Assisting Those Who Served

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting, Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition, and by a grant from the state of Wisconsin's Dose of Reality Real Talks, reminding you that opioids are powerful drugs and that one pill can kill. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: We're recording this podcast just a few days before Veterans Day, a day that we honor the service of those who have served our country. Some folks, including our guest today, make sure those veterans receive the assistance and benefits that they're not only due, that they rightfully earned. Rebekka Cary is a County Veteran Service Officer for Columbia County in Portage, Wisconsin.

Mike: She was a First Sergeant in the Illinois Air National Guard and is a member of the National Association of County Veterans Service Officers. Welcome Rebekka, and thanks so much for doing this.

Rebekka: Thank you so much for having me on, Mike. I appreciate it.

Mike: And a happy early Veterans Day.

Rebekka: Thank you.

Mike: Yeah, let's start with your job.

Mike: For those people who don't know, and I was among them until I worked with you all, what do county and tribal veteran service officers do?

Rebekka: Our primary function is to be a veteran's advocate, so we help veterans with all thing veteran related. And some things not veteran related even, but we primarily do disability benefits, education benefits, financial benefits, all of those type of things that veterans deal with.

Rebekka: We are here to help them navigate through those systems. And here in Wisconsin it is by state statute. There's one of me in every single county and tribes. So there's 83 county and tribal veteran service officers and here in Wisconsin. And then of course, some of us have additional office staff as well.

Rebekka: We're here to help a veteran.

Mike: And speaking of the system, and you already said it. "The system" (air quotes) and yes, for those of you listening and not watching I just did air quotes, is not easy to navigate.

Rebekka: No it's not. And one of the first things I wanna start out with is "the system" (air quotes), and I'm using the air quotes as well.

Rebekka: When it comes to VA specifically, there's actually three separate and distinct parts of the VA, three different administrations within the VA. There's the VA healthcare administration, the VA benefits administration, and the VA cemetery administration. They don't talk to each other. They don't work in conjunction with each other.

Mike: That's shocking Rebekka, right? (laughs)

Rebekka: Yeah. (laughs)

Rebekka: So when come somebody comes to me and says I told them at the VA. And I'm like, who did you tell? What are you trying to accomplish? And who did you tell? Because if you're looking for disability compensation and you talk to your VA doctor about it.

Rebekka: That's not to get you anywhere, you actually have to go to the benefit side and specifically request that compensation for that disability, not just discuss the severity of the disability with your doctor. That can be confusing in and of itself for somebody who's not used to being around VA stuff all the time.

Mike: And how would you know that?

Rebekka: Yeah. (laughs) It's on their website, but their website has a lot of information and that's just as hard to navigate sometimes.

Mike: Yeah.

Rebekka: And then we have a lot of older veterans who don't even have a computer. Right, there's no way for the general public to know that. I didn't know that before I started doing this job 13 years ago.

Mike: I think we're lucky here in Wisconsin. Like you said, we have a representative in every county and every tribe. But there is a national organization too right. And do you know off the top of your head, how many states have a service organization?

Rebekka: So there are 23 states that the state has an association that is a member of the National Association. And 37 states actually have individuals that are members of the National Association of County Veteran Service Officers, NACVSO. So yeah, 37 states have individual members and 23 states are members as a state.

Mike: Does that mean that 13 states that you're on your own or?

Rebekka: Actually only 32 states in total have county veteran service officers. We are very lucky here in Wisconsin.

Mike: Yeah.

Rebekka: That there is somebody in every county because some of the other states, even though they have county veteran service officers and call them that, they sometimes have three or four or five.

Rebekka: They're more regionalized and have multiple counties that one individual covers. Where here in Wisconsin we have somebody in each individual county.

Mike: What is your job like? How many people will you see during the course of a week, a day, or service?

Rebekka: Oh boy. So we actually try to schedule appointments. How we do it here.

Rebekka: Now every county is different and so even though I'm a member of the state association and NACVSO, so I am still employed by my county. So every county sometimes runs differently. But for the most part I schedule clients to come in and I generally only schedule three to four at most for a day.

Rebekka: Just because there's a lot of background work to do as well.

Mike: Right.

Rebekka: We accept walk-ins if we can. If we're not with clients. I do have an assistant CVSO who's a fully qualified service officer also, so both of us can help veterans in whatever way. And so we each have generally two to three appointments a day and then accept walk-ins as we can.

Rebekka: Some days, most days, our phones ring off the hook.

Mike: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Rebekka: Yeah. (laughs) We were laughing about that earlier this week. Like we couldn't get off the phone fast enough with one before the next one started coming in. So we are quite busy. We have about 4,000 veterans here in Columbia County that we help out.

Rebekka: And we also help the family members. So that number does not include the surviving spouses or children of veterans that we help also.

Mike: Wow. Are all of the service officers veterans themselves?

Rebekka: Here in Wisconsin to be the CVSO, County Veteran Service Officer, or an assistant. If that is the title in the office. It is required to meet the veteran status per our state statute.

Rebekka: So there are certain requirements to be considered a veteran here in Wisconsin. And yes, you must be a veteran in order to hold the position. That is not the case in every single state, however, but here in Wisconsin it is.

Mike: That must really help you when you're working with an individual or a family that you know what road they're walking down.

Rebekka: I definitely think it's a huge help. I can speak the lingo generally, except for the Navy, and I never understand the Navy stuff. I was Air Force I was actually Army and Air Force. But the Navy, I never understand, but it deffinitely helps because I understand what they're talking about.

Mike: Yeah.

Rebekka: When they start telling me about the 12 mile road marches and all what we call their battle rattle, all the gear they were wearing. Like I get where they're coming from and I understand that. So even if I haven't necessarily done everything that they've done, which a lot of times I have not, I still at least have some understanding of what they've been through.

Mike: On the ground. I know it differs from state to state, county to county but in the news are all the stories about program cuts and the whole thing that started last February, cutting VA services. What have you found on the ground as far as programs and the accessibility? Has there been cuts?

Mike: Does it show up in your work?

Rebekka: So I'm gonna talk about the different administrations and I'm gonna leave out the cemetery administration 'cause I don't deal much with them. I order burial markers and that's about it. But on the healthcare side the care itself, I have not seen a super decline in, although I've had veterans complaining to me about maybe taking longer to get in.

Rebekka: So it's more the personnel on the healthcare side of it that are lacking enough staff to get the veterans in as quickly and with as much care as they'd like. On the benefits side of it, where the disability compensation or the pension comes in, the financial assistance for certain veterans.

Rebekka: Again, it's a personnel issue. We've been seeing just not as thorough as work as we'd like to have done.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

Rebekka: They're trying to process through a lot of the claims as quickly as they can, and I just don't feel like they're doing as thorough job as they need to.

Rebekka: And right now with the shutdown, there's a lot of supervisory positions who have been furloughed, have been told to go home. So they're still processing through those disability claims and all the claims that go with for survivor's benefits and all of those, but there's nobody to turn to right now if there's an issue with something. We just gotta send them a letter and hope they read it eventually and pray.

Rebekka: And so right now they're still moving along with their stuff. They're just not doing it as efficiently and there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff not getting done.

Mike: I would think that what that means is when the shutdown ends, and hopefully it will at some point, that there'll be there's some mess to clean up at some place,

Rebekka: I agree. Yes. I think there's gonna be a lot of mess. One of the things I've seen a lot on social media is everything seems to be running fine with all these people furloughed, why don't we just get rid of them? And I don't think they see all the stuff in the background that's not getting done now.

Rebekka: And all the things that'll have to be fixed.

Mike: Yeah.

Rebekka: Once the government opens back up.

Mike: People never see the real picture. Let's talk about why it's important. For the benefit of our conversation, mental health and substance use challenges in addition to the physical stuff are not unusual among veterans.

Mike: And sometimes leads to homelessness. In fact I think I read that the substance use disorders are among veterans are nearly twice the rate of that of civilians.

Rebekka: Yeah. And I think a lot of that has to do with self-medication for their mental health. As well as the physical injuries.

Rebekka: I know a lot of people who want to avoid the drugs, the prescription drugs, in order for the painkillers. They don't like 'em, they don't like the effects of them, but maybe marijuana helps them or they use alcohol to deal with their own mental health issues, which of course usually exacerbates the issue.

Rebekka: But I think a lot of it is self-medication.

Mike: When I last saw you at the, I spoke to your group a couple of weeks ago, and I always get there early and talk to people. I really enjoy that. Everybody I talked to had something going on for themselves, whether it was ringing in the ears from their deployment or a bad back, or anxiety, depression that came from it.

Mike: So we should expect that people who have served are going to experience some of this stuff.

Rebekka: And, some people think ringing in the ears, how bad can that be?

Mike: (laughs)

Rebekka: And for those who don't experience it, they should count their blessings. Because I have constant ringing in my ears.

Rebekka: It's happening right now. And yes, mine was from my military experience as well. But I have to have something noisy. I cannot be in a quiet room because it's so bad. It literally drives me bonkers, it's maddening. And it's never ending. And there's no cure for it.

Mike: Where did it come from?

Rebekka: So mine in particular started when I was on a funeral duty. I know that sounds funny, but I did honor guard duty for about 19 months. So almost two years. And every day we would go out and we'd travel all over Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and even sometimes into Northern Indiana. And we would perform the military honors at funerals of deceased Air Force people.

Rebekka: And part of the funeral honors is firing those. We had and ones that we fired and they're very loud and it wasn't convenient or nice looking to stop and put earplugs in. So we fired multiple times a day, multiple rifles there with no hearing protection. And that's where mine started.

Mike: Wow.

Mike: Okay. Can we talk about that for just a second? 'Cause I was gonna say, I suppose it's not fashionable to wear noise canceling headphones.

Rebekka: Exactly! (laughs)

Mike: Is it a peer sort of thing? It's like watching football players who won't wear the concussion guard on their helmet or was it protocol

Rebekka: For us, it was just more of a, it was almost like putting on a show when you do a funeral, honestly.

Mike: Yeah. Right, it is.

Rebekka: And that didn't fit with stop and put earplugs in.

Mike: Sure.

Rebekka: It didn't look good as part of the program we were putting on for the families. So that's why we didn't. Eventually they kinda, our supervisors said, hey, we really need to start watching this.

Rebekka: And because everybody was having ringing in their ears and so we kind of would go off into a corner, try to hide it and put them in. But for the first probably year, it just didn't look good as part of it.

Mike: Wow. One of the ladies I was talking to there had the ringing in the ears from, I think she said, loading mortars, all the time.

Mike: It's very similar thing I would think.

Rebekka: Yeah, definitely. A lot of the veterans we deal with have it from just being in a combat zone. They give you hearing protection, But all of a sudden if you're marching down a road and don't have those in, 'cause you're talking to your buddy and you get attacked, it's not like you can say, enemy please stop let me get my hearing protection in. So a lot of our veterans have it from combat zones or from just doing their job every day. When you're on the flight line by the F-16s all day, every day it's very noisy, it's very loud. And even wearing hearing protection doesn't always necessarily stop the excess noise.

Mike: One of the things, Rebekka, that I read that was just staggering to me is, on the mental health side, is that suicide is the second leading cause of death among veterans under 45. And we lose 17 per day in this country. You want people to reach out.

Rebekka: Absolutely there are. So, excuse me, this is a subject that touches my heart quite a bit and chokes me up a little bit.

Rebekka: But there are so many resources available to veterans and through the VA and some through our state that are veteran specific. So somebody who has been in combat. It is going to be a little bit different than somebody who say, gets hit by a tornado or is in a house fire or something.

Rebekka: And they're very veteran specific and so they really know how to deal with veterans themselves and know how to deal with the mental health situations that they're dealing with. So we absolutely want people to reach out to us. I'm not a mental health counselor by any means, but I can certainly put them in touch with the people who can get them that counseling and if they're in a rural area, we have a lot of rural areas here in Wisconsin and the CVSOs in those rural areas know who to reach out to, know who to talk to, know where to send those veterans to get that help. So we definitely want them to reach out.

Rebekka: And it's not just for that mental health, we really try a holistic approach. Do we need to get you employment? Do we need to get you education, do we need to get you disability compensation? What can we do as a holistic approach to make that veteran as whole as possible?

Mike: Along those lines, I was reading on the mental health side that about almost 50% of the veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq have been diagnosed with at least one mental illness, that's a huge issue. Those people who haven't served who are listening to this, don't understand the trauma that comes with just being there.

Rebekka: No, they don't. And you can't explain it to somebody who has never been there.

Rebekka: You can't. And one, one of the things, especially civilians don't realize is mental health is a very invisible disease.

Mike: Yes.

Rebekka: So when you look at somebody and you're like, they don't look disabled 'cause you think of the person who got blown up by an IED maybe and is missing a limb, but mental health problems are real and they're severe.

Rebekka: And I think part of the reason that so many have the diagnosis now, is it's losing the stigma of being a bad thing.

Mike: I sure hope that's true, right?

Rebekka: Yeah, I do.

Mike: What do you think keeps people from reaching out?

Rebekka: Some of it, I think they just don't know what they don't know. I'm always shocked by the number of people who don't know that people like me exist, that we are here to help.

Rebekka: And maybe they went to the VA 10 years ago and were told, you're not eligible to get care here. And they don't know to go back and ask again. Laws change, rules change, eligibility criteria changes and usually it makes it better. And so they just don't know what they don't know, and they don't know who to talk to.

Rebekka: Or maybe they got rejected for a disability claim 10 years ago, and now they're very, excuse my French, but F the VA, I don't wanna have anything to do with them. And so that I think is a huge barrier. They just don't know where to turn.

Mike: And you mentioned rural areas. In smaller communities where everybody knows everybody, there still is some stigma.

Rebekka: Yes, there is.

Mike: Yeah.

Rebekka: Definitely.

Mike: Do you think that's also is there a, sounds bad, but is there a male thing to suck... I was told my whole life, suck it up, rub some dirt on it.

Rebekka: Suck it up and drive on.

Mike: Yeah.

Rebekka: I think that's a military mentality. I'm a tough guy or I'm a tough girl and I can get through it and I can take care of myself and I don't need anybody else.

Rebekka: And so I think there's a lot of that. Even not just necessarily with the mental health issues, but the physical issues. My knee hurts. I'm gonna pop a Motrin and go to work because I need a paycheck. So you don't go to your doctor and complain. You just don't do that.

Rebekka: So I think that it's definitely more prevalent in the males that I deal with. (laughs) Which is a majority of my clientele 'cause a majority of the veterans are male. But it's definitely across the board a military thing.

Mike: But when we look at this stuff, when programs are funded and there are resources available, those rates of suicide and go way down.

Mike: And when those programs are not available, they go up. So yeah. Makes sense.

Rebekka: Because those programs are definitely worth it. And I think one of the big things is having the programs in each of the, like VA facilities in the community. For example, we have suicide prevention counselors down in at the Madison VA and they go out and they do a lot of different outreach programs and they do suicide prevention instructions, classes, but it's geared towards the people in this community.

Rebekka: And I think that is super, super important because the people that are in Madison have different needs than those say in New York or in Naples, Florida or in Seattle, or in San Diego. And so having those individual programs and having them tailored to the community is super important as well.

Mike: And there is a big difference between rural Wisconsin and Naples, Florida.

Rebekka: Exactly. (laughs)

Mike: We're right at the cusp of bad weather, mentioning San Diego and Naples was not fair of you to do, I don't think.

Rebekka: Oh, I know I'm gonna Phoenix in a couple of weeks.

Mike: Oh, that's where I grew up. I'm envious. I'm envious. I like it there.

Mike: So your work has to be rewarding because you're still doing it after a decade.

Rebekka: Yes. I've completed 13 years now. And so I'm just gonna give you an example of the girl who I called in yesterday. We've been fighting for benefits for her.

Rebekka: She just got granted a hundred percent benefits. She's got four children at home. She's not able to work. Not because of the children, but because of her mental health actually. She got PTSD while she was serving. And I called her in and I said, okay, you got granted the a hundred percent and here's what your new amount's gonna be and this is what that means for additional benefits.

Rebekka: And she actually sat here and cried and she said, this is life changing. You've changed my life. Which I didn't really do that, I just did my job, but that makes it a hundred percent worth it when you can help somebody who absolutely deserves it.

Mike: And somebody who served their country and through no fault of their own is probably wondering, what do I got and why do I have it?

Rebekka: Yeah. And I think even more so is for her it was the validation. This happened to me while I was serving.

Mike: Yes.

Rebekka: And she was completely like, I finally feel validated. So for a lot of the veterans, especially when it comes to the disability compensation, it's not necessarily about that money that they get coming into their bank every month.

Rebekka: It's, I want you to understand that serving my country did this to me.

Mike: We can talk about that for a second. 'Cause that's a struggle for a lot of people, a lot of friends of mine who are like, come on, you know in the private sector they talk about, a delay and deny, right?

Mike: Veterans have experienced that same thing when the government wants to turn a blind eye to things from, everything from Agent Orange, to mental health difficulties. And so it must be validating for somebody in the government to say, yeah, you know what we really appreciate your service and thank you so much.

Mike: And we understand, here you go.

Rebekka: It absolutely is. And especially when maybe there's no proof in their records that this happened.

Mike: Yeah.

Rebekka: Or, we have to find other ways to show that yes, this did happen. And so when they can get granted that disability rating.

Rebekka: Even if it's a low rating that they at least have that yes, the government finally acknowledges that this happens to me. And then you have the toxic exposures, like you mentioned Agent Orange, there was the burn pits in the Gulf War, in Iraq and Afghanistan. So to recognize that the government put people in harm's way by doing this around them, like having those burn pits or spraying that Agent Orange. For the government to actually award those and say, yes, we did this to you.

Rebekka: That's very validating for most of our veterans as well.

Mike: So do you have to walk a tight rope between representing and also seeing some of the glitches in the system, or are you so strong on the advocate side that.

Rebekka: Here's the great thing about being a county employee. If the benefits side gets it wrong, I can tell 'em they're wrong and I don't care whether they like me or not 'cause they don't sign my paycheck.

Mike: That's great.

Rebekka: So I get to truly be a veteran's advocate. And help those veterans who are so deserving of it. And I try to help every single veteran, and I'm sure most CVSOs are like this that comes through my door because I've had some weird things before come in where I'm just like, I don't know where this is gonna go.

Rebekka: And then you start talking to the guy and you're like, okay, that really happened to you. Even though it sounds off the wall or whatever. So I don't make the judgements here. I just get to help the veterans. So I get to help people every day it's great.

Mike: That's great.

Mike: I'll let you go with this.

Mike: What do you want people to know? What would you like the takeaway to be?

Rebekka: Here in Wisconsin, there's one of us in every single county, and you can go to wicvso.org and find them and reach out to them. Even if you've been turned down before or you were told before you weren't eligible for a veteran.

Rebekka: Like I said, things change and so reach back out to your CVSO and get the help you deserve.

Mike: And I will put a link to that and the national organization on the blurb to the podcast. And when you do click on the website, one of the first things you'll see is Find Your Representative, Find Your County.

Mike: Terrific.

Mike: Rebekka thank you so much. Not only for doing this podcast, but for your service before and continued service now.

Mike: For all of you listening, watching, we hope you find help, support wherever you are. As always, thanks for listening. Be safe. And for those of you who served, you have our gratitude.