- Contact the Committee

Good morning.

Today’s hearing will provide the Subcommittee with an opportunity to learn first hand about the efforts by the Department of Defense and the Department Veterans’ Affairs in assisting military service personnel transitioning from active military service to veterans’ status.

One of my goals as Chairman is to ensure that these efforts are transparent to the service member, a concept generally referred to as Seamless Transition.

Over the past several years, this Subcommittee has aggressively pursued implementation of Seamless Transition.

Past efforts have been met with mixed results.
Let me be very clear – I intend to ensure that seamless transition becomes a reality.

Our service personnel and their families deserve nothing less.

Separating from military service can be a very stressful event.

It is often filled with apprehension, trepidation and a great deal of uncertainty.

This is especially true for personnel that are injured or disabled in the performance of their duty.

It is also true for the families of military personnel whose loved ones may have received severe injuries like traumatic brain injury, spinal cord or other debilitating injuries.

We are all too familiar with stories in the national press about wounded service members falling through the crack in the process of transitioning from DoD with regards to health care, and compensation and disability benefits.

It is heart breaking to see these young men and women with serious injuries left destitute at the most trying time of their young lives.

One of my first initiatives as Chairman of this Subcommittee was to conduct field oversight activities. Recently we completed field visits at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa, Florida and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

I was pleased with the initiatives by both the DoD and the VA in their efforts to achieve seamless transition.

I look forward to hearing from the dedicated personnel that work hard every day behind the scenes to ensure our nation’s veterans receive the care that they deserve.

While I applaud the two agencies for their work, more can be done.

Overall, the goal of a seamless transition is to educate service members about VA benefits, and to provide the service member a single comprehensive medical examination that meets the requirements for DOD discharge physicals and VA’s disability and compensation examination.

That should also extend to other VA programs such as the GI Bill and Vocational Rehabilitation.

Ideally, service members who elect to file for disability and compensation would have a VA decision on their disability claim at the time of discharge.
In cases of severe injuries and disabilities, seamless transition should encompass a continuity of care and benefits when transferring from one health care system to another.

Today’s hearing will focus on the timely transfer of service members from military hospitals to VA medical centers, review of the Benefits Delivery at Discharge Program, and service specific initiatives.

The DoD and VA must get serious about working together to make this a reality and this Subcommittee stands ready to make that happen.