Jon’s first order of business after becoming Senator was a statewide listening tour with Montana’s veterans. Since then, he has become a proven champion for rural veterans and he’s gotten real results.

From his seat on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee Jon immediately turned the ideas from his listening tour into action, successfully boosting the mileage reimbursement rate for disabled veterans from 11 cents to 41.5 cents per mile. It was the first mileage reimbursement increase in 30 years.

Jon strongly supports educational opportunities for men and women who serve our military. Education benefits assist individual veterans and their families and bolster Montana’s middle class. That’s why he helped pass the 21st Century GI Bill, making thousands of Montana’s newest veterans eligible for education benefits.

When health benefits were due to expire for veterans of Project SHAD (a secret Cold War military project that exposed unknowing U.S. troops to chemical and biological weapons), Jon introduced and passed into law legislation to guarantee their health care benefits.

Jon’s landmark Rural Veterans Health Care Improvement Act was signed into law in 2010. Jon worked with Montana’s veteran service organizations in writing the legislation, which was supported by several national veterans groups like the Wounded Warrior Project, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, and the Disabled American Veterans. The law is already strengthening care for all of Montana’s veterans by:

• making the mileage reimbursement boost for disabled veterans permanent
• opening up grants to transport veterans from their homes to VA facilities
• helping the VA recruit and retain high quality providers in rural areas
• and expanding telehealth projects

Knowing the importance of expanding care in rural communities, Jon successfully fought for and got new Vet Centers for Great Falls, Missoula and Kalispell. He won new VA Clinics in Lewistown, Havre and Cut Bank, and expansion of the VA’s Billings Outpatient Clinic. He secured resources for the construction of an Inpatient Mental Health Facility at Fort Harrison. And he put Laurel’s Yellowstone County Veterans’ Cemetery in the running to become a national veterans’ cemetery.

Jon also helped secure two cost-of-living increases in survivor benefits for veterans with service-connected disabilities, and won an expansion of the Montana National Guard’s successful Yellow Ribbon program to all 50 states.

Choosing to not rest on his accomplishments, Jon is continuing his fight for rural veterans. He recently introduced legislation to protect veterans from losing their pensions when awarded wrongful injury compensation, and a bill to ensure that veterans serving in Iraq since the official end of combat operations get the same benefits that were offered to veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Jon hosted the first-ever Veterans Opportunity Workshop in Great Falls during the week of Veterans Day 2010, to help Montana’s veterans find jobs and better understand their educational and health care benefits.

And the Veterans’ Affairs Committee has approved Jon’s legislation to create new job opportunities and housing for homeless veterans, and to explore the possibility of constructing a new polytrauma rehabilitation center in the northern Rockies or Dakotas (Jon helped write the provision after talking with Montana Lieutenant Governor John Bohlinger and his wife, Karen, whose son is a former Special Forces officer recovering from a Traumatic Brain Injury).

Click HERE to see more about where Jon stands on issues affecting Montana’s veterans.