Dustoff1970

If you were treated for and/or prescribed sleep medicine such as valium or secondal or others while in service then this can serve as evidence of osa sleep problems incurred on active duty in service. Unlike VARO the BVA routinely recognizes treatment of symptoms without an actual diagnosis in service as valid evidence along with other information from you and your VA and or private medical records, etc. etc. Page 108 to 109 in section 3.4.3.3 NVLSP manual (2006 edition) states the above info I just said as valid medical evidence of in service event. NVLSP or National Veterans Legal Services Program is a very reputable advocacy recognized organization that played a major role in obtaining Agent Orange benefits for Vietnam vets. Above info from me is not legal advice but based on my 30 years of personal experience and filing my own claims and appeals.

Need more detail info to answer question. What is the disability you are filing for???? I can try some of my resources and research methods for your answer.

Yes in many instances veterans have received direct service connection on symptoms alone without official medical diagnosis for their illnesses incurred in military service according to my old reliable 2006 bible that is the NVLSP 1875 plus pages Veterans Advocate Manual for Disability Claims and published by Lexisnexis. See pages 108 to 109 in section 3.4.3.3. National Veterans Legal Services Program is an excellent legal advocacy service. Thanks to this then $250.00 set of two manuals including all VA laws and regulations I have won several claims and appeals over past 20 plus years filing everything myself including CUE claim and Appeal to the CAVC court. Unfortunately for some vets there is another veterans benefits forum that puts out misleading BS that you "must have been diagnosed in service with your claimed disability" by a medical doctor in order to receive SC when in fact a sick call slip has sometimes served as proof of your in service illness or injury. Certainly an actual medical diagnosis makes everything easier but many if not most vets never did receive a full diagnosis for many reasons.

Actually as I recall this rumour regularly pops up every year now for at least several years just like Navy and Army barracks scuttlebutt.

I have heard nothing about this but nothing surprises me about stupid ideas from politicians and lifer government bureaucrats. This would be very typical and hypocritical of them as the SOBs know that the vast majority of all shootings and violence in USA is committed by non veterans and especially not by PTSD veterans. In spite of all the patriotic talk directed toward us veterans there are many politicians who hate our guts because of THEIR Vietnam War 40 years ago. Be damn careful who you vote for in November.

If you have no luck with the above good advice ideas then if you live close to a VA regional office you can go there and talk to their VSRs about getting the P&T award letters that should have appeared on your Ebenefits page.

I see by my mistake I have been answering questions directed to another party and I apologize for this most egregious error as I am still learning the ways of posting to this forum. Good day all.

I cannot answer last part of your question but having represented myself in a successful CUE appeal before the CAVC court in 2005 I can tell you a good attorney is worth his weight in gold to represent a vet before the CAVC or Fed appeals Circuit courts. At my age I would never try or do this again as it was very stressful with time limits on all procedures and required exact paperwork and wording of motions, counter motions, pleadings, etc. etc. This is considered an adversarial setting and VA attorneys are allowed to be very nasty, hateful and antagonistic toward their opponent attorneys and even pro se vets such as myself. I was very lucky to have two judges who were pro vet and made generous rulings on my behalf and against the VA lawyers (can you see my big smile).

The fee agreement they quoted you seems to be the standard fee arrangement I have heard and read that other lawyers charge their vet clients and appears to be in accordance with the EAJA law and court rules/decisions. I may be wrong but it is my understanding from others that the lawyer will win his fees from VA if the lawyer obtains only a remand from the court or BVA and then you are on your own to maybe have to start all over again. You appear to already have signed on with an attorney and if not there are quite a few who have had many many years of successful experience representing vets before the CAVC and Federal Appeals Circuit courts such as Kenneth Carpenter and associates of Kansas and Dr. David Anaise who is also an attorney in Tucson Arizona. The CAVC court website has a link listing accredited attorneys who are allowed to practice law before their court. Ken Carpenter was also president of the Veterans Pro Bono legal consortium of lawyers for many years. This info is based upon only my own personal experiences of 30 years dealing with VA matters.

Okay I was first rated 70% Vietnam PTSD IU- TDIU- in 1998 (filing my own claim) then in 2000 I was rated as TDIU P&T and have been at this rating level now for over 20 plus years. From 1985 to 91 I was rated at 50% down to 30% PTSD without IU. I have ratings for other issues now. Save, find and assemble as much medical documentation as you can (if you can) to document or prove your present PTSD medical symptoms and conditions as possible to both the VA examiner and VA claims raters when you file your claim. Just like I did you appear to strongly meet the criteria for the IU rating. The VA and/or your county VSO should send or give you an employment history form for your last employer to fill out giving the reason you left employment voluntary or was fired and reason why, etc. etc. They usually (VA) send this form to the employer but as in my case gave it to me for me in turn to give to the employer. Save copies of all your VA PTSD prescriptions medications, treatment and consult notes, diagnosis (if any), etc. as this is solid proof of your level of PTSD symptoms. An experienced motivated VSO should of course be doing all this for you but I learned from previous bitter experience not to rely on these cats for everything or in my case anything and did everything myself beginning in 1998. Any signed buddy statements you can get from family, friends, associates, fellow employees attesting to your problems with work, everyday life, attitude can be very helpful to send as evidence with your claim. It is important for you to tell the C&P examiner and the VA raters (in writing) how much your PTSD adversely affects your daily life on the job at work and at home and dealing with society and also bad sleep habits, etc. If your last or present employer does not return the unemployment form to the VA then they may or may not try a second time to contact them and if no joy then VA will go ahead and proceed to adjudicate your IU claim without this form and there will be no prejudice held against your claim as per VA rules and their M21-1 manual. so don't worry about the form not being returned but do make any inquiry to them as to if they will fill out the form. Most do not for many different reasons including plan old laziness which may work to your favor. Your 70% rating meets the minimum requirement for first step in qualifying for IU and I have outlined some of the other requirements above. When you filed this IU claim this is also considered a claim for increase by VA and you may have to attend another C&P exam. My advice is from personal experience only and is not legal advice as I am not lawyer, paralegal or VSO. Stay on top of your VSO and do as much as you can for your claim. Never give the VA or your VSO original documents but only give or send them copies of your important documents, evidence. Good luck

In the year 2005 I won a CUE appeal I filed myself with the U.S. CAVC court and on my No. 2 contention the court agreed that the 1985 to 87 VARO decisions contained CUE by not adjudicating my PTSD claims as also inferred TDIU claims and the court remanded this No. 2 contention back to BVA for adjudication of this claim. It was a long hard grind as I filed the CUE claim in 2000 and it was denied by BVA on appeal in 2003. In spite of what some SOBs on another forum tells vets CUE errors and CUE claims are indeed common and many times vets win these claims thru remands or grants from BVA and the courts. These other pukes will tell us that these CUE errors were not CUE but other type of errors, Blah, Blah, Blah. These former lifer VA raters and VA DROs never admit that the VA raters make serious mistakes but 1000s of public BVA and courts decisions tells us this is not true. For over 30 years VA raters make the same minor and major mistakes over and over again. This is not accidental. Good luck to you.

Thanks for the info. Just to let you know in case you are unaware and that is Ebenefits is not always accurate or reliable info and by this I mean 1. I received in the mail my hardcopy decision long before Ebenefits showed my decision as completed on their website. 2. Very often your claim will bounce back and forth from one category to another such as from Preparation for decision back to evidence gathering and then back again to PFD and on and on it goes. Like you and many others I have been thru this merry go round on more than one occasion. All we can do is wait for the actual hard copy of decision in the mail. You could call IRIS (peggy) at the 1 800 327 1000 (????) help line and maybe they can clarify your claim status (present) for you. I have had good luck with them but the phone wait was a long time before talking to peggy or henry. Just think of the VA as your friendly IRS auditor. Above info is not legal advice as I am not an attorney, paralegal, Or VSO but a 30 plus year vet filing my own claims and appeals.

Good advice from the others to file a new and separate claim for Fibro. This will avoid confusing the VA and giving them an excuse to further confuse the issue. Simple and straightforward separate claim will avoid some of their excuses used to deny. Good luck

Yes the VA website is just one among many credible websites that will explain Agent Orange Presumptive Exposure and who qualifies and list the many diseases under AO. The Vietnam Veterans of America and the National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP) will also explain AO Presumption in great detail and there are many others such as Military.com. Veterans who served on the Korean DMZ during certain years also qualifies for AO presumptive as do veterans who served on or near perimeter of U.S. Air Force and other bases in Thailand during the Vietnam War. This is decided on a case by case basis. Blue Water Navy Vets who served on the big ships near Vietnam will soon be eligible for AO and navy personnel who served on boats in the Nam inland waterways are already included along with Navy personnel who were on navy ships anchored in vietnam harbors if they came ashore at any time during the war. There are other categories such as transient u.s. military personnel who landed by airplane in Nam for a stop over on their way to another country if they deplaned for a smoke etc. It pays to take those smoke breaks!!!!!!

If you had boots on the ground in the Vietnam War then your CAD heart disease may also be IHD Ischemic Heart Disease and you are automatically presumed to be exposed to the deadly Agent Orange chemicals spayed throughout Vietnam for many years by Air Force c-123 aircraft on Operation Ranch Hand. Therefore you will be automatically service connected for it when you file your claim with your evidence of Vietnam on the ground service as I see you were Army. when I filed my claim I referred to it as Agent Orange IHD Ischemic Heart Disease under the Agent Orange Act of 1991 or 95 (????) and received fairly quick approval after fairly quick formal C&P Exam of questions and answers. My diagnosis was made by heart surgeon at a large private hospital after many test such as Bruce Treadmill stress test, EKG, ECHO, MRI, X-Rays, and others. IHD Ischemic Heart Disease is rated under 38 CFR 4.104 Diagnostic Code 7005 and is actually called Cardiovascular Disease (CAD) in the regs, however, all the doctors, medical people and VA adjudicators refer to it also as IHD or Ischemic HD.

As a follow up the VA will not recognize a secondary service connected condition you are claiming that is due to a NON SERVICE CONNECTED condition (there may be a rare exception I am not aware of). If your denied primary medical conditions are still not service connected then you won't be granted secondary SC due to these denied SC conditions. You really need to find an experienced full time and MOTIVATED (high energy) professional VSO located at a VA regional office to assist you with your many contentions of medical conditions and claim filing. Good luck. The above info is not legal advice as I am not an attorney, paralegal or VSO.

somatic disorder like conversion reaction and psychosomatic are similar and are often caused by exposure to extreme traumatic events including physical and emotional injuries (either or). During the Vietnam war many soldiers were diagnosed with the above disorders and others when in fact they were suffering from combat stress that would later in early 80s be officially called PTSD. In WWII and Korea soldiers and veterans of those wars were given the cruel designation of schizophrenia or psychotic by VA and military when again it was actually combat stress of the severe sort. The dishonest hypocritical military and VA on behalf of crooked politicians has extremely downplayed the sheer numbers of combat soldiers suffering from combat stress/PTSD in WWII, Korea and Vietnam until finally forced to recognize the prevalent amount of combat stress among the troops in Vietnam and later wars. In the 80s the Waco and Temple, Texas VA hospitals were still full of WWII veterans diagnosed and treated for schizophrenia with extremely powerful anti-psychotic medications due to combat stress and alcohol abuse. I saw this with my own eyes and very sad indeed the way they were warehoused and used as pharmacy test subjects and I was briefly one myself in 85 to 86. After the second total loss of a UH-1H Army medevac Dustoff helicopter with a different crew each time due to NVA and VC ground fire in Vietnam and Cambodia (1970) with death of our young crew chief within feet of us I was grounded in Chu Lai by Army Flight Surgeon and diagnosed suffering from severe combat stress and placed on Valium. I was shot down twice within a 30 day time period and my Dustoff was damaged on another occasion by near miss RPG explosion while we were doing a high hover rescue hoist mission. I was lucky the Army doctors diagnosed me with combat stress as they usually called it something else that usually sounded derogatory. The Army Doctors at 67th Evac hospital in Qui Nhon sent my butt to Camp Zama Army hospital in Tokyo for treatment of a bad urinary tract infection and after many meetings an Army Psychologist also diagnosed me with conversion reaction due to Vietnam combat and placed me on seconal. So this is a real live account of just one soldier being treated by both Army and VA doctors for combat stress a term they still do not like to use today. From 1985 to present day I have been diagnosed dozens of times by VA psychiatrist and psychologist as suffering from moderate to severe PTSD and now TDIU P&T for over 20 years.

I have to agree with above comments about negative attitudes of many VA health care employees including doctors toward us vets and our disability benefits including the GD VA examiners. I finally realized being a slow learner that the reason for these anti-veteran attitudes by some civilians and VA employees is very simple and that is a common American disease known as "PETTY JEALOUSY". These people (many of them) including some VA doctors view us vets as common nobody's and they can't stand the fact that we receive this valuable medical and disability benefit tax free year after year. These are also selfish petty people and they could care less about the hardships and hell many of use went through for the country as young men and teenagers. They don't want to here it and is waste of time arguing your side of the story. Sometimes I reply to them by saying "God Bless you " and sometimes I get a big grin out of their facial expression

Due to my tired eyes I have only given your attachments a brief glimpse so it appears to me that you have been diagnosed with PTSD that started when you were on active duty and I presume this is a first PTSD diagnosis and that it was done by a VA psychiatrist or psychologist with a PHD in clinical psychology (required). In order to be VA service connected for PTSD you must meet the following minimum cretier. 1. A first or original VA PTSD diagnosis by one of the above mentioned VA doctors. 2. A proven in service event or stressor that started or caused this PTSD 3. Medical or other evidence that is a nexus connecting points 1. and 2. above A statement (nexus) from one of the above doctors and or treating doctor and or private IMO opinion is very helpful solid evidence. There are many forms of other evidence that can help prove your in service event or stressor such as official unit after action reports, in service medical treatment (records) for such an event stressor, police report from city, county, state or military police and I can go on and on such as newspaper articles, buddy statements (eye witness). Other statements from family, friends, co-workers about your daily actions and attitudes. For combat PTSD veterans any awards for valor or the Purple Heart or CIB, CMB etc will automatically confirm you were exposed to inservice stressor. I was first diagnosed with Vietnam combat PTSD in 1985 and then in 1998 I was awarded TDIU P&T due to 70% PTSD and now for over 20 years so I do know something about VA PTSD and I handled my own claims. Just one of many factors in obtaining a higher PTSD award is to convince VA raters and examiners how much your PTSD adversely impacts your daily life, ability to work and hold a job. If you can find (????) an experienced and MOTIVATED professional VSO located at a VA regional office to assist you then this is your best bet. The above info is not legal advice as I am not an attorney, paralegal or VSO.

Okay I have been diagnosed for some time now and VA service connected for IHD Ischemic Heart Disease due to Vietnam Agent Orange presumptive exposure in 1970. A private heart surgeon/specialist at civilian hospital did the testing and diagnosis by performing ALL the following test 1. Bruce Treadmill stress test 2. EKG 3.ECHO 4. MRI 5.X-Ray 6. blood and urine test 7. Physical exam and taking of my life and medical history. As in my case IHD may adversely affect many areas of the heart and arteries. IHD is also known as CAD or Cardiovascular Disease in the VA 38 CFR 4.104 Diagnostic Code 7005. There has been a VERY RECENT liberalizing final rule change to the 4.104 DC code 7005 in the Federal Register that was posted on August 1, 2019. That change to DC code 7005 eliminates any reference to LVEF ejection factors and eliminates any reference to Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) or its symptoms. The rule change should make it easier for vets to receive a IHD diagnosis and higher disability rating for IHD. The METS score obtained from a treadmill stress test is also an IMPORTANT factor in obtaining a higher rating as the adjudicators and examiners must take the lower METS score over and above a higher LVEF factor. Estimated LVEF ejection factors and estimated METS score are highly inaccurate and subjective and the examiners should never consider them more accurate than a treadmill METS but the F****** many times ignore your treadmill score which is of course a very appealable claim as I know from experience. That new rule has now become final according to the GOV Regulations website.

GB Army is very correct in what he says, however, I do have a few additional input advice as I have been 100% TDIU P&T since 1998 and before that partial 50% for about 5 years. I also filed my own claims and appeals including TDIU. If your previous employer will not fill out the VA form sent to them ( this is very common) about your employment history and reason for leaving then by standard VARO procedure and M21-1 manual rules the VA will make maybe a second attempt to contact the employer and if no joy then VA will proceed to adjudicate your IU claim without any prejudice against you and will use all other evidence available including your own submitted evidence and statements to go forward. Sometimes VA will give you the form for you in turn to give the employer. There are many reasons for why an employer will not fill out and return the form such as laziness, etc. You must convince VA that you are unemployed and unemployability based solely upon your service connected medical conditions. If you are currently working and earning a living wage then this will be difficult for you unless you can convince VA you are working in a sheltered family business, etc.. Based upon info you shared above I would go ahead and file for IU as you meet the first step requirement for IU such as your 70 and 50% SC ratings. Find an experienced motivated (?????) VSO located at a VA regional office or do it yourself while assembling all your medical and other evidence to support your claim. Nexus letters from treating or reviewing doctors including independent IMO opinions are best and buddy statements from fellow co workers, family, friends can be very helpful to your claim as the BVA puts great stock in buddy statements if the other circumstances also support what they are saying. My above info is not legal advice as I am not an attorney, paralegal or VSO but a 30 year do it yourself vet

Just now read your post Broconvet and we are in complete agreement. After Vietnam I was offered Army medical Officer School (AMED) by my Ft. Sam Houston medevac company commander with an eventual promotion from CWO to 1st Lt. or Capt in the MSC. However because of the horrors of Nam I experienced first hand with death of our young crew chief and new father I wanted out of the Army fast. Also my 498th medevac Dustoff company had very sorry low life cowardly leadership that included CO and a couple of platoon leaders. When the chips were down in warzone combat the Army placed this sorry leadership garbage in charge of decent guys. Peace time Army was of course great but I knew who would again be placed in charge of me in another war. The evil ones and this is the way our crooked political and military command system works always. The truly evil ones were those politicians, presidents and generals who got into the Nam war and they were the ones in charge of how the war was conducted from start to finish and they were lifer military and politicians and unfortunately all were the older WWII generation who became addicted to war for wars sake and profit. I left the Army early in 71 with immediate transfer to the active Texas Army Guard for 5 years where I served in Austin as a pilot and training officer and occasional civilian pilot to the Governor of Texas in 74.

APO is also a designation for an overseas military address such as APO San Francisco was part of my 1970 Vietnam Army unit mailing address that of course included our unit number such as 498th Dustoff Air Ambulance. APO = Army Post Office

As a follow up to my first response. If your original service connected disability involved a ton of paperwork in you VA medical records then obviously you need not send all this in with your new claim but maybe a few select important documents to remind them you have "ALL" the records if needed to prove again your first disability. My information is not legal advice as I am not an attorney, paralegal or VSO

That is what I have done for the following reason. 1. The raters know that you know what they are suppose to know. 2. They have no excuse to say there is missing documents or medical evidence of the original disability. 3. They know you have your own copies of proof of disability and service connection and that you are a good record keeper so you have put them and the BVA on notice. I practice what I preach and have sent them duplicate copies on several occasions for my claims and appeals for over 30 years. Sometimes they return the copies with a big red D stamped on the pages but it has not hurt my claims or appeals at all. Better safe than sorry as the VA is very tricky tricky about saying there is no evidence (lie), etc.