Listening First, Then Legislating
As Congress returns for 2026, veterans’ advocates are pressing lawmakers to focus less on slogans and more on execution. That argument sits at the center of the non-partisan nonprofit, Mission Roll Call, which says it “amplifies the voices of veterans and their families” by using digital polling to capture what people actually need, including those who do not belong to traditional veterans’ organizations.
The group says it has reached more than 1.3 million veterans and supporters and built its agenda around recurring survey feedback rather than leadership-driven priorities.
Jim Whaley, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who served as a Master Army Aviator, now leads the organization and describes its value proposition in blunt terms: speed, scale, and fidelity. In an interview, he said Mission Roll Call collects responses “unfiltered” and then shares what it hears directly with policymakers and the media, without routing those opinions through layers of internal committees.
That approach targets a practical problem, Whaley says Congress often underestimates: many veterans fall outside the traditional networks that typically communicate with lawmakers. The United States has roughly 18 million living veterans, a population spanning every state and a wide range of ages and service eras.
Four Priorities, One Continuum
Mission Roll Call’s published 2026 priorities list four issues veterans and families want Congress to address: access to quality healthcare in VA and non-VA settings, support for service-connected injuries and conditions, veteran suicide prevention, and housing access and homelessness prevention.
Whaley argues that veterans see these concerns as linked rather than isolated. When healthcare access fails, downstream risks rise: untreated pain, delayed specialty care, isolation, job loss, and then housing instability or suicidal ideation. Federal data underscores the urgency. The Department of Veterans Affairs reported 6,407 veteran suicides in 2022, an average of 17.6 per day.
Several independent analyses suggest this figure may undercount the true toll by excluding related deaths and self-injury mortality, with some estimates pointing to as many as 44 veteran deaths per day when those additional factors are included.
Healthcare Access, Including Specialty Care, Drives the Agenda
In Whaley’s view, “access” means time and distance. He pointed to veterans who can see a primary care clinician quickly but wait weeks or months for specialists, a delay that can worsen pain and function. Mission Roll Call also emphasizes rural veterans who may live hours from a VA facility and cannot easily travel, making the availability of community care a practical necessity rather than a political talking point. The organization’s 2026 priorities page frames this as care “when and how, and where” a veteran needs it, whether inside or outside VA.
Congress has debated that tradeoff for years, and the policy tension remains. Some lawmakers fear expanded non-VA care could weaken VA capacity. Others argue that veterans should not have to wait or drive long distances when local systems can deliver timely treatment. Whaley said veterans largely reject the binary and want a functional network that delivers quality care quickly.
Disability, TBI, and Long-Term Conditions That Surface Later
The second priority, support for service-connected injuries and conditions, blends two realities: the complexity of the VA claims process and the evolving science around injuries that do not present cleanly at discharge. Whaley highlighted traumatic brain injury as a category where veterans often struggle to get timely assessment and treatment, especially when symptoms emerge gradually or follow repetitive “micro” exposures rather than one obvious event.
VA materials reflect the scale of the problem. VA notes that the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center reported more than 400,000 TBIs among U.S. service members between 2000 and 2019, and VA reports more than 185,000 veterans who use VA healthcare have had at least one TBI diagnosis.
Whaley argues that access constraints compound these needs. VA’s Polytrauma/TBI System of Care includes four Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers, plus a broader network of 21 sites, yet highly specialized care can still require travel and coordination that veterans in crisis may find difficult.
Those gaps help explain why some lawmakers have introduced proposals aimed at widening non-VA options for chronic mild TBI care. In January 2026, House members introduced the BEACON Act to expand access to evidence-based, non-pharmacological therapies through a grant approach, with supporters describing it as a way to scale innovative care beyond VA facilities alone.
Suicide Prevention and the Problem of Measurement
Whaley contends Congress still lacks confidence-worthy data on both veteran suicide and veteran homelessness. He criticized inconsistent local reporting practices and argued that undercounting can quietly become an excuse for slow progress. VA’s annual suicide report attempts to standardize measurement and provides state-level breakdowns to support targeted interventions, yet Whaley says the system still struggles to connect veterans to care fast enough to break the chain of events that lead to suicide.
He also argued for more proactive transition outreach, especially in the first year after separation, when many risks can peak. That theme overlaps with broader VA efforts to expand crisis services and community partnerships, although Whaley believes the system should default toward connecting separating servicemembers with vetted support organizations unless they opt out.
Housing, Homelessness, and the Limits of One National Template
On housing, Whaley emphasized decentralization: national funding paired with local execution. Federal homelessness figures show why the issue resists one-size-fits-all solutions. The VA’s most recent Point-in-Time reporting counted 32,882 veterans experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2024, a number compiled from local jurisdictions tallying sheltered and unsheltered individuals at that moment.
Those figures are not a full census. HUD requires communities to conduct a sheltered count every year but only mandates the unsheltered count at least every two years, leaving methodology, staffing, and timing largely to local Continuums of Care. That means results can vary significantly by jurisdiction and year to year, and people staying in cars, tents, or temporary “couch-surfing” situations often go uncounted.
The variation is especially important in large states. California, which has the largest homeless population in the country according to HUD’s national assessment, conducts its comprehensive unsheltered counts on a biennial schedule in many jurisdictions rather than annually, illustrating how even high-need areas follow different counting cycles. Orange County, California, publicly notes that its unsheltered count occurs every other year. Those differences make national totals less useful than they appear on paper.
Oversight, Due Process, and the Sense of Urgency
When asked where oversight matters, Whaley pointed to bills that cycle through Congress without becoming durable law. One example involves firearm background check reporting for veterans who need fiduciaries to help manage VA benefits.
A policy summary circulated by the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee describes proposed legislation that would bar VA from reporting a veteran to the federal background check system solely due to fiduciary status, absent a court finding, framing the issue as due process rather than mental health stigma.
Whaley’s closing message for lawmakers tracks his organization’s top-line survey result: veterans want Congress to prioritize access to quality healthcare, including the ability to obtain specialty care without long delays, whether through VA or community providers. Mission Roll Call’s name, he said, reflects a simple idea: calling the roll to make sure everyone is still there and then acting on what that roll call reveals.
