A Phenix City, Ohio, American Legion commander accused of misappropriating $10,000 says the charges are false and he’s the victim of racism by some of his fellow legionnaires.

Fifty years after writing the groundbreaking book "Aerobics" while in the military, Dr. Kenneth Cooper is not slowing down. The veteran's book is credited with launching the popularity of running and aerobic exercise.

A Utah couple that won $10,000 worth of groceries from a program that assists military families has pleaded guilty to unrelated theft charges at a department store where the woman worked.

It has been five weeks now since a troubled former Army infantryman walked into a building where he had once lived at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville and shot to death three mental health clinicians before killing himself.

Following his first meeting with Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, the White House physician and VA secretary nominee, Sen. Jon Tester said Jackson’s views on private-sector medical care fell in line with the views of former VA Secretary David Shulkin.

The chief information officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs resigned Tuesday, prompting questions about what will happen with the agency’s planned modernization efforts.

Robert Heitger Sr. likely learned some of his caring ways from his father and grandfather, but his son Jeffrey Heitger said a lot of it came from his time in the service. His son said what he saw in World War II made him a more compassionate person.

Funeral services are this weekend for a Louisiana soldier captured during the Korean War, whose remains were recovered last year.

The suicide of a veteran at John Cochran VA Medical Center in St. Louis last month is the latest in a string of such deaths on Veterans Affairs properties nationwide.

Albert Poawui and a vocational counselor at VA agreed Poawui would pay a 7 percent cash kickback for more than $2.2 million in VA payments to his company.

The Trump administration announced plans Monday to make it easier for permanently disabled military veterans to have their federal student debt wiped away.

Armed to Farm, a national initiative that provides training in sustainable agriculture to military veterans free of charge, is coming to Troy this summer.

R. Lee Ermey, the Vietnam veteran famous for playing a hard-bitten Marine Corps drill instructor in the Academy Award-nominated film “Full Metal Jacket,” has died at age 74.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., hosted a special roundtable discussion on opioid misuse and abuse on Friday with leaders from Fort Bragg, the Defense Health Agency, the Department of Veteran Affairs and civilian health care systems.

Pat Gjerde wasn’t old enough to buy a beer by the time he became a disabled veteran. But more than 20 years after his first deployment, he re-enlisted and went to Afghanistan to fight again for his country.

Kallen O’Neal Staggs, 9, whose father died in Afghanistan in 2010, walked more than 10 miles during Bataan Memorial Death March at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

Mike Shults never knew Howard Knowles. But his passion for helping a fellow veteran 23 years after Knowles' death has led to the war hero finally getting the military benefits he earned and helped his family know what happened to his remains.

Four veterans representing countless others have been sticking their necks out to advocate for the legalization of medical cannabis in Louisiana.

Officially opening on Sunday, the home in Brunswick, Md., already has a waiting list and will expand the nonprofit program’s mission to offer stability and encouragement to those working through addiction.

As a case manager at Keesler Medical Center in Mississippi, retired Army nurse Donna Anderson sees "the struggles the local servicemen and women" endure when they make the transition from active duty to civilian status. So, in 2011, she founded Combat Wounded Veterans of South Mississippi to help wounded veterans with emergency financial needs.

A decorated former U.S. Army paratrooper whose work on behalf of deported veterans drew widespread attention to his cause became a U.S. citizen Friday, giving immigration advocates a rare reason to celebrate.

Prosecutors in Florida agree that an Iraq war veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder was systematically bullied by his neighbors.

Johnny Bobbitt has traded life on the streets for the refuge of a camper in rural Burlington County. But he continues to battle the demons that left him homeless under an I-95 bridge in Philadelphia.

It took a Facebook group, a search team and a lot of patience, but a Collinsville man and his emotional support dog were finally reunited, three weeks after they were separated by a car crash.

Across America, airlines are facing an unprecedented shortage of pilots, with some estimates indicating U.S. airlines could be short 14,000 pilots in 10 years. So some flight schools and airlines are actively recruiting people who traditionally haven’t been pilots: women.

The remains of a Pennsylvania soldier who was captured during the Korean War and died at a prisoner of war camp have been identified and will be buried next week.

Retired Gen. Marcia Anderson says her path to success was littered with inaccurate, negative labels placed on her by others that she shook off and used for motivation rather than let them deter her.

Documents obtained by Stars and Stripes outline seven instances of procedures being delayed or postponed at the Washington Department of Veterans Affairs hospital because of supply shortages. The VA claims the last time that happened was in January.

MILITARY UPDATE

An April 3 ruling in Saunders v. Wilkie, if it stands, could benefit thousands of veterans who have had Department of Veterans Affairs compensation claims for pain denied for lack of a medical diagnosis.

Comments from several GOP senators, particularly those with influence on veterans' issues, signal that Ronny L. Jackson will have to work overtime to persuade not just Democrats but Trump's own party that he is qualified to oversee the beleaguered agency.

After leaving the military, Jessica Harris started K9 Salute, to recognize the sacrifice of police canines and donate to organizations that support these service dogs. The company makes all-natural dog treats.

President Donald Trump, and the conservative groups advising him, has seized on the long waits many veterans face at government facilities as grounds for aggressively expanding a program that enables patients to seek services from private providers at taxpayer expense.

Karen Vaughn, a Stuart, Florida resident who spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention about the death of her Navy SEAL son in Afghanistan, said she was encouraged to challenge U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Palm City, in a Republican primary.

Many of the relics had been taken from the bodies of fallen servicemembers, making the crime even more shocking, according to those who spoke at his sentencing hearing.

Glenn Tipton was killed aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. His remains were identified after his family submitted DNA five years ago to the U.S. Navy as part of its efforts to distinguish the remains of sailors.

New Hampshire's governor has extended an executive order allowing physicians from the Manchester Veterans Affairs Medical Center to treat patients at outside facilities while the flood-damaged VA hospital is being renovated.

The state-run veterans home where a former soldier murdered three women last month had security shortcomings that the California Highway Patrol identified in 2010, according to a report obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

The director of the beleaguered Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Washington was reassigned Monday amid ongoing problems at the hospital and an investigation into whether his appointment broke federal protocols.

Residents of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Miss. and in Washington, D.C. were informed in a meeting Monday that their rent, currently capped at 40 percent of their income, now will be capped at 60 percent.

Craig Beemer said he has agreed to a $500,000 settlement with the Kansas City VA Medical Center for the death of his father, an 84-year-old U.S. Navy veteran.

Robert Wilkie wrote in a statement that the VA and Congress need to come together to overhaul the VA Choice program, which veterans use to receive private-sector medical care.

At 16, Daniel Perlinger signed up for the Marine Corps knowing it would be his ticket to Vietnam. He said he did not know much about life at the time, but he was certain about one thing: Vietnam would provide him with a chance to vent his anger.

Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson also was nominated by the president for promotion to two-star admiral in the days leading to VA Secretary David Shulkin’s departure late last month.

Three World War II veterans who put country above self and their educations have been awarded their honorary high school diplomas at the Blount County Courthouse in Maryville, Tenn.

David Moore, 27, who said he suffers from PTSD, said his comfort animal, a 5-pound, 14-month-old Chihuahua named Angel, was beaten March 31 by his live-in girlfriend.

ANALYSIS

As Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin battled last month to keep his job, his fate hinged in part on Concerned Veterans for America, a once-obscure advocacy group backed by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

When it was time to retire, his friends told him he could have made a high salary as a consultant in Washington. But retired Marine veteran Col. Royal Mortenson said in reply "I didn't want a job. I hadn't had a job for 30 years. I had a life. I wanted to do something that would be another life."

The remains of a gunner whose plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean during World War II have been identified and returned to his sister in Ohio after 73 years.

In the 40 years since he was discharged as a senior chief radioman, Navy veteray Cooper, 81, said the Department of Veterans Affairs has helped him handle progressive supranuclear palsy, a form of Parkinson's, and knee replacements, but in recent weeks, he's struggled to get adequate medical supplies for his ileostomy.

Cato Stedman was one of at least three black soldiers who enlisted in the Cambridge militia company during the Revolutionary War. A historian said he recently discovered evidence that indicates that Stedman was buried next to his former slave owner in the Old Burial Ground in Harvard Square.

Eugene Lysne, Dwayne “Whitey” Hagen, Bill Neff, Bill Christianson, Vern Strand and Duane Hatleli will be included on the 19th honor flight, which leaves the Twin Cities on Saturday for D.C.

On Friday, Pvt. Felix Nils Olson, a veteran of World War I, was among 30 veterans honored with "Taps" and a flag presentation ceremony.

A brush with history and the archcriminals of all time made little impression at the time on Eulas Hamilton, who guarded the trial site of Nazi defendants during the Nuremberg war crimes trials after World War II.

Navy veteran Brian Flick came up with the idea for a veterans shelter before he graduated from Penn State Shenango in 2015. When a professor gave him an assignment to create his own mock non-profit agency, Flick decided his class project would focus on helping veterans.

Jataya Taylor's world shattered 10 years ago. After two serious training injuries, the Marine Corps medically retired Jataya. "My whole plan for my life revolved around the military. I was lost," Jataya said. This month, though, she will join more than 400 fellow disabled veterans at the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic in Snowmass Village, Colorado.

For the first time in many years, Bobby Ivey, 84, has proof of his Army service, more than six decades after he last wore an Army uniform.

Initially buried on the beach and recovered after the war, Marine Corps Pvt. John M. Tillman’s remains were interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, but he was buried as an “unknown.”

The National Capital Planning Commission unanimously chose a location on the National Mall for the new National Desert Storm and Desert Shield War Memorial, putting the group at odds with another commission that also has a say in the selection process.

Trooper 1st Class Kevin Miller's funeral on Friday was attended by family, friends and hundreds of police officers from across the state and country, some from as far away as Alaska and Utah.

Daniel Akaka, a liberal Democrat from Hawaii who served in both houses of Congress and quietly devoted himself to looking after the interests of his home islands during more than 35 years on Capitol Hill, died April 6 in Honolulu. He was 93.

The Department of Veterans Affairs issued an official news release Thursday afternoon, attempting to debunk warnings of any effort in President Donald Trump’s administration to privatize the agency’s vast health care system.

ANALYSIS

A broken refrigerator in the blood bank. Dirty syringe bottles. Critical staff and supply shortages that led to canceled procedures. Unsanitary equipment and rooms in disarray. All were found in the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Washington.

ANALYSIS

Several hospitals in the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system have been the subject of scandal in the past year, ranging from unsanitary conditions in Washington to misconduct in Roseburg, Ore., and poor patient care in Manchester, N.H.

Gallery

Thomas Hudner, a former U.S. Navy pilot who received the Medal of Honor for his heroics in the Korean War, was buried Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery.

Patti Gomez-Michalkow, a New York Army National Guard veteran, was crowned Mrs. New York in March 2018 during a pageant in Rochester.

Willie Watts Jr., 81, died less than two months after he laid down his life, according to police and family members, to protect his wife. A robber – police arrested a 16-year-old boy in the crime – attacked the Watts in their driveway and Willie Watts draped his body over his wife, taking the brunt of the attack.

New acting Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie addressed VA employees Wednesday in his first public message since President Donald Trump appointed him to the post last week.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears to have ignored a directive from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to prevent the deportation of noncitizen troops and veterans, seeking to remove a Chinese immigrant despite laws that allow veterans with honorable service to naturalize, court filings show.

When Eugene Buell returned from his serving with the Army in Vietnam, where he spent his time working with helicopters and gun ships and doing "whatever" needed doing, he said that he was more likely to be spat at than thanked for his service.

President Donald Trump named Robert Wilkie VA's acting secretary last week, pending Senate confirmation of Ronny Jackson, a Navy admiral and White House physician. Wilkie could be in the job for months.

When finished, VA’s Chula Vista campus will hike the number of appointments available to former military personnel. The new complex will feature 236 parking spaces, but the but the high-tech building is designed to be more friendly to the environment.

Miami producers have signed a major production deal for a TV series about the exile soldiers who invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

A $12 million facility dedicated to treating and diagnosing military personnel with traumatic brain injuries and psychological health conditions opens Thursday morning at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

TriWest Healthcare Alliance, which contracts with the Department of Veterans Affairs to arrange private-sector care for veterans through the VA Choice program, warned Tuesday in an apocalyptic letter to lawmakers that another funding shortfall could lead to restricted care for veterans, as well as layoffs and financial ruin for the alliance.

A large, national veterans organization is calling on President Donald Trump to remove new acting Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie amid confusion over who should be running the agency legally.

"Bloody Sunday" resulted in 53 aircraft being shot down and 660 air crew members being killed, including Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. William H. Harth Jr. For decades, Harth's remains had been buried, unidentified, in a Belgian cemetery.

A site for the new Traverse City clinic has been chosen by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, with construction of the 22,000-square-foot health clinic slated to move forward in the upcoming year.

Official estimates put about 351,000 women serving in the military during World War II. Longtime Norwich resident Louise Heidtman was one of those women.

In 2013, just before he deployed to Afghanistan as a chief intelligence officer, Patrick Schreiber assumed he and his wife had time to adopt their Korean-immigrant niece, then 15, as their daughter — so they postponed it until after his tour of duty. They didn't realize that children brought into the country should be adopted before age 16 to be allowed access to U.S. citizenship.

Obituary

Army veteran Louis Loftus served two tours in Afghanistan and was strongly affected by his experiences there. He was featured on national television several times talking about his service. His struggle with PTSD was also documented.

The 71-year-old Vietnam War veteran remembers people spitting on soldiers and calling them baby killers. Wilder served four tours in Vietnam and was a cryogenic technician who helped make rocket fuel. Born in Oregon, he spent most of his service aboard the USS Chicago. "You were king over there," Wilder said. "You came back to the States and you were dirt. People just didn't like you."

The men and women who fought in Vietnam, still numbered some 6.4 million in 2015, the last year studied for the VA's just-released Vietnam Veteran Deep Dive on Finance and Health.

Three flatbed trucks entered Camp Pendleton Thursday carrying a monument to Marines and sailors from the "Fighting Fifth" regiment who died in Vietnam, left a Vermont-based foundry on March 22 to make the eight-day, cross-country journey accompanied by dozens of Patriot Guard riders.

In its newsletters and magazines, in congressional testimony and on its website, AARP warns seniors about deceptive direct mail and other dubious marketing come-ons as part of its mission to protect members from financial abuses. But the huge lobbying group's own aggressive efforts to coax seniors to join or renew their memberships also have drawn a burst of criticism this year.

A growing national movement hopes bring the unvarnished experiences of women who have served in the military into mainstream popular culture. As a result, more female veterans are attending memoir-writing retreats and learning new storytelling skills at workshops.

Earl Eberle took two things to the grave with him — a German bullet lodged in his jaw, and nightmares from his service during World War II.

Fired VA Secretary David Shulkin played well among Vietnam veterans who gathered Thursday at the Manchester VA Medical Center for a ceremony to recognize their service. Yet the man who fired him — President Donald Trump — played even better.

VIDEO

A ceremony on Thursday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. marked National Vietnam War Veterans Day, honoring those in the U.S. military who served in the conflict between 1955 and 1975.

This National Vietnam War Veterans Day marks the anniversary of the end of the conflict.

David Shulkin spoke out Thursday morning, hours after being fired as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and blamed his ouster on White House appointees who seek to dismantle the agency.

Military Update

In a New York Times commentary Thursday, David Shulkin said VA became “entangled in a brutal power struggle, with some political appointees choosing to promote their agendas instead of what’s best for veterans.

Army First Lt. Garlin Murl Conner, who left the U.S. Army as the 2nd-most decorated soldier during World War II, will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor after his family and others pressed for the recognition for more than 20 years.