VA’s www.va.gov/getstarted landing page makes it easier for Veterans and family members to access VA benefits and services information.
The website provides two newly updated booklets on information about VA benefits and services, as well as how to apply for them.
The first booklet is the 2021 Federal Benefits Handbook for Veterans, Dependents and Survivors. The handbook contains a comprehensive listing of VA benefits and services with direct links to contact benefits and services representatives. In fact, an index located on the inside cover lists both phone numbers and websites for easy reference.
Importantly, the handbook provides a legal overview on eligibility requirements to include the definition of a Veteran. Additionally, VA serves many generations of Veterans. There are specific qualification guidelines for distinct periods of service to clarify eligibility during both peacetime and wartime environments.
The handbook aligns with benefits information and services for VA’s three administrations: Veterans Health Administration; Veterans Benefits Administration; and Veterans Cemetery Administration. Also, a section of the handbook discusses non-healthcare services, such as homelessness, survivor assistance, women and minority Veterans, and many other programs.
The handbook is a one-stop resource for Veterans, family members and survivors. Limited printed copies may be available at medical centers or VBA regional offices. The website allows Veterans to access VA benefits and services information. 
Welcome to VA
The second resource booklet, the VA Welcome Kit, complements the handbook with easy-to-understand words and graphics to better navigate VA’s many benefits for Veterans and family members.
This booklet is structured on the idea that no two Veterans are the same, and not all experience major life events and moments in the same order.
Based on where a Veteran is in his or her life, VA serves Veterans in different ways. This resource includes a journey map to help explore how VA supports Veterans both now and in the future.
This resource also reviews VA benefits and services. This includes a useful check list to help Veterans learn and organize important documents needed for application purposes. In addition, Veterans can also learn eligibility periods for certain benefits, such as education or life insurance. The best part is that one can simply crosswalk a search by benefit, how it can help, documents required and VA points of contact.
Want to apply for health care, education, compensation, assistance for care givers, or memorial benefits? These are just a few of the resources in this booklet that can save Veterans time, increase their awareness and understanding of how to apply.
VA is working to take the complexity out of navigating its myriad benefits and services. Visit www.va.gov/getstarted to learn more about the VA benefits Veterans have earned with their service.
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Please send me a hard copy of both books or email them to me. There are problems with the website. Thanks.
Please send me a copy of each booklet since I have problems accessing them on line.
Edward H Wirth
Thank You Korean Vet
Hello is it possible to get a hardcopy of the 2021 VA Handbook mailed to me?. Thank you.
Honestly, the majority of elderly veterans prefer a hard copy rather than having a website. Please email me the handbook. Several if not most older veterans don’t use computers. Trust Me! My father is 90 years old. Some will not understand the math problem at the bottom. It’s to make certain comments are human generated? Again, please send a hard copy via email.
Your website is dysfunctional. Your “downloads” are not functional – they are just a download of the same webpage. A “download” implies you will receive a functional document, not a regurgitation of the webpage.
If you can’t do something as simple as providing a functional website, God only knows what the rest of the VA is like. We Veterans were promised a whole lot more!
Semper Fidelis
UPDATED COMMENT: It’s even worse. The links provided for the so-called “download” do not work. They only produce the following: ” File not found. It may have been moved, edited, or deleted. ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND”
There is no way to “download” either of the VA Benefits files advertised on the VA website.
Please send me hard copies of both!
Semper Fidelis
Hi Mike,
It took me quite a few tries and a couple of different browsers, but I finally got the VA Benefits Book and the VA Welcome kit downloaded to PDF format.
Semper Fi
Sight. It’s sad when you have all your body parts and you cannot get any help. Now, I am an amputee, I cannot even get physical therapy; I have no one (just me, myself and I.) I have learned to: “Pray about everything and worry about nothing.” May, I request for a hard copy of the book to be mail to my home address?
Thank you
Miss Dale Baptiste
i would like a hard copy of this booklet. three if i could, and kit.
I would like a hard copy of the New VA benefits book. Thank you
I would also like a hard copy of this book. Please let me know how I can request a copy.
Thank you and I appreciate your help.
I would like a hard copy sent to me, please.
I would also like a hard copy of this book. Please let me know how I can request a copy.
Thank you.
Quenton DeGolier
I would also like a hard copy mailed to me. Also never filed for my diagnosed ptsd. Would like to learn how to file.
I also would like a printed copy of the handbook and the VA handbook. Not only for myself but for my wife who knows little about computers; websites etc. I am a vietnam veteran. Thanks.
Hello, I would like a copy mailed to me for my husband who is a disabled vet.
I would like to have hard copies of both books
Hard copy, please.
How do we go about getting hard copies? Not all of us are into this on line BS.
I would like a hard copy sent to me by US Post Office please.
I would also like a kit and booklet. Maybe I am not getting all that I was suppose to get . He died over 2 years ago. Agent orange exposure was also on his death certificate. He had lung cancer. He was 100 percent connected. Had all kinds of health issues.
Mrs. Mayes,
Are you receiving DIC-Disability and Indemnity Compensation? This would be $1357 dollars a month? Do you have a DOD issued ID Card? Are you enrolled and accessing CHAMPVA as your health insurer 2nd payer to Medicare and in addition depending on your State you may be eligible for a host of additional benefits.
How can I get a hard copy of this Booklet?
Can I pick up a hard copy at a VA clinic?
I get File not Found when I try to download the “HELLO. Welcome to VA. Let’s get Started” pamphlet
Please update the links.
Thank you!
If you click on the link, it should take you to the document. We verified earlier today.
I would like a hard copy of the benefits book. It’s very hard to keep up with changes and navigate the VA. I’m a 100% service connected disabled.
Thank you. I clicked on the initial link you provided and downloaded both documents. My father served starting 1959, and I’m just getting him around to apply for VA health. I’ve used it since 1998.
I would like a copy also. It would be nice if the military would give you a copy of what you have available. Every step of the way you have to find things out for yourself. I was suppose to receive spousal money every month from the day of my husbands disability and the person who wrote up his information put not married. We have been married 56 years including the time he was in Viet Nam and I got 6 months back pay when they realized this typographical error.
Good afternoon I would like a hard copy of this book and kit please. Thank you
I’m 70% disabled and would like copy of book sent to me.
I would like a hard copy of both books mailed to me.
A hard copy of benefits book will be helpful. It is so discouraging every time you file to be denied.
WHAT IS THIS AT THE END OF COMMENTS WHERE YOU HAVE TO SOLVE A MULTIPLICATION PROBLEM ? AND IT WON’T LET YOU POST TILL YOU PUT IN AN ANSWER ! I EVEN TRIED A WRONG ANSWER !
NOTHING IS TOO GOOD FOR THE VET,
AND THAT’S WHAT THEY GET !!!
No that is what you get. If you have not been in the military then you need to keep your mouth closed and quit talking out of the side of your neck. If it was not for the veteran’s of this country you would not have a place to live.
I would also like a print copy of this book. I cannot print so many pages
I would like a hard copy of this new VA benefits book and kit sent to me.
I would like a hard copy of the Veterans Book explaining benefits.
Carolyn Price Requests a 2021 Federal Benefit and Kit package please
After almost 6 years of inaccurate responses, no responses or only getting call backs after days and then only on their schedule, never when I could take the call (hmmm, maybe I could have spoken to a real person when I called them), I flat gave up on the VA. Lost a significant portion of my hearing 3.5 years working around jet engines in helicopters in the 70’s. I’d just like some help with the cost of hearing aids. Submitted a packet of documents along with hearing test after getting help from Multnomah County only to be told that I didn’t qualify for VA healthcare because I earned too much. When I finally got to speak to someone a few years later, he said that was BS because I would never have been told that. (Basically calling me a liar without even looking up my records.) End of message. Good luck on getting help from the VA.
I have worked for the Portland VA for many years in Audiology, To get hearing aids you don’t have to be enrolled in the VA health Care System but you do have to have a comp and pen claim for hearing loss or/and tinnitus. File the claim, and once approved get your free hearing care and a couple of extra bucks every month. Thanks for your service.
Where can I get a hard copy?
How can I rexeive a bookelet and kit?
Where can I get a hard copy? Do you mail them out?
would like to have a hard copy
I WANT ONE ALSO, I GET 100% PLUS CAREGIVER AND WANT TO SEE THE BENEFITS THAT VA SAYS I HAVE. ALL I GET FROM VA IS $ AND BS. TO PRINT THE BOOKLET IS IS ABOUT 150 PAGES
Agrees 100% w/RANDAL. Whereas I TOO WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE RECEIVING A HARD/SOFT COPY OF ALL THESE BENIFITS. ASAP. Can’t take it with you!!!
Me too….I’d love a copy to see what my husband’s 20 year service is entitled to.
Too bad we can’t just automatically get it mailed/emailed to us. After all, we dedicated our whole families lives to the military-with no regrets.
Thank you to whoever can get us a copy.
I am asking that the Manila Philippines clinic treat all veterans. This is the only VA clinic that does not treat non-service connected vets,
I agree with above comment about community care not anwsering the phone. Over three hours on three different days. Bring back Tri West, at least there is a live person you can talk to. You need a shot of reality.
Pavios is right…one of the weakest services in the VA is communications. It’s horrible. When I call to renew a prescription (among other issues), I have to explain the same story to 4=5 different people before I get to the right person, if I ever do. Often get cut off before reaching the right person, and have to re=dial and listen to all of that automated BS all over again.
You can write all of the books and pamphlets that you want, but if you can provide the services those books and pamphlets aren’t worth the paper that they are printed on. The Federal Govt. has come a long way with helping VETS, but not far enough yet. Just a note to the FED’s, (You Owe Us, We don’t Owe You) Don’t write checks with your mouth that your a** cant cash.
Agree 100%. You tell them.
Where can you get hard copies?
I’m a Vietnam era vet and was told when I got out of the army that I would have free health benefits for life. In 2019 I got injured and went to the VA and was told that I would have to pay. What ever happened to the government keeping their word to vets?
I am a Vietnam era vet and was told that I would have free health benefits for life. In February 2019 I got injured and was told that I made too much ! What ever happened to the government keeping their word to our vets?
IAM 90% RECIEVED PERSONNEL HAND BOOK AT 60% IS THIS A NEW BOOK? DOES IT SUPERSEED MY BOOK? OR CAN I REQUEST
UP DATE TO MY BOOK?
Very nice to prepare this booklet in “easy to understand language”. Trouble is, it is impossible for veterans to get Community Care on the telephone for help. The phone is constantly busy and to add insult to injury, there is a stupid inane message that repeats and repeats. I have waited over an hour for someone to answer and just gave up.
You can print a nice pretty booklet in easy to understand language, but you can’t even get your phones to work.
Shame.
Word
Requesting Federal Benefit and Kit package please.
I’m the service officer for American Legion post 361 in South Daytona FL. I’ll take as many booklets you will send me because I meet with and help Veterans and their families on a regular basis.
You can contact your County Veterans Service Officer who may help you identify and apply for benefits you may be eligible to receive, or, file a service-connected disability compensation claim and also file an appeal if you disagree with a VA decision for a benefit you filed for. Unlike most attorneys, CVSO’s do not charge for their services.