The bill, titled the American Rescue Plan, totals $1.9 trillion and includes billions in relief aid for the VA. The VA secretary said the money was needed to treat veterans who have put off health care visits during the pandemic.

Former Adm. James Stavridis and former Marine officer Elliot Ackerman spun together a novel that imagines a Gulf of Tonkin-type incident between Chinese and U.S. naval ships that quickly metastasizes into cyberwarfare, global internet outages and the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.

Rep. Michael Waltz is sponsoring immigration-related legislation moving through Congress as the Sergeant First Class Javier J. Gutierrez Purple Heart Survivor Naturalization Fee Relief Act of 2021.

Gibson retired last year from a 33-year Army career, including in the office of the Director of National Intelligence as the deputy director of national intelligence for national security partnerships.

Like many young people of his generation, David Russell Tyson answered the call to serve his country during World War II when he was still a high school junior.

Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., on Wednesday reintroduced the Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers Act that would create a $10 million grant program led by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Julia Parsons worked on one of the first computers to decode German U-boat message traffic sent via the Enigma machine. But "we never talked about it," she said. "Because you never knew who was listening. Also, no one asked me."

Black veterans who are eligible for coronavirus vaccines are accepting them at rates similar to veterans of other races, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

OBITUARY

Virgil Lee Ward, a private who handled a flurry of telephone communications on the morning of the Dec. 7, 1941, died at his home in Grand Prairie, local Texas media reported Monday.

At 17 years of age, Marine veteran Robert Vermurlen was training for the invasion of Japan. Though the war ended before he was deployed overseas, Vermurlen still saw plenty of action in the years to come, serving during the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Vietnam War veterans have been waiting years for the VA to recognize a link between hypertension and exposure to chemical herbicides during the war.

Most of the money allotted to the Department of Veterans Affairs from the American Rescue Plan would be used for veterans’ health care, staffing, suicide prevention, research and women’s health. It allows up to $4 billion to be spent on private-sector health care for veterans.

The last year has been isolating for Dennis Williams. But the Vietnam veteran could be one step closer to rejoining his friends soon — he received the first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Saturday.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has immediately enrolled veterans into its health care system in areas where eligible VA patients have refused coronavirus vaccines.

The extension was made as part of an action by President Joe Biden on Tuesday morning to extend a ban on home foreclosures for federally backed mortgages. The extension includes all properties secured by VA-guaranteed loans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs will review its policies and determine how to make the agency a more welcoming and inclusive place for LGBTQ veterans and employees.

For Jennifer Reichert, preserving Arnold Massier's home is her way of preserving the legacy of a war hero and friend.

Denis McDonough was sworn in as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday in a ceremony conducted by Vice President Kamala Harris.

A World War II-era plane flew Saturday over the funeral service of Captain Tom Moore, in honor of the veteran who single-handedly raised millions of pounds for Britain's health workers by walking laps in his backyard.

A platoon of University of Kentucky ROTC cadets raised the American flag over a campus lawn on Tuesday in honor of Elwood "Woody" Hughes and Franklin Sousley, a Kentucky native who was one of the Marines shown raising the flag over Mt. Suribachi in the iconic 1945 photo.

There will no longer be a Memorial Day parade in Streetsboro, Ohio, after the city's American Legion Post expressed concern about the message it portrays.

The Celebrate Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit based near the airport, takes old military helicopters and planes and gives them new life. A little more than 200 veteran-volunteers, many of whom suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, refurbish, paint, repair and mend the aircraft as a way to cope with their experiences during war.

OBITUARY

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Leroy Manor, whose distinguished military career included commanding the 1970 training of a task force to liberate American prisoners of war far inside enemy lines in Vietnam, died Thursday at the age of 100.

Canines for Service's main mission is to match service dogs with veterans, free of charge, and it's something the group has been doing for a quarter-century.

Most state-run veterans homes publicly shared data about coronavirus cases and deaths for the first time this month, but not all are complying to the new law.

The challenges of vaccinating veterans in rural areas — which the VA considers anything outside an urban population center — and “highly rural” areas — defined as having fewer than 10% of the workforce commuting to an urban hub and with a population no greater than 2,500 — extend beyond geography.

Kathleen Noftle, who worked at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus in Bedford, Mass., was sentenced to 40 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

For Jennifer Reichert, preserving Arnold Massier's home is her way of preserving the legacy of a war hero and friend, a World War II Army veteran fought in Africa, Sicily and the European theater before being captured in Salerno, Italy, on Oct. 31, 1943.

Wesley Brown was among the 429 crewmen killed in the attack, in which the battleship took multiple hits from Japanese torpedoes and capsized quickly.

Department of Veterans Affairs officials urged Congress on Friday to approve President Joe Biden’s proposal for about $15 billion in coronavirus relief aid for the agency.

As he led the security team that protects senior officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Anthony Everett reported what he viewed as an ethical breach and misuse of taxpayer money by two political appointees. Three hours after he pressed the send button on his computer, Everett was ordered demoted by one of the officials he had complained about.

While convincing non-military to take the vaccine can be challenging — "Some are still skeptical" — former DAV national commander Delphine Metcalf-Foster said her fellow "seasoned" veterans she's come in contact with "can't wait" to be inoculated.

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, a World War II veteran, said Thursday he was diagnosed with advanced-stage lung cancer and would begin treatment Monday.

The Black World War II fighter pilots who completed 15,000 sorties in 1,500 missions throughout the Mediterranean, and even sank an enemy destroyer, have joined Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver on commemorative U.S. currency.

Butler County, Ohio officials are outraged that almost 600 critical veterans personnel records have been in limbo since the National Personnel Records Center was essentially shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Four of Florida’s veterans healthcare systems are leading the nation in administering the most first- and second-dose coronavirus vaccinations to military veterans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs said Thursday it would pause debt collections again after billing restarted in January.

The coronavirus has now killed more than 10,000 Department of Veterans Affairs patients and 128 VA employees, but active cases of the virus were falling across the VA system after peaking last month in what experts called a “second wave” related to the holiday season.

World War II veteran Ormand Strickland has three cases of military awards and honors, including a Purple Heart for combat injuries. This week, he finally received the Bronze Star.

The proceeds will help pay for more than 36,000 wreaths to be laid at the tombstones off fallen U.S. services members across the country.

“As soon as we get the vaccines, we put them in people’s arms,” said retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Connell, director of the Veterans Affairs Providence Health Care System,

As suicide continues to be a primary concern for mental health care providers, a Fort Collins, Colorado, nonprofit organization is focusing on trying to lower suicide rates in military veterans.

A loophole in the GI Bill has drawn intense scrutiny from some lawmakers and veteran advocates for conducting questionable business practices to recruit veterans.

Xavier Bruce and his wife, Alisa, founded the nonprofit Uplift In-Powerment in 2019 to support veterans, active-duty service members and their families as they transition away from military service.

Spending more than $4.7 million in medical marijuana proceeds on upgrades to Missouri veterans homes is among the items buried in Gov. Mike Parson's budget plan for next fiscal year.

The Veterans Home of California in Barstow, which was slated for closure as part of Gov. Gavin Newsom's revised budget in May of last year but later spared amid widespread opposition to the move, could look very different in the future.

Denis McDonough is the second VA secretary to not receive a unanimous or unopposed confirmation vote in the Senate. Former VA Secretary Robert Wilkie was also not confirmed unanimously.

Veterans at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke are in for some big love ahead of Valentine’s Day this year.

Obituary

President Ronald Reagan's longtime secretary of state, George P. Shultz, who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East, has died.

George Clooney played him in "The Monuments Men" feature film in 2014, but his name was changed to Frank Stokes, so George Stout's name continues to fly under the radar. His actions, however, continue to change and preserve history.

Emlen Tunnell served in the Coast Guard during and after World War II, where he was credited with saving the lives of two shipmates in separate incidents.

Obituary

Sgt. Ryan Mason was one of many veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan where he was exposed to burn pits set up to destroy waste produced by the military. Mason died on Jan. 28 from cancer that apparently originated overseas. He was 36.

They called themselves the “Black Rattlers” and the French dubbed them “Men of Bronze,” but the Army now officially recognizes a historic Harlem unit by what the enemy called them in World War I — the “Hellfighters.”

Selena Roth, a former Army signals intelligence analyst, was found dead at her on-post home Jan. 13 by military police making a welfare check at a family member’s request.

If confirmed by the Senate, McDonough will take the helm of the second-largest federal agency, which operates America’s largest health care system.

Three experienced climbers, including a veteran who lost a leg in a 2005 helicopter crash in Iraq, were on a steep and challenging route in Chugach State Park when they were killed in an avalanche this week, according to officials.

As of Friday, the virus had killed 9,416 patients -- more than 2,300 who have died since Jan. 7. More than 1,100 VA patients have died in the past two weeks, making it the deadliest two-week period for veterans so far during the pandemic.

Bullets ricocheted off trees and gunfire echoed through the forests. It was the winter of 1945, as Harold Radish, a Jewish teen from Brooklyn, New York, made his way through the Luxembourg forests along the Siegfried Line with the 90th Infantry Division.

A seamstress took on a monthlong project to fulfill a Navy veteran's dream, a tribute to the men he once served with and still missed.

A 91-year-old veteran was reunited with his long-lost billfold, which was found behind a locker during the demolition of a building at McMurdo Station, the southernmost town on Earth.

Sen. Jack Reed is a West Point graduate who served 12 years as an Army officer. The former paratrooper is a veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Dat Tran, acting secretary of the VA, said in a statement Monday that the department was “exploring options to pause federal collections on compensation and pension overpayments, and medical and education-related debts.”

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is urging the federal government to expand its efforts to vaccinate military veterans against the coronavirus, including many who have been denied because they make too much money.

By the end of 2020, the backlog at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Mo. where 60 million paper records of veterans are stored, had grown to an estimated 445,000 requests, according to Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.

Thousands of National Guard soldiers who deployed to Washington this month after the deadly mob takeover of the U.S. Capitol earned education benefits for the mission, a National Guard leader clarified Thursday.

The family of the man who died in 2019 after being repeatedly attacked by fire ants at a Veterans Affairs long-term care facility in Atlanta filed a negligence lawsuit against the federal government and Orkin, the hospital's pest control company.

Several national veterans’ organizations are urging Congress to give the Department of Veterans Affairs nearly $4 billion in the next federal budget for overdue construction on medical facilities, doubling its current budget for those projects.

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., the Republican leader of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, announced his support Wednesday for Denis McDonough to become the next secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Two mobile Vet Centers will set up near the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to provide free mental health services to Capitol Police, lawmakers, congressional staff and National Guard members who need counseling after the Jan. 6 attack in Washington.

The National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, Ohio, which has been closed for two long stretches in the past year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, plans to reopen for weekend hours on Saturday.

James Chapman served in the infantry in the South Pacific. As a staff sergeant, he was wounded twice and received two purple hearts.

Denis McDonough, President Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, listed one of his top priorities Wednesday as “getting our veterans through this pandemic.”

After decades of gatherings, a Virginia group for Pearl Harbor Survivors made one last donation to help military families.

Over the last week, John Cole Jr. has received well over 100 cards from family, friends, former service members, local politicians and even Oklahoma Sooners football coach Lincoln Riley, all wishing him a happy centennial birthday.

A fire on Wednesday burned the inside of a more than century-old building at in Marshfield, Mass., that is being renovated to become housing for homeless veterans.

Veteran says it took a pup to break through the pain he felt after his military service, the brutal death of his best friend, habitual drinking, a long stay in prison and a knife attack.

A former doctor of osteopathic medicine who previously worked at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Beckley was sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison for depriving veterans of their civil rights under color of law by sexually abusing them.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., will take the helm of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Wednesday when the committee meets for the first time in the new congressional session.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday named Dat Tran, the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Enterprise Integration, to immediately take the helm of the agency.

World War II bomber pilot Gerald "Jerry" Solheid of San Diego marked his 103rd birthday with his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Seventy-five years ago, Lee Weiss played a leading role in shifting World War II to the Allies' favor — but Weiss, who turned 100 years young on Dec. 24, didn't know it until decades later.

President Joe Biden's administration on Wednesday announced new leaders of the Department of Veterans Affairs – the country’s second-largest federal agency.

While Joe Biden was being sworn in as the country’s 46th president, the VA reported another grim milestone: More than 8,000 patients had died of the virus — 1,000 of those deaths occurring in the last 13 days.

They served in the military decades ago, often putting their lives on the line for their country. But aging veterans are learning that their sacrifice may not guarantee them a COVID-19 vaccine at a Veterans Affairs clinic.

Two Vietnam War heroes who went on to wear the stars of admiral and general are being remembered for their longtime contributions to Hawaii.

The VA is undertaking a plan to distribute vaccines to more than 418,000 employees and 10 million enrolled patients — a task one VA official called a “Herculean effort.”