My good friend Jackie Garrick, former temporary
staff member who actually wrote a part of
the final report to Congress for the former
VDBC Commission, has received a presidential
nomination to be the Deputy UnderSecretary
for the Seamless Transition Project at the
Dept. of Defense. She starts her new post
this month. Jackie was a tremendous help
to the legislative work that was done
on the Fort McClellan veterans effort.
She is an army veteran formerly from
Walter Reed Hospital. Veterans do gain
large by having her in this new post.

For now they have removed the word "seamless"
and are now calling it The Transition Project.
Technology experts have weighed in and
determined that the original "seamless
transition" idea cannot be accomplished.
So the project will have it's obstacles
to overcome in minimizing the mismatches
between the DOD and VA agencies.

We wish Jackie the very best, and I will
miss seeing my friend around on Capitol
Hill when I visit for my monthly trips.


Former VDBC Chairman, General James Terry
Scott, is now the Chairman of the all
new Veterans Disability Advisory Committee.

As a final footnote to the VDBC report
to Congress, the Commissioners had all
inserted a recommendation at the very
last minute to establish an "executive
board" to implement the recommendations
of the Commission report. The Advisory
Committee to the VA is a variation of
that original "executive board" idea.

The advisory board is currently rewriting
all of the medical profiles contained
in the VA disability system, and this
is a very good thing which all veterans
should support. Many of the medical profiles
have not been updated at all since the
year 1945 and it is dangerously part of
why there is so much medical malpractice
in the VA Comp and Pen system.

So we salute their journey into doing what
needs to be done. The advisory board
is a mix of professional doctors and
other types to get a balanced view as
they chug along in their process.

Here is a list of the Board Members
involved with the project under General
Scott:


Advisory Committee on VA Disability Compensation and Related Benefits members are:



Lt. Gen. James Terry Scott (ret.) of Coleman, Texas. Partner at Watson & Associates, a financial services firm. He also teaches political science at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas. He is a member of the Board of Directors of CALIBRE Corp., a technical services company based in Alexandria, Va.


Charles Battaglia of Alexandria, Va. Member of the board of directors for the Wounded Warrior Project. A retired naval officer, he previously served as executive director of the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission and also as a senior staff member of the U.S. Senate, serving in several positions.


Robert J. Epley of Waxhaw, N.C. Independent consultant working in the areas of strategic planning, training, performance management and the operations of federal entitlement programs. Mr. Epley served with VA for 31 years, most recently as director of the Compensation and Pension Program.


Lt. Gen. Thomas Carney (ret.) of Alexandria, Va. Member of board of directors of CALIBRE Corp. He has been an independent consultant to numerous companies, include CALIBRE, since his retirement in June 1994. Previously, Carney was chief executive officer for the Library of Congress. He spent 31 years on active duty in the Army.


Maj. Daniel Gade of Athens, Ga. Former associate director for domestic policy for the White House's Domestic Policy Council, where he was responsible for disability and health care issues, as well as matters relating to active military personnel and veterans. As an Army officer, he was the first person in this position to be on active duty since the post was created in 2001.


Robert Burke, PhD, of Bethesda, Md. Associate professor and chair of the Department of Health Services Management and Leadership, and director of the Wertlieb Educational Institute for Long-Term Care Management at George Washington University.


Bonnie Carroll of Anchorage, Alaska. National director for Tragedy Assistance Programs for Survivors (TAPS), the national veterans service organization that provides peer support, grief and trauma resources and information, casualty casework assistance and crisis intervention for veterans and their families. An Air Force reservist, she previously served as the deputy senior advisor for programs in the Ministry of Communications, Coalition Provisional Authority, in Baghdad, Iraq, and as the deputy White House liaison for VA.


Dr. Ronald Blanck of Fenwick Island, Del. Vice chairman of Martin, Blanck and Associates. Prior to joining the firm in June 2006, Dr. Blanck served as president of the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, Texas, from August 2000 until June 2006. He is an Army veteran, finishing his career as the Surgeon General of the Army and commander of the U.S. Army Medical Command.


Deneise Turner Lott of Jackson, Miss. Administrative judge with the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission since November 1988. She is currently senior judge and is the first woman to hold that position. She was engaged in private law practice with an emphasis on disability claims before joining the commission as a staff attorney.


Edward R. Reese Jr. of Washington, D.C. National service director for the 1.3 million-member Disabled American Veterans. A disabled Army veteran of the Gulf War, Reese works at DAV’s National Service and Legislative Headquarters in Washington.


Dr. Richard T. Katz of St. Louis. Professor of clinical neurology at Washington University School of Medicine with an appointment to the Barnes Jewish Hospital. He is a primary reviewer of several different medical journals and has interests in evaluation of disability and assessment of pain.

General Scott is the man to get this
done so please refrain from all the fake
and phoney rumor mills that made trouble
for the former VDBC unnecessarily and
without justification. This is a good
group of people trying to do something
important and that's all there is to it.

We wish them well and can hardly wait
for them to be done with their mission.