MARPLE — U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, D-7, of Edgmont, drew a packed house Monday morning for a Veterans Administration summit aimed at educating vets on health care, insurance and benefits, and business and educational opportunities.

But he and other panelists discussing these issues were learning, as well.

“We need to listen to what we need to do here in individual cases, but also on the legislative stage down there in (Washington) D.C.,” said the first-year congressman and retired U.S. Navy admiral.

“We want to start an ongoing dialogue and we are announcing at the end of this (summit) a veterans’ advisory board we will meet with every quarter, and we will meet at least once a year,” said Sestak. “Though, there was such an outpour today that we may need to meet twice a year to do the summits.”

Panelists discussed topics ranging from availability of service based on percentage of disability to expansions to GI Bill provisions for post-secondary school tuition.

“We want them to know this nation … is going to support them to a greater degree,” said Sestak, chatting with audience members during breaks.

The congressman also touched on the need to cut through red tape by enacting new legislation that gives greater ease of access to benefits and services for veterans.

“I’m very familiar with the terrain down there (in D.C.) and how to work it,” said Sestak. “But I gotta listen, because they come up with the ideas. And I have to … execute them to get them through the bureaucracy, and that’s hard work, honestly.”

As Sestak noted during the daylong summit, he has already had a hand in numerous bills aimed at increasing veterans benefits, including a $6.7 billion increase in the Veterans Administration budget from last year — the largest single increase in its 77-year history — that added more than 1,100 new claims processors in an attempt to beat down the reported 400,000 backlog of claims for disability and other benefits.

Sestak expects one piece of legislation he has been pushing, establishing the permanence of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, will be voted on and passed today.

The bill allows service members to apply for financial assistance for school, said Sestak, and refunds tuition if they get called up in the middle of their post-secondary education.

“A lot of good things are coming out addressing the V.A., as well as the problems us vets see as far as paperwork, red tape, trying to get benefits,” said Shawn Carter, 38, of West Chester, a U.S. Army staff sergeant who returned home about a year ago after being injured by improvised explosive devices — twice, in one week — while serving in Taji, Iraq.

Carter, still active despite trauma injuries to his head and undergoing multiple surgeries on his arm, said he sees the Veterans Administration working to push through benefits for veterans of the war in Iraq a little quicker than it did the vets from World War II and Vietnam.

“I believe it has to do with public opinion, I believe it has to do with, just in general, the way the vets previous to us have fought to try to get us money and our disability benefits,” he said.

“It’s very good of him to (hold the summit),” said Billy Goodman, of Upper Darby, who developed Type 2 diabetes after being hit with Agent Orange while serving with the Navy in Vietnam.

“I think he understands better than other people, being a veteran … the veterans’ situation.”