Tag Archive: VFW National

Notes from VFW National 

Notes from VFW National

If you’ve been on social media or checked your email inbox recently, you’ve no doubt received countless solicitations from law firms or agencies advertising their assistance with your VA claim in the wake of the PACT Act. 

From our National Veterans Service experts, here are some important things to remember: 

  • File a claim for any PACT Act conditions. 
  • Contact a VFW Accredited Service Officer today to discuss the PACT Act and what it means for you. 
  • Hold off on committing to a Camp Lejeune lawsuit until VA publishes how the offset will affect your settlement and benefits. 
  • NEVER PAY for claims assistance. Presumptive claims are straightforward and can easily be handled by any VA-accredited claims representative. 
  • If you’ve been fighting for years, you may think a PACT Act claim will be complicated. Good news: Presumptive claims are some of the simplest claims because VA is conceding that your illness happened because you went somewhere bad. 

Stay up-to-date with the PACT Act and what it means for your claim by visiting vfw.org/PACTActInfo. The VFW and our network of more than 2,000 accredited claims representatives will be by your side as we navigate through the interpretation and implementation of the PACT Act together. We won’t rest until every veteran receives the care and compensation they deserve. 

VFW Trivia

Most VFW members simply attend their Post meeting and remain fairly oblivious to the hierarchy of VFW which is fine since our involvement is primarily in our local community. However, each Post is a member of a District. Post 8870 is a member of District 1 and Washington state has 16 Districts in total.
An oddity is that there is a District 17 but no District 8. The Districts are there simply to assist the Posts in their tasks. At the state level, the VFW organization is described as a “Department” and the District Commanders together with the Department line officers form a group known as the “Council of Administration” whose job it is to govern the state organization. Beyond the state level, you have a National organization made up of the various Department Commanders and line officers elected at the National Convention. Like the military, you work within your chain of command so a Post member who has a grievance about a Post Commander would first approach his Judge Advocate who in turn refers the issue to the District Commander. That’s a very quick description of the organizational chart.