register to post) http://www.squadron13.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=483
My connection to Squadron13
How can it be that I, a supporter of the troops and the war on terrorism and registered Republican have webpages on this anti-war and anti-Bush site owned by Gordon Sturrock? What could we possibly have in common? It turns out that Gordon and I were stationed together in Fischbach, Germany. From 1978-1979 we were both assigned to the 165th Military Police Company of the U.S. Army. Our lives took different paths over the years and across different parts of the globe. Reunited by the Internet, we've rekindled our friendship and our common bond from our days as soldiers, and we both have a strong desire to advocate for the better treatment of Veterans.For more information about our unit and others like ours there is a very comprehensive report available at this link:
The Weapons Depot Security Units (large PDF file, dialups be patient!)
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