White House officials and congressional leaders have signaled they could have a deal to raise the country’s debt limit — and avoid a series of potential economic catastrophes — in the next few days. Administration representatives have been negotiating directly with House Republican leaders for the last week on the issue, and have publicly voiced optimism that a solution can be found soon.

‘Devastating’ debt default threatens troop pay, defense programs

Treasury officials have said the country is likely to run out of borrowing power around June 1 absent new legislation from Congress. If that happens, troops paychecks, veterans benefits and a host of other federal debts may not be paid on time, if at all.

The Senate is on recess this week, but could be called back into town on short notice if a debt limit deal is reached. The topic has been the main focus of both chambers for the last few weeks, delaying regular work on the defense budget for fiscal 2024 and the annual defense authorization bill.

Tuesday, May 23

Wednesday, May 24

The fallout of the false report spread much further than the New York suburb where it started. The case drew national attention from conservative outlets and mainstream media, and furthered political fights over whether the federal government is doing too much to help new immigrants and not enough to help struggling veterans.

The incident began on May 12, when the New York Post reported that about 20 veterans staying in a Newburgh, N.Y., hotel had been kicked out by management to make room for incoming migrants being housed through county funding. Leaders from the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation said they had to scramble to find new housing overnight to keep the veterans from ending up back on the street.

VA aims to help 38,000+ homeless veterans again this year

In response, New York State Assemblyman Brian Maher — himself a Navy veteran — introduced legislation to prohibit any such future harm to veterans. He blamed “the failure of the federal government to better manage the migrant crisis” as the reason for the veterans’ plight. In an interview with Military Times, Maher said he had worked closely with the foundation for years and spoke to several individuals who said they were displaced by the moves. He was also given bank records showing hotel payments by the non-profit on behalf of the veterans.

But as the story was picked up by national media, details began to unravel. Veterans Affairs officials said they had no record of any direct work with the New York charity, or any reports of veterans in need of help from local partners. They also said their requests to speak with the veterans were refused by foundation leaders.

Putting migrants ahead of veterans is downright shameful and completely unacceptable, and yet, not at all surprising coming from this Administration and its allies in blue states.https://t.co/yw2Yp7e3b8

— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) May 15, 2023

On May 17, the Mid Hudson News reported that hotel officials had no record of any payments by the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation or of homeless veterans using their location for temporary housing.

Maher said he confirmed a day later that the veterans in question never existed, and that the incident was made up in an misguided attempt by foundation officials to draw attention to veterans issues.

“My heart is broken,” he said. “This looks to have been a complete and elaborate lie. [The foundation] had a lot of people working on this, and I had trust in them. But in the end, this did not happen.”

Foundation Executive Director Sharon Finch did not respond to requests for comment. Maher said he spoke with her on Thursday and she admitted the fraud. He has called for an investigation by the New York State Attorney General into the foundation in light of the incident.

On Friday, the Mid Hudson News spoke to seven local homless veterans who said they were recruited by the foundation to lie about their experiences as part of the scheme.

Despite the lies, Maher said he is undeterred in his opposition to President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and their potential effects on states like New York. But he conceded that in this case, the concerns were unfounded.

Whether the retraction gets as much attention as the initial news reports remains to be seen.

Veterans who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness can call the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans at 877-424-3838, or visit the department’s web site for available resources.

Since 2017, thousands of Veterans Benefits Administration employees have been required to work two to four hours extra each week to help keep pace with the workload of incoming claims. Department leaders said this week that they will suspend the mandate in July and August, to reduce stress and provide flexibility for summer vacation plans.

For department leaders, the overtime issue shows the difficult balance leaders need to navigate between the potential risk of making veterans wait longer for cases to be settled and the potential risk of working staff so hard to keep up with demand that they start to leave in droves.

Enrollments in VA medical care spiked after PACT Act passage last year

Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs pledged to get rid of the required overtime altogether, during a May 16 House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing.

“I don’t think it’s a sustainable practice,” he said. “But we also can’t yet move away from it completely because of the total workload … Ultimately, we need to move away from it, but we also have to be able to make sure that veterans aren’t waiting lengthy periods of time for their claims.”

VA claims processors completed about 1.7 million cases in fiscal 2022, the most ever. Halfway through fiscal 2023, they’re on pace to surpass that mark.

But the department has also seen a steady increase in the claims backlog in the last year because of the rising number of cases coming in. As of May 15, the number of claims waiting more than four months for a decision was just under 211,000, up about 60,000 cases from last fall.

Much of that stems from the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act — better known as the PACT Act — passed last summer. More than 500,000 veterans have applied for new benefits under the law, which expands compensation for military toxic exposure injuries.

Jacobs said the long-term solution to that workload problem is hiring more staff. The department currently employs about 29,000 Veterans Benefits Administration employees, up 15% over the last 18 months.

But getting all of those new workers fully trained takes up to two years, meaning the existing workforce will have to continue shouldering the burden of high caseloads for now.

While the current mandatory overtime rules have been in place since 2017, VA has used the tool periodically for the last two decades, especially at times of new benefits expansion. Jacobs did not specify a target date for when the policy might be ended.

The deal means five more years of partnership between the department and the digital information firm, both of which have come under scrutiny for work so far on the $16 billion project. Only a few sites are using the new records system, despite five years of effort so far, and future rollouts have been postponed indefinitely until key improvements are made.

Glitches in the system have produced more than 150 cases of veterans suffering harm from medical record mistakes and shortfalls. Administrators reported last fall that the system failed to deliver more than 11,000 orders for specialty care, lab work and other services, all without alerting health care providers the orders had been lost.

Neil Evans, acting program executive director of VA’s health records project, acknowledged in a statement that “the system has not delivered for veterans or VA clinicians to date, but we are stopping at nothing to get this right.”

VA halts all new work on health records overhaul

The contract announcement does not change the full halt on new deployments announced by the department last month. VA officials have said that they will not schedule any more system deployments “until VA is confident that the new [record system] is highly functioning at current sites and ready to deliver for veterans and VA clinicians.”

Getting military and veterans health records onto the same system has been a goal of federal administrators for decades. The Pentagon had some issues implementing the Oracle Cerner software but not as many setbacks as the VA.

The new agreement — five one-year contracts, to allow annual performance reviews of Oracle Cerner’s work — includes new accountability measures such as financial penalties for system down time and regular reporting of software shortfalls.

In a joint statement, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., and Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who leads the committee’s technology panel, said they remain skeptical that the new agreement will produce better results.

“The main questions we have about what will be different going forward remain unanswered,” they said. “This shorter-term contract is an encouraging first step, but veterans and taxpayers need more than a wink and a nod that the project will improve.”

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester was more optimistic following the news but added that “this is just the start of what’s needed to get this program working in a way deserving of our veterans and taxpayers.”

Oracle Cerner officials told House lawmakers during a May 9 hearing that they support the pause in rollouts and are committed to fixing the system problems in coming years. With the contract negotiations complete, that work will begin again at the five sites currently using the new records system.

The move comes just a few weeks after GOP leaders were hammered by Democrats and veterans advocates (including Disabled American Veterans and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America) for not including protections for veterans funding, in separate legislation calling for deep cuts in federal spending. The latest move is likely to elevate that political fight again, and cement the veterans budget at the center of partisan fiscal fights on Capitol Hill for months to come.

The appropriations plan — set to be voted on by the Republican controlled House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday — is roughly the same level for veterans benefits and programming that as President Joe Biden requested in his budget plan earlier this year. It would be an increase of almost 6% over current fiscal year funding levels.

Republicans said the plan “honors the country’s commitment to veterans” while also bringing more fiscal responsibility to the department.

But Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and chairwoman of the appropriations committee’s panel on veterans issues, called the plan “a disappointing, deceptive, and potentially devastating bill for our veterans” that “plays right into Republicans’ larger plan to slash government funding.”

Veteran’s benefits take center stage in partisan budget showdown

At issue is the Toxic Exposures Fund, created as part of the sweeping Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act (or PACT Act) last summer. The fund assigns mandatory federal funding to cover the costs of benefits for veterans suffering illnesses from military toxins from things like burn pit smoke and chemical exposure.

Because the fund is mandatory, lawmakers cannot adjust the money in the same way they do for discretionary funds. Veterans groups who lobbied for that said the protection is needed to ensure that veterans benefits aren’t shortchanged by future political fights.

But Republican leaders have said the move creates a host of cost-projection problems for other veterans bills, and unnecessarily runs up VA spending. They also said that the administration has tried to force unrelated spending into the account. Under their appropriations plan, nearly three-fourths of the money for the fund — nearly $15 billion — would be shifted to discretionary funding, where the total can be adjusted annually.

“Veteran victims of burn pits and other toxic exposure were made a promise under the PACT Act — that their care and benefits would be guaranteed,” said retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, senior advisor to VoteVets, said in a statement after the appropriations plan release. “The Republicans in Congress are now proposing we toss that guarantee in the garbage and put funding at risk on an annual basis.”

The appropriations move is likely to have support in the Republican-controlled House but not the Democratic-controlled Senate. A House plan passed last month to limit non-defense federal spending next fiscal year similarly lacks support in the upper chamber of Congress.

That broader spending plan — locking in funding levels at fiscal 2022 levels — drew criticism from Democrats who said the move could threaten veterans programming because the proposed spending cuts were not specified.

By introducing a VA spending bill at roughly the same levels as the president’s request, Republicans muted much of that political attack, although the changes in Toxic Exposure Fund open up a new series of criticisms.

“House Republicans have repeatedly vowed that there will be no cuts to the care and benefits our veterans deserve, and [this] bill delivers on that promise,” House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Kay Granger, R-Texas, said in a statement.

The VA budget plan is the first of a dozen appropriations bills expected to be introduced by the House committee in coming weeks. Most of the rest have been delayed by ongoing negotiations among congressional leaders and the White House over raising the country’s debt ceiling, work that needs to be addressed in the next few weeks.

Military paychecks could be delayed or stopped altogether. Veterans benefits checks would similarly be delivered erratically. Equipment purchases could be canceled. Contractors and civilian workers could face the choice of furloughs or working without any guarantee of stable pay.

“Unlike the government shutdowns of the past, there is no scripted playbook for how this all goes,” said Rachel Snyderman, senior associate director of economic policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center. “We have never been in such a scenario before. But we know whatever happens, it could quickly become very chaotic.”

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden was scheduled to meet with senior congressional officials in the latest attempt to broker a deal raising the country’s debt ceiling. The Treasury is expected to reach the current limit sometime around June 1 absent congressional action to raise it.

Without a solution, the country could for the first time in history default on its debts, creating a cascade of financial problems across the economy.

Defense Department leaders have already warned those financial complications would have severe consequences for the military and other federal agencies.

At a Senate hearing on May 2, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said a spike in U.S. interest rates would have an “absolutely devastating impact” because of skyrocketing interest rates, which he noted are “already roughly at the level of the defense budget.” Just a few days later, at a separate Senate event, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that defaulting on the U.S. debt would result in “a substantial risk to our reputation” with allies and security partners across the globe amid questions “as to whether or not we will be able to execute programs.”

But a debt default will also have tangible effects on troops, veterans and their families, even if the timing of that impact is not clear.

“Because there is no precedent for a default, it is difficult to know the precise impacts on specific federal programs,” Veterans Affairs press secretary Terrence Hayes said in a statement.

“But what is clear is that, without the ability for the federal government to borrow funds, there is a very real potential that any government program or payment would be halted or severely delayed.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Defense Department has about $12 billion in payments to military and civilian retirees due on June 1.

Roughly $7 billion is owed to defense vendors between June 5 and June 17. Another $4 billion in military salary checks are set to be sent out on June 15. Snyderman said if the debt limit is not raised, that schedule of payouts gets thrown into disarray.

“The Treasury could prioritize some payments over others, but they also may just have to wait for other money to come in,” she said. “Now this becomes a cash flow crisis for the country.”

Austin in his Senate testimony warned that “we won’t, in some cases, be able to pay our troops with any degree of predictability.” That means money families need for rent, groceries and other basic expenses could be delayed.

Similarly, about $25 billion in veterans benefits set to be paid out in June could be delayed by days or weeks, causing problems for millions of families that depend on that support for their monthly income.

If Treasury officials prioritize those payments, veterans and service members might not see any disruptions. But that would mean delays to other government payouts instead, things like Medicare support, non-defense federal salaries and interest payments on the national debt (failing to pay that would downgrade the country’s credit rating, creating even more debt).

Todd Harrison, the managing director of the national security consulting firm Metrea Strategic Insights, noted that payment delays would also affect defense contractors.

“They could continue to do work and [the Defense Department] could continue to award contracts and obligate money, but the payment of invoices would be delayed,” said Harrison. “The administration could elect to stop all new contract awards and obligations during this period, but that would make the impact even worse,” while possibly violating the law.

“If they were to halt all new contract obligations, that would have a significant and immediate impact on [Defense Department] programs and activities,” he added.

The damage only gets worse if the crisis drags on well into the summer. Another $14 billion in defense vendor payouts are due before July 15, when another $3 billion in military paychecks and bonuses are scheduled to be paid out.

Failing to pay contractors could result in a host of lawsuits and long-term delays to procurement programs. Hayes said officials worry that vendors could “decide to reduce or completely cease providing goods and services to VA if payment was uncertain.”

Failing to pay troops — and requiring them to keep working anyway — could become a political nightmare for both parties.

Lawmakers in the past have passed legislation to blunt the impact of government shutdowns on military and veterans families, ensuring that some Department of Veterans Affairs appropriations are awarded a year in advance and ensuring that military members receive pay even during an appropriations lapse.

Those protections don’t exist if the money to cut checks isn’t there for the country.

Harrison noted that the Treasury could “continue borrowing and paying bills as usual” if Biden opts to invoke a clause in the 14th amendment. But doing so would likely mean court challenges and other complications, Biden said in a press conference earlier this month.

In March, Virginia Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine introduced legislation that would have enabled all government employees and contractors to postpone paying any bills during a shutdown or debt default. The proposal has not moved forward in recent weeks.

Defense leaders said the real legislative solution is simply passing a measure to increase the debt limit, as lawmakers have done 13 times since 2009.

Earlier this month, after another meeting with congressional leaders, Biden said that he was “absolutely certain” a deal could be reached and that default “is not an option.” But in the days since, no real path ahead on the issue has emerged.

The findings are the latest confirmation of the lifelong, devastating effects of the toxic water at the site from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. It also potentially adds new fodder to dozens of civil lawsuits pending against the government for the hazardous conditions there, which may have harmed more than 1 million individuals stationed at the North Carolina base.

Researchers found that about one in every 370 troops reviewed for the study showed signs of the disease, a brain disorder that causes uncontrollable movements of the limbs and body. That is significantly above control groups of veterans examined.

Military families devastated by Camp Lejeune water toxins

The study did not specifically look at spouses and children living at the base, but researchers concluded that the findings “suggest that the risk of Parkinson’s disease is higher in persons exposed to trichloroethylene and other volatile organic compounds in the water.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those chemicals leached into water supplies at the base from an off-site dry cleaning firm in the area. Leaks from underground storage tanks and industrial site pollution also contributed to the contamination, according to the National Research Council. Military officials did not discover the toxic water quality until 1982, almost 30 years after the contamination began.

The Department of Veterans Affairs already has Parkinson’s disease listed as one of multiple presumptive conditions related to service at the site. For veterans who served at Camp Lejeune for at least 30 days and developed the illness, it is presumed the disease originated there. They do not have to prove a military connection when applying for disability compensation.

However, those benefits do not extend to family members. Last year, as part of the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, lawmakers for the first time allowed those individuals (and veterans who believe they are entitled to additional payouts) to sue the government “for harm caused by exposure to the contaminated water.”

Those lawsuits are still pending in federal courts. Lawmakers have expressed concerns about the number of lawyers advertising quick resolutions on the issue, and they are discussing possible limits to attorney’s fees and commissions related to any Camp Lejeune legal decisions.

Individuals with questions related to VA benefits tied to Camp Lejeune water contamination can visit the department’s web site. The JAMA study is available at the publication’s web site.

House Armed Services Committee members were supposed to begin public work on their initial draft of the annual defense authorization bill last week, but Republican leaders halted those plans until sometime next month. Senate lawmakers similarly have pushed back the defense policy work until mid-June, after they see what political deals are made in the next few weeks.

The Congressional Budget Office on Friday warned that the federal government is likely to run out of borrowing authority in early June. White House officials have warned that triggering a national credit default will cause a host of problems for agencies, including potentially delaying pay for troops and civilian workers.

President Joe Biden was scheduled to meet with House and Senate leaders on the issue on Friday, but the meeting was scrapped as staff members continued behind-the-scenes negotiations. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has said if a deal isn’t in place in the next two weeks, lawmakers won’t have enough time to avoid potential problems.

Tuesday, May 16

Wednesday, May 17

Thursday, May 18

“I quickly realized I had no interest working in the IT field,” he said.

With his career plans in flux, Holliday opened a CrossFit gym and sold it after five years. While wondering what would come next, his mother asked him to work at a music festival as a bartender, an opportunity to make a little side cash.

Upon hearing about Holliday’s background in the Marine Corps, where Holliday served two combat tours in Iraq before leaving the military in 2009, the festival manager wanted to pick Holliday’s brain about — of all things — security. But of the boots-on-the-ground event kind.

“The owner of the property came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you’re a Marine, can you help us with this security plan?’” Holliday said. “I love looking at battlefields and how am I gonna plan out an operation. And I drove through the property kind of like a post-battle analysis, essentially, of this event space. And I realized there were some major flaws, and let the guy know there are some things you could do pretty quickly to drastically improve the experience of your guests.”

Apparently the owner was impressed with what he heard.

“He was like, dude, you’re the guy you’re in charge now,” Holliday said. “I’ll pay you X dollars to go ahead and run this. And I’m like, oh, crap, OK.”

Holliday called about 15 friends who he served with who still lived in the Washington, D.C., area to help with the job. The event led to a side gig for Holliday and his crew, who continued doing similar events for about four years before they realized this could be more.

“For three or four years we were developing the platform and didn’t realize what it was, a passion project,” he said.

Hence, the humble beginnings of Battle Tested Security, a veteran-owned and operated company that was created because the founder and CEO accepted a bartending opportunity to make a few extra bucks.

The company became Holliday’s full-time commitment in 2019 and was starting to ramp up operations early in 2020 when the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As businesses and schools closed, the event business dried up, but Holliday was determined to do whatever he could to keep the doors open.

“We hired close to 100 veterans in a six-month window before COVID happened,” Holliday said. That total dwindled to just two full-time employees as the world stayed home and the future of the company was in limbo.

But due to the government funding, Holliday obtained small-business grants to keep his fledgling business going. And as the world started to reopen, opportunities started to follow.

“We started to get phone calls asking if we were still around, because groups were trying to do socially distanced events,” he said. “We went around the country setting up drive-in music festivals. We did a concept where we booked 300 rooms facing the ocean in South Carolina and placed two stages in a courtyard. People watched from their rooms. It gave us enough cash to keep the machine alive.”

Today, Battle Tested Security is alive and thriving. Holliday has hired more than 2,000 veterans to work security events, with a full-time staff of about 60 veterans. His list of clients includes familiar brands, like LiveNation, NASCAR, the NFL and Bonnaroo.

The company has earned high marks in the industry for training and customer service, as Holliday strives to ensure that his employees are approachable and friendly, not intimidating to event attendees.

Battle Tested Security works with organizations like the USO, the Army Reserve and other non-profit organizations to recruit employees. Rob Cox, a retired Army veteran who is veteran outreach and recruiting director, said many of the company’s employees desire the camaraderie they experienced while part of the military.

“I don’t use the word recruiter for myself here because I’m not a recruiter,” he said. “I’m just here to offer the help, the awareness and the information that if you’re a homeless veteran, if you’re down on your luck or something like that and you need a hand or you need other veterans to talk to other veterans to help out, we probably are in your area. And there’s either a few jobs you can do or you know. We have some people you can come hang out with who can help.”

With a National Guard aircraft behind him, the former U.S. Army captain and paratrooper signed the bills in a hangar at Martin State Airport, which is home to the Maryland Air National Guard, in Middle River, Maryland.

“We need to make sure that ‘thank you for your service’ is more than just a quote, or something that we always put at the end of a sentence. We need to support our military community,” Moore said, adding that veterans will have second and third careers. “These are people who will start businesses. These are people who will buy homes.”

Moore, a Democrat, prioritized the tax relief measure for military retirees called the Keep Our Heroes Home Act, because it’s designed as an incentive for veterans to stay in Maryland, instead of moving to another state with more favorable tax conditions.

The law will exempt up to $20,000 of military retirement income for Maryland residents who are 55 and older. It will exempt up to $12,500 for retirees who are younger than 55. That’s an increase in exempted income the state currently allows: $15,000 for 55 and over and $5,000 for those under 55.

The state estimates that about 33,000 military retirees will be eligible to subtract additional retirement income as a result of the new law. It takes effect July 1 and applies to tax year 2023 and beyond.

The governor initially proposed higher exemptions, but the measure was scaled back by the General Assembly. Moore proposed exempting up to $40,000 for all veterans.

Moore also signed into law a program that will reimburse the state’s National Guard members up to $60 a month for health care and dental plans. The Health Care for Heroes Act takes effect July 1.

Another bill signed by the governor will require the Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs to bury an eligible spouse or dependent, including a child or parent, of a veteran in a state veterans cemetery without charge.

The governor also signed into law a bill that creates a checkoff on income tax returns for the Maryland Veterans Trust Fund, which provides grants or loans to veterans and their families.

The state also will study on expediting the state licensing process for service members, veterans and military spouses, under a bill signed into law by Moore.

Moore also signed a bill that will require a child on the registry for the Waiver for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder to remain on the registry, if the child’s family moves out of the state for military service.

Daniel Penny, 24, was freed pending trial hours after turning himself in at a police station and appearing in court to answer criminal charges in the May 1 death of Jordan Neely, a former subway performer with a history of mental illness. Penny did not enter a plea.

Neely’s death prompted protests, while others embraced Penny as a vigilante hero. His lawyers have said he was acting in self-defense. Lawyers for Neely’s family said Neely wasn’t harming anyone and didn’t deserve to die. An autopsy ruled Neely’s death a homicide due to compression of the neck.

“Jordan Neely should still be alive today,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.

A judge authorized Penny’s release on $100,000 bond and ordered him to surrender his passport and not to leave New York without approval. Prosecutors said they are seeking a grand jury indictment. Penny is due back in court on July 17.

Penny didn’t speak to reporters. At a brief arraignment, Penny faced straight ahead, his hands cuffed. He spoke softly, offering one-word answers to Judge Kevin McGrath as his lawyer, Steve Raiser, placed an arm around his shoulder. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said Neely had been making threats and “scaring passengers” when Penny approached him from behind and placed him in a chokehold. Penny “continued to hold Mr. Neely in the chokehold for several minutes,” even after he stopped moving, Steinglass said.

A freelance journalist who recorded Neely struggling to free himself, then lapsing into unconsciousness, said he had been shouting at passengers and begging for money aboard the train but had not gotten physical with anyone. Penny pinned Neely to the floor of the subway car with the help of two other passengers and held him in a chokehold.

Neely’s death has raised an uproar over many issues, including how the city treats people with mental illness, as well as crime, race and vigilantism. Police questioned Penny, who is white, in the aftermath but released him without charges. Neely was Black.

Thomas Kenniff, a lawyer for Penny, said he didn’t mean to harm Neely and is dealing with the situation with the “integrity and honor that is characteristic of who he is and characteristic of his honorable service in the United States Marine Corps.”

Donte Mills, a lawyer for Neely’s family, disputed Penny’s version of events, saying the veteran “acted with indifference. He didn’t care about Jordan, he cared about himself. And we can’t let that stand.”

“Mr. Neely did not attack anyone.” Mills said at a news conference Friday. “He did not touch anyone. He did not hit anyone. But he was choked to death.”

Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, wept as another family lawyer, Lennon Edwards, recounted the last moments before Penny tackled Neely to the ground and put him in a chokehold.

“What did he think would happen?” Mills asked.

Neely, remembered by some commuters for his Michael Jackson impersonations, had been dealing with homelessness and mental illness in recent years, friends said. Neely had been arrested multiple times and had recently pleaded guilty for assaulting a 67-year-old woman leaving a subway station in 2021.

Mills said Neely’s outlook changed after his mother was killed by her boyfriend in 2007. Through his struggles, Mills said, Neely found joy in singing, dancing and bringing a smile to other people’s faces.

“No one on that train asked Jordan: ‘What’s wrong, how can I help you?’” Mills said, urging New Yorkers in a similar situation: “Don’t attack. Don’t choke. Don’t kill. Don’t take someone’s life. Don’t take someone’s loved one from them because they’re in a bad place.”

Roger Abrams, a community health representative, said he saw Neely on the subway a week before his death. Neely was disheveled and told people he was hungry and in need of spare change. Abrams said he approached Neely and asked him why he no longer performs.

“I haven’t been feeling well,” Abrams remembered Neely saying.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office waited to file charges in part because prosecutors wanted to learn more about what happened aboard the train in the moments before Penny moved to restrain Neely. The delay helped fuel protests in the city. Some people climbed down to subway tracks, disrupting service and leading to arrests.

Mayor Eric Adams said Wednesday that Neely’s death shouldn’t have happened.

A second-degree manslaughter conviction in New York requires a jury to find that a person engaged in reckless conduct that created an unjustifiable risk of death, consciously disregarded that risk and acted in a way that grossly deviated from how a reasonable person would act in a similar situation.

Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

By 2024, two organizations hope to have addressed these two issues simultaneously.

The Warrior Alliance, an organization with a mission to help connect transitioning veterans and active-duty service members to a network of employees nationwide, is teaming up with the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) to move military veterans into careers in the golf course maintenance industry.

Both organizations have started work on a nine-week skills development program focused on job opportunities in the golf industry. According to a GCSAA press release, the program will be formed through the Warrior Alliance’s Operation Double Eagle program, and take place in Augusta, Ga.

The golf maintenance program plans to go live in 2024 and include golf-related classroom, online, hands-on and apprenticeship experiences for its participants, according to GCSAA’s CEO, Kevin Sunderman.

The golf industry has all types of roles available, Sunderman said, from the most entry-level positions involving operation of basic equipment to more technical and supervisory positions.

“You could have that entry-level position, but then we have technician positions that specialize in irrigation or they specialize in fertilizer or chemical application, or they specialize in equipment maintenance,” Sunderman said. “We have various levels of technicians in that field. And we go from there up into supervisory roles, whether it’s foreman positions that lead crews, or assistant superintendents or even golf course superintendents. We feel like the men and women that come through this program have the opportunity to climb that ladder to whatever rung feels most appropriate.”

The program’s goal is to reduce the labor shortage in an industry that surged in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to slow down, as courses across the country report dramatic increases in rounds played since the shutdowns of 2020.

“Just like every industry and every part of the country, labor is a challenge,” Sunderman said. “Especially when you’re looking for skilled labor and who wants to show up for work early in the morning, work diligently through the elements, bring attention to detail, and bring a desire to do things right.”

Sunderman speaks from experience. Before rising to his current position, he was a course superintendent in the Tampa area, where he had success hiring veterans for both full-time and part-time work.

“One of the reasons why veterans are a good fit has a lot to do with their (military) training, their attention to detail,” Sunderman said. “They’re procedure-oriented, and that naturally makes them a good fit in this industry.”

“We are proud of our Operation Double Eagle program’s success in providing skills development and new careers for individuals who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces,” said Scott Johnson, president/CEO of The Warrior Alliance. “The partnership with GSCAA will enhance the training and expand the labor resource pool beyond veterans to address rising labor shortages.”

Veterans who are interested in the program can contact the GCSAA or the Warrior Alliance for more information.

Numerous documentaries have ventured to convey the seemingly insurmountable odds confronted by ground, air and naval forces, and the immense sacrifices that resulted.

As such, we compiled a list of five comprehensive World World II documentaries that best tell these harrowing stories.

World War II in HD

Released by the History Channel in 2009, this 10-episode series narrated by Gary Sinise (”Forrest Gump”) uses stunning footage from both the European and Pacific fronts, much of which was shot in color, to illustrate the horrors and triumphs of war.

The producers sourced first-hand stories from journalists, medics and soldiers, and used voice overs by professional actors to bring them to life.

Inside World War II

Released in 2012, this three-part documentary from National Geographic features personal stories of World War II from troops who lived it. According to its synopsis, the series “takes an intimate look at personal wartime experiences from the perspective of a wide array of veterans and citizens who endured ... bloody conflicts day by day, hour by hour, and second by second.”

Episodes feature both black-and-white and color footage that move chronologically though the war’s defining moments.

The World at War

Released in 1973, this 26-part, British-produced series is one of the most comprehensive World War II documentaries ever made.

Narrated by Oscar-winner Laurence Olivier, the series focuses on 15 of the war’s most significant military campaigns as well as the conflict’s profound impact on the individuals enduring its horrors.

Producer Jeremy Isaacs told The Guardian, “I wanted to hear not just the voices of people who dropped the bombs, but also those they targeted.”

World War II: The Last Heroes

This six-part series, which focuses on the ordinary boys who became heroes, begins with D-Day and ends at the war’s conclusion. The crux of this particular documentary is a story of war as told by its foot soldiers — rather than through a lens of historians or high-ranking decision makers.

The series is currently available to view on Amazon Prime.

World War 2: The Complete History

“The Complete History” is a slightly older series designed to appeal to the well-versed history and military buffs interested in oft overlooked details of the conflict.

Produced in 2000 and narrated by Peter Dickson (”Britain’s Got Talent”), the documentary begins with pre-WWII discussions surrounding the Treaty of Versailles and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and concludes with the Nuremberg trials and the Cold War.

Apocalypse: The Second World War

This six-part French documentary is perhaps one of the best international films on the conflict. U.S. viewers, meanwhile, can enjoy a National Geographic-treated version narrated by Martin Sheen. The series can be easily digested by a WWII novice wanting to understand the high points of the war.

The documentary comprises footage — shot by regular citizens, journalists, and troops on the ground — that has been colorized and digitally remastered.

An op-ed from three House Democrats that ran in Military Times claims that the Limit, Save, Grow Act would slash $30 billion from veterans spending. It seems their math came from applying the rough percentage of the budget cuts the GOP believes is fiscally responsible – lopping about 22% off a bloated federal budget proposed by the Biden administration – and they are claiming that means the GOP is pushing to cut 22% of funding to veterans.

Republicans believe there’s plenty of overspending in the budget, but have vowed to keep defense and veterans spending adequately funded. Regardless of our veteran status – one of us is a veteran and one of us is not – our commitment to the men and women who have served will never waver.

Our Democratic counterparts are misrepresenting that, fear-mongering to make up for their lack of viable solutions to our soaring national debt. By outrageously accusing House Republicans of cutting funding for veterans, they have proven they are willing to play dangerous political games at the risk of a U.S. default on our debts.

The VA’s budget has increased from $50 billion in 2002 to more than $300 billion in 2023. That’s 500 percent over the past two decades. This suggests the problem is not one of funding but rather one of administration. The GOP has always prioritized veterans in budget negotiations – but this administration, especially the VA Secretary, seems to be laser-focused on the bureaucracy rather than the veterans it serves. This needs to change.

Instead of debating how much funding the VA gets, we need to discuss how the VA is spending its funding and whether or not those funds are actually helping veterans.

House Republicans passed a debt ceiling solution that puts spending at the FY22 level, which both President Biden and then-Speaker Pelosi signed off on, that was in place just four months ago – all while protecting the VA. Those who are spreading lies about Republicans’ solution now are the same people who claimed that inflation would be transitory, there is no crisis at our southern border, their botched Afghanistan withdrawal was a success, and China’s invasion of our airspace was just a weather balloon.

Veterans are not political pawns, and under our Republican leadership, they never will be. Their healthcare will never be compromised, and if anything, we will work to improve its delivery by expanding access to it. Veterans’ earned benefits will never be scrutinized – if anything, we will work to modernize the systems and processes by which they obtain them. House Republicans are building a modern VA that works for today’s veteran community, not defunding it. We hope Democrats and the VA Secretary will join us in that effort.

It’s time for Joe Biden to put his money where his mouth is and negotiate with Speaker McCarthy in good faith. No more lies and political games. The success of our country now and for generations to come depends on it. Republicans have always prioritized veterans in their budget negotiations, and this negotiation is no different, as long as President Biden holds up his end of the deal.

Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., is a Marine Corps veteran and serves as the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., serves as the Majority Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“He is not a veteran,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder flatly stated to reporters at a department press conference. “According to federal regulations, this individual, in terms of the time of service, would not qualify as a veteran.”

The term was used in several news reports (including Military Times) to describe Garcia, who was killed by police responding to the deadly attack. The confusion over exactly who can call themselves a veteran underscores the varying definitions used by the public, federal and local government officials and even within the military and veterans community, whose numbers have dwindled steadily over the last three decades.

FBI probes how failed soldier turned Texas mall shooter

When it comes to issues of veterans benefits and services, the rules are straightforward. Federal code classifies a veteran as “a person who served in the active military, naval, air, or space service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.”

VA officials said that most individuals must serve two years on active-duty to qualify for things like veterans home loans and education benefits, although some troops injured early in their military careers or even in basic training can qualify for assistance.

Garcia didn’t fall into either of those categories. According to Army officials, he was dismissed from the service before completing his training because of an “uncharacterized” mental health condition. That discharge is not the same as an injury separation.

Service officials have not released details of Garcia’s dismissal. Since the shooting, outside groups have identified racist online postings by the 33-year-old as a possible motivation for his attack. It is not known if he held those views during his brief military stint.

Rules regarding local veterans benefits vary from state to state, and usually cover things like lower local tax rates and waived fees for state services. Those differences do not impact veterans’ federal eligibility.

Veterans who qualify for benefits can also have their federal payouts reduced or revoked if they are convicted of a felony, although VA officials still categorize imprisoned individuals with military experience as “veterans.”

The question of who the public sees as a veteran is trickier. For years, veterans groups have pushed forward messaging emphasizing that individuals who never saw combat or did not spend time in hazardous overseas locations still should be honored for their service and sacrifices.

They’ve also advocated for (and successfully moved along) legislation to better clarify what benefits reservists and National Guard troops qualify for, and to recognize them as veterans in good-standing.

But those efforts almost always focus on individuals who spend some time in active-duty service, not simply in military training.

“There has to be some element of actual service, and that wasn’t there with [Garcia],” said Patrick Murray, director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ National Legislative Service. “Just because you got on a bus with the intent to serve doesn’t mean you became a veteran.”

VA secretary calls Texas shooter a criminal, not a veteran

In 2017, the issue of defining who counts as a veteran made similar headlines when then Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said another mass-murderer with prior Air Force service did not “deserve to have the same title as the men and women who served this country honorably.”

In that case, the shooter — Devin Patrick Kelley, who served four years before a court martial and bad conduct discharge for domestic violence — killed 26 people at a church in an attack that appeared connected to the same domestic violence issues. Kelly was found dead a few miles away from the scene.

VA officials have made several outreach efforts to individuals with other-than-honorable discharges — including expanded mental health care options — in an effort to ensure all military service is properly recognized. But Murray said that doesn’t mean that anyone with any connection to the military gets to claim veteran status.

“If you were drummed out of the service for wrongdoing or before you even really served, that’s not a veteran,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

The cut troubled Murdock, but perhaps not as much as the lack of explanation from the Navy or the Defense Finance Accounting Service, which processes military and retiree pay based on information provided by the services.

“That’s not okay,” she told Navy Times. “You don’t get to lower my pay and eventually tell me why.”

Murdock, who retired in July 2022, nosed around DFAS’s self-help sections to try and figure it out early last month.

Eventually, she found her answer: The Navy had incorrectly calculated her service time and sent the wrong information to DFAS, resulting in the abrupt pay cut she now faces.

Murdock isn’t alone. Navy officials confirmed that “a software issue” resulted in incorrect service time calculations for 1,283 Navy retirees, errors that span from August 2019 to this past February.

Navy Personnel Command spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Rick Chernitzer attributed the retiree pay error to “a software issue” that has since been fixed.

“There have been no more reported issues with the data since that time,” he said.

Officials said the issue popped up on the Navy’s radar in November, when a retiree reported an overpayment.

“The Navy provided preliminary notification of an error and (DFAS) is also contacting those affected retirees and members of the Fleet Reserve, notifying them of the overpayment and corrective measures underway to correct their retirement or retainer pay,” Chernitzer said in an email to Navy Times.

As of Monday, a month after her initial shock at the decrease, Murdock said she had not been contacted by DFAS.

Officials said affected retirees can learn more about debt waiver options by going to this link.

At this point, after receiving two Navy letters but zero information as to what happened, how much she might owe or how she can dispute an error that is not her fault, Murdock said she has lost trust in the Navy.

The software issue at blame fell within the Navy’s Standard Integrated Personnel Systems, or NSIPS.

NSIPS is also to blame for the Navy prematurely awarding four years of service credit to 160 Navy doctors and dentists, a mistake that allowed 95 of those members to retire after just 16 years of service instead of the required 20 years.

Inside the Navy’s pay and personnel crisis

That issue stemmed from NSIPS incorrectly tabulating the four years of military-provided medical school in those officers’ time in service.

As a result of that “data migration error,” the other 65 medical officers saw their retirements pushed back several years because the four years of medical school does not count toward the 20 years required for retirement, even though those officers will be credited with 24 years in service when they get out, according to Chernitzer.

While both errors are attributed to NSIPS, Chernitzer said the retiree pay issue being suffered by Murdock, and the issue that led to the Navy medical officers seeing their service time incorrectly tabulated, are not connected.

NBC first reported the medical officer issue last week.

Officials did not answer questions by deadline Monday regarding why NSIPS is causing such disruptions.

But Chernitzer said last week that the NSIPS issues do not fall under the Navy’s so-called “HR Transformation” program, a sprawling, years-long, $1.6 billion effort to modernize Navy pay and administrative records that have disrupted pay and entitlements for thousands of sailors in recent years.

Fixing disability and retirement pay is Congress’ next big vets issue

Either way, the NSIPS missteps suggest further struggles as the sea service works to modernize pay and personnel systems.

News of the retiree pay snafu follows reports last week that Army Human Resources Command errors led to at least 190 active duty pilots voluntarily resigning years ahead of schedule because of missteps in how the command tracked and applied their commitments.

A matter of trust

The retiree pay cut is just the latest Navy-related pay and personnel issue to afflict Murdock.

Like thousands of other sailors, she faced long delays getting her DD-214 discharge paperwork last summer, a problem exacerbated by HR Transformation.

“I just don’t believe that the Navy isn’t going to keep doing this,” she said of the litany of problems inflicted on her and others from above. “They haven’t shown me they can be trusted with my career record, my pay or my retirement.”

Murdock also said the retiree pay adjustment has upended her carefully calibrated retirement plans.

Moreover, such problems leave retirees like Murdock in the lurch and unclear of what their options are going forward.

A former Navy public affairs officer, Murdock said she tried calling DFAS early last month and was told, “We’re getting a lot of calls from (Navy retirees) and we don’t know why.”

She acknowledges that she had an unorthodox career path to calculate, which involved four years in the Marine Corps, then time as a Navy Reservist and then full-time active duty status.

But Murdock said she worked hard to make sure her record was squared away and described the pay problem as “typical military.”

Veterans, retirees get 8.7% Social Security cost-of-living boost

She doesn’t think she should have to pay for the Navy’s mistake, but she expects to be told she will have to pay back the overpayment, potentially with interest.

“It’s ridiculous that they could be so inept and then so callous on top of that,” Murdock said. “Like, you should pay for our mistake.”

Murdock said she worries about more junior personnel having to deal with such indebtedness as well and “is resigned to the fact that I’ll probably be fighting the Navy for the next six months, minimum, to unscrew these issues.”

She wants a deep audit of how her active duty and reserve service is calculated but doesn’t trust the Navy to get it right.

In fact, she doesn’t even know where to start on that front, she said.

“I don’t believe (Navy Personnel Command) has anybody who can actually do this correctly, and I will never trust that this isn’t going to happen again,” she said.

Officials from the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday that the veterans unemployment rate fell to 2.1% in April, the lowest mark since the start of 2000, when the agency began tracking monthly unemployment for the group.

Four of the five lowest monthly veterans unemployment rates recorded in the last 23 years have come since early 2022. The veterans jobless rate has been at least 1% lower than the national rate each of the last three months. The country’s unemployment estimate for April was 3.4%.

“It’s hard to see this as anything but great news,” said Jeff Wenger, senior economist for the RAND Corporation. “Unemployment is falling for all groups in America, but it’s falling even faster for veterans. The country really focused on this for years, and now we’re winning.”

That focus has included years of improvements to the military’s transition programs, boosted funding for Veterans Affairs’ job assistance efforts, and a concentrated drumbeat from congressional lawmakers about the value of hiring veterans.

Three years ago, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in America, more than 1 million veterans in the United States were collecting unemployment benefits. Last month, that number was about 184,000 individuals.

How companies seek out veterans for employment

“In a lot of ways, we’ve seen a full reversal of the ‘broken veteran’ narrative,” Wenger said. “Today, instead of seeing veterans as not employable, we’re seeing companies really seek them out.”

But in a twist, Congress’ current fight over the country’s debt ceiling may threaten that positive veterans employment news. Last month, analysts from the Brookings Institution warned that even with a short-term default “the economy is likely to suffer sustained — and completely avoidable — damage.”

A politically-based recession brought on by the effects of a national credit default could hit industries with high populations of veteran employees.

“When we’ve seen the technology sector layoffs in recent months, that’s an industry that doesn’t really have as many veterans, so the effects have been minimal,” said Rosalinda Maury, director of applied research at the Institute of Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University.

“But industries like leisure, hospitality and retail, those are ones that could really hurt veterans if there are economic issues during the summer.”

Support services for homeless veterans set to expire

Cutbacks to transportation jobs brought on by slower corporate growth or cutbacks would also significantly impact veterans. About one in every 13 working veterans in America today has a job in that industry. For non-veterans, it’s about one in every 20 workers.

However, Maury said the biggest potential impact would be if a debt ceiling default caused issues with federal and state government hiring, or forced furloughs of those workers. Nearly one-fourth of all veterans have jobs in federal or local government posts, well above the 13% rate for non-veterans.

Wenger said if such a situation arises, the government jobs issues are likely to be only a temporary problem, unless the political showdown drags on for months. In that case, veterans unemployment is likely to increase as national unemployment rates also rise.

“It’s hard to be too doom and gloom right now on veterans employment,” he said. “But we have to see what happens next.”

Congressional leaders are scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden on Tuesday to discuss solutions for the debt ceiling impasse. The May unemployment numbers for veterans are due out on June 2, around the same date that Federal Reserve officials have warned the country may hit the debt limit and start seeing economic side effects.

The defense policy bill is one of the few reliable pieces of legislation to advance through Congress annually, passing into law for more than six consecutive decades. It sets the parameters for military spending priorities, renews a host of pay and benefits authorizations, and includes hundreds of new program parameters and personnel rules.

The six sections of the bill to be released (and likely approved by subcommittees) this week will show just a few sections of the full measure to be marked up by the full committee later this month. But issues like scaling back diversity initiatives in military training and limits on defense abortion policies — topics expected to be major debate points this year — could be previewed in those early looks.

Both the House committee and its Senate counterpart are hoping to get their respective drafts of the legislation onto their respective chamber floors in June. But the ongoing fight between Republicans and Democrats over extending the nation’s debt ceiling could push that schedule back.

Tuesday, May 9

Wednesday, May 10

Thursday, May 11

Friday, May 12

Daniel J. Penny, 24, has not been charged with a crime in the death of Jordan Neely, a Michael Jackson impersonator who regularly danced in the Times Square transit hub and was homeless.

On Monday afternoon, Neely was yelling and pacing back and forth on an F train in Manhattan, witnesses and police said.

He was then was restrained by at least three people, including the Marine veteran, who pulled one arm tightly around his neck.

Neely, who is Black, lost consciousness during the struggle. EMTs and police arrived after the train stopped at a station. He was pronounced dead at a Manhattan hospital shortly after.

Penny, who appeared to be white, was taken into custody Monday and released without charges.

The incident has divided New Yorkers, with many viewing the death as an unconscionable vigilante killing that also reflects the city’s inadequate support of those with mental illnesses, as The New York Times reported.

Others, including Mayor Eric Adams, have urged the public to wait to pass judgment until an official investigation has been completed.

Penny’s lawyers said in a statement Friday that their client, whom they said was a college student, acted in self-defense.

The city’s medical examiner’s office classified Neely’s death as a homicide and the manner as a chokehold, but noted that any determination about criminal culpability would be left to the legal system.

Penny served in the Marine Corps from 2017–2021 as an infantryman, according to Marine spokesman Maj. Jim Stenger. While Penny was in the Individual Ready Reserve, he was promoted to sergeant.

He deployed to the Mediterranean with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit from December 2018 to July 2019, Stenger told Marine Corps Times on Friday.

Penny was last assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, an infantry unit that falls under 2nd Marine Division, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

His military awards include the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal and Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, twice, according to Stenger.

“We are aware of the incident and will cooperate with the agencies investigating this incident if asked,” Stenger said in a statement to Marine Corps Times.

“To be clear: the Marine Corps is not confirming any detail of any video you may have seen nor are we confirming any individual was involved.”

Video of the altercation posted online by a freelance journalist showed Penny lying beneath Neely, holding him in a headlock position for several minutes as Neely tried and failed to break free. A second passenger pinned Neely’s arms while a third person held down his shoulder.

In the statement Friday, Penny lawyers Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff claimed Neely had been “aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and other passengers” and cited Neely’s “documented history of violent and erratic behavior, the apparent result of ongoing and untreated mental illness.”

As news of Neely’s death spread online, video of the encounter elicited strong reactions from New Yorkers and officials. Some described the act as a lethal overreaction to a person in the throes of mental illness, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declaring Neely was “murdered,” while others defended the Marine veteran’s actions.

A group of protesters gathered Wednesday afternoon in the station where Neely died to call for an arrest.

Jason Williams, an actor, recalled encountering Neely when he first moved to the city in 2007. Then a teenager, Neely was an agile Michael Jackson impersonator, Williams said, soliciting donations as he moonwalked through the subway and lip-synced to “Billie Jean.”

“He embodied the hustle spirit of New York,” Williams said. “He was a great performer and it’s a real tragedy that he was killed so senselessly.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office said it is investigating Neely’s death.

“As part of our rigorous ongoing investigation, we will review the Medical Examiner’s report, assess all available video and photo footage, identify and interview as many witnesses as possible, and obtain additional medical records,” read a statement from a spokesperson for the district attorney.

Attempts by Marine Corps Times to reach Penny via phone were unsuccessful.

The New York City Police Department did not respond by time of publication to a Marine Corps Times request for comment.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

Dr. Rajesh Motibhai Patel, 68, stands charged with multiple accounts of patient abuse and unwanted sexual contact. He previously provided primary care services at the Joseph Maxwell Cleland Atlanta VA Medical Center.

Investigators said the offenses occurred in 2019 and 2020, but that other patients may have been similarly victimized by the doctor.

“Patel allegedly sexually abused his female patients and violated his oath to do no harm to patients under his care,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said in a statement.

In a statement, VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes called Patel’s alleged crimes “horrific and unacceptable” and said the department has been cooperating with law enforcement since the accusations were first uncovered.

“As soon as VA learned of these allegations, we removed this clinician from patient care and reassigned him to a role that had no patient interaction,” he said. “”Whenever a patient comes to VA, they deserve to know that they will be treated with care, compassion, and respect.”

The department has also promised victims will receive “the care and support they need” as the investigation continues. VA officials, the VA Office of Inspector General and local law enforcement are continuing to investigate other possible crimes by Patel.

Patel could not be reached at the time of publication for comment.

Individuals who may have also been assaulted by Patel can contact the Inspector General’s tip line at (770) 758-6646.

If the funding measure does not pass by May 11, tens of thousands of veterans will be cut off from services like free rides to Veterans Affairs clinics, telehealth medical services and increased financial assistance for rent costs.

“One day, these folks will be able to get from homeless shelters to medical centers for care, and the next day they won’t,” said Spencer Bell, policy analyst for the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. “You’re talking about people who don’t have cars or ways to get there. We’re up against the wall here.”

Veterans Affairs officials and community activists have been warning about the deadline for weeks, but have been unable to convince lawmakers to pass a solution. Now, with just seven days left before the national emergency related to COVID-19 ends, a pair of senators are offering last-minute legislation to stave off the problem. A similar House attempt has already failed, underscoring the difficult path ahead.

VA aims to help 38,000+ homeless veterans again this year

The legislation — introduced May 4 by Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska — extends a host of COVID-19-era authorities given to VA officials, passed at the height of the pandemic to ensure veterans would continue to receive support services amid office closures and quarantine restrictions.

Under the plan, VA would be allowed to continue online conferences between veterans and administrators for health care visits, welfare checks and other case management issues. Free transportation would continue to be provided to veterans without personal vehicles or access to reliable public transportation. Higher rates for housing stipends and clothing allowances would also remain in effect until 2026.

The legislation also includes an option for virtual home visits for veteran caregivers, who must periodically check in with VA staff to confirm the health and welfare of their vets. The program is set to return to in-home visits only if the authority is not approved.

Tester called the services “a critical lifeline” and pledged in a statement to move the legislation “across the finish line as quickly as possible.”

VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal had warned in late April that if the authorities are not extended past May 11, veterans who rely on the assistance will suffer.

“They’re depending on this,” Elnahal said. “We’re talking about authorities that have allowed for 750,000 free rides for veterans since the start of the pandemic. We really need this, and we need Congress to help out with this.”

VA officials say the money needed to keep the programs running amounts to a few million dollars and is already covered in available funds within department budget accounts. However, language included in last year’s Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act (which is not connected to the pandemic authorities) has created technical accounting problems regarding the potential costs of new veterans legislation.

That was the cause of the failure of the proposed House fix. During a April 28 legislative mark-up, Republican leaders rejected a measure to extend the authorities because it ran afoul of chamber rules regarding new spending and budget offsets.

Veterans Affairs drops mask requirement for all agency medical offices

Whether the Senate bill can get around those issues is unclear. House and Senate leaders met with veterans groups on Monday to discuss the problem, but have not offered any long-term solutions. Other veterans bills have advanced in both chambers despite the accounting issues, but only after significant behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee members are expected to debate and advance the new bill next week, just a few days before the pandemic authorities expire. The measure would need to be fast-tracked in the House and Senate to reach the president’s desk before Thursday night, and a handful of lawmakers could derail the process with related or unrelated objections.

Bell said community leaders are just now trying to find alternative aid for the veterans who could be hurt by the vanishing support services.

“There’s not really a plan, because everyone thought that Congress would have handled this by now,” he said.

When Glenn Janssen decided to file a claim for disability benefits with the Veterans Affairs Department last year, he dreaded the prospect of dealing with federal bureaucracy and paperwork.

Janssen, 57, lives in Portugal with his wife and has worked as a government contractor since leaving the Army in 2004. The Gulf War-era and Louisiana National Guard veteran wanted to put in a claim for tinnitus and back and shoulder problems from his years in the service. But he worried that trying to manage the process from overseas would be a nightmare.

So, when another veteran, who’s also a trusted friend, suggested he contact a private company, Trajector Medical, to handle the filing process for a fee, it seemed like a great solution. He called and, after skimming the company’s contract, he signed up. That quick decision may cost him a bundle in both money and hassle.

“I was too trusting, and I didn’t really read what I signed,” Janssen said.

More than a quarter of the United States’ nearly 5 million veterans have a disability related to their military service, and they have various ways to file a claim for tax-free monthly disability payments.

The Honoring Our PACT Act, enacted last August, made it easier for many veterans who had been exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances to qualify for health care and disability benefits. The law added more than 20 conditions, from cancers to chronic respiratory illnesses, that the VA now automatically assumes were caused by serving in Vietnam and the Gulf War, or other postings.

Veterans can apply on their own, filling out paperwork online, gathering and submitting their medical records, and undergoing a medical evaluation. They can also tap into a network of thousands of service organization representatives, claims agents, and attorneys who have been vetted and approved by the VA to aid veterans. Under federal rules, veterans who use accredited assisters can’t be charged a penny for help filing the initial claim. If they subsequently want to appeal a VA decision, the agency limits how much the approved representatives can charge.

Unaccredited companies face no such restrictions. Sometimes calling themselves “medical consultants” or “coaches,” these businesses advertise their fee-based services to veterans, suggesting they can provide quick turnaround times on claims and higher benefit checks than if veterans choose a VA-approved representative.

“What we’ve seen are people signing away, in advance, a portion of the benefits that are due them,” said Jim Rice, assistant director of the Office of Servicemember Affairs at the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, regarding the practices of some of these companies. The CFPB and the VA jointly published a cautionary blog post in February, noting reports that “unscrupulous actors have misled some veterans into paying hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

To be eligible for disability payments, veterans must have an injury or illness caused or worsened by their military service. The Department of Veterans Affairs assigns veterans a disability rating from 0% to 100%, depending on the degree of disability. A higher rating means a higher monthly payment.

The contract that Janssen signed said he would pay Trajector Medical the equivalent of five times the amount of any increase in his monthly VA compensation, which is part of the basic billing structure the company outlined in 2022 congressional testimony. When he was awarded a 10% disability rating for tinnitus, the company billed $829.60, five times the monthly award of $165.92 for a 10% disability. When his rating was later increased to 40%, the company informed him he owed an additional $2,829.70, five times his monthly increase of $565.94.

The problem was that the company had done virtually nothing to help him, Janssen said. At the very beginning of the process, he said, it sent him what he thought looked like three boilerplate paragraphs describing his injuries. “All they provided was a cut-and-paste canned response in a VA form for me to submit,” Janssen said of what the company supplied last July.

In November, Janssen said, after months passed with no word on his case or assistance from Trajector, Janssen contacted the company to cancel his contract. But it did not respond to his request, he said.

On his own, Janssen said, he scheduled appointments and flew back to the U.S. for medical evaluations in December and February. Also on his own, he said, he filed secondary claims requesting an increase in his disability rating because of insomnia and migraines related to his tinnitus. (The VA denied his claims for back and shoulder injuries.)

It wasn’t until Janssen was approved for a higher rating from the VA that he said he heard from Trajector again. The company, which he said sometimes referred to him as a “battle buddy,” sent him an email congratulating him on his new disability rating and billed him more than $2,800 for its assistance in obtaining it.

“I called Trajector and raised bloody hell,” Janssen said. “I will never pay this money.”

In March, Trajector agreed to waive its claim for the additional $2,829.70. But it still wants $829.60 for his initial rating, and a company representative told him during a telephone conversation it would start charging a 1% monthly late fee.

Trajector declined a request to discuss its services and to comment on Janssen’s case. But in congressional testimony last year, Evan Seamone, Trajector’s general counsel and legal manager, said that “private sector companies like Trajector meet an important and unfulfilled need that is not being met by existing free resources.”

Still, Janssen is not the only veteran who is unhappy with Trajector services. It holds an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, but dozens of complaints have been filed with the organization that describe similar experiences. Trajector has responded with variations of this comment: “We have helped tens of thousands of veterans, like you, obtain the most accurate disability rating for their conditions. We apologize that you have not been satisfied with our customer service or overall experience.”

Veterans organizations have grown increasingly concerned about the activities of businesses not accredited by the VA promising such assistance.

“They are predatory companies that charge outrageous amounts to veterans to access their benefits,” said Ryan Gallucci, executive director of the Washington, D.C., office of Veterans of Foreign Wars, an accredited veterans service organization with more than 2,300 representatives worldwide. Gallucci made similar comments in his April 2022 Capitol Hill testimony about unaccredited assisters.

Of the 280 complaints sent to the VA Office of General Counsel from 2018 to 2022, 40% were related to unaccredited individuals and organizations, according to Randal Noller, a VA spokesperson.

Representatives for some unaccredited companies say most private operators are honorable and that the whole group is being targeted because of the activities of a few bad actors.

Veterans Guardian VA Claim Consulting, another unaccredited company, has a similar billing structure to that of Trajector, charging clients a fee equal to five months’ worth of any benefits increase they receive. It takes a holistic approach to helping veterans whose cases may be complicated because they left the military years ago, for example, or are hoping to increase their existing disability rating or receive compensation for other conditions related to their service, said Mark Christensen, the company’s chief of staff.

Veterans service organizations are well suited to help recently discharged veterans file initial claims, which are typically straightforward, Christensen said, referring to accredited groups such as the VFW or Disabled American Veterans. But they may not be as effective at managing subsequent claims.

It may be faster to work with a private company as well, he said. Going through adjudication with a VA-accredited lawyer may take years, he said. “We can take care of it in six months,” he said.

According to the VA, there is no statistically significant difference in the average number of days it takes any type of filer to complete a rating-related claim. In the current fiscal year, time frames have ranged from 129.7 days to 139.4 days whether veterans make a claim unassisted (which would include those who use unaccredited representatives) or use VSOs, agents, or attorneys.

Many of Veterans Guardian’s clients had gone the free route initially, according to Christensen. In any given month, 60% to 70% of the company’s clients report they used a free service in the past, he said, but they often turn to his company to get a better disability rating or approval for secondary conditions.

Prominent veterans groups like the VFW, American Legion, and Disabled American Veterans are pressing for passage of the Guard VA Benefits Act, which would rein in certain business practices by allowing the Veterans Affairs secretary to impose criminal penalties on people who charge fees to help veterans file disability benefit claims without VA authorization.

Veterans Guardian supports changes that would allow unaccredited companies like itself to charge for services at any point in the process, as well as place caps on fees, and prohibitions on having doctors on the payroll or charging upfront fees. But the company doesn’t support the Guard Act.

The VA has tried sending cease-and-desist letters to unaccredited companies that the VA found to be preying on veterans, said Diane Boyd Rauber, executive director of the National Organization of Veterans’ Advocates, which trains accredited attorneys and agents.

“The problem is that the VA only has authority to go after someone who’s accredited,” she said. “Part of the intent of the Guard Act is to give the VA some teeth.”

Bloomberg News reported this week that House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., has set the last week of May as the target for committee mark-up of the authorization bill, which has passed into law for more than 60 years and contains hundreds of defense spending and programming provisions. In a typical year, it’s the only bill advanced by the committee that becomes law.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to follow a similar schedule, although no details have yet been announced. Senators on the panel have several budget posture hearings set for this week, but have already begun crafting authorization bill priorities behind the scenes.

Even if the two chambers pass their separate drafts in early summer, final adoption of a compromise measure is likely to drag on until late fall. That’s because the bill is tied to congressional appropriations work, which still does not have a clear timeline for completion in either the House or Senate.

House members are on break this week, but the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee does have a field hearing scheduled for Thursday evening in San Diego to discuss efforts to prevent veteran homelessness in the region.

Tuesday, May 2

Wednesday, May 3

Thursday, May 4

“I am concerned about ensuring we take care of our employees, because when we take care of them, they can take care of veterans,” said VA Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs at a press conference on April 27. “So we are actively looking at making sure we are providing the support our employees need.”

The backlog of benefits claims has been a major focus of the department and members of Congress for years, amid concerns that too many unprocessed cases could undermine faith in VA’s system as individuals are forced to wait months or years for payouts.

VA gets new benefits chief after two years of waiting

Last year, the Veterans Benefits Administration processed about 1.7 million claims from veterans, its highest total ever. Jacobs said they expect to set a new record this year, in large part due to expansion of benefits under the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act (better known as the PACT Act) signed into law last summer.

Already, 500,000 individuals have filed paperwork for PACT Act compensation for illnesses tied to burn pit exposure in Iraq and Afghanistan, Agent Orange conditions from service in Vietnam, and issues related to radiation exposure at various military sites in the 1970s and 1980s.

Jacobs said VA staff have processed about 14% more claims through mid-April than compared to the same time frame last year, with roughly the same approval rates. But new claims this year are up 31% over the same time frame last year, meaning staff isn’t keeping up with the demand.

VA officials insisted the heavier caseload is a positive sign, because it means more veterans are reaching out to the department for earned benefits. But they acknowledged it increases the need for new staff hires and faster training.

The department currently employs 28,000 claims staffers, its largest total ever, and up more than 1,100 in recent months because of aggressive hiring initiatives, Jacobs said. He added that recent improvements in the claims process such as automating some processing and clarifying approval rules have also helped workers improve efficiency and helped boost morale.

In addition, the department is sending out new surveys to veterans starting this week to gauge their satisfaction with the claims process, in an effort to make sure the changes and challenges aren’t adding stress to disabled veterans. The 13-question survey will look at veterans’ trust in the process, use of support services and other issues related to the claims.

“We’re going to take that to drive specific improvements to the overall process,” Jacobs said.

Those surveys should reach veterans by email in coming days, department officials said.

Veterans advocates, caught in the middle, just want to know if their programs will be funded next year.

As budget fights mount in Congress, spending on veterans support has become a flashpoint for the two sides, with party leaders both insisting the other is exploiting one of the last refuges of bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill for some short-term political points.

No money to pay troops if debt ceiling deal doesn’t happen, defense secretary warns

On Wednesday, House Democrats led by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., held a rally decrying the Republican Limit-Save-Grow Act, passed just a few minutes later along party lines.

The measure would set next year’s non-defense federal spending at fiscal 2022 levels, about 20% below what President Joe Biden requested in his budget plan released earlier this spring. It does not specify a target for Veterans Affairs funding next year, but Democrats say it will inevitably lead to reductions in the department’s budget.

“They’re seeking to balance the budget on the backs of veterans, no matter what the consequences,” said Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif. and ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, in front of a crowd of cheering supporters.

The rally was the latest in weeks of attacks by Democratic leaders concerning the spending plan. Earlier in the day, the White House released a letter from 23 veterans organizations “not to pass this legislation unless it includes protections for VA funding.” Veterans Affairs leaders last week asserted the plan would mean “30 million fewer veteran outpatient visits and 81,000 jobs lost across the Veterans Health Administration.”

MAGA House Republicans would make cuts to VA health care so that the super-wealthy can cheat on taxes.

That's not how we honor veterans’ service and sacrifice.

— President Biden (@POTUS) April 25, 2023

In March, during a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on the state of VA operations, the repeated chorus of Democrats mentioning “devastating” Republican budget cut plans prompted glares and shouts from multiple GOP members, who insisted they have no plans to cut back veterans spending.

Similar sniping has occurred at subsequent hearings. On the House floor Wednesday, Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., called the criticism “false and dangerous rhetoric” from the Democrats.

“With no regard for the impact of their words, they continue to spread malarkey about House Republicans ‘cutting veterans’ benefits,’ he said. “Simply put, they are playing politics with our veterans. Veterans are not political pawns to advance a political agenda.”

Democrats continue to spread false claims that the Limit, Save, Grow Act will impact the delivery of VA healthcare and cut veterans’ benefits.

Don’t believe them.

From one veteran to another: you have Chairman @RepBost’s word. pic.twitter.com/31dENQGDZ2

— House Committee on Veterans' Affairs (@HouseVetAffairs) April 26, 2023

House Republican leaders have said the Limit-Save-Grow Act — which would also raise the country’s debt limit, avoiding a historic and fiscally damaging default on the country’s debt — will help bring runaway federal spending under control. But they have also publicly pledged that items programs Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits will be fully funded.

That begs the question of where the Republicans’ federal agency cuts will come from.

Biden has proposed a $325 billion budget for VA next fiscal year, more than $50 billion than the target set in the fiscal 2022 budget. Part of that total includes money to carry out the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act (better known as the PACT Act) passed last summer, which promises new disability benefits and health care to millions of veterans, including those affected by toxic burn pits.

If the GOP budget bill were to become law, it would require deep cuts for non-defense agencies in order to preserve veterans program money. That plan is not specifically outlined in the legislation.

The uncertainty surrounding the situation prompted officials from the Veterans of Foreign Wars to send a letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., asking for amendments to the GOP budget bill, which would “provide explicit assurances on how Congress will continue to properly invest in VA programming.”

Passing the measure without those caveats would be “unacceptable,” VFW leaders said.

Similarly, leaders from Paralyzed Veterans of America said in a statement that while they appreciate Republican leaders’ public assurances that veterans funding will not be cut, “the pending legislation provides no specific protections for veterans with catastrophic disabilities, specifically the services and supports they and their families depend on.”

White House officials have already said the GOP spending plan is a non-starter for multiple reasons, calling into question whether the specific debate over veterans funding is more for shaping public opinion than public policy.

But advocates say that regardless of the motivation, support for veterans is now squarely in the center of the fight. They want both sides to promise that veterans care and benefits won’t be held hostage by these political squabbles.

“Congress has championed monumental advancements in veteran care and benefits in the past few years,” VFW Executive Director Ryan Gallucci wrote in the group’s letter to McCarthy. “We believe we need to continue pushing forward instead of taking steps backward in serving our veterans.”