BY DAN HILDEBRAN
The City of Keystone Heights held its first veteran’s breakfast at the beach pavilion on Friday, November 8.
Mayor Nina Rodenroth said she hoped the event would be an annual affair, adding that she got the idea from meetings of the Florida League of Mayors.
“This has been a dream of mine since late last year,” she told the crowd. “I’m very excited that we’re able to put this on this year and hope to do it again next year.”
Florida has third-highest veteran population
The mayor continued with a slide deck, which she said was from a Florida League of Mayors presentation by Bob Asztalos, the Deputy Executive Director for Florida’s Department of Military Affairs.
According to the presentation, Florida has the nation’s third-largest veteran population, with more than 1.45 million veterans living in the state. Around half of those are over age 65, and 401,000 are service-connected disabled veterans.
The mayor outlined the benefits available to Florida veterans, including access to six hospitals and 49 outpatient clinics.
County Commissioner Betsy Condon added that Clay County’s nearly 60,000 veterans make up 25% of the county’s population.
Richard Carey, Clay County’s Veterans Service Officer, said he and the county’s two other accredited service officers help residents through the myriad of federal Veterans Affairs rules.
Don’t volunteer information
Tips he offered to the crowd included:
—When communicating with Veterans Affairs, don’t volunteer information. Some information veterans reveal during the evaluation process could disqualify them from benefits.
—When benefits are denied, the VA has an appeals process of which veterans can take advantage. Carey added that a significant amount of his time is spent on appeals.
“When you get that little report from the VA, it tells you why you got denied or why you got 10% and why you didn’t get the next higher rating,” Carey explained. “Most veterans don’t read that. They just look at it and go, I’m done. I’m tired of messing with the VA.”.
When the veteran dies, the benefits die
—Spouses of veterans need to know that when their spouse passes away, all the benefits from the VA stop.
“This one breaks my heart,” Carey said. “I get a veteran that passes away. A surviving spouse comes in and says, ‘They cut off the pay. I don’t have any money.’ They don’t understand that when the veteran passes away, all their benefits pass away with them. So, the VA disability pay goes away. Military retirement, if they had it, goes away. That all goes with the veteran.”
—If a death certificate of a veteran states the death was connected to his or her service or that a service-connected issue contributed to the veteran’s death, then the surviving spouse may be entitled to benefits.
“We’ve had a big issue with death certificates in Florida,” Carey said. “When a veteran passes away, we want that direct-connected item on the death certificate— that it was service-connected or a contributing factor.”
Carey gave one example of a veteran who died as a result of a fall. With the surviving spouse and physician present, Carey looked up the veteran’s information and saw that he had service-related diabetes and hypertension. Because the physician listed those service-related conditions as contributing factors to the fall, the spouse was awarded $1,600 a month for the rest of her life, tax-free.
Tracee Holzendorf of Here Tomorrow also addressed the group about her organization’s suicide prevention programs.
