Stanley Tapuaialupe Iakopo, the newly-appointed executive director of the CNMI Veterans Affairs Office under the Office of the Governor, is passionate about changing, at least in the CNMI, how veterans are provided services.<\/p>\n
Iakopo, who is a military veteran himself, is saddened that veterans are not given the support they need. \u201cWe celebrate them when they leave but when they come back, we don\u2019t give them the support they need,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He wants to change that, at least in the Commonwealth, and will work to ensure that veterans are aware of all the benefits they are entitled to. <\/p>\n
As a first step, Iakopo said he will work on creating a smoother coordination among all agencies, both federal and local, and all non-profit groups and organizations that have been looking out for the best interest of the island\u2019s veterans. \u201cI want to bridge [any] gap,\u201d he said.
\nHe would also like his agency to partner with the U.S. Department of Defense and other military entities to further explore what CNMI veterans need. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll ask for the stars and take whatever I can get for our veterans,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Iakopo said he would also delve deeper into the concerns of veterans because, in just a week in his new post, he said he has already met with several veterans who have expressed a number of concerns that have been overlooked for years. <\/p>\n
\u201cJust give us time,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Veteran Affairs Office program coordinator Vivian Taitano believes that Iakopo can achieve much for the islands\u2019 veterans if he is given the chance. <\/p>\n
Iakopo served the U.S. Air Force for 18 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stanley Tapuaialupe Iakopo, the newly-appointed executive director of the CNMI Veterans Affairs Office under the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}