Suggestion Update uniformed services requirements or create a veteran tag

[esob]

So, the thing is, nearly every SDN member I know that has a service badge is no longer on active duty, which makes the current system really wonky since it doesn't have any continuing requirements of active service to maintain the status (that is, you can't tell by someone's badge if they are active or not). Couple that with the fact that it is not readily apparent from service veteran profiles that they are indeed prior service IF they failed to get account verification before they lost access to their .mil email addresses. I have always felt this is an odd way to approach the process, particularly if part of the goal is to assist veterans as they transition from active duty to civilian life within health care related fields from military service.

For starters, most folks on active duty have never actually separated from service so the transition is something that they are simply not qualified to address. Second, a retired E6 using veterans education benefits is likely much more qualified to guide student veterans in the process of utilizing benefits than a freshly minted active duty soldier who is daydreaming about one day going to medical school.

From my standpoint, this should be a simple change; active duty and honorably separated veterans should both be allocated service tags to make their accounts easily identifiable for the good of the veteran population that SDN serves. Sending in a DD214 or military ID for verification can't be much more complicated than physician verification, at least as far as I can tell from the process.

As a final thought, if the enhanced account features available in the uniformed services upgrade serve as a means of thanking those who serve(d) their country, surely the retired senior NCO is at least as deserving of our thanks as the E1 who has 60 days of active duty time under their belt.

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[Lawpy]

I'll defer to the experts regarding this (i.e. @Lee @pgg @BC_89 @Matthew9Thirtyfive et al) but imo I think having a veteran tag would be a neat idea and an effective way to distinguish between veterans and active duty.

I'm hoping the military banners get fixed because they're currently barely visible from the update.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I mean a DD-214 would probably be easy to fake. You can’t fake a .mil email. But other sites that require active or vet status accept the DD-214 so I think it would be fine. I doubt many people would try to fake it, and if we have the military staff members (or just @Lee) verify all vet requests, it would probably be fairly easy to tell if someone is faking it (at least it is in real life lol). We could require them to answer a couple basic questions that someone who’s never served probably wouldn’t be able to answer right.

I’m not sure why we need a special vet badge though. You can just have the same service banner the active people have. Yes, you likely know more about the transition, but if you want to answer a question about it, just answer it and say you’ve done it. I’m one of the few active military members who I’ve seen in pretty active on the site, and I know I don’t answer questions about VA benefits because I have never used them (except basic questions about the GI Bill or BRS). But, for the record, there are plenty of people on active duty who have used their GI bill. I know one person on this forum who has, but he’s not very active on here and doesn’t even have a military banner lol.

 

[deleted480308]

It seems needlessly complicated

 

[BC_89]

It seems needlessly complicated

^ This.

If we were to distinguish active duty from veteran status, I’d echo the sentiment of verifying AD by .mil or CAC verification. As far as veteran status, DD-214 or blue retirement card.

I’m fine with how the banner currently is, but if we needed to distinguish the two, I don’t mind having a banner that says veteran. Just make verifying simple.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

^ This.

If we were to distinguish active duty from veteran status, I’d echo the sentiment of verifying AD by .mil or CAC verification. As far as veteran status, DD-214 or blue retirement card.

I’m fine with how the banner currently is, but if we needed to distinguish the two, I don’t mind having a banner that says veteran. Just make verifying simple.

Works for me. I didn’t mean to make it seem like it should be complicated. I was just talking out loud. I’m totally fine with dd-214 or retirement card. I just don’t see why we need a separate vet banner when we already have the branch banners.

 

[esob]

Right, I was only suggesting the vet tag IF there was some intense rejection of the idea of simply expanding the service member tags to include honorably discharged or retired vets (which, as I noted, is really already the case since there is no continuing requirement to recertify AD status and many of the members aren't actually AD anymore).

I honestly can't imagine someone bothering to fake a DD-214 for some extra PM space or getting rid of ads. I think it's like 25 cents a year to remove ads, but I guess someone might try it. Conversely, if someone wanted the banner bad enough it wouldn't take a genius to get a current service member to simply verify the .mil address, so the present system is far from unhackable.

At the end of the day, I think it would make it easier for active and veteran service members to identify posts (and posters) who are presenting information that might be particularly relevant to their own journey.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I honestly can't imagine someone bothering to fake a DD-214 for some extra PM space or getting rid of ads. I think it's like 25 cents a year to remove ads, but I guess someone might try it. Conversely, if someone wanted the banner bad enough it wouldn't take a genius to get a current service member to simply verify the .mil address, so the present system is far from unhackable.

Which is why I said a DD-214 should be good enough.

I just don’t see the point in having active and vet banners when we have military banners. Being a vet doesn’t mean your info will be correct. I have a lot of info on the new retirement system but I’m quite a few years away from retiring. Just answer questions if you know what you’re talking about and don’t if you don’t lol.

But I do not have a strong opinion either way. If Lee wants to make separate banners, I don’t have a problem with it. It just seems unnecessary.

 

[esob]

Which is why I said a DD-214 should be good enough.

I just don’t see the point in having active and vet banners when we have military banners. Being a vet doesn’t mean your info will be correct. I have a lot of info on the new retirement system but I’m quite a few years away from retiring. Just answer questions if you know what you’re talking about and don’t if you don’t lol.

But I do not have a strong opinion either way. If Lee wants to make separate banners, I don’t have a problem with it. It just seems unnecessary.

I was agreeing with you, I don't think we need separate identifiers; rather I was suggesting we open the current system up to vets as well as those on active duty. Personally, I think vet vs active duty status would be more confusing.

 

[Stroganoff]

The new badges are hard for me as a civvy to quickly see what branch of service the person is. Used to be easy to quickly see USA/USN/USAF/USMC but at least now on Dark Theme, for example, Matthew935's Navy badge doesn't look like Navy to me because the font and emblem is way too tiny.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

The new badges are hard for me as a civvy to quickly see what branch of service the person is. Used to be easy to quickly see USA/USN/USAF/USMC but at least now on Dark Theme, for example, Matthew935's Navy badge doesn't look like Navy to me because the font and emblem is way too tiny.

Hmm. They’re all obvious to me but I also can readily identify them so I guess I can see what you mean. Not sure it’s super important that we be able to tell at a glance what branch someone’s in.

 

[BC_89]

I haven’t even tried viewing the banners with the dark theme

 

[Lawpy]

The new badges are hard for me as a civvy to quickly see what branch of service the person is. Used to be easy to quickly see USA/USN/USAF/USMC but at least now on Dark Theme, for example, Matthew935's Navy badge doesn't look like Navy to me because the font and emblem is way too tiny.

Hmm. They’re all obvious to me but I also can readily identify them so I guess I can see what you mean. Not sure it’s super important that we be able to tell at a glance what branch someone’s in.

they don't show up in Basic

 

[esob]

Hmm. They’re all obvious to me but I also can readily identify them so I guess I can see what you mean. Not sure it’s super important that we be able to tell at a glance what branch someone’s in.

There's just the Army star and then everyone else

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

There's just the Army star and then everyone else

Well they had to make the Army symbol simple, or y'all wouldn't be able to remember it.

 

[esob]

A year later and I'm still going to keep harping on this. DD214 or ID card should be sufficient for military verification. What say you @WildWing

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

A year later and I'm still going to keep harping on this. DD214 or ID card should be sufficient for military verification. What say you @WildWing

Well it’s a violation of federal law to scan or copy a military ID, including dependent, retiree cards, etc. except for insurance verification at physician offices. But I don’t see why a DD214 shouldn’t be sufficient.

 

[SDN]

Well it’s a violation of federal law to scan or copy a military ID, including dependent, retiree cards, etc. except for insurance verification at physician offices. But I don’t see why a DD214 shouldn’t be sufficient.

It’s a good question. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for receiving something like a DD214 that has a lot of PII on it.
There are services available that can provide verification of veteran status, but there are costs associated.

 

[esob]

It’s a good question. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for receiving something like a DD214 that has a lot of PII on it.
There are services available that can provide verification of veteran status, but there are costs associated.

This is true because I know some sites that use these services to verify veteran status for discounts, etc. Any idea of how much cost we are talking about?

 

[deleted480308]

This is true because I know some sites that use these services to verify veteran status for discounts, etc. Any idea of how much cost we are talking about?

Forget the name but the one i use for a discount at goruck is free to the user

 

[esob]

Forget the name but the one i use for a discount at goruck is free to the user

I think they are all free to the user but they charge the host site $$, which I think was Lee's concern

 

[BC_89]

I am also curious how much that would charge the site. I don't imagine it being that much.

I remember when I was still AD they just verified my service by sending a message on my military email. Depending on cost (as I don't see that many vets compared to the overall membership of the SDN site) could we consider users paying a small fee or to pitch in? I mean I'm talking a few dollars not something out of reach (devils advocate lol).

Other than a strong recommendation that I shouldn't laminate my DD-214 (don't understand that one) I also don't see why that type of verification wouldn't work.

 

[ValeRx]

So how do we get the little icon under our name?

 

[gyngyn]

So how do we get the little icon under our name?

Provide proof of military service here:

https://forums.studentdoctor.net/forums/account-help-desk.1143/

 

[esob]

Provide proof of military service here:

https://forums.studentdoctor.net/forums/account-help-desk.1143/

The problem is that only active-duty members have military email addresses. SheerID seems to be the leader in the verification field, but I can't find any transparent pricing, so someone on the staff would need to make an inquiry.

Other alternatives include DL's. For example, Texas DL's denote veteran status, but I'm not sure what other states do at this point.

 

[BC_89]

Why not utilize a VIC card for verification? It literally serves as proof of service with no special info on it other than your picture and name (unlike the tan or blue cards that actually has DOD # , Health Benefits #, so on and so forth.

 

[esob]

Why not utilize a VIC card for verification? It literally serves as proof of service with no special info on it other than your picture and name (unlike the tan or blue cards that actually has DOD # , Health Benefits #, so on and so forth.

That would work too. I've never had one b/c I have my retiree ID, but I don't think it would be too much trouble for most people to have one and then it costs the site nothing.

 

[BC_89]

That would work too. I've never had one b/c I have my retiree ID, but I don't think it would be too much trouble for most people to have one and then it costs the site nothing.

I was in the same boat as well. I already have my blue-card but I noticed for appointments many VA sites use the Health VIC card but I got curious how to get a normal VIC.

Its actually pretty simple at no cost to the veteran. If it takes awhile to receive the two copies in the mail, one can actually go online and print or save the pending card with their information on it. They could send that to the helpdesk with the proper link through their email account that's saved on file.

@Lee if your on board with it, maybe this could be a consideration? I imagine it would be the same format but at this rate SDN doesnt have to pay and the user has easy access to create a VIC and send it through their email. I think it'd be interesting to differentiate Vets from AD but its not a deal breaker to me (just a thought).