Category: Connecticut
Locals With Inauguration Tickets Find ‘Winning the Lottery’ is a Relative Term
B-MATTER
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
1/20/09
WASHINGTON – For the lucky few from Connecticut who managed to obtain tickets for the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, it was like winning the lottery. Getting there, however, was another story.
From long lines to a stolen purse to having nowhere to stay in the capital, Nutmeggers who received the coveted tickets from their members of Congress faced many hurdles this week. But in the end, they agreed, witnessing history in the making was well worth the effort.
The hassle started Monday morning, when congressional offices opened to the public so that ticket-lottery winners could pick up their passes to the inauguration. From 9 a.m. into the evening, lines stretched around every entrance to the House and Senate office buildings, said Brian Farber, communications director for Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District.
“We started to get calls from constituents who were out waiting for a very long time, so we started delivering the tickets to them in the lines,” Farber said.
Tami Patterson of Norwich, who campaigned for Obama and Courtney last fall, received a call from Courtney’s office in December saying she had won two standing-room tickets for the Capitol grounds.
“I couldn’t believe it, out of all the people,” Patterson said. “I was ecstatic; I started crying.”
Her plans soon hit a speed bump when she realized she and her son, Ryan Parker, would have nowhere to stay. Out of desperation, she visited Obama’s Web site and posted her dilemma on a community message board. Luckily, a couple in the area responded, offering her and Parker a room in their Virginia home Monday night.
“I was prepared to stay in my car,” she said.
Erin Foley-Machnik of Niantic thought the trip down to the inauguration would go relatively smoothly. She and her mother, Denise Foley of Waterford, planned to stay with relatives in Loudoun County, Va. Both are recovering from recent surgeries—spinal fusion for Foley-Machnik, a knee replacement for her mother—but Foley-Macknik said the historic occasion was worth a risky trip.
After hours of standing in crowds, Foley-Machnik was leaving the National Mall yesterday afternoon following the inauguration when she realized her purse had been stolen. It contained not just her wallet, cash and Metro card, but her prescription pain medication as well. Surrounded by thousands of spectators jammed in shoulder-to-shoulder, she was unable to find the thief.
“The police officer that I went to said, ‘I wish there was something I could do,’” she said.
Beth Blackketter of Warren drove down to stay with her brother and sister-in-law in Millersville, Md., after winning tickets through the office of Rep. Christopher Murphy, D-5th District.
“My brother dropped us off four blocks from the Capitol,” Blackketter said. “We thought we were golden.”
Over three hours later, she and her sister-in-law Gretchen Bandy finally made it into their ticketed area, just behind the Capitol reflecting pool.
Despite the long lines and chilly temperatures, the two remained in high spirits. They huddled together, arms around one another, and took pictures of the scene as the new President spoke.
“Today’s all about the accomplishment of getting him here, uniting the country and celebrating this historic event,” Blackketter said.
Foley-Machnik said she was inspired by Obama’s inaugural address.
“It was hard to hear the speech where we were, but everything he said was extremely passionate and…full of hope,” she said. “The point that we’re not done yet, we have a lot of work to do, a lot of sacrifices to make, stuck out.
“At the end of the day, we still have to go home and stick together.”
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Area Residents Witness History: ‘It’s a New Beginning’
NORWALK
Norwalk Hour
Tait Militana
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 20, 2009
WASHINGTON- Graziano Bortot remembers the first time he witnessed racism in this country. Originally from Italy, he said he did not understand the first time he saw a “whites only” sign in South Carolina while stationed there with the military.
“I was struck to see places that said whites only,” Bortot said. “I didn’t know why they had to be separated. I had a lot of African American friends in the service.”
After attending the inauguration of President Barack Obama on Tuesday, Bortot said Americans are entering a different era.
“We have really moved on,” he said . “I feel proud of him.”
Bortot, 65, from Stamford, is one of dozens of local residents who traveled through the wee hours of Tuesday morning, braved the frigid temperatures and faced the enormous crowds to witness this historic moment. Three buses organized by the state Democratic Party left Hartford at midnight, picking up passengers in various area cities as they drove south.
Though several people who made the trip with Bortot were unable to get close enough to the Capitol to see anything, they said they loved just being involved in such a momentous event.
Lynelle Schneeberg, a doctor from Fairfield, watched the inauguration on a jumbo screen near the Washington Monument. Though she had occasionally to walk around to keep warm, she said she enjoyed the atmosphere because she met so many excited people from all over the country.
“Everyone was so joyful and wanted to connect and know everyone else’s stories,” she said.
After witnessing Obama’s speech, which touched on topics of identity, hope and foreign relations, Schneeberg echoed Bortot’s view that the country is turning a new page.
“It’s a new beginning,” she said. “It’s the real millennium for me. People have a sense that they are part of it.”
For Suzanne Francis, 37, from Fairfield, the most memorable part of the inauguration ceremony was when Obama spoke about moving on from our current economic problems. She said that as a mother of three and a working professional, she found his confidence very inspiring.
“I’m a small-business owner, and I was a little concerned,” she said. “I really feel I’m going to be OK, and he’s given me that sense.”
With such a large crowd, Francis was forced to watch the inauguration from near the Lincoln Memorial, nearly two miles from the Capitol. Before the swearing-in ceremony, she filled her day spending time at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and several Smithsonian museums and celebrating with friends and strangers alike in a nearby pub.
She said Obama’s ability to unite different people is one of the things she admires about him.
“I was surrounded by so many people from all around world, and I felt one with them,” said Francis.
For Bortot, the economy takes precedence. He said he wanted to see results within Obama’s first month.
“Now the party is over and he has to get down to business,” he said.
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A Long Road to Pennsylvania Avenue for Trumbull’s Band
Photos by Caroline Bridges
TRUMBULL
Norwalk Hour
Tait Militana
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON—For Dan Connolly, drum major of the Trumbull High School marching band, the hardest part about preparing for the inaugural parade was staying focused through all of the attention.
During a recent practice, he accidentally smacked a local television cameraman while conducting, but he never stopped. With less than two months to prepare for today’s parade, the band needed every minute of practice it could get.
“It’s alright,” Connolly said. “We just had to deal with it.”
Following the swearing-in ceremony of President Barack Obama, the band will march down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol until it reaches the White House and passes by the presidential reviewing stand. Trumbull, which will perform three songs, is one of the dozens of bands that will participate in the parade.
The band members spent Monday touring the city and meeting with Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, who told them they would be living history.
Nonetheless, the road to Jan. 20 has not been easy.
The band learned in early December it would participate in the parade, giving it about seven weeks to book a hotel, raise money for the trip and perfect the music. According to band director Peter Horton, the band practiced five days a week during school hours and two to three nights each week. He said the band is confident and excited.
“It’s amazing,” Horton said. “For the hard work of all the kids over the years, it’s a reward.”
Nonetheless, Horton said, despite all the preparations, his largest concern is the weather.
After participating in the 2001 inaugural parade, the band knows what an unpredictable effect the weather can have. Eight years ago, the band had to march through rain and sleet in near-freezing temperatures after spending hours waiting around. Horton said the way the students persevered through those conditions instilled confidence in him that the band can adapt to almost anything.
“We played right through,” he said. “They are able to turn the switch on and off.”
The band has played in several high-profile parades before. Since 1996 Trumbull has performed at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, the Hollywood Santa Parade, the Mardi Gras Parade in New Orleans and the Citrus Bowl Festival in Orlando, Fla.. Yet, Horton said, the inaugural parade trumps all of that.
“For many this is a new beginning,” he said. “For them [the students] to be part of it makes it much more personal.”
Timothy Enos, a junior, said he was excited that so many people were traveling from Connecticut to watch the parade and participate in the inaugural events. The band traveled with dozens of parents and chaperones. Dodd and Himes also promised to watch the parade with their own families.
“It feels like we are representing the people,” Enos said.
The band will step off at approximately 2 p.m.
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Area Residents Join Congressmen in Service
DODD
Norwalk Hour
Tait Militana
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON- Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., called on citizens to give back to their country Monday and encouraged people of all ages to volunteer.
Dodd joined area residents and politicians at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium east of Capitol Hill to stuff care packages with toothpaste, gum, energy drinks and other treats for troops overseas. The event was held to commemorate the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Dodd said that so many Connecticut residents were willing to come and participate in the festivities shows just how optimistic people are.
“People want a renewed sense of hope,” said Dodd. “You want to feel that sense of optimism. I think you want to be around when it happens and you want to carry it back.”
David Burstein, a Weston resident who works with a local non-profit, was one of the 12,000 people who turned out at the stadium. The workers formed long assembly lines inside heated tents, writing letters and picking out the best goodies for the soldiers.
“Our county is built on the work of volunteers,” said Burstein. “Without them our country wouldn’t work.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, and Michelle Obama also participated in the event.
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Connecticut Obama Campaigners Celebrate in Washington
PARTY
Norwalk Hour
Tait Militana
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON – For Lex Paulson, a volunteer in Norwalk for Barack Obama, the worst day of the campaign was before the primary when Obama trailed Hillary Clinton by 20 percentage points in the polls. After working with the failed Howard Dean campaign four years earlier, Paulson worried he would see his hopes for a Democratic president dashed again.
“I wasn’t going to fight any less, but I was thinking I had seen this movie before,” said Paulson.
Now Paulson is one of hundreds of campaigners from around Connecticut who is celebrating Obama’s victory in Washington. Several gathered in Georgetown on Sunday to toast their hard work and a brighter future. Jennifer Just, an Obama campaigner from Woodbridge, said she was elated that everyone’s hard work had paid off.
“To work this hard with such an amazing result is incredible,” Just said. “I am over the moon.”
Just, 50, hosted the chic party, which included local Obama volunteers, family and friends. Many had spent more than five hours Sunday traveling from Connecticut to see Tuesday’s swearing in ceremony. Paulson said that so many people from Connecticut are participating in the inauguration festivities shows how inspired the state is.
“It says we have a 400-year tradition of community organization,” said Paulson. “Buried beneath the surface, there is a revolutionary spirit.”
David Mooney, 32, a software engineer from Stratford, and Mike Brown, 57, a management consultant from Milford, also attended the bash. Both volunteered with the Obama campaign last year, working in area phone banks. Mooney said the sheer number of people descending on the capital this weekend shows the potential for the Obama administration. The inaugural committee has predicted more than 1 million visitors for the swearing in ceremony.
“The president that doesn’t have the support of the people can’t do his job,” said Mooney. “His popularity shows his potential to be effective.”
Several supporters said they would be working Monday on Martin Luther King Jr. day of service projects, attending inaugural balls and participating in other festivities. However, Just said much of the work for Obama and others is not done.
“He has to deal with the economy,” Just said. “I think he needs to tackle healthcare. He has to take everything on all at once and I would like to see him start on day one.”
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For Connecticut College Student, a Long Journey From Colombia to the Inauguration
Photos by Caroline Bridges
FELFLE
New London Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 18, 2009
WASHINGTON – It took Alexandra Felfle nearly two days to travel from her hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia, to the Hilton Washington. Still, she arrived at the hotel Saturday smiling and poised, ready to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama.
Add to that her flawless English, and it was easy to forget how far the Connecticut College junior had come for this week’s University Presidential Inaugural Conference. That is, until she saw an old friend from her first trip to the States, and the two young women erupted in laughter and frenzied Spanish, her native language.
It was a long-awaited reunion for Felfle, who first visited Washington in 2005 as the only foreign student to receive a scholarship to the Global Young Leaders Conference. Early last year that program’s sponsor, the Congressional Youth Leadership Council, invited Felfle to the special 2009 university inauguration conference. After months of fundraising, she’s finally in town for Tuesday’s festivities.
Of the 5,000 college students attending this week’s conference, only 495 are international, according to program spokesperson Carmen McClaskey. Nearly all the participants are alumni of Congressional Youth Leadership Council programs.
As part of the conference, Felfle will hear speakers such as Colin Powell and Al Gore, watch the inauguration from the Mall and attend a black-tie gala for the program’s students at the National Air and Space Museum downtown. She also will get the chance to discuss politics and ideas with like-minded young people from around the world.
The logistics of Felfle’s trip weren’t easy. Her parents paid for her plane ticket to Washington from Barranquilla, where she spent her winter break, but she had to come up with the conference fees herself.
“I thought, either I need to get a scholarship, I need to work, or I need to find a way to do this,” she recalled.
As it turned out, Connecticut College stepped in to help Felfle, the first international student at the college to serve as a class president.
“The day she got the letter, she talked to me and we kind of set out a game plan for her and who she should approach,” Cheryl Banker, Felfle’s career counselor at Connecticut College, said. “She wrote letters, did all the solicitation. She went after it.”
Over the next several months, Felfle raised nearly $3,000 from 11 different departments and administrators at the university, including college President Leo I. Higdon Jr.
“Her accomplishments enrich us all, and the support she received from so many people and departments across campus is a strong reflection of the pride we have in her,” Higdon said in a statement to The Day.
Even before her door-to-door campaign, Felfle had become a familiar face to the deans and counselors at the school as a “very enthusiastic freshman,” according to Mary Devins, associate director of the college’s Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts.
“I said to her, ‘You go for it, girlfriend, I’ll give you some money,’” Devins said.
In exchange for the financial boost, Felfle will give a presentation on her inauguration experience at Connecticut College on Feb. 13. She also hopes to gain extra perspective on America’s economic relationship with Colombia, which will be the focus of her senior thesis in economics and international relations.
Although she couldn’t vote in November’s elections, Felfle closely followed both candidates’ positions on foreign aid and trade. A country long plagued by drug trafficking and guerrilla warfare, Colombia is one of the top ten recipients of American foreign aid. It also relies on free trade to keep its economy afloat, Felfle said.
While taking classes at Georgetown University’s Semester in Washington Program in the fall, she became an advocate of free trade between her native and adopted countries. She said she is curious to see what policies Barack Obama will pursue and if he will address Colombia in his speech on Tuesday.
“Globalization is a boat you want to jump on,” she said. “It’s not positive right away, and it will take some time…but I think Obama changed his mind [about a U.S.–Colombia trade agreement] because he saw what good it could do for the country.”
Armando Bengochea, dean of the college community and one of the donors to Felfle’s trip, said her studied attitude toward international cooperation is evident in her work on campus.
“She strikes me as a true believer in globalism as distinct from globalization, who’s interested in solidarity between people and governments,” Bengochea said. “She’s someone who tries to build bridges.”
Like most of the millions coming to Washington this week, Felfle said she feels a personal connection to the new president that will make her trip even more memorable.
“In a weird way I relate to him, especially to his dad coming to the U.S. to go to school,” Felfle said. “He’s a fighter. He got everything in life based on his intelligence, and I admire that.”
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Area Mayors Say Infrastructure Projects “Ready to Go”
MAYORS
Norwalk Hour
Tait Militana
Boston University Washington News Service
1/17/09
WASHINGTON – Area mayors, in town for the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, named improving the local infrastructure a top priority in the coming months, calling for a collaborative effort to increase jobs in Fairfield County and pass President-elect Barack Obama’s stimulus plan.
The conference announced more than $150 billion in “Ready to Go” projects across the nation that if funded could start this year and create 1.5 million jobs in 2009 and 2010. Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, a conference trustee, said the money needs to be spent to reinvent America.
“We want merchants and citizens to know that mayors are arguing their case,” said Malloy. “That relief needs to be delivered to Main Street and we will be their advocate.”
Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch and Fairfield Selectman Kenneth Flatto also are attending the meeting, which has focused on the economy, jobs and infrastructure.
Of the $150 billion in potential projects named in the conference report, more than $180 million could be spent in Norwalk, including $45 million towards a wastewater treatment plant upgrade, $43 million to renovate the urban core to include sidewalks and lighting and $7 million to repair and modernize schools.
Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia did not attend the conference and was not immediately available for comment.
According to Malloy, these projects are especially important for Stamford, Norwalk and Bridgeport residents because much of the infrastructure is so old.
“Rather than plasma TVs we’re going to buy infrastructure that will allow our country to be competitive,” said Malloy. “We spend less on infrastructure than any other industrial nation in the world. We’re way behind.”
The report also predicted the Northeast will be one of the hardest hit areas in the country in 2009. It forecasted almost 7,000 people will lose their jobs this year in the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk corridor and unemployment in the area will rise to more than 7 percent.
Rahm Emanuel, who will be Obama’s chief of staff, spoke at the conference and called on the mayors to support Obama’s plan, saying smaller cities such as Stamford and Norwalk are just as important in turning around the economy as larger ones.
“We’re not distinguishing big cities versus small,” Emanuel said. “We’re making sure that our investments in healthcare, energy independence and 21-century education are our standards.”
Finch said it is important that cities lead the way in creating jobs. According to the report more than 85 percent of the country’s population lives in urban areas and cities produce 90 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
“Whether you are a large city or small city, the economy doesn’t know where town boundaries are,” said Finch.
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New London Mayor Excited to Attend Obama’s Swearing-In
MAYOR
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
1/16/09
WASHINGTON – Hundreds of the nation’s mayors will descend on Washington this weekend for the annual winter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors. New London’s mayor, the Rev. Wade A. Hyslop Jr., will be among them but he’s less interested in attending lectures and panel discussions than in witnessing the main event.
“Obviously, the most exciting, important thing is to see the inauguration of the 44th president,” Hyslop said with a laugh.
Hyslop will fly into Baltimore on Monday morning. He plans to stay with his son, Army Sgt. Maj. Bertram Vaughan, who works at the Pentagon and lives in nearby College Park, Md. They have seats to watch Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday.
This inauguration holds special meaning for Hyslop. The mayor, who is pastor of Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, said he helped organize in the early 1970s one of the first parades honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
“I have always been an avid supporter and follower of Martin Luther King,” Hyslop said. “Looking at one of his dreams coming to fruition is one of most significant things you can see.”
Before he leaves on Friday, Hyslop hopes to spend time with his son, meet with Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and possibly attend the mayors’ conference.
Hyslop said he isn’t worried about the record turnout predicted for Tuesday.
“It’ll probably be a madhouse down there, but also a time when people are going to be jubilant about just being in the crowd,” he said. “I’m just looking forward to finding some camaraderie with people.”
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Gulf War Veterans Find Vindication, but Not Much Else
GULFWAR
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
December 12, 2008
WASHINGTON – U.S. Army veteran Donald Overton Jr. said he considers himself lucky that he was physically injured during the Persian Gulf War.
Having been left legally blind and missing a few fingers as a result of a Desert Storm blast, the Norwalk native and executive director of the Washington-based advocacy group Veterans of Modern Warfare also suffers from symptoms of Gulf War Illness, such as hair loss, rashes, and muscle and joint pain. But without his physical injuries, Overton said, any attempt to receive disability compensation for the service-related illness would have been quashed by the years of bureaucratic red tape and government denial that Gulf War veterans have weathered.
“The [Gulf War] Illness leaves very little on the outside, but it can be debilitating,” said the 40-year-old, who feels like he is “going on 60-something” because of his injuries. “I had my physical injuries too, and I still fought for five years to get my benefits.”
The Persian Gulf War ended 17 years ago, but many veterans have been forced to continue fighting for their lives even after their return home to the U.S.
Finally there appears to be a ceasefire of sorts. Last month the congressionally mandated Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses issued the validation so many of the nearly 700,000 veterans had been waiting for: there is, in fact, a Gulf War Illness, and at least one in four Gulf War veterans has it.
In Connecticut, that translates to roughly 9,000 veterans inflicted with a service-connected disease for which there is no effective treatment.
The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense have long denied the existence of a Gulf War-related illness, despite their eventual acknowledgement of troop exposure to chemical agents.
Numerous congressional hearings, federal research programs and independent studies had previously produced inconclusive results – in large part because of the litany of symptoms these veterans display: persistent memory and concentration problems, chronic headaches, widespread muscle and joint pain, acute gastrointestinal problems, chronic fatigue and sleeplessness, respiratory problems, and skin rashes. The severity and concurrence of symptoms varies by patient, but in many cases, the result is a debilitating sickness that has the capacity to level even the most stalwart soldier.
The advisory committee’s conclusion – though hailed as a step in the right direction – is by no means the end of the war for these wounded warriors. Appointed in 2002 by the secretary of veterans affairs after a 1998 congressional order, the Research Advisory Committee is not itself a VA entity. James Peake, the current VA secretary, will have to formally accept the ailment before Gulf War Illness will fit into the department’s complicated disability grading system, and for that, the veterans will have to wait a little longer.
Peake said he has sent the report to the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine for additional review and recommendation.
“I appreciate the committee’s work on this report, and I am eager to see the results of further independent study into their findings,” Peake said in a prepared statement. “Of course, VA will continue to provide the care and benefits our Gulf War veterans have earned through their service, as we have for more than a decade.”
If the VA continues not to recognize the illness, sick veterans have little chance of claiming any disability compensation. The monthly benefits – ranging from $100 to $3,000 – can make all the difference in supporting a family or keeping a home when work becomes impossible.
Overton said Gulf War veterans have waited long enough for their benefits, and called Peake’s decision a “stall tactic.”
The lengthy process has too great a cost for veterans, he said, which is why his organization banded with the Vietnam Veterans of America and filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs last month aimed at expediting the disability claims process.
Though the claims are supposed to be answered quickly, the VA acknowledges it takes an average of six months to reach a decision, and some go unanswered for close to a year. The appeals process – which is successful more than 50 percent of the time, according to the Veterans of Modern Warfare – takes an average of four years. To remedy this, the lawsuit demands that the initial claim be answered in 90 days, with an appeal returned in 180 days. If this schedule is not met, the suit suggests, interim benefits should be granted at a rate of 30 percent disability, or roughly $350 a month, until the decision is reached.
Robert Cattanach, a partner at Dorsey and Whitney in Minneapolis and pro bono attorney for the veterans, said the consequences of the VA delays are “staggering” – citing homelessness, depression and hopelessness.
“The suit fits perfectly with the new [Gulf War Illness] report, because these veterans have already waited far too long for their benefits,” said the Navy veteran, whose son has served two tours in Iraq. “The report finally gives them legitimacy, and if we win, they’re not going to have to stand in line forever to get what they deserve.”
Gulf War veteran Mike Roley knows all about waiting. The 44-year-old U.S. Army and Gulf War veteran from Shelbyville, Ky., shows many symptoms of Gulf War Illness, has physical injuries from a training accident and was placed on 13 prescriptions in an attempt to regulate his many inflictions, but he still had to fight the VA for more than 10 years.
“At first, it was the cramps – so bad I couldn’t stand up straight,” said the married father of three. “I started to get rashes that would blow you away, and headaches. I was so tired all the time, but I could never sleep. When I could fall asleep, there were the night sweats. I have a wonderful wife, but I’m embarrassed to sleep with her – I soak the bed.”
Despite the fact that Roley received a disability rating of 240 percent – a number derived by totaling the disabling level of each injury – he said he was denied VA benefits multiple times before finally winning his claim in 2002. The victory was bittersweet for the family, who had lost their home and entire savings trying to stay afloat in 1999, after Roley was no longer able to work.
But still, Roley considers himself luckier than many. U.S. Army veteran Matt Letterman, of Willow Springs, Mo., is still waiting for his benefits – 17 years after his laundry list of symptoms surfaced. The 45-year-old married father of five has to sleep in a straight-backed chair to keep leg pain at bay and has only 37 percent of his lung capacity despite never having smoked a cigarette. Yet the VA denied his claim in 2007.
Letterman supports his family of seven with just the $1,400 a month he receives from the Social Security Administration, after also losing his home in 1999 when he could no longer keep a job.
Neither Letterman nor Roley holds out any hope that his disease will be understood, let alone treated.
Linda Schwartz, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Veterans’ Affairs and a retired U.S. Air Force flight nurse, said that with the new findings, Connecticut veterans denied benefits should try filing their claims again.
“The attitude of many people in the VA is that veterans are trying to milk them dry. It’s sad,” said Schwartz, who drew a parallel to the Vietnam-era denial of Agent Orange effects. “They’re supposed to be erring on the side of veterans. These denials devalue the meaning of the veterans’ sacrifice. I think the money is part of it, but it’s more the recognition that they are suffering because they served their country, and earning the respect they deserve. “
Gulf War veterans were exposed to a vast array of chemical and biological factors – a “toxic soup,” as Overton described it – making a single cause of the illness difficult to pinpoint. But the advisory committee for the first time zeroed in on two exposures “causally associated” with the illness: the pyridostigmine bromide pills troops were required to take to protect against nerve agents, and an overabundance of pesticides used to ward off bug-borne diseases – neither of which are used today, Department of Defense spokesman Ken Robinson told CNN.
At the time they were given to the troops – “handed out like candy,” Letterman said – the pills were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration as an anti-nerve gas agent, but the Defense Department signed a waiver to bypass the hurdle of informed consent. Both Letterman and Roley recall fellow soldiers having adverse reactions to the pills while in the desert – and Roley said he stopped taking them after his superiors stopped watching.
In addition, the committee identified other exposures that it said “cannot be ruled out” as potential causes of Gulf War Illness, including burning oil wells, multiple vaccines and low-level exposure to nerve agents such as those released by the U.S. demolition of a munitions dump near Khamisiyah, Iraq – to which at least 100,000 troops were potentially exposed, including Letterman. With thousands of troops currently stationed in the same desert, Overton said, research on chemical-related illness should be a serious priority.
The committee also noted that Gulf War veterans have significantly higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis than other veterans and that troops who were downwind from the Khamisiyah demolition have died from brain cancer at twice the rate of other Gulf War veterans.
“There are others out there that have probably had it worse than I have had it – and some that are no longer with us anymore,” Letterman said. “There are quite a few more that have been beat down by the system. A sick veteran doesn’t have the strength to fight the system when it’s working the way it’s working. The system will always win.”
For questions or help in filing a claim, call the Connecticut Department of Veterans’ Affairs at 866-928-8387.
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Sex Education Key to Solving New London’s Teen Pregnancy Problem, Experts Say
SEX-ED
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
December 10 2008
WASHINGTON—In his sweeping speech at the Democratic National Convention last summer, President-elect Barack Obama may have touched upon the key to one of New London’s most vexing and heartbreaking problems.
“We may not agree on abortion,” then-Senator Obama said, “but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.”
As the national teen pregnancy rate rises for the first time in 15 years, health experts, community workers and legislators from New London to Washington hope the “common ground” solution on which people on both sides of the abortion debate can agree is comprehensive sex education.
Advocates of comprehensive sex education—which covers contraception as well as abstinence—have gained ground in the last year. A long-awaited Congress-backed study found abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which the Bush administration supports, to be inadequate and ineffective. As a result, 17 states including Connecticut have refused money for the programs; now comprehensive sex education advocates are hoping the federal and state governments will show them the money.
In New London, the time couldn’t be more ripe. Teen pregnancy rates in the city are soaring, even as they’re declining across Connecticut. In 2004 births to teens accounted for roughly 14 percent of births in New London, more than double the statewide rate. In Groton, by contrast, births to teens accounted for only 7 percent. And those figures do not account for teen pregnancies that ended in abortions.
Perhaps the most disheartening fact: no one’s sure what the reason is.
“We’re still continuing to think about and wrestle with the why,” Laurel Holmes, who heads Lawrence and Memorial Hospital’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Task Force, said. “We’ve been focusing on how we can reverse this.”
Formed 10 years ago, the task force includes almost 60 members who range from health professionals and civil servants, to educators and religious leaders, Holmes said. In 2005 the group commissioned a study by sociologist Susan Philliber, whose findings were illuminating, if not entirely surprising.
Philliber discovered that most teen mothers in New London lived in “stressed neighborhoods” plagued by poverty, poorly performing schools and dysfunctional family situations. More than half were black or Hispanic, and most had not finished high school.
New London’s teen pregnancy plague is in part a demographic issue. Roughly 16 percent of the city’s residents live below the poverty line, compared with 9 percent in Groton and 8 percent statewide, according to the report.
The problem is also circular. Between 1991 and 2004, teen births in Connecticut cost taxpayers almost $2 billion, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. Most of these costs arose from the needs of children born to teen mothers, such as public health care, welfare, and incarceration, the group found.
But Philliber’s report identified another problem, one which the city could more easily fix. Teen pregnancies in New London were not driven only by poverty, the researcher found, but a lack of scientifically-accurate sex education in schools.
“Teachers in New London schools have not have been trained to offer sexuality education, have no standard curriculum in place, and there is confusion about policies related to such education,” Philliber wrote in the report.
So for the first time this fall New London High School introduced a comprehensive sex education curriculum in tenth grade health classes. The curriculum, called “Making Proud Choices!” covers decision-making skills and contraception techniques, including condom use and abstinence, according to Alison Ryan, supervisor of curriculum for New London Public Schools.
The teen pregnancy task force also spearheaded a variety of programs for teenagers offered outside the classroom. Many are funded by the Community Foundation of Southeastern Connecticut, which devoted nearly $50,000 of its $40 million endowment this year to combating teen pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections, according to program director Jennifer O’Brien.
For instance, the foundation’s grants fund “Teen Talk,” a series of sexual health discussions at New London’s Planned Parenthood center and “Real Life, Real Talk,” a program designed to teach parents and church leaders how to talk to youth about sex.
“We sort of have this modern myth that if we tell kids about sex they’ll go and do it,” said Kate Ott, associate director of the Westport-based Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing, who facilitated workshops for clergy members in New London last month. “That’s actually wrong.”
Other programs the foundation funds emphasize the opportunities teens would lose out on as a parent. The task force’s own youth group, “B Tru 2 U,” rarely talks about sex, according to organizer Rita Whitehead.
Whitehead’s “core group” consists of five boys who squeeze into her van and attend events across the community. They’ve marched in the Hope Week parade, attended a board of education meeting at City Hall and even toured a police station.
“The more involved in the community they are,” Whitehead explained, “the less likely they’ll do anything to harm the community.”
These projects are encouraging, but they reach a relatively small number of kids—many of whom are self-selected and not necessarily at risk of mothering or fathering a baby. That’s why many New London health experts are eager for comprehensive sex education to become a state and federal priority.
Here’s where Barack Obama and the abortion debate comes in.
It’s clear that unplanned pregnancies drive abortion rates. Roughly half of all pregnancies aren’t planned, and 40 to 50 percent of those result in an abortion, according to the National Campaign. But it’s less obvious that the hot-button abortion issue should influence efforts to reduce births to teens—after all, teenage mothers didn’t have abortions.
Yet, thanks to the ongoing political struggle between religious conservatives and secular progressives— the so-called culture wars— the two issues have become entangled.
In Connecticut a bill to fund “comprehensive, medically accurate sexuality education to teenagers, teachers, or parent/guardian training programs” died in the education committee earlier this year. Among those who spoke at a press conference heralding the Healthy Teens Act were New London Mayor Kevin Cavanagh, school superintendent Chris Clouet and Rita Whitehead, the B Tru 2 U organizer.
The bill’s main opponent was the Family Institute of Connecticut, a group that favors abstinence-only until marriage programs, which was leery of a bill that had Planned Parenthood’s blessing.
“The first rule of thumb,” said Peter Wolfgang, the Family Institute’s executive director, “is that you don’t lower the pregnancy rate by working with the folks who profit through abortion and birth control.”
Proponents of the Healthy Teens Act point to a recent survey by National Public Radio, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care non-profit, which found overwhelming parental support for comprehensive sex education. The poll found that 88 percent of parents of junior high school students believe their kids should be taught how to use contraceptives.
“Most people understand this to be an absolutely middle-of-the-road common sense issue,” said Susan Yolen, vice-president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Connecticut. “If people don’t agree with abortion, this is what they’ve been advocating for.”
On a national level legislators who support sex education are making a point of bringing abortion rights opponents into their fold. The Prevention First Act, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the first day of the current Congress, would have funded school programs that teach contraception as well as abstinence. The bill, which stalled in committee, identified abortion reduction as one of its main goals.
In the House of Representatives, a similar bill was sponsored by Rep. Timothy Ryan, D-Ohio, an abortion rights opponent, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who supports abortion rights. Its name: The Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act. The bill will be re-introduced in the next session, a DeLauro aide said.
“Of all the important goals this initiative can help us reach,” said DeLauro, who represents Connecticut’s 3rd District, “perhaps the most important is that it helps move us all forward on this issue, beyond the question over the legality of abortion and toward actually reducing the need.”
Andrea Kane, the National Campaign’s policy director, said her organization is making a point these days of embracing abortion reduction in its platform.
“It wasn’t our primary driver, but it’s certainly one of the very compelling reasons to get more attention,” Kane said.
The national reproductive health community has asked the incoming Obama administration to spend at least $50 million per year on comprehensive sex education, according to William Smith, vice president for public policy for the Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States, a research and lobbying group.
Smith said he knows where Congress can find the money—the Bush administration has spent nearly $180 million a year on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs which he expects the new government to abandon.
“This is a common ground issue,” Smith said. “We’ve overwhelmingly elected a president who wants to end the culture wars and I think comprehensive sex education can be a part of that.”
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