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GI Rights Organizing

By Aaron Davis

No inflated body counts or statistics here sir! Military Counseling Project in Salt Lake City, Utah jointly sponsored by the VFP and VVAW chapters has reached the two year mark performing veterans outreach and the GI Rights Hotline.

Prior to that time we spoke on panels with the Director of the VARMC PTSD Department Dr. Allen. We established a working relationship with the local vet center, and used their materials to distribute to veterans. We became familiar with veterans programs in the community and other local resources that can assist veterans who are homeless or cannot access the VA System due to bad paper. We also received training on the GI Rights Hotline.

Our veterans outreach has given out 91 Veterans Benefit books provided by the vet center. We have helped to enroll 4 veterans who did not know they could access VA health care. We passed out 16 SF-180s to vets to request their DD-214, health or service records. We have referred 6 veterans from OIF to the vet center for counseling.

My favorite area is consulting on veterans compensation and pension packets. I first got to know the American Legion Veterans Service Officer who was recommended by the vet center. I have found holes in the documentation for 7 veterans, and finally got one Vietnam Vet his 100% for PTSD and Agent Orange after 35 years of paperwork. I have the VA Guidelines and Checklists on my desk, and can immediately find reasons to appeal and local resources to help with it. Never give up! Appeal, appeal and appeal!

The other day, a vet got on my bus and thanked me for pushing him and his brother to enroll in the VA system. His brother recently had cancer and would have added two more to the 48 million americans without health insurance. That made my day.

Our GI Rights Hotline has received 73 calls from all over the country during the past two years. The largest category of 22 calls has been advice on getting out of the military's Delayed Entry Program. On the other end, we have had 14 calls from soldiers and marines who were either considering or went UA/AWOL. We helped facilitate 5 for turn-in to Ft. Sill. Most AWOL/UA are caused by humanitarian and hardship issues that are not resolved by the chain of command. We have had 9 such calls, which we try to help resolve within the system. Four calls from reservists wanting discharges, 2 from reservists for unsatisfactory partipation, and two calls on Consciencious Objection round out the categories.

I challenge our VVAW and VFP chapters to get more involved in helping soldiers and veterans. If we say we support the troops, so let it be written, so let it be done. Refer to www.girightshotline.org.