Mt. Prospect Area Veterans

A small group of six veterans from Mt. Prospect American Legion Post 525, VFW Post 1337, Arlington Heights American Legion Post 208, and Legion Post 320 from Park Ridge attended a meeting with State Representative Rosemary Mulligan of the 65th District. Ms. Mulligan wanted to assemble this veteran’s advisory group to identify and understand the issues that face veterans. For over 2 hours our small group discussed a wide variety of concerns from health care, to financial assistance.

Ms. Mulligan described Illinois efforts to institute programs in response to the lack of the federal government’s lack of responsiveness to fund existing programs. “This is not a political stunt” but rather a genuine effort to understand how to best direct funding and support for Illinois veterans, stated Ms. Mulligan. She stated that the information will be brought to Springfield where it will be used to inform the Veteran’s committee.

At the conclusion of the discussion it was determined that one of the primary issues was a lack of communication and coordination of information available to returning veterans as well as veterans who have been assimilated into society over several years. Representative Mulligan plans to have additional meetings and to bring in other key stakeholders such as the Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, Tammy Duckworth.

George B. Lampere, Ph.D. Sr. Vice-Commander from Mt. Prospect VFW Post 1337 will solicit suggestions from the post and develop a communication coordination conceptual plan and submit it to Representative Milligan in a few weeks.