The mission of the Veterans Assistance Commission of Kendall County is to better the lives of veterans and their families.

U.S. Marine Corps veteran Matthew Dolmyer works for the commission as a veterans service officer/veterans court liaison. Helping fellow veterans is something that he feels compelled to do.

“I’ve been through the ringer myself and I’ve had to jump through the hoops,” he said. “I want to guide people through the process and make it less painful.”

The commission informs and educates veterans with information about benefit eligibility along with programs and services offered to veterans and their families.

“We’ll help if they have a claim that was previously denied,” Dolmyer said. “We’ll help appeal it or fight it. We also help with outreach. We have veterans who perhaps need mortgage or renters assistance.”

Dolmyer, 42, was in the Marine Corps from 2001 to 2009.

“I enlisted in 2001 prior to the Sept. 11 attacks,” he said. “I felt it was something I should do.”

He was deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, in 2005 in support of combat operations as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Dolmyer was grateful for the experience.

“You meet amazing people that come from all walks of life,” he said. “You learn how to be the best version of yourself you possibly can.”

In addition to his work with the Veterans Assistance Commission of Kendall County, Dolmyer also is a part-time police officer for the Hinckley Police Department. He has been in in law enforcement for several years.

“It’s a continuation of serving the community and helping people,” he said. “That was always my main goal as a law enforcement officer.”

Helping people also is the goal of the Veterans Assistance Commission of Kendall County.

“The main goal here is to help veterans the best we possibly can,” Dolmyer said. “We’re not just an organization that says you have to start with us. We’ve had tons of veterans that come in and say, ‘Hey, I started this process on my own.’ You’re not just a number to us. You’re a veteran. You’re somebody that we can relate to and we can talk to. We listen to what you have to say. We want to know what’s going on with you. We’re with you from beginning to end.”

Andrew Gagner is assistant superintendent as the Veterans Assistance Commission of Kendall County. He is a U.S. Army veteran.

“I was an artillery officer and I served a tour in Afghanistan,” he said. “I was there in 2011, all of 2011.”

Gagner said the commission is trying to make sure that every veteran has resources available to them.

“We look at what they could possibly need,” he said. “We’re trying to come up with various programs or various resources that we can then extend to our veterans to ensure that they’re being taken care of.”

Gagner commended the efforts of Dolmyer.

“He’s been a great asset,” he said. “Because he had been through the process himself, it was really easy for him to kind of get spun up and educated on the exact claim process and what it’s supposed to look like.”