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Mercer County Veterans Service Officer Tom Risch assists a local veteran in finding temporary work. Risch retired this week after 35 years with the office.
CELINA - After 35 years of ushering in benefits that have saved and in many cases extended the lives of those who served their country, Tom Risch retired this week as director of Mercer County Veterans Services.
Risch on behalf of veterans filed claims for disabilities, medical expenses, pensions and other benefits and coordinated transportation to Veterans Administration healthcare centers in Lima and Dayton.
Under his watch, the amount of benefits reaching local veterans each year grew from $5.5 million to $16.5 million, Risch said.
"The thing I'm most proud of is being introduced to these veterans, being able to help them, seeing the gratitude they have when the claim is granted through the VA and how it changed their lives. It was amazing," he said.
Established under Ohio law in 1886, Veterans Service offices in all 88 counties offer aid to veterans, their spouses and dependents.
Applying for such benefits can be cumbersome. Risch and his office fought diligently for veterans, often overcoming pushback from federal bureaucrats.
"It was very satisfying to be able to provide those life-changing benefits for our veterans in Mercer County by being familiar with the … federal paperwork that had to be waded through to apply for those benefits and the follow up for appeals and things like that."
There are a host of issues confronting local veterans, some of which manifest immediately and others that creep up insidiously.
"The most obvious and one that still continues today was the Vietnam veterans' exposure to Agent Orange, the defoliant," he said. "Originally you had to be physically in-country Vietnam to be considered or presumed to have been exposed to that. They've widened that out to include Thailand and several places where the defoliant was used."
Exposure to Agent Orange can lead to serious conditions later in life, such as cancers, diabetes and heart disease. The same holds true for veterans of wars in the Middle East who came into contact with burn pits.
"In addition to that, of course, you have to take into consideration the compensation benefits that we filed for things like post traumatic (stress) disorder and with the Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans, traumatic brain injuries and those types of things."
Veterans with catastrophic injuries are living in the county today, though they may go unrecognized.
"For privacy issues and for their own self preservation they don't advertise that they have these disabilities," Risch said.
Whatever the reasons were that brought veterans or their families to the office, they were treated with respect, dignity and concern, Risch said.
Risch shares a commonality with them having served in the U.S. Air Force for four years, including a stint in Southeast Asia from August 1969 to August 1970 where he carried out search and rescue missions with an aircraft squadron.
"Every veteran that we took care of, every surviving spouse that we took care of we had a personal interest in and a personal relationship with in the office and that extends to the outside of the office in many cases," he said.
And the office's skeleton crew of two employees were not only successful in winning claims, but highly efficient in running their department, according to Risch.
State law requires county commissioners to provide up to a half mil of real estate tax revenue to VSOs. Risch said he never asked for the full amount.
"I'm proud to say that we were very fiscally responsible to our taxpayers which, too, were veterans as well, and we operated on roughly 40 to 55% percent of that maximum amount," he said.
Risch often engaged in outreach through advertising, regular contact with the newspaper and local radio stations, a presence at the fair and presentations to civic organizations and nursing homes - all to spread the word far and wide about benefits available to veterans.
The Mercer County Veterans Service Commission lauded Risch, saying he was as a trustworthy, passionate and honorable veterans advocate.
Risch, the commission said in a news release, was an instrumental force in the Ohio Association of County Veterans Services and National Association of County Veterans Service Officers. He helped found and form the test to become a certified veterans service officer that was adopted by the national association, according to the release.
Instructing at the state and national level, he taught and mentored countless service officers throughout the country. Risch served on the national executive board, ensuring training remained relevant, timely, and fact based, the release states.
His job also brought him close to the administrative assistant whom he worked side-by-side with and eventually married, Barb Risch.
"We worked together for 27 years, we've been married for five, so we learned that if we could put up with each other every day in the office all day long that we probably were compatible," he laughed.
Barb Risch plans to continue on in her capacity at the office for at least a few more years, assisting the new director, Eric Pugh of Venedocia, who has an impressive military and law enforcement pedigree.
"I joined the military out of high school in 1990, so I am a Desert Stormer. I did 12 years enlisted both active and National Guard, became an officer in the Army National Guard and commanded a company in Iraq 07-08 and a company in Afghanistan in 11-12," Pugh told the newspaper.
Pugh worked for several years as an Allen County Sheriff's Office deputy before being named the veterans service officer of Auglaize County.
"I was offered the position in Auglaize County in 2017," he said. "That office in Auglaize County did so much for me getting out of military, transitioning and benefit-wise, that I felt it was a good way to continue on serving even though not in uniform and be able to give back to the veteran community in a way that I couldn't do while I was in uniform."
Pugh promised to bring that passion and urgency to his work in Mercer County, with his top goals being to educate veterans about their benefits, promote veteran-owned businesses and increase the walk-in traffic in the office.
"Whether it pertain to the veteran, the dependent or a family member, (the office) will do that coordination with those services that you're going to need throughout life experiences both from hospitals to rehab to nursing homes to funeral home so … that is a seamless process should something happen to the veteran or the spouse."
