boots on the ground
By Joe Glover and Gus Bedwell, Oregon Department of Veterans' Affairs
‘He Told Me We Had All Changed His Life’
O
ne of my favorite stories was from back in 2011/2012. A veteran came to me at one of his lowest points. He was homeless, living in his car with his two dogs. His wife and two young daughters were sleeping on a couch together at her sister’s house because she couldn’t have the dogs. These were his PTSD therapy dogs, and they went everywhere with him. To make matters worse, a vindictive ex of his told the VA that he had died, and they cut off his small disability compensation shortly after moving up to Oregon from Texas. The very first thing we had to do was we had to raise him from the dead and get his benefits started back up. We had to write a formal letter to the VA saying that the person in front of me was indeed him, and he was indeed alive, and would indeed like to start receiving his benefits again. Then we sent a referral over to Easter Seals where they were able to 30
Success stories from the front lines of Oregon's veteran service officers
get the family reunited and living under one roof together. Once we had that resolved, we had to figure out what was going on with his claim. He had bounced around from three different regional office areas and his claim had followed him wherever he went (these were the days before paperless claims and the National Queue). We asked that the claim be brought up from Waco and began immediate expedited processing due to homelessness. All of that was a month before Christmas. ODVA adopted the family that year and we made sure they had a good Christmas. Coordinating that was especially tough because his phone had shut off, and we weren’t really sure how to reach them. Eventually, we were able to track them down through the wife’s sister. A month later in January, he received a backpay check for the time he was “dead”: $17,720.00. He and his wife had enough to move into a
