Let me take you back to 2018 and troubling times for Alabama veterans. Our state had one of the worst military veteran suicide rates, as well as one of the worst veteran opioid addiction rates. It also had the longest waiting list in the country to get into the state veterans home system.
To make matters worse, the state had closed 17 county-based veterans service offices around the state, leaving wide swaths of Alabama without those valuable offices that serve our military veterans and families free of charge. Just as embarrassing, our symbolic State War Memorial in Montgomery had fallen victim to disrepair and vandalism.
That's not all. In 2017, the Alabama Legislature made drastic changes to the GI Dependent Scholarship program, a benefit in existence since the 1940s to provide scholarships to dependents of disabled veterans. Those 2017 changes eventually cut the scholarship program by 50%. Meanwhile, some neighboring states enacted new and important substantive benefits for their military veterans. For example, Florida passed legislation funding a veteran dental insurance program, while Texas passed legislation providing comprehensive property tax exemptions for disabled veterans.
While serving on the State Board of Veterans Affairs (SBVA) recently, my fellow board members and I unanimously passed a resolution urging the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to tend to the critical health needs of military veterans exposed to toxic substances at the former Fort McClellan in Anniston. That resolution went to the State Legislature, which passed a similar resolution in a bipartisan fashion. Unfortunately, Gov. Ivey refused to sign the legislation, leaving that subset of suffering veterans in the lurch yet again. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of state and federal elected officials in North Carolina successfully pushed through legislation providing relief to veterans suffering similar health consequences from toxic exposures at Camp Lejeune in that state.
In 2019, the SBVA sought to disrupt the shameful status quo regarding military veterans in Alabama. To help right this ship, it conducted a national search for a new State Commissioner of Veterans Affairs, and among a pool of more than 60 applicants, chose a candidate with a reputation for innovation, tireless energy, extraordinary leadership abilities, and out-of-the-box thinking. Since taking office in early 2019, that new commissioner, Admiral Kent Davis, vigorously assessed, repaired, implemented, and/or revitalized many of the state's shortcomings involving its military veterans and families.
The many benefits under this tenure include:
ADVA opened 12 new veterans service offices in Chambers, Cherokee, Chilton, Clay, Coosa, Crenshaw, Henry, Lawrence, Shelby, Sumter, Washington and Winston Counties (with plans for another office in Colbert County – plans that may now be in jeopardy). All this was done without increasing ADVA’s annual budget due to automation and increased efficiency in the delivery of services. ADVA now leads the nation in the per capita federal veterans benefits due to the expansion of those offices (going from #10 in the nation to #1 in just five years), meaning that federal dollars are flowing into all Alabama counties.
Reclassified the accredited Veterans Service Officers who work in those facilities to give them better pay and upward mobility, and vastly upgraded their mobile and office IT assets, addressing a critical attrition rate unaddressed for years.
Joined a national partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and other states to tackle the horrific issue of veteran suicides in Alabama. Among many other measures, ADVA blanketed the state with public service announcements, billboards, and veteran town halls advertising the Veterans Crisis Line. For the first time in a long time, Alabama’s veteran suicide rate is dropping.
Established a first-ever Office of Outreach and Engagement to foster partnerships among federal, state, and local agencies as well as dozens of private sector/non-profit/faith-based organizations around the state and nation. Those partnerships have already resulted in a level of cooperation that has led to a gap analysis in veterans services along both demographic and geographic lines and mobilized fresh assets to help our veterans.
Planned and successfully led the building of a new state veterans home in Enterprise, the Command Sergeant Major Bennie G. Adkins State Veterans Home, meticulously bringing that project to full operational status within budget and on schedule. This new facility will finally begin to address the embarrassing residency waiting list within the state veterans home system.
Converted the aforementioned (but now unfortunately slashed) GI Dependent Scholarship program from an outmoded 75-year-old paper-based system that supports more than 15,000 participants to a modern, more efficient web-based system.
Successfully gathered federal grant money to expand the State Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Spanish Fort, using that money to take care of the burial needs of Alabama veterans and their families for the next 10 years.
Adding to these successful accomplishments, ADVA even managed to earmark funds in its operational budget to renovate the long-dilapidated State War Memorial, a project that will soon be completed.
I could go on with even more improvements that have finally come to fruition thanks to Davis' leadership. Unfortunately, the innovative commissioner who led all these long-overdue improvements has now been driven out of office, maligned by some of the same politicians who long ignored our state's military veterans and apparently have no interest in the improvements outlined above. None of those politicians, including such prominent names as Kay Ivey, Nathaniel Ledbetter and Ed Oliver, have ever done a significant thing to substantively help veterans.
This despicable (but typical) display of Alabama politics came despite three separate votes by the SBVA – which came after hours of investigation by that body in public meetings – to both exonerate Davis and ask him to remain in office as our commissioner. Yet Ivey disregarded the board's voting results, invoking some nebulous and legally questionable "supreme executive power" to unilaterally remove Davis in dictatorial fashion. Welcome to the autocracy and world of inflated political egos. Does anyone wonder why the public loathes politics these days?
Davis has been wronged and unjustly targeted. As virtually everyone now acknowledges – including the governor in her latest condescending letter to Davis – Davis dared file an ethics complaint regarding a very suspicious loss of federal grant money intended to address the neglected mental health needs of our military veterans. Ethical journalists and even some elected officials, including State Sen. Greg Albritton (R-Atmore), a veteran himself, are now rightly beginning to question whether this is all about whistleblower retaliation. I hope the federal government, including the Department of Justice and the federal courts, similarly raise questions about this entire debacle.
The next time you encounter a veteran, think about all of this, and how our elected officials have consistently put the needs of our state's military veterans near or at the bottom of their charter. Too many have served in uniform, even returning from fighting for our freedoms overseas, to find themselves fighting an entirely different war – one waged by Ivey and other non-veteran-friendly politicians. Show your support for our veterans. Show your support for the summarily dismissed ADVA Commissioner Davis and the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs who are actually working to help all who have worn the cloth of our nation in our Armed Forces.
I know that I and the other 400,000 Alabama veterans and their families, who collectively make up almost a quarter of our state's population, will remember this when it comes to election time. Alabama veterans deserve nothing less!
Bryan Battaglia U.S. Marines (retired), is a former member of the Alabama State Board of Veteran Affairs and has nearly 37 years on active duty culminating with his assignment as the 2nd Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Armed Forces senior ranking Noncommissioned Officer.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
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