The Department of Veterans
Affairs officially began in 1776. Created by the Continental Congress to
provide pensions to soldiers in the Revolutionary War, the Department traces
its roots back to the Plymouth Colony in 1636, and has provided American
veterans with an ever-expanding package of benefits and health care services.
After the US Congress expanded
and consolidated veterans’ services in 1924 and in 1928, President Herbert
Hoover signed into law Executive Order 5398 in 1930 and promoted the Veterans
Bureau to a federal administration. This created the Veterans Administration,
which was an even more consolidated and expansive veterans’ benefits program.
Smaller parts of the Veterans Bureau, such as the National Homes and the
Pension Bureau, also joined the Administration. Brigadier General Frank T.
Hines became the first Administrator of the modern Department of Veterans Affairs.
World War II brought many more
soldiers to Veterans Affairs, with Congress passing laws providing veterans
with more services, the most famous of which was the GI Bill, which allowed
returning soldiers to attend college tuition-free and receive federal home
loans. The VA administered the benefits from the GI Bill, signed into law on
June 22, 1944. Scholars now argue that the GI Bill has affected the American
way of life more than any law since the Homestead Act of 1862.
Susan M. Taylor is proud to be a
part of the history of the Department of Veterans Affairs. She was the Deputy
Chief Procurement Officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans
Health Administration, for four and a half years before she retired in November
2014.
