Veterans Services Spreads the Word about Benefits for Veterans and Families

 

In keeping with the approaching season, Robert Boyette has a wish.

The director of the Johnston County Veterans Service Office wishes more veterans and their families knew all that the department has to offer. That’s especially true of access to disability and survivor benefits, Boyette says.

“There are still Vietnam veterans from over 50 years ago walking around Johnston County with diabetes not knowing that they could be compensated because it’s directly related to Agent Orange exposure,” he says. “There are widows walking around whose husbands were in Vietnam and died from diabetes not knowing that they have benefits waiting for them at the VA if only they would apply.

The U.S. military used Agent Orange to defoliate the lush vegetation that often hid enemy forces in Vietnam. Exposure to the defoliant has been linked to many illnesses, including cancers and diabetes.

It’s possible too that Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have illnesses linked to exposure to fine particulate matter from the pits the military used to burn a wide range of waste, including plastics and chemicals. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been steadily expanding the list of illnesses that might stem from such exposure.

Thankfully, that word is spreading, Boyette says. “There are about 32 illnesses now related to that exposure,” he notes. “And as that generation of veterans ages and, unfortunately, develops these disabilities, they’re filing claims a lot like the Vietnam veterans did.”

But Boyette knows his office has more work to do, both for Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan veterans. “Trying to get the word out to that population is probably our biggest hurdle,” he says.

Of course, not every veteran will be eligible for compensation, Boyette says. “We may get 10 that aren’t eligible, but we may get one that is,” he says. “It’s still worth it to get that one.”

Julie Nix is one of Boyette’s fellow service officers. “I wish the veteran community knew that everything was case by case,” she says of disability claims. “It’s not because this person is 100% (disabled) because they have this illness, and I want my 100% because I have that too. Well, there’s a big gray area in there where you have to connect dots, and it may not happen the same for one as it would for another.”

Boyette gives an example. “Your neighbor may be 100% for diabetes, and you may have diabetes also,” he says. “But your neighbor’s diabetes may be because he was a Vietnam veteran exposed to Agent Orange whereas yours was not that at all.”

Still, Boyette’s office is there to help veterans get answers to their questions. To learn more, go to johnstonnc.gov/veteranssvcs/ or call 919-989-5067.

 

The Veterans Services Office

To describe the role of his office, Boyette quotes President Abraham Lincoln.

“To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan,” Lincoln said in his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, near the end of the Civil War.

Some 160 years later, care for veterans and their families “can be anything from enrolling in VA health care to filing for disability benefits to helping dependents with educational benefits,” says Boyette, director of the Johnston County Veterans Service Office.

“There are a lot of state benefits too,” Boyette adds, pointing to property-tax exclusions, permanent hunting and fishing licenses, and specialized licenses, all for disabled veterans.

Johnston County is home to 14,000 veterans, and of those, Boyette figures the office directly serves 70-75%, or anywhere from 9,800 to 10,500 veterans.
Most common among veterans and their families are requests for help in filing for disability and survivor benefits, though a veteran can need help with most any service, says Julie Nix, one of Boyette’s fellow service officers.

“It varies because there are a lot of generational gaps between veterans,” she explains. “So some are struggling with the health care piece and how to get into that, and then some are navigating the disability system.”

With Boyette, Nix and fellow officer Brent Boucha, the office is an experienced conduit linking veterans to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“They just don’t know all the ins and outs like we would,” Nix says of her fellow veterans. “We’re the go-between … to navigate their paperwork for them, which takes the guesswork out.”

These days most of the paperwork is online, and the office is there to help veterans who are uncomfortable in the digital world. “We have a population of veterans who find it very difficult to maneuver through that new technology the VA is requiring,” Boyette says.

That’s not to blame the VA. “They’re doing that to expedite claims,” Boyette explains. “But for some of our veterans, that’s very challenging, and so we spend a good deal of time sitting down with them at a computer enrolling them in VA health care.” The way Boyette figures it, that computer time saves a veteran a drive to the VA hospital in Durham to fill out the same paperwork by hand.

The office has many success stories, and Boyette is quick with an example, though he is careful not to name names.

A veteran comes to the office seeking help filing for disability benefits related to post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. While there, the office also helps the veteran apply for VA health care, which the veteran hasn’t yet done. “Within a matter of a week, you get a phone call from the VA hospital,” Boyette says. “They schedule an appointment for you to go to the new clinic in Garner.”

One stop at the office in Smithfield has yielded two benefits. “You have a disability benefit, and you’re actually receiving immediate mental health care at a facility,” Boyette says. “It may be counseling, medication, whatever it is, from the health care side. And then from the benefit side, you may actually be receiving compensation from that disability that you have.”

“It’s a unique, quick, life-changing event,” he adds. “The veteran becomes more healthy and compensated, and that decreases a lot of stress. “We see that every day.”

The challenges facing veterans vary, Nix says. “For the younger veterans, it’s jobs,” she says. “For the older veterans, it’s health care.” And then right in between all of that is housing, Nix adds. “We do have a significant veteran population that is either transitioning from one home to another or actually homeless and trying to find a home,” she says.

Boyette transitioned straight from the Army to the Veterans Service Office. “When people ask me if I miss the military, I tell them I don’t miss the circus, but I miss the clowns,” he says. The Veterans Service Office keeps him in touch with his fellow servicemen and women. “I still get to hang out with the clowns,” he says. “I still get to have the stories and talk about the military. It’s like some of me left the service and some of me got to stay. I didn’t completely check out.”

Nix retired from the Air Force after 24 years but didn’t want to be idle. “I started looking for jobs almost immediately, and this came up,” she says. “It was actually the fit that I didn’t know I needed.” The way Nix sees it, she’s continuing to serve her country. “It’s so much different from what I did while I was serving, but it’s the same thing,” she says. “And you don’t miss the service when you’re still serving.”

Boyette served in the Army, Nix in the Air Force and Boucha in the Marine Corps. That diversity is an asset, Boyette says. “I may not understand some of the Marine Corps concepts or Air Force,” he says. “If we have a female veteran come in, if they feel more comfortable talking to a female, we’ve got Julie. Somebody comes in with prostate cancer from exposure to Agent Orange, if they’re not comfortable talking to Julie, they’ve got me or Brent.”

Looking forward, Boyette would like more space — and not solely for the Veterans Service Office. “There are 14 veteran service organizations in the county,” he says, reeling off such names as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and Marine Corps League.

“A lot of them are experiencing the same things that other organizations are,” he says. “They’re strapped with the expenses of operating. Some of them don’t actually have a place to operate out of.”

Boyette imagines a veterans center with ample room for his department and space for those veterans’ groups could use.

 

Page last updated on:  November 14, 2025