Questions, answered.
Short answers to what Veterans and their families ask first. Open a question to read its answer.
VA means the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. A VSO is a Veterans Service Organization. A VSO representative accredited by the VA can help with VA claims, and that help is free. The tool opens to everyone on Veterans Day, November 11, 2026, and these answers describe it as it opens.
What it is, and what it can’t do.
What is Veteran Benefits GPS™?
Free turn-by-turn directions through the VA process. You tell it where you are, and it shows you the next step and points to the official starting place for it.
First it asks where you are in your benefits journey. You pick one of four: Just starting, Stuck in the middle, Been out a long time, or Helping someone. One or two short questions follow to pick your starting place. Some touch personal subjects, such as how your service ended or whether you have experienced military sexual trauma (MST). They never ask for your name or file number, and those answers never leave your device.
Then you see the map. It has ten territories, from Eligibility Gateway and Healthcare to Housing, Family & Survivors, and Memorial & Burial. A territory is one area of benefits.
It is built for the spouses, kids, caregivers, and friends too, because they are very often the ones doing the searching. For caregivers, the Family & Survivors territory points to the VA’s page for its Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers and to VA Form 10-10CG.
Is this part of the VA?
No. Veteran Benefits GPS is not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. VA.gov is the official source, and I am not trying to replace it. The official pages are the destination. This is the map.
Every stop starts at an official VA.gov link or your state or territory’s own government site, with free help from an accredited VSO representative along the way. State and local benefits sit on the same map as federal ones.
If the tool and an official page ever disagree, the official page is right.
What can it help with, and what can’t it do?
It points. It does not act.
It can show you where you are in the process. It shows the order of the steps and the official page where each step starts. Where a form applies, it shows the form number. It also shows where to find free help from an accredited VSO representative.
It cannot give advice. It does not tell anyone what to file, whether they qualify, or what rating they might receive. It does not fill out a form, prepare a claim, or file or submit anything to the VA or anyone else. It decides nothing. Decisions about benefits are made by the VA. Saving your place on the map, with or without an email, is not filing anything, and it never becomes that.
When should I talk to a VSO representative?
Use the tool to get your bearings: where you are, what comes next, which official page starts it, and which form is involved. It is free, you never have to give your name, and it is a good place to start.
Talk to an accredited VSO representative as soon as it is about a real case, yours or one for a Veteran you help. That means filing a claim, deciding whether to appeal, or answering a letter from the VA. It also means any time you are not sure. The tool points to that help in every territory. Find a free accredited VSO representative on VA.gov (opens in a new tab). VSO help is always free. An accredited attorney or claims agent can charge a fee, but only for help after the VA’s first decision on that claim.
The tool is built to hand you off to a VSO representative. On any territory, the tool makes a Route Pass: a picture of your route with the steps, the form numbers, and the official pages. You can walk into a VSO’s office and show exactly where you are, instead of starting from zero. Nothing that names you is in it. It does show which territories you opened or marked complete, which steps you checked, and the day it was made.
I would rather send a Veteran to a VSO ten times too early than once too late.
Why does it open on Veterans Day at 11:11 a.m. Eastern?
Veterans Day began as Armistice Day. It marks the end of the fighting in World War I. The fighting stopped at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It is the one day of the year the whole country is already looking at Veterans. I wanted this to open to them on that day, at 11:11.
I picked Eastern time because it is a national launch, and the national Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington starts at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. The tool opens to everyone on November 11, 2026.
What it asks, and what it keeps.
Do I have to give my name or any personal information?
No login required. No name, no file number, no rating, ever. Nothing a Veteran enters is sold, shared, or shown to a sponsor.
There is no place in the tool to type or upload a medical condition or any detail of a claim. The few questions it asks pick where you start. Some touch personal subjects, such as how your service ended or whether you have experienced MST. Those answers are never stored or sent, and they are gone when the page closes. The territory they open is marked on your map, the same as any territory you open.
The tool sets no cookies and runs no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking. Like every website, the host’s servers see the standard information every web request carries. That includes an Internet Protocol (IP) address and the page requested. The host uses it to deliver the page, to secure the connection, and to keep ordinary server logs for security and reliability. I never receive those logs. The only numbers I see are totals, like how many times a page was viewed. Some public pages, this one included, load a typeface from Google, whose servers see that request. The Privacy Policy has the full list.
Is my place saved if I do not sign up?
Yes. The tool keeps your place on the map. It keeps the territory you are on and the territories you opened or marked complete. It also keeps the steps you checked off and the dates you started and last used it. It also remembers whether its tips are on, and which ones you have already seen. Saving it with an email is optional, and the next question covers it.
The first time you open the tool, it tells you exactly how your place is saved and for how long, so nobody loses their progress by surprise. The Privacy Policy says the same in full.
Can I save my place with an email?
Who pays, and what that buys.
Is it really free? Who pays for it?
Yes. No Veteran ever pays. Not for the tool, not for an upgrade, not for anything inside it, because nothing inside it is for sale.
Veteran Benefits GPS is run by a for-profit limited liability company (LLC). It is meant to be paid for by businesses that sponsor it and by people who choose to support it.
The rule under all of it: a Veteran being told what to do next should never be sold to. You can read how sponsoring works on the Sponsors page, and how to support the tool on the Support page.
Can sponsors change what I see?
No. A sponsorship is advertising. Inside the tool, a sponsor is named in text, by name and tier, in two places only. One is a band at the bottom of the screen. The other is the bottom of the Route Pass. That is the picture of a Veteran’s route that they can save or share. Only the first sponsor the band lists appears there. Outside the tool, sponsors are listed on the Supported By page and thanked in my own posts. The sponsor also appears on whichever printed handouts, counter cards, and rack cards its package includes.
A sponsor never appears inside the guidance: not in any step, not in any territory’s content, and not among the official pages the tool points to. A sponsor gets no say in what the tool shows, links to, or recommends, no access to any Veteran’s information, and no leads. That is written into every sponsorship agreement, and it is not for sale at any price.
Who built it, and how it stays current.
Is there artificial intelligence in the tool?
No. There is no artificial intelligence (AI) inside the tool. Every word a Veteran reads was written ahead of time. Two Veterans who give the same answers get the same route, tied to the same official pages.
How do you keep the information current?
Every VA.gov link, form number, and rule the tool states is tied to the official page it comes from and the date that page was last read.
Keeping it current is built in. Every one of those links, form numbers, and rules is rechecked every quarter. Anything not read against its source in 90 days gets flagged. I also recheck at once when someone reports a broken link.
I review it, nothing goes into the tool without my approval, and nothing in it changes on its own. The tool tells every Veteran to verify each step at the official page it links to.
Who built it?
I did. I am Casey Rose, and I am a Veteran. The idea started in 2012 in the Veterans office at Southeastern Illinois College, where I helped other Veterans through their education benefits.
I built it myself. No outside developer, agency, or freelancer. I used AI tools as my build partner. They wrote the code, and they helped draft the words and check them against the VA’s pages. A lot of software gets built that way now. Every screen and every word a Veteran reads went through me, and nothing goes in without my approval.
What this is, and what it is not.
Not the VA. This tool doesn’t decide anything about your situation; it only points.
No login required. No name, no file number, no rating, ever. Nothing a Veteran enters is sold, shared, or shown to a sponsor.
Official pages and free help. Every stop starts at an official VA.gov link or your state or territory’s own government site, with free help from an accredited VSO representative along the way.
Ask me directly.
A question this page does not answer can go to casey@vbgps.org. An AI assistant helps me sort my email and draft replies. I read every reply before it goes out, except a few standard replies I have already approved. The Privacy Policy has the details. For your own case, or the case of a Veteran you help, talk to an accredited VSO representative. Their help is free.