The expansion of VA benefits and services eligibility is massive, and all Veterans should see if the PACT Act impacts them.
If you are able—please join us for the following events in March. You’ll be able to speak to VA experts on your eligibility and take the next steps to receive the care and benefits you’ve earned.
You can also check your eligibility at www.va.gov/PACT. There, you’ll be able to view eligibility for all countries, conflicts, conditions and other information to determine your next steps.
To help you navigate your earned benefits and resources, VA created the Accessing PACT Act Benefits and Services map. Download it, share it, follow it.
Columbia, SC | National Guard Armory | March 23, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Waterloo, IA | Waterloo VA Clinic | March 23, 2023 | 8:00 AM – 1:00 PM |
Bakersfield, CA | Greater LA Healthcare | March 23, 2023 | 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM |
Danville, VA | Danville VA Clinic | March 23, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM |
Fort Meade, SD | Fort Meade VA Medical Center | March 23, 2023 | 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM |
Jacksonville, FL | Jacksonville 2 VA Clinic | March 23, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Cary, NC | Herbert C. Young Community Center | March 23, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Shiprock, NM | Shiprock Fairgrounds | March 24, 2023 | 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM |
Willoughby, OH | Lake County VA Clinic | March 24, 2023 | 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Columbia, SC | National Guard Armory | March 24, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Bayamon, PR | VA Caribbean Healthcare | March 24, 2023 | 8:00 AM – 3:30 PM |
Cary, NC | Herbert C. Young Community Center | March 24, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Crownpoint, NM | Albuquerque VA Medical Center | March 25, 2023 | 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM |
Chicago, IL | Auburn Gresham VA Clinic | March 25, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Columbia, SC | National Guard Armory | March 25, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
West Haven, CT | West Haven VA Medical Center | March 25, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM |
Salinas, PR | Camp Santiago Military Base | March 25, 2023 | 10:45 AM – 12:15 PM |
Cary, NC | Herbert C. Young Community Center | March 25, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Gaithersburg, MD | Montgomery County VA Clinic | March 25, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM |
Zuni, NM | Pueblo of Zuni Wellness Center | March 26, 2023 | 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM |
St Louis, MO | St. Louis Community College | March 27, 2023 |1:00 PM – 4:00 PM |
Augusta, ME | VA Maine Healthcare System | March 27, 2023 |6:00 AM – 8:00 PM |
Portland, OR | Portland VA Medical Center – Portland | March 28, 2023 |12:00 PM – 6:00 PM |
Mason City, IA | Mason City VA Clinic | March 29, 2023 |8:00 AM – 1:00 PM |
Detroit, MI | John D. Dingell VA Medical Center | March 29, 2023 |8:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Jackson, MS | C.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center | March 29, 2023 |1:00 PM – 2:30 PM |
Bay Pines, FL | C.W. Bill Young VA Medical Center | March 29, 2023 |9:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Manchester, NH | VA Medical Center Manchester | March 30, 2023 |9:00 AM – 12:00 PM |
Lockport, NY | Lockport VA Clinic | March 30, 2023 |10:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
Fort Dodge, IA | Fort Dodge VA Clinic | March 30, 2023 |8:00 AM – 2:00 PM |
Beaumont, TX | Beaumont VA Clinic | March 30, 2023 |11:00 AM – 4:00 PM |
Prescott, AZ | Bob Stump Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center | March 30, 2023 |9:00 AM – 2:00 PM |
Spokane, WA | Mann-Grand staff VA Medical Center | March 30, 2023 |6:00 PM – 10:00 PM |
White River Junction, VT | WRJ VA Medical Center | March 30, 2023 | 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET |
Honolulu, HI | Honolulu VA Medical Center | March 30, 2023 | 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM HT |
Carrol, IA | Carroll VA Medical Clinic | March 31, 2023 | 8:00 AM – 2:00 PM CT |
Greensburg, PA | Westmoreland County VA Clinic | March 31, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM ET |
Lihue, HI | Kauai Vet Center | March 31, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM HT |
Fairbanks, AK | Fairbanks VA Medical Center | March 31, 2023 | 12:00 AM – 4:00 PM AKT |
Asheville, NC | Asheville VA Medical Center | April 1, 2023 | 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM ET |
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Great! And what about those of us who can’t get there? 2 hour drive, without a car. Thanks!
I needed help with an appeal. At Jacksonville Florida event, Talked to one of the VA reps there from St Petersburg a (Mr James Brown). no kidding real name. He took my info – email , phone number and said he would reach back out to me. NO COMMUNICATIONS from him. Will VA employees lie to vets. NO way
Mr Brown just contacted me a few hours after i posted. Thank you
You know what you dont see in any of this? A voting forum where veterans
are asked pro or con what they want. Let them both pitch the ideas and
vote on them in mass. Nation wide, and polled by VISN, state.
Sec of VA Denis McDonough and his crowd cherry pick loyalist to have
hidden forums with. One sided town hall meetings where they let people
they want to speak up. So these events are very passive and give VA what
it wants more than what it needs. There not the first either. Been about
10 years of this. Ive tried like hell and never given a chance in them.
In 2010 in flirted with Uservoice. It has real potential and it showed it. The
method was on track, and I rode VA about that. VA quickly killed this off
realizing at some point they would have to act on this. Then they deleted the
contents to people could not find it. No more ideas, no more equality.
The internet can be a tool, and it can help people be heard in ways that
driving up isnt a option. It was supposed to. Only, its been a very one sided
tool VA has tried to bury opinion in broad daylight. Chatbar sessions during
Webinars and Webex meetings tell the story of what people are thinking,
so its ignored during meetings, screened for pro-comments only, and not
recorded to avoid accountability. Its treated like a mosh pit.
Its time to remove the firewall, and use what is supposed to be a communication
tool as it was intended. Rather than being dictated to by people trying to tell
us how well VA thinks its going. Herding us like cattle in and out quickly before
people speak to each other.
PACT act events, at least in Texas, are meant to push vets in and out before they
can figure out it failed them already. After that service officer or regional office
tells them the bad news as they wrap up. That confused veteran gets up out of
the chair uncertain what happened and leaves. They know something went
wrong but have no immediate allies to ask about it. Then later this year they
get the VBA denial letter alone at home, to find hostile media wont pick up the
story. This is happening now in Texas with what Im finding is radicalized media
censoring for favoritism from the wealthy. Man have the local TV stations and
newspapers in Waco taken a turn for the worse. Now they have to print retraction
after retraction when law enforcement steps in.
Keep it simple. Let vets both pitch and vote like with the PACT act. Make it work
for us rather than tell us it did. Fix the flaws now, not years from 2023.
Im being ignored by people who rely on sneaky tricks, needless firewalls, personal
prejudices, bad ethics, and literally pure contempt for me being vocal. They want
the days of early 2022 back when COVID kept everyone away. Didnt have to
answer phones, answer email, be in public, look at people in office. No hassles.
They only want to wait me out, and save money doing it. So they can spend the
$296 billion on bonuses and meeting trips to Hawaii, sking in Colorado.
Im proposing a Toxic Exposure Pathology Center to prove Toxic Exposures, and a
simple internet media platform already tested for veterans to vote on things that
could improve VA healthcare – benefits. OMG, this is ridicules non-sense and must
be ignored. How dare I say these things. Only, you havent prove my ideas are bad.
Notice folks, what they avoid with there contempt. Right in front of you. With
Congress blessings.
I will never be “Veteran of the day” with these folks. Serving on a VA federal
advisory committee and 26 years of helping Gulf War vets. How dare I think I
have any value to VA. What did I ever do for the veterans? They must trivialize
me at all cost to save money and go on status quo. Demean, devalue, ignore.
Because they certain have done nothing wrong here, or ever let the veterans
down.
To me, 2023 is the worst year ever for American veterans, and it will take time
from them to learn just how bad. From what Im seeing, Fox took over the hen
house and picking is off one at a time in broad daylight. With the PACT act,
its that moment you get out of the chair and leave without speaking up at the
event. Once out the at door, you lost and its over.
People really dont get that VA saying Toxic Exposure, and Toxic Exposure exams – it a empty gesture with no substance to it.
Do you really think a light weight visual exam that last 10 minutes that takes no physical samples if going to prove Dioxins and other compounds in your body fat? This is complicated chemistry to screen out the thousands of other molecules in your body from a few small artificial elements in parts per millionth or billionth. The science has been there for decades, VA wants to pretend it isnt. Forensics pioneered much of it long ago.
Ive put all this to the test with VA. Pushing the best scientific minds and medical researchers to think outside the box. Build my own mass spectrometer and gas chromatograph. Demand VA’s War related Illness and Injury Study center to do it. Only to be told its invasive, and VA wont do it. Every where I go, Im 10 years ahead of the industry. They throw up there hands like that is a answer.
Weeks, months, years go by. Decades. Proposing over and over simple ideas that would benefit veterans. Namely Gulf war veterans. Only to survive one after another mediocre career opposing me that fades into oblivion having stalled progress. They do VA’s job of stalling and differing the cost of war. Till finally we just die off.
Now its going to be another decade before we see a Toxic Exposure Pathology Center. If I go based on what I had to fight to get the VABBB Gulf war brain bank in 2006 – once it is built it will be altered to do as little as possible once it is up. Oh yes, I can prove that one. My fight with Walter Reed Army Hospital and the dam Armed Forced Institute of Pathology. USAMRIID, CHPPEM, and so many others.
It took me 26 years of constant fighting point blank in DC in a myriad of scenarios to learn what I know. Only to be trivialized in 2023 by people who just want to pretend that never happened. So they can go on NOT doing the science or find answers. Wait us out. Now Im back in that same scenario. Watching things be ignored and the clock ticks by. The very mediocre careers of 2023 do what they did in 1995, carrying a grudge at the vets expense. VA hanging on to some of humanities worst attributes of insecurity and pettiness to protect careers no one will remember. While 18,000,000 veterans watch them burn 296 billion the next year to give us mediocre medical care and minimal entitlements – as they give themselves bloated vacations and bonuses. Trips to Hawaii for VA functions.
As long as veterans go “what about me”, and not “what about us” then VA goes on doing this. Till laws like the PACT act are revised to make them do there job. Get rid of the loopholes VA twist to stall. God, if VA only put as much energy into real implementation as it does finding ways to cheat us. Bogus economics. Reducing people like me to cattle to be driven up the gang plank.
The PACT act failed all but the dying, the cancer clusters. It waitedtill that happened. End of life care. What about preventing that?
The necessity to be end of life care rather than prevention of that.
As for Gulf war IIlness, the PACT act changed NOTHING and Im back to square one with regional fighting a hopeless battle. With the VA executive staff watching in glee, relishing in this – watching me as spectators hoping I die shortly and in pain, poverty, destitution. I wish I had video of the Regional staffer saying I was absolutely right like so many others – prove this. Speaking bad of the PACT act and the very nature of it tripping itself up. Attrition, bad language, loopholes, and all the new employees with no experience.
Millions of lives that served in war that will never know peace, to be discarded for the service. Waiting for a painful, isolated, tragic
deaths just out of view of the public. Easy targets of hackers and parasite opportunist trying to feed on us. A very real threat to national security telling future generations what awaits them if they serve there country. Betrayal.
I was excited to learn about the seminars until I discovered the closest one to us is 4 hours away. What a disappointment
Screenings for pact act in north Little Rock and Little Rock?
I applied for presumptive hypertension & was granted 0 compensation.
Your blood pressure must be over 160/100, to receive pension. So if you’re taking medication, you’ll never know until you quit meds. Risk stroke – heart attack, no thanks.
Why not publish these numbers instead of wasting our time & hopes?
Any help with , ANY OF FOLLOWING?: solar panels/roofing/standby generator/implants(dental)/walk in tub for senior vet. 74 yr old vet with metal implants in neck from a fall. Not service related.
When will the new “Federal Benedits for Veterans” be ready for distribution?
Same as many others. Please come to Kalispell Montana, or even Montana. Thanks for all you do for us veterans.
Don’t see any events in PA. I’m a resident in the Wilkes-Barre area and would appreciate some attention. I submitted a completed application form to Lebanon VAMC Central Business Office on 11/8/22 but have not received a reply. Please reply as l think l have waited long enough. Thank you.
when or near Colorado Springs?1
When are you going to be in the Atlanta area?
My son has a TBI from a gunshot wound to the head. He needs some outings. Has an AFO. carotid artery severed. Massive stroke. He is 38
No location in Los Angeles CA. ?
Looking for a location near Martinsburg,WV
Location for Utah?
All of these comments are heartbreaking.
No location in virginia or maryland
[Editor: There are locations for both VA and MD listed.]
Why is Ga.not included in this list of states?
Why is West Virginia not involved in on this ?
This is what they want of you.
Go into the event, and silently stand in line. Sit down with a brand new service
officer VBA just hired that isnt familiar with there job. Tell them quickly about
your plight. Then leave.
There is no large public Q&A as a group. They dont want you really comparing
notes. VA police are thick waiting for the slightest reason to escort someone
out. There are no refreshments and social scenarios. Stand in line, wait your
turn, and leave.
Your farmed off to QTC who calls you on numbers you dont know. Finally after
a few days you answer. This person is not a seasoned veteran, they follow a script
given them. Your sent to the local civilian medical facilities close to you that
are not familiar with combat scenarios or industrial medicine situation like toxic
exposures. They rely on the Genesis portal and ILER to rate your medical information
that there is so little of. Your left in the hands of people that the VA OIG has already
pointed out are not up to the job in several new reports.
Only to find out your reviewer is also new, and not familiar with the job. So they
use no imagination reviewing your case which is devoid of hard evidence you
dont know how to put in because your not familiar with a 21-4138 to insert
materials in your C-File. They probably dont even have your DD 214 in the system.
Things go wrong, and your rating tanks. You go to the local media and find that
none of them will publish your story. Because its just you, not a group. The
harder you try the more you notice they just play you. TV stations, newspapers,
Google, internet media, Facebook.
Suddenly, your a victim of identity theft on the VA Facebook page as the middle
east hackers target you for speaking up. VA is fine with this. VA Media relations
is fine with this. People faking even like Gen Rainey and such.
All you armies of one out there better pull together. VA is practicing divide and
conquer here. For whatever reasons, media is on there side. They push you out
that door of your PACT act event and your little people again. No one will help
you when the time comes. Unless you band together at the events.
They have to drive away tens of thousands to offset VA payouts. The rich have
made it clear having used us up in war, we are discardable. Disposable. They
used us for economic gain and now they are done with us having lost these
wars over 30 year. 2 trillion dollars. Gulf war, OIF, OEF, and such. We are not
welcome to speak at the VA and Pentagon about our plights. Hurry up and die.
Ive been at the forefront of this fighting back for decades. There is a all out
effort to silence me. Keep me at bay. Block my website so
that vets cant find me on Google. Take me off Google so I look like a nut.
To what end? Are they doing better? I pointed this out to a VA federal committee
on Feb 9th 2023 that they did all they could to gut my presentation. Made
Stars and Stripes. Then they took down all the meeting information March 6th
off there VA website. Till I called this out March 10th 2023. Its up now.
https://www.va.gov/RAC-GWVI/meetings/Feb2023/Feb_2023_Index.asp
26 years Ive fought for others. Through things you would not believe. Only
to find in 2023 VA wants to treat me like nothing I have to say is of any value.
Only because what I propose would help millions. We cant have that.
There putting all this to the test now. This is the most pivot-able year ever in
ever events for veterans and it hinges on your willingness to give up. If you
dont aid your fellow veterans, then its just you, and right now the deck is
stacked.
VA has written me off, and soon something bad will happen to me. That
way the loudest voice is gone, and VA wins. Then what?
Mr. Love your statements are so true. Having begun my VA adventure in 1997, with no rhythm nor reason for the decisions made by the rating personnel and the compensation and pension examiners. The medical conclusion of a C&P Examiner led to a very serious misdiagnosis of my medical conditions.
All are 3 hrs away from Richmond, Va where they do not like vets.
This PACT Act is all BULLSHT!!! I had an Agent Orange claim filed for approximately 7 years. I did everything, all the tests, doctor visits, judge appearances, crossed every T, and dotted every I. Then some VES A-hole in Texas started sending me hundreds of miles from my home in, Central New York in an effort to discourage me from receiving the benefits I had earned because my Government poisoned me with Agent Orange during my service in Vietnam. When I questioned Mr. VES about mileage and his sending me all over NY State he said, “I am NOT part of the VA and I DO NOT have to follow their rules or regulations, but you have to do as I say and go where I send you.” Why does this piece of garbage, who probably has never served this country even have the word Veterans in the title of whatever organization he belongs to and who selected him to torture people who actually served this country in a war?
But the Veteran who served his country in a war and worked his whole life, raised a family, followed the law, paid taxes, and did all that was required of him by his country can hold his hand on his ass when he asks for the compensation he deserves because somebody in Washington chose to spray him with poison while he was serving his country in a war.
Mr. VES can be proud of himself and should be considered the VA employee of the year because under duress this 77 year old veteran signed off on the compensation claim he deserves because Mr. VES has no rules, regulations, or conscience to guide him, but he does have the authority granted him by Washington DC to screw with those that love their country and were ready to give their all in service to it.
To whom it may concern. I wish there had been more prior notice for these meetings about the Pact Act than just putting the notice out just the day before the events start. Allot of Veterans including myself work, and can’t just call off at the drop of a hat. We need time to put in time off requests.
I do appreciate the time you are giving to have these information meetings about the Pact Act to get the word out though.
Just sad that I cannot get to the one in my area.
Nice picture! No mask on veteran, mask around chin on worker!
When is at in Rochester NY
I live in Fort Lauderdale, where can I go to learn to play golf here can you email me information on where I could go and how
How do you get records from a va center from 1996
There’s no event in my area which is Martinez California or Oakland California or the San Francisco Bay area , why is that?
Curious why Colorado is not hosting any at all and some states are hosting two or three events across the state.
Once again, the Cold War Veteran is ignored. I enlisted May 30 1975. Many Cold War Veterans were exposed to some of these substances before they were phased out. I myself spent about a year total breathing asbestos and red-lead dust, plus covered in fresh red-red-lead. I was a Machinist Mate in the Navy. I didn’t see action, and I’ve never tried to pretend that I did, but those toxins didn’t stop being toxic on May 7 1975.
I lost my Prostate to aggressive Cancer 12 years ago. The VA has taken good care of me, but only because I am eligible due to other issues. My point is that there has to be thousands who need help but will never get it, because they are lowly Cold War Veterans who had the bad luck of merely keeping the Peace instead of fighting a War.
In other words, these presumptions should be based on when and where the toxins were in use, and not strictly tied to periods of War.
As a fellow Machinist Mate, I understand exactly what you are saying.
I am very surprised that this list fails to mention the State of Oklahoma. Where I would believe there are activities in reference to the Pact Act as well as Special help for all veterans to enroll and receive assistance in obtaining the benefits and care they have earned as veterans.
100% sir. Also, a primary area of concern is the length of time it is taking for PACT Act claims to be answered/acknowledged by the VA. Several veterans here in Oklahoma I am aware of have filed claims and have been waiting 5-6 months to date still awaiting a decision.
Figures no meetings in dallas texas that’s wrong
why is it that Fort Gordon GA is not listed for one of these Pact Act Events. i believe that Fort Gordon GA has a very large numbers of retired vet in the south east area
Not a single meeting within a hundred miles of me.
In my opinion The PACT act is a joke, at least for Vietnam vets. I filed a claim for hypertension because I take 6 pills a day to keep it under control. I was awarded zero compensation because my blood pressure isn’t high enough. If I stop taking my meds and suffer a heart attack would I qualify then if I manage to survive?
Exactly, I was told the same thing today 3/23/2023.
Your numbers have to be 160 over 100. If you are taking medication you’ll never know..
Their print about presumptive hypertension is just ink on paper.
What a joke, Save your time.
Viet Nam vet, Rod lorenz
P.s. Thanks to the 2 men working at the Waterloo, Iowa clinic, they were very knowledgeable, helpful & had access to everything.
same here i file a claim 15 years ago and again in the pact act for Hypertension take three medication to control it and i also got a 0 rateing thats just BS.
Why is there no PACT Act Benefits and Services being help in the state of Nevada?
VA made sure one location wasn’t on here before this notice went out, Waco Texas.
They put that notice out press release 4 days before the event, and media did it two days before. March 18th 2023. It wasn’t even on the VA central texas Facebook page.
It was to make sure I wasn’t invited or could find out in time. I’m the first big critic of the PACT act and they didn’t want me telling the media about the Toxic Exposure Pathology Center for tissue collection.
The PACT act has gone horribly wrong for me much of this last year. Now I’m pulling out of the TBI part of my claim because VA tried to turn it into a bogus psychiatric exam instead of neurology consult. I’m being tricked.
I’m not trying just once, this has been continuous since August. WRIISC promised me much only to do the same with PTSD.
They don’t have good answers or data collection for tissue samples that prove toxic exposures. VA plans to burn thousands with psychiatry.
Sec of VA knows who I am. I’m all over News.va.gov public comments and the search engines are finally picking that up.
Media is writing pro-government articles helping VA with this deception. I’ve got a massive email trail including AP. Here in Texas I consider the media veteran haters, keeping actual veterans from articles on purpose. All is well. Trust VA, it never did you wrong. Ugh.
At least all of you know in time, here in Texas they dont want the vets knowing in time or rallying. VISN 17 betrayed us to suck to Sec of VA Denis McDonough.
Some visits here to shut me down and out.
Don’t trust these people, 400 days from now the thousands of rejections will be public. Don’t trust QTC on your C&P. Double check what they set your exams up at. Civilian clinics not tied to VA or the Genesis portal.
This is the biggest scam ever played on vets by VA, and the stories I can tell. The twisting of the law to make it fail.
I appreciate this information but I was having a hard time figuring out where there was anything near me that would benefit me maybe someone could help
I’d like to learn golf at
Wellshire course in Denver area
Why are there? No schedule appointments for the pack in Georgia and Alabama. I am a totally informative disabled veteran trying to handle my own claims have been mistreated by the VA, The package needed in Alabama to help a lot of veterans with respiratory problems. Why you are neglecting these veterans states for representation for the pack
Why no event in Colorado
Unfortunately, there’s only one place in the Chicagoland area, and it is in one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in the country!
Will the PACT ACT activity be coming to the Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati area any time this year?
Is there going to be an event in the future in Kansas City Missouri ?
Raymond Richardson
E-4, 1st Cav. US Army Pathfinder,1965-1968
Not one place in Colorado and it’s a state full of eligible military veterans
Ronald Pearl ret USAF MSgt
ks like a days drive or more!!
I am a 100 percent disabled veteran. I have had an Open heart surgery, I have diabetes, and kidney cancer.
Is renal cell kidney cancer on the presumptive list for Agent Orange and for the new ACT?
Why isn’t Minneapolis included?
Are there any PACT events in Broward or Dade counties?
Are there any PACT events in Bbroward or Dade counties?
The event in Columbia SC spans three days. March 23,24,25