My late husband (Padeye , a rabidly avid Doper) was a veteran of the U.S. Navy who served in active duty for 6 years (1979-85). I started investigating if there were any survivor benefits available for someone in my circumstances. I was especially interested in determining if a VA home loan was available to me. Apparently I am not eligible because (a) he did not die during his active duty, (b) he did not die as a result of injuries sustained during his military involvement, and © because we did not take out a VA home loan before he died (I would have been eligible for a lowered interest rate if we had).
I would have thought that since he was eligible fo a VA loan, I would also be as his surviving spouse. Apparently not. Anyone have any idea why the distinction is made with those particular circumstances? Any VA employees in here who can shed some light on this for me? This enquiring mind wants to know.
Because your elected representatives in Congress wrote the rules that way.
The VA has to follow these rules. If you don’t like the rules, complain to Congress, not to the VA. Congress is the one who could change this, if they wanted.
These rules are frequently outdated for the current circumstances. (Maybe VA benefits, like generals, are always ready to fight the last war over again.)
For example, there is the requirement that widow’s benefits are paid only if the marriage has lasted at least 1 year. Used a lot in Vietnam era, to prevent quickie R&R marriages between a serviceman (often drunk) and a bar girl from granting them all kinds of widows benefits.
But now things have changed. With Bush’s Iraq war using mainly Reserve troops instead of regular troops serving their 3-4 year periods, we see Reservists called up on short (30-90 day) notice. Often, they decide that they should marry their long-time girlfriend before they go off to Iraq. Then they go overseas, and some of them are killed. But since the marriage was less than a year ago, the widow doesn’t get the VA benefits. Not very fair, I’d say.
But it’s a result of old regulations, that may have made sense during Vietnam when we had mostly regular soldiers fighting, but don’t work well now with so many Reservists being called up for active duty overseas.