john999

I saw a photo of Audie Murphy in his uniform shortly after the war. He did not look like the Audie Murphy in Hollywood. He was gaunt and had a haunted look in his eyes. Audie was able to work in Hollywood because he was the most decorated soldier in WWII. He could not act, but was a sentimental favorite. He went through hell in WWII and deserved the medals he got. He paid the price. I agree that the VA has invented their version of PTSD to screen out thousands of vets who come back with all the problems Hoppy has indicated. Nobody has all the symptoms of PTSD. If you just have three or four you will suffer bad enough.

Your fear is justified. I dragged myself to work for years in a light duty assignment until the bosses put the screws to me and trumped up some charges and fired me. If your back injury is aggravated by your job you can file for workers compensation. If you get the compensation you can hang in there until you get TDIU or SSDI. In this economy there is no easy answer to your questions. You can't quit for non medical reasons and get unemployment. In my state you have to be laid off due to lack of work. Every state is different.

Walking out on a c&p exam would have gotten Papa a big fat denial. I have had many incompetent exams over the years and some that were hostile. You have to go through the motions and file your NOD.

If he was 100% for ten years before his death she would get DIC anyway.

Do you have time to file suit againt the doctor who hurt your wife. I am suing a doctor who misdiagnosed my staff infection. You usually have two years to sue these bastards.

I know if feels like forever, but one year is not that long to wait for a TDIU claim. If you have waited 18 months and still no decision get nervous. Did you file for SSDI? If you get SSDI that establishes your TDIU date pretty well.

It is a good deal for the government as well. If they can rehab a vet who is getting 70% to where he can now work and make good money then they will not have to pay him 100% one day and support his wife and kids forever. If you get a job making 100,000 bucks a year that is a lot better than compensation, and the government gets taxes.

Get your 100% rating in hand and then you can appeal the incompetency decision. I don't think you can have the carry permit and be rated incompetent. I am not sure how the VA communicates with your state. I think I would get some legal advise on this situation. As far as your guns you could give them to someone in your family to hold for you until you get competency back.

These weathy senators are not worried about compensation for agent orange diseases. These guys are all gung ho for active military but would let aging vets twist slowly in the wind. Summer soldiers now that they have it made in the shade and have sucked off the government teat for years. They have great pensions, cheap insurance and get to keep all unused campaign contributions when they retire and write a book. They should be drowned in a fish tank.

USNDW Do you think with these budget problems the government is going to extend this expensive benefit to thousands more vets? You are more optimistic than I am.

With VA and SSD don't assume you have won your claim until you get the decision in your hand. This will save you a lot of disappointment.

File now! I filed when I was 30% and the effective date was the date they got my official TDIU form. It took about 18 months to win it, and I just barely knew what I was doing.

Filing claims with the VA is not an exact science. You just get all the evidence you can and file your claim. Persistence is what wins these things in the long run. Keep appealing and getting more evidence until you win. I read posts here all the time about how long this or that phase of the process should take and that is all bunk. You just fight it until the end however long it takes.

They are in a hurry and suffer no ill effects when they do shoddy work. My CUE is back in Remandsville because the experts did not use the right rating schedule when they denied my claim. This mistake by the BVA will cost me another couple of years. My claim goes to the Court where the error is discovered, and is then remanded back to the BVA to correct the error, and then back to the Court, and maybe on to Federal Court. I will be an elderly gentleman before this is over. Has a BVA judge ever been fired?

I know twitching can be caused by long term use of certain anti-psychotic drugs. Some anti-psychotic drugs in small doses were used for depression and anxiety as well as psychotic disorders. The phenothiazines can cause all sorts of jerking and twitching. Even short term use can cause horrible spasms and jerking. Just a note.

If your claim is pretty strong you might wait for your decision and then get a doctor to craft the IMO to rebutt exactly the VA decision. This is a step-by-step deal like any legal process. After all your C&P exams the ball is in the VA's court until you get a decision. I went from 10%, to 30%, to 70% to TDIU over a number of years. I was appealing all the time.

It is a basis for an appeal, but I do not think it is new evidence. I think if you ask for reconsideration without new evidence your claim is going to be looked at by the same people who denied it, or low balled it, the first time for the same reasons. That does not seem like a strategy to me. When I am denied or low balled by the VA I almost always try and get some new and favorable medical evidence.

Vets thought the VA was reforming the rules for PTSD when, in fact, it was a plot to make getting SC'ed for PTSD much harder. Now they have this check list for PTSD almost nobody can have all the symptoms, therefore, they don't have PTSD.

I had knee trouble in basic training in 1969. I went to sick call and got an xray. There is no record of this in my SMR's. I spent two weeks in the hospital for some sort of disease when I got back from Vietnam. No record in my SMR's. I went to a army shrink for 6 months at Ft. Stewart before I was discharged. No record of that in my SMR's. I went to dentist to check my TMJ and had two teeth pulled. No record in my SMR's. Most of the medical treatment I got in the military is not in my SMR's.

The VA uses "reasonable minds" criteria for determining if a error is bad enough to have caused a different outcome of a decision. The problem is that it is their "reasonable minds" we are talking about. 40 years of retro is unreasonable to them in my experience. That is why you have to go to the highest levels with an attorney to win. However, when you find that error in your records it can net you big retro.

This is nice for a start, but there are about 200,000 100% disabled vets who need help.

The VA sends claims all around the country just to make it seem like they are taking some action.

You know the U.S. lost over 7000 helicopters in Vietnam from all causes. When helicopters go into hot LZ's they become very vulnerable to all sorts of weapons including heavy machineguns, RPG, Rockets and even small arms fire. Plus helicopters fall out of the sky for all sorts of non-combat reasons. Flying among those moutains in Afghanistan is very dangerous. We should just declare victory and get the heck out of there instead of staying another 3 years so more guys can get killed for nothing. The Taliban and war lords will own Afghanistan when we leave even if we stay there ten more years.

You know if it is a matter of a few weeks you don't want to cut it that close anyway.

Unless you have new evidence I would file an appeal. You have to file a NOD first. I would get an IMO if I were you and ask for a reconsideration. Keep your eyes on the NOD clock.