VFW Advocacy

1. Action Alert: Tell Congress Veterans Deserve Safer Treatment Options

   Veterans are being prescribed powerful psychiatric medications, often several at once, without clear written information about the risks. Many were never warned about severe side effects or dangerous drug interactions. Others are left with few PTSD treatment options beyond medication, even when innovative therapies could offer real relief.

   This is unacceptable. On Dec. 3, the Senate is holding a hearing to examine medication management in VA care. The VFW is submitting a Statement for the Record because veterans' stories cannot be ignored any longer. Congress must act.

   Two House bills would bring real protection and real options:

   • H.R.4837, Written Informed Consent Act, would require clear written information before VA prescribes certain psychiatric medications.
   • H.R.2623, Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act of 2025, would create five VA centers to expand access to cutting-edge PTSD treatments.

   Veterans deserve transparency, safety, and real choices. They do not deserve a maze of prescriptions and side effects.

   Tell Congress to cosponsor these bills and ensure veterans receive the protection, transparency and treatment options they deserve.

2. VFW Reaches $16.2 Billion Cumulative Milestone for Represented Veterans

   WASHINGTON -The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) is proud to announce it has set a new milestone for its National Veterans Service (NVS) program by recouping $16.2 billion in total compensatory awards for the more than 608,000 veterans it represents.

   "Nothing makes me prouder than the work VFW Accredited Claims Representatives do day in and day out for veterans, transitioning service members and surviving dependents," said VFW National Commander Carol Whitmore. "It is astonishing to me that this profound amount of $16.2 billion was recovered by men and women who do this service officer work free to the clients they assist. I am so grateful they are a part of our great organization."

   The NVS Accredited Service Officer network is comprised of 2,278 dedicated professionals who are employed by the VFW, partner nonprofits, as well as state and local government agencies nationwide. Each service officer is accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide free claims assistance to transitioning service members, veterans, their families and survivors. In the last year alone, this network processed approximately 164,000 new VA claims. Of those new claims, about 14,000 were filed through the VFW's Pre-Discharge Claims Program, which supports service members as they prepare to transition out of the military. In all, NVS represented more than 608,000 claimants.

   "Every day, our VFW Accredited Service Officers show the tenacity, dedication and genuine care that veterans deserve," said VFW NVS Director Michael Figlioli. "They stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those who wore the uniform, guiding them through the VA claims process and making sure they receive the benefits they've earned. I am truly humbled by their commitment, integrity and the life-changing impact they make for veterans and their families."

   VA disability compensation is an earned benefit for veterans whose injuries or illnesses were sustained or aggravated during their military service. Although guaranteed by law and embedded in the promises made at enlistment, this benefit is not automatically granted. Veterans must establish service-connection by demonstrating three critical elements: an event, exposure or injury that occurred during service, a current diagnosis and a medical nexus connecting the two. Once eligibility is established and service connection is confirmed, disability compensation is provided to help offset the effects service-related conditions have during a veteran's lifetime.

   The VFW's NVS program relies on grants and donors to operate. To support NVS during this giving season, click here.

3. VFW Will Not Stay Silent While America's Heroes are Dragged Through the Mud

   WASHINGTON -The Washington Post has decided that America's veterans, those who have fought, bled and sacrificed for this nation, are the new villains of these last couple of weeks. Their recent reporting, suggesting that veterans are filing "dubious" or "fraudulent" disability claims to milk the VA system, is nothing short of disgraceful. It's a smear campaign against the very people who have given this country everything it has asked for, and more.

   Let's be clear: This isn't investigative journalism. It's character assassination. By cherry-picking anecdotes and twisting statistics, the Post is peddling a dangerous and insulting narrative, insinuating that America's veterans are cheats, hustling for benefits they don't deserve. That lie dishonors every man and woman who has ever raised their right hand and sworn an oath to defend this country "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

   Here's the truth the Post won't print: Veterans aren't gaming the system. They are the system's victims who are forced to navigate a bureaucratic labyrinth that too often grinds them down, delays their care and treats them with suspicion from day one. Many spend years fighting for recognition of their injuries, only to be met with accusations of deceit by those who have never spent a single day in uniform.

   And let's talk about those injuries. They are not theoretical. They are not "questionable." They are the direct, documented consequences of military service and include blast concussions, toxic exposures, crushed joints, traumatic brain injuries and the invisible wounds of war that follow veterans long after they've come home. To suggest these men and women are exaggerating or fabricating their pain is not just offensive, it's immoral.

   If the Post's reporters had done any honest research, they would understand that the rise in disability claims is not proof of fraud, it is proof that modern warfare has changed. Thanks to advances in battlefield medicine, more soldiers survive their wounds today than ever before. But survival is not the same as recovery. Today's veterans are surviving with prosthetic limbs, chronic pain, PTSD and lungs scarred by burn pits, and somehow, the Post thinks the problem is that too many of them are getting the help they need.

   Even more troubling is how this kind of reporting risks driving a wedge between veterans and the very public they swore to protect. By framing veterans as opportunists, it plants seeds of mistrust making ordinary Americans question the legitimacy of the men and women who fought for their freedoms. That is not just misguided; it is harmful. Veterans and the American people are on the same side. We share the same values, the same communities and the same belief in service and sacrifice. Intentional or not, attempts to pit one against the other only undermine the unity that defines this nation.

   By reintroducing this harmful narrative, veterans who were already reluctant to file a claim for VA benefits will now be less likely to reach out to VA-accredited claims representatives for assistance. Representatives like Cindy Noel, VFW assistant director of field operations and a stalwart pre-discharge claims representative singled out by the Post, work tirelessly to connect transitioning service members around the world with the VA care and benefits they have earned. The Post's assertion of veterans' VA disability claims being "dubious" will cause a whole new generation of veterans to choose suffering in silence over risking being scrutinized, ridiculed and shamed for seeking the help they need and deserve.

   Let me remind the editors of The Washington Post of something they seem to have forgotten: When Americans go to war, they sign a contract with their government. That contract says: You serve. You sacrifice. And when you come home broken - physically, mentally or spiritually - your nation will take care of you. That is not a suggestion. That is a sacred obligation. It is the cost of freedom. Maybe the Post should consider that before scheming to exploit the plight of service men and women to squeeze more paid subscriptions out of their readers.

   To accuse veterans of "milking" the system is to accuse them of betraying that contract. But they are not the ones breaking faith. The Post is. The real betrayal lies in questioning the legitimacy of those who've already paid the highest price imaginable.

   The Veterans of Foreign Wars will not stay silent while America's heroes are dragged through the mud by the suspicion and misinformation of armchair cynics and data manipulators. We will absolutely stand up to anyone who tries to discredit our VA-accredited claims representatives. If The Washington Post wants to expose fraud, it should start with the broken promises and bureaucratic neglect that plague the VA, not with the veterans who depend on it. The problem to fix is not the integrity of our veterans, it's the inefficiency and delay that too often define the system meant to serve them.

   Our veterans do not owe America another thing. America owes them. It is time to stop the slander, stop the suspicion and start honoring the only contract that truly matters - the one written in sacrifice, sealed in blood and signed in service to the United States of America.

   It's time to Honor the Contract.

4. Honoring the 'Hello Girls'

   It started with a private conversation in the halls of Montana State University in 2017. Then-Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) was in Bozeman, Montana, for a town hall meeting when he heard of Ed Saunders' research on "The Treasure State's" World War I women veterans for a book.

   "He pulled me aside and asked if there was anything he could do to help," said Saunders, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and VFW Life member of Post 4725 in Red Lodge, Montana. "I told him these women deserved recognition, and so he asked me to draft a Congressional Record citation on their behalf, which he read into the official U.S. Senate record."

   Saunders, who published "Knapsacks and Roses: Montana's Women Veterans of World War I" in 2018, sought to follow the exemplary work of Merle Egan Anderson, a member of the Women's Telephone Unit of the American Signal Corps in WWI, known as the 'Hello Girls.' Anderson spent more than 60 years advocating for veteran status and benefits, which she and her sisters received in 1977.

   "She was from Helena, Montana, so we are awfully proud of her out here," Saunders said of Anderson. "She serves as an inspiration for what she was able to accomplish, and we wanted to build on that."

   Anderson was one of five women from Montana who joined the more than 200 women with bilingual proficiency to serve in the war zones of France. In the process, they became the first organized unit of women in American history to contribute to wartime combat operations.

   To honor their memory, Saunders not only wrote the citation on behalf of the Hello Girls from Montana but was later summoned by the WWI Centennial Commission upon the recommendation of one of Tester's aides.

   "That started the process," Saunders said. "I got a call from Chris Christopher with the board of directors at the Centennial Commission, and he told me he was putting together a team of researchers to try and get all the Hello Girls the Congressional Gold Medal."

   The effort to recognize the Hello Girls went national, according to Saunders, who added the team sprouted from a committee of three to more than 50 researchers and advocates, which included some Canadian officials, as some Hello Girls were from Canada.

   "The challenge we had was getting awareness for this, and so we all went nationally for support because the House and Senate had to vote and approve this," Saunders said. "The problem was that only five Congressional Gold Medals could be given at a time, and if you were not part of that five, you were basically out of luck, so we had to lobby VFW and Congress and other organizations for letters of support."

   After seven years of lobbying and creating a stir in the national populace, Saunders and his fellow committee members received their answer on Dec. 18, 2024. Then-President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Appropriation Act of 2024, which included the Congressional Gold Medal for the Hello Girls.

   Their efforts culminated on March 19, during Women's History Month, when the Military Women's Memorial in Washington, D.C., held a national ceremony to celebrate all 223 Hello Girls receiving the Congressional Gold Medal.

   The Congressional Gold Medal, which represents the 223 Hello Girls, is under design and will be kept by the Smithsonian Institute in the nation's capital.

   This article is featured in the November/December 2025 issue of VFW magazine, and was written by Ismael Rodriguez Jr., associate editor for VFW magazine.

5. 'It's a Special Feeling'

   Located about 35 miles north of the Oregon border in Washington state and home to about 85,000 is the city of Kennewick, a vibrant residential and banking community. This past February, VFW Post 5785 member and Marine vet Kevin Veleke was recognized as the "Kennewick Man of the Year" after having restored four local veteran memorial sites.

   The organization behind the award, the Kennewick Man & Woman of the Year, has been recognizing exceptional public service since 1946. The honor is given to individuals who have provided service to the Kennewick community where no compensation was given and is only applicable to those who live and/or work in Kennewick.

   Born and raised in the Seattle area, Veleke attended Washington State University and graduated in 1968 with a B.A. degree in marketing. He began his service in the Marines shortly thereafter, and in the fall of 1969, was stationed in Phu Bai, South Vietnam, as an aviation supply officer for Marine Base Squadron-36.

   After returning home, Veleke lived and worked in several areas of the country before settling back in Washington. He worked as an insurance broker for an independent insurance agency in Richland, Washington, while living in Kennewick.

   A COMMITMENT TO REMEMBRANCE

   Over the years, several veterans' memorials in Kennewick had become overgrown, neglected and even vandalized, with some having gone without maintenance for decades. Looking to honor the sites and the memory of all those who served, Veleke took it upon himself to refurbish the memorials.

   Last year, he began his restoration efforts at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Kennewick, where he pruned overgrown flowers around the memorial and helped replace the flagpole, which had been vandalized a few years prior. Veleke reached out to a friend with the proper equipment and other citizens of Kennewick to successfully install the new flagpole.

   Veleke then turned his attention to the Regional Veteran's Memorial, located at Kennewick's Columbia Park. Centered at the memorial is a tall monument dedicated to each of the military services surrounded by 18 in-ground lights - 16 of which hadn't been working. Veleke took the initiative to raise the money needed to buy and install new lights at the memorial, allowing for the monument to be lit up in the evening once again.

   Marine Cpl. Gerald Carmichael, the first man from Kennewick to have been killed in Vietnam, had a commemorative pyramid and street named after him. According to Veleke, the pyramid hadn't been refurbished in more than 60 years. A total of $30,000, raised by Veleke, went into the equipment and labor costs needed to lay the concrete necessary to restore the pyramid, as well as add a wall behind the memorial.

   Veleke's most recent project involved restoring an American Auxiliary pyramid, which had been installed in 1968, as well as a VFW wall monument, which was installed in 1985.

   "Neither of these memorials were being maintained by anyone," Veleke said. He was able to raise $25,000 to help restore both memorial sites.

   'IT'S SPECIAL TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH VERY GOOD PEOPLE'

   The award came as a surprise to him, when his wife informed him one day that they were invited to the Kennewick Man of the Year ceremony.

   "I had no knowledge why," Veleke said. "The award was a complete surprise."

   At the ceremony, when Velke was announced as the winner, 200 attendees came out of an adjacent room to congratulate him, including past Kennewick Man and Woman of the Year recipients, members of his church, employees of the Kennewick school district, members of VFW Post 5785 and an honor guard dressed in uniform.

   "It was a sight to see," Veleke added.

   He was nominated for the Kennewick Man of the Year award by past recipients Kirk Williamson, who had won it in 2000, and Bob Kelly, an Army veteran who had won it in 2015.

   "It's a special feeling to be associated with very good people," Veleke said when asked about his feelings toward the award.

   Veleke's fellow Post members also are active in the community. They help perform fl ag ceremonies for Kennewick, attend parades, provide military funeral honors at veteran funerals, provide emergency assistance to veterans and support the local JROTC program.

   Veleke serves as the liaison at his Post for young Marines in the area. He was able to work with a group of Marines to help restore the 62 names engraved on one of the veterans' monuments in Kennewick.

   "It's very rewarding for me to see young men and women doing this kind of volunteer work," Veleke said. "I hope I can inspire others to engage with other young Marines in their area."

   This article is featured in the 2025 September/October issue of VFW magazine, and was written by Danny Cook, senior writer for VFW magazine.