Based on the responses of more than 21,000 injured veterans, the Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) 2014 Alumni Survey results include the largest sample size of service members injured since 9/11 and is the most statistically relevant survey response of that population to date.
For survey findings, follow the links below or click here for a rundown of the survey's coverage.
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Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) announced it has awarded $2.3 million in grants to organizations also serving this generation of injured service members and their families. Since its inception in 2012, the WWP Grant Program has awarded grants to over 85 different organizations, totaling more than $9.1 million.
“The WWP Grant Program strategically and proactively addresses the biggest trends and issues facing this generation of injured veterans,” said Steve Nardizzi, CEO, Wounded Warrior Project. “To truly impact a generation of warriors, it takes the collaboration and commitment of many organizations to meet the unique needs of warriors and their families. Coordinating efforts helps to ensure this generation of injured veterans is the most successful and well-adjusted in our nation’s history.”
Click here for information on this round's recipients
Wounded Warrior Project is proud to be a part of the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) as charity #11425. CFC is the world's largest and most successful annual workplace-charity campaign, with almost 200 CFC campaigns nationwide and overseas raising millions of dollars each year.
Support Wounded Warrior Project (#11425) this pledge season.
Learn more about this generation of wounded service members through the 21,120 respondents of our fifth annual Alumni Survey. The survey provides critical information to help Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) refine existing programs and develop new initiatives to better serve wounded service members, their families, and caregivers. When we say we're committed for a lifetime, we mean it.
Learn more about the 2014 Alumni Survey here.
You are not alone. More than 600,000 service men and women live with the invisible wounds of war.
Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) has dedicated resources to help Alumni with a healthy recovery. Restorewarriors.org features videos of warriors sharing their personal challenges with PTSD and combat stress. Self-help exercises address common topics such as relationships, shame and guilt, and self-esteem.
Learn more at restorewarriors.org.
Wounded: The Battle Back Home, a documentary-style film series devoted to sharing the stories of warriors with both visible and invisible wounds, returns October 28 on MSNBC with its finale episode, “Jamel: Operation Honor.” The series is produced in conjunction with Austin-based Flow Nonfiction and commemorates the 10-year anniversary of the nonprofit veterans service organization, Wounded Warrior Project®.
Read more and watch the trailer
Thirty-three percent of WWP Alumni are enrolled in school. In an effort to increase that percentage, the Education Services program provides outreach, information, and self-advocacy skills training to warriors interested in attending or returning to school or who need support while in school. This service is provided to Alumni seeking a degree or other vocational training program through Pathfinder Education Boot Camps.
Two-day Pathfinder Education Boot Camps:
- Explain jargon and terminology related to higher education.
- Examine the landscape of college campuses and specific functions of various offices that provide support to students.
- Explore career options and provide a customized map of career goals that involve higher education.
Once the workshop is completed, the Education Services team provides monthly advice and information to warriors working on their PathMap and seeking to enroll in school to get started on their career goals.
On behalf of the injured veterans and families who have and will continue to benefit from VA’s TBI Assisted Living pilot program, Wounded Warrior Project® is relieved to see that the Senate and House Veterans Affairs Committees listened to WWP’s calls for action and included a three-year extension of the program in their compromise agreement. This extension provides a reprieve for some of our nation’s most severely injured veterans who would otherwise be evicted from their rehabilitation program in the absence of congressional action, and would reopen the program for those who have been locked out since February.
WWP played an integral role in lobbying Congress to extend this pilot program; because of our efforts to mobilize veterans, supporters, and members of Congress to action, VA will continue providing the rehabilitative care and peace of mind that these veterans and their families have earned and deserve. We are grateful to the Conference Committee for recognizing and acting upon what WWP already knew: that age-appropriate, holistic rehabilitative TBI care is life-changing for this population of warriors and their families.
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Wounded Warrior Project today submitted a statement for the record before the House Veterans Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity.
The statement addresses the Warriors’ Peer-Outreach Pilot Program Act; the Improving Veterans’ Access to Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Act; and the Veterans Education Survey Act of 2014.
To read WWP’s positions on these issues, please click here.
In one of its first actions of the new year, the VA published proposed new rules for its Fiduciary program. Unfortunately, despite longstanding criticism of its approach, VA is not easing its rigid, onerous requirements on non-spousal family members who are both fiduciaries and caregivers.
Wounded Warrior Project is fighting this proposed regulation and has submitted written comments in response to these proposed regulations. We encourage interested family members of wounded veterans to submit comments, as well. To see our statement and learn where to send your comments, please visit: WWP Comment on Proposed VA Fiduciary Regulations.
To learn more about the proposed new rules for VA's Fiduciary program and where to send your comments, please visit: VA Proposes Fiduciary Regulations.
Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) is saddened to hear of a terrorist attack that occurred at Camp Qargha in Kabul, Afghanistan today, killing a U.S. General Officer and injuring at least 15 coalition troops from multiple nations. We wish to extend our deepest condolences to the families, friends and fellow service members of those involved in this tragedy. While many may forget, we at WWP acknowledge the harsh reality that we are a nation still at war. Today and every day, we stand ready to assist those who incur wounds as a result of their service to this great nation.
Testimony before the House Veterans Affairs Committee this week calling attention to VA’s inability to accurately and efficiently process veterans’ compensation claims is further evidence that the inefficiencies, mismanagement and manipulation of numbers discovered in the VA scandal at the Phoenix facility are not just present on the healthcare side of VA. Wounded Warrior Project is frustrated that veterans to whom we owe the care and support they earned in service to their country continue to be ill-served by egregious administrative practices.
VA’s mission – and mandate – is to serve and honor the men and women who have served this country and their families – yet VA has instituted smoke and mirror tactics in order to tout improvement, when in fact they are masking the true volume of pending claims by redefining what was considered “backlog” and by only partially adjudicating claims to change them from “pending status.” Rating claims are grouped in several categories based on the type of claim being made.
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This year, Wounded Warrior Project committed $30 million to help 250 of our most severely injured warriors who need a lifetime of support. This funding will serve the most severely wounded service members through two initiatives — the INDEPENDENCE PROGRAM and the LONG-TERM SUPPORT TRUST.
Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) is saddened to hear of a terrorist attack that occurred at Camp Qargha in Kabul, Afghanistan today, killing a U.S. General Officer and injuring at least 15 coalition troops from multiple nations. We wish to extend our deepest condolences to the families, friends and fellow service members of those involved in this tragedy. While many may forget, we at WWP acknowledge the harsh reality that we are a nation still at war. Today and every day, we stand ready to assist those who incur wounds as a result of their service to this great nation.
Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) has for months been warning Congress that a pilot program that’s helping veterans with TBI will end in September unless Congress acts very soon to extend it. If Congress fails to act in time, many of the veterans who have been receiving specialized residential rehabilitative care under this VA-administered pilot will be ejected from the program by September 15th.
We’re doing all we can both to keep this program operating and to open the door to other warriors who need the care but have been “locked out” of the program. You can make a difference for these veterans by taking action!
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During these challenging times, it is important to have strong leadership at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) is encouraged by President Obama's decision to nominate Mr. Robert McDonald, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, as the new VA Secretary.
As a West Point graduate and long-time supporter of military causes, Mr. McDonald understands service. As an experienced global CEO, he led a corporation with separate and distinct arms of operation, very similar to the VA. He maintained a strong focus on culture at P&G and will need to continue that focus in his work at the VA to restore veteran trust in the system.
We urge Mr. McDonald to engage quickly and forcefully, once confirmed, to seek solutions to the issues that have plagued the VA for decades.
As we have in the past, WWP will continue to be a strong, responsible, constructive voice for this generation of injured service members, families and caregivers and all of America's veterans with respect to the promised care earned through service to our Nation.
In the wake of reports of widespread falsification of records and inappropriate practices, today, Secretary Eric Shinseki tendered his resignation. Wounded Warrior Project® agrees that new leadership is needed in order to swiftly change the culture at VA that seems to tolerate, if not foster, lapses in ethics in providing care to all warriors.
Secretary Shinseki was an exemplary military leader and has been a dedicated public servant. We thank him for his service to our country.
With his departure, the conversation must refocus on what has been missing in the escalating storm of words regarding VA’s inappropriate scheduling practices: the search for root causes of these practices – and for fundamental solutions. Swift, stern discipline is critical. But that in no way assures that veterans across the country will immediately begin receiving timely, effective care. What our warriors tell us is that many VA facilities are simply overwhelmed and the most dedicated VA clinical staff cannot keep pace with veterans’ health care needs.
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On December 18, Ralph Ibson, Wounded Warrior Project's National Policy Director, spoke at a press conference on Capitol Hill urging Congress to correct the COLA changes that would adversely impact injured veterans. Below are his comments:
I’m here today on behalf of the more than 50 thousand wounded warriors with whom we at Wounded Warrior Project work. For those warriors who might have read a summary of the budget agreement, the key words were that the COLA changes “would not affect service members who retired because of disability or injury.” The cruel reality, however, is that the budget agreement breaks that promise!
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With a generation of veterans with war-related injuries and illnesses reliant on the VA’s health care system, Wounded Warrior Project® is further disheartened by growing reports of systemic problems affecting the timeliness of care at many VA facilities.
The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on May 15, 2014 marked a welcome step -- with Senators demanding answers, and a bipartisan call for continuing Committee oversight. We remain troubled that VA’s Under Secretary for Health – long aware of timeliness issues and of patterns of false reporting to mask performance issues – had no ready answers beyond a commitment to dig deeper.
VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki’s commitment to the system-wide auditing of VHA’s adherence to timeliness requirements and to assessing whether the problems reported at many facilities are due to workforce shortages is an important step forward. However, as WWP has long highlighted, these are not new issues, and veterans continue to encounter delays in accessing mental health care at many facilities.
Continue reading for the full statement.
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