Testimony of: Nicholas J. Armstrong, Ph.D. Managing Director, Research and Data Institute for Veterans and Military Families Syracuse University
Before the: U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Hearing on VA and DoD Collaboration: Improving Outcomes for Servicemembers and Veterans
November 3, 2021
Mr. Chairman, Ranking member, Members of the committee. I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to testify on the topic of improving the collaboration between the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) for the purposes of improving the military-to-civilian transition.
My name is Nick Armstrong. I served eight years in the U.S. Army, including nearly three years deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bosnia with the 10th Mountain Division. After transitioning out, I attended Syracuse University as the University’s first Post-9/11 GI Bill recipient, where I eventually earned my PhD. Today, over a decade later, I am still at Syracuse University, serving as the Managing Director of Research and Data for the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF).
All this is to say, I understand the military-to-civilian transition, not only because I study it every day, but also because I lived it. I know firsthand how critical it is we as a nation “get transition right” for our service members and their families. Therefore, I’d like to start with a statistic. In 2018, the combined funding from the DoD, VA, Labor, and Small Business Administration devoted specifically to the Transition Assistance Program and its associated transition supports was approximately $182 million. With approximately 200,000 members separating from active service each year (excluding transition made by members of the guard and reserves), this equates to an investment of $910 per transitioning service member on the part of government, directed toward supporting a robust and successful transition to civilian life.
I say again: $910 worth of transition support per exiting service member. The contrast seems stark compared to the tens of thousands it costs to recruit and screen basic trainees, and the over $200 billion spent annually on post-service health, wellness, and benefit programs. It’s stark considering that research consistently shows a strong connection between a positive transition experience and better health and well-being outcomes later in life. The opposite is also true. A negative transition experience can linger for decades, sometimes spiraling into the most devastating outcomes such as homelessness or suicide. Even VA researchers have coined the initial period after separation as “the deadly gap” when transitioning veterans are more likely to die by suicide than others.
To improve the veteran’s transition experience, the DoD and VA must further integrate their efforts. However, this task is bigger than the VA or DoD alone, in fact it is bigger than the entirety of the federal government. Supporting military-to-civilian transition is a whole-of-the- nation task—one that government must lead, and in close partnership with the nonprofit and private sectors.
In recent years, this committee and those that serve in the VA and DoD have made great progress. Last year marked historic legislative achievements. Legislation like the Hannon Act and the Phil Roe and Johnny Isakson Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act have the potential to significantly improve the way that the DoD and VA support the military-to- civilian transition. I want to thank you for passing this legislation, and for all the work this committee, the VA, and DoD are doing to ensure implementation of this legislation is both effective and timely.
My testimony will focus on three major recommendations for how DoD, the VA, and other key players can improve the way they work to improve military transition policy and service delivery.
First, I will call for legislation to institutionalize a National Veterans Strategy and expanded interagency process to spur broader collaboration from the VA and DoD to other key agencies, states, and the private and nonprofit sectors. The Joint Executive Committee (JEC) and Joining Forces Initiative provide good blueprints. These efforts, however, cannot wax and wane across administrations. Rather, there is an opportunity to reimagine how we might better align public and private sector resources supporting veterans—the Sea of Goodwill—within a whole-of- government framework that is codified in statute.
Second, we must find ways to expand collaboration and integration between VA medical centers and DoD installations, and between those entities and the communities where they reside. No matter who collaborates in Washington, service members, veterans, and their families engage services in their communities where they live, work, and raise families. Today, the VA and DoD have the opportunity to improve the way they integrate their work with the communities where they reside.
Finally, the DoD and VA must be empowered and resourced to expand and enhance credentialing and career training services for both transitioning service members and their spouses. Currently, both the DoD and VA operate some form of job training programs for this population, but research increasingly shows, many of the most valuable programs are those being delivered by the nonprofit sector informed by the changing needs of industry. This represents another opportunity for the VA and DoD to lean more on the nonprofit and private sector to deliver these services. Without collaboration with nonprofits and significant public- private partnerships, the DoD and VA may continue to duplicate services and undercut emerging innovations.
The future of our all-volunteer force depends on it. Today, one-third of 17-to-24 year old adults are unfit to serve in the military, less than 15 percent of young adults even want to serve, and now 79 percent of U.S. Army recruits come from a military family. If our all-volunteer force is to continue, it requires us to direct our limited resources—public and private—smartly on the military-to-civilian transition. The imperative is not only a moral obligation, but one of national security.