GI Bill Implementation Hearing: The House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity held a hearing on VA’s efforts to implement the changes brought about by the Forever GI Bill. VA representatives testified about the IT issues they are currently facing, and the struggle with notification letters to student veterans. One of the issues highlighted by Chairman Jody Arrington (R-TX) was the misleading and contradictory letters being sent to those students whose eligibility has been restored because their school was recently closed. VA’s solution to this issue is to fix how they track these students in order to make sure they receive the correct notice in the future, instead of multiple contradictory letters. Another issue raised was the low number of students who have applied to have benefits restored after abrupt school closures in the past few years. Only a few hundred of the nearly 8,000 students who may be eligible have applied for benefit restoration and the number needs to be higher. These students might not know they can apply for this benefit and VA needs to do a better job notifying those who are eligible. If you were impacted by a recent school closure and are facing issues accessing your restored GI Bill benefits, please contact vfwac@vfw.org. Read the new Forever GI Bill provisions or apply for benefit restoration (www.benefits.va.gov/GIBILL/forevergibill.asp).
Hearing on BRAC for VA and Pershing Hall: The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs held a hearing on pending legislation. One bill would require VA to sell Pershing Hall, a hotel and memorial in Paris, France. The other bill would establish a Base Realignment and Closure process for realigning VA medical facilities throughout the country. Committee members discussed their desires to right-size VA’s footprint in each community. VFW National Legislative Service Director Carlos Fuentes warned Congress and VA that any plans to expand, replace or close VA medical facilities must align with the views and preferences of veterans served by those facilities.
VFW Visits Offutt AFB: VFW Senior Vice Commander Vincent “B.J.” Lawrence; Junior Vice Commander William “Doc” Schmitz; and Director, National Security and Foreign Affairs, Sarah Maples, visited Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, NE. They toured the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s Offutt lab, where they learned details on how forensic techniques have been used to identify more than 100 unknown sailors and marines from the USS Oklahoma. They also received a mission and quality of life briefing from the U.S. Strategic Command’s senior enlisted advisor and visited the 55th Wing’s Office of the Warrior Advocate—a pilot program whose mission is to coordinate warrior care among base agencies and provide their leadership awareness of their invisible wounds community. During lunch with several airmen, they listened to their concerns and provided information on the services, programs and advocacy the VFW offers to service members, veterans and their families.
Veterans, Active military and Civilians: I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a happy holiday. We didn’t miss the snow either. Our VFW Post 516 had our annual Christmas Party at our post on Friday, Dec. 22, 2017. We had a DJ and there was dancing and plenty of good food. Our auxiliary held a “Chinese Auction” and there were many happy winners. I extended an invitation to our past state commander and his wife. They accepted and the now recently elected State Quartermaster Dennis Sullivan and his wife graced our party with their presence. A good time was had by all. Happy New Year.
