Under the watchful eye of a nurse, wounded soldiers recovered at Walter Reed Hospital. This picture is dated from 1918.
This picture is dated from 1918, showing two WWI soldiers with amputations recovering at Walter Reed Hospital.
New York's famous 369th regiment arrives home from France, dated from 1919
Women putting checks in envelopes in the Veterans Bureau, Washington, D.C.
Women played an important role in running the Veteran's Bureau. This photo of chief nurses is dated November of 1923.
The VA was certainly not the only public service offered to returning soldiers and sailors as this advertisement, dated 1917, illustrates. The poster shows a soldier holding his "Honorable Discharge" form, crossing a welcome mat to pass through the door of a "Bureau for Returning Soldiers and Sailors."
President Barack Obama signing the Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010
On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson delivered his War Message to Congress. The declaration of war was passed on April 4.
Some Civil War veterans had access to ten national “Soldiers’ Homes.” This illustration of a Soldiers’ Home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, appeared in an 1885 almanac.
Clerks of the Bureau of War Insurance processed massive amounts of paperwork as seen in this photograph from 1918.
Two women using a check-signing machine for the War Risk Bureau, Washington, D.C. (ca. 1914-1921)
Judge Robert S. Marx, Nat. Commander, Disabled Am. Vets of World War, 1921
Former Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney wondered in 2011 “if there would be some way to introduce private sector competition” to the VHA.
A modern VA Medical Center in Durham, NC, in 2008 (photo by Ildar Sagdejev)
Upon the creation the new Department of Veterans Affairs in 1989, this seal was adopted. The creator, David E. Gregory, described the key components of the seal: the eagle represents the United States; the circle of five stars represents the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard; the two flags in the eagle's talons represents the 13 colonies and the current 50 states; the golden cord symbolizes fallen Americans; and the eagle holding the cord to symbolizes the memory of those veterans who have sacrificed for the nation.
