Speaker 1: As Veterans Day is tomorrow, we thought it would be
Speaker 1: a good way to kick off Veterans Week by talking
Speaker 1: with Scott Felt. He's the commander of the Disabled American
Speaker 1: Veterans National Service Officer, United Veterans Coalition XCOM, United Veterans
Speaker 1: Coalition Legislation and Benefits Protection Team. Scott, how do you
Speaker 1: fit all of that onto a business card? That's my
Speaker 1: first question.
Speaker 2: That's a lot.
Speaker 3: I only use about half of it.
Speaker 2: Thank you well, nice to meet you as well.
Speaker 1: You're kind of the guy in charge here in Colorado,
Speaker 1: the Disabled American Veterans Organization. Tell my listeners, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have heard of you, but maybe they don't
Speaker 1: know everything that DAV does.
Speaker 2: What exactly do you guys do.
Speaker 3: Well Disabled American Veterans. It'd begin back way long time ago,
Speaker 3: about one hundred and five years ago. A gentleman by
Speaker 3: the name of Robert Marx. He was an infantry captain
Speaker 3: that was injured during World War One, that Robert Mark
Speaker 3: mister Marx, Captain Marx would call him Captain Marx. Basically,
Speaker 3: terans on the road laying around in Cincinnati, Ohio, and
Speaker 3: he started advocating for veterans and then it grew from
Speaker 3: there right now, you know, distable American veterans is very
Speaker 3: important to us in the state of Colorado. When I
Speaker 3: retired in twenty twenty from my very long, extensive career,
Speaker 3: I basically looked at they've reached out to me as
Speaker 3: far as support and help, and then once I started
Speaker 3: working with them, it just grew from there. I was
Speaker 3: able to grow within the veteran community in a quick
Speaker 3: and timely manner here in the state of Colorado, and
Speaker 3: I enjoy it every day. With what we do DAV
Speaker 3: in Colorado, we approximately have about nineteen thousand members in
Speaker 3: the state itself. We have four things that we kind
Speaker 3: of criteria that we work on. First and foremost the claims,
Speaker 3: of course, and everybody knows that the claims that are
Speaker 3: six or excuse me, our five NSOs as well as
Speaker 3: our one national area supervisor. We work on that part
Speaker 3: and we're very happy with that because in the last year,
Speaker 3: last fiscal year, we have collected or we have compensated
Speaker 3: veterans in the state of Colorado and over one point
Speaker 3: nine billion dollars in compensation to our veterans, so we're
Speaker 3: very happy about that. We also have a transportation program.
Speaker 3: So that's mainly second high that's been going on since
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty three, Dav's Transportation Coordination in the state of Colorado.
Speaker 3: We support all VA clinics, basically all VIA hospitals, including
Speaker 3: Cheyenne Via Medical Center and also Albuquerque Medical Center because
Speaker 3: we basically covered the entire state where all of our
Speaker 3: veterans are. You know, in the state of Colorado, we
Speaker 3: have approximately last time I read, was over three hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty nine thousand veterans in there, and we try
Speaker 3: to support, Yes, we try to support every single one
Speaker 3: of them, either in the transportation side the claim side. Legislation,
Speaker 3: like you said, is very big. We're trying to work
Speaker 3: on that at a state level as well as a
Speaker 3: federal level. We focus a little bit more here on
Speaker 3: the state level. There's a lot of things we try
Speaker 3: to work on to help support the veterans. You know,
Speaker 3: we have the property tax build that's very good, things
Speaker 3: like that for Colorado benefits, and that's what we're trying
Speaker 3: to increase to help support veterans all just not you know,
Speaker 3: device diverse veterans. It's not we're not just looking at
Speaker 3: the av veterans, but the entire veteran community and the state.
Speaker 3: So that's on there. And then lastly is but not
Speaker 3: least is we try to focus on our membership of course,
Speaker 3: and you know we look at membership as well. It's
Speaker 3: like I'm sure that of course the Jerry, our benefit
Speaker 3: protection lead in our horse are assistant supervisor and so
Speaker 3: basically we don't charge anybody to be able to help
Speaker 3: them or anything like that. We just want them to
Speaker 3: be part of I guess you want to say, I
Speaker 3: call it our extended family, so to speak, where we're
Speaker 3: able to help veterans and you know, rough no matter
Speaker 3: what time, no matter what demographic, no matter what you know,
Speaker 3: tribulations that veteran goes through, hopefully we can help them
Speaker 3: through that portion.
Speaker 2: You know, there's so many people that.
Speaker 1: Have served that have the attitude of you know, well,
Speaker 1: you know some other guy has it worse than I do,
Speaker 1: or some other soldier airman you know needs that or
Speaker 1: needs that or what what do you do with that?
Speaker 2: Do you find that to be common?
Speaker 3: Well, like you said, we try to get the word out.
Speaker 3: I want to say one of the big things that
Speaker 3: coming up on the air today is to thank you
Speaker 3: and your staff being able to you know, as far
Speaker 3: as having my personnel up here in the last three
Speaker 3: months or four months excuse me. We we came on
Speaker 3: in July again in August, and that has been grateful.
Speaker 3: We had a couple of info seminars that like you're
Speaker 3: talking about getting to those veterans. It helped out. And
Speaker 3: with those just those three events that we had, we
Speaker 3: were able to serve about two hundred and fifty veterans
Speaker 3: that probably didn't even you know, some of them didn't
Speaker 3: even know that we had that. So I want to
Speaker 3: thank you guys for your due diligence. It's great to
Speaker 3: have people on that and what you're trying to do
Speaker 3: for the community entirely, the veteran community that we have,
Speaker 3: so it's greatly appreciated. With the veterans on that portion,
Speaker 3: a lot of yeah, you're right, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: the older veterans are basically you know, it's very difficult
Speaker 3: for them to say that they you know, were injured
Speaker 3: or mentally physically in that aspect. You know, we tell
Speaker 3: our veterans like a lot of times that you know,
Speaker 3: you have to take care of yourself. There's still your
Speaker 3: family members that you need to take care of when
Speaker 3: there's a fact of you have that veteran that just
Speaker 3: he's hit rock bottom and he can't go any further.
Speaker 3: You don't want to get to that level. So that's
Speaker 3: what we try to do. We try to prevent that.
Speaker 3: So DAV is very big into you know, we try
Speaker 3: to be proactive instead of reactive. And that's why I'm
Speaker 3: trying to do what I have once I took over
Speaker 3: as Department commander, being able to get out in the community.
Speaker 3: I just got back from, you know, we were down
Speaker 3: south in the Four Corners things like that, trying to
Speaker 3: help to help our members down there, our chapters that
Speaker 3: we have down there. DAV has about thirteen chapters all
Speaker 3: over state of Colorado, you know, So we try to
Speaker 3: get out there and we try to support everybody that
Speaker 3: we can.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that, Scott.
Speaker 1: Do you guys have anything coming up this week specifically
Speaker 1: because of Veterans Day?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So tomorrow we have our big event we've been
Speaker 3: for the past two weeks. We do what it's called
Speaker 3: it's a national our National Davy Office, it's our Military
Speaker 3: Event Night that we call it. And basically it's at
Speaker 3: the Golden Corral where we help celebrate, you know, Veterans Day.
Speaker 3: Of course, gold Corrals has been supporting with Camp Peril
Speaker 3: for many many years. Now right now we have all
Speaker 3: the Golden Corrals and basically in Denver, Colorado Springs area
Speaker 3: as well. I know the ones that I we help
Speaker 3: support is one in this area. In our area Lakewood
Speaker 3: area we have Santa Fe as well as Thornton area
Speaker 3: Santa Fe. We're going to have the bagpipes out there
Speaker 3: this year. A lot of people like that around five
Speaker 3: o'clock if they want to come out and listen to them.
Speaker 3: I really like it, I really think. And that was
Speaker 3: basically our older veterans that taught the younger ones. You
Speaker 3: know how important this is. We've had a real big,
Speaker 3: big response this year when it comes to volunteering, and
Speaker 3: it's great to see and it's great to see us
Speaker 3: all come together to help support everybody in that point Scott, how.
Speaker 1: Can people if they want to volunteer, they need help
Speaker 1: or how can they get in touch with you?
Speaker 3: Well, they could go online as well. You can go
Speaker 3: online and help volunteer. Dav has A has a great Uh.
Speaker 2: What what really helps me with Dav.
Speaker 3: Is they they have so many avenues. So many programs
Speaker 3: that can help veterans. One of the you know, besides
Speaker 3: the family caregiver support that's very big to be able.
Speaker 3: They can call online register any issues or province they
Speaker 3: may have that family caregiver with the veteran. They can
Speaker 3: call there and they can request support there. But we
Speaker 3: also have one thing that we do on our volunteer
Speaker 3: website and DAV dot org.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: It's a fact that at veteran if they're having issues
Speaker 3: or anything like that and there's somebody out there that
Speaker 3: wants to volunteer, they can go on there. They can
Speaker 3: basically you know, tap in and everything like that and
Speaker 3: say hey, I'm here to help. I'm here to volunteer,
Speaker 3: you know, and a lot of veterans will go on
Speaker 3: there they need support, like to redo a patch of
Speaker 3: roof or you know, help with long care or anything
Speaker 3: like that that they come up. So DAV has kind
Speaker 3: of thought of all of it when it goes on
Speaker 3: their website, the DAV dot org. All kinds of things
Speaker 3: that they can do on there and if you you know,
Speaker 3: very simple, all you have to do is email us
Speaker 3: at office at Davcolorado dot org. It's the office symbol
Speaker 3: at Davcolorado dot org and you can request that. And
Speaker 3: I have a very very very good support staff over
Speaker 3: there in department, and they know exactly what to do
Speaker 3: and how to take care of veterans. They've been doing
Speaker 3: it for a very long time, and they can get
Speaker 3: you in the right direction to our NSOs or where
Speaker 3: or the correct chapter to help support you.
Speaker 1: And I just want to reiterate because there are so
Speaker 1: many people who think, oh, I'm not that bad off,
Speaker 1: or oh, you know, sure, I have horrible tonight's in
Speaker 1: my ears, or I having this issue, or my back
Speaker 1: is shot, or I have arthurright, all of these excuses.
Speaker 1: You need to understand that there's a lot of help
Speaker 1: for you out there. And this is one of the
Speaker 1: things that that I think people don't re is that
Speaker 1: as we get older, all of those physical issues get
Speaker 1: harder to deal with, and if you're going to need
Speaker 1: some kind of help in long term care and things like,
Speaker 1: it's better to get in the system now and go
Speaker 1: ahead and get your rating taken care of.
Speaker 2: And Scott, I cannot tell you how.
Speaker 1: Much I appreciate you, all of the volunteers, everybody at
Speaker 1: DAV for what you do It's an incredibly important thing
Speaker 1: to take care of veterans who not only served but go.
Speaker 2: Jacked up in the process. Need need some support because.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't have necessarily had those injuries otherwise. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and I hope you can come back soon.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the next events where people can come out,
Speaker 1: but if they need help now, just reach out Dav
Speaker 1: dot org. I just added it to the blog for
Speaker 1: some reason forgot to add it earlier. Scott, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for making time for me today.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you very much, and thank you for
Speaker 3: the time. Yes again, thank you very much for everything
Speaker 3: you're doing. You're awesome and I truly to appreciate all
Speaker 3: the support that you have given us these past forms.
Speaker 1: Oh it's my pleasure. Scott Fell, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for Dav