"Welcome Home" from Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland will help vets from Iraq and Afghanistan navigate the VA system.

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Editor's NOTE from Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org

When I started this web site, I followed some simple rules:  Information is power ... Information for veterans must be free ... No memberships ... No dues ... No fees ... No premium content ... Respect all veterans ... Provide accurate information ... Provide accurate advice.

I am not a big fan of the veterans' service organizations.  By their very nature, they are divisive ... What war were you in? ... What disability do you have? ... Do you meet our membership requirements?  I feel it is up to Internet voices like VA Watchdog dot Org to encourage a spirit of inclusion, not exclusion ... no veteran-against-veteran ... no "My war was better than your war."

Our new veterans, coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, need our support ... need accurate information about their benefits ... and need our assurances that we have their backs.

So, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Jim Strickland's series of columns for our new veterans:  Welcome Home!

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Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland provides regular columns for VA Watchdog dot Org.  If you would like to contact Jim about his columns, you can email him here...  The archive of Jim's articles is here...  To find an answer to a specific VA benefits question, use the VA Watchdog search engine... click here...  And, be sure to use Jim's:  A Military Veterans Guide To Disability Compensation and Pension Benefits -- A Compendium of Resources and Knowledge For The Disabled Veteran -- click here...   JIm's series for new vets, "Welcome Home," is also featured on Military.com. And, you can follow Jim on TWITTER here ...

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Welcome Home!

by Jim Strickland

You've completed your honorable and patriotic duty to your country.

You have your discharge paperwork in hand and you're ready to make the change from active duty soldier, sailor, marine or airman to become a veteran. This is a time of your life that has no comparison as you look into all of the unknowns.

The rigorous life of military service may have left you with some health issues that you've been concerned about. We who serve face tasks that civilians won't ever imagine and sometimes those tasks will take a toll on our bodies and our minds. You're also aware that you're eligible for home loans and much more.

You understand that your government has made the commitment that you will be cared for after your ETS. Maybe you're not clear on the details. Just who will do all this and how does it get done?

The Department of Veterans Affairs, commonly known as the VA, is the government entity that most of us will turn to for help. The VA is the second largest Cabinet department reporting to the executive branch of our government, with over 275,000 employees and a budget of some 100 billion dollars. Both of those figures are growing as I write this.

If you're to be successful in dealing with this giant agency it's to your advantage to understand what the VA is made of and how it works.
Much like being active military, working with the VA has its positives and its negatives. It's up to you to use VA services correctly and to your own advantage. There isn't much TLC or hand holding to be found at the VA but the smart veteran who uses the system appropriately will find benefits that can't be matched anywhere else.

The VA is comprised of 3 separate business units. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is responsible for the hospitals, clinics and pharmacies you'll encounter as you use health care. The National Cemetery Administration (NCA) honors veterans at over 100 National Cemeteries across America and Puerto Rico as well as 24 overseas military cemeteries that serve as resting places for almost 125,000 American war dead. The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) is the department of the VA that serves as a sort of gatekeeper to all VA benefits services. The VBA determines eligibility for benefits and maintains the numerous records of veterans and their dependents who receive benefits.

The VA is a process oriented machine...again, much like the military.
For every benefit you may want to participate in there are varying degrees of paperwork to be completed and all of that must be accomplished in an orderly and stepwise fashion. There are no shortcuts and trying to sidestep the process or the rules of the system is a guarantee of a bureaucratic jumble. From the moment that you begin to interact with the VA it will pay you big dividends to cross all those t's and dot all those i's according to the instructions that VA will offer you.

The VA gives every veteran good instructions for each task to be accomplished. While there often are a lot of forms to complete, each form is accompanied with its own unique set of detailed instructions on what the veteran must do. Some of that is fairly simple to understand, some of it is written in "legalese" and requires more thought. While there may be a lot of detailed information required, each step has a purpose to the VA staffer who will process your forms.

Today's VA provides more information to veterans than has ever before been possible. Since the beginning the VA has always been designed to use administrative processes to work directly with veterans. While there is help available from Veterans Service Organizations, I always recommend that the veteran seeking benefits or information begin directly at the source...your VA.

Veterans who are willing to take the time to learn for themselves will find a wealth of information on the web site of the Department of Veterans Affairs at http://www.va.gov/ . Much like the VA itself, the site is large and complex but is generally arranged in a logical fashion. Located within the pages of the VA web site are help line numbers, details about health care benefits, pages where you may submit electronic applications for benefits and even a page where you can email questions directly to VA and expect to receive a personalized reply.

While the VA has available hundreds of available benefits, your thoughts are probably aimed in the direction of service connected disability compensation, health care, pension and benefits for your dependents. Even with all the information made available by the VA understanding the nuances of what you are or aren't eligible for may be a daunting task.

In my writings at Military Dot Com I'll be describing and explaining some of those issues about benefits that readers have questioned before.

I'll be doing my best to make the process and the complex legal jargon understandable for you and guide you to a successful working relationship with your VA.

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TOPICS: veterans, veterans' benefits, VA, Department of Veterans' Affairs, Jim Strickland, Veterans' Advocate, Welcome Home, Iraq veteran, Afghanistan veteran