Service increasing

Jay County veterans’ service office saw nearly a 70-percent increase in its contacts with veterans in 2015. So far this year, the increase has already cleared the 100 percent mark.
Through October, the office has made 3,539 contacts with veterans, up from 1,613 last year.
Those figures include all office visits, incoming and outgoing phone calls and off-site visits.
“It just keeps getting busier,” said veterans’ service officer Cliff Moser, who started in the position in June 2014.
Currently, the office is seeing an average of three new veterans per week, and it’s not recent veterans that are increasing the numbers.
Instead, Moser said it’s aging veterans from the World War II, Korean and Vietnam eras that are the bulk of who come through his office.
“Here’s the reason why so many of them wait so long. They have that sense of there’s another veteran that needs it more than I do,” said Moser. “So, they don’t come in and apply for anything until it’s almost at the end of their life,” Moser said.
But as these veterans age and incur expenses such as nursing home bills, assisted living bills and multiple medical bills, they come forward seeking benefits.
“It takes away their savings and of course by that, they’re no longer able to work,” Moser said.
There are other reasons for the increase as well. One is an uptick in the number of widowed spouses who have come through the office.
Additionally, the amount of contacts and the millions of dollars in benefits brought back to Jay County in the past two years have brought in more veterans by word of mouth.
“(It’s) from one vet to another vet to another vet,” said Moser, who served as an Independent Duty Corpsman in the U.S. Navy and survived a bombing attack on USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000.
For example, on Nov. 3 there were 12 office visits, eight incoming phone calls, seven outgoing phone calls and one off-site visit.
It’s these booming numbers and increased traffic that have brought both attention to Moser’s office as well as changes enacted by county officials.
In March, Moser requested Jay County Council to create a part-time position in the office, citing his heavy workload. This fall, council awarded him a $5,000 raise, in part because of the hours he’s been logging.
Melissa Campofiore, who served in Iraq in 2007, started in April and currently works 15 or more hours in the office per week. Moser works 28 to 30 himself.
The workload demands it.
Even with the extra person, Moser said there will be times when both he and Campofiore are both meeting with veterans in the office, with others waiting outside.
One of the biggest challenges, he said, is that veterans don’t realize the immense amount of programs that are available.
While the most common benefits awarded are medical, pension or compensation, Moser said the circumstances and the programs needed and applied for will differ depending on each veteran’s background and need.
“That’s the whole thing. Fitting the piece of the puzzle together, and there are a lot of documents that need to be done,” he said.
Part of fitting the pieces together includes the time-consuming task of mining through and filing paperwork.
“The days we are open, there are so many vets that come in we just can’t do paperwork,” Moser said.
It’s not unusual for Moser to come into the office on Saturdays to catch up on the mounting stack of records and files. That highlights the passion and dedication he brings to his position.
He is persistent on helping veterans get benefits in whatever ways possible.
“I hate for vets to be told no. I hate that,” he said.
That persistence has paid off. In 2014, the office acquired more than $3.5 million in benefits. Last year, it cleared $4 million.
Those figures aren’t just a win for veterans but also to county, Moser said.
“It just filters down, the way it works,” he added.
For Moser, the job can be emotionally and mentally draining at times.
“We laugh a lot. We shed a few tears when some of them come in and they’ve lost their spouse,” he said. “We’ve had two of them recently that the spouses have come in and you develop a bond not only with the veterans but their families.”
For now, he doesn’t see the numbers decreasing anytime soon.
“I don’t see a curtailing even with the number of veterans declining and the reason for that is there are so many programs available,” he said. “And we are trying to help out as many of the spouses as we can.”