john999

I think it is a true statement that the longer you wait to file a claim after discharge the harder it gets to win under most circumstances. Things happen. You may have a car wreck. You may get hurt at work. You may get sick from NSC condition. All these things can sometimes be used against a claimant.

Big Country How do you plan to pay your bills while you wait for IU and SSD?

I don't think anyone can point to regulation that says a NP cannot do a C&P exam. I had a heart exam done by a NP. I was not happy, but if I had refused my claim would have died. I like what Pete992 is saying. That is what I did when I got a crummy exam from a NP. I got my PCP to send me for about 10,000 bucks worth of tests. I won on appeal with reams of evidence from the VA. If you want to kill your claim just refuse the exam even if it is by the janitor.

I don't know how you apply for IU if you are still working. If you could apply and borrow money until you get your IU that might work. This is a catch 22 that jams up a lot of vets. What will have to happen is you retire on disability from your job and apply. Maybe apply for schedular 100%. It will probably take at least 6 months to get IU from the time you file. It could be much longer.

Dept of the Army won't life a finger to help you. They lost 6 months of records for me.

If this is your very first claim you can do it online. If it were me I would file my claim directly with the VA and then give copy to the VSO. I would also give my evidence directly to VA and get date stamped copies. After original claim everything else is a request for increase.

The next step in the process is the decison to either do a DRO appeal or go directly to BVA. The NOD is supposed to trigger a statement of the case from the VA. The VA usually asks you if you want to do a DRO or go directly to the BVA. I would do a DRO Hearing if I were you. Two bites at the appple. You can keep getting new evidence and submitting it after the NOD is filed.

I think not providing appeal rights is not exactly a CUE. I also pointed out that I did not get appeal rights in 1971 decision. Not providing appeal rights either means claim is still open or some other avenue. I also am saying the VA ignored medical records that would have resulted in 100% rating. Since this happened almost 40 years ago it is only by looking at C-File that I found these errors. However, VA did not provide me with complete C-File. How do you get due process when BVA has file three times as large as yours. The basic idea of due process is that both sides have access to the same evidence. The VA system is paternalistic and at the same time disregards legal process. The whole process stinks.

Get a prescription for oxycontin, demerol or dilaudid from private doctor and see if your VA PCP will fill it. I bet you they will not fill it unless you are dying from cancer. I asked pain doctors at the VA for vicodin and they refused and gave me morphine. Morphine is cheaper than vicodin. They do prescribe generic vicodin. It is cheap and very habit forming as is oxycodone. The shorter acting the drug the more addictive it is.

VA says they will not deny PTSD based on personal assault without telling vet that other type of evidence besides what is in his militar records is admissable, and that the VA will consider this type of evidence. It is a long way from considering such evidence to granting a claim. The VA may very well list your evidence and then explain why it does not meet the standard for a grant of SC for PTSD. Even combat vets need to have their stressor conceded and a current dx of PTSD and a nexus between the two. If you were a really good trainee or a good soldier and in a short amount of time your performance slipped and you became such a liability that the military kicked you out then that might point to something happening. I think this regulation is really aimed at cases of sexual abuse or rape. However, clear cut cases of personal assault that result in injuries, hospital stay, arrests etc are very winnable. TestVet won such a case where he was assaulted and his attackers went to prison. Even so he waited years to win that case. I believe he was running on fumes when he finally won after long fight. A truck driver in Iraq whose convoy was attacked has 100% easier chance to win a PTSD claim than any personal assault case I think even if a truck six trucks ahead or behind was the victim. If the vet got CAB he/she is in like Flynn. There is tremendous bias for combat vets to win PTSD claims. It is just how military mind operates. The definition of combat has been honed just for this reason IMO. If every base in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan has been shelled or attacked at some time then every vet of those places would be combat vet, but military has parsed the definition of combat to exclude most troops in a combat zone.

Probably three weeks, but you can send in the request now. Did QTC do the exam or did VA do it? VA keeps records of exams in their records dept. What you can do is go to release of information office and file out the form. They will send it when they get it. Sometimes if QTC does it you have to go through RO. You can get good idea of how your claim will fly from the exam.

Did you get any combat awards? If so this would bolster your PH claim. You go through BCMR. I think if you fell in hole avoiding mortor attack that would qualify, and the shrapnel if it drew blood should be enough. You and John Kerry. Do you have SMR's that show any treatment for injuries in a combat zone? I think you can do this.

I will play devil's advocate. You are saying a blanket party that happened in Basic Training in 1985-86 caused you to have PTSD and yet you served until 1992. You had a number of AR-15's that resulted in your general under honorable discharge in 1992. You have no proof this assault ever happened. You soldiered on for 6 years after being beat up in basic. Now after many years you are making a claim for PTSD. If you have SC for knees pain and disability you would have a better chance getting a depression claim or claim for chronic pain disorder. You need a lawyer. How do you relate undocumented case of getting ass kicked in basic to 6 years of AR 15's and awful job history for the last almost 25 years to PTSD assault claim for which you never got treatment? The VA is not going to take your word you got beat up in basic 25 years ago? Ask TestVet what it takes for a man to get PTSD for personal assault case. I am not saying it can't be done, but I am saying you have big mountain to climb. When did you first file for any MH claim? I also got shafted in a big way by the army. However, I filed a claim within one year of discharge and VA psychiatrist said schizophrenia instead of PD. My private doctor said schizophrenia and explained why PD discharge was wrong. Time is a factor. If I had waited five years to file my schizophrenia claim I don't think I would have gotten SC'ed for it. Ask Rockhound about his claim. He really did get medical discharge for schizophrenia and then VA said PD and that is what he got stuck with for all these years. Josephine might be able to advise you since she won a case for SC anxiety that I did not think anyone could win 40 years after bogus discharge. Her case gave me hope for my CUE claim back to 1971.

Watch the old movie "Jacob's Ladder" which is about army program to invent perfect warrior by using LSD type drug. I think it really happened. I don't believe in these cures. VA just wants to save money on PTSD claim.

You need buddy statements or some proof that this assault actually happened. It is your word against your Drill Sgt. He is never going to admit that he discouraged you from going to aide station. He is probably out of the army by now. You could try and track him down and ask if he remembers you and the incident. Is ADHD a mental disorder that is compensable? What kind of discharge did you get? Were you discharged for being a Personality disorder? When did you file your first claim? You served in 1985 and you quote a report from 1999. That is not going to help you. I got kicked out on a PD discharge. I filed a claim within one year of discharge. I had two months of hospital records and two weeks of VA in-patient records and a psychiatric report saying I was 100% disabled from psychotic condition. I got 10%. This is what you are up against.

I got a good exam when I got my AO exam. The doctor identified three conditions that had a correlation to exposure to AO and he listed those conditions. I filed claims on all those conditions and got SC'ed. I think it varies from VAMC to VAMC. The guys who did my exam was not an expert in chemical exposure. He was just a doctor who was interested in effects of AO. The VA does not have people who are expert in chemical exposure doing these exams. The exams themselves are really just part of a long term study of a group of people (Vietnam Vets) to show mortality and morbidity so PH.D's and MD researchers can write papers and get grant money. There is no end to the abuse of Vietnam vets, and the government will probably dig up our bones and use them in a study. Does the VA have an obligation to tell patients if they are part of a medical study? I think we are all lab rats and the government is still exploiting us even as we grow old and die.

You could ask your pcp to change you to methadone. The VA pain clinics usually have the cheapest and oldest type pain drugs. Oxycodone, morhpine, and methadone are old and cheap drugs. If you don't fit into VA's cookie cutter treatment picture you better find a private pain clinic. Do you have good private insurance that pays for drugs? If the pain clinic or your pcp decides you need to be taken off pain meds you need to show them you should not be taken off the pills. My VA pain clinic guys are trying to take me off percoset after years. They are feeling the heat from scandals in the local community. I am going to ask my PCP to stop my trips to the VA pain clinic. They do nothing but make trouble for me.

You should live in Florida where so many crooks are in the pain management business that every patient is a suspect. Most of the clinics take cash only. The other pain doctors want to do procedures expensive and painful.

I have a CUE claim at the BVA going back to 1971 for 100% rating. I have a lawyer and the rest of my life to wait.

I got a CUE for 100% going back to 1971. The facts are there. I believe the VA will find some way out. I can't believe they will grant it even though my lawyer says they must. I have to buy a big dinner to the shrink who wrote the original report saying I was 100% back in 1971 if I win. I still see him. He said he would write a statement that he wrote that report in 1971 and still stands by it 39 years later. I don't think that will help, but there it is. I am waiting almost five months since my BVA hearing.

I think the only way to get major retro on a final decision is to file a CUE. This means there was a legal error when the VA denied your original PTSD claim. I am attempting to do this on a 1973 claim. You can only use the evidence that was before the rater at the time or should have been before the rater. This is much more tricky than it sounds.

TestVet is our expert on Shad. I never heard of it until Test started talking about it years ago. Reminds of me of Move "Jacob's ladder" which was loosely based on real events.

Denying a condition not claimed is a good way for VA to delay a claim. You have to untangle the mess and this takes time. Time is always the vet's enemy especially if they are very sick.

If you are able to work at all you would be better off getting a job or keeping your job as you have to be destitute to get war widow's pension. It is a tiny amount of money. If you get SSA you won't be able to get widow pension. They offset each other as I understand it. Go for DIC as Berta says. If you can't work you would be better off on SSI or SSD than war widow's pension.

Federal civil service has the same doctrine as far as injuries on duty. All you can get is compensation according to how much you were earning. My old employer, the post office, was negligent as hell, but all you could do was get workers compensation. If they sent you out in a truck with no brakes and you had a wreck you got workers comp and that was it.