Military health: Philanthropy, not the Pentagon, leads to quality care for brain-injured soldiers

ProPublica/NPR: For Brain-Injured Soldiers, Top Quality Care From A Philanthropist, Not The Pentagon
To see what cognitive therapy looked like, ProPublica and NPR spent several days with McKinney and fellow soldiers and veterans at Project Share, a charity to help brain-damaged soldiers. (This article is part of an ongoing investigation.) The program is based out of the Shepherd Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Injury in Atlanta, a nationally recognized hospital for head injuries (Miller and Zwerdling, 12/21).

McClatchy: VA Takes Steps To Deal With Mounting Lejeune Water Claims
Responding to heightened publicity and an uneven smattering of decisions on claims, the Department of Veterans Affairs will begin training a specialized cadre of workers this week to handle disability claims related to historic water contamination at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. ... The move is more than bureaucratic; it could prove significant to Marine veterans across the country who are suffering from cancers and other diseases that they think are related to the poisonous chemicals that flowed through Lejeune's water from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s (Barrett, 12/20).