Category: Commentary

Service Officer Update (May 2024)

By Joseph Mesa

In 2023, several critical issues concerning veterans have come to the forefront. Some of the key areas:

Disability and Retirement Pay:
1. Last year, Congress passed a significant benefits expansion for veterans affected by toxic exposure injuries during their service.
2. However, the focus this year is on ensuring that veterans who suffered injuries while on duty receive all the compensation they deserve.
3. The issue revolves around concurrent receipt and the Major Richard Star Act.
4. Currently, veterans with a disability rating of at least 50% receive both their full military retirement pay and disability benefits. But those with a disability rating below 50% face dollar-for-dollar offsets, resulting in reduced payments.
5. The Major Richard Star Act aims to allow combat-wounded veterans medically discharged before serving 20 years to receive both retirement and disability pay, without any offsets.

Mental Health Crisis:
1. Veterans experience high rates of mental health conditions, including PTSD, depression, and substance use.
2. Suicides among veterans increased significantly from 2006 to 2020.
3. Innovative treatment strategies are urgently needed, and addressing mental and metabolic health simultaneously may lead to better outcomes.

VA Workforce Challenges:
1. The Department of Veterans Affairs faces a flood of new cases due to the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act(PACT Act).
2. Claims processors are strained, leading to workforce challenges and impacting veterans’ access to services.

Finally, all veterans, including those exposed to toxins and hazards during military service, are now eligible for VA health care. Veterans who are exposed to toxins or hazards during training or active duty in the United States are also eligible. Eligible Veterans can enroll directly in VA health care without needing to apply for VA benefits.

Commander’s Corner (March 2024)

Greetings! I heard I missed out on a fantastic social in February that was put on by Quartermaster Harold “H2” Hamilton. H2 stepped up to represent his hometown of New Orleans with some good grub and Mardi Gras trivia. If you have a special cuisine you like to cook and a theme in mind, please consider volunteering to plan a post social or cook a meeting dinner. Organizing and executing socials have fallen on the shoulders of a few in years past but this model isn’t sustainable. We will discuss more at our March meeting and in the meantime, feel free to send me your thoughts about our socials and how they should look going forward.

For our March social, we plan to honor our Vietnam Veterans in recognition of Vietnam Veterans Day later in the month. Stay tuned for details, which I’ll send out over email.

H2 isn’t only a good social host and cook, but he’s also offered to teach Yoga. He’ll hold a mid-day and evening session this month. It’s open to anyone, for free, so bring a family member or friend and come and experience “Body by Harold.” 

March is the start of spring AND VFW election season. woohoo! Nominations open at the March business meeting and we vote in April. We have a variety of leadership opportunities available so let me know if you’re interested in doing more to help the post. This is truly a team effort!

In comradeship,
Aly Teeter, Commander

Surgeon Update

By Robert Lehman, M.D.

I wanted to let all the veteran members know of a long-term research program you can get involved with.  This is called All of Us, which involves a number of Medical Centers and universities, but for our purposes it is also partnered with the VA.  The goal is to develop a database of information on 1 million people that then can be anonymously accessed by researchers trying to correlate all sorts of genetic and other medical conditions. Your medical information will go into the database, but not your name or any identifying data.

The basic foundation of this is determining your DNA genome.  Whether your DNA might signal an increased (or decreased) risk of some current or future condition is unknown; that is the reason for the database.  I just heard of this program at a Legion meeting last week, completed the online registration, and had my blood drawn on the 26th, so I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of how long the results take to be sent out or even what those results will look like.  But it seems like an easy way to learn about my DNA for free.   Actually, it is even better than free as they give you a $25 gift card to your choice of Amazon or a few others.

To learn more, you can go to veterans.joinallofus.org.  You can then do the multiple modules to register into the program, including playing some “games” that check your reflexes, etc.  Or, after just registering a little bit, you can complete the rest of the process when seen at the VA hospital on Columbia.  Whether you do the full online registration or just partial, you can contact them directly at 206 277-1210 to complete the process.  I should warn you that it took me maybe 30 minutes to do all the online registrations modules, but it would take a lot longer if you waited to do it at the VA itself.  There is a last option after completing the online registration, and that is to have a sputum test sent to you to submit instead of going down for a blood draw.  I went for the blood as I knew it would give more information, but still the sputum is an option if you don’t have transportation down to the VA.

If you don’t have access to the online information, just call them at 206 277-1210 and they can answer your questions as well as send more information out to you if you wish.

Commander’s Corner (January 2024)

By Alyson Teeter

Welcome to 2024, Comrades! If you’re a new or returning member, check out what we accomplished in 2023 in our annual report below. We had a very active year serving veterans and the community and we will continue the momentum into the new year. My primary focus will shift to membership and how we can activate members to participate more with the post. We are a volunteer-driven organization and we can’t be successful in doing more for veterans without a thriving community of #StillServing comrades.  

Happening this month is another opportunity to connect with the Five and Five discussion group at 5 p.m. on Jan.18, which also happens to be our monthly social night. Come for some meaningful connection and stay for our a family-friendly movie and popcorn at our first ever Movie Night Social. Our quarterly blood drives, in partnership with BloodWorksNW, will continue this year and our first for 2024 is at the post on Jan. 25. 

I’ve saved the bad news for last, which is the dissolution of our Post 3063 Auxiliary. The Post 3063 Auxiliary President, Sean Peat, resigned his position last month and nobody was able to take on the position vacancy. Thus the auxiliary voted to suspend its charter. On behalf of the post, I want to thank Sean for taking on the daunting task of leading the fledgling organization. He helped bring it back to an active status for the last couple years and the small but mighty auxiliary did a lovely job of supporting veterans and Post 3063. Thank you again to the auxiliary and know that our post family members and friends can still make a positive impact serving veterans regardless of auxiliary status. 

Commander’s Corner (November 2023)

By Alyson Teeter

In case you missed it, we had our most exciting and successful Post 3063 fundraiser in recent memory Oct. 21. We raised a gross fundraising total of nearly $19,000 through a raffle, a silent online and live auction, dessert dash and ticket sales. This year we had help from fundraising guru and Vietnam Veteran, Comrade Jay Fiske. We wholeheartedly appreciate his help, along with our post and auxiliary volunteers, to make it a fun event for everyone who attended. 

There is no rest for our post as we’re now focused on planning our Veterans Day event. We will dedicate our new flag pole to Comrade Harold Rodenberger at 9 a.m. on Nov. 11. After our ceremony, we’ll open up the post to the public until 2 p.m. We’ll have a pop-up coffee shop called Emme serving custom brews and baked goods. We’ll also have information about the post, auxiliary, Buddy Poppies and VA benefits on display for those who stop by. We’d love to have our post members there to tell their stories and inform the public about our mission. Please sign up here to participate or contact me directly! 

Want another opportunity to serve? We have our next quarterly BloodworksNW blood drive scheduled at the post Nov. 10, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sign up to give blood at this link.

For our Nov. 16 social, we plan to deviate from our traditional Thanksgiving dinner and have a Thursday Night Football-themed event. (We’re currently dealing with some plumbing issues so heavy cooking in the kitchen is on pause.) Earlier that day at 10 a.m. we’ll also continue the Five and Five discussion group led by Comrade Dave Tyner.

Lastly, you may be wondering about our print newsletter. After analyzing our budget and encountering issues with the printing company, we’ve decided to print and mail one issue per year. It will be mailed prior to our May installation. As the commander and newsletter editor, I apologize to those who enjoy reading the print newsletter. If you have feedback, please send it to [email protected].