Staff Reports
Department of Veterans Affairs officials announced yesterday
that it is commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the Iraq War with a new
T-shirt.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki told reporters
via teleconference that the VA will begin issuing commemorative T-shirts to all
combat veterans.
“Our vets have been having some problems once they come
home,” Shinseki said, citing high rates of unemployment, divorce, suicide and
substance abuse among veterans. “I realized we just needed to give pause to
their challenges and let them know we’re thinking of them. Maybe then they’ll
pick themselves back up.”
Shinskei said all veterans who deployed to Iraq or
Afghanistan will be eligible for the program, which he described as a
three-month “pause” for reflection. The VA has dubbed it Operation T-shirt.
More than 2.2 million service members have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan
since 2001.
Allison Hickey, VA Under Secretary for Benefits, said that
this new program will take priority over all other veterans’ benefits,
including the nearly 900,000 disability claims awaiting VA approval.
“Over 70 percent of those disability claims are going to
take more than four months to process anyway, so we figure those veterans will
be happy to have something they can wear to remind them of their service,”
Hickey said.
The shirts will be available in desert tan, mountain grey or
olive green.
The process of acquiring the shirts will be relatively
simple, Hickey said.
Veterans will only need to submit notarized original copies
of their discharge papers along with government form SF-3351C, filled out in
triplicate. Appointments must then be made with a regional VA office to obtain
a referral to a local VA medical center for approval, at which point eligible
veterans will receive a copy of VA form 21-686F. This form must then be faxed
back to the VA regional office, which will issue the veterans procurement forms
by mail in about six to eight months.
Veterans will then be able to take their completed
application packets to VA representatives at local WalMart stores, where the
shirts will be distributed.
This article is part of Street Roots’ annual satire edition released each year for April Fools Day.
This article appears in 2013-04-01.