WASHINGTON — VA announced that Veterans and their survivors have filed more than one million claims for toxic exposure-related benefits under the PACT Act since President Biden signed it into law Aug. 10, 2022. VA has processed more than 551,000 of these claims, granting 77.9% of them and awarding more than $2.2 billion in earned benefits to Veterans and survivors. Supporting Veterans and their families is a core pillar in President Biden’s Unity Agenda for the nation, and today’s announcement helps deliver on his promise to comprehensively address military related toxic exposure.

Thanks to the largest outreach campaign in VA history, Veterans and survivors are applying for their earned benefits at record rates. In this fiscal year alone, Veterans and survivors have submitted 2.29 million total claims (PACT and non-PACT) — 40.4% more year-to-date than last fiscal year, which was the previous all-time record. Veterans have also submitted more than 2.1 million “intents to file” during this fiscal year — 53.1% more than all of last fiscal year and also an all-time record.

The PACT Act is the biggest expansion of Veteran health care and benefits in decades. VA encourages all eligible Veterans and survivors to file a claim — or submit their intent to file a claim — for PACT Act-related benefits now.

“Thanks to President Biden, the heroes who fought for our country are now getting health care and compensation for the conditions that followed them home from war,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “We’re proud that more than one million Veterans and survivors have applied for their hard-earned benefits to date, but this is just the beginning — and we won’t rest until every Veteran and every survivor gets the VA health care and benefits they deserve.”

Partly due to the PACT Act, VA is delivering more care and more benefits to more Veterans than ever before. Key results to date include:

• Delivering benefits to Veterans and their survivors: VA has processed 1.85 million total Veteran claims (PACT and non-PACT) thus far in this fiscal year —15.7% more to date than last fiscal year and already surpassing last year’s all-time record total of 1.7 million claims processed.
• Increasing Veteran access to health care: Since Aug. 10, 378,995 Veterans have enrolled in VA health care. This includes more than 158,691 enrollees from the PACT Act population (Vietnam, Gulf War, and Post-9/11 era Veterans).  
• Screening Veterans for toxic exposures: More than 4.4 million enrolled Veterans have received 5-minute screenings for toxic exposures from VA under the PACT Act.

Right now, there is also a special enrollment period for Veterans to enroll directly in VA health care without first applying for VA benefits. Specifically, until 11:59 p.m., local time, Sept. 30, Veterans who deployed to a combat zone, never enrolled in VA health care, and left active duty between Sept. 11, 2001, and Oct. 1, 2013, are eligible to enroll in VA health care without first applying for disability compensation benefits. VA encourages all of these Veterans to visit VA.gov/PACT or call 1-800-MYVA411 to learn more and sign up for VA health care before the deadline.

VA is delivering health care and benefits at record rates partly due to a dramatic increase in hiring at VA. For the first time in VA’s history, the Veterans Health Administration has over 400,000 employees and the Veterans Benefits Administration has over 31,000 employees — and both organizations are growing at the fastest rates in 20 years. Moving forward, VA will continue to modernize and expand capacity to deliver health care and benefits to Veterans as quickly and effectively as possible.

For more information on VA’s implementation of the PACT Act, visit the PACT Act Dashboard. VA is publishing this dashboard every other Friday to document the implementation of this legislation and showcase its impact on Veterans and survivors. The next dashboard, which will reflect the data in this release, will publish on Sept. 15. 

Veterans and survivors may apply or learn more about the PACT Act by visiting VA.gov/PACT or calling 1-800-MYVA411.

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CHICAGO (AP) — More than a year after 11-year-old Mayah Zamora was airlifted out of Uvalde, Texas, where she was critically injured in the Robb Elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers, the family is still reeling.

Knocks on the door startle Mayah into a panic. The family is skipping Fourth of July celebrations to avoid booming fireworks. An outing to the Little Mermaid movie requires noise-canceling headphones.

Since 2016, thousands of Americans have been wounded in mass shootings, and tens of thousands by gun violence, with that number continuing to grow, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Beyond the colossal medical bills and the weight of trauma and grief, mass shooting survivors and family members contend with scores of other changes that upend their lives.

Survivors talked to The Associated Press about the mental and physical wounds that endure in the aftermath of shootings in Uvalde; Las Vegas; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, during a Fourth of July parade last year.

They describe staggering medical bills that in Mayah’s case top $1 million, abandoning a dream career after 20 years, uprooting families and struggling to hold down a job, walk pets or even leave the house.

UVALDE

Mayah suffered wounds to her chest, back, both hands, face and ear, and needed so many surgeries her parents said they stopped counting. The family relocated to San Antonio, where Mayah spent 66 days in the hospital and still needs care.

“Her hospital bill is insane,” said Mayah’s mother, Christina Zamora. “It reaches close to $1,000,000, maybe over,” not including rehabilitation, follow-up visits and counseling.

A year later, Christina and Mayah’s father, Ruben, said they don’t know what bills will be covered by insurance and how much they will need to pay. When Mayah was discharged, they realized one parent needed to stay home to care for her.

Christina quit her job. Facing daunting bills with one income instead of two is scary, she said. The relocation also has separated the family: Ruben works seven days on, seven off in Uvalde. The couple’s oldest son, Ruben Jr., stayed in Uvalde to attend college and work. Zach, 12, “misses him. He misses our old normal life.”

Mayah is terrified to return to Uvalde.

“It’s heartbreaking when your little one can’t enjoy the things that she did before, and all these other kids are able to do,” the elder Ruben said. “It tears you up.”

COLORADO SPRINGS

Ashtin Gamblin was working the front door at Club Q in Colorado Springs on Nov. 19 when a person armed with a semiautomatic rifle shot and killed five people and injured 17 more, including Gamblin.

“I was shot nine times. Five to my left arm. Twice to my right arm. Twice to my left breast. Both of my humerus were shattered. So two broken arms,” the 30-year-old said. Six months later, “my right arm is still fractured. My left hand, we’re still working on function.”

Tasks that were once simple, such as walking her dogs, are now challenging and the loss of autonomy has been difficult, Gamblin said.

She has battled with health insurance, the hospital and worker’s compensation officials to figure out who would foot the $300,000 medical bill.

Gamblin also no longer felt safe in her apartment, where she could sometimes hear gunshots outside. She bought a house in a quieter neighborhood: “a house I wasn’t prepared to buy,” she said. “I bought a $380,000 safe space.”

She lists other unexpected post-shooting costs: a flooded basement, a service animal, a new car to get to doctor’s appointments.

Half a year later she is not mentally recovered enough to return to work.

“I just can’t be there… I don’t feel safe going to the grocery store. I don’t feel safe being in public,” she said. “I have no idea what I’m doing with my life currently.”

So far in 2023, nearly 400 people in the U.S. have been wounded in mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive. And 140 people have died in mass killings this year, which is on track to surpass 2019, the deadliest year on record for mass killings since 2006, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in a partnership with Northeastern University.

“There is a lot of focus on the people that are killed. And I’m grateful for that. Those are my friends and they deserved all of the attention and more,” Gamblin said. “The downfall is the rest of us are still suffering.”

LAS VEGAS

Tia Christiansen had worked in the music industry for more than 20 years when a gunman unleashed the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history at a Las Vegas music festival she helped organize in October 2017.

The shooter rained gunfire from the windows of a high-rise casino hotel into an outdoor concert crowd, killing 58 people and injuring more than 850.

Christiansen was scheduled to be at the festival that day. But she felt ill and stayed in her room, two doors down from where the gunman fired.

“The room was shaking. It was incredibly loud. There was actually a moment when the gunfire was so loud that I literally instinctively ducked and put my hands over my head because I thought that the walls or the ceiling would come crumbling down,” Christiansen said. “I completely reconciled my life and thought, ‘Am I ready to die?’”

She was physically unscathed. But her life turned upside down. After the shooting, she worked a few more festivals, until she “had a complete, total breakdown on site crying.”

“What I came to understand about myself in that moment was, I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” she said.

At concerts, Christiansen no longer focused on fans’ joy, instead fixating on emergency exits and whether people could get to safety. She has since given up her career in the music industry, letting go of her dreams.

Her lingering PTSD and need to control her environment also has affected Christiansen’s relationships with her friends and family.

“My personality changes. I get very short tempered, and I get very judgmental. I’m quick to be snippy,” she said. “That is heavy energy to be around.”

Christiansen, who is based in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, turned to spending. She bought a new bed to try to find more comfort and relied on delivered meals to avoid leaving her home.

“The financial aspect of it is crushing, absolutely crushing,” she said. “I don’t know how many years it’s gonna take to pay that off.”

Now Christiansen is part of a mentorship program for the Everytown Survivors Network, which connects thousands of gun violence survivors to resources and aims to end gun violence.

“The trauma doesn’t go away,” she said. “Even if you’re not wounded in the moment, there is injury.”

HIGHLAND PARK

Leah Sundheim, 29, was a night manager at a hotel in Las Vegas when she got “the worst phone call you can ever receive.”

Her mother, Jacquelyn Sundheim, had been killed at a shooting during Highland Park’s 2022 Fourth of July parade, along with six other people.

“That flight home broke me,” Sundheim said.

She then moved back to Highland Park to be close to her father.

“I couldn’t be away from my family,” Sundheim said. “I can’t do another flight like that ever.”

Mass shootings cause a variety of trauma, she said. Her experience is different from that of her aunt and cousins, who were sitting next to Jacquelyn Sundheim when she died.

“They have the visual and sound… of watching her be murdered, and my dad has the trauma of receiving the phone call and then subsequent hours trying to get to her body. My trauma is waking up to my phone ringing and hearing that my mom was killed,” she said.

Whichever type of trauma survivors experience, she said, “it shatters the sense of security that you have in the world.”

___

Savage is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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WASHINGTON — VA announced that Veterans and their survivors have filed more than 500,000 claims for toxic exposure-related benefits under the PACT Act since President Biden signed it into law Aug. 10, 2022. To date, VA has awarded more than $1 billion in earned benefits to Veterans and survivors who filed PACT Act-related claims. 

VA also announced that more than 3 million Veterans have received VA’s new toxic exposure screenings since President Biden signed the PACT Act into law, with approximately 42% reporting a concern of exposure. More than 215,000 Veterans have enrolled in VA health care during that timeframe, a 15% increase from the same timeframe the year before.

In April, VA also processed its millionth disability compensation and pension claim during fiscal year 2023, putting VA on pace to process a record number of Veteran claims for the third year in a row. Thanks to aggressive hiring and modernization efforts, VA processed a record number of Veteran claims in 2021, exceeded that in 2022, and is on track to exceed it again in 2023. In total, VA has delivered more than $65 billion in earned compensation benefits to Veterans during FY2023.

The PACT Act is the biggest expansion of Veteran health care and benefits in generations. VA encourages all eligible Veterans and survivors to file a claim — or submit their intent to file a claim — for PACT Act-related benefits now. Most Veterans who do so before August 10 will have their benefits, if granted, backdated to Aug. 10, 2022, the day that President Biden signed the bill into law.  

“Thanks to President Biden, the millions of Veterans who fought our wars for the past 30 years — who breathed in debris from sandstorms, fumes from burning trash, and more while overseas — are now taken care of for the conditions that followed them home from war,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “We’re proud that 500,000+ Veterans and survivors have applied for their hard-earned benefits to date, but we won’t rest until every Veteran and every survivor gets the VA health care and benefits they deserve.”

VA is delivering health care and benefits at record rates partly due to a dramatic increase in hiring. The Veterans Health Administration welcomed 27,181 new hires in the first six months of the fiscal year, the highest hiring level in the history of VA for that timeframe. The Veterans Benefits Administration’s total workforce grew by 2,040 employees in the first six months of the fiscal year — the highest growth rate in the past 15 years.

For more information on VA’s implementation of the PACT Act, visit the PACT Act Dashboard. VA is publishing this dashboard every other Friday to document the implementation of this legislation and showcase its impact on Veterans and survivors. The next dashboard, which will reflect the 500,000 PACT Act claim milestone and the 3 million toxic exposure screenings milestone, will publish April 28.  

Veterans and survivors can apply or learn more about the PACT Act by visiting VA.gov/PACT or by calling 1-800-MYVA411.

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“The effects of child sexual abuse are severe and long-lasting,” said co-counsel James W. Lewis of Slater Slater Schulman LLP. “The brave young women who are part of this case have each suffered extreme emotional distress as a result of being abused by an adult placed in a position of authority by their school and school district. Joe Robles, Jr. had access to hundreds of children over the course of his ten-year employment. We are working to build a community of survivors who are taking the power back.”

“Schools have a duty to protect the safety and welfare of students,” said co-counsel Paul Mones. “Schools have a responsibility to not just properly and adequately supervise children delivered into their care by their parents, but as well a responsibility to adequately monitor teachers to ensure that they maintain appropriate and professional boundaries with students.”

As detailed in the complaint, the grooming and sexual abuse occurred on a regular basis with numerous students. The  alleged grooming behavior included, but was not limited to: rubbing minor females’ shoulders; holding their hips, kissing them on their heads and faces; touching them improperly during stretching; engaging in uncomfortably long hugs while rubbing female students’ lower backs; asking students if they found him attractive; asking female students if they have thought about engaging in sexual activity with him; commenting sexually on female students’ photos posted on social media; sending female students inappropriate text messages unrelated to school; exchanging nude photos with students; sending sexually harassing and sexually explicit messages to students, including through Snapchat and other social media platforms; telling female students he was having sexual thoughts about them; telling female students that he was interested in engaging in sexual conduct with them; using school computers to write sexual messages to students during academic class periods, and countless other similar inappropriate and illegal conduct. Much of the grooming behavior took place out in the open on school grounds or at school events, such as sports practices and meets, and was observed by school administrators, teachers, staff, and students. Robles, Jr. also used passes to pull female minor students out of other academic classes so that he could groom, manipulate, and sexually abuse them in his classroom.

The complaint notes that less than two years after Robles was criminally convicted of multiple felonies for sexually assaulting minor female students, a second teacher-coach at Eleanor Roosevelt High School was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting and abusing a male minor student. Amanda Quinonez, a former English-Language Arts teacher and swimming and water polo coach, worked with Robles, Jr. between 2016 and 2019.

If you were a student of Joe Robles, Jr. or a student-athlete on one of his teams, you are encouraged to call 310-341-2086 or email jlewis@sssfirm.com or paul@paulmones.com to provide any information at all that you may have about Robles, Jr. Victims of child sexual abuse need to understand that the sexual abuse was not their fault. Many victims of child sexual abuse are forced to live with a lifetime of shame, embarrassment, and severe emotional distress and mental pain and suffering. Help is available.

NOTE: Individuals seeking to be linked to resources for sexual assault survivors can call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. The National Sexual Assault Hotline operated by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) provides confidential support from trained staff members and can assist with finding local healthcare resources, help talk through what happened, and offer referrals for long-term support.

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