A new law is giving veterans and Gold Star Families free lifetime access to national parks and federal recreational lands. The Alexander Lofgren Veterans in Parks (VIP) Act was rolled into the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law over the holidays.

Lofgren, a congressional aide for Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz, and former volunteer for Sinema, died at Death Valley National Park last April.

Before joining Grijalva’s office as a Wounded War Fellow in 2019, he served four years in the Army as a combat engineer and deployed to Afghanistan in 2011, according to the announcement of his hiring.

Grijalva said Lofgren loved the outdoors and used it as therapy.

“Alex working with us here saw that nature, our open spaces, our state and federal park lands and wilderness areas and public places were therapeutic, that they were important in the reintegrations of veterans back into our civilian life here after they completed their service to the nation, and he was a huge proponent of that,” Grijalva told The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network.

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Source: USA Today – Jan 18, 2022
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