Mister Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Subcommittee, on behalf of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America’s (IAVA) 180,000 members and supporters, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today to express the concerns of our membership on some very important issues facing veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.

As an OIF veteran with 10 years of service in the Army, I have seen firsthand the difficulties that many face when transitioning from being a servicemember to being a veteran.  For the wounded warrior, torn from service due to their extraordinary sacrifice, and the young veteran, who spent most of their formative years in uniform, the transition can be difficult.  All too often, we leave behind structured and accessible care and benefits of the military when seeking care and benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where we’re left to our own devices.

In response to the need for a more seamless transition from servicemember to veteran, the VA and Department of Defense (DOD) have embarked on several initiatives that allow servicemembers to walk off post with their benefits in hand.  However, the potential of these programs has yet to be fully realized.  And their full impact will not be felt until the VA begins aggressive outreach to servicemembers and the DOD makes transition programs uniform and mandatory. 

When I left the Army in 2007, I had no idea of the scope and availability of the benefits I was entitled to as a veteran.  In fact, it never occurred to me to seek benefits and health care from the VA for the general wear and tear of a decade of military service.  If it weren’t for the advice of a Sergeant Major attending the Army Civilian Alumni Program with me I would never have applied. 

But we cannot rely on word of mouth to spread this information. The DOD and the VA must integrate their outreach and ensure a smooth transition of services before a servicemember is ready to leave the uniform behind. Otherwise, more men and women will fall through the cracks. The Marine Corps mandates TAPS programs within 90 days of separation, while the Army conducts their Civilian Alumni Program within 30 days.  Both of these programs are useful, but begin far too late to effectively utilize the Benefits Delivery at Discharge Program.  Additionally, neither program has comprehensive and mandatory briefings about the availability of VA services.

The VA must begin to see itself as a military alumni program.  Many of us remember the guy from our college’s alumni society who greeted us freshman year and continued to pester us throughout college and for years afterward. It may have been annoying at times, but the message was communicated clearly and consistently. The VA needs to be communicating at least that effectively with our veterans. There should be no excuse for a veteran not knowing what services are available to them when they separate. Only when the VA integrates its outreach and education efforts with the DOD will benefits programs reach their full potential.

Early outreach also requires VA boots on the ground. To effectively utilize quick start services the VA must have a presence at all military installations in order to provide access and information to the benefits and services that the servicemembers have earned.  Additionally, the VA should offer training to AGR members of the National Guard and reserve in order to educate servicemembers who do not have the same interaction with the military services as their active duty counterparts.

Just as the VA must rethink the way it conducts outreach, the DOD must understand that it has a responsibility to its servicemembers to set them up for success whether they retire from service or choose to leave.  The military is a lifestyle, not a job.  Those that choose this life must be afforded every opportunity to excel both while in uniform, and when they put the uniform away.  The DOD must mandate a comprehensive and structured Transitional Assistance Program that integrates VA benefits and services. 

In addition to integrating outreach and training we need to address the expedience and accuracy of the benefits process.  The Benefits Delivery at Discharge Program generally provides more accurate and timely benefits to separating servicemembers than the standard benefits approval process.  However, this is largely due to the co-location of the servicemember with their respective records and DOD medical facility.  Many of the processing issues that plague the standard system still exist.   They are mitigated by the fact that the servicemember is still in uniform and has full access to DOD care and services, while waiting for their rating, thus reducing the time it takes to develop a claim.

Receiving a disability rating at the VA can be a long and confusing process for a veteran.  Often, a veteran must wait for a rating that does not accurately reflect what they are entitled to.  The VA currently uses a disability evaluation process that was outdated long before many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were born.  This has lead to a situation where hundreds of thousands of veterans must navigate an antiquated system that focuses on the quantity over quality of the processed claims.  Consequently, 17% of cases do not accurately compensate veterans for their earned benefits. And as we all know, that leads to months, if not years, of delayed payments.

IAVA applauds some of the innovative initiatives that the VA has undertaken to mitigate this problem.  Two such programs are the pilot that integrates the Virtual VA into the Benefits Delivery at Discharge process, establishing online information for quick start programs, and the Six Sigma pilot at the Little Rock Regional Office.  Now it is time to take it to the next level.  The Virtual VA is a step in the right direction, but it must integrate with VHA records if it is to be effective.  Informational websites are good, but today’s veterans expect a website to offer services as well as information.

This year IAVA, along with many of our fellow Veterans Service Organizations, have selected reform of the disability benefits approval process as our number one legislative issue. We believe that our veterans and survivors deserve a top quality disability claims system and we commit to supporting and passing disability claims reform legislation that:

• Develops a work culture at VA that emphasizes quality at all steps by creating a management culture that measures and rewards quality of results, not just quantity, and provides sufficient training of VA's management and workforce in order to achieve this outcome.
• Modernizes the IT infrastructure and optimizes business processes by creating a secure and accessible paperless IT system which rapidly moves and organizes the information necessary for VA to approve claims for benefits, while optimizing workflow and business processes.
• Develops a simpler and more transparent application and approval process by creating a universal and simple application process that provides veterans with regular updates on the progress of their claims and allows them to access their records and the status of their claims.

Thank you again for the chance to communicate our analysis and suggestions on this most important issues facing veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.  We look forward to continuing to work with the committee and I appreciate your time and attention.