Recently, I was invited by USC CIR social study meeting about veteran's and their spouse life. We had been discussed so many questions during the 2 hours meeting. I was thank you this meeting and let them know better about military family.
The group members were including Active Duty, Military Spouse, Veterans, and some Non-profit Organization. Some of members were homeless, and some of them were suffered the PTSD after the service in military. We shared so many ideas, and most of them were not recognized by government, or other local departments. Here I made a list:
Veteran Benefit: As I mentioned during the previously posts, veteran did have a great benefits after service for military as long as you got the honorable discharged. For example, the VA will give you the certain disability if service or non-serviced connected ( case by case); Education benefits, like GI Bill, Post 911, Voc Rehab, and etc; Federal employee program for disable veterans, and etc. However, it was still so many programs that veterans were not recognized. For example, some veterans had service-connected disability more than 20%, they could not find a job and did not know what to do. They never heard about the Chapter 31 Voc Rehab. I was attending to Voc Rehab 2 times, and every time just a few veterans to attend. I did ask some stuff, they inform me that some of the veterans were not known their benefits and felt scared to ask. I did see some veterans had been finished their service more than 10 years, and they were not even known they entitled the VA health care benefit.
Homeless Veterans: So far I only meet one person was a homeless veteran after serviced in military. I did know the VA did offer some programs and trying to help the homeless veterans. During the meeting, what I heard from her was completely different situations: the program did not help her at all, and the VA serviced was horrible ( I would explain later on). The story was full of drama. Somehow, I could see the VA system should be improved a little bit to help out the homeless veterans or their family.
VA Customer Service: As we know, VA is one of the greatest departments to take care of veterans. Somehow, I heard so many complaints during the meeting, and I did personally experience some bad moments about the VA. Sometimes I was wondered why the VA representatives were not professional at all. For example, when I was visited the local VA and trying to get some help about my VA benefits, the VA rep was explaining to me sounds reasonable and with no questions. However, when I visited him next time, he was telling me the different information, and I believe I was not the only one who got confused. One of the veterans was working with Non-Profit Organization. She put out a point that government was trying to cut the budget, ans as a result, the government just hired the contractor with no experiences at all. I was still doing some researched about this information, and would be updated it later.
School VA service: Well, this is my favorite topic, and I would like to explain more about the school information for veterans. Recently, I did visit couple Universities in Los Angeles area. I believe so many veterans would do some research about Universities before or after they separated. You will feel a big welcome when you open a page from school site, and say " thank you for your service, and welcome for veterans!" Yes, these school sites are full of welcome message, and tell you that how your decision is important for them. They even have some message to say they would accept some military credits and feel free to contact the VA department. Instead, when you walk in into the universities, you find out that is completely different situations. For example, the VA representative is not helpful at all. I said that because one of the Universities in Los Angeles ( I am not going to mention the school name this point) provided me an " excellent serviced". When I was asking this lady regarding the veteran student questions, or how to transfer and how I know the credits would be transferable. The Lady just told me to pick up the paper work on the table, and figure out by myself. By the time I was walking into Admission, or other student service department, all stuff told me that they did not know about veteran benefit, ans just told me to come back to VA office. Additionally, it happened to me in different universities. The VA Rep were not helpful, and they told me they just wanted to help the on campus student. Yes, I did understand your priority. On the other hands, so many veterans just wanted to understand how many credits could be transferable. All schools would almost give you the same answer: Please apply online, and once your application got submitted, we will review your transcript. Unfortunately, so many schools just could not keep their words. I did apply one university, and they reject my application. They did not state why they did not accept me. When I was physically walking into the school, they were not even told me that which credit could be transferable and I could be able to prepare for the next transfer period. For community college, they had the better service than universities so far unless they were really trying to help veterans to get a better education to transfer. I still did not understand why universities were lack of knowledge to help veteran who wanted to apply for schools.
We Need Help: Overall, we need some help. It is not easy to let a hero to ask for help because that needs so much courage to do it. So many veterans, including me, we feel we are from the button of the world, and no one is really respected to us. When we needed help, we just found out so many issues, and the information is confusing. I was not only one veterans who got a hard time to apply schools, but also needed some helpful information from VA or other departments. We wanted to know the better useful information, however, some of the information just full of rumors and let us confuse. I will keep updating sooner or later.
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