VA FAILING TO INFORM GUARD AND RESERVISTS RETURNING FROM IRAQ/AFGHANISTAN OF POTENTIAL BENEFITS, NEW IG REPORT SHOWS

Veterans Committee hearing on outreach to Guard and Reserve veterans Wednesday

WASHINGTON, D.C. –U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI), Chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, today highlighted an investigative report issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General (IG), on the efforts of VA to provide transition assistance to veterans returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Download Full Report

The Inspector General found VA is not meeting its clear legal obligation to inform new veterans of the benefits they may have earned through their service,” said Akaka. “Especially alarming is the finding that Guard and Reserve veterans made up over half of those uninformed, even though they compose only about a quarter of servicemembers deployed.

Retired and Annuitant Pay: Retroactive Payment

VA Retro is a program designed by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) to pay eligible military retirees any retroactive money due as a result of increases in their percentage of disability.

VA Retro payments include retroactive adjustments to Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC), Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay (CRDP) and DVA disability compensation. 

CRSC and CRDP are laws passed by Congress which allow eligible military retirees to be paid additional retired pay or special compensation to overcome some or the entire offset from retired pay associated with the receipt of disability compensation from the DVA. Prior to passage of these laws, a retiree was not allowed to receive both military retired pay and DVA disability compensation. The VA Retro program makes payments based on retroactive increases to the percentage of disability as determined by the DVA.

At issue are the Concurrent Retirement and Disability Payments and Combat-Related Special Compensation programs
 
Report: 8,763 vets died waiting for benefits

By William H. McMichael - ARMY TIMES

The title of the House committee report sums up what happened: “Die or Give Up Trying: How Poor Contractor Performance, Government Mismanagement and the Erosion of Quality Controls Denied Thousands of Disabled Veterans Timely and Accurate Retroactive Retired Pay Awards.”

The report by the majority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform domestic policy panel, released Tuesday, concluded that at least 28,283 disabled retirees were denied retroactive pay awards because rushed efforts to clear a huge backlog of claims led program administrators to stop doing quality assurance checks on the claims decisions.

And of the original 133,057 potentially eligible veterans, 8,763 died before their cases could be reviewed for retroactive payments, according to the report.

Yes, More on the GI Education Benefit

The VA has already put out a pamphlet on the “Post-9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Act of 2008”. You can find it at www.gibill.va.gov. They have also set up a toll free number 1-888-GIBILL1 (442-4551) for the numerous questions you will have. Again, this new benefit will not go into effect until August 1, 2009. At the same time the Montgomery GI Bill is still in effect.

New GI Bill dramatically changes education benefit

New GI Bill more than doubles education benefit for some veterans

By DENNIS CAMIRE

WASHINGTON — Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans seeking to use the new GI Bill for school right away may be disappointed to learn that the significantly expanded benefits will not be available for another year.

But the new GI Bill, signed into law this week, offers some immediate tuition relief for veterans while the government sorts out how to administer the most comprehensive changes to veterans education benefits since the original 1944 GI Bill.

The new GI Bill, similar to the World War II program, offers free tuition and fees at public colleges and universities along with a housing allowance and up to $1,000 a year for books and supplies. It more than doubles the education benefit for some veterans based on where they live and go to school. The law also allows career service personnel to transfer the benefit to a spouse or dependent children.

How to Recoup Taxes Paid on Disability Severance pay From the Armed Forces
by Allan B. Colombo 

Many medically discharged vets, including some good friends of mine, don't know they are entitled to get the taxes back if they get a VA rating. The one's who do know they are entitled (like I did) don't know how to go about doing it. If I can spare anyone what I went through trying to figure it out, its worth it.

Dorothy
IRS publications 17 (Your Federal Income Tax) & 525 (Taxable & Non-taxable Income, page 17) both state that “if you receive a lump-sum disability severance payment and are later awarded VA disability benefits, exclude 100% of the severance benefit from your income.” But neither publication says how.

Who is eligible?
According to page one of an information paper published online by the Presidio of Monterey Staff Judge Advocate, veterans who have:
a designation of 10 a, b, or c on DA Form 199 (findings from the Physical Evaluation Board). The rest of this page will deal with the last situation - a retroactive disability determination from the VA. (Information Paper). This last one means the VA has awarded a disability rating for the same condition for which someone is discharged...

GI Bill is a major victory for veterans
By Paul Rieckhoff, Huffington Post

For anyone following the fight for a new GI Bill, progress seemed to slow to a crawl recently. After the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed the veterans' education benefit as a part of the war funding supplemental, reconciling their two versions of the legislation faced serious and unexpected roadblocks. And even if Congress got the GI Bill to the president, the threat of a Bush veto was always looming.

Last night, all that changed. A critical agreement was reached between leadership in the House of Representatives and the White House on the fate of the war funding bill.

In a very rare reversal of opinion, the Bush administration withdrew its long-held objections to a new GI Bill that would fully fund the cost of a public college education for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. The bill agreed on includes the entire World War II-style GI Bill that IAVA has been championing for over a year. The final bill will also allow service members who stay in the military to transfer their education benefits to their spouses and children. This is another great, bipartisan step toward providing our veterans with the benefits they have earned...

War Veteran must share disablility with ex-wife

Money For Nothing, Checks For Free

by Anne Stanton

A Manistee County judge ruled recently that a portion of a Vietnam veteran’s disability benefits can be considered when determining the amount of alimony paid to an ex-spouse.

Veteran Calvin Murphy had argued in court that his disability benefits should be off limits to his ex-wife, but 19th Circuit Judge James Batzer disagreed.

Murphy, 61, testified in the trial that he served a harrowing 5 1/2 months in Vietnam and mistakenly believed for decades that he had killed a fellow soldier during a North Vietnamese attack. He was wracked by guilt that his entire squadron had been ambushed, shot in the head, and found with cards in their mouths that said “Yankee go home.” He was not with his squadron at the time of the ambush.

Murphy said he was torn up emotionally from the experience—during his 24-year marriage to Karen Murphy, he sometimes slept with a gun, was tormented by nightmares, and used drugs and alcohol. In the early 1990s, he stopped drinking and sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder...

"Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act," would award $1,000 a month to merchant crewmen who served in WWII
BY GUY TRIDGELL

Henry Clemens was flunking high school in 1943 when he decided to help his country in World War II.

The Army wouldn't take him because he was still a kid. 

Neither would the Marines and the Navy.

Even the Coast Guard told Clemens to beat it.

Clemens found a home in the Merchant Marine, the maritime fleet that shipped wartime supplies through mines and enemy attack to the European and Pacific theaters.

"I was 16 years old," Clemens said. "They told me if I was crazy enough to go, I was in."

Clemens survived gunfire, weathered fierce storms at sea and watched his fellow mariners die to keep the Allied fighting machine running. But once the war ended, Clemens and other members of the Merchant Marine were denied all of the benefits, such as medical care and unemployment payments, extended to veterans...

***CALLING ALL VETERANS!***

Talk about your experience with the GI Bill! 

Steve Henn, Senior reporter of Marketplace would love to speak with recent Veterans about there experiences with the GI bill after returning from either Iraq or Afghanistan.

His deadline is tight and he must wrap up any interviews by about 3:30 pm Eastern time. 

If you are an Iraq or Afghanistan war veteran who has had experience with the GI Bill please contact him directly by email: shenn@americanpublicmedia.us or telephone: (202) 263-0201 IMMEDIATELY.  

This is your chance to be heard regarding veterans' education benefits!