This year, the VFW is celebrating an incredible milestone ... 100 years ago at our National Encampment, our forefathers established the National Service Bureau known today as National Veterans Service to work with the government to ensure America’s veterans got the benefits they’ve earned and deserved.
The VFW was the first veterans service organization to help veterans cut through the bureaucratic red tape. Literally. The term goes back to the beginning of the National Service Bureau. Our first service officers used to go to the Department of Treasury into the basement where they kept Veterans War Risk-Insurance Bureau claims, bound with red tape. They would actually cut through the red tape and bring it upstairs to be processed.
Because the Department of Veterans Affairs hadn’t been established yet, our centralized office had to work with a few different government departments to get veterans the benefits they needed. It’s because of this, we can proudly say, we’ve been helping veterans with benefits claims LONGER than the Department of Veterans Affairs has existed.
While it's not an easy mission, as the NVS staff at VFW’s Washington Office will attest, but one that grows increasingly more important each year. In 2017-18 alone, VFW’s NVS staff recovered a record-breaking $8.36 billion for veterans. Of that, $1.4 billion was for new clients. VFW service officers filed more than 109,000 new claims last year.
“What we do changes lives,” NVS Director Ryan Gallucci said. “It’s humbling, challenging and rewarding. The scope of responsibility the VFW has to make sure veterans understand their benefits and that those were earned is tremendous.”