(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2023)
(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2023)
(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2023)
New York State is installing 20 informational, computer kiosks at visitors centers on highways. They are aimed at helping veterans find the resources they need and benefits they have earned in their service to the country.
The fourth of 20 was dedicated on Thursday Jan. 19 at the Adirondack Welcome Center between exits 17 and 18 of the I-87 Adirondack Northway.
Too often veterans do not believe they are owed benefits or do not want to reach out for the help they need, said Benjamin Pomerance, the deputy director for program development at the New York State Division of Veterans’ Services.
“People who have served this country self-select out,” he said during the 90-minute dedication.
He said they will tell him, “I’m not a real veteran,” or “I didn’t go to combat. I was only stateside.” He tells them to talk to him, and they will see what is available.
That does not matter when it comes to benefits Pomerance said, and veterans need to know it. At all the kiosks, the objective is the same: someone comes in, walks by, sees the kiosk and learns.
Warren County Supervisor Craig Legget, one of a handful of people to speak, thanked the state for reaching out in this way.
“You never know what’s going to click,” Leggett said. He mentioned both the kiosks and programs such as the Peer-to-Peer program for veterans at SUNY Adirondack as ways that veterans can learn that there is help. He thanked the county’s Veteran Services Director Denise DiResta, a name that drew cheers from the 20 or so people in the audience.
As speakers including Cindy Roberts an American Gold Star Mother, Washington County Supervisor Samuel Hall, and Susie Belanger who was instrumental in the fight to get agent orange recognized for the damage it did during Viet Nam, took their turn at the microphone, the topic turned more toward advocacy.
Hall said that younger veterans are not advocating for themselves in the way that Viet Nam-era veterans have done. He worried that hard-won benefits could slide back.
“Somehow we need to figure out a way to engage them in their own advocacy,” Hall said of the younger veterans. “You have to have a place at the table. What you have today might not be there tomorrow.”