As a former Army Ranger, I understand that no plan survives first contact. When conditions change, missions evolve. Veterans deserve a benefits system that operates with that same mindset.
But that’s not what’s happening when our country’s heroes return home injured.
A recent federal court ruling makes clear the failings of our current benefits system. Instead of adapting strategies to shifting realities, it’s entrenching itself in positions that are clearly detrimental to veterans’ well-being.
In that case, a federal court ruled against Veterans Guardian, a fee-based veteran service organization that helps veterans navigate the claims process. Ultimately, lawyers and courts will decide the legal questions surrounding this case. My concern is not whether Veterans Guardian wins or loses; it is why so many veterans feel they need outside help in the first place.
This case does not change the fact that the benefits system veterans are forced to navigate is unnecessarily complex and inefficient.
The objective here should be easy to agree on and simple to achieve: Help our veterans access the benefits they’re entitled to as easily as possible. But achieving this straightforward goal is more like a bitter war of attrition than the straightforward mission we know it should be.
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For more than a decade, veterans, lawmakers, advocacy groups, and multiple administrations have pushed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to modernize its systems and put service members first.
There has been progress. We’ve seen improvements in processing times, which means shorter wait times for veterans and their families to learn what benefits they will receive. That’s a welcome improvement, because that period can be extremely stressful, piling psychological burdens on top of physical ones.
The VA has also upgraded its digital tools, helping veterans access services more easily. Yet despite this, the system moves far more slowly than our veterans deserve. Secretary Doug Collins inherited these challenges, and he has said his leadership team is cutting bloat and using AI to speed up approvals. But I haven’t seen those alleged improvements trickle down to me, nor have many veterans I’ve spoken to.
Until those of us who have waited years in line can actually move forward, we will wonder if there is any leadership ready to put us first.
Thousands of veterans still face claims backlogs. Scheduling an appointment is often unnecessarily complicated and cannot always be accomplished online. Even basic digital functions sometimes feel outdated. If you’ve spent an afternoon at the DMV, you know the outdated government bureaucracy I’m talking about.
My own experience navigating the system has often involved unnecessary friction. Whether filing claims, managing appointments, or trying to understand administrative requirements, I have repeatedly found myself dealing with processes that left me feeling hopeless.
Claims can be delayed or denied because of procedural nuances. Appointments can be difficult to schedule or manage, relying on outdated methods like mailers and phone calls to reschedule. Over time, veterans are forced to learn a system that should have been designed around them in the first place.
Veterans encounter battles on many fronts as they navigate disability claims, healthcare needs, mental health treatment, family obligations, and civilian careers simultaneously. Every unnecessary step, confusing process, and avoidable delay creates friction for those who deserve the highest level of support.
The level of friction these wounded heroes face would never be tolerated on the battlefield. If leaders saw that sluggish processes and clumsy bureaucracy were slowing down their troops, they would fix those problems immediately. They wouldn’t waste time defending the process and making excuses. The bottleneck would be found by talking to soldiers directly, understanding the problem, and removing it.
To make the VA efficient, leaders need to listen to those “on the ground”—we know intimately what needs to be fixed.
That mindset is what’s missing from this debate, and it is exactly the mindset Secretary Doug Collins should be bringing to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Too much attention is focused on who is allowed to help veterans navigate the system, and not enough attention is paid to why so many veterans feel they need outside help in the first place. If people are looking for alternative avenues to access their benefits, it is a sign that something is wrong.
When veterans believe they need consultants, advocates, nonprofits, attorneys, AI assistants, and third-party services to understand a benefits process, it should prompt policymakers to consider why the process is so difficult.
Secretary Collins and the VA need to admit that the old processes and infrastructure no longer meet the needs of today’s veterans. The VA’s mission should be to make the system so intuitive and efficient that veterans rarely need outside assistance at all.
Military leaders are judged by results, not intentions. Public officials responsible for serving veterans should be held to the same standard. That includes Secretary Collins and future VA leaders. That means giving veterans a benefits system that holds itself to the same standards that we upheld in uniform. A system that gives them the freedom to seek the help they need to accomplish the mission of securing the benefits they’ve earned.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.
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