nacole

Hi, Berta (everyone), I am curious if there’s any instructions on how to go about: DIC is granted & accrued / death pension benefits are denied. My VA rep (Colorado VA office), recently explained to me that my mom was awarded DIC benefits ( I filed on her behalf ), effective the day of his death (my dad died Dec.30, 2017) of... 1-Pneumonia 2-COPD 3-CAD but, we (she) was denied accrued because the Army / VA did not owe him any money, since he never filed for benefits while alive. While that part is true, he never filed because he was told he did not have agent orange, he was told he “wasn’t in the right theater”, course that “theater” explanation is false. Vietnam establishes theater now, period. My dad was on ground (in air) for a year. Further my dad’s records I received from archives (medals included) do not have a lot of information in them. I have a hard time understanding what they do say. My dad was 191st Military Intellegence, not sure if that is why I have trouble making sense of the records they gave me or if that has anything to do with why I had such a trouble free approval on DIC portion of our claim (approved first time & expedited approval within 3 months)..to which we are grateful. However, I have an original document from 1989 that reads, “ In regards to YOU’RE request to be tested for agent orange...Donald L. Welch...” (my dad)..you’re appointment is scheduled for ...1989 at ... etc. then written in red pen on the top of the document is written “6-8 weeks”. I prusume his “testing” (set for an entire day 8am-6pm) did not inform my dad he had exposure, because he then would have filed! Yet, clearly he did (death certificate reads CAD) & DIC awarded for presumptive CAD! Throughout his lengthy medical history of: Arteries blocked (multiple), Surgical stents, cardiac-arrest, COPD, bronchitis-chronic, lung problems, etc. He believed he did not qualify for benefits. Months before his death he went to VA medical at his brothers insistence & on the way home from getting RX (for the first time ever from the VA) he told his brother he was told he wasn’t in the “theater” for agent orange benefits. By the time he got his first RX delivered through the mail...he was dead....of CAD. How do I prove establish that he would have filed for benefits (as far back as 1989, document attached), if they had not told him he didn’t qualify & wasn’t exposed? How do I get addditional records when he was military intelligence? I can’t even find out what battles, his medal citations are even from. I also know his helicopter crashed while he was in Vietnam and his back had either whipping marks or shrapnel scarred all over it...I want to know why. No records if him being a POW. Can anyone link me in the right direction? I’ll have to figure out how to attach documents to post- will follow through.