Vet Centers Coming To 39 Communities

Combat veterans will be able to receive readjustment counseling and other assistance in 39 additional VA Vet Centers across the country.

The existing 232 centers conduct community outreach to offer counseling on employment, family issues and education to combat veterans and family members, as well as bereavement counseling for families of service members killed on active duty and counseling for veterans who were sexually harassed on active duty.

V.A. "Announces Homeless Assistance Grants"

Homeless veterans and those who help them received a significant boost in their efforts when the Department of Veterans Affairs made 55 new awards to public and private nonprofit organizations that assist homeless veterans.

The announcement of awards to 55 community-based organizations in 24 states will add over 1,000 transitional housing beds to the 9,400 beds already available for homeless veterans because of VA grants for the homeless.

For more information, visit the VA Website at www.va.gov.

Charges Against Marine Dropped

San Diego Calif. - A military judge at Camp Pendleton on Tuesday dismissed charges against Lt.Col. Jeffeey Chessani, the highest-ranking officer accused in the deaths of 24 Iraqis in 2005 in the town of Haditha.

Col. Steven Folsom, the judge, made his ruling in response to the motion from defense attorneys charging that undue influence was excercised on the convening authority in the case. Folsom dismissed the charges without prejudice, meaning the Marine Corps could refile them.

Friends Again

Hong Kong - The ships of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group docked in Hong Kong on April 3, making the first visit by a U.S. aircraft carrier since the carrier Kitty Hawk and its escorts were turned away from a scheduled Thanksgiving visit in a diplomatic swipe against the U.S.

The strike group includes about 7,000 sailors from the Nimitz and its air wing, as well as the cruiser Princeton and the destroyers Chafee, Higgins and John Paul Jones.

Jailed Ex-Seal Trainee Gets New Hearing

United States - A former Navy Seal trainee who has served 12 years in prison has been awarded a hearing on his claim that his co-defendant was solely Responsible for Murdering a Georgia college student vacationing in Virginia Beach, Va.

Dustin Turner, 33, is seeking to get his murder conviction overturned on the strength of Billy Joe Brown's 2003 admission that Brown acted alone in the 1995 slaying of Jennifer Evans outside a bar.

Under a 2004 law allowing inmates to present newly discovered evidence of innocence, the Virginia Court of Appeals granted Turner a gearing to determine the credibility of Brown's confession, a step rarely taken by the courts. The hearing will take place nm May in Virgina Beach Circuit Court.

In 1995, Brown and Turner were Seal "swim buddies" who each blamed the other for the murder.

- General : Army Needs Stop Loss -

Washington D.C. - It Will be more than a year before the Army can end the unpopular practice of forcing soldiers to stay in the service beyond their retirement or re-enlistment dates, a top official said Monday.

Lt. Gen. James D. Thurman, deputy chief of staff for operations, said he hoped that wartime demand for troops will decline enough by around the fall of next year to end "stop-loss." He said there are more than 12,000 currently serving under the practice an action that critics have called a "backdoor draft."

Thurman also said that as officials continue to increase the size of the Army, it could be possible by the fall of 2011 for troops to be home two years for every year they are deployed.

- Army Moving Mojave's Tortoises From Base -

Fort Irwin - Scientists have begun moving the Mojave S-Desert's flagship species, the desert tortoise, to make room for tank training at the Army's Fort Irwin despite protests by some conservationists.

The controversial project, billed as the largest desert tortoise move in California history, involves transferring 770 endangered reptiles from Army land to a dozen public plots overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Fort Irwin has sought to expand its 643,000- acre training site into tortoise territory for two decades. The Army said it needs an extra 131,000 acres to accommodate faster tanks and longer-range weapons used each month to train some 4,000 troops.

Desert tortoises are the longest living reptiles in the South-west, with a potential life span of 100 years, and can weigh up to 15 pounds. Their population has been threatened in recent years by urbanization, disease and predators including the raven.

Weeks before the relocation, two conservation groups threatened to sue Fort Irwin. The Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors contend that the land set aside for the desert tortoises is too close to an interstate highway and is plagued with off-road vehicles and illegal dumping that would disturb the animals.

The groups served Fort Irwin with a 60-day notice of intent to sue and plan to file the lawsuit after the desert tortoises have been moved.

"There's still a lot of work that needs to be done to make the relocation site more habitable," said Ileene Anderson, a staff biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.