WINNEMUCCA - They served their country with honor, and now, they just hope that the federal government will continue to honor the promises it made to them.
Military veterans from Elko to Dayton and beyond filled the Humboldt County courthouse last Friday to share their concerns with one of their own, U.S. Army veteran and freshman House Republican Mark Amodei.
Some of them offered personal stories about their own experiences dealing with the Veterans Administration (VA), while others urged Amodei to ensure that federal funding for veterans' benefits continues - or increases.
The wide-ranging discussion was just what Amodei had in mind when he scheduled the meeting: He plans to hold quarterly get-togethers throughout the Second Congressional District to ensure that state, federal and local entities are maximizing the resources that are potentially available to veterans.
"The whole idea I think behind getting together informally every quarter is to make sure the right hand knows what the left hand is doing," he said. "Or if somebody's got a better mousetrap for how to, you know, do this, then we get that up."
In other words, he's hoping that the various agencies can avoid any duplication of veterans' services, while filling current gaps in coverage.
Veterans' groups may be able to help guide the process along by spreading the word to their members. But thousands of other veterans don't belong to any related organizations, and Dayton Valley VFW Post 8660 Commander Paul Eades suggested that Amodei needs better television and radio news coverage to reach those people.
If community outreach was one recurring theme at the meeting, so too was another: more funding for veterans' services.
One man told Amodei that the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress in Menlo Park, Calif., needs more financial help from Congress to ward off an "epidemic" of future problems.
To make his case, he called attention to a recent documentary that focuses on alarmingly high rates of suicide and incarceration among returning service members at a single military base.
"I don't believe that the VA system today is capable of handling even the Iraq and Afghanistan vets that need the help," he said.
Another man who did not identify himself took issue with the VA's current prescription drug program.
"We can get our prescriptions for less at Wal-Mart than we can at the VA, and the VA doctors can't give you a prescription (available through) Wal-Mart," the man said.
Amodei said he would look into the man's concerns. But he went on to add that he's heard from others who say the agency's pharmaceutical program is one of its success stories.
Those remarks drew an immediate response from the audience.
"There may be great deals on them," one man said. "They're giving us generic drugs, which are fine - they work. But we can go to Wal-Mart and get 'em for 10 bucks for three months, and the VA charges us $27."
However, one woman who did not identify herself said she's never even had the opportunity to find out about any deals on VA prescriptions.
The woman said she called the VA's Winnemucca Rural Outreach Clinic for an appointment three months ago. Yet to this day, she remains on a waiting list, she said.
That was a familiar refrain among others in the audience.
One man said he did get though to the local clinic, which then referred him to the VA's main facility in Reno for lab work services. However, he said the long trip to Reno proved to be all for naught.
"(The) Reno VA knew absolutely nothing - didn't even know we had a clinic out here," he said. "I went to the administration, I went to the patient advocate - nobody knew anything about it, and nobody could tell me how to go about getting the lab work done here so I wouldn't have to drive to Reno and drive back."
He eventually returned to the local VA clinic and explained the situation, which has now been resolved, he said.
"I'm getting it done through the clinic," he said. "It's available for us to use that, but nobody at the VA in Reno seems to understand we have a clinic out here, and they could be saving a lot of money."
Winnemucca resident Skip Hammargren said he doesn't understand why the VA can't make arrangements with Humboldt General Hospital, or vice versa.
"We could utilize a really, really good facility that's already here," he said.
Fresh off a tour of the local outreach clinic, Amodei noted that it may be able to put its "computer thing," or telemedicine system, to better use.
"It's like: well, maybe there's opportunities where they can use it for what they need to," he said.
Turning to other subjects, Amodei told audience members that he would oppose efforts to privatize the VA. He also assured them that reports of serious congressional efforts to cut funding for veterans' benefits have been greatly exaggerated by the media.
Joe Rigsby of Elko VFW Post 2350 brought the issue to Amodei's attention.
"That's the thing that I think a lot of people that I have spoken to in the last year are really concerned with," he said.
However, Amodei told Rigsby that he has nothing to worry about during the current House session, noting that the Veterans Affairs Committee is one of the most bipartisan entities in the House.
"That Democrat and Republican stuff doesn't go into the room at all, which I think is a good thing," he said.
At the same time, he suggested that veterans' benefits account for such a tiny percentage of the overall federal budget that Congress would have to find other ways to put a serious dent in the nation's deficit.
"No matter what you consider yourself, as a fiscal A to Z, you're not fixing the problems of the government right now with spending on less than 1 percent of the budget," he said.
Amodei currently plans to hold his next quarterly meeting on veterans' affairs in Elko. For more information, you can contact his Reno office at: (775) 686-5760, or his new Elko office at: (775) 777-7705.
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