Giving Back to Vets
Millions of deserving veterans are missing out on generous VA benefits.
Are you one of them? Here are eight programs that
could help you secure your future By DAVE LINDORFF
After the ceremony she approached
the speaker, John Nowak, who works
with the Montgomery County Office
of Veterans Affairs in suburban Philadelphia. She explained that she had
been a Navy nurse in a plastic surgery
clinic at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, during the Korean War. Her duties
included patching up the disfigured
faces of young Marines who had just
returned from the front. Did he think
that this experience could account for
her suffering?
Nowak suggested she visit his office,
where she met with the director of
veterans’ services, who referred her to
a counselor at the VA Medical Center
in nearby Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
There, she was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and
given a 30 percent disability rating, a
disability-compensation payment of
nearly $5,000 a year, and free psychological counseling.
Thanks to this support, the veteran
nurse has begun to heal. “I’m already
doing much better,” she says. “I finally
feel like a full person.”
Christensen is one of 23 million
veterans in the United States today,
Last Memorial Day, Sue Christensen had a revelation. A retired nurse administrator, Christensen, then 83, was laying a
wreath at the veterans’ monument in East Norriton, Pennsylvania, when she heard a speaker at the remembrance ceremony say
that many vets suffer lingering
problems from their wartime
service—and don’t realize they
could receive help from the
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). “It suddenly hit me,”
recalls Christensen. “For 57
years I’ve suffered from panic
attacks. Could it be from my
time in the Navy?”
some 8 million of whom receive VA
benefits. But congressional sources and
critics say that many other deserving
veterans are not availing themselves
of assistance. Some, like Christensen,
simply don’t know they are eligible for
benefits. “It never occurred to me that
the VA could do anything for me,” she
says, noting she had never served in a
war zone.
