Category Benefits
2024 Will Ring in New Laws Benefiting California’s Veterans
New Year’s Day 2024 will institute several new laws intended to benefit veterans of the United States Armed Forces. On the federal side, military retirees and disabled veterans will receive a 3.2 percent raise in 2024, mirroring the cost-of-living increase for Social Security benefits.
Securing Embassies, Guarding a President, and Protecting Veterans Education Benefits
Richard Charron spent 30 years in the U.S. Marine Corps protecting everything from classified documents at embassies, to fellow Marines, and even an American president. Today, as an education specialist with CalVet’s California Approving Agency for Veterans Education (CSAAVE), Charron protects veterans by ensuring that the schools who recruit veterans using their Post-9/11 GI Bill […]
Helping Veterans Know Their Benefits Is Like A Family Affair for CalTAP Training Coordinator
Jennifer Rudquist recalls her arrival at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas on Thanksgiving Day 1996. Now the recruiting trainer with CalVet’s California Transition Assistance Program (CalTAP), she stepped off a bus that day, into basic training and her brave new world.
From One Family to Another: Kinship During Deployment Set Stage for Veteran’s Future
Liz Hargrove-Washington’s world changed in an instant during the winter of 1996. As a young staff sergeant in the Air Force stationed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, and the young mother of a baby girl, she received orders to deploy to Saudi Arabia. “It was one of the most challenging, difficult times of […]
The Trifecta: CalVet’s Rose Shows His Range in Helping California’s Veterans
How has U.S. Navy veteran Derek Rose served other veterans since coming to CalVet seven years ago? Let us count the ways. Rose served four years in the military which included a two-year assignment in Bahrain. He separated in 2011, and used his Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefits to earn his undergraduate degree from Sacramento […]
NAVY VETERAN FILES PACT ACT CLAIMS FOR HERSELF, HELPS OTHERS AS AUGUST 9 BENEFITS DEADLINE LOOMS
As a Chief Yeoman in the U.S. Navy, attached to a Seabees command battalion in Afghanistan, Temecula’s Angela Fritzoni incurred numerous injuries that eventually resulted in a 100 percent service-related disability rating from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “In Afghanistan, our mission was to help the Afghans build to fight (terrorism)” said Fritzoni, whose […]
WOMAN VETERAN DECAL IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR CALIFORNIA ‘HONORING VETERANS’ LICENSE PLATE
When President Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act into law on June 12, 1948, women could finally serve as permanent, regular members of the four major branches of the American military. Up until 1948, women serving in the auxiliary branches performed duties in four categories: baking, clerical, driving, and medical. During WWII, the […]
CALVET SAVES VETERAN’S HOME DEAL BY APPROVING LOAN IN RECORD 48 HOURS
Veteran Julian Saenz waited for his commercial lender to fund his loan so that escrow could close and he could move his family into their new home in Riverside County. The seller, meanwhile, had scheduled movers to transport her possessions to her new home in another state. With their closing date of February 3 looming, […]
FOR WHOM THE TOLLS DON’T APPLY: ELIGIBLE VETS WON’T PAY FOR BRIDGE CROSSINGS AMONG NEW LAWS IN 2023
When the clock struck midnight and rang in 2023, it brought several new laws that will honor and benefit many of California’s 1.6 million military veterans. All were signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022. Perhaps the most notable of them? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it – literally, figuratively, and seriously. […]
WEBINARS OF INTRIGUE: HOW CALTAP WENT VIRTUAL DURING THE PANDEMIC TO KEEP VETERANS CONNECTED
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in early 2020 and shut many things down, CalVet stepped up. When other offices stopped answering their phones or were unable to reply, CalVet picked up. When military bases, college campuses, and other community-based points of connection closed, CalVet booted up and took vital information right into the veterans’ homes […]
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