The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today that more than 400 disabled Veterans are hitting the slopes this week at the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic in Snowmass Village, Colo., the largest adaptive sports event of its kind in the world, scheduled from through April 4.

One year after the backlog of pending disability compensation claims peaked at over 611,000 in March 2013, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has reduced that number by approximately 44 percent to 344,000 claims - a reduction of more than 267,000 - while at the same time improving the accuracy of the decisions being made on Veterans' disability claims. Additionally, on average, Veterans are waiting 119 days less for a decision than they were at this time last year.