Brian talks to Todd Sledge at the Cincinnati VA

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Best approaching eight forty Here fifty five kr CD talk station.
Happy Monday, Brian Thomas, happy to welcome to the fifty
five KRS Morning Shoe. Anything we can do for the
American veterans, which is what the cinc Ana VA is
doing each and every day, caring for our American veterans.
The return of Todd Sledge and the Cincinnati DA. Welcome back, Todd.
It's always a pleasure to have you on the fifty
five KRC Morning Show.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, good morning to you, Brian, and hopefully you're staying
cool in this h really unbelievable we keep having here.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Thank you that. Thank God for air conditioning. Geez littleuiz. Yeah, yeah,
real quick, did you get the elevator situation sorted out,
Todd Sledge? Real quick? For I go down that road first.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, no, yeah, no, I'm glad you asked, Brian. Yeah,
it is. It's currently underway. We have three operating elevator
bays out of our four of those MANA elevators, so
they're slowly coming, coming to fruition and back up and
operating and that problem fully will be resolved here very soon.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Glad to hear that. So then elevators no longer problem
with the va all Right, moving over, how did it
go with the country music vestl you had out the
VOA Park.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, it was fantastic. We had an opportunity to showcase
one of our mobile unit assets out there starting Thursday
through Sunday, and we had about approximately over two hundred
veterans come through our through our area and engaging us
and talk with us. And one of the things we're
really happy about is we got twenty five new veterans
enrolled in the v A healthcare system over the weekend,

(01:28):
but just more and more folks that's coming. By asking questions,
you know, trying to confirm things, gave out a lot
of information. But I got to say, Brian, one of
the things that you and I have talked about for
a long time, and something I've been challenged with I'm
really blessed with for the last thirty years is just
talking with veterans. But you know, there's a lot of
veterans still out there that are not enrolled because you know, well,

(01:49):
I don't want to take away things from other people
that need it more than me, or or somebody deserves
it more. Every veteran deserves the opportunity to use their
benefits here Cincinnati. But it was a good time out there,
and kudos to those folks that put on that event.
Had to be a lot of work.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Oh absolutely, and I'm glad you got this. Twenty five
veterans signed up and can't encourage my veteran audience to
really consider signing up. I mean, some, I guess are
priced out of eligibility if your earnings are too high.
But my default is to sort of look at it.
It's like, well, you got paid X, but that X
salary that you made when your active duty sort of

(02:26):
factored in or didn't include this valuable post service benefit
that you get from the VA. I mean you think
about hearing aids and glasses and mental health services and
all these things the VA provides by way of medical
care that's there and available to the veterans for free.
It's why wouldn't you take advantage of it? He asked.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And we had that question
a lot of time, a lot this weekend. You know
the veterans that said, you know, I was told I
was over income or I didn't meet this kind of threshold,
so you know which will lead into our next conversation,
talk to a service officer. I encourage every veteran to
talk to a service officer about filing a claim because
you know, depending on you know, the natural mos that

(03:10):
veterans say have, there are conditions that they've probably experienced
later on in life that are result from their service
in the military. I was talking to one gentleman just jokingly.
He said, yeah, I was a rifleman and he had
two hearing aids in his ears. Yeah, And I said,
do you get this through the VA? He goes, No,
he goes. I got him out of the private sector,
and I distantly asked him what he paid for him

(03:31):
than five thousand dollars five thousand dollars each. I knew
so when I told him that, when I told him
about what we could be doing for him his life,
gave him that gentle love tap on the shoulder and said, see,
I told you so. So it's things like that, And
I think a lot of veterans, as we talked over
the weekend, is they don't realize that you can have
private health insurance and use the VA, which is a

(03:53):
huge plus. It's a huge plus because it allows you
to if something's too expensive or something you shouldn't be
paying out of pocket for it in the private sector.
You can get that done at the VA.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, you think of the massive out of pocket liability
you've got before insurance even kicks in. Hey, how about
the VA. There's a great option.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, absolutely, No, absolutely, especially you know when I think
about the prescription program that we have, the you know,
especially the imagery that that we do here, the eyeglasses
and the hearing aids, those big bulk expenses, and then
of course, you know, you and I always talk about
mental health services. Those are big, those are big financial
challenges sometimes, you know, one of the things that you need,

(04:34):
and we can we can really all set and help
that here at the VA, here at Cincinnati.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
And real quick, some veteran out there going, okay, you
convinced me. Where do I sign up?

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, it's pretty simple. You know, we have a direct
dial number, uh to our eligibility office and that number
is five one three four seven five sixty four nine nine.
It's five one three four seven five six four nine nine.
It's a direct dial number. Talk to our eligibility specialist.
If you're a caregiver out there, if you're the one
that's you know, managing your loved ones healthcare. You can

(05:05):
call get some information, but you can't directly enroll that
veteran unless you have a power of attorney. But that's
how simple it is to get the process started.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Todd Sledge will bring it back and talk about the
upcoming Military and Veterans Appreciation Day. More with Todd Sledge
from the Sincinntava stick around fifty five KRC. You'll feeling
final look at weather hot summon it up in a word,
ninety one to high today, heat index north of that,
sunny skies and a slight chance of rain. It's going
to be clear ofver night. It'll be muggy with a

(05:33):
low of seventy three, mostly sunny with isolated afternoon storms possible.
Tomorrow with a high of ninety overnight and muggy seventy
two low possible storms overnight as well. Come Wednesdays, spotty
showers eighty seven the high with a front coming in
seventy four. Right now, what's going on with final traffic?
Chuck Ingram from the ucgut tramp Thing Center.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
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(06:17):
left lane open again. Chuck Ingram on fifty five krs
the talk station.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Here fifty five kr c DE talk station, Todd Sledge,
Since AVA always looking up for an American veteran, and
of course we all have an opportunity to salute the
both active duty military and veterans with the Veteran Appreciation
Day coming up, Todd Sledge, let's talk about the details
on this.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, Brian, the last couple of years I've talked with
you on your show here and you've also helped us
communicate this. Hamilton County Veterans Service Commission Appreciation Day happened
last year down a great American ballpark and then a
group of with the Cincinnati v and others, we have
been running an event called Operations and we've actually decided

(07:01):
to come together and join one force this year with
a huge support, And this is a Hamilton County Veterans
Appreciation Day that's going to be happening in August twenty
third down at saw your Point. It's going to be
from two to ten pm on that day. Everything is
free to attend. There's free parking, there's some free food,
a lot of great music entertainment.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
But one of the.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Things I'm excited about Brian with this with Hamilton County
Military and Veterans Appreciation Day happening on that day on
the twenty third, is there's over ninety different veteran resource
boots that's going to be there in one particular day
for veterans to come through. So if you know, if
you have veterans, you have an opportunity to get out
from everything that you want to know about all the

(07:44):
types of resources that are available to your families and
caregivers and everybody alike. This is a great event to
do that in a great setting down there. They'll be,
like I said, from two to ten. All those boots
will be available first hand, face to face encounters with folks.
There will be a lot of different food trucks, there's
music entertainment that goes on throughout the day, and then

(08:05):
it ends the evening with a nice fireworks display down
there and down are at Sawyer Points. So folks can go
to www dot HCVSC dot org where you can just
google Hamilton County Veterans Appreciation Day. We're really looking forward
to this with all of our partners.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, it's going to be a great event. Just check
or put a link on my blog page fifty five
KRSE dot com so you can get all the info
and details. Do we need to side? Just do veterans
need to register in advance to get the free food
that's being offered. I thought there was like a QR
code that had to be scanned.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, there is. There is a sign up there on
the website for the for the appreciation event we do.
It would be it is recommended to advancing forward, so
they'll be able to do so on site. But it
just makes it easier when veterans get there, and it
gives us a nice head count on you know who's
coming forward. I know the Great American Ballpark event at
Hamilton County had last year roughly about twenty five hundred

(08:57):
veterans that signed up and came through the operation. Think
you had about twelve hundred, So we're expecting a really
good crowd for this, you know, coming together. I want
to thank orlandos Auza, you know, before he you know,
he departs from his seat. There is a wonderful partner
working with this in the entire office with Hamilton County's

(09:18):
been great and they deserve all the credit for putting
this together. And we're just happy to be a partner
and share the news and be there with all of
our staff. We're going to have people there from our caregivers,
our community Outreach, our Veterans Justice Outreach program. You can
enroll again, here's another opportunity two weekends in enroll to
come see us and to help out. So we're looking
forward to it. And it really is an appreciation day

(09:41):
with the food and the music and everything that goes on.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Well consider your characterization in the name of the event
appreciation Day. It sounds me like all the veterans that
you can handle are welcome, and of course all these
different you know, services that are out there the ninety booths.
But are the regular joes like me of the world
invited to show up and show the work with the
American veterans.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, we want, you know, we want
we'd love to have the general community come there and
do that and be a part of that. You know,
we also do for our other partner with the Association
of the United States Army, they actually have cadets that
have you know, made the commitment they're going to be
taking their oath that day right there. They go down
there in front of that commander that we'll be doing that. So, yeah,

(10:25):
the general community is definitely welcome. Love to have you there.
If you're a military guy and you want to see
some cool military vehicles and and relics. It's pretty cool.
The kids love it, you know, they get who day
to come down and mister read it. It really is
a festival type of appreciation government. But you can also
get some answers and talk talk to a lot of
people with a lot of resources.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Now, will there be employers there? I means employment opportunity
time for my veteran friends.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
There will be a couple of employers there as well.
We've had some people sign up with that as well. There,
you know, the folks that focus on hiring veterans and
doing things and plus one of our divisions from the
VA with our community outreach division. They'll have one of
their employment specialists there as well.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Great employment opportunities as well as all the other services.
It sounds like it's going to be an overwhelming amount
of information and opportunities available for the veteran community. And
of course I encourage my listeners to show up just
to show your support for the American veterans in the
active military. Todd Sledge from the CINCINNIVA on behalf of
my listening audience and me personally, thank you for all
that you're doing there for my veterans out there, and
keep up the great work. And I know you're always

(11:27):
striving to improve things. Don't hesitate to put a complaint
in the complaint box or address whatever issue you have
with the VA. Todd and the team will do their
best to iron out any hurdles that you're facing over
at the VA and getting services right.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Todd absolutely, you know, I always say, you know, we
can't fix something that we're not aware of, that's not operating,
that's the way it's supposed to, and it could be
impacting another veterans. So we definitely need to know and
we want to know when we do that and makes
things better for our folks.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Thank you for doing so, Todd Sledge. Look forward to
having you back on the program and I wish you
all the success in the world. In August twenty third,
two pm ten pm, enjoy the fun, help the veterans
out and active duty military, and learn more about what's
available to you. Todd, take care of yourself. Thanks for
spending time with my listeners with me this morning.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Absolutely, Brian always appreciates your support. Veterans, don't forget to
get enrolled.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Get enrolled.