43 years later, old telegram yields medal

 By Dennis Punzel, Wisconsin State Journal
When Larry Stanczyk received a minor shrapnel injury in Vietnam in 1969, little did he suspect it would take him 43 years to heal completely.
Stanczyk, 64, will officially receive a Purple Heart in a Veterans Day ceremony Friday morning in the Capitol rotunda.
The ceremony will mark a day Stanczyk never thought he’d see. But it’s come to pass due in large part to his desire to leave something memorable for his granddaughter, combined with a dash of serendipity and a pinch of persistence.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/precious-medal-vietnam-vet-will-finally-get-his-purple-heart/article_bfaf5a44-2741-11e2-8cef-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz2BN8fcBWb

Soviet Propaganda at Vets Museum

Twenty-two Cold War era posters will be on display as part of a "special evening with David Olien," according to the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. Olien is senior vice president emeritus of the UW System.
The event takes place 5-9 p.m. Friday at the museum, 30 W. Mifflin, Madison, WI. The event is free and open to the public. For more information:  Call Jennifer Kollath at 608.264.7663. The posters -- "From Revolution to Reform" -- are up now and will remain on display through Dec. 31.

Job and benefit fair at McCoy

From Fort McCoy public affairs:

A Veterans Career and Benefits Fair will be held Friday, Sept. 7 from noon-3 p.m. at the Wisconsin Military Academy, building 90 at Fort McCoy. All veterans from any military service and current servicemembers and their spouses/Family members are welcome to attend the free event.

    The event will feature a number of services to help veterans seeking employment, said Rickie Larson of the State of Wisconsin Work Force Development/Job Center.

    Local employers will have booths. Veterans can learn more about the employers, potential job opportunities, have a short interview with employers about their job skills or leave resumes or job applications with employers.

    "This is the first time we've held one of these at Fort McCoy where there will actually be employers involved," Larson said. "Before we've always had Supermarket of Veterans Benefits or benefit fairs."

    Representatives from state and federal agencies will be available to talk about job opportunities in their fields, Larson said.

    Veterans also can receive information about various benefit programs available to them, including loans, health care, educational benefits and applying for state and federal veteran benefits.

    Local Office of Veterans Services and Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs staff and County Veterans Service officers also will be available to answer questions and will have information about their programs.

    People accessing Fort McCoy from off post will need to come through the Main Gate and provide a photo identification (driver's license is OK), vehicle insurance information and vehicle registration to apply for a visitor's pass to attend the event.

    For more information about the Veterans Career and Benefits Fair at Fort McCoy, call Larson at 608-785-9376 or Vern Tranberg at 608-785-9363.

    For more information about other Veterans Career and Benefits Fairs in Wisconsin, visit the website http://www.wisconsinjobcenter.org/jobfairs/.

    For more information about State of Wisconsin veterans benefits, visit the website http://dva.state.wi.us/benefits.asp. The site also includes a link to federal veterans benefits.

Wisconsin general honored by NAACP

One of the NAACP’s top honors this year will go to a Beloit native with strong Dane County ties who last year made history by becoming the Army’s first African-American woman promoted to two-star general.
Maj. Gen. Marcia Anderson is to receive the Benjamin L. Hooks Distinguished Service Award next week during the annual National Association for the Advancement of Colored People convention in Houston.
The award was first given in 1990 in recognition of the Hooks’ service in the 92nd Infantry Division during WWII. He was the NAACP’s sixth executive director.
Anderson was born in Beloit. Her family moved to East St. Louis, Ill., when she was in the second grade.
She moved back to Wisconsin in 1998 to take the job of clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Madison.
She was a member of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs board from 2008 to 2010, including a stint as chairwoman.
Anderson’s 31-year military career started when she signed up for Army ROTC as a student at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.
She stayed with the military, fulfilling an eight-year commitment before re-enlisting in the reserves.
When she wasn’t on active duty, Anderson lived in Verona with her husband, Amos Anderson.
In 2010 she was promoted to brigadier general — which made her the Army’s highest ranking African-American woman — and assigned to the full-time post of deputy commanding general of the Human Resources Command at Fort Knox in Kentucky.
With her promotion last year, she moved to the office of the chief of the U.S. Army Reserve in Washington, D.C.
She has said that when she retires from the military, she plans to move back to Verona.
www.madison.com/wsj
(AP Photo/The News Enterprise, Jill Pickett) 

WDVA top aide Johns stepping down

The Associated Press is reporting that Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs Deputy Secretary Jason Johns has decided to resign.

Johns is an Iraq veteran and earned a Purple Heart. He has served as deputy secretary at WDVA since September 2011. Before that, he was a lobbyist in the Capitol.

His last day at the agency will be Friday. He said in a statement WDVA released Monday he has decided to focus on his family.

Agency Secretary John Scocos wrote in a memo to his staff Monday that Johns has decided to concentrate on caring for his son, William, who was born premature in April, his 3-year-old twin daughters and his wife. (Wisconsin State Journal archive photo by John Maniaci)

www.madison.com 

According to the WDVA website:

Jason Johns was appointed by Secretary Scocos and serves as the Deputy Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs. He serves as the chief legislative liaison as well as the head of public affairs and policy making.
Deputy Secretary Johns is a Purple Heart recipient and Army veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, having served and been wounded by enemy action there during his tour in 2003-04. He comes to the WDVA from the private sector where he represented his clients in the Wisconsin State Legislature as well as volunteering his time to act as a legislative officer for multiple veterans service organizations in the state.
Deputy Secretary Johns grew up in Louisburg, WI and has earned a Juris Doctorate from Hamline University School of Law as well as a B.A. in History from the University of Northern Iowa. After completing his education he practiced law in Washington, D.C. before returning home to Wisconsin, where he worked in the Capitol as well as on numerous political campaigns and then moving back in to the private sector.
Deputy Secretary Johns resides just outside of Madison in the Village of Oregon, where has been an active member of the community over the years serving on village committees, as President of the Chamber of Commerce, and multiple years as commander of his local VFW Post.

 

Census and CSPAN: "Who are U.S. vets?"

From the U.S. Census Bureau: 

Live on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” “America by the Numbers” 
Seven percent of U.S. women were veterans in 2010. Find out more on Friday, May 25, at approximately 9 a.m. CDT as Melissa Chiu, chief of the Industry and Occupation Statistics Branch at the U.S. Census Bureau, discusses statistics about our veteran population. Each Friday, C-SPAN’s “America By the Numbers” segment features information from the federal statistical system. The program highlights the trends and allows the public to call in or email their views. More information on previous C-SPAN programs is available at http://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan

ICYMI: "War on women" also hits returning military, Wis vet says

Military veterans are the big losers in the rollback of a Wisconsin law that had allowed women, minorities and other protected groups to sue in state court over employment discrimination, say leaders of a statewide veterans group. Read the Wisconsin State Journal article here.