TREA WASHINGTON UPDATE FOR SEPTEMBER 4, 2009
Happy Labor Day. Next week, it will unofficially be Fall. All the kids will be back in school. Congress will be back in town and everything will begin again. As you well know President Obama has scheduled a speech on Wednesday (9-9-09) before a Joint session of Congress to talk about his plans to change the Nation’s civilian healthcare system. Obviously that is what the Democratic leadership will be focused on. However they are supposed to have all of the Federal Government budget passed by October 1 (something that hasn’t happened in 19 of the last 22 years) and much more. So the slowdown is over and everything should start jumping next week.
1) TRICARE Prime Enrollees and Driving Waivers
2) Push Continuing in Air Force to Improve Contracting Staff
3) Upgraded GI Bill Proposal Expected in a Few Weeks
4) Next Week’s Scheduled Hearings
5) Agreement Reached To Buy Land In Pennsylvania For 9/11 Memorial
6) “National Veterans Creative Arts Festival” To Be Held In San Antonio
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INTRODUCING - NEW TREA PARTNERSHIPS
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1) TRICARE Prime Enrollees and Driving Waivers-If you are enrolled in TRICARE Prime at an MTF and live at least 30 minute drive from the MTF you should have received, or will be receiving soon, a letter from the MTF command concerning a travel waiver. If you want to remain enrolled in the MTF you will need to send back a form saying you wish to waive the TRICARE Prime distance requirement that all enrollees live within a 30 minute drive of the Primary Care Provider (PCP). If you don’t get a waiver you will need either to be assigned a PCP in the civilian network (if possible) or move into TRICARE Prime. Only approximately 30% of enrollees who have been sent the waiver letter have replied. If you have received a letter please answer it (whatever the answer is). If you have not received one and live at least 30 minutes driving time from your PCP make sure to call your MTF and ask them for one.
2) Push Continuing in Air Force to Improve Contracting Staff-The Air Force continues to push to improve and enlarge its acquisition/contracting capability. It has just approved bonuses of $20,000, paid annually for 4 years to keep contracting officers in uniform and stop them from going into better paid civilian jobs. This is for commissioned officers with 6-14 years of contracting experience. (Most of them have been working a 1-to-1 dwell ratio. They alternate 6 month deployments overseas with 6 months at home.) Earlier the AF offered retention bonuses to enlisted members with “critical acquisition skills.”
In the late 1980s, at its peak, the Air Force acquisition workforce (which includes both civilian and military personnel) was more than 43,000 acquisition officers. Since the end of the Cold War and outsourcing of jobs it has shrank to approximately 25,000. In May, the Air Force said that there is a 15% vacancy rate for approved and funded positions (while 5% would be normal). In addition they are asking for the authority to hire an additional 2,062 positions of which 1,800 would be civilian. So if you have experience or credentials as a contract manager, cost estimator, auditor, program manager, engineer or other relevant experience this is a good place to look for an important and well paying job. The AF says that it is planning to start filling the civilian jobs in 2010. (The Army and Navy are also enlarging their contracting workforces.)
3) Upgraded GI Bill Proposal Expected in a Few Weeks-When Congress returns to town next week it is expected the Senate Committee of Veterans Affairs will start working on a bill to improve the newly instituted Post 9/11 GI Bill. There are several ideas making the rounds including providing a living allowance for distance learners, authorizing Post 9/11 GI Bill Benefits for Title 32 Active Guard Reserve who served after September 10, 2001; adopt program eligibility rules similar to those in the Montgomery GI Bill for non-degree vocational, OJT, apprenticeship and flight training programs, and even setting a single national standard for private and graduate school tuitions. And I am sure that there are many other ideas being considered. If you are in the program or planning to use it in the future this is the time to call us with ideas you would like us to propose.
4) Next Week’s Scheduled Hearings-The hearing schedule is light the first week back.
Thursday, September 10
* -House Armed Services Committee 10:00 a.m. (HVC 210 House Visitors Center) The Oversight and Investigation subcommittee will have a hearing on” Charting the Course for Effective Professional Military Education”
* -House Committee on Veterans Affairs 9:30 a.m. (Cannon 345) American Legion’s legislative presentation
* -House Committee on Veterans Affairs 1:00 p.m. (Cannon 334) Interagency Agreement between the VA and SPAWAR
5) Agreement Reached to Buy Land in Pennsylvania for 9/11 Memorial-After 7 years of negotiations the National Park Service has signed an agreement with property owners to buy the land where United Flight 93 crashed on 9/11 when the plane’s passengers fought with hijackers and stopped them from flying into Washington DC and crashing into either the Capitol or the White House. It is expected that the closing on the 8 parcels of property will be in October and that the Memorial will be completed by September 11, 2011. Below you can see the National Park Services’ plan. The artist renderings are provided by Neighborhood America and Paul Murdoch Architects.
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Flight 93 National
Memorial |
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Tower of Voices: At the entrance to the national memorial, rising 93 feet into the sky, will be the Tower of Voices,” containing 40 large wind chimes, evocative of, and a tribute to, the sound of the wind and voices aboard the plane during it’s final moments. |
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The Field of Honor:
The Field of Honor is a large, bowl-shaped existing landform
roughly circular, that forms the heart of the memorial and park. Visitors
will experience varied landscape and memorial features along the edge of and
within the Field of Honor. In framing the open space of the Field of Honor
with a distinct, formal edge, the memorial design expresses the spirit of
the Mission Statement preamble: A common field one day. A field of honor
forever. |
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Entry Portal: The main entrance to the Field of Honor occurs at its northwestern edge. The Entry Portal is approached through a clearing of trees on a black slate plaza marking the Flight Path. High, textured concrete walls frame the sky where Flight 93 descended to the crash site. The walkway leads visitors through the first wall into a plaza featuring Red Maple trees and through a second portal to give visitors their first look at the expanse of the Field of Honor and the crash site below. From the plaza, visitors can enter the visitor center, the interpretive and educational hub of the park. A ramp rises past the visitor center to a tree-lined walkway that curves around the edge of the Field of Honor. |
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40 Memorial Groves: The memorial design commemorates the collective act of courage by the 40 passengers and crew of Flight 93 through 40 Memorial Groves of Red and Sugar Maple trees in a shared, curving embrace of the Field of Honor's open space as it descends to the Sacred Ground. A Red Maple allée formally defines the curving edge and monumental size of the Field of Honor. These maples naturally occur locally throughout the woodlands of the Laurel Highlands. They turn color in autumn and are bare-branched or green-leafed during the rest of the year. Pedestrian trails meander through the groves, crossing the allée on concrete radials that step down into the Field of Honor; eventually leading to the Sacred Ground. |
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Ponds: The ponds will serve as a "natural" threshold of experience as the visitor approaches the Sacred Ground. The area will be its own kind of healing landscape, as it will be a habitat full of life. The ponds provide a unique moment within the Field of Honor experience in being simultaneously embraced by the curving maple allée, while reconnecting to the larger natural systems beyond and outside it. Here visitors will be most aware of continuously connected living systems as the circular path literally bridges the hydrology of the Field of Honor. |
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Sacred Ground: As the final resting place for the passengers and crew of Flight 93, the Sacred Ground is the focus of the Field of Honor. Here is where the plane crashed and a grove of hemlock trees absorbed the impact and inferno. The public can closely view the crash site from a plaza along its edge, which breaks the continuity of the circular Field of Honor. |
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Western Overlook: The Western Overlook, located at the western edge of the Field of Honor, is where the FBI set up its command post for their investigation after the crash and the families were first brought to overlook the crash site. The foundations and floor slabs of buildings there will remain to evoke the memory of the structures. A meandering path will allow visitors to access this area. Two of the building footprints are among planned trees and one will be within the Field of Honor clearing; marking the location where the families first viewed the crash site below. |
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6) “National Veterans Creative Arts Festival” to be Held in San Antonio-From October 5-11, 2009 more than 120 veterans who are receiving care at a VA facility, and are artists, are going to exhibiting their talents in San Antonio Texas. All of them are medal winners in a nationwide contest for the best in music, dance, drama, creative writing and visual arts.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said of the program: “The Creative Arts Festival represents the top achievements of Veterans participating in VA art therapy throughout the nation. Their achievements are a testament to the outstanding care and rehabilitative techniques used to pave the way toward recovery for our nation’s most deserving men and women.”
Over 3,500 veterans participated in the local competitions.
The Veterans will have a week of rehearsals and workshops in San Antonio leading up to a visual art exhibit and gala variety stage show at the San Antonio Municipal Auditorium on Sunday October 11.
For additional information on the festival either call Jeanne Stith at (202) 461-7448, or log on to the festival’s Web site at: www.creativeartsfestival.va.gov.
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INTRODUCING -- NEW TREA PARTNERSHIPS:
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT!!!
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