Veterans Administration

The organization responsible for taking care of the veterans of the nation's military services. The Veterans Administration provides a number of programs, services, and benefits to veterans and their families—including medical and health care, psychological care, educational and rehabilitative services, housing, transitional assistance to the civilian sector, and burial services.

In the United States, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is responsible for providing federal benefits to veterans and their families. The department was established on March 15, 1989, succeeding the previous Veterans Administration. The VA, headed by the secretary of veterans' affairs, is the second largest of the 15 Cabinet departments and operates nationwide programs for health care, financial assistance, and burial benefits.

There are approximately 26 million living U.S. veterans, of which nearly three-quarters served during a war or an official period of conflict. Approximately one-quarter of the nation's population, approximately 70 million people, are potentially eligible for VA benefits and services because they are veterans, family members, or survivors of veterans.

The nation's responsibility to care for its veterans, spouses, survivors, and dependents can last a long time. As noted in the literature of the VA, the last dependent of a Revolutionary War veteran died in 1911. Six children of Civil War veterans still draw VA benefits. Approximately 440 children and widows of Spanish-American War veterans still receive VA compensation or pensions.

[Page 792]Benefits for veterans include disability compensation and pensions, education and training, medical care, research, vocational rehabilitation, home loan assistance, insurance, and VA national cemeteries. For example, disability compensation is a monetary benefit paid to veterans who are disabled by injury or disease incurred or aggravated during active military service. As of 2003, approximately 2.8 million veterans received disability compensation or pensions from the VA. Also receiving VA benefits were 568,146 spouses, children, and parents of deceased veterans. Among them are 147,291 survivors of Vietnam-era veterans and 272,883 survivors of World War II veterans.

Likewise, education and training is also a benefit for veterans. The most well-known program is the GI Bill. Created in 1944, the GI Bill was the first veteran's training and education program, allowing veterans to go to school, providing tuition and fees for the costs of school, and providing a living allowance during the time the veteran attended school. Since its inception, more than 21 million veterans, service members, and family members have received $77 billion in GI Bill benefits for education and training. The number of GI Bill recipients includes 7.8 million veterans from World War II, 2.4 million from the Korean War, and 8.2 million post-Korean and Vietnam-era veterans (in addition to active-duty personnel). Since the dependents program was enacted in 1956, the VA also has assisted in the education of more than 750,000 dependents of veterans whose deaths or total disabilities were service-connected.