Last month, Gov. John Kitzhaber nominated policy advisor and
Marine Corps veteran Cameron Smith to be the next director of the Oregon
Department of Veterans Affairs in the wake of Jim Willis’ announced retirement. Today (March 12, 2013), the Oregon State Senate confirmed Cameron Smith’s nomination as Director of the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
A veteran of the war in Iraq, Smith has served as a senior
policy advisor for military, energy and public safety issues for two governors.
He has now become the ninth director of the
ODVA, and the second youngest by mere months.
Meeting over a cup of coffee in Old Town Chinatown, we began
our conversation about the generational shift from the Vietnam leadership to
the Iraq War veterans, and what signficance that might have on the work of
Veterans Affairs.
Cameron Smith: The leaders of our veterans’
organizations and the veterans community is the Vietnam generation right now.
They have stood up to support the current folks coming back from Iraq and
Afghanistan in a way that their generation was not. I have been inspired. If I
have any success, it will be as a bridge among all of our different generations
of veterans — both appreciating where we’ve been, how we’ve got where we are,
and where we’re going. It’s not just going to be just the new, younger
generation, but really tapping into the expertise of the World War II folks,
the Korean veterans, Vietnam-era generation through today.
Every generation I think is different; what they experience,
both in war and in coming home. The Vietnam era had its own challenges. You’re
familiar with what folks face coming back now, over a decade of war, repeated
deployments. I mean, I served three times deployed and that’s not even at the
top of the chart. People go five, seven times, so the stress that causes on the
families and on the service members. More folks are surviving injuries due to
great medics and great advances, but a then lot of difficult and challenging
health issues remain when they come home — physical and mental health.
There’s great support for our veterans and our military
families in a way that we didn’t have during the Vietnam generation. But
sometimes there’s a gap in that depth of understanding, from our citizens to
the military. During World War II, I think we had 8 or 10 percent of our
able-bodied citizens serving in the military, so everyone had a greater
connection. Even in the Vietnam War, we had the draft and a broader impact. So
this generation has largely been balanced on one percent serving repeatedly.
Robert Britt: You are 34 years old, which makes you the second-youngest director of ODVA. What
is that going to help you bring to the position?
C.S.: There’s definitely a youth, energy and passion
that I hope to bring to it, but it’s also a huge mission that goes well beyond
me. There’s a tremendous team at the ODVA, tremendous partners across all the
different agencies, the sectors, and the different levels of government. If it
were a lone-wolf mission, I would be nervous, but what’s reassuring is the team
that surrounds the director.
R.B.: What is the biggest obstacle that the ODVA
faces?
C.S.: One big challenge, other than those other
demographic impacts and building those partnerships, is our veterans home loan
program. So, separate from the federal VA’s loan guarantee, the Oregon program
is where the ODVA acts as a bank and loans out money to veterans to buy homes,
often at a favorable interest rate.
Historically, it’s been a very robust program, and it was
originally why the agency was founded in 1945 after World War II. And it used
to have thousands and thousands of loans out there generating revenue that
could be driven back into veteran’s services, above and beyond paying off the
bonds that were loaned out for the mortgages. With the 2008 housing crisis,
with different demographics, the program doesn’t have an ability to refinance,
so if a veteran has a high interest rate or got in at a high interest rate a
few years ago, the market has gone lower, they then refinance out of the
program. So the sustainability of that program and strengthening that core
function, beyond what it does for getting our veterans and families into owning
a home and an American dream. It’s the lifeblood of the agency, in terms of
additional revenue being driven back to core veterans services.
R.B.: What are your top three priorities for
veterans’ issues?
C.S.: It’s really driving it in health care,
education and employment. Even one of those areas can be a rabbit hole, in
terms of the changes we are seeing in the broader health care system, much less
the uncertainty of federal funding on the VA health care system. But if it’s
more general, making sure that we take care of the programs that the VA has in
a sustainable manner, building broader partnerships, and truly being a bridge
between our different veterans generations. Honoring all those who came before
us by continuing to incorporate their vision, while also bringing up the young
guys that aren’t necessarily joining the groups right now.
R.B.: Do you think that there is, I don’t want to
say a disconnect, but a lot of our generation isn’t exactly flocking to the
veterans organizations when they get out.
C.S.: I think there will be a transition point where
our generation does begin to join. And some of that is less about who they are,
and more about where they are in the current spectrum of their life. And the
question becomes: How do we sustain those organizations? Don’t let them go the
way of the Grange Hall, but really use them. They have often been the most
powerful advocates back in D.C., whether it was for the GI Bill initially after
World War II, or the enhanced GI Bill after 9/11. We have the support network
we have because of those major efforts back in D.C., and now how do we leverage
that community better?
When you get out of the military, it is a transition. It
doesn’t matter if you’ve been in for years, have the best family support, have
the best connections — it’s a transition from an institution that has its own
culture and values. How do you translate that back to the civilian world? But
such great strengths in the military — the loyalty, the judgment, the
leadership, the discipline — everything that attracts people to the military
and what they get out of it is a huge value, and they’re our greatest strength
and treasure as a nation, but how you wean that great skill set back to the
civilian world is not easy. I can think of no better preparation in life than military
service. And there are horrible experiences in war and in combat, and it is not
something to celebrate. But what you get out of it is huge, in terms of life
lessons and leadership skills to apply across wherever people go after the
military. And we lose that when we always focus on all the challenges — the
alcohol and drugs, mental health, homelessness. It paints a picture. Those are
the veterans who need the most help, but it also paints the community in a way
that’s challenging. It weakens us, I think, when we push for education,
employment and broader support sometimes.
R.B.: What are you hearing from other veterans as
far as their experiences dealing with the VA and government services?
C.S.: I think it runs the gamut. There are obviously
the nightmare scenarios, whether claims have been lost or pending for years, or
negative treatment through the health care organizations. But the flipside of
that is there have been people who’ve had great experiences with an easy claim
process, whether through the state, county or the feds.
I’d say one of the biggest challenges is in rural Oregon.
Most of the resources, if it’s through the federal VA, are often centralized
services in the Portland-Vancouver area or the valley. Our Roseburg and Medford
area has more than Bend or Burns or anything in the Gorge. Eventually, as you
get further east the veterans get shuttled to Boise and that VA system. So
transportation to services and access to service continues to be a challenge.
If you need a treatment and you’re on the coast and if it’s above and beyond
the capabilities of your local VA clinic, that is a long haul to Portland, and
transit and reimbursement where you’re staying while you’re here.
There are great strengths in the federal VA health care
system in terms of scale, centralization and efficiencies, but creating equal
access and service for all of our veterans, wherever they live, is a huge
challenge. We’ve improved with the clinic model pushing out, but they can’t do
every major surgery or major procedure. That is a hard nut to crack. And
organizations like Disabled American Veterans and other folks have good
rideshare programs, but we haven’t cracked the nut on transportation or access,
for sure.
R.B.: The federal VA and Secretary Shinseki have
made it a priority to end veteran homelessness. How do you feel this can be
best addressed locally?
C.S.: Will we solve veteran homelessness in five
years? I don’t know. Is it a worthy goal? Of course. And it provides the focus
for that effort and the resources that come with it. There are still gaps in
the system, but significant resources have come down, and I think the key is
making sure those federal resources coming down are not creating new
bureaucracies but are tied into our existing community-based organizations that
have close ties. I always highlight Central City Concern as an example. They
have ties with employers, they have the housing side, the health care side.
They are able to holistically reintegrate veterans back into the community,
whether coming back from war or coming back from being homeless. They have all
the different pieces that they can line up to support that veteran. And then I
think there is going to be a state role in terms of where are those gaps,
whether on the funding side or general attention and focus.
We have a lot of resources to bring to bear, but it’s
sometimes challenging on an issue like homelessness that crosses agency silos.
How do break down those silos? Even at just the state level that’s hard, much
less making the links to all the different partners. But we’ve made a lot of
progress over the last few years, and I expect that we will continue. But it’s
not easy work, and God bless all the community orgs that are doing the heavy
lifting.
R.B.: And how do you see the ODVA fitting into
that puzzle?
C.S.: I don’t know that it will always be direct
programs through the ODVA. It may be pass-through on funding, depending on what
different revenues we can get and how the state does on tax revenues and what
kind of political support and policy support we can generate
But again, going back to the partnerships. How do we provide
a center of gravity to raise awareness of what our veterans face — homelessness
being one leg of that — and how do we then bring those partners together in a
way that build long-term relationships that we’ve seen pay dividends.
It’s going to be relationships and partnerships. And it’s
hard to do that above and beyond the core programs of the ODVA, but that has
got to be central to the mission. So not always a direct homelessness program
necessarily, but really trying to support the broader efforts of our partners.
R.B.: The disability claims backlog has received a
lot of attention lately, with about 70 percent of the pending claims taking
more than the VA’s goal of 125 days. How do you feel the ODVA can best resolve
this?
C.S.: I think it’s really across the partners. On the
claims, it’s largely going to be the counties, the state and the feds
partnering. There is a lot that the feds have tried to do on electronic records
but there are a lot of paper records still. How do you transition to
electronic? How do you make sure that Department of Defense folks that are
exiting service members are sending that health records from those days
directly to the VA, so that we have access to them and it’s not incumbent on
the service member to take that with them?
There are always challenges in terms of training, whether at
the federal, state or local level, to make sure that claims that are going up
through the system, whether paper or electronic, that they meet all the
criteria, that they’ve been quality checked. So how do we make sure our folks
submitting the claims are doing great quality control and submitting up good
products for the federal VA to then take action on? And then I’d say just
generally education of our veterans on these earned benefits.
We have about 330,000 veterans in Oregon, and probably about
a third of those access their federal or state benefits. We’re missing about
two-thirds. And not everybody qualifies for something, and not everyone needs
something, but how do we capture more of those earned benefits for our citizens
and relieve the stress on other state and local support systems and networks.
So a huge push in terms of outreach and education to our
veterans and military families, as well as regional meetings and then something
like a larger veterans summit, where we actually pull together at a large level
the leaders in the veterans community and our organizations, but also leaders
from across all our different partners, to really try to address training,
education and hear back from them what issues they’re facing and ideas of how
to move forward.
This article appears in 2013-03-01.