Roughly 40 Disabled Veterans Took Advantage of the National Service Officers Mobile Office

Photo by Quay DeVoll

ZANESVILLE,Ohio- Roughly 40 local disabled veterans took advantage of the National Service Officers mobile office Wednesday.

Commander of the Zanesville Branch of the Disabled American Veterans Dr. David Schroder said this is a community outreach effort that gets the National Service Officers into local communities. It helps veterans right where they live instead of having the veterans go through the mail or contact some place in Cleveland or Dayton.

“Veterans who are living in the community will be able to get assistance,” Schroder said. “They will be able to get disability income if that happen to be disabled from the Veterans Administration. The Muskingum County Veterans Service Office does a good job of helping veterans in the county. But, there is other help available from the different veterans organizations and that’s why we’re here today.”

Dr. Schroder shared his experience with the Veteran’s Administration.

“I went to the county veterans service office. This was 30 years after I gotten off active duty. They filled out the paperwork for a claim, because I was shot in the leg over in Vietnam. And they gave it to me to send in. I put a first class stamp on it, put it in the mail. A year later, I hadn’t heard anything from the VA. So I went back to the county veterans service office, that’s when they told me that the VA throws away some of the mail they get. At least that was in 1995, I’m sure that’s changed since now. The submissions are done electrically,” Schroder said.

Dr. Schroder said the mobile unit regularly deals with the Veterans Administration and they can handle claims effectively.