Do Veteran Organizations help?

I have been using the Texas Vet. commission for the last 4 years with little to show other than the work I did myself. My rep. Is useless. Who would you suggest. I'm on the verge of hiring an attorney.

SPC Jack Hunt, JR Let me be honest with you - I can't speak to the actual limitations of the Texas Vet Commission. What I do suspect is the Tx Vet Commission is basically the same as most other state paid / county paid staffed service officers and they cannot look at your case in the same way the Veteran Service Organizations Service Officers can - once you've given that VSO the authority to look at your file via the VA form 21-22 they can then actually pull up your file that is currently listed in the VA system. Key point to remember - if you filed a claim in Texas, then any VSO in the Texas region can look at your VA file IF you've given them permission. However, if you've filed in Texas and you sign a 21-22 for Florida...no one from Florida can look at your file until the claim in Texas is complete.

Food for thought....any specific questions give me a shout.

Thanks for the info. As far as finding a dr to do nexus letters should I just start calling their offices and asking if they even know what it is?

This is not precise - and not an official endorsement, but they give a fairly good example here: http://www.veteranscorner.org/thenexusletter.htm that should explain what is necessary in the nexus letter. For specifics I suggest you contact a Veterans Service Organization (VFW, DAV, American Legion, etc) in your area to talk to one of their Service Officers. If you can't find a Service Officer from a Veteran Service Organization - shout.

In mu opinion, yes I do believe most of the time they do help and have good intentions.

It may not be entirely fair to ask to what extent a VSO has helped veterans at a national level. For example, statisticians can look at a specific MLB player and quite accurately measure the impact his playing has had on the total number of team wins. This has long since been the case. I just don't know whether we can even do that with VSOs, and in the interest of wanting to measure impact objectively, it's hard to know where to start beyond case-by-case arguments.

I think there are people that have the same feeling about the contributions that VSO's provide at a national level as you do CPT Aaron Kletzing . Most that do feel that way are not necessarily naive, but uninformed. There is a large coalition that includes just about every Veteran's Service Organizations that currently exists. They decide, as a group, what subjects / bills / issues that affect veterans and then they approach members of Congress to seek out an answer via legislation. There are other approaches - where the coalition could not gather a consensus - where individual VSO's approach members of Congress for solutions. Much of what you DON'T see is the button-holing and politicking that goes on by VSO's in Washington, D.C. The VSO's then report back to their constituents - the individual members of that particular VSO. This is where some veterans may feel left out, because the VSO's don't send the word out (success/failure) to all veterans - just their membership. So, the bottom line is there is a massive effort by VSO's to affect change on behalf of veterans - the great majority of the legislative changes over the past 40 years or more (that's all I'm aware of) began as a grassroot effort FROM THE VSO's. Congress didn't think it up....the non-military affiliated American people didn't think it up - it was solely an effort by the VSO's and their legilative experts that kep our pay raises on the front burner of Congress, keep Tricare payments low (from the retirees), fund the VA for 2 consecutive years (rather than having to fight over budget monies every year or more often), keep Congress informed on what veterans find important in the budget process, etc., etc., etc. To truely understand the lengths that VSO's go to in order to get the veterans messages to Congress one should join a VSO and subscribe to the various updates that come from the legislative portion of that VSO.

So, yes, it's fair to ask to what extent a VSO is involved in helping Veterans - because the VSO's are deeply involved in the legislative process - putting Congress on notice about things that are important to veterans. For instance, in this year alone, I can provide at least 20 different subjects 2 different VSO's have been working behind the scenes to get thing done on behalf of veterans in general - that's 40 different subjects - and for the most part most efforts are successful.

The biggest problem is perhaps that the VSO's have been doing such a good job of getting the veterans message across that the uninvolved veteran (i.e. - those not affiliated with VSO) doesn't have the foggiest clue.

CPT Aaron Kletzing Just an update for my comment above (posted 3 days ago)
This is just a simple example of how some Veteran Service Organizations and their Coalitions coordinate and communicate with our elected officials on what veterans' concerns and needs are. This is just ONE example of hundreds of efforts that go on continually every day - all done by VSO's. No other organizations speak as loud and consistently on behalf of veterans - NO ONE.

http://www.vfw.org/uploadedFiles/VFW.org/VFW_in_DC/111314_ReidAdvanceAppropriationsVote.pdf