All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. And
now, your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
And good afternoon good morning wherever you're
listening to veterans radio We're grateful that
you have tuned us in as they say. My name is
Dale Throneberry CW to helicopter pilot in Vietnam
1969 came back all parts working. Thank you very
much We got a kind of an interesting program
today. It's our monthly benefits program and
You know when the shutdown There are a few things
going on there that I think are kind of interesting
and we want to delve into a little bit today.
So we've got a panel and we've invited a guest
to join us and that is Nick. Mordewonic, I believe
is how we pronounce it and he is from military
.com. We've also got um carolyn falzone from
legal health for veterans uh jim falzone also
from legal health for veterans and we want to
talk a little bit about the shutdown and how
it's affecting things and um You know if you
have any questions, please give us a call at
734 -822 -1600 734 -822 -1600 do really like
to get a you know an idea of what your opinion
is of what's going on um you know with this shutdown
and how can we solve it how can we fix things
and so on and so forth so we want to make sure
that um we get as much information as we can
out to you it's been kind of uh Confoluted stories
coming from both sides. So we're gonna try and
straighten it out as much as we can So before
I bring Nick on and the rest of the crew I just
want to make sure that I thank our sponsors for
veterans radio. We can't do this program without
them Number one is legal help for veterans specializes
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zero zero or go to their website legal help for
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or give them a call at 888 -237 -8433. PuroClean
known as the paramedics of property damage each
PuroClean office is independently owned and operated
in fact PuroClean is one of the nation's leading
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get a 25 % off the franchise fee That's pretty
good deal. So for more information go to PuroClean
.com Finally, we've got the Erwin Prescorn American
Legion Post 46 and the Charles S. Kettles Vietnam
Veterans of America Chapter 310 both of Ann Arbor,
Michigan. If you'd like to support Veterans Radio,
please go to our website veteransradio .org and
click on the donate button. In fact, I only have
one announcement today and that is that we have
kind of a... a small fundraiser coming up here
on Thursday, November 13th. PF Chang's here in
Ann Arbor is going to donate 10 % of all their
proceeds to Veterans Radio if you just tell them
that, hey, I'm here to support Veterans Radio.
So again, that is Thursday, November 13th from
4 p .m. till close. It's the PF Chang's in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, just off of I -94 in Briarwood
Mall. Just tell your server that I support veterans
radio and now we get a piece of the action as
they say So, um, i'm encouraging everybody go
out great food great people Be there as they
say, all right, so let's get into this a little
bit. Um, as I said, I want to bring on the My
Falzone people. So we've got Carol Ann Falzone.
Carol Ann is a retired Air Force Brigadier General.
She has also been a nurse forever, and she is
heavily involved with Legal Health for Veterans,
and she's kind of our VSO, Veterans Service Officer
for the day. David Sims is not here. He's off
at a memorial celebration of 22 a day, which
is going on right now at the Washtenaw Memorial,
Vietnam Memorial at the time. So Caroline, welcome
to the program again. Thanks, Dale. I hope you're
having a great day. Well, I was until the Lions
lost. Well, I know, but did you see who they
were up against? JJ McCarthy. Oh, you are true
blue to the core. I am, I am. But I do love the
Lions. Well, we tried maybe next time uh, jim
jim fauçon is with one of the founders of legal
health for veterans and I uh, I think my disclaimer
here is that he is a partner with veterans radio
and um So anything we say here, it doesn't necessarily
reflect the opinions of veterans radio america
Hey, dale, how are you good today? All right,
and joining us on the line right now is uh, nick
mortiwaniq Nick is a writer for military .com
Nick, welcome to veterans radio Thanks a lot
for having me dale Thank you. I'm gonna give
our audience a little background on you. You
can fill in if I leave stuff out here. All right
So Nick was previously a national news and investigative
reporter for Newsweek focusing on US and international
politics, immigration, crime, social issues over
a four year career with them. Other coverages
included education, economics, military defense,
and wars in Ukraine and Gaza. His reporting on
the opioid epidemic garnered a statewide Michigan
Press Association Award. And by the way, he is
a graduate of Michigan State University, but
we won't hold that against him. Nick, welcome
to the program. Thanks a lot for having me. Thank
you. Well, the reason I asked Nick to join us
is that I caught your article on military .com
about the shutdown, I guess you could say, and
people are pointing fingers at everybody from
all different directions. And I just wanted to
know if you could update our audience what you
see as what's going on with the VA right now.
Sure. Well, first of all, I think what's going
on in the VA is what's happening more broadly
across the federal government. You're seeing
it, for example, with airports, employees who
are working either on back pay or have been furloughed,
or those who continue working without pay. VA
Secretary Doug Collins seemed to suggest that
the longer this goes on, obviously, It's already
the second longest shutdown in the history of
our country. So, um, the longer this goes on,
there's a concern of, you know, pay in terms
of, uh, because, you know, benefits are still
being paid out. Um, for the most part, um, you
know, things, the things that veterans require
are being provided, but at the, you know, simultaneously
you do have about 37 ,000 VA employees who are
furloughed or working without pay right now,
obviously, you know, your guess is as good as
mine when the shutdown will conclude. And obviously,
you know, it's putting these individuals' lives
and economic uncertainties, you know, making
them more vivid. But for, you know, the most
part, the benefits still continue to be processed
and delivered, and that includes aspects Like
compensation, pension, education, and housing,
burials are continuing in national cemeteries.
But on the flip side, and Collins pointed this
out on Thursday, I believe, the shutdown of the
GI Bill hotline that traditionally provides assistance
to more than 900 ,000 veterans, that's been stopped
for now. You have these. veteran enrollees, more
than 100 ,000 of them, according to the VA, who
are attempting to enroll into readiness and employment
programs to further their own work situations
that have been delayed due to employees being
furloughed. Regional VA offices, about four,
more than four dozen of them closed. And then
you have transition briefings for these outgoing
military members who are trying to have their
paperwork accommodated. And there's just no one
to process that. So obviously, as you pointed
out at the outset, there's a lot of fingers being
pointed back and forth. But I think while these
main aspects are still being delivered to veterans,
obviously these nearly 40 ,000 employees who
are being furloughed or working without pay,
uh... that the major concern and then on top
of that there had been suggestions that the office
of uh... uh... management budget that you know
and i did not just in the v a but across these
other sectors of the federal government uh...
that you know are these individuals when the
shutdown concludes are they going to get their
back pay that they've rightfully worked for or
will it be delays uh... so i i think there's
A lot of questions still that need to be answered
as this thing goes on. I'm not sure what to do.
I was kind of trying to figure out what is happening.
On another news source, I was looking to see
that the VA was fully funded last year as far
as their budget was concerned. I think it was
$339 billion. I guess I don't understand exactly,
and maybe somebody else can help me. Explain
it to me. You know, why aren't we using those
funds to continue to pay the VA staffs if the
money is there? I See a lot of anybody I don't
think anybody has an answer to that one Right.
Yeah, I think yeah, I wasn't sure if you're asking
me or not But yeah, I think there's you know,
the way Appropriations occur and then you have
you know different funding mechanisms for how
that goes through and is allotted to go to these
different agencies, I think. There is a lot of
murkiness in that, and I'll let someone else
chime in if they have any thoughts as well. Well,
the interesting thing is it depends on the area.
I loved what you said. The VA is supposedly totally
open. But we do know some employees have been
furloughed. Our veterans are getting their disability
benefits monthly. And so some major implications
still continue to happen. But as we do our work
at Legal Help for Veterans, the interesting thing
has been Some employees out there in the VA system
have been spectacular. Some of the ROs have shut
down. But if we've needed help with one of our
claims, we found a way to go through the system,
whether it's contacting the director, they're
helping us because it's our veterans. And it
might not be as quick as I like for an exam or
something that's been scheduled. But they are
responding and I'm really grateful for that for
our veterans that that continues. So I have not
heard that any of our veterans so far have not
gotten their disability checks. And I think that
so far continues to be honored. A question for
you, Carol Anne and Jim, I guess, is if somebody
were to file and can they file a new claim right
now? Can you do that whole thing? Yes, they can
do that and we're accepting them. But I see sometimes,
you know, how you upload and you go, you send
them to one source. If we're trying to get into
their file and if that hasn't been uploaded on
the front end, then I have to think of another
way on the back end to come through and allow
us to go through and access your records with
power of attorney. And some of the ROs have been
very good with that. I think, Nick, your reporting
highlights the nibbling around the edges of things,
that there are certain pockets that are slower
or non -existent because of cutbacks. It's not
across the board, but am I correct that what
you're reporting really found was that, yeah,
some of the around the edges of all of this have
slowed down or shut down? Yeah, so I would agree
with that. And every week, Dale, there seems
to be some new attempt by the administration
to, I don't know if tighten up is the right word,
but a week ago or so, the secretary of the VA
filed asking the court of veterans appeals to
stop hearing cases and said, we're not sure that
our appellate lawyers qualify. and that they
should still be working through this furlough.
The court immediately shut down the VA's request
and said, no, no, no, we're not stopping court
cases and your attorneys will continue to file
and brief and handle these matters. That kind
of popped up out of the blue. It got shut down
in less than a week by the court. But again,
I think it highlights Little pockets here, little
pockets there are being impacted as this goes
along day by day, week by week. Right, and I'm
sorry, oh, go ahead. Another good example by
that is we knew of the mail problems months ago.
Well, it seems like now I'm going to tell veterans
whether you're dealing with a veteran service
organization, county counselor, legal help for
veterans, watch your mail because I just got
a call today from one of our veterans who said,
oh my God, I got a letter that was dated September
2nd. And I was supposed to respond in 30 days
so that I could continue with my claim. Now,
obviously, it's 60 days later. Today's November
2nd. So we'll go in tomorrow and put a claim
in or just make the VA aware that that's when
they got the mail. How are they going to answer
the claim if The mail never was delivered. So
we need to be vigilant and watch these dates
and see what's happening. Well, that's for sure.
Nick, you, you, you had something that you wanted
to say. Yeah. I was just kind of piggybacking
on the point that was made about Doug Collins
and his appeal. And essentially the judges, this
panel of judges, um, I believe in their response
called the quote -unquote extreme they essentially
cited that the existing funding gaps that already
exist in the VA and veterans who in many instances
have already waited years to receive some form
of reimbursement, financial reimbursement. So
they basically argued that you want to delay
it even further and that would further impede
these veterans' causes. That was essentially
their explanation for why they rejected Collins's
appeal last week. Well, I noticed that in the
on the V .A.'s website. This is a little controversial
and I apologize. No, I don't really. He's he's
he's made this pretty political in the. On their
own website, you know, he's totally blaming the
democrats for the whole the whole deal and you
know that they're not gonna I mean he even threw
in there that they're not they don't want to
give health care to to immigrants and everything
else and I i'm i'm befuddled by some of these
things when they when you know, you know granted
the shutdown is is political and You know you
and I none of us can really do anything about
it until they decide to grow up and be adults.
But I was concerned about the way that the VA
itself is pushing this, you know, the political
side of it. I would think that the VA would just
say, you know, let's just solve this issue as
best that we can without throwing stones. You
know, sorry to interrupt, but, you know, if you
look at all of these different government pages
of all these different agencies that have been
impacted by this ongoing shutdown. The language
all kind of mirrors one another. If you go to
Department of Transportation or Agriculture,
any agency that has been impacted throughout
this shutdown, it all kind of has that same language
that you mentioned in terms of the political
posturing of what's going on that's obviously
impacting millions of people's lives. So yes,
that is it's uniform in terms of the messaging
that is coming out. And even if you go to the
White House website, it's, you know, there's
a clock that shows it continues to tick on about
and essentially blaming the Democrats for what
is happening to these millions of people. You
know, we always say veterans are non -political
if they you should never get into this and We
talk about that, but it's going to be really
interesting Fast forward to what happens in this
country on Tuesday when our Americans go out
to vote with this shutdown. And so I don't know
if that's going to be telling, but I just hope
this gets done. I applaud those legislators who
said, no, we're not going on break. We're going
to stay here and we're going to get the job done.
That blew my mind also. Please just get our government
back. That would be nice if we if we were able
to do that, you know There's there's another
story that that that Nick added in his article
and he was talking about Maybe you know get off
the politics of this thing a little bit, but
he's talking about that. There's Talk out there
of how many so many veterans are using the system
And that there's a lot of VA fraud out there
Nick. Would you like to address that a little
bit? sure, well, essentially there was a Washington
Post investigative story earlier this month that
According to their reporting they used VA data
to look into the approximate 6 .9 million disabled
veterans who Receive collectively approximately
193 billion dollars annually and compensation
but the reporting suggested that A lot of these
claims, or a portion of these claims, are more
for innocuous reasons. They mention things in
their reporting, such as hair loss, jock itch,
toenail fungus, things that wouldn't necessarily
cause impairment for veterans. They reported
that there were 556 ,000 veterans, for example,
who received disability benefits for eczema,
things of that nature. uh... my in in my conversations
with uh... you know the v a uh... the officials
they've uh... thoroughly rejected the premise
that there's rampant fraud and there is actually
a hearing on capitol hill last week that uh...
included uh... a lot of these officials who you
know look into issues like these and uh... the
conversation kind of uh... elaborating into uh...
how to fix these things, even though they dispute
the numbers in the piece reported by the Post,
they're basically wondering whether the Veterans
Health Administration, the Veterans Benefit Administration
can kind of be synchronously overhauled in a
way that these veterans can receive their funds
while also continuing to minimize the fraud.
If you talk to the VA, they say, you know, these
cases are few and far between. And then I talked
to the AFGE, one of the largest unions, union
memberships in the country. And they wrote a
letter that went into record as testimony during
this hearing late last week, essentially saying,
we represent a lot of these people and we're
concerned that there are reports out there. So
obviously when you have especially, you know,
in situations like this with a shutdown ongoing,
there are, you know, I think generally people
will ask and ponder what, you know, where is
the money going? How much money do we have? Are
people, you know, using the money in the right
way kind of the same conversations that we had,
you know, during and in the aftermath of the,
you know, COVID pandemic. So I think situations
like these just kind of, you know, bring more
broader issues to light. I think some people
have too much time in their hands. Yes, possibly.
I guess I want to jump in on this, Nick, because
I think your reporting was well done as compared
to what I think of the Washington Post report.
And anything, any bureaucracy, I don't care if
it's corporate government of this size, you will
be able to find examples of, yeah, that didn't
go right now. You can call it fraud if you want,
abuse if you want, just human nature screw -ups.
And I don't know, for the percentages we're talking
about, yeah, you'd like to get it down to 0 .000,
but it is human nature. Could they do a better
job policing? Probably. But to paint it with
a brush that the whole system needs to be redone.
And there is talk, there are congressmen and
women talking about, yeah, we've got to redo
the whole thing. This is just a big scam. That
is totally missing the point. And not looking
at the 99 .99 % of the men and women who get
this compensation. because their lives were negatively
impacted by service to the country. It's always
easy to talk about the bad stuff. And I think
that's all Washington Post really did here. They
really did a disservice to veterans. I was going
to ask you, Jim and Carol Anne, I mean, this
is part of your business of legal help for veterans.
Have you ever, have you run into people trying
to file false claims? Well, I don't know if they're
trying to file false claims, but I think our
system is very good and very fair. We don't accept
everybody that comes in and asks us. I mean,
for what Nick was talking about, you know, we're
as a nurse, you've got secondary issues, you
got primary issues. I wanted to talk about Camp
Lejeune in a little bit, but it's interesting
how when we look at a claim, and try before our
attorneys accept a case, they look back at the
nexus, the period of time. Could have this happened?
Is it service -connected before they even take
a case? And so I applaud what we're doing and
have been doing probably for 28 years. Is everybody
doing that? I don't know. But could people come
to us and say, hey, we should get this? The thing
I hear a lot is, well, I was next to this guy
in Vietnam. And he got 100%. And why aren't you
getting me 100 %? It doesn't work that way. Every
case is different. And so let me jump in because
I would push against the idea that any accredited
veteran service officer, county counselor, attorney,
advocate would file a false claim. You can file
claims without any of those people. So we can't
talk about that percentage of people who file
their own claims or use disreputable organizations
of which there are a number of claim sharks out
there who might file such claims. I also think
most veterans get themselves pretty confused
over what is an appropriate claim and what is
not, in part because they hear the stories at
the bar or at work or at church. Oh, so -and
-so got such -and -such, and they immediately
compare it to themselves and think, well, they
must have a similar claim. The complexity of
having both a service connection and a medical
nexus, I think can lead at least some veterans
to thinking of entitlement when they're not entitled.
But that's what the system weeds out. Hey, there
isn't a service connection. There isn't a real
medical nexus here. So again, does it happen?
Of course. Would we say $193 billion, 6 .9 million
veterans? Take take any take 1 % take 3 % Still
a big number. We recognize that Yeah, and you
know the VA inspector general Cheryl Mason she
said during that hearing that it was the number
was hovering around three point seven percent
of active investigations that actually led to
fraud being discovered, but I think you know
moving forward Obviously a lot of talk nowadays
is you know about artificial intelligence, and
you know I spoke with, you know, an expert for
one of my stories and that's kind of the next,
you know, hoop to kind of jump through in terms
of, you know, what we look at when we think of
traditional fraud because obviously as AI accelerates
and, you know, technology in general, there'll
be, I assume, countless incidents of individuals
posing as, you know, veterans and, you know,
it won't just be in the VA obviously. health
care especially but uh... you know people who
are trying to impersonate other people false
identity things of that nature uh... so uh...
i think that hearing last week was uh... important
uh... will be obviously what happened uh... legislatively
but you know these things need to kind of be
tuned uh... tuned out now before they you know
accelerate and then get really bad and there
are no uh... guardrails to prevent them Obviously,
we are not going to solve all the problems today
of what is happening in Washington. You know,
you got the Senate that keeps trying to work
on stuff. The House of Representatives hasn't
been in Washington for almost a month now, it
seems. So we've got to figure out a way to. Think
what we got to do is we got to contact whoever
our representatives are and tell them just solve
this thing You know make a little compromise
here I I came up with this bright idea which
I thought was a bright idea and then I heard
someone else had done it is you know if you want
if the Democrats want to protect You know Obamacare,
you know have a you know, write a letter Okay,
if I vote, you know to pass this thing and open
up the Congress again We will sit down and discuss
this in the next week or two after we open up
the government and have some Republican guys
sign this thing. But that didn't work either.
They're just not talking to each other and we
can't solve the problem without talking. And
like Nick's view on this, I think one of the
problems here for the VA is the way we pick secretaries
of the VA. It kind of filters back into their
statements on their website, which reflect what
everybody else is doing. We have turned the VA
into a political organization, and this is true
with every president, and you can kind of go
back secretary by secretary. We just have a little...
These are political appointments and, and, oh
my gosh, we're surprised there's politics involved.
Just a little, little bit of this is of our own
creation and starts right at the top. Well, hopefully
we won't. Hopefully we can get this fixed. So
that when we come back, uh, you know for december's
benefits program, we're still not talking about
this whole thing I mean, that's that's the point.
Um nick. I wanted to thank you so much for uh,
Joining us here on veterans radio. We've been
talking with nick Mortowonic am I pronouncing
that correctly? That's perfect. I appreciate
that I know, I can relate. Anyway, thank you
so much, and we keep an eye out for any of your
other articles. If you've got some information
you'd like to share with us, I would love to
have you join us again. That would be great.
Really appreciate the time and the invitation.
Thanks a lot, Dale. Thank you very much. All
right. Thank you very much. All right. We're
going to take a quick break when we come back.
Carol Ann has got some Camp Lejeune information,
evidently. So you are listening to Veterans Radio
and we'll be back in a moment. The Medal of Honor
is the highest award for valor in combat given
a member of the Armed Forces of the United States.
There have been over 3 ,400 recipients of the
nation's highest award. This is one of them.
Sergeant First Class Paul Smith gave his life
to protect his troops. Details after this. If
you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans'
Appeals, contact Legal Help for Veterans at 1
-800 -693 -4800. They're experts in handling
cases before the U .S. Court of Appeals for Veterans'
claims. Their number again, 1 -800 -693 -4800.
On April 4, 2003, a call went out for a place
to put some Iraqi prisoners. Sergeant First Class
Paul Smith volunteered to create a holding pen
inside a walled courtyard. Soon, Iraqi soldiers
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Smith rejected that option, thinking that abandoning
the courtyard would jeopardize about 100 GIs
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He manned a .50 caliber machine gun atop an abandoned
armored personnel carrier and fought off the
Iraqis going through several boxes of ammunition.
As the battle wound down, Smith was hit in the
head. He died before he could be evacuated from
the scene. The Medal of Honor series is a production
of Veterans Radio. Military veterans touch everyone's
life. I'm guessing right now you're thinking
of a veteran, a close friend, relative. Maybe
it's you. Even the toughest of us sometimes need
help but don't know where to turn for support.
You don't need special training to help a veteran
in your life. We can all help someone going through
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.net A message from the U .S. Department of Veterans
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After my time in the military, I struggled with
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with warriors. A message from the Michigan Department
of Health and Human Services. We're back here
on Veterans Radio and we've got Carol Ann Falzone
and Jim Falzone joining us. And Carol Ann wanted
to talk about something about Camp Lejeune. What's
going on? Well, you know how the VA does outstanding
research. So Let me just refresh everybody's
memory. VA adopted the presumptive for Camp Lejeune
to be adult leukemia, aplastic anemia, the bladder
cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer, multiple
myelomas, non -Hodgkin disease, and Parkinson's
disease. Well, through a lot of additional research,
it came out in an article, it's called MedConnect
from the VA, that they've been researching extensively
type two diabetes, and they're looking at the
diabetes in connection with the water, the contamination
at Camp Lejeune, and they're trying to link.
It's going in the right direction. Not only if
you end up with type 2 diabetes and they declare
it, service connection, the other things that
you need to look for that they're indicating
this to a veteran, and this is Dale, what is
the secondary issues that could be occurring,
relates to hypertension, heart disease, peripheral
neuropathy, kidney disease, cataracts, and glaucoma,
and even sleep apnea. So if this diabetes, yes,
I agree. It's a whole litany, but I give them
credit for looking at this next layer of a potential
presumptive with type 2 diabetes. Because as
we all know, out of the Vietnam era, the diabetes
has produced heart disease and neuropathy and
the hypertension, which was approved. But it
takes a long time to have some of these presumptives
be identified. So I really give them a lot of
credit for continuing to do the outstanding research
on some of these chemicals that have been so
disruptive in our veterans' lives. Think that's
great information to know I mean that They're
always seeming to find out and this is you know
one thing we have to you know We have to give
credit to the VA for all the research that they
do Because not only do whatever they come up
with it that helps veterans it also helps the
civilian community as well and I think that's
what's important Jim you you had a Quick story
about pain management Yeah, I wanted to highlight
this for folks because and I almost brought it
up when Nick was on because he wrote about opioid
addiction and but Yeah, you know we get our guests
on and we kind of promise them. We'll respect
their time commitment on a Sunday. So But but
as the VA has dialed back the use of opioids
it's really moved to a more integrated approach
to pain management This started a number of years
ago, and I want to bring this up. It's the lead
article in DAV's magazine for September and October,
and you'd sort of think that, well isn't this
all over with changing the script, getting opioids
out? But I think what's happened is as they have
dialed back the use of drugs, which is a good
thing, opioids in particular, you still have
veterans out there Pain is a real problem. It's
recognized as a real separate issue for veterans.
So if you've given up, if you have sort of said,
well, VA can't help me anymore on this pain.
I just got to live with this stuff. pass out
to folks that they're really prioritizing an
interdisciplinary medicine approach that includes
everything from behavioral therapy and medication
to acupuncture and chiropractic care. And then
we've talked about each of these at different
times, I think on Veterans Radio, including acupuncture
and chiropractic care. But if you're living with
that kind of chronic pain and you're no longer
getting the pills, which helped a little, don't
give up. Get back into the VA healthcare system
and ask them if they're doing anything new or
have a new integrated approach that has not been
tried for you yet. and maybe you're going to
find one that works. So just because they've
dialed back the use of opioids doesn't mean they've
dialed back their ongoing efforts to help veterans
deal with chronic pain. Yeah, I think a lot of
them are going toward the holistic route to try
and find what they can do without all those really
powerful drugs that they were using for so long
on there. Well, this is the kind of thing that
you get when you listen to Veterans Radio. I
think that's been very helpful. Jim has one more
thing that I want him to talk about briefly,
and that is that there's a big deal ceremony
coming up in Detroit next year. And we've got
a segment that we're going to play here in just
a minute. Yeah, timing on this is good because
it's about a year from now actually it'll be
over by this point, but the Congressional Medal
of Honor Society, which is a separate group,
there are currently 61 living Medal of Honor
recipients, they get together annually to talk,
compare notes, talk to the communities, do educational
programs with the kids. And that convention is
coming to Detroit at the end of September 2026
and October 1st, 2026. Hard to think that far
ahead, but that's coming. Maybe you've seen some
of the press that is now being garnered to let
people know. I think it's gonna be a great educational
experience. I would hope our... grade school
and junior high and high school teachers build
this into their curriculum. Dale, you and I've
had a chance to talk to a number of Medal of
Honor recipients over the two decades of doing
this. And these are all great people. Humble,
inspiring, and so getting involved or going to,
you can go to the Detroit Medal of Honor. society,
if you put that in, it'll pop up to who's helping
with that. I think our next segment will give
a little more information on that. And actually,
it's just being announced now, yesterday at the
University of Michigan football game. Medal of
Honor recipient Will Svensson was there. He did
two tours in Iraq, two in Afghanistan. And they
announced during the game and did a you know,
big light board ceremony on the Medal of Honor
and the Detroit Society bringing it in. Will's
story is really interesting in that when his
unit was surrounded by Taliban and it looked
hopeless, the Taliban offered them the opportunity
to surrender. His answer to that was to throw
grenades into them. It was pretty clear he wasn't
surrendering. But look for this information and
we got a chance to talk to a couple of the organizers.
And that's the segment I think you're going to
play, Dale. But real interesting stuff. A great
opportunity for the Michigan area to learn about
these incredible men. Yep. And so we're going
to go right to that. Otherwise, we're going to
run out of time today. So Derek, hit it. We want
to welcome to Veterans Radio today two gentlemen
who are deeply involved in Detroit's efforts,
successful efforts, to bring the Medal of Honor
Society Convention to Detroit in October of 2026.
One of the things you know if you listen to Veterans
Radio is we kind of get the information before
other people do and we get to pass it on to you
so that you're in the know. So we're really happy
to talk about What's coming a year from now when
the living Medal of Honor recipients gather in
Detroit for their annual convention? First up,
we have Russell Schaumburger, who is the chair
of the committee. Russ, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Well, thank you, Jim, very much. Appreciate it
and looking forward to sharing more about the
conference to the audience. We want to welcome
to Veterans Radio Adrian Kozikov, who is a committee
member. that's working on this huge effort to
bring the Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients
Convention to Detroit in 2026. Adrian, welcome
to Veterans Radio. Thank you for having me, Jim.
Very excited to share about the convention. Well,
Russ, let's start with you. How did you get yourself
involved in this, you know, big task of pulling
off the national convention? Well, I don't know
how much time you have, but to make it simple,
um, I am also on the board of the Detroit public
safety foundation. And I've been supporting first
responders for some time. And I just, I met some
folks that are involved with the recipient community
and said, you know, we've never had this in the
city of Detroit. It would be cool to have. So
I started working with Detroit Public Safety
Foundation and the society to win the award or
to bring it to Detroit, which we were successful
on doing. And now I find myself having the Tiger
by the Tail, which is a labor of love. I'm very
fortunate in my position to be able to give back
to the community. I've been doing so for about
seven years for Detroit Public Safety Foundation.
And it's just all about Detroit. the veteran
community and giving back. Well why don't you
expand a little bit more on the Detroit Public
Safety Organization because folks can go there
and donate for this particular Congressional
Medal of Honor convention and really I don't
think most folks would go I don't know what the
Detroit Public Safety Organization is. Well,
the Detroit Public Safety Foundation is a 501C3.
It is the charity of record for this conference.
And what we do is we take care of fallen first
responders, their families and things of that
nature. We do things for youth groups within
the city. And we provide things to the first
responders. It's just simple little things, creature
comforts for the fire department, you know, their
housing, things of that nature. But our main
focus is giving back to the community and taking
care of youth programs and first responders who
are injured or fallen in line of duty. Well,
clearly the Detroit Public Safety Foundation
is a very worthy cause and is sort of the base
here around which this Medal of Honor Convention
is building. And as you say, it's the financial
arm of it as well. It's the risk. You can make
final one, see three charitable deductions, contributions
to the Detroit Public Safety Foundation for the
purposes of supporting the Medal of Honor Convention,
if I understand it right. Exactly. That's perfect.
It's perfectly stated. Well, Adrian is. fairly
clear that Russ just stumbled into this, you
know, the guy with a good idea always finds himself
being voluntold. Oh good, you're gonna lead it.
Jim, I say no good deed goes unpunished. Absolutely,
absolutely. Adrian, how did you get involved?
You know, I, similar, in a similar fashion, I
was voluntold to get involved in this and thought
one of the employees and directors at the Medal
of Honor Society said, hey, Adrian, you'd be
a good fit for this, and talked with Russ. And
Russ said, yes, we could use the help. Let's
figure out a way to get involved. And from there,
I started getting more involved and seeing how
I could help. Well, your committee has a number
of influential people on it. We have a mutual
friend in Voli Garcia. with the NDIA, with the
Michigan Military and Veterans Hall of Honor,
former state senator, and I know he's really
excited about this as well. Are there other committee
members you'd like to mention? There's none at
this time, and we have some feelers out what
we're doing. We have this year's conference coming
on next week. So that's in Chattanooga. And what
we wanted to do is go sit down, go through the
whole thing. We'll be there all week. We're going
to set A to Z and talk to everybody and say,
let's learn from lessons learned. What went well?
What didn't? How should we restructure? Now we
have a straw person. We have roles identified.
We have task and duties identified We have some
names penciled in but before we pull the trigger
in that what we wanted to do is just go make
sure that we've done all of our due diligence
before we go asking people for You know time
energy and effort the congressional metal of
honor society is a sort of standalone organization
itself and It's a way in which people can connect
with living Medal of Honor recipients and learn
more about those who have deceased. But do they
have conventions every year? Yes, they do have
conventions every year. And they pick a city.
You go and make a pitch, if you will. And so
Valdé and some others went down last year in
San Antonio to do the pitch. And there's really
three purposes for this. And I'm non -military.
So I'm just a Detroit fellow that's trying to
do a good job for the city of Detroit and veterans
causes, right? I'm often flabbergasted by the
fact that very few people know anything about
the society. They know very little about recipients.
When I booked the venue and it's going to be
at the Motor City Casino Hotel next year, some
of the people there were saying, well, tell me
more about what the society is, even visit Detroit.
And so the main purpose of this is to go and
communicate all about the medal, all about service,
all about what this stands for. The second thing
is really to educate the national audience about
Detroit. And then finally, what we come along
with is to raise funds for the society itself
and for veterans and youth programs within the
city. So those, I would say in general, are the
three legs of the stool. Adrian, did I forget
anything? I often get carried away and get excited
in my exuberance and so. Yeah, I think that covers
it very well. item I would like to add more to
was especially the youth programs. It's to help
inspire our youth to live by not only youth but
the people of Detroit, the people of Michigan,
to live by the values that the medal instills
in people. Yeah, you know, it's really interesting.
I think it's one of the things that you're going
to be able to do is remind the nation of the
contributions that have been made in Southeast
Michigan, and really Michigan as a whole, to
national defense. The arsenal of democracy, right?
World War II was largely successful because of
our industrial production and what companies
like Ford were able to do in turning out necessary
defense equipment, planes, tanks, the famous
Jeep, right? So it kind of goes both ways. We're
going to learn what their lives were, what their
sacrifices were, but hopefully we're also being
able to pass on that message about what Detroit
and the area has done for the nation. Yep. It's
all about education and expanding the reach,
the knowledge base of who knows. about this stuff,
right? I mean, there's really just a small group
that's, I would hate to say fading, but it is
in some ways, right? And so we're the champions,
you know, if you don't remember history, it will
repeat itself in the future, right? And so learning
those things, sharing those things, and at the
end, it's really about, you know, youth programs
and veterans programs as well. So it's just a
very worthy cause. And like you said, we do have
lots of needs coming up over the next year. So,
you know, you can mention our website or put
that in part of your, you know, announcements.
It is the Medal of Honor Detroit .com. It'll
be, that's where you find all of your information
about what, what's coming up, coming up events.
And we're back here we're coming up to the end
of the program and that was Jim Falzone talking
with the folks in Detroit that are going to be
sponsoring the Medal of Honor Society's 2026
convention From September 30th to October 3rd
next year. So mark your calendars now and get
ready to go How much time have I got Derek I
got one minute, okay, so Anyway, I want to thank
everybody for tuning in next month. We will be
having another benefits program And we wanted
you know, we want to try and answer your questions.
Hopefully this Shut down will be you know, i've
gone away and we can get back to business So,
um, yeah send us emails whatever it takes to
you know with your questions about what your
benefit is if you have problems questions concerns
so forth carolyn, thank you so much for joining
us again today and And we're going to go out
again with one of our favorite, God bless America
tunes. This is Jimmy Fountain and Nicole. No,
not Nicole. And anyway, it's a great one. So
I hope you enjoy this. It's very important to
us that we stand up and we, you know, continually
believe in what America stands for. So until
next week, this is Dale Thromberg. If you're
always here at Veterans Radio, you are dismissed.
Happy Veterans Day. God bless America Land that
I love Stand beside her and guide her Through
the night with a light from above From the mountains
to the prairies To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home God bless
America, my home sweet