A Veterans Day Message

A Veterans Day Message
From VA Secretary Dr. James B. Peake

WASHINGTON (Nov. 7, 2008) -- Ninety years ago today, the guns fell
silent in Europe. World War I - the "war to end all wars" - was over.
Almost five million Americans served during that first modern,
mechanized war. Our last living link with them, 107-year-old Army
veteran Frank Buckles, observes this Veterans Day at his farm in West
Virginia.

It is important, on Veterans Day, for all Americans to reflect on the
service and sacrifice of our veterans, from Mr. Buckles to the men and
women who recently fought for us in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their
bravery, their resourcefulness, and their patriotism mark them as our
nation's finest citizens.

Since 2001, the President and Congress have provided the Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA) with a 98 percent increase in funding, and with
the guidance and support to enable VA to honor America's debt to the men
and women whose patriotic service and sacrifice have kept our nation
free and prosperous; to provide them with medical and financial help
when they need it most; and to build and maintain beautiful national
cemeteries to perpetuate their memory and their accomplishments.

During this Administration, VA has met the challenge of a new generation
of veterans: those tempered by war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those
who have defended America's interests elsewhere while their comrades
served in combat.

The Benefits Delivery at Discharge program serves these separating
service members at 154 locations, assisting them to file for VA
disability benefits. To further help these men and women, a new
insurance benefit is in place to assist them with the costs of living
with traumatic injury; life insurance coverage has increased by
$100,000; and the time it takes to process requests for education
benefits has been reduced from 50 days to less than 20.

One hundred Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been hired to reach out
to their fellow veterans throughout the nation and tell them about the
benefits and services VA offers. Federal Recovery Coordinators are on
board, actively engaged in helping severely injured veterans and their
families navigate our system for health care and financial benefits.
Our Vet Centers now provide bereavement counseling to families of those
who have given their lives in the war against terror, and we've provided
health care to nearly 350,000 new veterans-about 40 percent of all
separated war veterans.

Our program to screen all veterans coming to us who served in Iraq and
Afghanistan for possible traumatic brain injury is giving us great
insight into how best to serve these men and women. Those who screen
positive are referred for a comprehensive medical evaluation to confirm
the diagnosis, and are quickly and appropriately treated. For those
with very severe injuries like brain injury, amputations, visual
impairment and burns, we've established Polytrauma Rehabilitation
Centers in Richmond, Va, Tampa, Fla., Minneapolis and Palo Alto, Calif.,
to provide the very finest, state-of-the-art care. They are examples of
great cooperation across the continuum of care with the Department of
Defense.

While caring for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has been among VA's most
important priorities, we continue to provide the full spectrum of care
and benefits to our veterans of other eras. Since 2001, we've reduced
our average number of days required to completely process a claim from a
high of 233 days in 2002 to 162 days today and have reduced the number
of disability claims pending from 432,000 in 2002 to 384,500 through a
combination of process improvements, increased staffing and improved
training. We've placed particular emphasis on adjudicating claims for
veterans aged 70 or older. Our home loan guaranty limit has increased
from $203,000 to as much as $729,750, providing a better opportunity for
veterans who want to own a home. The programs to deal with the issue of
veteran homelessness have measurably paid off, reducing the number of
homeless veterans by nearly 40 percent from 2001 to 2007.

The number of veterans enrolled in VA health care has increased from 4.8
million to 7.8 million in the past eight years. Their care is provided
by the Veterans Health Administration, an organization that excels in
the provision of high quality health care, that has set benchmarks in
patient satisfaction in the American Customer Satisfaction Index for
seven consecutive years; that has substantially cut waiting times and
improved access to care throughout the nation; and that has set, and
met, a standard of 24 hours for initial assessment and a 14-day standard
for comprehensive assessment of new mental health patients, thanks to
more than 4,100 mental health professionals hired in the last five
years.

VA leads the nation in the development and use of electronic health
records, receiving the coveted "Innovations Award" from Harvard
University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2006. We've laid
the groundwork for sharing electronic records with the Department of
Defense, launched a web-based application to allow patients and their
families to interact with VA physicians over the Internet, and worked
hard to set the "gold standard" for health information security to
protect the vital personal information veterans entrust to us.

Addressing readjustment needs and rural access, we have announced plans
to place at least one Vet Center in every county in which there are
50,000 or more veterans. We are also purchasing fifty "mobile Vet
Centers"-vans which will travel to rural areas throughout the nation to
bring Vet Center services to veterans in rural and highly rural areas;
we're also in the process of expanding our community-based outpatient
clinics to a total of 782, an increase of 100 in five years.

Our National Shrine Program has uplifted the beauty of our cemeteries,
and by the end of 2009 six new national cemeteries will have opened for
burials, adding to the six cemeteries we have already opened since 2001.

I am proud of this great record of accomplishment, prouder still of the
approximately 270,000 men and women of VA who daily fulfill President
Lincoln's promise to care for veterans and their families; and proudest
to have had the opportunity to serve men and women like Frank Buckles,
whose dedicated service to our nation in all its wars has enabled
generations of Americans to live their lives in freedom.

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