Morano and Caban Q&A with Kapner: DD-214 barriers and veteran self-identification
Kapner describes the DD-214 barrier: homeless veterans often lack discharge paperwork needed for Veterans Court admission, and obtaining replacements takes months while clients sit in jail. Morano and Caban discuss CJA interview questions about veteran status, and Kapner notes many veterans don't self-identify due to shame, while some non-veterans falsely claim service.
One of the biggest barriers is many of our clients are homeless, and they don't have access to their own records.
So the ticket into Veterans Court is the DD-214, which is your discharge paperwork.
If you're homeless, if you're living on the street or even in a shelter, that's one of the things you do not have.
In many cases, if your mom or dad are still alive, that's something they do have.
They have that with your baptismal certificates in the same folder.
Even if they're not around, if you have an older sister who's the family historian, you can reach out and get it from them.
If you're VA eligible and you have had VA services in the past, they may have a copy of it.
If none of those things happen, you have to submit a form to the government that...
Four or five months later, they will get back to you with that information.
But meanwhile, the client will sit in jail, hopefully getting some sort of medication services, but not always.
And I know going back to, and this was like a long time ago for me, not as long as...
Not at all.
You know, when we were getting trained on our arraignment interviews, one of the things that we were told to ask is whether somebody is a veteran.
But do you happen to know if that's something that's on the CGA?
It has recently added to the CGA interview.
Are you a veteran?
Okay.
I will hasten to add, many veterans do not self-identify.
Yeah.
There is a lot of shame also of being.
being arrested as a veteran.
It's a shameful thing to say, because being a veteran, as you know, is an earned status.
It's like being a fireman or a teacher or a nurse.
It's something that you've earned.
And my impression and what I've been told from my clients is they don't want to drag down other veterans by their association with me because I got in trouble.
So many veterans do not self-identify at that moment.
And then there's a smaller problem, but significant enough to mention, there are people who will identify as veterans who have not earned that status.
And we have to be very careful as people's advocates.
You know, people are desperate.
They want to get out from under and they'll say things that aren't true.
And we want to be able to.
Aid them by filtering that out.
But it's hard to get someone to say I'm a veteran if they're not.
Sometimes you could tell from their demeanor.
How they address you, all those different kinds of things.
I'm sorry?
Is that how they address you in the interview?
Yeah.
Someone looks at you and says, yes, sir, no, sir.
Yeah.
That's the next question you ask.
Yeah.
But also...
There was a time when men of a certain age, you would just naturally ask, or women of a certain age.
When I first started, I was still seeing Vietnam vets very often, and there were no services in place.
Once you were involved in the criminal justice system, they just didn't have time or...
Time or energy for you.
Post-Gulf War, there was a lot of effort put in, and that's always after military action, there's a spike, and we saw it there.
Right, right.