john999

I think the main point would be if you are employed now. If you are not employed due to your PTSD then I think you would be more likely to get a higher rating than if you are still gainfully employed making above the poverty line. However, if you get any rating for PTSD that gives you the lever to get more. Let's say you get 30% and then you are unable to work in the future. It is a lot easier to go from 30% to 70% and IU than to go from no service connection to IU. A lot of older Vietnam vets find that with age they are unable to keep up the defenses they had when they were younger and then the PTSD becomes worse. Also, you need to check on the agent orange presumptive diseases. Now is the time when things like DMII and prostate cancer start to be a problem for us RVN vets.

Pigdriver If that was a C&P exam result you should get IU at least if you are not working. A GAF of 48 with PTSD and TBI should get you between 70-100%. That is a ball park figure. I had a GAF of 50 and I got 70%, but I had lots of current medical documentation from two treating mental health professionals. The question will hinge on if you are able to work or are currently not working. I think being able to work is the main criteria on getting a high rating for a mental condition. People who are holding down a job don't get 100% for PTSD.

The thing with mental health IU is that it is subjective. When you go for your C&P exam if you have a single physical thing wrong with you the doctor may say that is the reason you can't work. The doctor may say you have a personality disorder, and that is why you can't work. It is not like someone with a broken neck who can't lift his head. I was told by my VA shrink that it usually goes 30%, 50% and then 70% IU. It takes a few years to get there if you are not catatonic. Purple, I think if you got IU that fast you probably should have gotten 100% schedular. Your case must have been so obvious that even the VA could not deny it, and that is saying something. I don't mean to offend you by saying this. When I got out of the Army I could not even leave the house. The VA did not even consider IU. I was lucky to get 10% because they said I had a personality disorder, and just a little case of schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. In my day if you were not a complete basket case you did not get 100% or IU for a mental condition back in the 70's. PTSD was considered a form of bad conduct. PTSD vets got drunk and took drugs and went awol so they were bad. Many got kicked right out on their asses with OTH discharges. If they did get honorable discharge the VA had no treatment for them except to say they had a personality disorder.

I think that the newspapers would like to hear about that little bit of discrimination. This is why they put a retired general in charge of the VA because he is used to giving and following dumb orders. It is good to have a Yes Man in charge of the VA.

How does the Army get young HS graduates to enlist in the combat arms in this day and age? They can enlist in the Air Force and learn about computers or something. That is a lot better than climbing up moutains in Afghanistan with a pack on your back. Not a big demand for infantry troops back in the states after they get back to civilian life. I know that some people just like it and more power to them. Do the youngsters get large enlistment bonuses for going 11B?

Bob I joined the Army in 1969. I think the attitude about the war had changed a great deal since 1966. By the time I got to RVN in 1970 I think the belief was that the war was not going to be won. We were in some kind of holding pattern until someone came up with an idea for us to sneak out of there without actually admitting it was a disaster. People were still dying especially in I Core. The USA could have pulled up stakes at that point and just left, but thousands more had to die. I know after I left it got worse with soldiers actually refusing to go out on patrol. They kept sending them to LBJ, but they they burned it down at one point. What can you do with soldiers who don't want to fight anymore? The army did not have the guts to shoot them. There would have been riots at home if that got out to the public.

If I had doubts I would file a NOD and ask for a DRO Hearing. This has worked for me. If you lose at the hearing you can appeal to the BVA.

Where were all these heros back in the late 60's and early 70's when people were doing everything possible to stay out of Vietnam? There was not one person in my basic training company who volunteered for the infantry. They were all draftees as far as I know, and you should have seen the faces when they got their AIT assignments. It was considered a possible death sentence to get sent for advanced infantry training.

Sounds like this DRO is on a power trip, or those higher on the scale than him told him not to grant the claim. That does happen especially if there is back pay issue. My DRO denied my CUE after agreeing that the VA had made an error. That admission did not show up in the transcript. Someone higher up explained the facts of life on 35 years of back pay to this jacked up clerk. So we take it to the BVA. This is what happens when the system functions to delay a claim instead of expediting it.

One interesting thing is that South Vietnam has been turned into a long term study of the effects of AO on a population. No wonder the USA resists compensation to the civilian population of Vietnam. This would allow in their findings of the long term consequences of AO. We dropped AO on our allies and friends. We did not drop it on North Vietnam. I bet the list of places AO was used in in a vault under Ft. Knox.

You know when I got back from Vietnam I got mad and wrote a letter to my congressman and told him about the rampant heroin abuse at the air base I was at in 1970. 5 months later I was out of the Army because the Army said I could not adapt to a military environment. I wonder if the letter had anything to do with it....duh. I kept asking for help for my psychiatric problems and they got tired of me and threw me out. They trumped up some charges and out I went. If you speak out you will be thrown out.

Hey, some crazy vet is going to drive a suicide truck right in the front door of one of these VARO's. I don't advocate it, and know nothing about it, but it is probably going to happen one day. There are plenty of vets who know how to handle explosives. If Taliban can do it then some vet who thinks he is getting messages from God can do it. Tim McVeigh did something like that to a federal building. If you have ever watched the Hollywood Shootout on one of those police shows you know what a few guys with machine guns can do. What if it were ten guys attacking a federal building? We are talking about many people being killed. We live in a false sense of security.

Pete I believe the VA thinks of oxycodone, vicodin and oxycontin as potential recreational drugs. I know the state of Florida and DEA think that those drugs and xanax as being drugs that are likely to be abused. If it was up to the DEA nobody would be able to get anything for pain or anxiety. Really, the pain doctors and shrinks are almost scared to death of the DEA. The future is going to be grim for pain patients and those suffering from panic who need drugs on the list. Do you have to take random urine tests for the drugs you take? What they want to know is if the drugs are in your system since the believe that all of us are selling our drugs for money. Oxycontin was invented to provide long lasting pain relief for those wiht chronic pain. Due to abusers my VAMC is highly reluctant to prescribe it. The VA prescribes morphine and methadone instead. These drugs turn your stomache inside out and your intestines to concrete. Oh, of course, they are cheap as well. If it was me I would get a private shrink and pain doctor on board now before the DEA makes things so difficult that they stop taking new patients. If you have a drug you really need then you need a supply that can't be cut off on the basis of the VA's whims.

I can't see suicide as willful misconduct. I know there may be some guy out there who kills himself for insurance money to go to his wife and kids, but that does not sound like the act of a person of sound mind. I see suicide as a rational reaction of intractable pain, but is it misconduct??? The VA just does all it can not to pay.

Yes, the VA wants to know did you see the guy in front of you blown 20 feet in the air and come down in 12 parts? They don't want to know about the other 350 days you spent in fear and misery. Most guys in combat live in fear for months and that wears down their defenses, and conditions them to be paranoid. Some get over it and some don't.

The VA does not do the MMPI because they are afraid it would show objective evidence of a mental disorder. They like to play games and pretend that vets have personality disorders etc. It so much easer to get a prostitute doctor to look at a vet's records for ten minutes, and say he is a PD than do a real exam.

Well, you might be able to get a job at your local VAMC mopping the floor with such an appointment.

If you really want help find a private therapist and work with him/her. My private psychologist kept me from dying, or being locked up, or ending up a drug addict, or skid row bum. What the Army vomited back to my parents after I got out of the service was someone who could not function. The VA did nothing to help me. I got back on my feet after about 5 years. I always had problems afterward, but I was able to deal with it for a while.

I think I would go back to the PCP and try to get him/her to correct the record. Talk to them and explain how they may have made the error though lack of communication. You don't want to call them a damn liar even if they are.

When you enter the military there is presumption of fitness unless otherwise noted. This is the kind of claim where you could use a lawyer. The longer the time between discharge and a claim the harder it gets.

Get the maximum you can from the present claim, and then go after the CUE retro. That is what I am doing. If I win my CUE that will be great, but I am not starving in the meantime.

Sounds absurd. There has to be some reason why the military believes you are medically unfit for active duty.

I think they change the GAF's every time you get treated to pretend they actually are treating you. In fact psychotherapy at the VA is just a joke. How can you have a theraputic relationship with a patient you only see every three months for 15 minutes for a med check?

Do you have combat awards? If you do this should make it much easier since the combat award is verification of a stressor.

A score of 74 gets you a trip to Bellevue.