Veterans Assistance Commission of Lake County

09/05/2026

It’s easy for Ron Brown to remember when his health problems first began. It was early March 1991, and Brown’s Army unit was in Khamisiyah, where Iraqi forces had been storing chemical weapons in a bunker and an excavated area known as “the pit.” As U.S. forces demolished the bunker and the weapons in the pit, plumes of smoke rose into the sky.

Ron Brown deployed twice during active duty, the second time during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. (Photo courtesy of Ron Brown)
“Within 15 minutes of the first demolitions, I was sweating profusely,” said Brown, a specialist in the 82nd Airborne Division at the time. “My nose was running like a faucet, and I had a headache that felt like somebody hit me with a baseball bat.”

What he didn’t know at the time: the explosion had released a cloud of chemical weapons, including the nerve agents sarin and cyclosarin.

Research on Gulf War Illness had advanced in the past few years. But Congress's cuts to research funding concern scientists and advocates.

09/04/2026

A veteran who fills his prescriptions through the VA may have seen the headlines this week about Medicare drug premiums going up in 2027 and possibly felt worried.

For most veterans, there’s no need to get anxious, but for some, there might be. Basically, it all comes down to where you get your medication.

"Saving money at the pharmacy often leads to much higher costs elsewhere in the healthcare system."

09/03/2026

You can help our nation's Veterans by simply checking the petition link to see if your Representative has signed on. If they have not, please reach out to your Representative to get them to sign on.

Link for petition signatories: https://clerk.house.gov/DischargePetition/2026052122?Page=3

This is an important milestone. After months of work by NACVSO Members, the VSO community and veterans are now closer than ever to finally securing a floor vote. Securing that final signature this week would start the procedural clock on the discharge petition and put us on a path to passing MRSA in the House before Veterans Day.

The Major Richard Star Act is a bipartisan legislative proposal designed to permit combat-injured military retirees with fewer than 20 years of service to concurrently receive both their full Department of Defense retirement pay and their VA disability compensation without any offsets. Under current federal law, these veterans suffer a "dollar-for-dollar" drawdown, meaning their military retirement pay is reduced by the exact amount they receive in disability benefits—a policy advocates call the "wounded warrior tax"

09/02/2026

An analysis of Department of Veterans Affairs disability compensation since 2010 found that the average annual payments to veterans climbed by nearly 40% while the percentage of veterans who receive payments almost doubled.

Researchers at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and Stanford University School of Medicine in California looked at VA disability benefits and Social Security Disability payments to veterans across 14 years.

Average VA disability payments climbed nearly 40% in the past 14 years, a study found, with the authors acknowledging high deployment rates over that span.

09/01/2026

Male veterans of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard had higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal nervous system disease, compared to veterans of the Army, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The study was published July 29 in Neurology. Andrea Roberts, principal research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health, was corresponding author and Marc Weisskopf, Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Physiology, was senior author.

In a press release from the American Academy of Neurology, Weisskopf shared: “Military service is a known risk factor for the development of ALS, but little is known about what factors may contribute to that risk.” To start to fill this gap, the researchers used health records from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to assess ALS diagnoses across military branch, rank, and length of service. The study included nearly 9.2 million male veterans who received care through the VHA between 2000 and 2024.

Male veterans of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard had higher rates of ALS, a fatal nervous system disease, compared to veterans of the Army, according to a new Harvard Chan School study.

08/30/2026

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday establishing a formal commission to address decades-old, persistent problems facing military spouses and families.

“It’s an order that’s long overdue,” Trump said during a signing ceremony at the White House, flanked by more than a dozen military spouses who will be part of the new commission. The President’s Military Spouse Commission will make suggestions for improving quality of life in the areas of spouse employment, housing, education, childcare, healthcare, deployment-related support “and just about everything else you can think of,” Trump said.

The new President's Military Spouse Commission, chaired by Jennifer Hegseth, is tasked with addressing persistent problems for military spouses.

08/28/2026

A senior official at the General Services Administration recently posted on his personal social media that veterans’ preference in federal hiring is preventing his team from bringing on qualified tech-focused employees.

“Veterans preference is brutally unfair when taken to the extreme of blocking any consideration of non-veterans, but we're seeing that everywhere these days,” wrote Pete Waterman, the director of FedRAMP, a governmentwide program that sets security and risk standards for cloud products. “Even Tech Force wouldn't let us look at normal folks until we made offers to all the veterans first.”

Veterans’ preference gives former armed forces members priority in hiring for certain agency positions. The Trump administration launched Tech Force last year to recruit software and data engineers for two-year positions. While officials initially said they could bring on 1,000 participants by the end of March, the program’s director announced in May that only 180 to 200 hires had been made so far.

A government workforce expert told Government Executive that many hiring rules, including veterans’ preference, have become “procedural hurdles rather than achieving the intended outcome” because they haven’t been updated in decades.

08/26/2026

Nearly half of all veterans screened since 2022 have been identified as having at least one potential toxic exposure during military service, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, published July 22. The report examines the Individual Longitudinal Exposure Record (ILER), a web application by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to compile data on service-related toxic exposures. The system is used to process disability claims, support clinical care, and conduct research on veterans exposed to substances.

Nearly half of screened veterans show toxic exposure. GAO report examines ILER system as vets gain direct access. Learn how the DOD-VA database impacts...

08/25/2026

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced this year that overall trust in the department had reached an all-time high. According to the department’s quarterly Veteran Trust survey, 82% of veterans who used VA services during the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 — October through December 2025 — reported that they trusted VA to fulfill the nation's commitment to them. That was the highest figure recorded since the survey began in 2016, when the baseline trust score was 55 percent.

A VA survey found that 82% of veterans reported trust in the department.

08/24/2026

An amazing event: we were honored to join VACLC Executive Board Member George Gandara at the Pow Wow at Shiloh Park in Zion on Sunday. And thanks to Congressman Brad Schneider for coming out as well.