Oregon Guard facing biggest deployment since WWII - Breaking News Updates - OregonLive.com

A 3,500-member Oregon Army National Guard unit has been put on alert that it will deploy sometime in 2009, most likely to Iraq or Afghanistan, according to an Oregonian report .

The 41st Brigade Combat Team, a light infantry brigade with units spread throughout the state, is now in line for a likely combat tour, said Brig. Gen. Mike Caldwell. It would be the largest single deployment of Oregon Guard troops since World War II, he said.

'This will be the big one,' said Caldwell, the Oregon Guard's second in command. If all 3,500 soldiers are deployed, the mission would include more than half of the state's 6,400 Army National Guard troops.

College course via mobile phone being offered in Japan - Engadget Mobile

Posted by Joshua Topolsky:
The questionably named Cyber University in Japan has begun offering a mobile class on the 'mysteries of the pyramids,' but instead of a typical PC's display of text, images, sound, and video, the mobile version offers a streaming Power Point presentation on the topic. The university -- 71-percent of which is owned by Softbank, a mobile service provider -- has 1,850 students, and offers almost 100 courses, though only one is available for phones. Sakuji Yoshimura, head of Cyber University, says that the technology will allow those with jobs or who have disabilities greater access to education. 'Our duty as educators is to respond to the needs of people who want to learn,' he said -- then went on to add, 'Even if the course is interrupted by an SMS."

You are here

(Reuters) - Internet search leader Google Inc said on Wednesday it is introducing a novel mapping system that uses cell phone towers to let mobile phone users locate nearby services without typing in addresses.

Wounded warriors face home-front battle with VA

WASHINGTON, Illinois (CNN) -- Ty Ziegel peers from beneath his Marine
Corps baseball cap, his once boyish face burned beyond recognition by a
suicide bomber's attack in Iraq just three days before Christmas 2004.

Ty Ziegel, a Marine, was badly wounded in Iraq. He battled the VA over
disability benefits when he returned.

He lost part of his skull in the blast and part of his brain was damaged.
Half of his left arm was amputated and some of the fingers were blown off
his right hand.

Ziegel, a 25-year-old Marine sergeant, knew the dangers of war when he was
deployed for his second tour in Iraq.

But he didn't expect a new battle when he returned home as a wounded
warrior: a fight with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"Sometimes, you get lost in the system," he told CNN. "I feel like a
Social Security number. I don't feel like Tyler Ziegel."

His story is one example of how medical advances in the battlefield have
outpaced the home front. Many wounded veterans return home feeling that
the VA system, specifically its 62-year-old disability ratings system, has
failed them.

"The VA system is not ready, and they simply don't have time to catch up,"
Tammy Duckworth -- herself a wounded veteran who heads up the Illinois
Department of Veteran Affairs -- told the Senate Veterans Affairs
Committee in March.

VA Acting Secretary Gordon Mansfield said cases like Ziegel's are rare --
that the majority of veterans are moving through the process and "being
taken care of." He also said most veterans are fairly compensated.

"Any veteran with the same issue, if it's a medical disability, ... it is
going to get the same exact result anywhere in our system," he said.

More than 28,500 troops have been wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
including about 8,500 that have needed air transport, according to the
U.S. military.

A recent Harvard study found that the cost of caring for those wounded
over the course of their lifetime could ultimately cost more than $660
billion.

In Ziegel's case, he spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army
Medical Center in Texas. Once he got out of the hospital, he was unable to
hold a job. He anticipated receiving a monthly VA disability check
sufficient to cover his small-town lifestyle in Washington, Illinois.

Instead, he got a check for far less than expected. After pressing for
answers, Ziegel finally received a letter from the VA that rated his
injuries: 80 percent for facial disfigurement, 60 percent for left arm
amputation, a mere 10 percent for head trauma and nothing for his left
lobe brain injury, right eye blindness and jaw fracture.

"I don't get too mad about too many things," he said. "But once we've been
getting into this, I'm ready to beat down the White House door if I need
to."

"I'm not expecting to live in the lap of luxury," he added. "But I am
asking them to make it comfortable to raise a family and not have to
struggle."

Within 48 hours of telling his story to CNN this summer, the Office of
then-VA Secretary Jim Nicholson acted on Ziegel's case. The VA changed his
head trauma injury, once rated at 10 percent, to traumatic brain injury
rated at 100 percent, substantially increasing his monthly disability
check.

Duckworth, the Illinois VA chief, knows exactly what Ziegel and other
severely wounded vets are going through. She lost both her legs when a
rocket-propelled grenade struck her Blackhawk helicopter on November 12,
2004. Her right arm was also shattered.

She told CNN she received "incredible care" at Walter Reed for 13 months,
but soon realized the transition to the VA wouldn't be as smooth.

"I started worrying about the fact that maybe this country won't remember
in five years that there are these war wounded," Duckworth said.

Garrett Anderson with the Illinois National Guard, for example, has been
fighting the VA since October 15, 2005. Shrapnel tore through his head and
body after a roadside bomb blew up the truck he was driving. He lost his
right arm.

The VA initially rejected his claim, saying his severe shrapnel wounds
were "not service connected."

"Who would want to tell an Iraqi or Afghanistan soldier who was blown up
by an IED that his wounds were not caused by his service over there?" said
Anderson's wife, Sam.

After pressure from Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the VA acted on
Anderson's case. He has since been awarded compensation for a traumatic
brain injury.

"It upsets me that the VA system operates in a way that it takes people of
power -- and who you know and what you know -- to get what you want," said
Anderson, who is now retired.

When asked about Anderson's case specifically, the VA's Mansfield said
such cases make him "more dedicated" to fixing the system.

In July, President Bush and a commission appointed to review the care of
veterans returning from war announced the need for a complete overhaul of
the disability ratings system, which dates back to World War II. The VA is
now considering action on the commission's recommendations.

Ziegel eventually won his battle. Still he feels for so many others he
believes are getting cheated by the system.

"We're feeding the war machine, but you never think of the war machine
that comes home and needs, you know, feeding back home," he said.

His family hopes they don't have to fight the VA again. In August, Ty
Ziegel's brother, 22-year-old Zach Ziegel, was deployed to Iraq.

"I want to make the VA system better because if he has to go through
anything I went through, that's really going to upset me. That'll make my
fuse real short and hot," Ty Ziegel said.

--Emily Probst, CNN

Go to sleep, chubby.

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Here's another reason to get the kids to bed
early: More sleep may lower their risk of becoming obese.

Lack of sleep plays havoc with two hormones that regulate the appetite.

Researchers have found that every additional hour per night a third-grader
spends sleeping reduces the child's chances of being obese in sixth grade
by 40 percent.

The less sleep they got, the more likely the children were to be obese in
sixth grade, no matter what the child's weight was in third grade, said
Dr. Julie Lumeng of the University of Michigan, who led the research.

Another explanation: Tired kids are less likely to exercise and more
likely to sit on the couch and eat cookies, Lumeng said.

If there was a magic number for the third-graders, it was nine hours, 45
minutes of sleep. Sleeping more than that lowered the risk significantly.

The study gives parents one more reason to enforce bedtimes, restrict
caffeine and yank the TV from the bedroom. The study appears in the
November issue of the journal Pediatrics.

In experiments by Eve Van Cauter of the University of Chicago and others,
sleep-deprived adults produced more ghrelin, a hormone that promotes
hunger, and less leptin, a hormone that signals fullness.

Thousands of America's heroes homeless

Study: Many of homeless are vets

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- More than 25 percent of the homeless population in the
United States are war veterans, although they represent only 11 percent of
the civilian adult population, according to a report to be released
Thursday.

On any given night last year, nearly 196,000 veterans slept on the street,
in a shelter or in transitional housing, the study by the Homelessness
Research Institute found.

"Veterans make up a disproportionate share of homeless people," the report
said.

"This is true despite the fact that veterans are better educated, more
likely to be employed and have a lower poverty rate than the general
population."

The National Alliance to End Homelessness includes the Homelessness
Research Institute as its research and education arm.

"These findings highlight the need to provide veterans with the proper
housing and supportive services to prevent homelessness from occurring in
the first place," said Nan Roman, the organization's president. "If we can
do that, then we can greatly reduce the number of homeless veterans in
general."

About 44,000 to 64,000 veterans are classified as "chronically homeless"
-- homeless for long periods or repeatedly.

Other veterans -- nearly 468,000 -- are experiencing "severe housing cost
burden," or paying more than half their income for housing, thereby
putting them at a high risk for homelessness.

At the National Alliance to End Homelessness event, Fannie Mae will
announce a $200,000 grant to the Common Ground organization that will
enable the construction of more permanent housing units for veterans.

"Our veterans have served America, and America must serve them," said
Daniel Mudd, president and CEO of Fannie Mae, in a statement.

Common Ground is a nonprofit developer of housing and other solutions to
prevent and end homelessness, according to the Fannie Mae statement.

Its nap time

(HealthDay News) -- A nap a day may keep the heart doctor away -- at least that's what recent research suggests. Now, a new British study reports that the first few minutes before you doze off might be an especially restful time for your heart.