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What is VVAW's Military and Veterans Counseling Doing Now?

By Ray Parrish

We reach out to and serve veterans with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) or TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) so severe that they end up with less-than-honorable military discharges due to misconduct or veterans who were discharged for pre-existing mental disorders. Both are ways for the government to avoid treating or compensating them. Many veterans reject the VA as part of the government that they blame for their distress. We do this work nationally via phone, mail or internet and locally through referrals from various governmental and private social service agencies, shelters and visiting nursing homes and senior citizen centers and word of mouth. With the objective of helping veterans recover through treatment, we provide them with the psychological evaluations and legal representation needed to win VA disability claims and cases before the BCMR (Board for the Correction of Military Records) or the DRB (Discharge Review Boards) for discharge upgrade or medical retirement.

Eight years ago VVAW hired me to answer a hotline 24/7 as the Director of our Military and Veterans Counseling Service. I didn't realize how overloaded this service was until the crisis calls began declining when the feds opened up the suicide hotline. It was about then, three years ago, that we could afford to hire Johanna (Hans) Buwalda as our therapist. We became the only veterans group employing a therapist. Hans is running peer groups for men and women veterans and family/friends on top of individual counseling for both treatment and evaluation purposes. Two years ago a Prisoners' Rights Coalition newsletter had an article about the work we do and letters from incarcerated vets began pouring in to the office. Six months later I began training three women, non-veteran volunteers in VA claims and discharge upgrading; Libby Frank, Dedra White-Montgomery and Karen Siegel. They've now passed the VA tests and are accredited VA Claims Agents.

These volunteers are each putting in 10-20 hours a week and we're finally able to begin to address the backlog of cases. If we can find the funding to pay them full-time, I won't feel guilty about taking advantage of their time and acquired skills and we can do more outreach without hesitation. We are discovering that veterans face a multitude of problems in prison and nursing homes. We're finding and fighting abuse and neglect in both populations. Both are full of vets with bad discharges, PTSD, TBI and/or Agent Orange diseases and they didn't know there was help for them until they heard of us. A year ago Hans began training other mental health professionals in how to write the evaluations needed to win these VA disability and discharge upgrade claims. She is now doing this nationally with volunteers from the Soldiers Project.

You can reach us all at our office at 3411 W. Diversey, Chicago IL 60647, telephone number 773-697-8872. You can use vetshelp@vvaw.org to contact Libby, Dedra and Karen. Hans can be reached at vetcounseling@vvaw.org. I'm still answering the hotline at 773-561-8829 and reachable at camiblue@vvaw.org. I'm still doing our live, call-in TV show on Chicago cable, with past episodes at veteranshelpingveterans.us.

Ray Parrish is the Benefits Director at VVAW's Military and Veterans Counseling Service.