Connecticut Launches First-In-Nation Program to Help Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Obtain Discharge Upgrades

 

Today, the Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), Vietnam  Veterans of America (VVA), the VVA Connecticut State Council (VVA-CT), and the Veterans Legal Services Clinic (VLSC) at Yale Law School launched the country’s first program to notify Connecticut veterans with “bad paper” discharges about new opportunities to seek discharge upgrades, and to connect them with service providers to assist them in this process.

Veterans with discharges below “honorable” can seek discharge upgrades to access benefits through administrative boards at the Department of Defense (DoD), a process that has recently been improved for veterans with post-traumatic stress.

“Bad paper discharges have a terrible impact on veterans’ lives,” said Dr. Tom Berger of  VVA. “Without upgrades, veterans are barred from the federal benefits they earned through their service, including disability compensation, health care, and education, and face barriers to private employment and a lifetime stigma due to their military record.”

For decades these boards have been hostile to post-traumatic stress-based applications and denied them on a near-categorical basis. This changed in 2014, when then-Secretary of Defense Chuck  Hagel directed discharge upgrade boards to give stronger consideration to evidence of post-traumatic stress  that led to veterans’ bad paper discharges.

Through the collaborative effort led by DVA, VVA, and VLSC at Yale Law School, detailed notices were mailed last week by the DVA to more than a thousand Connecticut Veterans informing them how to avail themselves of this new standard.

“This is another opportunity for Connecticut to serve our Veterans. We are taking a collaborative and proactive approach with our partners and have identified Veterans who resided in the state at the time of their discharge who may benefit from this program,” said DVA Commissioner Sean M. Connolly. “It is important to address errors due to undiagnosed post-traumatic stress that may have resulted in Other Than Honorable or Bad Conduct Discharges.”

Veterans groups, service providers, and DVA hope to close the information gap in Connecticut with this initiative, which targets veterans from all theaters of war: from World War II to the most recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This outreach is only the first step toward helping veterans apply for upgrades before the boards, which have been instructed to apply the new standard. Local service providers, including Vet Centers, Connecticut Veterans Legal Center, legal assistance offices, and clinics, are collaborating to help identified veterans navigate the upgrade process.

Additional resources and information about the discharge upgrade process are available for veterans and advocates at CTLawHelp.org/dischargeupgrades.

*Image courtesy CT.Gov