22 Z>v Herald - Lantern - Dispatch 15 January '86

A Viet Vet Concerned About Others-

(From page 1) "Well, a female doesn't fit there, and she has no social club or place to go. And that makes it hard." Bp Itusmusscn at Burdette-Tomlin

A big step toward the recognition of female veterans came on Oct. 29, when Governor "Hiomas Kean proclaimed that day Women Veterans Day to commemorate the contribution, sacrifces and courage of women veterans. More than 60 female veterans, including Rasmussen, were honored with certificates, speeches, and a dinner at the Hyatt Regency in Princeton. "They (the state government) showed that there would be more movement in this area." Rasmussen said, "and more information will be made available for women veterans (on educational opportunities, counseling, etc.)" ON A NATIONAL LEVEL she said, there is a movement to have a woman veteran's statue placed alongside the others at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D C. Rasmussen said the national WA is shooting to have that completed "in the next year or two." Locally, Rasmussen's chapter is hoping to set up a Vietnam memorial monument in the county, possibly at the veteran's cemetary in Crest Haven. Other goals of the South Jersey Chapter include: • Increasing membership. It currently has 48 members, and needs 50 to be able to send two delegates to the national VVA convention. • Actively working on the POW/MIA issue, including several vigils scheduled

for this year. • Working with the state Agent Orange Commission, which is studying the defoliant and its long-term effects. The commission is conducting a study of veterans who think they were exposed to the chemical. • SEEKING JOBS for unemployed Vietnam veterans. Rasmussen said some unions, particularly in the casinos, are willing to set aside a small portion of their entry-level positions and give people from her chapter first shot. • Working with MADD and other groups on drinking and drug problems. The chapter's big activity right now is the compilation of a "Living Vietnam" testimonial that will be taken to area high schools to educate students about the war. The target date for completion is Feb. 1, Rasmussen said. "That's a part of history that has been ignored and we want to go in and tell our story and share our experiences and answer questions," she said. "We're finding that a lot of teenagers are children of Vietnam veterans, or there's a vet in the house type of situation." Rasmussen said the presentation will show what the war was about, what the experience was like and what counseling and therapy is available to veterans. THE CHAPTER was chartered Sept. 25, 1985 by the WA National Headquarters. It meets the first Monday of every month in the Upper Township Rescue Squad Building in Petersburg. The chapter seeks .Vietnam veterans. The Vietnam era is defined as from August 1964 to May 1975. Membership is open to anyone who served in the military during that era, whether or not they served in Vietnam. "I think our primary goal is to make a positive experience and say 'we're normal people in the mainstream of life and we don't have any problems that are different or unique from anybody else. They're just related to something different,' " Rasmussen said. "We're positive people, not negative people, which has been the connotation for a long time." RASMUSSEN WAS BORN Barbara Greenway in Cape May and graduated from Lower Cape May High School in 1964 and Hahnemann University in Philadelphia in 1966. Immediately after college she joined the Army, seeking an opportunity to travel and specialize in trauma and burns. After one year at Fort Sam Houston in Texas she was sent to a burn unit in Japan, and then transferred to Long Binh, Vietnam in late 1967. Rasmussen described her setting in Long Binh as a "big patch of desert in the middle of a jungle."

The Army defoliated a large patch of land in the middle of a jungle and set up a barbed wire compound, with cold running water and wooden buildings with tent tops. There, Rasmussen said, she spent a good deal of time in the bunkers, experiencing in-coming rounds. ALTHOUGH I WASN'Tout in the jungle, I was still in a war zone," she said. "It was a war of different sorts. It was living for the moment and living for the day — that type of thinking and that kind of attitude." "It's a very intense experience," she added. "I don't think anyone has a high enough level of energy to endure that kind of intensity without having been changed." Rasmussen left Vietnam after 13 months and the Army in 1970 after marrying career officer Lynn Rasmussen. TTieir daughter Kelli, 14, attends Lower Cape May Regional High School. After years of traveling, Lynn retired from the service, and the family moved from California to Cape May one and a half years ago. Rasmussen was a patient care coordinator in California and worked with the California Nurses Association before coming to Burdette. > <> - * i I 'B.J." Rasmussen in Lung Binh. 1967.

/ll^NEWS iNr/ DIGEST III / The Week's Jj II II Top Stories (From page 1 > . in 1985. That's about $800,000 more than last year, even though interest rates declined. How'd they do it? By having more money to invest, especially $15.5 million the county borrowed in late 1984 via a bond issue to be used for the new Crest Haven Nursing Home and courts expansion projects. Incidentally, that almost $2.5 million in earned interest .equals taxes of about four cents per hundred dollars of assessed valuation. •' I\o, Mo 'Bruno li, TUCKAHOE — New Upper Township Committeeman Bruno Tropeano's motion to cut all five committeemen's salaries from $10,000 to $3,000 plus expenses died for lack of a second last week It was his first committee meeting since being sworn in Jan. 3. Tropeano said he surveyed salaries of elected officials in other municipalities and found the average to be $5,000 Mayor Daniel Beyel. Committetynen Louis DiLuzio, George. Belts ancf Robert Jeffers refused to second Tropeano's motion, saying that they halve earned their salaries and improved the quality of township government in the. past few years. He Has Reservations COURT HOUSE - The Middle Township Planning Board approved plans for a 211-seat Ponaerosa restaurant on Wildwobd Boulevard last week, but county Planning Director Elwood Jarmer said applicants Furey Lerro and John Patitucci have a long way to go before they get needed county approval for its septic system. Jarmer said the county objects to the lot size, the amount of effluent put out and the size of the restaurant. Members of the county Planning Board and Board of Health recommended that the project be postponed until the area is sewered in 1988. but Kenneth Calloway, an attorney for the applicants, said he would meet with the county and try to reach a compromise. Shuddering Wallets ER&4A — Lower Cape May Regional school board last week adopted a $7,059,105 tentative preliminary budget which represents a 5.2 percent Increase over the portion of last year's budget that is raised through taxes. If adopter the budget will boost school taxes, but that amount won't be known until set by the county Board of Taxation. The budget last year was $6,672,530.

$3.6 Million Question WILDWOOD — City Council is slated to discuss next Tuesday a proposed $3.6 million bond ordinance for capital improvements. If approved, the bonds would pay for $1.6 million in street repaying and resurfacing over 18 months plus $33,000 to surface Dock Street and Tacony Road near Otten's Harbor. Another $650,000 is earmarked for resurfacing 10 blocks of the Second Ward boardwalk while $500,000 would improve the sanitary sewage system. A new telecommunications system would cost $400,000. with $225,000 for a telesquirt fire truck, $100,000 to remove boardwalk sand and $100,000 for roofing, air conditioning and other City Hall work. Union Vote Feb. 14 i COURT HOUSE - Middle Township employes' vote on joining Local 2210. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Council 71. has been postponed until Feb. 14. Currently. non-management employes can earn $10,000- $25,000 a year and. except for township police, each received a $1,350 raise last year. Besides medical and dental insurance, the 43 employes get 15 sick and three annual personal days plus 14-20 days for vacation. Whale Of a Buy SEA ISLE CITY - In a "hazard mitigation actions" report, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommended state-financed > relocation of homes and public land acquisitions along Whale Beach. FEMA also recommended that Landis Avenue I (the county's Ocean Drive) be moved -farther from the beach there, and that/ floodprotection measures be taken along Sunset Boulevard in West Cape May and Lower Township. Toll Booths Manned WILDWOOD — To remind motorists to pay their tolls, the Garden State Parkway Authority has begun staffing the 10-cent toll booths at the Rio GrandeWildwood interchange. Staffer's shifts will be shuffled to avoid predictability, according to Operations Manager John Simonse. License plate numbers and descriptions of offender's cars will be radioed to state police; offenders face fines of $200, up to 10 days in jail and the temporary loss of driving„privileges. Champion Takes Oath DENNISVILLE — John S. Champion, who has served 18 years on Dennis (Page 41 Please)

Disability Review Process Resumed

A new Social Security continuing review process is beginning. Del Brooks. Social Security manager in Wildwood, said recently. The old process stopped in April 1984 while new rules were developed. "The Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984 and later regulations will make the process more effective, fair, and easily understood," Brooks said. "Cases will be carefully and completely developed, and decisions to stop benefits will be well supported and uniform at all levels nationwide." BROOKS SAID that the biggest change is the new medical improvement review standard. "Benefits generally will continue unless there is substantial evidence of both medical improvement and ability to work. Before, only ability to work had to be shown. Brooks said there are some limited exceptions where benefits may stop without medical improvement, but they will apply in relatively few cases. For example, entitlement can end if a person is gainfully employed or has clearly benefited from medical ad-

vances or vocational therapy related to ability to work. "ANOTHER important change provides revised rules for more realistically judging a mentally impaired person's ability to work," Brooks said. "They were developed in cooperation with public and private professional experts who work with mentally impaired people. "Also, a beneficiary who appeals a decision that he or she is no longer disabled can have checks continue through a decision by an administrative law judge. If the appeal is unsuccessful, though, benefits must be repaid unless a waiver is granted." THE LAW REQUIRES everyone who receives ] disability benefits to be reviewd regularly. How often a person's case is reviewd will depend on the severity of the impairment, how likely it is to improve, and other factors, Brooks explained. A person getting Social Security or supplemental security income (SSI) disability checks can have his or her case reviewed from as soon as six months to as long as seven years

after entitlement. Among the first cases to be reviewed under the new process are those where medical improvement was considered likely when benefits were awarded, said Brooks. MANY OF THESE reviews were previously scheduled but delayed while the new rules were being prepared. Also scheduled for early review will be cases where cessation decision was appealed. They include those returned by federal courts which will be reevaluted under the new medical improvement review standard. Brooks encouraged anyone in the Cape May County area who wants to know more about disability - reviews to contact the\ Wildwood office. It is at 136 E. Spicer Ave., and the phone number is 800-272-1111.