Op-Ed: Tennessee Department of Veterans Official Touts New Resource

Tennessee is home to more than 430,000 veterans. They live in every one of our 95 counties—in the cul-de-sacs of Williamson County, the river towns along the Mississippi, and the hollers of East Tennessee. They are our neighbors.

And too many of them do not know what they've earned—or where to begin looking for it.

That is the gap our new statewide resource, the Veterans Connect Portal, is built to close.

Announced this month by Governor Bill Lee and Tennessee Department of Veterans Services Commissioner Tommy Baker, the portal pulls together—in one trusted place—the employment, healthcare, housing, education, and community resources that veterans and their families qualify for across the state. Today, those resources are scattered across federal agencies, state offices, county service officers, and a patchwork of nonprofits. The idea behind the Portal is simple: one front door, many rooms.

The state can create the infrastructure, but only the people and institutions across Tennessee can make sure it reaches the people who need it most.

That is not a courtesy line. It is the central operational reality of an initiative like this.

A new URL does not, on its own, reach the 71-year-old Vietnam veteran in Hawkins County who always reads the weekly paper at the diner on Saturday morning. His local paper does. His pastor does. His VFW post does.

Tennessee is lucky to have strong local networks. Churches, civic groups, veteran organizations, local papers and community leaders often become the trusted bridge between people and the support systems surrounding them. That kind of trust cannot be manufactured from a state office, but it can help ensure veterans and military families actually find the help available to them.

From sharing news about a new VA benefit or a mobile clinic stopping in a rural county to reminding a surviving spouse to file for benefits she did not realize she qualified for, communities make a difference.

So to the organizations, local leaders and Tennesseans willing to help, I have three asks—if you'll indulge a state official making them.

First, share the link. 

Place TNVeteransConnect.tn.gov on the inside front page of every paper that can spare the inches. It belongs in church bulletins, high school football programs, and the corkboards in coffee shops. A resource that nobody can find is, functionally, a resource that doesn't exist.

Second, make veterans issues part of regular community news—not just biannual features.

Memorial Day and Veterans Day produce thoughtful tributes; they do not, on their own, change outcomes. Sharing veterans’ stories—a county service officer, a VFW post commander, a chaplain, a military spouse, or a young vet who has navigated the system—can dramatically expand awareness.

The Tennessee Department of Veterans Services can also serve as a resource for story ideas, source connections, data and more.

Third, hold us accountable.

Public resources improve when communities expect them to work. Are calls being returned? Are the verified providers in the portal showing up for the veterans they're matched with? Are the Veteran Service Organizations and local agency partners actually using the coordination tools the state has equipped them with—and are rural counties feeling as connected as the metros?

We expect, and welcome, that scrutiny. Our veterans deserve nothing less.

Tennessee earned the name Volunteer State for a reason, and we have carried it with pride for more than two centuries. Launching Veterans Connect on Armed Forces Day was a fitting nod to that history.

The work of connecting a veteran to the care they earned is rarely glamorous. It is granular, local and built through one conversation at a time—and it cannot be done from Nashville alone.

A web address does not change a life. A trusted neighbor, pastor, editor or friend pointing someone toward it just might.

Help us be that connection.