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An open letter to veterans from the VA

By R. JAMES NICHOLSON

On July 21, 2005, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will celebrate its 75th birthday. Anniversaries of any sort tend to evoke similar reflections: the legacy of the past and the promise of the future. The upcoming 75th anniversary of the Department of Veterans Affairs is no different.

On July 21, 1930, with the stroke of a pen, President Herbert Hoover consolidated all government activities related to veterans matters into a single agency. In doing so, President Hoover created the original Veterans Administration and set this nation on a course of caring for veterans in ways I doubt he could have imagined.

In 1930, VA treated 54,000 patients in 54 hospitals nationwide. Seventy-five years later, our patient rolls have increased nearly 100 fold, with some 5.2 million patients receiving treatment at 157 VA Medical Centers and more than 850 community clinics.

Today, VA runs the nation’s largest integrated health care system. Our staff will treat veterans with more than 50 million outpatient visits this year and fill more than 100 million prescriptions.

VA professionals do their jobs so well that a recent RAND Corporation study revealed that VA patients receive significantly better care than private-sector patients.

The headline of a July 18 article in U.S. News and World Report noted VA hospitals “are models of top-notch care,” and a January 2005 article in the Washington Monthly aptly described the VA medical system as “the best care anywhere.”

The Veterans Health Administration is also responsible for more than 10,000 medical research projects that are currently underway.

Over the years, this legacy of research has resulted in VA playing a key role in the development of the cardiac pacemaker, the CT scan, and improvements in the treatment of high blood pressure, diabetes and other ailments.

VA has been home to three Nobel Prize winners, and more than half of the physicians practicing medicine in the United States today received some of their training at a VA Medical Center. In this way, VA touches the lives of virtually all Americans

We’re proud of the work done every day in our VA Medical Centers, but our mission goes beyond medicine.

Our disability and pension programs, which are components of the Veterans Benefits Administration, paid more than $27.5 billion in disability compensation to more than 3.4 million people in 2004. So enduring is our commitment to veterans, we still provide survivor benefits to six children of Civil War veterans.

The Veterans Benefits Administration has also helped millions go to college through the legendary G.I. Bill of Rights education benefits.

Signed into law by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt shortly after D-Day, the education benefits included in this landmark legislation opened the doors of colleges and universities to returning service members.

In doing so, America’s culture, society and economy underwent a seismic change; one credited by many historians with creating the American middle class.

VA continues this tradition of education through the modern Montgomery GI Bill, placing hundreds of thousands of veterans on the track to earning a college degree every year.

The GI Bill of Rights also ushered in another uniquely American phenomenon, that of home ownership. By guaranteeing home loans for returning veterans, VA has provided the security and satisfaction that comes with home ownership.

Since 1944, VA has helped nearly 18 million veterans purchase homes worth an astonishing $812 billion.

Among the most sacred duties performed by VA is to conduct burials for those who have served. Through the National Cemetery Administration, which manages 120 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico, we ensure that veterans receive a fitting and dignified last salute.

This is a duty we undertake with solemnity and a deep sense of commitment. The VA system of national cemeteries is currently undergoing the largest expansion since the Civil War, and it was our honor last year to provide nearly 90,000 interments in cemeteries we regard as national shrines.

The list goes on and on; from space-age prosthetics and assistive technology grants for disabled veterans, to running one of the largest insurance programs in the world, VA remains a most remarkable story in American history.

On July 21, we will begin a year-long observance of the 75th anniversary of VA and it is our pledge to use this occasion to build on the VA legacy.

It is a legacy of a governmental department staffed by more than 235,000 professionals dedicated to one proposition: to care for those who have borne the battle, and their widows and their orphans. We are the agents of the American people who want us to care for those who have cared for us, many with their lives and limbs.