The Porter County Veterans Service Office is working hard to make sure veterans throughout the county have the help they need with any matter regarding their time serving our country. Director of Veteran Services Joseph (Joe) Baruffi described it as an A-to-Z shop for veterans and their families living in the area.
“The bread and butter of our office is that we do comprehensive benefits counseling, so we help veterans with disability claims, and we help veterans with pensions. We help survivors of veterans apply for need based pensions. We do all the claims preparation from start to finish, we file appeals, and we stay on top of and work with the Veterans Affairs (VA) so we can see how the claims are moving forward. If a claim gets denied, we can prepare appeals to take it to a higher level at the VA,” Baruffi said.
The office also works to educate veterans on what services are available to them. It can sometimes be a lot of work, even overwhelming, when dealing with pensions and claims, so it helps to have that extra assistance along the way.
“We help direct them on what's available, what they might want to consider filing for because a lot of veterans don't understand that. We do a lot of educating on the front end about what's available and what they can do,” Baruffi said.
Other work the office does includes burial and funeral benefits, discharge upgrades, college fee waivers, preparing letters for Porter County tax credits, and the like. However, Baruffi said the bulk of the office’s work goes toward helping veterans with disability claims and pensions.
He also mentioned veterans usually approach the office when looking for help, both by walk-ins and phone calls. They then schedule an intake appointment with the office where they’ll bring in their DD214, a document for separation from the service that briefly outlines their military duties. Other military documents and health records are also accounted for, and they go from there.
When it can, the office will also step in and help with local organizations as well, such as the Indiana Department of Veteran Affairs, American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. (VFW), the Disabled American Veterans Organization (DAV), and the Marine Corps League.
In addition to working with veterans, the office also enjoys giving back to the community when it can. Baruffi’s predecessor, Jim Atkinson, is involved with Toys for Tots, so the office will work with them on occasion.
One of the reasons Baruffi loves working with the office is for the unique opportunities to connect veterans both across Northwest Indiana and across the nation.
“What's really cool about it is that the veteran community in Northwest Indiana and in Porter County especially is so tight that when we get together and we draw out some ideas, we get a lot of the other organizations on board and so we're looking forward to trying out some ideas,” Baruffi said.
He recently worked with a local Korean War veteran to help him find a long-lost friend from his time overseas.
“I was working with a Korean War vet who was 95,” Baruffi said. “He was telling me his story about Korea and how cold it was, the truckloads of bodies and just all this stuff. And then he said, ‘There was this one warrant officer that I remember and I would love to reconnect with him but he's probably gone.’"
However, thanks to modern technology, Baruffi was able to turn what seemed like a lost cause into a heartwarming reunion.
“Long story short is that we found the guy he was mentioning in a nursing home in Florida and he was 101 years old. We got to put these guys in touch with each other after all this time. The internet's been incredible as far as allowing us to do this kind of stuff. It's really been a godsend not only for the research that we have to do for our jobs, but to take these guys and reconnect them,” he said.
While Baruffi has only held the position for a short period of time, he has already seen some spectacular things happen over the past few months.
“We've had a couple of really nice wins in the last couple of months where we had to do some serious digging to demonstrate service connection for a couple of veterans that had been denied benefits in the past. We've had some really spectacular wins for a couple of guys; one family got $96,000 and another guy got $70,000 of back pay,” Baruffi said.
He’s also seen how much veterans trust those at the office, something Baruffi sees as an incredible honor.
“I've got a couple of guys who have never told their families their stories, and after 50 years they'll sit in my office and feel safe in it,” he said. “They trust me enough to tell me their stories. And sometimes they're pretty horrible stories and they're very emotional, but what an honor it is to have a guy that can confide in you and they can trust you enough to tell you that stuff and baring his soul for you. It's very special. To have a veteran's trust like that is a very sacred thing. I don't take it for granted.”
Baruffi said the office is looking to work more with local colleges and universities as well. It’s reaching out to schools such as Valparaiso University (VU), Purdue University Northwest (PNW), and Ivy Tech to connect with local veterans working towards an education to let them know what kinds of help is available.
Working with local universities is extremely important to Baruffi, a veteran who used to work in higher education. After leaving the military in the 80s, Baruffi went into higher education and has worked on college campuses for about 30 years. He was at the University of Chicago for 20 years, and then made his way to the VU Law School and was there for around a decade.
It was at VU where Baruffi began merging his work with helping veterans.
“In 2009, an Army Iraq veteran came into my office and said, ‘we want to start a law school veterans group,’ and I told him I could help with that. He said he wanted me to be the advisor and when I asked him why, he said it was because I was the only other vet there,” Baruffi said.
Working with the veterans at VU quickly made Baruffi realize he had a passion for helping others, especially those that have served in the military. He retired from higher education in August of 2017, and was then approached in 2018 with the opportunity to work alongside Atkinson at the Veterans Office, which Baruffi said he jumped on that opportunity right away. He began at the Portage office working around 28 hours a week, and as time went on he began to take on more and more work. When Atkinson retired, he recommended Baruffi take his place. While he wasn't looking for full-time work at the time, he said this was an opportunity he just couldn’t pass up.
“It's just everyday you leave here and you're tired but a good kind of tired. You’re tired of having done some good work, helping out people and wow, what a wonderful opportunity at the tail end of a career to be able to do this,” Baruffi said.
To Baruffi, this job is quite literally a dream come true.
“I remember, probably 13 or 14 years ago before Jim Atkinson moved into the director position, I saw that job was posted in the paper and I said ‘wow, would it be cool to be able to kind of get out of academia and do this kind of work?’ And so here I am years later; I ended up right here doing it and it's really, really just a blessing,” he said.
Now, Baruffi is beyond proud to be the director of such an organization.
“For a veteran who likes and wants to continue to serve, this is probably just, to be perfectly honest, one of the greatest job opportunities a guy could ever have. It's just such rewarding work to help a family out or a veteran out that's been struggling,” he said. “Just seeing a guy or a woman who's had a rough go after they got out and seeing them get their lives turned around is so incredible. Again, you're very blessed to be able to see that.”
For more information on the Porter County Veterans Service Office, visit https://www.porterco.org/214/Veteran-Services
