john999

Was the bronze star in question with a "V" device. That would denote combat award and would concede a stressor. I am just thinking that if you were at some arty base and had to fight off groud attack you would not get CIB, or any combat award unless for heroic action of some sort like a Bronze Star with V. It is like being at some air base that got pouned by rockets and mortars during TET. Wouldn't you have to go to the After Action Reports etc. to prove combat stressor. Are we talking about getting evidence for PTSD claim or just getting medals we should have gotten but didn't?

Since the VA can handle the backlog let's see what they do about it. They can either do the right thing, or find a way to throw out claims by changing laws or regulations like the AO IHD presumption. If it comes to a choice between a vet's welfare and saving a buck you know how the VA usually goes.

I wonder if that was a form letter. It did not address the IHD delay. Actually, I think most in congress and the VA wish we RVN vets would just hurry up and die, so they can make room for OIF/OEF vets.

If the vet was 80% in 2001 and the VA knew he was unemployable due to his SC condition that should have been an inferred claim for IU. In that sense I agree that in such a situation the VA did commit an error. For instance, the vet is rated 80% and the VA knows the vet is on SSD. That should infer a claim for IU. This according to VBM. Any time there are NSC and SC conditions that contribute to being unemployable it complicates the situation big time. What this vet needs to do now is get IU. Worry about EED later.

Right, and when some vet goes crazy and guns down a bunch of people at a VAMC the reaction will be metal detectors and pat downs. We think it is hard to get access to your VA doctor now! The problem that drove the vet out of his mind won't be addressed. It will be group punishment for the rest of us.

The VA started this crazy program where you can't actually make an appointment in advance. You make an appointment to make an appointment. I see my shrink every three months supposedly. When I leave his office I can't make an appointment to see him in three months. I get a letter from VA two months later saying it is time to make an appointment with my shrink. Now I have to call the VAMC and make an appointment with my shrink. Often this means another month or longer to get the actual appointment. They don't trust me to make an appointment and show up three months later without a dozen reminders. I can't actually plan things. I have never missed an appointment, but I and others are treated like incompentents. I found out by accident I have an appointment with the pain clinic in July. If it screws up my schedule, too bad. They owe me treatment but they don't make it easy. My VAMC has the most modern equiptment there is ,but the problem is getting access to it. My foot hurts for two days after a trip to the VAMC even with my wife pushing me in a wheelchair. I wait in the hot sun for a shuttle bus to get to the hospital. I open a vein to get some cheap meds and document my disabilites.

Ebony Have you gotten treatment for your back at the VA since discharge? I would sure start getting treatment at the VA if I have not gotten it yet. If you get a C&P exam they may just go with what is in your SMR's. That means old x-rays and old MRI's. You need current test results. These C&P exams can be very poor quality and result in drastic low ball ratings. Have you ever gotten an MRI?

The VA should consider IU if a vet is 80%, but if he has a NSC and SC conditions quoted as being the reason he can't work then his IU claim is in trouble. If he had gone to a doctor and gotten another opinion saying that although he does have NSC disabilites it is his SC disability that is the "sole" reason he can't work then he should have gotten IU. Let that word "Sole" burn into your brain because that is the definition of IU. You can be rated 90% but unless that is the sole reason you cannot work then you are screwed. Not main reason, but sole reason.

Every once in a while the VA will infer P&T status, but it could take years. Do as Larry suggests and do the request yesterday.

Go to your congressman and use him to get your C-File. There could be evidence in there that could mean a lot of money for you. I used my C-File to launch a CUE claim going all the way back to my original rating. I never new how the VA had ignored and excluded key evidence until I got the file.

You know we dumped AO on South Vietnam. Those were supposed to be our allies. We helped to poison the civilians we were supposed to be saving. I guess we had to kill them to save them. We need to compensate the Vietnam Vets here before we spend money on Vietnamese. We need to compensate both parties.

When the VA denies you P&T then they are denying Chapter 35 benefits. This can be appealed when you get your initial IU or 100% rating. I got P&T at age 51 based on medical documentation in the form of an IMO and a review of my VA medical records. Yes, your 100% or IU rating is not safe until it has been in effect for 20 years.

Berta That is a pretty important post!

Callover If you think you get such great treatment at the VA why don't you drop your BC/BS? Do you get all your treatment at the VA? If you were going in for triple by-pass surgery would you use your local VAMC, or would you look around your city for the best doctor to do it even if it meant using your insurance and having some co-pay? I use the VA primarily to document my treatment for SC conditions. For that I get a bill sent to my insurance. Your VAMC is a teaching hospital. I hope you are so optimistic when a medical student at the VA cuts your chest open, and slices through your aorta.

The 2004 c&p exam says that a combination of NSC and SC conditions makes the vet unemployable. If must be solely due to SC conditions for IU. That c&p doctor shafted this older vet with that language. When NSC and SC are mixed in together it is often death to an IU claim. I know from experience. He needs a statement from a doctor saying solely due to his SC conditions he can't work. The VA did this to me writing the word "SOLELY" in caps and bold print because even though I was 70% the doctor mentioned a NSC condition. The VA blamed all my employment problems on the NSC condition. It took another IMO to get that right. That is what this vet needs.

CM How long has it beens since you were discharged? I agree with what Carlie and Testvet have said about that being a plateful of things for this NCOIC to verify. Is he going to remember dates, names, and times and places? Is he going to say your were sexually harassed and by whom? You are asking him to verify injuries, diabetes, sexual harassment, and trouble with childbirth? I think this is overload and may make his statements less acceptable. If you could get statements for others to verify some of these things independently from the NCOIC I think it would be better, but if this is what you have then this is what you have. If the NCIOC could just verify the harassment stressor that would be enough.

Phil That is exactly right. The VA increases the disability rating to meed 4.16a if you can show you are IU even if your rating was 10% when you filed for IU. The VA seems to want to do anything to avoid awarding a IU claim just on part b. I think this is because that would include many vets who are on SSD or under employed with ratings below what 4.16a calls for now. It is just part of the game. The main thing is that an unemployable vet gets his/her IU.

If you can prove via the evidence that you can't work due to your PTSD then you can get your IU. The VA will adjust your rating to justify IU. Not being able to work is the factor in PTSD claims that makes the differnce between 30-50% rating and IU or 100%. I can't prove this, but I believe this is how they get around 4.16b. You need a psychiatrist to say you can't work due to your PTSD. I filed for IU when I was 30% and then worked my claim. I got SSD and that helped I think.

Every day they VA waits they save money on a dead veteran. This is what motivates the bean counters. Do spouses know they can carry on their vet's claim in some form? The VA would not tell them I bet. You should not have to wait a year on leukemia.

Only 850,000 RVN vets left alive and the VA is worried about compensation. They are worried about DIC. At least 2.7 million boots on the ground and 70% dead. That is pretty bad forecast for some of us. Maybe I can be kept alive in a petri dish. Is that a normal death rate for baby boomers who did not go to Vietnam?

It is just about the money! He has a great pension and the best health care in the world. When he retires from the Senate he gets to keep unspent campaign contributions as income. Nice job there Senator. How many bribes can you accumulate in six years? He should have his head cut off. That would be good therapy for many in Washington.

That article is just a libel against suffering veterans. We are all dope addicts and drug dealers, but we were heros when we were serving Uncle Sam.

If you are sick, unemployed, and dealing with a VA claim it is overwhelming. I would say that if your claim has a way to go get a lawyer if you can. What Hadit can provide is a strategy for dealing with the VA claims process. We are not talking about justice or anything like that. We are talking about winning a claim. You start at step one and you just go donw the line. It takes time and sometimes it takes money. Above all it takes knowledge which you can get here. Your claim never ends until the day you die, and then your spouse picks it up one way or the other.

We all have to pull in our belts a little tighter even the old lady eating dog food down the block. Those running hedge funds have to give up the extra house in Barbados. Life is hard. I am sure glad I don't live in Denmark or one of them socialist countries that take care of undeserving poor people. When the going gets tough the tough take a vacation. Those lazy 90 year olds are eating us out of house and home.

Keep talking to those Shrinks and express how you feel in strong terms. Don't give up! Express your outrage, but don't threaten them or scare them to the extent they call the VA goon squad. It is a fine line, but keep walking up to it and don't let the VA off the hook.