One challenge for the Veterans Affairs Department is basic. Veterans themselves typically don’t know about all of the benefits they’re entitled to. A book by a former VA under secretary for benefits aims to fill in the gaps.  The Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked in studio with author Paul Lawrence.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin
One basic challenge for the Veterans Affairs Department. Veterans themselves typically don’t know about all of the benefits. They’re entitled to. A book by a former VA Undersecretary for benefits aims to fill in the gaps. Author Paul Lawrence joins me now in studio. Paul, good to have you in.

Paul Lawrence
Hey, great to be with you again, Tom.

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Tom Temin
Well, why do people not know this? We see this all the time.

Paul Lawrence
Yeah, well, it’s sad. It’s often hard. And so what I realized in writing this book is what was needed was a laypersons explanation of benefits. We all love lawyers, but most of the documents are written by lawyers, and nobody can understand it. And then you need an explanation of all the benefits in one place. So that’s what the book has. Easy to read, how you access your benefits, what they are, and then they’re all in one place so you don’t have to go, oh, another benefit, I gotta go find another resource. So that’s the book.

Tom Temin
And do you cover the health side, as well as the benefits side?

Paul Lawrence
Not so much, it focuses on the benefits. But the benefits enable you to get health care. But the benefits, there’s eight of them. They’re very complex, and they’re really the bulk of the VA budget. So it’s important veterans know what they are, especially as they think about life after military, these can really help you thrive, pursue your American dream. So it’s really important they know what they’ve earned.

Tom Temin
Yes. And I guess the question begins with does the military do a good job of, they have programs. Certainly, it’s not for lack of trying, but how effective do you think they are in preparing outgoing members, especially at the lower ranks that people that may not have 25 years of service, as an officer, and so on?

Paul Lawrence
Well what you’re talking about is a call the transition assistance programs offered a DoD basically six months before service members exit. So I would say they’re moderately effective. In many ways it’s like a fire hose. It gets shot at you, some you retain, some you don’t, it’s a real challenge to get service members to attend. Don’t forget, DoD is engaged in retaining service members to protect our country, when they have been talking about transition, it’s just often not in their DNA. And so there is a dilemma on a service member who will do well and they’ll transition. Sometimes they won’t.

Tom Temin
Right. And its ranked in some way associated with how effective they are.

Paul Lawrence
Generally speaking, but there’s exceptions to everything. General Officers get special treatment. Officers are a little more savvy about it and better understand the crosswalk to a civilian career. Enlisted folks are often just there for four years. And so this is just delayed. They’re sort of being involved in the civilian world. So it does take some time to reintegrate.

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Tom Temin
Yes, because for some senior officers, there’s kind of a world awaiting you and beckoning for you. Consultancies and board memberships. Even nice corporate positions.

Paul Lawrence
That’s certainly true for the very top. But you’d be surprised, I’ve talked to a lot of general officers at the one and two star rank. Not so much.

Tom Temin
Yeah. It’s a tough life for everyone. And in your experience, what’s the most important benefit people should make sure they avail themselves of?

Paul Lawrence
Well, they’re all there. And it’s important to remember these are earned benefits, not entitlements. Anybody can get them as long as you serve honorably in the military. So it’s a special sort of cut. I would point out sort of three things. The one that most people sort of think about is filing a claim. That’s a slang for disability compensation, you’ve been injured or hurt in service, and there’s money for expenses in walls, forgone income, that’s the one people tend to sort of vacillate towards. The other thing, of course, though, is the GI Bill, essentially a free ride to the State University. He served honorably for three years. And of course, now, with education, there’s credentials and certificates that really can help you. And of course, the ability to purchase a home with no money down, the Home Loan Guarantee. This is wealth changing. The home is generally our largest, most valuable asset in our portfolio. And a lot of veterans use the equity in their home to start a business. So I pointed those three, but there are many more benefits.

Tom Temin
We’re speaking with Paul Lawrence. He’s former veterans affairs Undersecretary for benefits and author of Veterans Benefits For You, a paperback book. And it can get complicated like dependency indemnity compensation payment.

Paul Lawrence
You really picked on a important one. That’s really important. That’s a long word, sometimes referred to as DIC, that basically provides benefits to a service members family, if something happened to him while in service or as a veteran, because of something you are service connected for. So you develop cancer while you’re in Vietnam, or in the Middle East. You pass from that, your family receives benefits. So that’s a very important benefit. And I always tell veterans, don’t just think about benefits for you, hey, I’m fine. I don’t need anything. Think about it for your family in the event something happens to you.

Tom Temin
And you mentioned hidden benefits, you did not know about, what are some of the hidden benefits.

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Paul Lawrence
Here’s one. If you fall on hard times, you can receive what’s called the veterans pension. Pension sounds like retirement, but basically it’s a needs based payment. If your assets fall below a certain level, and the level is only $150,000, which seems like a lot of money. But when they do this counting, they exempt your home, they exempt your car, and very quickly you can realize this isn’t a lot of money once you take these out. So you think about homeless veterans, this is how you get them some money to get them out of homelessness. But more importantly, Tom, perhaps there’s somebody in your family, the extended uncle, the neighbor, who you wonder how can they stay there in their home? This can really help those folks.

Tom Temin
And what’s your sense of how well VA has handled some of the congressional mandates of recent years, burn pit victims, blue water, napalm, and so on. Fairly recently added.

Paul Lawrence
So I was there when the Blue Water Navy law was passed. So I got to implement that. So I can tell you that was implemented on time. And as the law required, the PACT Act from 2022 that they’ve struggled with, that’s taken a little bit longer to roll out. People are waiting longer. And while they processed a lot of claims, I think they’ve been kind of coy about not talking about how many are waiting? And how long are they taking? So I think it’s just as a hard law, I’m surprised they didn’t learn from the Bluewater Navy experience would be prepared more, because my thinking is promising veterans benefits is not the same as delivering them. And if you really want the organization to have a high trust factor, you actually have to do what you say. So I think there’s been a lot of learning at Veterans expense.

Tom Temin
And there’s also been a initiative on several fronts to make it easier for people to say upgrade their discharge status if they were not honorably discharged. And thinking of ways to give at least partial benefits, partial health care coverage to people that are less than honorable and retrospectively changing that.

Paul Lawrence
I kind of see both sides of this. What you’re referring to is folks who get what are called Other Than Honorable (OTH). And so you sort of imagined, ok, might that just have been it’s a very difficult experience. So for example, the classic example was person serves honorably, comes home one night, learns his wife wants to divorce him, gets drunk, gets a DUI and gets in trouble and gets an OTH. And you go, well, most of the service was fine. One incident, ok, VA does what’s called a character of service review. Weighs it all in and say for the purpose of benefits, were going to allow you to have it. You’re called not dishonorable for the purpose of benefits, the language gets to be really circular. That sort of makes sense. We also understand that during a period of time when you were gay, and that was not allowed, you might have gotten an OTH. And now that we have a different view of that, that might be something to correct. At the same time, though, I do think we have to be careful not go too far. Because of course, if you truly did not receive an honorable discharge, or you did get OTH for reasons that merit that, we should also make sure that we are true to the consequences. And again, my view is we dishonor good public servants when we sort of tolerate the not so good. So I understand that. But you’re right, they’re making an effort to kind of go back and make sure, for example, the classic example is, you had PTSD, nobody knew it, you act it out from time to time. You got Other Than Honorable discharge, that doesn’t seem appropriate.

Tom Temin
Fair to say that, again, this is more on the medical side, perhaps than the benefit side. But there is recognition of the real mental damage that can happen to someone that is not of their doing.

Paul Lawrence
And they’ve made an effort, and the VA hospitals to say, hey, regardless of your discharge, if you are having mental issues, please come and see us. So you’re exactly right.

Tom Temin
And then there’s the seemingly intractable issue of veteran homelessness.

Paul Lawrence
Nothing sadder than, I’m sure everybody’s seen this. You come to the light, there’s a person with a cardboard size as a homeless veteran, so let’s assume they’re not lying. And you really want to help. I guess what I would point out is two things. VA has lots of resources for homeless veterans. So it’s not as though they’re understaffed. And, as you know, Tom, from your work across government, I think GAO had a report, there’s like 17 Different homeless programs at the federal level. So there’s actually a wealth of resources. The real challenge continues to be finding homeless veterans. So I would just share this phone number with your listeners who are concerned about homeless veterans. When you see that person with the sign, pick up your cell phone and call this number 877-424-3838. I’ll say it again. 877-424-3838. That’s VAs homeless veteran hotline. And if you say the location of somebody, well, this is what I’m seeing first and main. They’re supposed to send somebody check out if he or she is a veteran, and figure out how to help them. So again, I think there’s a lot we can do to sort of eliminate this problem.

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