The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Military veterans and those whose business it is to help them met May 16 at the township municipal building.
The occasion was the first Veterans’ Claims Clinic, co-sponsored by state Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (D-17) and the Newark regional office of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
In addition to the VA, those in attendance included representatives from the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, Somerset County Office of Veterans Services, the state VA Health Care Systems, Middlesex County Office of Veterans Services, Raritan Valley Community College, Rolling Thunder and the Trenton Veterans Center.
“It’s basically just a way for veterans and veterans families to be be to come here, discuss with some local community groups ways to have better access to services and meet with the representatives from the official departments where they can get help processing their claims, health care benefits, other benefits that they need,” said Robert Zuckerman, Danielsen’s communications director.
Wayne Dibofsky, Danielsen’s chief of staff, told the veterans that veterans’ issues are “critically, critically important” to the assemblyman.
“We are providing services back to you for the services you provided us in your military career,” he said. “It does not begin and end here today. It is our hope that you will reach out to us whenever you need us, whether you are a constituent in the 7th District, or a a constituent from the state. Nothing happens that you didn’t help protect in this great nation of ours.”
Danielsen, himself a veteran, told the group that he believes the nation’s military veterans are not treated as well as they should be.
“It’s always been my belief that veterans are of the highest order of citizenry in this country,” he said. “Our country’s never really done what it should have done for our veterans. You’re trained to go away, and we don’t get trained to come home.”
