I am a veteran who is ready to take advantage of my education benefits. I have struggled a bit since leaving the army, and I want to finish my college education to have more options for a new career. For that reason, I called the US Department of Veterans Affairs to talk about what my education benefits would look like so that I could plan accordingly. I'm unsure what the process looks like, and I need to talk to someone about how I get enrolled.
Before making my phone call, I knew I would likely have to wait. Any veteran who has sought help at a Veteran's hospital knows that anything that has to do with the VA requires a wait. Therefore, I made sure I had plenty of open time and made the call in the morning before lunch. I had to wait through many options that had nothing to do with me, and the customer care agent who answered the phone could have had a clearer and stronger voice, but I accomplished what I set out to do.
When I first called, I had to listen to a lot of messages that had nothing to do with me before I actually was able to listen to any real options that I could choose. The voice assistant told me, "Welcome to the Department of Veteran Affairs Education Benefits Assistance Service Line. For VA information, please visit our website at www.va.gov. If you are having suicidal thoughts, press 7 now to be connected to the Veteran’s crisis line. Please listen carefully as our options have changed. If you are a post-9-11 GI beneficiary calling to verify your enrollment status, please consider choosing opt-in via the text message you just received."
I am a post 9-11 GI veteran, but I didn't have an option to get any help from there, which was slightly annoying. There has been a gap between the time I served and now, so I'm not sure what text message they refer to. After all of this, I finally got some options, but I am unsure what most of them were. First, it told me, "If you are a Montgomery bill recipient beneficiary or dependent beneficiary calling to verify your attendance, please consider going online to verify via the school attendance link. Or you can press 1 to access our automated system." Then it said something about direct deposit and to press 2 to access an automated system. Then it said to press 3 to set up a payment plan and press 9 to talk to someone if you are a spouse or a beneficiary of a deceased veteran.
Finally, it told me that if I wanted to talk to a representative, I could just stay on the line. This was about four minutes in at this point. It sent me to a hold line after this, and it wasn't a terrible wait, but the agent had a soft voice and a notable southern drawl that made him difficult to understand. I did get my information, but it took time.