The Path Forward

BY JOHN H. RILING III

I attended the National Board meeting activities in Arlington from January 28 to February 1. Because of the events that occurred at the Board meeting, not all of the corporation’s (VVA’s) business was reported to the Board. The January 31 Board meeting was live streamed to the membership and the public, so I hope some of you saw the meeting along with me from home.

On February 11, I traveled to Silver Spring for a staff meeting called by President Tom Burke. The meeting covered changes in work hours and ongoing efforts to increase our efficiency to better serve the membership. I returned to Florida on February 13.

On February 23, I returned to Silver Spring to accompany Tom Burke when he testified before a joint session of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees. From March 11–15, I will be in Michigan for their State Council meeting. I will also return to Silver Spring for the Vietnam Veterans Day ceremonies at The Wall on March 29.

With Tom Burke’s approval, I officially stepped down in January as VVA’s Interim Veterans Benefits Director, and Courtney Smith was named the new Director, with Eliot Wilson as the new Assistant Director. They previously were co-managers of the department.

The Veterans Benefits Program is moving forward in a new direction. We were once a lawyer-based program, and now we are more of a service-officer program, providing information and helping veterans across our nation. On a somber note, we lost an in-house service officer and friend, Mike Nigro, who died on January 29. He will be sorely missed.

I hope you have read Tom Burke’s column about VVA’s future in this issue. His plan is to make sure that VVA is not some forgotten organization that does not even get a footnote in a history book. Mission 75 will open the door to a maintained and renewed VVA that can survive after us.

Do you remember your first VVA meeting? Do you recall the feeling you had when you were asked to identify your branch of service, the unit you served in, and where you served? It was an undefinable feeling, one you might not have felt in a long time. You were with brothers and sisters who understood what you had carried forward from your service.

There are more veterans just like us who served after May 1975. They went where they were told to, and yet now there is a movement by our government to separate us by eras.

We are veterans, one and all, who served our country. We each have our own problems based on how and where we served, but in these times, so many of our problems are the same. I ask you to imagine a VVA organization made up of all veterans, bringing all of us new vitality and increased recognition from the government.

We have become an influence in Congress because of our long-standing advocacy for all veterans. Now is the time to put that advocacy into practice in our own organization.

VVA Forever.

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