Events last week in the Middle East have placed veterans and their issues front and center; Now as ever, veterans and their families need answers.

The Veterans National Recovery Center (VNRC) announces “Veterans’ Moment of Truth” featuring 2 civic events:  Presidential Open Forum (VETPOF) & the Iowa Senate Debate.  Topics will be generally veterans, defense and foreign policy.  The “Veterans’ Moment of Truth” will be held at the Historic Five Flags Theater, 405 Main Street, Dubuque, Iowa on January 11, 2020.  All active presidential & Iowa senatorial candidates have been invited.

Doors open at 8:30am; A US Presidential Candidate will appear at 9:00am; Iowa’s US Senate Debate will run from 10am – 12:00pm.  More US Presidential Candidates and campaigns will follow.

Attendance is FREE; Requesting courteous priority be given to veterans and their families.
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VETPOF
Each candidate attending will be given 45 minutes on stage which will include opening comments, a short standard set of common questions, and then questions submitted by members of the audience.

The Veterans National Recovery Center (VNRC) in collaboration with local veterans organizations formally invited the following presidential candidates to appear at the VETPOF:

• Joe Biden (D) Former Vice President and Senator of Delaware
• Michael Bloomberg (D) Former New York City Mayor
• Cory Booker (D) Senator of New Jersey
• Pete Buttigieg (D) Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
• John Delaney (D) Former Representative of Maryland
• Tulsi Gabbard (D) Representative of Hawaii
• Rocky De La Fuente (R) American Businessman
• Amy Klobuchar (D)* Senator of Minnesota
• Deval Patrick (R) Former Massachusetts Governor
• Bernie Sanders (D)* Senator of Vermont
• Tom Steyer (D) Billionaire financier and liberal activist
• Donald Trump (R) President
• Joe Walsh (R) Former Tea Party congressman and conservative radio show host
• Elizabeth Warren (D)* Senator of Massachusetts
• William “Bill” Weld (R) Former Governor of Massachusetts
• Marianne Williamson (D) Motivational speaker, author, and friend of Oprah Winfrey
• Andrew Yang (D) Entrepreneur
  
  

* If involved in impeachment trial, candidates may send a surrogate

IOWA SENATE DEBATE**

This is a debate format.  Senators will be given questions ranging from veterans affairs generally to defense and foreign policy.

The Veterans National Recovery Center (VNRC) in collaboration with local veterans organizations formally invited the following Iowa senatorial candidates to appear:

• Michael Franken, retired U.S. Navy officer and former aide to U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy
• Kimberly Graham, child advocate and attorney
• Theresa Greenfield, real estate broker and candidate for Iowa’s 3rd congressional district in 2018
• Eddie Mauro, businessman, teacher, and candidate for Iowa’s 3rd congressional district in 2018
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**Joni Ernst runs as the uncontested incumbent of the Republican Party.

This will be the only veterans-exclusive event prior to the February 3 Iowa Precinct Caucuses.

How did Sabrina Marie Waller, our Patch Adams Clown, get messed up in the KOSOVO WAR? It is a complicated story – one for which VA has very little precedent – but that actually occurred. It has to do with the speed of sound. Sabrina was doing flight operations on the deck of an aircraft carrier when some US fighter planes made a very low-level supersonic pass-over. Any physics prof will tell you that standing in a sonic boom wave is just like standing near an explosion. Proximity is everything, and Sabrina was close. She received a unique form of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) where her pituitary gland was crushed into a small pocket of bone in her skull. Voila! 24 hour per day, 7 days per week migraine headaches. The worst part of the problem? The VA has no headache specialists in the system, even though migraines are a common affliction of PTSD, MST and TBI sufferers.

KBHB, August 12, HOT SPRINGS, S.D. – The Veteran’s National Recovery Center is proposing to build several specialty centers at the Hot Springs VA – a proposal they’re calling a ‘medical miracle,’ because they hope it may keep the historic hospital from closing.

Veterans’ National Recovery Center president Bob Krause says it’s an optimistic new proposal, aimed at saving the Hot Springs VA from closure. For the past two years, Krause says the organization has been drafting a plan to create a medical research institute and college on the campus of the Hot Springs VA Medical Center.

Krause says the proposal will be presented as part of the overall environmental impact statement process being undertaken by the Department of Veterans Affairs to determine the future of the Hot Springs VA Medical Center. It would create a new osteopathic college on the Hot Springs VA campus.

The college would leverage its research on regenerative medicine for burns into a long-term investment to fund the continued operation of the facility.

Meanwhile, members of the ‘Save the VA Committee’ say their concerns about the proposal center around what’s called an ‘Enhanced Use Lease.” An EUL is essentially a program that uses to rent out unused facilities to non-VA programs. Save the VA Committee member Bob Nelson.

“That really opens the door for the VA to say ‘there’s someone out there that wants these buildings. We can vacate them and move forward with our proposal.’ That concerns us. Those buildings should be up there for veterans. Mr. Krouse’s proposal, if he’s able to pull it off, certainly would enhance that.”

The VNRC says its proposal would only work if the Department of Veterans Affairs decides not to follow through with closing certain elements of the Hot Springs facility.

A Congressional field hearing to discuss the future of the Hot Springs VA is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Thursday at the Hot Springs Mueller Center.