VOASE1104_This Is America

04 November 2007

For Veterans, Pride in Service, and Health Systems Pushed to Limits
As the nation observes Veterans Day, a look at issues facing wounded troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.

Mary Robles (age 5) stands with her father, Master Sgt. Daniel Robles, during a Purple Heart ceremony in San Antonio

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Barbara Klein. November eleventh is Veterans Day in the United States. The holiday honors those who served in the military. That describes almost twenty-five million people alive today. This week on our program, we talk about veterans and some current issues they face.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

A visitor to the National World War Two Memorial in Washington stands looking at the water rising from the fountains in the middle.

The memorial has an Atlantic side and a Pacific side. The visitor, a man with white hair, walks over to the Atlantic side -- the war in Europe. He looks at the stone block honoring veterans from Massachusetts, his home state.

Fighting in the war was terrible, he says. But being a veteran changed his life.

He explains that he attended college and became an engineer because of legislation passed in nineteen forty-four. The law was known as the "GI Bill of Rights." GI is slang for a soldier.

It provided veterans with money for education. It guaranteed loans for homes and businesses. It helped support veterans who had trouble finding jobs. Today, there is a modern version called the Montgomery GI Bill.

The last military draft ended in nineteen seventy-three. Since then the armed services have been all-volunteer.

VOICE TWO:

Many young veterans today served in Iraq or Afghanistan, or in some cases both.

Military and veterans health systems have faced struggles and criticisms of their ability to meet current needs. Close to thirty thousand American troops have been wounded in Iraq since the war began in two thousand three. Many were severely injured, including lost arms and legs and brain injuries as a result of bomb explosions.

President Bush says the system for managing care is old and needs to be changed.

His proposals are based on suggestions from the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors. Some measures can be taken without legislation; others have to be approved by Congress. The president appointed the commission in March after news reports brought the issue to national attention.

VOICE ONE:

President Bush with member of the National Guard at Walter Reed Army Medical Center Photo: The White House

In February, the Washington Post reported on problems for soldiers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. These included poor living conditions and long delays in decisions about the future of their care and their military service.

The newspaper series raised wider questions and quickly brought promises of improvements.

For example, the Army is developing new teams in an effort to improve case management for wounded soldiers. But the Government Accountability Office recently reported that the Army is having trouble filling positions on these teams. At the same time, long-standing problems remain to be solved.

Last month, Mister Bush proposed legislation to speed up the process for wounded service members. Now, they go through medical tests and complete paperwork for the Department of Defense. They have to repeat the same process for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the V.A.

The legislation calls for the Defense Department to decide if a wounded veteran could return to active duty. Those too badly injured would be moved to the care of the V.A. The V.A. would rule on the extent of their injuries.

VOICE TWO:

Family members caring for veterans would receive six months of unpaid leave from work so they would not lose their jobs.

Also, all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans could get care for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. They would not have to prove it was connected to their service.

And other measures are being proposed.

The Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission, in its final report last month, called for an immediate increase in disability payments. The group was established in the two thousand four defense budget.

The commission said Congress should increase payments by up to twenty-five percent. This is being called for as a step toward future measures based not just on work-related losses but losses in quality of life.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Almost one and one-half million men and women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over a four-year period doctors reported about sixty thousand people with PTSD or serious brain injuries.

Several drugs and mental health treatments are used for post-traumatic stress disorder. But a report released last month said most of the treatments are unproven.

The report came from a committee of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies in Washington. The experts found problems with many studies of PTSD treatments.

They decided that there is not enough evidence to make judgments about any medications. In the words of chairman Alfred Berg from the University of Washington in Seattle: "These therapies may or may not be effective -- we just don't know."

VOICE TWO:

The committee said the same thing about most of the psychotherapies. However, the experts found enough evidence to say that exposure therapies are effective in treating people with PTSD. These forms of therapy expose people to a threat in a safe environment to help them deal with their fears.

Still, the experts said they were not suggesting to discontinue any treatment or only use exposure therapies. Doctor Berg said there is an urgent need for high-quality studies of the best possible care.

The committee found that there is not even a generally accepted definition for recovery from the disorder.

VOICE ONE:

PTSD is the most common service-related mental disorder found in troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost thirteen percent of those who fought in Iraq, and about six percent in Afghanistan, are believed to have experienced it.

The Institute of Medicine noted that large numbers of Vietnam veterans and veterans of earlier conflicts have also reported PTSD. And most people who suffer from it also have other conditions such as alcoholism, depression, drug use or anxiety disorders.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

The V.A. says about one-third of homeless adults in the United States have served in the armed forces, mostly during the Vietnam War.

The department says an estimated one hundred ninety-five thousand veterans are homeless on any given night. And, it says, perhaps twice as many are homeless at some point during any given year.

The V.A. has special treatment programs and services that were established twenty years ago to serve homeless veterans.

VOICE ONE:

Last year there was a documentary film about homeless veterans called "When I Came Home." It tells the story of an Iraq war veteran with PTSD named Herold Noel. In one scene, he talks about living in his automobile in New York.

(SOUND)

HEROLD NOEL: "You want to see my home? You want to see my home? My home is right there. That's my home. You understand? There's my home."

VOICE ONE:

The press materials for the film included a newspaper story about Herold Noel in the New York Post in January of two thousand five. The story said he was seeing a psychiatrist at a V.A. hospital and had been given three different drugs for his PTSD. But he needed housing for his family. He went to an emergency assistance office in the city. The story said he was told there was no more government-assisted housing available.

VOICE TWO:

The documentary shows how his life changes after meets Paul Rieckhoff. Mister Rieckhoff is the founder of an organization called Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. The movie follows Herold Noel as he becomes active and receives media attention. It shows him going to Washington to ask Congress for more help for other veterans.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Three years ago, Illinois Army National Guard pilot Tammy Duckworth was flying in a Black Hawk helicopter near Baghdad. A rocket struck the aircraft. She lost both legs and suffered severe injuries to her right arm.

She says veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars helped her through her painful recovery with support and advice.

Last year she was a Democratic candidate for Congress. It was her first campaign for public office. She lost the election. But she now serves as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.

VOICE TWO:

Another veteran, Joyce Robinson, keeps a book of memories. One of them is a photograph of a young woman in the military. That was her, more than sixty years ago. She served in the Army occupation forces in Japan after World War Two. Joyce Robinson says she is happy she served, and glad to be a veteran.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Barbara Klein. Our programs are online with transcripts and MP3 files at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

VOASE1104_Development Report

04 November 2007

Keeping Count of Who Enters the World or Leaves
A campaign is launched to make sure all of the world’s births and deaths are recorded.

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This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Governments may be accused of keeping too many records on their people. But no one seems to argue with recording births, deaths and marriages. This is called civil registration.

Birth and death records help governments count populations and know how long people live and what they die from. This information is important for planning schools, hospitals and other services.

A birth certificate is also important for another reason. That piece of paper is legal proof that an individual exists.

Yet the World Health Organization believes that almost forty percent of all births go unrecorded. It estimates that one hundred twenty-eight million babies are born each year. So one way to look at this is to say that every year close to fifty million people are denied legal identities.

And in the least developed countries the rate could be as high as seventy percent.

The situation is no better for death records. Every year fifty-seven million people die. But perhaps only one-third of these deaths are counted.

The W.H.O., the United Nations health agency, has one hundred ninety-three member states. Yet it receives dependable cause-of-death information from just thirty-one countries.

Researchers say most developing countries have limited civil registration systems or none at all. Now, a partnership supported by the W.H.O., called the Health Metrics Network, will try to improve the situation.

Last week it launched a campaign to register all of the world’s births and deaths. The effort was announced at a conference in Beijing, the Global Forum for Health Research.

The director general of the W.H.O., Margaret Chan, said no single U.N. agency is responsible for making sure births and deaths are recorded. Yet without these numbers, she says, who knows if one hundred twenty billion dollars in official development aid each year is being spent wisely?

The campaign began with four papers published in The Lancet medical journal describing the situation. Also, the Health Metrics Network is launching intensive efforts to help six countries. The group has already started to work with Cambodia, Sierra Leone and Syria. By the end of this year, three more countries will be identified for help to make sure everyone gets counted.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. To learn more about civil registration, go to voaspecialenglish.com.

VOASE1103_People In America

03 November 2007

Maria Callas, 1923-1977: A Beautiful Voice and Intense Personality
She influenced opera more than any other singer of the twentieth century.

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ANNOUNCER:

Welcome to People in America in VOA Special English. I’m Faith Lapidus. Today, Shirley Griffith and Ray Freeman tell about one of the most famous opera singers of the twentieth century, Maria Callas.

(MUSIC: March From "Norma")

VOICE ONE:

Opera is a play that tells a story in music. The people in the opera sing, instead of speak, the play's words. Opera is one of the most complex of all art forms. It combines acting, singing, music, costumes, scenery and, sometimes, dance. Often there are many colorful crowd scenes.

Opera uses the huge power of music to communicate feelings and to express emotions. Music can express emotions very forcefully. So most opera composers base their works on very tragic stories of love and death. An opera often shows anger, cruelty, violence, fear or insanity. Opera has been very popular in Europe since it spread through it during the seventeenth century. It also has become popular in the United States.

VOICE TWO:

Maria Callas

Maria Callas was one of the best-known opera singers in the world. During the nineteen fifties, she became famous internationally for her beautiful voice and intense personality. The recordings of her singing the well-known operas remain very popular today.

Maria Callas was born in New York City in nineteen twenty-three. Her real name was Maria Kalogeropoulous. Her parents were Greek. When she was fourteen, she and her mother returned to Greece. Maria studied singing at the national conservatory in Athens. The well-known opera singer Elvira de Hidalgo chose Maria as her student.

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen forty-one, when she was seventeen, Maria Callas was paid to sing in a major opera for the first time. She sang the leading roles in several operas in Athens during the next three years.

In nineteen forty-five, Callas was invited to perform in Italy. This was the real beginning of her profession as an opera singer. She performed major parts in several of the most famous operas. In nineteen forty-nine, she married an Italian industrialist, Giovanni Battista Meneghini. He was twenty years older. He became her adviser and manager.

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen fifty, Maria Callas performed for the first time at the famous La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy. She sang in the famous opera "Eida" by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. She sang the part of Aida, an Ethiopian slave in ancient Egypt.

(MUSIC: "Ritorna Vincitor" from "Aida"))

VOICE ONE:

During the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, Maria Callas sang in about forty major operas in the most famous opera houses in the world.

In nineteen fifty-six, she appeared for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She sang the lead in the opera "Norma" by Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini. She was a great success. Norma, a religious leader in the ancient city of Gaul, became one of her most famous parts.

(MUSIC: "Casta Diva" from "Norma"))

VOICE TWO:

During the years, Maria Callas often had problems with her voice. Critics said some of her performances were not her best. Sometimes she had to cancel performances. Her relations with the officials of major opera companies often were tense. Many harmful stories were written about Callas. The stories suggested that people she worked with thought she was difficult. However, many people who worked most closely with her denied this.

When she was not singing in operas, Callas was making recordings. She made more recordings than any other singer of her time.

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen fifty-nine, her marriage to Mister Meneghini ended. Maria Callas became the lover of a rich Greek businessman, Aristotle Onassis. Callas suffered more problems with her voice. So she sang less. In nineteen sixty-five, she sang in the opera "Tosca" by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. She was Floria, an Italian singer. It was a part she had sung many times. It was the last time she appeared in an opera.

(MUSIC: "Vissi D'arte" from "Tosca"))

VOICE TWO:

Now that she was no longer singing, Callas wanted to marry Aristotle Onassis and have a child. However, in nineteen sixty-eight, Onassis suddenly said that he was leaving her. He had decided to marry Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of the murdered American president, John Kennedy.

Three years later, Callas decided to teach young opera singers. In the early nineteen seventies, she taught twelve classes at the Juilliard School in New York. Parts of these classes were released as records. Terrence McNally wrote a play about Maria Callas and her opera students called "Master Class."

VOICE ONE:

Maria Callas sang in many cities in Europe, the United States and East Asia in nineteen seventy-three and seventy-four. She performed with opera singer Giuseppe di Stefano. Critics said she was not able to sing as well as she had when she was younger. It is not known if Callas's troubles were caused by a physical problem or because she had not spent enough time training her voice.

Maria Callas died of a heart attack in her home in Paris in nineteen seventy-seven. She was fifty-three.

VOICE TWO:

Many experts say Maria Callas influenced opera more than any other singer of the twentieth century. They say she had the deepest understanding of the traditional Italian opera. Her beautiful voice and intense feeling increased the effect of an opera. One expert said: "Callas sees and hears in the great operas the poetry of music. Others sing notes. She sings meaning. "

People who heard Maria Callas sing say they will not forget the experience. Her voice lives on in the many recordings she made. Some experts say Maria Callas is as popular now as she was when she was performing around the world.

(MUSIC: March From "Norma")

VOICE ONE:

This Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust and produced by Lawan Davis. I'm Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Ray Freeman. Join us again next week for another People in America program on the Voice of America.