Although Dan’s father (Landrum, now 102) is a Quaker, in 1944 he forfeited his Conscientious Objector status, in order to enter the Navy.  At the last moment, Landrum received an offer to cover the war with a military accreditation as a journalist, which he did, in the ETO, and he never became a combatant.

That was the closest the Bolling siblings ever came to having a veteran in their immediate family.

In 2013, Dan began volunteering with the David Lynch Foundation, which provides training in a non-pharmacologic, evidence-based modality for alleviating symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress – Transcendental Meditation®, or TM. The David Lynch Foundation provides funding to enable at-risk populations -  children in low-income urban schools, veterans with PTS -  to learn meditation, build resilience, and relieve symptoms of stress.

That work led to an invitation to join the Montgomery County Commission on Veterans Affairs, a volunteer body, created by County legislation in 2008,  and currently  chaired by Walter Reed’s Dan Bullis, vice-chaired by Randy Stone, and administered by Betsy Luecking and Carly Clem. The Commission exists to honor and assist veterans, their families, and survivors, especially by connecting them to benefits for which their service makes them eligible,  but of which they may be unaware.

The VA estimates that perhaps half of veterans are not obtaining benefits to which they are legally entitled.  The State of Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs is too often over-looked by veterans as another source from which they are entitled to receive a variety of assistance.

The fact that so many veterans are not receiving their earned benefits from the Federal Government, and may be unaware of their eligibility for benefits from State, County, and private agencies, highlights the urgency of improving outreach to the young men and women who have served at our call.  Dan suspects that, as a nation, our funding for Veterans benefits is insufficient to meet the promises we have made to those who stepped forward, and joined our Uniformed Services, and he will work in Congress to ensure that Federal funding is sufficient, and that more effective outreach is made to connect their earned benefits with every member of the Uniformed Services in whose debt we all stand.