Veterans Today: Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today's News, June 26, 2013!

1. Medal of Honor recipient Petry honored with statue in hometown. After parachuting onto the field next to the Fort Marcy Recreation Complex on Monday morning, Sgt. First Class Leroy Petry said there's no better way to see the American flag flying in the wind than to watch one floating to earth while attached to a parachutist. 2. New Wyoming law to recognize veterans on driver's licenses and identification cards with a special designation for honorably discharged veterans. 3. DAV's mobile service speeds up benefits. The Disabled American Veterans mobile service unit came to Springfield Ohio, on Monday for the first time to assist veterans with benefits claims, and many of them came hoping to speed up the application process. 4. Troops nearing retirement can't transfer GI Bill benefits without giving 4 more years. Beginning Aug. 1, all active duty military personnel who opt to transfer their Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to a family member will be obligated to four more years of service, including troops who are eligible for retirement. 5. Worth the wait. Hyperlink to Story Pittsburgh Post Gazette: I was incensed by the letter "The VA Is Failing the Nation's Veterans by US Rep Keith Rothfus. I have only the most sincere appreciation for the Veterans Administration. 6. VA Says Catching Up on Disability Claims. Since starting its push, the VA reports it has finished processing 97% of the benefit claims over two years old and will now focus its efforts on completing the benefit claims of veterans who have been waiting over one year for a decision. 7. Military sharpens new tools to deal with brain injuries. USA Today: A study of more than 900 veterans treated at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities in Palo Alto, Calif, from 2009 to 2011, found differences between women and men who suffered traumatic brain injury. Scientists have no explanation for the differences. 8. Defining The Deep Pain PTSD Doesn't Capture. WBUR: Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist at the Department of Veteran's Affairs clinic in Boston, coined the phrase moral injury in the mid 1990s. He was looking for a way to describe damage to a veteran's spirit or soul that PTSD didn't capture. 9. Veterans' Uphill Road Back, Struggle With Suicide. ABC News (AP): The treatment was helpful but his feelings about the VA are really mixed. My take is they are a bunch of really well meaning people. I don't know that it's resourced for the tasks. Also huge numbers of veterans, a tiny portion of the larger population, live in small towns, far from the cities where veteran services are available. 10. Study: Brains of Gulf War illness vets look different. Army Times: Brain scans of veterans with symptoms of Gulf War illness show neurological differences between those who deployed to the region in 1990 and 1991 and a control group, a finding researchers say could explain some of the condition's symptoms, such as chronic pain and extreme fatigue.