May 16, 2024 • 30 mins
Veterans encounter significant challenges when transitioning back to civilian life, and the Tennessee Department of Veterans Services is committed to easing this transition for the approximately 450,000 veterans living in Tennessee. Through passionate advocacy and informative outreach, the department connects veterans with the benefits they’ve earned and to critical resources that many need. Major General Tommy Baker is commissioner of the TVDS and recently discussed his goal to position Tennessee as a national leader in veteran services with John Clark on Tennessee Matters.
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Episode Transcript
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It's Tennessee Matters on the Tennessee RadioNetwork. Welcome to Tennessee Matters. I'm
John Clark on the Tennessee Radio Network. The Tennessee Department of Veteran Services operates
fourteen field offices for Tennessee State veteransCemeteries, serves as the liaison of threes
Tennessee State Veterans homes, assists withactive duty casualties, and hosts outreach events
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across the state to raise awareness andassist veterans as well as their families.
Today we welcome General Tommy Baker,Commissioner of the Department of Veteran Services.
Well, General Baker, could yousee it again today here in iHeart studios
and good to talk about Department ofVeteran Services. And it's good to have
you with us. Thank you,hey, it's good to be here.
Thank you' all for having us downagain. Yeah, we like having you
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in here. We do. Ilike having you in here because the Department
of Veterans Services does such wonderful thingsto help veterans and they need it.
The veterans need this help. Theyneed help that they'll have and they need
it. What's the latest with what'syou since last time we were here.
Well, so you know, Ithink we discussed the first time I came
down kind of what the core functionsof our department they are, and so
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I just want to brief it coveredthose again. We offer thirteen field offices
that run from Methhis all the wayto Mountain Home, Tennessee. For each
congressional district, there's a field officethat has either one to three Veteran Services
officers that are there Monday through Fridayeight four thirty. If you're a veteran
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out there or a nova veteran thathas served and has not filed a disability
or compensation claim, we'd love forthem to come in and sit down and
talk to us. If you're aspouse of a deceea S veteran or a
family member of the Sea special andwe'd like for you to also come talk
to us and see if there's anybenefits that you might be afforded that we
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could help you with as well.The other part of our agency is the
we run five state Veterans cemeteries,so we have one of we have those
in each Grand Division of our state. We also have one of those in
Knoxville. You know, we haveone here in Middle Tennessee out of Quarry
Lane. You've probably been out there, one at Parker's Crossroads down on one
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exit one o Eveland High forty,and then one in Memphis, Tennessee.
The one in Memphis is actually thethird highest burial volume for each day the
Veterans cemetery in the entire nation,third highest in the nation. Yeah,
it's remarkable. There's over fifty thousandveterans in the Shelby County area and so
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it's really a busy place. Theyjust went through a National Cemetery Administration inspection.
We get those every three years bythe federal National Cemetery Administration, and
they got an Operational Excellence Award thatis the highest award to receiving them,
and that's an inspection that covers ninetyfour different areas inside of the cemetery.
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It's everything from high High you're GrasSea to the you know, are there
weed's in your flower beds? That'show intense it is. Now by the
way, they received the award.But our four other cemeteries, the ones
in Knoxtownty, the one here inNashville, the one across Folds also received
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an Operational Excellence Awards. So nowwe have five of our state veterans cemeteries
that have received Operational Excellence Awards.I think I think we're the only state
in the Union that can boast thatright now. So we're very proud because
that's one of our core functions toprovide an honorable resting place, a Christine
resting place for our veterans and theirfamily members. So we're so proud of
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that. We want to continue thattradition here in the state. What what
what help helped them to get thesewards, especially when in Memphis? What
made them so ahead of everybody elsenition wide? Well, I mean it's
good. It's interesting you that,Steff, because it's it's kind of the
test that's kind of open, yeahtests. Yeah, it's on the intection
list, right. So what wedid a couple of years ago we said,
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well, look, we're going totake that inspection list and we're going
to go to each smart cemeteries asthey prepared for these, and we're going
to just from within the agency astrocemetery workers to go and inspect you know,
their fellow cemeteries and tell them whatkind of grade they got and we
took that inn and we started workingtowards getting them prepared because as you know,
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you can't just stop everything you're doingto get ready for an inspection,
right to continue to take their basis. Yes, sure, and so it
took a lot of time, alot of effort. I'm very proud of
that part of our department for themto be able to accomplish that. But
that's really how we did it.We just we did a self evaluation early
on, and then we started usingother members of our team across the state
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to go help get prepared for that. So very proud of them, and
it's something we take a lot ofpride in and we're going to continue to
try to uphold that going far.Yeah. You it's we've set the bar
really high, but we want tokeep it there now. Yeah, now
you got to keep going. Gotto win it next year, next year,
next year, exactly. Well,you put a lot into the cemeteries,
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rightly, so can military veterans beburied in them? Any gets free?
Or is their cost or anything?You know, That's that's a good
question because it's absolutely free. Okay, I was talking about our field offices.
That's service is absolutely free. Soit's not only for the veteran,
but for their qualified spouse as well. In some cases that's up to a
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ten thousand dollars bit, and youknow, it's it's kind of amazing.
Nationally there's only about twenty two percentof the veteran population that take advantage of
that benefit. I don't know whythat is. I don't know if that's
a lack of just know one that'sthere, yeah, or you know,
if it's just you know, theywant to be buried with family members and
other private cemeteries or whatever. Butthey get very easy. You go to
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our website, you pull up thecemetery that you want to register progression four.
You put in your two fourteen andin your marriage certificate, and you'll
get an email back, and thena couple of weeks later you'll get a
hard call y letterback saying how you'repreregistered for this state veteran cemetery. Said,
it's a place on the website righthere, I'm looking right at it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a it's a I think
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it's ten UT veterans at ten dotGUV. It's I mean, it's easy
and again takes about ten minutes.To do that, and you could go
in and go ahead and go aheadand get it done now and you're ready
to go get that done, getthat out of the way, so those
decisions don't have to be made,you know later in life when when people
were in a greasing state trying toget other things organized. Just goes it,
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gets it out of what. Yeah, you mentioned too that you also
your your services for veterans and theirspouse is too, but that you're underutilized
the US other programs of the VeteransAdministration. You know, I would I
would say that's that's that's accurate.So if you think about the three items
that the VA offers, now we'reveterance services, we're state agency, but
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you know, we have to knowwhat their programs are. We have to
know the qualifications of those problems.So really the big three they offer is
the National Cemetery Administration of the Cemetery. Yeah, they offer Veterans Benefits Association,
which is where you can follow aclaim for a service compensation, dependent
compensation or pensions things that were relatedto your service. And then they offer
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you know, the Veterance Healthcare.So everybody knows about being health care,
right it's the largest, basically thelargest healthcare system in the United States.
So when you're talking about the populationof over just over eighteen million veterans,
when you look at how many peopleparticipated in those programs, it kind of
kind of sets you back a littlebit. Yeah, we talked about the
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cemetery, the burial benefit, twopercent taking advantage of that. When you
talk about veterance benefits that they canget through service compensation needs, about a
third take advantage of that. Andwhen you look at VA healthcare that was
about a third. But now insome states you've seen an increase. Here
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in our state that's up in theforty percent. So you're seeing more people
take advantage of those opportunities and onthe benefits. And we try to encourage
that we can, because, aswe always say, there are benefits you
and your families earned, why nottake advantage right right, right and so,
But in the forties now, butyou could like to see it even
higher, of course we would,Yeah, you would, and I think
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the VA, I know in factthat they would, Yeah, because they're
looking at where veterans are migrating to, where the population centers are going to
be ten twenty years down the road. And as you will know, the
Southeast is really growing, specifically herein Tennessee, and so they want to
make sure that they're putting the resourceswhere the veterans are going to be in
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future operations, not only now butfor future generations as well. The hospitals
here in Tennessee. So you know, you have four main VA Medical centers.
You have one in Memphis, youhave one here in Naturville just down
the street. You have one outin Murphysboro, Avan C York Campus,
and then you have the Quality ofVA Medical Center in Mountain Home, which
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is just baron Johnson City. Right. It's the four big, big VA
Medical centers. And then you havewhat they call SEABAB community based outpatient clinic.
You also have those that are scatteredaround the state. And you know
there's in various places. Columbia's gotone, Four Countl's got one, or
parkspal Jackson, Tennessee. They're kindof in regional hubs. Football Meanville has
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gotten bak so places that you Chattanoogathat you don't have a VA Medical center,
if it's a regional hub, you'lltell you have a community based out
patients. So if you're a veteranand you need to get involved with it's
close to you, no matter where, it's close to y'es right. Yeah,
for the most part. If youhave some counties in the state with
ninety five rural counties that they thatthey can be a distance, but for
the most parts, you have eithera clinic or a the email center within
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an hour of most people. Whatare some of the new things you have
the Honor Guard grant program. That'sone of your new products that you've had
that you've announced this on your websitetoo. What is that program? So
that program came from the legislature lastyear while they were in session. They
passed a measure. They basically said, here a honor guard if you provide
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honor guard services at veterans funerals,right whether it's private cemetery or at a
veteran cemetery, and you do that, you're a nonprofit. And we have
many of these in the state,over one hundred of them across the state.
A lot of them do multiple hundredsof burials a year. These are
just private citizens they served at onetime, they're members of Legion or VF
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Dungeon Hell provide those honors for thosefamilies and those veterans, and in the
past they just had to do iton their own netbook. So what the
what the state legislature said is said, hey, if you'll register UH and
get all your paperwork in line wereand we'll will reimburse you some of those
expenses. And so since our DepartmentUH works in a lot of those areas,
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we we are the part of thedepartment that that is a ministrying that
grant UH and we're open for businessright now. We have three different prints
that signed up with us, gotcontracts and we're doing in reimbursements as we
speak. And so you can encourageeveryone if you're out there, if you
know the group that's doing it anonprofit, to look us up. It's
on the website. It's just missedon. There is on there. Sign
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up. Let's get you going.Yeah, that's that's terrific because that's that's
simple. Let's just go to thewebsite sign up that that and Veteran services
and so far, it's pretty simple. It's the website. Now you have
some other programs, the Stars andStripes Committed the Stars and Stripes Commitment program.
Is that is that right? Right? So it's a connect program,
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RIVET Stars and Straus Council. Okay, if you say that, I said
it fast now Stars and Stripes Councilprogram. Okay. So last July July
twenty three, Governor Lee signed theExecutive Order want to. The executive order
basically reconstituted a council that had beenplaced all the way back to twenty ten.
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But this was Governor's Lee's executive orderbasically reconstituting it and reforming it and
re purposing the council. So hewanted the Council to be first of all,
to look at several veteranies and toyou know, come back with some
recommendation and what we can do isa state to make Tennessee the number one
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state in the Union for veterans noton need to live, but to live
and thrive. And you know,there's a lot of different things out there.
There's really five general areas that thatCouncil going to be looking at.
One is a veteran employment, entrepreneurship, and even a veterans spouse employment and
entrepreneurship. We want to see veterans, you know, a lot of them
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are are young when they come backinto Sabine life. We want to make
sure they have those opportunities. Educationalbenefits only under fifteen thousand vetrians last year
in the state of twenty all educationalbenefits that they currently have, we want
to see those maximize to the most. There's also they're looking at veteran resources
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and assistance of you know, foodand securities, homelessness of women, veteran
issues, suicide prevention the ba's topclinical priority. And then part of the
reason I'm here today is where we'relooking at the outreach. How can we
can get that invation everyone in thestate. You know, we got nearly
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four hundred and forty thousand veterans inthe state. How do we reach them
and how do we get the messagethat meaning you were talking about today to
them. Yeah, like for example, that don't your job programs, I
mean these jobs and your jobs foryour spouse programs soon there's so many because
you have to be a veteran wouldbe who you would want to come work
for your company, because they're disciplined, they're ready to go, and it's
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just a matter of finding them andbringing them in. Is that right exactly?
You know, some people say let'slet's build a pipeline, right,
yeah, right, right right,because you know you've got five or six
hundred soldiers a month coming off backto d r R, you know,
forty minutes up the road to forCandle. They have about you know,
the the nationwide grade is about twentysix percent of the vedors that leave act
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to these state in the state thatthey discharge from. Right, we have
that up to over thirty six percentin Tennessee. So we already got an
advantage there. How do we increaseit to feed in sixty Because what you
just said, yeah, it makesa lot of sense. You've got somebody
that's already used to working. Theyknow what o'clock is all about. You
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A where to be what you formedto be in I guess you we don't
have you, but whatever you're supposedto be dressed like. And then and
then they understand how to the teamplayers yea, also how to work towards
a comption of though. So thoseare all benefits, and I think most
companies are looking for absolutely, theyreally are, because they look at the
veteran. I mean, you know, that's not the disparage of anybody who's
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not a veteran, but still thatveteran is brings something to the table that
really you can't replace, You can'tyou can't find anywhere, you can't find
anywhere. I agree, I agree, and that you know that kind of
that kind of leads us ino.You know, we talked a little bit
about the Veteran Ready Business Recognition Program, and that program really, yeah,
is centered around just what we've justdiscussed here. We started. When we
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started putting that together, we thoughtabout saying veteran friendly, but we already
know Tennessee is a very inveterent friendlystate. I mean that I've seen that
in this job where I went,no matter what community out I was in.
Uh, just people to life,every vocation, right, every background
you can think of. We wantto help veterans. They really want to
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help and they really support veters.But we thought, you know, for
businesses, it's more than just beingfriendly, because a lot of them offer
discounts and different things for bats andfirst responders. But we said, you
know, you already need these things, so let's recognize what you're already doing
for veterans and let's take that toa couple of more levels. In other
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words, companies that already honor veterans, they would apply for this recognition program
at the bronze level. Okay,okay, that's an entry level, and
there's two or three four things thatthey do consistently that we qualify them.
Then when you go to the nextlevel you're talking about silver. That's companies
that are even taking it more seriouslyin terms of not only do we want
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to hire veterans and we know thatwe have leasures in our company, we
want to make sure that we're advertisingcorrectly when we post a job, that
veterans know about that job, thatwe realize that when they come off Active
Ddy just because they said they wereant exstrument on Active Diddy, Well,
there's not any jobs in this beingworld that you can't say is instrumen.
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But guess what that infertruman learned howto work as a team. They learned
how to do planning, they learnedhow to prepare themselves logistically for their mission,
and also how to lead people.Most companies I know of need all
of those factors to be successful.And then finally, at the goal level,
you're talking about a company that notonly looks for veterans and retains veterans,
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but they also look at how canwe attract veterans and put them in
situations in apprenticeship programs, in trainingprograms the world. They not only come
to work for us as a lateperson, but they become management and that
we even look at how we couldimplore their spouses potentially and put some of
that good work to use as well. So that's the or bronze seal or
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goal. Okay. In turn,you're going to get an award if you
get to go level from us,You're going to get advertised on our website
as a venturing rating company. Wethink it's just a opportunity for Venus,
a good opportunity for businesses in ourstate. So the companies just just come
to you to get ripped to thewebsite to get to get registered and then
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there they are. So to befair, this is going to be available
one gly okay this year, thisyear out with a new state fiscal year.
Okay, So once you twenty twentyfour, you go to our website,
you're going to see just like youdo for Honor Guard grant, you're
going to see that up. We'reready to bring you all in. Yeah,
that's that's great to be prepared forfolks. Well, you know,
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you say you have all those victusand a lot of there's a lot of
military operations, military installations in Tennessee. They're getting ready to get out and
they want to stay where they areand it's just just natural for them.
This is natural. So I hopethat I hope you get a lot of
sign ups to that. I reallydo well. And part of that it's
not just exactly about a job necessarily. So where's my kids gonna go to
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school? Right? What are opportunitiesare there for my spouse? Uh?
Am? I am I gonna beable to find affordable housing. I mean,
there's so many questions for an activeduty service member that is transitioning from
somewhere that's really kind of all beendetermined previously. I got to make these
decisions. So it's not just like, Heyboddy, here's a job. You
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know, you're you're good to gonow. It's really more about having an
ecosystem in place that really attends toall those needs and really tries to transition
them smoothly into the back end theciviling society. You know, that's true.
I didn't think about that. Thatis true. You have to get
the wife and the kids and everybodyelse to look out for them as well.
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And so it does. It doestake a that's a big task.
If you're a veteran with a family, you know, you really want to
mental task. And you know,when you're let's say you're twenty three,
twenty four year old, and youknow you got into the military high school,
all of a sudden, you're facingdecisions and having to make arrangements so
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to speak, right getting that firstmortgage, potentially your buy home, or
maybe you know, getting all yourutilities set up downtown at a place you
hadn't been in a while. It'sa lot to juggle, and so we're
just want to be there to makesure that that that support network is there
to make that transition is as bountifuland as fruitful as possible. You know,
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you what about veterans education systems?I know that I've had we had
them on before these the state hasthey're planning place for veterans. Could veterans
take advantage of that too? Yeah? Yeah, you know, there's there's
several things out there, the GIBill, whether it's reserved or active.
You got your post nine eleven Avatures that are hundred sent permanently and totally
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disabled. They receive what they callChapter thirty five educational benefits. Those can
be getting the dependence human it's atremendous benefit. Yeah, and it's the
most widely used education benefit in thestate. So, you know, like
we talked before, though there's therewas under fifteenth fables to utilize those.
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They also pay for you know,t categories and those kinds of things.
And then if you're in the reserveregard here in the States, you have
the Strong Act that is a statetuition program that they provide four years.
Well if you're a reserved regard.So there's opportunity here in the state for
veterans if they coming off factory dutyand they're like they want to change vocations
or they want to get some technicaltraining to go forward in line with please
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take yeah, advantage of the youknow, don't leave that benefit on the
table. Don't wake advantage of it. Yeah. Yeah, And we keep
mentioning the website, but your websiteis easy to work. It's all right
here on the website. Then yougo there. Yeah, and you also
have a Tendency Higher Education Commission too, well that really has some really sharp
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folks that can really tell you whatbenefits are there and how you can best
utilize those as well. But nowand in this too, I should also
say that there's still people that canhelp you out if you have questions about
that too, then they don't thewebsite exactly. Yes, sir, I
want to ask you about veterans.Uh, veterans suicides. That's something that's
been it's been still just it's anissue. It's a terrible issue, and
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we hear about it all the time. What are you doing about that?
What are they doing well? Aswe mentioned previously, yeah, there was
a that's one of the areas we'refocusing on inside of the council. Good
Now, our department don't have anyclinicians right that are mental health commissions,
but the tendency of our mental healthand substance use, I think are prepared
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to start a peer recovery support programand that's going to be for mental health
across the entire state. There arealso going to have some folks in there
that's qualified to work with veterans specifically, so they're great partners and lead the
way in that effort. You know, we know that two thirds of the
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veterans that that that you know,that commits us that are are not in
the v A healthcare system. Sothat's one of the things we see progress
here in the state with those newenrollees. Uh, you know, we've
got that percentage of from about thirtypercent nationally, we get up in the
fourties here in our state. Wefelt that like that's some measure of success
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because most of the suicide issues thatyou find out there is just isolation oriented.
It's that lack of connectedness that thatsome veterans find themselves in. So
it is not a say the least, It is a very complex and it
is I mean, we've been grapplingthis now for over twenty years in our
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country, right and there is someencouraging data points out there are state the
last VA data what we got fromtwenty one show that slight decline in veteran
population suicides in our state. Sothat's that's encouraging that there's a lot of
work to be done and we wantto be part of that. I noticed
too, I've heard hear about homelessnessyoung veterans, and that does that contribute
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to suicide? I Mean, Iwas just wonder so much what do you
think what do you think about this? It does? I think I think
that that is another indicator of thatinsolation factor. And it's also an indicator
potentially sometimes people having them purposeful employment. Right, that's true, because you
know, you can't even really geta fill out a job left the case
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if you don't have an address.So these all these things when we talked
about that ecosystem a few minutes ago, Yeah, that's really what that is.
I mean, it's not just heyI've got a job, or hey
I've got some or live but amI connected? Am I? Am I
around people that care about me?Uh? Do I have someone that that
I can really talk to about thingsthat may be bothering me because of my
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service? Right that? Uh,that I need nothing to be able to
share that with from time to time. Those are all factors. There's no
one thing that you can want tosay, well that's it, you know,
we can solve that right there,it'll it'll, it'll solve the problem
or the crisis. There's not one. Uh, there's also a new I
think this just happened since the lasttime we talked to the nine eight eight
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veteran or the crisis that has happened. That's yeah. So so it's good.
We want to make sure out there, anybody that's got any kind of
issues or things that they want totalk to someone about you you got all
that number. Within a second,you're going to get a response. Yeah,
yeah, that's that's true. That'snine eight eight nine eight eight.
Yeah. Yeah, it's just veryIt's hard to see and I sell these
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things that very that very for veterans, and they wouldn't take advantage of this,
and they still be you know,they commit suicide when they could take
advantage of these things and find outand find out, get your gift,
your information. You know. Sure, it's just it's just so sad.
Anything else late lately you've become you'vecome bring a lot of gifts to us.
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What else if you are your actualoffering veterance, Well I would just
say I didn't get a chance towall of those to talk about. Uh.
You know, out of those fieldofficers, we talked about ten thousand
veterans, over ten thousand veterans thatwere served last year. Uh in those
field offices. The claims numbers thatcome back through those about twenty three different
service officers, Yeah, end upto being around seventy five million dollars a
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year coming out in those veterans pockets. Uh you know, that's that's tax
free money coming from the federal governmentto those veterans that they will use in
those communities they live in. Yeah, and uh, you know, if
you look at it statewide and addedall up Er County in the state,
that ends up being about three pointsix bill Oh god, there's a lot
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of money. And if you lookat everything that can be age fans in
South States, it's over sixty pointsixtyllion. So we want to make sure
that we take advantage of what peoplehave already earned through their service, and
if they get denied, that's that'sthat happens. It does happen that sometimes
your claiming is toned. We havean appeals branch inside of our agency.
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They will take that appeal for you. Work it absolutely free. Now,
sometimes it takes a many to getit through the process, but they have
an eighty eight percent success rate whenthey provide oral advocacy for a veteran on
appill that's pretty high score. Prettynationally that's about seventy four percent, So
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they really do a good job.They wrong back in retroactive payments last year
in the state of seventy million dollarsto vetter to their families. So you
know they've been able to do thatone thing they've done. And I do
want to mention this because they receiveAbraham Lincoln Killer of Excellence Award from the
National VA last year in f ytwenty three because during the pandemic they were
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able to start a county virtual Veteranthe board a veterer appeal hearing. In
other words, so the having tocome into a metro center like Nashville or
memphist a hotel five the traffic.That veteran can go sit down at third
County Service office. It's in sixtycounties now and say it started out with
one county. Oh really, Nowthey can go in sit down. They
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can be sitting there with their countyservice officer. Our appeal advocate is on
the other call the zoom call,the used or the name all it's all
secure, and then an administrative lawjudge is sitting there. They hear the
case and that veteran can leave thereand not have to you know, struggle
with getting into the metro area andfinding a hotel of history for other things,
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great benefit for the veteran and we'rejust gonna trying to expand that we
have all ninety five counties on boardbefore too long. You're getting pretty close.
We got more work to do.Yeah, well, I thank you
for coming in, and it's alwaysexciting to hear about the Department of Veteran
Services, and I just I reallyappreciate what you do and if you denigrate
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jobs, thank you so much forcoming in. Hey, thanks for having
me and appreciate what y'all do,and thanks for letting thank you for letting
us tell the citizens of the GreatState of Tennessee what Tennessee Department of Veteran
Services is all about. That's GeneralTommy Baker, Commissioner of the Apartment of
Veteran Services. More information, youcan reach out to them at TN dot
gov slash veteran. If you havequestions or comments about today's program, you
(29:41):
can email me, John Clark atiHeartMedia dot com. Thanks for listening.
I'll talk to you next week righthere on your local radio station on Tennessee Matters
It's Tennessee Matters on the Tennessee RadioNetwork. Welcome to Tennessee Matters. I'm
John Clark on the Tennessee Radio Network. The Tennessee Department of Veteran Services operates
fourteen field offices for Tennessee State veteransCemeteries, serves as the liaison of threes
Tennessee State Veterans homes, assists withactive duty casualties, and hosts outreach events
(00:22):
across the state to raise awareness andassist veterans as well as their families.
Today we welcome General Tommy Baker,Commissioner of the Department of Veteran Services.
Well, General Baker, could yousee it again today here in iHeart studios
and good to talk about Department ofVeteran Services. And it's good to have
you with us. Thank you,hey, it's good to be here.
Thank you' all for having us downagain. Yeah, we like having you
(00:44):
in here. We do. Ilike having you in here because the Department
of Veterans Services does such wonderful thingsto help veterans and they need it.
The veterans need this help. Theyneed help that they'll have and they need
it. What's the latest with what'syou since last time we were here.
Well, so you know, Ithink we discussed the first time I came
down kind of what the core functionsof our department they are, and so
(01:07):
I just want to brief it coveredthose again. We offer thirteen field offices
that run from Methhis all the wayto Mountain Home, Tennessee. For each
congressional district, there's a field officethat has either one to three Veteran Services
officers that are there Monday through Fridayeight four thirty. If you're a veteran
(01:29):
out there or a nova veteran thathas served and has not filed a disability
or compensation claim, we'd love forthem to come in and sit down and
talk to us. If you're aspouse of a deceea S veteran or a
family member of the Sea special andwe'd like for you to also come talk
to us and see if there's anybenefits that you might be afforded that we
(01:49):
could help you with as well.The other part of our agency is the
we run five state Veterans cemeteries,so we have one of we have those
in each Grand Division of our state. We also have one of those in
Knoxville. You know, we haveone here in Middle Tennessee out of Quarry
Lane. You've probably been out there, one at Parker's Crossroads down on one
(02:10):
exit one o Eveland High forty,and then one in Memphis, Tennessee.
The one in Memphis is actually thethird highest burial volume for each day the
Veterans cemetery in the entire nation,third highest in the nation. Yeah,
it's remarkable. There's over fifty thousandveterans in the Shelby County area and so
(02:30):
it's really a busy place. Theyjust went through a National Cemetery Administration inspection.
We get those every three years bythe federal National Cemetery Administration, and
they got an Operational Excellence Award thatis the highest award to receiving them,
and that's an inspection that covers ninetyfour different areas inside of the cemetery.
(02:54):
It's everything from high High you're GrasSea to the you know, are there
weed's in your flower beds? That'show intense it is. Now by the
way, they received the award.But our four other cemeteries, the ones
in Knoxtownty, the one here inNashville, the one across Folds also received
(03:15):
an Operational Excellence Awards. So nowwe have five of our state veterans cemeteries
that have received Operational Excellence Awards.I think I think we're the only state
in the Union that can boast thatright now. So we're very proud because
that's one of our core functions toprovide an honorable resting place, a Christine
resting place for our veterans and theirfamily members. So we're so proud of
(03:38):
that. We want to continue thattradition here in the state. What what
what help helped them to get thesewards, especially when in Memphis? What
made them so ahead of everybody elsenition wide? Well, I mean it's
good. It's interesting you that,Steff, because it's it's kind of the
test that's kind of open, yeahtests. Yeah, it's on the intection
list, right. So what wedid a couple of years ago we said,
(04:00):
well, look, we're going totake that inspection list and we're going
to go to each smart cemeteries asthey prepared for these, and we're going
to just from within the agency astrocemetery workers to go and inspect you know,
their fellow cemeteries and tell them whatkind of grade they got and we
took that inn and we started workingtowards getting them prepared because as you know,
(04:26):
you can't just stop everything you're doingto get ready for an inspection,
right to continue to take their basis. Yes, sure, and so it
took a lot of time, alot of effort. I'm very proud of
that part of our department for themto be able to accomplish that. But
that's really how we did it.We just we did a self evaluation early
on, and then we started usingother members of our team across the state
(04:47):
to go help get prepared for that. So very proud of them, and
it's something we take a lot ofpride in and we're going to continue to
try to uphold that going far.Yeah. You it's we've set the bar
really high, but we want tokeep it there now. Yeah, now
you got to keep going. Gotto win it next year, next year,
next year, exactly. Well,you put a lot into the cemeteries,
(05:09):
rightly, so can military veterans beburied in them? Any gets free?
Or is their cost or anything?You know, That's that's a good
question because it's absolutely free. Okay, I was talking about our field offices.
That's service is absolutely free. Soit's not only for the veteran,
but for their qualified spouse as well. In some cases that's up to a
(05:30):
ten thousand dollars bit, and youknow, it's it's kind of amazing.
Nationally there's only about twenty two percentof the veteran population that take advantage of
that benefit. I don't know whythat is. I don't know if that's
a lack of just know one that'sthere, yeah, or you know,
if it's just you know, theywant to be buried with family members and
other private cemeteries or whatever. Butthey get very easy. You go to
(05:56):
our website, you pull up thecemetery that you want to register progression four.
You put in your two fourteen andin your marriage certificate, and you'll
get an email back, and thena couple of weeks later you'll get a
hard call y letterback saying how you'repreregistered for this state veteran cemetery. Said,
it's a place on the website righthere, I'm looking right at it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a it's a I think
(06:17):
it's ten UT veterans at ten dotGUV. It's I mean, it's easy
and again takes about ten minutes.To do that, and you could go
in and go ahead and go aheadand get it done now and you're ready
to go get that done, getthat out of the way, so those
decisions don't have to be made,you know later in life when when people
were in a greasing state trying toget other things organized. Just goes it,
(06:41):
gets it out of what. Yeah, you mentioned too that you also
your your services for veterans and theirspouse is too, but that you're underutilized
the US other programs of the VeteransAdministration. You know, I would I
would say that's that's that's accurate.So if you think about the three items
that the VA offers, now we'reveterance services, we're state agency, but
(07:04):
you know, we have to knowwhat their programs are. We have to
know the qualifications of those problems.So really the big three they offer is
the National Cemetery Administration of the Cemetery. Yeah, they offer Veterans Benefits Association,
which is where you can follow aclaim for a service compensation, dependent
compensation or pensions things that were relatedto your service. And then they offer
(07:28):
you know, the Veterance Healthcare.So everybody knows about being health care,
right it's the largest, basically thelargest healthcare system in the United States.
So when you're talking about the populationof over just over eighteen million veterans,
when you look at how many peopleparticipated in those programs, it kind of
kind of sets you back a littlebit. Yeah, we talked about the
(07:48):
cemetery, the burial benefit, twopercent taking advantage of that. When you
talk about veterance benefits that they canget through service compensation needs, about a
third take advantage of that. Andwhen you look at VA healthcare that was
about a third. But now insome states you've seen an increase. Here
(08:11):
in our state that's up in theforty percent. So you're seeing more people
take advantage of those opportunities and onthe benefits. And we try to encourage
that we can, because, aswe always say, there are benefits you
and your families earned, why nottake advantage right right, right and so,
But in the forties now, butyou could like to see it even
higher, of course we would,Yeah, you would, and I think
(08:35):
the VA, I know in factthat they would, Yeah, because they're
looking at where veterans are migrating to, where the population centers are going to
be ten twenty years down the road. And as you will know, the
Southeast is really growing, specifically herein Tennessee, and so they want to
make sure that they're putting the resourceswhere the veterans are going to be in
(08:56):
future operations, not only now butfor future generations as well. The hospitals
here in Tennessee. So you know, you have four main VA Medical centers.
You have one in Memphis, youhave one here in Naturville just down
the street. You have one outin Murphysboro, Avan C York Campus,
and then you have the Quality ofVA Medical Center in Mountain Home, which
(09:18):
is just baron Johnson City. Right. It's the four big, big VA
Medical centers. And then you havewhat they call SEABAB community based outpatient clinic.
You also have those that are scatteredaround the state. And you know
there's in various places. Columbia's gotone, Four Countl's got one, or
parkspal Jackson, Tennessee. They're kindof in regional hubs. Football Meanville has
(09:45):
gotten bak so places that you Chattanoogathat you don't have a VA Medical center,
if it's a regional hub, you'lltell you have a community based out
patients. So if you're a veteranand you need to get involved with it's
close to you, no matter where, it's close to y'es right. Yeah,
for the most part. If youhave some counties in the state with
ninety five rural counties that they thatthey can be a distance, but for
the most parts, you have eithera clinic or a the email center within
(10:11):
an hour of most people. Whatare some of the new things you have
the Honor Guard grant program. That'sone of your new products that you've had
that you've announced this on your websitetoo. What is that program? So
that program came from the legislature lastyear while they were in session. They
passed a measure. They basically said, here a honor guard if you provide
(10:35):
honor guard services at veterans funerals,right whether it's private cemetery or at a
veteran cemetery, and you do that, you're a nonprofit. And we have
many of these in the state,over one hundred of them across the state.
A lot of them do multiple hundredsof burials a year. These are
just private citizens they served at onetime, they're members of Legion or VF
(10:56):
Dungeon Hell provide those honors for thosefamilies and those veterans, and in the
past they just had to do iton their own netbook. So what the
what the state legislature said is said, hey, if you'll register UH and
get all your paperwork in line wereand we'll will reimburse you some of those
expenses. And so since our DepartmentUH works in a lot of those areas,
(11:18):
we we are the part of thedepartment that that is a ministrying that
grant UH and we're open for businessright now. We have three different prints
that signed up with us, gotcontracts and we're doing in reimbursements as we
speak. And so you can encourageeveryone if you're out there, if you
know the group that's doing it anonprofit, to look us up. It's
on the website. It's just missedon. There is on there. Sign
(11:39):
up. Let's get you going.Yeah, that's that's terrific because that's that's
simple. Let's just go to thewebsite sign up that that and Veteran services
and so far, it's pretty simple. It's the website. Now you have
some other programs, the Stars andStripes Committed the Stars and Stripes Commitment program.
Is that is that right? Right? So it's a connect program,
(12:01):
RIVET Stars and Straus Council. Okay, if you say that, I said
it fast now Stars and Stripes Councilprogram. Okay. So last July July
twenty three, Governor Lee signed theExecutive Order want to. The executive order
basically reconstituted a council that had beenplaced all the way back to twenty ten.
(12:24):
But this was Governor's Lee's executive orderbasically reconstituting it and reforming it and
re purposing the council. So hewanted the Council to be first of all,
to look at several veteranies and toyou know, come back with some
recommendation and what we can do isa state to make Tennessee the number one
(12:48):
state in the Union for veterans noton need to live, but to live
and thrive. And you know,there's a lot of different things out there.
There's really five general areas that thatCouncil going to be looking at.
One is a veteran employment, entrepreneurship, and even a veterans spouse employment and
entrepreneurship. We want to see veterans, you know, a lot of them
(13:09):
are are young when they come backinto Sabine life. We want to make
sure they have those opportunities. Educationalbenefits only under fifteen thousand vetrians last year
in the state of twenty all educationalbenefits that they currently have, we want
to see those maximize to the most. There's also they're looking at veteran resources
(13:30):
and assistance of you know, foodand securities, homelessness of women, veteran
issues, suicide prevention the ba's topclinical priority. And then part of the
reason I'm here today is where we'relooking at the outreach. How can we
can get that invation everyone in thestate. You know, we got nearly
(13:50):
four hundred and forty thousand veterans inthe state. How do we reach them
and how do we get the messagethat meaning you were talking about today to
them. Yeah, like for example, that don't your job programs, I
mean these jobs and your jobs foryour spouse programs soon there's so many because
you have to be a veteran wouldbe who you would want to come work
for your company, because they're disciplined, they're ready to go, and it's
(14:13):
just a matter of finding them andbringing them in. Is that right exactly?
You know, some people say let'slet's build a pipeline, right,
yeah, right, right right,because you know you've got five or six
hundred soldiers a month coming off backto d r R, you know,
forty minutes up the road to forCandle. They have about you know,
the the nationwide grade is about twentysix percent of the vedors that leave act
(14:35):
to these state in the state thatthey discharge from. Right, we have
that up to over thirty six percentin Tennessee. So we already got an
advantage there. How do we increaseit to feed in sixty Because what you
just said, yeah, it makesa lot of sense. You've got somebody
that's already used to working. Theyknow what o'clock is all about. You
(14:56):
A where to be what you formedto be in I guess you we don't
have you, but whatever you're supposedto be dressed like. And then and
then they understand how to the teamplayers yea, also how to work towards
a comption of though. So thoseare all benefits, and I think most
companies are looking for absolutely, theyreally are, because they look at the
veteran. I mean, you know, that's not the disparage of anybody who's
(15:20):
not a veteran, but still thatveteran is brings something to the table that
really you can't replace, You can'tyou can't find anywhere, you can't find
anywhere. I agree, I agree, and that you know that kind of
that kind of leads us ino.You know, we talked a little bit
about the Veteran Ready Business Recognition Program, and that program really, yeah,
is centered around just what we've justdiscussed here. We started. When we
(15:43):
started putting that together, we thoughtabout saying veteran friendly, but we already
know Tennessee is a very inveterent friendlystate. I mean that I've seen that
in this job where I went,no matter what community out I was in.
Uh, just people to life,every vocation, right, every background
you can think of. We wantto help veterans. They really want to
(16:06):
help and they really support veters.But we thought, you know, for
businesses, it's more than just beingfriendly, because a lot of them offer
discounts and different things for bats andfirst responders. But we said, you
know, you already need these things, so let's recognize what you're already doing
for veterans and let's take that toa couple of more levels. In other
(16:29):
words, companies that already honor veterans, they would apply for this recognition program
at the bronze level. Okay,okay, that's an entry level, and
there's two or three four things thatthey do consistently that we qualify them.
Then when you go to the nextlevel you're talking about silver. That's companies
that are even taking it more seriouslyin terms of not only do we want
(16:51):
to hire veterans and we know thatwe have leasures in our company, we
want to make sure that we're advertisingcorrectly when we post a job, that
veterans know about that job, thatwe realize that when they come off Active
Ddy just because they said they wereant exstrument on Active Diddy, Well,
there's not any jobs in this beingworld that you can't say is instrumen.
(17:15):
But guess what that infertruman learned howto work as a team. They learned
how to do planning, they learnedhow to prepare themselves logistically for their mission,
and also how to lead people.Most companies I know of need all
of those factors to be successful.And then finally, at the goal level,
you're talking about a company that notonly looks for veterans and retains veterans,
(17:37):
but they also look at how canwe attract veterans and put them in
situations in apprenticeship programs, in trainingprograms the world. They not only come
to work for us as a lateperson, but they become management and that
we even look at how we couldimplore their spouses potentially and put some of
that good work to use as well. So that's the or bronze seal or
(18:00):
goal. Okay. In turn,you're going to get an award if you
get to go level from us,You're going to get advertised on our website
as a venturing rating company. Wethink it's just a opportunity for Venus,
a good opportunity for businesses in ourstate. So the companies just just come
to you to get ripped to thewebsite to get to get registered and then
(18:22):
there they are. So to befair, this is going to be available
one gly okay this year, thisyear out with a new state fiscal year.
Okay, So once you twenty twentyfour, you go to our website,
you're going to see just like youdo for Honor Guard grant, you're
going to see that up. We'reready to bring you all in. Yeah,
that's that's great to be prepared forfolks. Well, you know,
(18:45):
you say you have all those victusand a lot of there's a lot of
military operations, military installations in Tennessee. They're getting ready to get out and
they want to stay where they areand it's just just natural for them.
This is natural. So I hopethat I hope you get a lot of
sign ups to that. I reallydo well. And part of that it's
not just exactly about a job necessarily. So where's my kids gonna go to
(19:08):
school? Right? What are opportunitiesare there for my spouse? Uh?
Am? I am I gonna beable to find affordable housing. I mean,
there's so many questions for an activeduty service member that is transitioning from
somewhere that's really kind of all beendetermined previously. I got to make these
decisions. So it's not just like, Heyboddy, here's a job. You
(19:32):
know, you're you're good to gonow. It's really more about having an
ecosystem in place that really attends toall those needs and really tries to transition
them smoothly into the back end theciviling society. You know, that's true.
I didn't think about that. Thatis true. You have to get
the wife and the kids and everybodyelse to look out for them as well.
(19:52):
And so it does. It doestake a that's a big task.
If you're a veteran with a family, you know, you really want to
mental task. And you know,when you're let's say you're twenty three,
twenty four year old, and youknow you got into the military high school,
all of a sudden, you're facingdecisions and having to make arrangements so
(20:17):
to speak, right getting that firstmortgage, potentially your buy home, or
maybe you know, getting all yourutilities set up downtown at a place you
hadn't been in a while. It'sa lot to juggle, and so we're
just want to be there to makesure that that that support network is there
to make that transition is as bountifuland as fruitful as possible. You know,
(20:40):
you what about veterans education systems?I know that I've had we had
them on before these the state hasthey're planning place for veterans. Could veterans
take advantage of that too? Yeah? Yeah, you know, there's there's
several things out there, the GIBill, whether it's reserved or active.
You got your post nine eleven Avatures that are hundred sent permanently and totally
(21:03):
disabled. They receive what they callChapter thirty five educational benefits. Those can
be getting the dependence human it's atremendous benefit. Yeah, and it's the
most widely used education benefit in thestate. So, you know, like
we talked before, though there's therewas under fifteenth fables to utilize those.
(21:25):
They also pay for you know,t categories and those kinds of things.
And then if you're in the reserveregard here in the States, you have
the Strong Act that is a statetuition program that they provide four years.
Well if you're a reserved regard.So there's opportunity here in the state for
veterans if they coming off factory dutyand they're like they want to change vocations
or they want to get some technicaltraining to go forward in line with please
(21:49):
take yeah, advantage of the youknow, don't leave that benefit on the
table. Don't wake advantage of it. Yeah. Yeah, And we keep
mentioning the website, but your websiteis easy to work. It's all right
here on the website. Then yougo there. Yeah, and you also
have a Tendency Higher Education Commission too, well that really has some really sharp
(22:11):
folks that can really tell you whatbenefits are there and how you can best
utilize those as well. But nowand in this too, I should also
say that there's still people that canhelp you out if you have questions about
that too, then they don't thewebsite exactly. Yes, sir, I
want to ask you about veterans.Uh, veterans suicides. That's something that's
been it's been still just it's anissue. It's a terrible issue, and
(22:34):
we hear about it all the time. What are you doing about that?
What are they doing well? Aswe mentioned previously, yeah, there was
a that's one of the areas we'refocusing on inside of the council. Good
Now, our department don't have anyclinicians right that are mental health commissions,
but the tendency of our mental healthand substance use, I think are prepared
(22:59):
to start a peer recovery support programand that's going to be for mental health
across the entire state. There arealso going to have some folks in there
that's qualified to work with veterans specifically, so they're great partners and lead the
way in that effort. You know, we know that two thirds of the
(23:19):
veterans that that that you know,that commits us that are are not in
the v A healthcare system. Sothat's one of the things we see progress
here in the state with those newenrollees. Uh, you know, we've
got that percentage of from about thirtypercent nationally, we get up in the
fourties here in our state. Wefelt that like that's some measure of success
(23:41):
because most of the suicide issues thatyou find out there is just isolation oriented.
It's that lack of connectedness that thatsome veterans find themselves in. So
it is not a say the least, It is a very complex and it
is I mean, we've been grapplingthis now for over twenty years in our
(24:03):
country, right and there is someencouraging data points out there are state the
last VA data what we got fromtwenty one show that slight decline in veteran
population suicides in our state. Sothat's that's encouraging that there's a lot of
work to be done and we wantto be part of that. I noticed
too, I've heard hear about homelessnessyoung veterans, and that does that contribute
(24:27):
to suicide? I Mean, Iwas just wonder so much what do you
think what do you think about this? It does? I think I think
that that is another indicator of thatinsolation factor. And it's also an indicator
potentially sometimes people having them purposeful employment. Right, that's true, because you
know, you can't even really geta fill out a job left the case
(24:47):
if you don't have an address.So these all these things when we talked
about that ecosystem a few minutes ago, Yeah, that's really what that is.
I mean, it's not just heyI've got a job, or hey
I've got some or live but amI connected? Am I? Am I
around people that care about me?Uh? Do I have someone that that
I can really talk to about thingsthat may be bothering me because of my
(25:11):
service? Right that? Uh,that I need nothing to be able to
share that with from time to time. Those are all factors. There's no
one thing that you can want tosay, well that's it, you know,
we can solve that right there,it'll it'll, it'll solve the problem
or the crisis. There's not one. Uh, there's also a new I
think this just happened since the lasttime we talked to the nine eight eight
(25:33):
veteran or the crisis that has happened. That's yeah. So so it's good.
We want to make sure out there, anybody that's got any kind of
issues or things that they want totalk to someone about you you got all
that number. Within a second,you're going to get a response. Yeah,
yeah, that's that's true. That'snine eight eight nine eight eight.
Yeah. Yeah, it's just veryIt's hard to see and I sell these
(25:53):
things that very that very for veterans, and they wouldn't take advantage of this,
and they still be you know,they commit suicide when they could take
advantage of these things and find outand find out, get your gift,
your information. You know. Sure, it's just it's just so sad.
Anything else late lately you've become you'vecome bring a lot of gifts to us.
(26:14):
What else if you are your actualoffering veterance, Well I would just
say I didn't get a chance towall of those to talk about. Uh.
You know, out of those fieldofficers, we talked about ten thousand
veterans, over ten thousand veterans thatwere served last year. Uh in those
field offices. The claims numbers thatcome back through those about twenty three different
service officers, Yeah, end upto being around seventy five million dollars a
(26:37):
year coming out in those veterans pockets. Uh you know, that's that's tax
free money coming from the federal governmentto those veterans that they will use in
those communities they live in. Yeah, and uh, you know, if
you look at it statewide and addedall up Er County in the state,
that ends up being about three pointsix bill Oh god, there's a lot
(26:59):
of money. And if you lookat everything that can be age fans in
South States, it's over sixty pointsixtyllion. So we want to make sure
that we take advantage of what peoplehave already earned through their service, and
if they get denied, that's that'sthat happens. It does happen that sometimes
your claiming is toned. We havean appeals branch inside of our agency.
(27:25):
They will take that appeal for you. Work it absolutely free. Now,
sometimes it takes a many to getit through the process, but they have
an eighty eight percent success rate whenthey provide oral advocacy for a veteran on
appill that's pretty high score. Prettynationally that's about seventy four percent, So
(27:45):
they really do a good job.They wrong back in retroactive payments last year
in the state of seventy million dollarsto vetter to their families. So you
know they've been able to do thatone thing they've done. And I do
want to mention this because they receiveAbraham Lincoln Killer of Excellence Award from the
National VA last year in f ytwenty three because during the pandemic they were
(28:10):
able to start a county virtual Veteranthe board a veterer appeal hearing. In
other words, so the having tocome into a metro center like Nashville or
memphist a hotel five the traffic.That veteran can go sit down at third
County Service office. It's in sixtycounties now and say it started out with
one county. Oh really, Nowthey can go in sit down. They
(28:33):
can be sitting there with their countyservice officer. Our appeal advocate is on
the other call the zoom call,the used or the name all it's all
secure, and then an administrative lawjudge is sitting there. They hear the
case and that veteran can leave thereand not have to you know, struggle
with getting into the metro area andfinding a hotel of history for other things,
(28:56):
great benefit for the veteran and we'rejust gonna trying to expand that we
have all ninety five counties on boardbefore too long. You're getting pretty close.
We got more work to do.Yeah, well, I thank you
for coming in, and it's alwaysexciting to hear about the Department of Veteran
Services, and I just I reallyappreciate what you do and if you denigrate
(29:18):
jobs, thank you so much forcoming in. Hey, thanks for having
me and appreciate what y'all do,and thanks for letting thank you for letting
us tell the citizens of the GreatState of Tennessee what Tennessee Department of Veteran
Services is all about. That's GeneralTommy Baker, Commissioner of the Apartment of
Veteran Services. More information, youcan reach out to them at TN dot
gov slash veteran. If you havequestions or comments about today's program, you
(29:41):
can email me, John Clark atiHeartMedia dot com. Thanks for listening.
I'll talk to you next week righthere on your local radio station on Tennessee Matters
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