Buddy Statement From An Active Duty Commissioned Officer?

[Mark C]

Greetings everybody, I was in the process of getting verification for a stressor incident.

2 years of trying and Navpers does not respond to my request, but I was able to find and get hold of a former member of my unit that was an eyewitness to the incident.

This fellow had stayed in the service and is now a very high ranking officer, still on active duty.

He has written a very good statement verifying the incident, does this settle the issue?

I guess what I'm asking is a sworn statement from an active duty comissioned officer count as verification from a federal source?

Thx in advance...

M

[Berta]

"severed" ?

Did this result from a proposed reduction letter?

Did they list the buddy statement as evidence?

Can you scan and attach the reasons and Bases part of their decision? (Cover the personal stuff)

Bill is correct- this seems to involve more than rejection of a Buddy statement-

with more info -maybe we can help more-

[jbasser]

Mark, is this a stressor event that took place?

Did it take place aboard a Navy Ship.

There may be another avenue you can take.

All ship deck logs can be found as they are required to keep them for future uses.

One thing the folks dont tell us us that there could be another set of logs that are available.

Shops Log

Quarterdeck Log. (this one proves you were on ship because you are logged in when you check on board)

Damage Control Central Log. Detailed log of events like fires, flooding, November Emergencies and a monitoring of ships systems, generators and ETC.

The JSRRC may have these logs of that is the case.

Hang in there and keep on fighting.

J

[Mark C]

Thank you folks for replying. You don't know how much it means to me.

It's like 3am here at our home, I live on the island of Negros here in the Philippines. I'm wide awake over worrying about this.

I've got a long and convoluted story. But let me try to cover the highlights of my situation.

In the late 70's I quit high school and my Dad, a union seaman, got me my seaman's papers.

I sailed out of the Gulf for 4 years on merchant ships as a deck hand (ordinary seaman). I decided to do a stint in the Navy as an EM (Electricians Mate) so I could come out and sit for my merchant marine electricians exam.

So in 1981 I entered the Nav, I loved it. I had great evals and took honor man in my A-school. Everything I did, I did to the best of my ability.

They sent me to a ship in overhaul in Bremerton, Wa.

There, I got an idea and, along with a couple of friends, I tried out for and passed the screening test for UDT/SEAL. I was liking the Nav back there enough to start thinking of maybe making it a career.

I passed BUDS (SEAL Basic) in 1983, I was sent to a UDT/SDV Team.

This is an SDV:

I was selected soon after arriving at my new command for a platoon deployment. An SDV platoon is a SEAL platoon that totes around that little sub, there are 12 SEALs to a SEAL platoon, so we get pretty close to each other.

My first deployment was to Subic, where UDT/SEALs had facilities on the base there.

One day, we were up in the jungle training and in a freak accident, a grenade I had thrown took a bad bounce and my dive buddy caught a piece of frag in his throat. We emergency medivacked him from the jungle to the base hospital by boat. He underwent surgury to remove the frag, and recovered. The doctors had cut him open from his ear to his collarbone to remove the frag from his neck, left him scarred up really bad. But thankfully he survived.

The rest of that deployment was uneventful and in early 1985 we went back to our command base in Coronado where I was immediately grabbed up for deployment in another platoon.

During that platoons training, in August of 1985, I reenlisted for another 4 years.

I'll post this and come back for the "rest of the story"...

[carlie]

MarkC,

I would contact the VBA in each possible way, a certified letter,

Iris and a trip in person to the RO.

I would state in a request that my VA compensation remain as it is

until I am at least afforded a hearing which I am requesting at this time.

They should not lower your benefits prior to holding your hearing

and if it goes well at your hearing then they might not lower your

compensation at all.

JMHO

[Mark C]

Part 2:

In the 2nd Seal platoon I was in we were given an E-9 Master Chief as our platoon chief. The E-9 they assigned to us was a Vietnam veteran who had spent most of his time since than working at admin jobs.

He was a nice enough guy, but when it came to anything mechanical he was completely lost. But, he was a senior Seal, known by everybody from his time working admin at staff in Coronado.

In that platoon, I was an E-5 and primary pilot for the SDV. My self and the platoons OIC were the dive pair that did the most dives.

The final phase of pre-deployment training for us was a MAC flight for us and our SDV up to Washington State where we did our final dives in cold water in Hood Canal at the sub base in Bangor.

On the final dive there, we were to be evaluated by members of staff that would fly up from Coronado to observe us in a full mission profile dive. The day of our dive a cold front came in with lots of snow.

The plane from Coronado was delayed for a day, so it was decided on the day of the dive that the secondary pilot/navigator would dive and the primary pair would do support and not dive until the cold front passed and the graders arrived.

I found out about this change of plans on the morning of the dive. I had already set up my Mk15 diving rig and had it ready to go. The navigator of the secondary pair was a well liked Lt.jg and a good friend to me.

He assumed my diving rig and asked me if the Mk15 dive rig was ready to go, I told him it was but it's up to him to fill out a new pre-dive check off sheet.

Later that afternoon before the dive I helped him into his drysuit and helped him don his Mk15 for the dive.

It was snowing hard that evening when we used the base crane to put our SDV in the water. The E-9 I had previously had mentioned was to be the supervisor of this dive.

Things started bad from the start. After we had the SDV and divers in the water at Delta pier there was a delay because the E-9 had forgotten to give a copy of the dive profile to the base operations people.

The divers had already been in the ice cold water, on bag for 30 minutes plus before permission to dive was granted.

break time, more to follow...

[carlie]

MarkC,

Irregardless of the rest of the story - the only way I know of to

put a halt to your reduction in compensation is to request such and a hearing

at the RO.