By Debbie Gregory.

The Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis has parted ways with four podiatrists and a dermatologist for their part in a “channel stuffing” scheme.  Channel stuffing is a deceptive business practice that inflates a company’s sales and earnings figures by deliberately sending along its distribution channel more products than are needed.

While the VA proposed terminating all five,  each opted to resign or retire.

Marietta-based MiMedx,  a biopharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and markets regenerative biologics, has been accused of  lobbying friendly doctors and medical staffers at the Minneapolis VA to overstock and over-use products, thereby inflating revenue reports and driving up stocks.

This is not the first time MiMedx has found itself in hot water. In May, three South Carolina VA workers were indicted on federal health care fraud charges, accused of excessive use of MiMedx products on veterans after accepting gift cards, meals and other inducements from a company representative. Two of the three workers were also charged with accepting bribes.

In June, MiMedx announced that it will go back and revise more than five years of financial statements, but the company still remains under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This latest issue comes on the heels of a report issued by the Office of Inspector General that determined the mental health unit at the Minneapolis VA failed to follow VA policies before discharging an Iraq War veteran who committed suicide in the facility’s parking lot less than 24 hours later.

The veteran, who the IG didn’t identify, called the Veterans Crisis Line in February and told a crisis responder that he or she had suicidal thoughts and immediate access to guns. The veteran had just been kicked out of his or her home that day and was feeling overwhelmed and helpless, according to the IG report.  Later that day, the veteran went to the emergency department, where he or she was diagnosed with an adjustment disorder and an anxiety disorder. The veteran was then admitted to an inpatient mental health unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.

Three days after being admitted and prescribed antidepressants and sleep medication, the veteran was discharged at his or her request. The next day, police found the veteran dead in the parking lot.

You’re invited to listen to Debbie Gregory’s interview on Lt. Col. (Ret.) Denny Gillem’s radio show on Frontlines of Freedom Military Talk Radio at: https://bit.ly/2IdfoVE.

Frontlines of Freedom is designed to address and discuss the most pressing issues facing our armed forces, veterans and their families.

During the interview, Debbie touched on her family’s rich history of  service and her reasons for founding VAMBOA. Debbie also referenced her previous role as the CEO of MilitaryConnection.com, and the great number of non-profits we have been privileged to work with.

Debbie shared that she felt one of the  biggest take-aways from the Power Your Business Conference that VAMBOA produced in conjunction with Amgen was the information our members  received from the corporations present as to how to do business with them.

This year, one of Debbie’s goals is starting a veteran incubator to help veteran start-ups get their businesses off the ground, and take them to the next level. The great thing about an incubator is the collaborative environment that exists when people share ideas.

If you’re not already a member, you are invited to join the 7,200+ members nationwide. There is no fee to join.

Guests on Frontlines of Freedom include Cabinet members, generals, admirals, officers of all ranks, enlisted members, politicians, and of course, our very own Debbie Gregory.

By Debbie Gregory.

Congress was generous when it passed a spending bill that gave the military at minimum an additional $61 billion, boosting its overall budget to $700 billion this year.

For even the most serious of shopaholics, spending upwards of $300 billion in the final quarter of fiscal 2018 would be challenging. But spend it government agencies will, rather than giving the money back to the Treasury Department.

The spending spree must be completed by September 30th.  Through August, defense and civilian agencies obligated some $300 billion in contracts. But to spend all the money appropriated to them by Congress, they may have to obligate well over $200 billion more.

Predicting how much the government will spend on contracts is more or less an estimation, but no agency wants to have to return unused funds.

“As big as this year’s defense budget looks, it’s not enough to fix the problems,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry, who heads the House Armed Services Committee. “The first job of the federal government is to defend the country.”

More than 80 percent of the decision-makers surveyed by Government Business Council said they expected to spend their remaining budget dollars on existing contract vehicles.

“There’s one thing the Department of Defense is good at — it’s spending money quickly,” said Todd Harrison, who tracks military spending at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The most common near-term purchases reported by the surveyed decision-makers were professional services (34 percent), human capital products (29 percent), office management products (28 percent) and information technology (26 percent).

“We’re going to have to make a decision as a nation about our overall defense strategy and the role of our military,” said Harrison. “If you want to maintain the same level of involvement in the world, then you’re going to need to fund a larger military.

By Debbie Gregory.

There may be a big game changer in naval warfare because of two patents that were recently awarded to a retired Marine Corps four-star.

John Allen and SparkCognition CEO Amir Husain have been granted a patent for a seagoing mothership for quadcopters designed to fake out enemy fighter pilots, and another patent for a drone boat equipped to spot and shoot down enemy aircraft.

The patent for the drone boat reads: “A plurality of submersible vessels can cooperatively engage threats.”  “For example, the plurality of submersible vessels can coordinate with each other to observe, confirm, track, and engage threats by efficiently allocating resources, such as ordnance, among themselves. As one example, the plurality of submersible vessels can create a ‘dome’ of protection around assets, such as naval vessels or civilian vessels.”

For the most part, the U.S. military has been more willing to employ autonomous weapons in the maritime environment, where they’re less likely to cause unintended civilian casualties than on land.

“The design of the system certainly makes it capable” of firing autonomously, Husain said. “But the way in which a proposed system such as this is operationalized in the battlefield depends on many factors, and ultimately, international law and the policies of the United States Government as manifested in the oversight of the DoD and decision-making of the relevant commanders.”

“We see autonomous systems as platforms that can potentially deliver smaller kinetic effects with far greater precision, thus reducing the unintended damage. Autonomous systems should present a superior and more humane option than pulling the lanyard on a loaded artillery piece,”  said Husain.

In 2016, the first crewless warship, the Sea Hunter, launched as part of the DARPA Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program. Christened in Portland, Oregon, the vessel continues the line of experimental “Sea” ships, including the Sea Shadow, Sea Fighter, and Sea Slice.The Sea Hunter is classified as a Class III USV and designated the Medium Displacement Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MDUSV).

Following his 37-year military career,  Allen was appointed by former President Barack Obama as Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, where he led the complex assignment of building, from conception, a robust international coalition that would undertake a wide range of political, diplomatic, military, economic, and other efforts to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL.

By Debbie Gregory.

The Marine Corps is looking for a bullet that can deliver an electric jolt like a Taser.

The service branch wants a wireless human electro-muscular incapacitation (HEMI) round with a range of at least 100 meters (328 feet), a non-lethal weapon designed to temporarily incapacitate individuals for at least thirty seconds,  ideally longer. The goal is a non-lethal weapon that can be used by the joint services, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection and law enforcement.

HEMI rounds have undergone extensive human effects testing and analysis. The Air Force Research Laboratory, Human Effects Center of Excellence, Naval Health Research Laboratory and contracted researchers from academia have done extensive work to understand and characterize electro-muscular incapacitation effects at various exposure durations.

The bullet would deliver a jolt of around 50 Coulombs, which is a measure of electrical charge, and would utilize a tiny but powerful battery that can fit inside a bullet-sized munition.

Specifications for the HEMI round include having a minimum safe distance of at least sixteen feet, with a velocity slow enough not to injure the target. The bullet price point should also be less than $1,000 per round. Additionally, the HEMI round must be fired from conventional small arms.

The Marines want the ability to incapacitate for more than three minutes, enough jolt to stun but not enough to kill. It should be noted that a civilian police Taser jolts for just five seconds, yet an independent investigation found that more than 1,000 people have died fully or partly from Tasers.

Additional risks associated with Tasers include seizures, collapsed lungs, skin burns or eye damage, injuries to muscles, joints or tendons and head injuries from uncontrolled falls. And there is new evidence that suggests that Tasers may lead to fatal cardiac events.