Before you transition out of the military, it’s hard to understand how the process will play out. And when it comes to VA benefits, care and services, it all feels so… complex. That’s why VA designed a clear and concise guide to your future benefits: VA’s Know Before You Go Workbook.
The Know Before You Go Workbook empowers transitioning service members and their families to make timely, informed decisions about VA benefits and services.
While VA’s Benefits and Services course’s interactive participant’s guide provides comprehensive information, Know Before You Go focuses on essential, time-sensitive tasks and organizes them by transition milestones. It serves as a personalized roadmap for accessing benefits, reducing information overload and ensuring deadlines are met.
Start by entering your separation or retirement date so the workbook can calculate deadlines. Use the timeline sections to track tasks such as applying for VA healthcare, filing disability claims and updating contact information. Refer to QR codes (within the Workbook) for quick access to VA resources.
Check out the Know Before You Go Workbook to learn more about how VA can help make your transition to civilian life a smooth one.
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I am an eighty-one year old Vietnam Veteran. TheVA is my primary source of medical care. I didn’t enroll until 2005 which brings me to the gist of this comment.
I separated from the USAF in 1967. I don’t remember being told of the VA at anytime prior or during my separation exams and/or interviews. Although, this being a very important subject, it wasn’t as critical then as now.
In those days, fifty or sixty years ago most employers provided health insurance at little or no cost to their employees. That being said, unless health/injury claims were involved, the VA offered no advantage over the private sector. Some veterans, if not most, knew nothing of the VA and the benefits it offered. As times changed, the cost of employer-paid insurance changed too. More of the cost was placed on the employee. This is more evident, today.
Because of this situation, more veterans have enrolled in the VA Healthcare program.
I talk to a good many veterans from time-to-time and am surprised at the number that are not aware of the VA to this day. The newer veterans are more aware of the VA and benefits available. This might be due to Agent Orange exposure and, later, the Burn Pits. I try to explain the importance and the benefits of enrolling in the VA Healthcare program to veterans that don’t know or have chosen not to participate.
Lastly, the Military Services need a dedicated program to insure transitioning veterans are aware of the VA and what it offers. Probably, not a bad idea to enroll automatically at separation.
Thank you for allowing the long comment.
The workbook is well-intentioned, but it is too dense, inconsistently timed, and occasionally overstates what VA can promise, problems that could confuse transitioning Service members at precisely the point they need clear direction.
This needs a substantial accuracy-and-usability edit before release. The timeline is visually overcrowded and internally inconsistent: it labels actions by months, days, and broad windows without clearly distinguishing “recommended,” “eligible,” and “required” deadlines.
For example, it says BDD can deliver a decision “within 30 days or less” after separation, an outcome VA cannot credibly promise, and frames FDC as an expedited pathway even though the legacy “FDC program” distinction is no longer a meaningful claimant choice in the way presented.
Several instructions are confusing or potentially wrong: “update your .mil email address” implies changing the address itself rather than updating VA contact information; the DD214 language overstates its role in all benefit determinations; and “submit a copy” of a finalized DD214 for every BDD claim may be unnecessary or duplicative where VA receives service data directly.
The home-loan section is especially inadequate: it appears only at the end, gives no practical COE timing or application steps, omits residual-income, occupancy, lender-shopping, entitlement-restoration, and funding-fee nuance, and misleadingly treats a COE as the main action rather than one part of purchase readiness.
We Vietnam vets wish we had something like this when we got out
Great job! Our father was an Army Vet and never applied for service / disability. He was old school. This looks like a very helpful guide. Thanks to those who took the time to put something like this together, support it, and promote it!