Staff Writer
After the U.S. Senate passed the veterans jobs bill, which would provide tax credits for businesses that hire unemployed veterans, and President Obama announced the end of the Iraq war by December, the Long Beach Democratic Club (LBDC) met on Veterans Day in honor of Veterans Appreciation Month where two guest speakers revealed their observations of negligence to veterans’ benefits.
“Veterans are promised health care, but it’s a myth,” said Ted Gottis, an army veteran, a board member for The Center (a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community group) and guest speaker at the meeting. “[The Veterans Affairs Hospital] is old and cumbersome, and it takes a long time for the system to change, which is both its weakness and its strength.”
Gottis lived openly as a gay man in the army for eight years until he was honorably discharged under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
Once he was discharged from the Army, he began law school to advocate for veterans to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
“It’s important for veterans to communicate with Veterans Services Officers (VSO),” Gottis said.
According to Robert Saxon, chief VSO at the Los Angeles County Veterans Services Office (LACVSO), the LACVSO’s most important job “is to make veterans aware of what their entitlements are.”
“Veterans services offices are locally funded agencies established in 1946 to assist veterans and their families in obtaining benefits and services accrued through military service,” according to the Veterans Resource Book (VRB).
The LACVSO is a small branch organization with 25 staff members and 15 VSOs. In total there are 1,400 offices in California facilitating the delivery of services to nearly three million California veterans.
Saxon said that the LACVSO processes about 700 claims a month. Of the many services they provide, several include funding burials for veterans, waiving tuition fees for veterans’ dependents, and filing pension and service-connected compensation claims.
“We participate in outreach events,” Saxon said. For instance, this year, the LACVSO was at the Los Angeles County Fair for five weeks. Another outreach method is through Operation Welcome Home in which VSOs contact veterans immediately after they return home from both active and inactive duty.
“A big problem is that a lot of vets don’t know they’re vets because they think they have had to go to war,” Saxon said.
According to the VRB, “[Operation Welcome Home] aggressively seeks out!veterans and their families to benefits, services and resources available in California that they have earned through their service.”
The VA operates the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system.
Val Lerch, Long Beach’s former vice mayor and guest speaker at the meeting, said that he will not receive the healthcare benefits that he was promised because the U.S. Senate passed several bills that will take $500 out of his pension each month.
He discussed the history of Veterans Day and his own experiences with being a U.S. Coast Guard veteran.
The Coast Guard was the first branch of the U.S. armed forces, Lerch said. They chased rum-runners off the coast, managed the country’s lighthouses and protected oil companies from polluting the oceans. After 9/11, the Coast Guard became responsible for protecting the Department of Homeland Security.
“I personally believe every 18-year-old should go to some sort of boot camp because of the maturation involved,” Lerch said.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, California has about 23,275 homeless veterans, the largest number of homeless individuals in our nation.
“The words ‘homeless’ and ‘veteran’ should never be side by side,” Lerch said.
One way that the VA has helped veterans avoid becoming homelessness is through programs within Operation Welcome Home. The main reason California has the most homeless veterans is that the majority who come home from the armed forces make California their home, according to the VRB.
According to Lerch and the VA website, Veterans Day was officially signed into law as a holiday in 1938. The date was chosen because fighting in World War I had officially ended on the eleventh month of the eleventh day at the eleventh hour in 1919.
The Veterans Day Parade has grown over the years because of private fundraising. This year the Paramount Petroleum Club gave the largest donation of $5,000. A total of $65,000 was gathered. According to Lerch, the City of Long Beach used to fund the parade before the City’s underfunded budget.
“The best way to continue having the Veterans Day Parade,” Lerch said “is by building a reputation.”
About 35 people attended the meeting at the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) in Bixby Knolls, including former LBDC presidents, public service employees and three veterans.
“We’re getting ready for the 2012 elections,” said Rex Richardson, president of the Long Beach Democratic Club. A major benefit of the LBDC is that they fundraise to support Democratic candidates and promote candidates through election pamphlets, said Sharon Weissman, an attendee at the meeting.
The LBDC is holding a Christmas fundraising party to start a brand-new political action committee Dec. 14 at La Traviata Restaurant, 301 North Cedar Ave.
Long Beach Lambda, an LGBT Democratic Club, will meet for its annual Long Beach Christmas party on Dec. 8 at Bliss 525, located at 525 E. Broadway.
