American Legion Service Officer Goes Above and Beyond

‘No Man Left Behind’: Marine Corps veteran opens home to help fellow vets
FOX 17 News Michigan
Janice Allen
January 27, 2017

"I bought a house and I didn't need all the rooms, so I started bringing in veterans that needed help," Clemens explained. "If they need food, I buy them food... If they need clothes, I give them clothes."

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Joe Clemens has been back to civilian life for awhile now, but he's still fighting to help his fellow man.

"No man left behind. That's the way I've lived my life," he told FOX 17 News. "When I got out, nobody helped me, so because of that, I wasn't going to let that happen to anyone else."

Despite battling a rare and terminal blood disorder as a result of his service, Clemens has made it his mission to help veterans who are struggling.

"They're not gonna fall through the cracks," he said. "To come back, and not be able to feed your family, it takes a toll on you."

Clemens is a Service Officer at American Legion Post 459. His job is to help veterans navigate different resources to secure their benefits and get back on their feet.
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Maine Veterans Services Director "veterans with PTSD were really just “lost” or “depressed.”

Maine Voices: The Veterans’ Services director is failing at his job
Peter Ogden needs to work with younger veterans to implement recommended changes or step aside
Portland Press Herald
BY ADRIAN COLE
SPECIAL TO THE TELEGRAM
January 18, 2015

Of the 132,000 veterans who live in Maine, about 60,000 come from the most recent wars. It is these veterans who are falling through the cracks, a state report says. Amelia Kunhardt/Staff Photographer

TOPSHAM — The director of Maine’s Bureau of Veterans’ Services, Peter Ogden, is failing in his charge to support all veterans. While his efforts to help care for aging veterans and memorializing those who have passed are commendable, he has shown a consistent disrespect and lack of concern for anyone who served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I attended a meeting in December in Brunswick with state legislators, where Ogden laid out his agenda for the coming year.

He referred to the roughly 60,000 Maine veterans of America’s most recent wars as “kids” so many times that I lost count. This was only part of the insult, though, as his policy stance and inaction as a leader, revealed during the course of the meeting, proved more egregious than his insults.

For example, the report stated that returning veterans today are reluctant to seek help or take advantage of benefits for fear of being a burden on the system. But when Ogden was asked about the problems faced by this generation of veterans, he said, “Well, I think the kids today are saying, ‘You owe it to me, give it to me.’ If you push a red button and nothing happens, I think that’s the problem. I can tell a World War II guy, ‘Your claim, it will take a year to do your claim,’ he will be happy. If I tell a young kid today, (he’ll say) ‘Uh, I mean, why can’t that happen?’ ”

The report advised his office on many ways in which to reach out to veterans, centering mainly on information technology-based solutions. Ogden stated, “The young kids today come back and we don’t communicate the way they do. I don’t tweet, I don’t Twitter, I don’t do Facebook. I can barely answer my emails.” After citing staffing issues as an excuse as to why his office has failed to implement any of these recommendations, he then indicated that he would not be doing so any time soon.

At one point during Ogden’s talk, he gave a textbook definition of post-traumatic stress disorder and then told the room that veterans with PTSD were really just “lost” or “depressed.”

Adrian Cole of Topsham is a former Army captain who served two tours of duty in Iraq as an artillery officer with the 101st Airborne Division. He serves as the adjutant for the Bath Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7738.
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Veterans Service Officer Slept with Weapon in Iraq

Veterans Service Officer Kathy Marshik slept with her weapon
Morrison County Record
By Jim Wright, Correspondent
December 29, 2014

In June, the Morrison County Veterans Service (MCVS) Office got new leadership, after the retirement of 27-year director Paul Froncak. And the new leader has been around.

“I slept with my weapon,” Kathy Marshik said while recalling her time in Kuwait and Iraq. She carried that M-16 all the time, she said, during her 15-month deployment with the 142nd Engineer Company, out of Camp Ripley, during the heat of the 2003-2004 occupation of Iraq.

In the meantime, she was 5,000 miles away from her daughters, Sierra and Brianna, ages 6 and 2 then.

“My husband, Glen, was in shock when I told him I was deploying in a few days; and five days later I was gone,” Marshik said, “The worst day of my life was leaving them.”

She was a construction engineer supervisor during her time at bases near Udairi, Kuwait and Balad, Iraq. She was never directly fired upon, but her base was constantly being mortared, she said. Her other military occupation skills were maintenance parts specialist and combat medic.
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Disabled Iraq Veteran Heads Beverly Veterans Service Office by HImself

Beverly veterans services a 'one-man show'
Beverly Wicked Local
By Martha Shanahan
Posted Jun. 28, 2014

BEVERLY
Beverly Veterans Services director David Perinchief spends his days meeting with Beverly’s veterans in his Memorial Building office. His dog, Gunner, sits by his side and greets everyone who walks in the door with a friendly wag of the tail.

When he’s not in meetings, he’s on the phone. Veterans and widows call him to get help navigating the twists, turns and bureaucratic mazes of the Veterans Affairs system.

When he’s not in his office, he’s finding the veterans who can’t find him — sometimes driving to their houses to pick up forms — or meeting with Veterans Affairs officials in Boston.

"It’s a one-man show," he said. "I have one of the largest clientele bases in the area by myself, and I have no other help. It gets a little overwhelming."

He has a computer full of spreadsheets logging every veteran who comes through his office — part of a new approach he has brought to the job that combines tough love with a serious commitment to efficiency.

The city receives 75 percent of its spending on veterans back from the state. The proposed budget for fiscal year 2015, under review by the city council, increases the amount of funding allocated for benefits by a proposed $62,757 more than is expected to be spent this year.
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Veterans service officer is coming to a location near you Bronson FL

Veterans service officer is coming to a location near you

By Lou Elliott Jones

BRONSON — If you are a military veteran Mike Engle wants to meet you.

He’s recruiting, but not to send folks back into military service, he’s looking for veterans to help them claim any services they are entitled to from the Veterans Administration.

Engle is the Levy County Veterans Service Officer and with his staff of two he helps veterans file claims and get transportation to the VA Clinic in Gainesville.

And with economic hardship hitting many veterans, Engle has seen an uptick in a request for services.

“We are seeing some veterans who would not have filed a claim before saying give it to someone else who is worse off than me, come in to file a claim,” Engle said.

The Veterans Administration says there are 5,000 veterans living in Levy County, and there are those snowbirds who are also veterans living here part of the year. Engle has made contact with about 2,500 veterans. He said the VA, while telling him how many veterans live here does not provide him with names and addresses so he can contact them.

That’s part of the challenge of his job, finding the other 2,500 or so veterans
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