1. ALL WHO SERVED, and have a DD-214, with Honorable on it, you SHOULD go ahead and get signed up "just because." It may come in even more handy someday fro future & additional TBD uses/accesses and it costs you nothing except your time right now.

I won’t go into whether it saves you a lot money or none at all, that’s for another much LONGER thread.

FYI this does not affect me, I’m retied USAF (’90) and have a retied ID card. Translation: I can come and go as I please on bases, Exchanges, and other base facilities (Personnel, Finance, Pass & ID, Legal Office, commissary, gas stations, etc.). Admittedly, since 9/11 I can no longer just "walk into" the Five-Sided Puzzle Palace (aka Pentagon) like I use to, and a few similar high profile/high security places/bases without: official business, an escort, and a visit request on-file. But as gov't contractor since retirement (now retired on-call consultant) I've have and had many such official business trips and visit requests on-file at most such locations.


2. Additionally, ALL WHO SERVED should ALSO go to your LOCAL VA facility, with DD-214 in-hand, and get a VA ID CARD - EVEN IF YOU DO NOT USE, or NEED, VA care!

That ID card alone (can) get you other benefits. Check with your local VA about what the VA ID card may be able to do for you. Just one example: in New Mexico a VA ID CARD will get you FREE annual Rail Runner passage, that alone would cost anywhere from a couple hundred to over a $1000 a year to obtain.

FYI: the "Rail Runner" is a NM Roundhouse (aka state assembly) boondoggle. It was and is an ill conceived idiotic "mass transit" Express Train from Belen to Sante Fe, duh! It will never be financially viable on it's own, and the legislature KNEW that when they went ahead anyway it will, for all time, be a drain on NM taxpayers to run and maintain.

I love it here in the SW desert, for many reasons, but NM is really just a third-world county and the politics is truly reminiscent of a banana republic (sans late night "executions," at least to date).

Larry



Last edited by Larry Kehl; 07/24/17 02:36 PM.
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