Veteran Issues

Senator Sununu has strongly supported efforts to improve the care and benefits that our nation’s 65 million servicemembers and 25 million veterans have earned and deserve.

Veterans Health Care -- John has worked tirelessly to improve the services offered to New Hampshire’s veterans and to ensure they have access to those services close to home. Senator Sununu helped secure a new Veterans Center in Berlin, and has furthered efforts to designate highly regarded facilities, including the Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield, as satellite care centers for war-related injuries. John also worked to secure a commitment by the VA to provide in-state radiation services for New Hampshire veterans. This care will provide significant benefits to both veterans and their families who will no longer have to travel long distance for treatment or visitation.

Recognizing the increased number of veterans returning from combat with “invisible injuries” such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injuries, John has cosponsored legislation designed to improve diagnostic and treatment services for such injuries in both active duty and reserve servicemembers.

Veterans Housing -- In 2006, John wrote and passed an amendment to the Veterans’ Housing Opportunity and Benefits Improvement Act to improve eligibility criteria for housing assistance grants to modify the homes of younger disabled veterans. John’s amendment allows veterans to receive up to three grants to ensure that veterans who move are able to modify their new home. The law also removed restrictions requiring veterans to own their home prior to receiving a grant, thus ensuring that younger veterans will have the funds to modify their parent’s home if necessary. John also cosponsored a successful amendment to recently considered housing legislation that increased the value of these grants.

Recent news reports have highlighted the unfortunate increase in the percentages of homeless veterans. In order to combat this unconscionable situation, John has been a strong supporter of increased funding for veterans’ housing assistance programs. Among some of his more recent accomplishments:

• Secured $1.9 million in Veterans Administration grants for facility upgrades to the state veterans’ home in Tilton (April 2007)
• Helped direct $400,000 to Harbor Homes Inc. of Nashua to help defray the costs of constructing Buckingham Place, a 20 unit transitional housing development for honorably discharged homeless veterans and their families. (November 2007)
• Worked to secure $50,000 in funds to improve services at Liberty House, a veterans’ homeless shelter in Manchester. (January 2008)
• Announced that almost $275,000 in Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Grants was headed to the state to provide rental vouchers for homeless veterans with disabilities. (May 2008)

Veterans Benefits -- John has been a longtime supporter of concurrent receipt legislation to permanently end the dollar-for-dollar reduction of retirement pay by disability benefit payments received by military retirees. Additionally, the Senator has supported efforts to eliminate the so-called “widow tax” on survivors of military retirees age 62 and up - an unfair tax that reduces the Survivor Benefit Plan annuity for older survivors of service members. Also, John supported legislation that modified and updated the education incentives in the GI Bill, increased the monthly benefit for college costs, and allows for the transfer of earned GI Bill educational assistance funds to a spouse or child.

John is currently a cosponsor of various bills designed to ensure that servicemembers and their families are able to make the most of their benefits and are not mistreated in the event of a family tragedy.

• S. 3008 would enhance the mental health services and benefits available to servicemembers, veterans, and their families.
• S. 2550 would prohibit the VA from collecting outstanding related debts owed by a servicemember or veteran who dies of an injury incurred or aggravated while serving in combat operations.
• S. 2874 would ensure that servicemembers who leave the military under existing “sole-survivors” polices, commonly following one or more combat related deaths in their immediate family, are eligible for previously promised benefits and not required to payback enlistment bonuses.

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