NewsBytes October 9, 2026

In this issue:
FRA Mourns Tom Snee
FRA Mourns Michael Sulsona
RAND Exposes Veteran Hiring Gaps
VA Pilots Faster Account Setup
Coast Guard Reopens Six Stations

FRA Mourns PNED Tom Snee
The Fleet Reserve Association mourns the passing of Force Master Chief Thomas J. "Tom" Snee, USN (Ret.), the Association's twelfth National Executive Director, who died on October 2, 2026, at the age of 79. Born in Cleveland and raised in Willoughby, Ohio, Tom enlisted in the Navy after graduating from high school in 1965, served first as a Yeoman, and changed his rating to Navy Counselor in 1973. Over 31 years of active service he went to sea aboard destroyers and afloat staffs, served as Command Master Chief of the aircraft carrier USS America (CV 66), and retired in 1996 as Force Master Chief of Navy Recruiting Command.

Tom brought the same devotion to the Association. He joined FRA National Headquarters as a Veterans Service Officer and Membership and Branch Development Coordinator, and later returned to lead it as National Executive Director, testifying frequently before House and Senate committees on behalf of Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen and their families. Between those chapters he built a second career as a middle school teacher and administrator in the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, earned a Master of Education from George Mason University, and wrote three books: What's Up, Life; You Raise Me Up; and Leadership. Predeceased by Karen Angela Snee, his wife of 46 years, he is survived by four children, seven grandchildren, and two brothers.

Family and friends will receive visitors at Fairfax Memorial Funeral Home on Friday, October 16, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at Nativity Catholic Church in Burke, Virginia, on Saturday, October 17, at 10:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Fleet Reserve Association Scholarship Fund or the Knights of Columbus Council #7992 Scholarship Fund. Tom spent his life recruiting, mentoring, and speaking up for the people who stand the watch, and the Association he led is stronger for it. Fair winds and following seas, Master Chief. We have the watch.

FRA Mourns Shipmate Michael Sulsona
The Fleet Reserve Association mourns Sgt. Michael V. Sulsona, USMC, a Vietnam veteran, playwright, and tireless advocate for his fellow veterans, who died on September 5, 2026, at the VA Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, at the age of 74. Serving as an infantry rifleman in Vietnam, Sulsona stepped on a land mine while on patrol on January 15, 1971, and lost both legs above the knee. He was promoted to sergeant, awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, and honorably discharged in October 1971.

Sulsona went on to earn a Master's degree in Writing from Goddard College, received the Kennedy Center Award for playwriting in 1989, and appeared in the Academy Award-winning film Born on the Fourth of July. His larger legacy was built one veteran at a time. For more than four decades he helped veterans complete VA paperwork, secure medical appointments, and cope with Agent Orange exposure, trauma, and amputation recovery, making himself available around the clock, and he volunteered with Rolling Thunder Chapter 2 New York. The New York State Senate inducted him into its Veterans Hall of Fame in 2016, and then Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough honored him before the membership at FRA's 100th Anniversary National Convention in Annapolis, Maryland. Predeceased by his wife, Frida, he leaves his sons Vincent and Philip and his grandchildren Lucas and Madison.

The family asks that donations in his memory be made to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation at t2t.org. Sulsona showed what one committed veteran can do for others navigating a system that too often leaves them to fend for themselves, and the Association honors that example. Semper Fidelis, Sergeant. We have the watch.

RAND Exposes Veteran Hiring Gaps
FRA's legislative team met recently with coalition partners, congressional staff, and RAND Corporation researchers to review new data on how the nation's largest employers support veterans after they leave the service. Dan Carpenter of the office of Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) joined the session to discuss pending proposals tied to the Hire Heroes Act. RAND lead researcher George Zuo briefed the group on "What Can Public Data Tell Us About Corporate Support for Veterans?" (RR-A4946-1), a review of S&P 500 companies' public disclosures, foundation tax returns, and federal contractor reports.

The findings show a wide gap between corporate messaging and measurable results. Most major companies offer little substantive support aimed at retaining and promoting veterans once hired, and veteran causes receive roughly 0.3 percent of corporate philanthropy. Companies with the strongest public statements on veterans do not consistently give more or hire more. Among S&P 500 federal contractors, veterans made up 2.4 percent of 2025 new hires, less than half the 5.1 percent national hiring benchmark under the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act. Companies readily report initial hiring, but retention and promotion go largely unmeasured. RAND recommended clearer federal reporting guidance, publication of data aggregated at the parent company level, and searchable public veteran employment metrics. The briefing also covered the Department of War's Project Patriot Pipeline (P3), which consolidates military training and trade credentials into a single workforce framework, and implementation of Executive Order 14426, which directs continuous records sharing between the Department of War and VA and an overhaul of the Transition Assistance Program within 180 days of its September 8 signing.

FRA supports legislative and analytical efforts that measure what happens to veterans after the hiring announcement. A Sailor, Marine, or Coast Guardsman who lands a job but is never promoted, or leaves within the first year, has not been well served by a press release. The Association supports RAND's transparency recommendations as a low-cost way to hold federal contractors to benchmarks already in law, and will continue working with congressional staff on transition proposals that track career outcomes, not only starting headcounts.

VA Pilots Faster Account Setup
The Department of Veterans Affairs has launched a pilot program at six VA medical centers that lets veterans create a VA.gov account in minutes, opening faster access to online care and benefits. Working with security company CLEAR, VA has placed CLEAR identity verification pods at its medical centers in Atlanta, Georgia; Brooklyn, New York; Orlando, Florida; Palo Alto, California; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, D.C. VA will consider expanding the system to other facilities based on the pilot's results.

The pods use the same scanning technology found at airport security checkpoints and are aimed at veterans whose mobility, internet connectivity, or other challenges make it hard to sign up from home. A veteran brings a valid, unexpired government-issued photo ID, a phone number, and a personal email address to a participating medical center. VA staff help enter the information, the veteran takes a photo at the pod, and the account is created on the spot. Veterans can then set up face recognition or similar tools to sign in from home in seconds. A working VA.gov account lets a veteran schedule VA and community care appointments, review after-visit summaries, message providers securely, refill prescriptions, file for disability compensation, submit travel reimbursement claims, and track the status of benefits applications. VA states that using CLEAR is free and optional, that declining it will not affect access to any benefit or service, that veterans' health information stays with VA, and that CLEAR does not receive that information or sell biometric or sensitive personal data.

FRA supports tools that remove the front-door barriers between veterans and the benefits they have earned. A veteran who cannot get past account verification cannot file a claim, check its status, or message a provider, and those barriers fall hardest on older, rural, and disabled Shipmates. The Association welcomes the inclusion of San Juan, where sea service veterans in the territories are often furthest from in-person help, and urges VA to keep the program strictly voluntary, to hold CLEAR to its commitments on biometric data, and to publish the pilot's enrollment and satisfaction results before any expansion. Faster account access serves disability compensation reform only if it leads to faster, more accurate decisions on the claims that follow.

Coast Guard Reopens Six Stations
The Coast Guard announced on October 1 that record recruiting will allow it to fully staff six small boat stations and restore full operations in 2027: Station Castle Hill, Rhode Island; Station Milford Haven, Virginia; Station Saginaw River, Michigan; and Stations Vallejo, Golden Gate, and Rio Vista in California. The stations have operated at reduced capacity since 2023 and 2024, when the service's Force Alignment Initiative shifted scarce personnel to higher priority units in response to a shortfall of several thousand members.

The turnaround rests on recruiting. In fiscal year 2025 the Coast Guard brought in 5,204 active duty enlisted members, 121 percent of its goal and its largest accession class since 1991. Commandant Adm. Kevin E. Lunday said restoring the stations will put more Coast Guard men and women back in the communities they serve, and that more stations will follow. The service selected these six based on operational risk and mission demand, and returning them to full operations will expand search and rescue, maritime security, and law enforcement capacity. Reconstitution, however, is contingent on fiscal year 2027 appropriations, and the government currently operates on a continuing resolution that expires December 11.

FRA welcomes the restoration and credits the recruiters and Coast Guardsmen who made it possible. The Association supports authorized end strength for all three sea services, and a station that is staffed on paper but unfunded in practice does not answer a mayday. FRA urges Congress to fund these stations in a full-year FY2027 appropriation rather than another stopgap, and renews its call for automatic pay continuation so that Coast Guardsmen are never again the only sea service standing the watch without a paycheck during a lapse in appropriations.