usmc/usa

Well, so far we haven't received the "official" letter and the retro yet. But we were finally able to log into ebenefits today and saw that the claim was closed today. So, hopefully we'll hear something official soon.

Congratulations! I can just imagine, how good that must feel to finally pay off all bills and not owe anything to anyone. Soon, we will be in the same boat and this is the one thing we are looking forward to most.

Carlie, I have been following your posts for a while. It's so great to see people like you succeeding! You truly deserve it!

Thank you all so much. You girls and guys are really awesome. Well, so far no deposit. But that's okay. At least we know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Also, since social security was denied, we are hoping that this will speed things up there, too.

Well, my husband went to see his VSO today and he said these are our copies and we will get the official letter and a nice deposit soon! It is slowly sinking in that this might be true.

That's what I thought, Carlie. We stopped by at the VSO's office this afternoon but he wasn't in. We'll try again tomorrow. Hopefully can can clear this up for us. My husband said he requested a copy of his file a while ago, but I don't think it would come with the ratings letter. For know we are just trying to pretend we never saw this letter and wait.

Bravo6, thank you so much for giving us hope. It just sound way too good to be true. We still can't believe it.

No, no deposit yet. The decision latter does not have a date on it, probably because it's a draft letter. Also, I heard it takes a while when it's over 25K because of the 3 signatures, and my calculations came over 25K.

Really? I hope I do, haven't been to the doctor in a long time. That would be great! We are still shaking.....I hope it's all true......

This morning we received a huuuuge, thick envelope in the mail. This envelope contained ALL of my husbands military and medical records, along with handwritten notes from the VA and the rating decision. To be honest, I don't think these documents were intended for us and I am afraid that they were mailed to us in error. Has anybody ever experienced this? Oh, and the decision letter says "Draft" on it. Anyways, according to the letter, his PTSD war increased from 50% to 70% effective April 2010. He is getting 10% for degenerative disc disease, which surprises me, because his back is really hurting and he got all kinds of gadgets from the VA to ease the pain. I thought the rating for that would be higher. The found a CUE dating back to 12/06 for his knees, which is only rated at 10% each, however he will get the back pay for that. IU was granted!!! dating back April 2010, and it says in the letter it is permanent and total. They state in the letter that we qualify for depended educational benefits, which would be great, if this is true. We are both still shaking from excitement, however, I am really worried that all this is too good to be true. Especially, since the letter says "Draft" on top. That means, they could still change their minds, right? Since his total rating will only be 80%, does that mean it does not qualify me for Health Care benefits? That's what I was hoping for, mostly, since I have been without health insurance for a while. Like I said, this does not seem to be THE official letter, I really think we received this in error and it will probably take a while until we get the official one. Also, since I calculated a substantial back pay, I suppose it will take a while for it to reach our account. Thank you all for being here and letting me write this all down to sort my thoughts.

Wow - Testvet, thank you so much for taking the time to write this long response. I/we really appreciate it. I know that a lot of other people are much, much worse off than we are. And I didn't mean to come across as ungrateful. We have each other and we always end up landing back on our feet. We still have have a roof over our heads (it's leaking a little bit, but it's a roof ), we actually just got our mortgage modification trial period approved, so yes, we are very lucky in some ways. Also, Rob is currently rated at 60% and I am working from home, so there is some money coming in. I am sorry that you and all other vets went through so much BS. We have only started to fight at the end of 2006 and we are already feeling burned out. I can't imagine how it must feel for someone going through all this even longer. It is easy to see how many couples end up in divorce because it is hard sometimes hard to understand why your spouse would act the way he does when you don't understand the principle of PTSD. I never thought of divorce, but I have to admid, that - a very long time ago - I was getting very frustrated and impatient with this behavior. That was before I started learning about PTSD and before I read about all the other Vets having the same symptoms. I actually went to the last Psych C&P exam with my husband and told her everything from my perspective. I think it made a big impact, because the C&P came out very much in our favor. (I wish there was some kind of spouse support system). This board is keeping up sane, I think. I get so exited reading all the success stories, and even though we don't post much, just from reading all the advice, we are very much familiar with the names of most regular posters and we appreciate every one of them. Again, thank you for your post and your well wishes. To Commander Bob: This is the way we feel exactly. I mean the part about feeling lifted and reassured when reading the posts. This is what we do when our hope is low and we get excited with every success that is posted here. Hopefully we can soon post about our success so others can gain some hope from our post. Thanks for your support. I hope we can pass is forward soon.

23Eng. 3AD Dec.1990-June 1991

The PTSD is 100% service related. For the back and the knees the C&P says "as least as likely as not" (50/50). Both claims (VA/SSD) are for the same issues. We are getting by because we still have my income, but it's not easy. I think selling his truck was really the worst.. I think it's hard enough to deal with the depression, but when you have to sell everything that you have to get by, that makes it even worse. I am hoping, that it will lift his spirits once his rating gets increased (maybe he'll be able to get another truck someday!). I think it's a shame how they treat veterans that served their country. And they way they are downplaying the symptoms in their denial letter is an insult. Sorry about the rant, but it's just really frustrating.

Hi, this is the wife posting. Thank you, Bill, for posting that link. We checked it out and signed up, but I guess we will have to go to the VA first to get his identity confirmed before we can really use it? We do have a little update: the first appeal for social security was denied. We had sent them the results of the C&P exam on 12/14 and the letter of denial was dated 12/22. Doesn't really seem like they looked at the evidence at all. Both C&P's, the one for PTSD and the one for his back and knees state, that he is unable to work. Our financial situation looks rather bleak right now and we had high hopes that both claims would get approved after reading the C&P's. But, the denial from Social Security really put a damper on that. Lastly, I want to thank you all here for the information and support you are giving. I have spend hours, days reading through all the info and we probably wouldn't be as far as we are now without all the valuable information we gathered.

I do have a lawyer handling the appeal. After I received the denial I went to the SSA office for that and other issues, I kinda blew my top and decided it was best to let a lawyer handle it. I do know the SSDI takes a while and most likely will be denied again. As for the VA claim and TDUI. When I spoke to a VARO rep in Sept. 2010, she said they are trying to rush it through because the claims has been ongoing for a long time and they want to settle it as soon as possible. I think I will be hearing from them, brown envelope, sometime next month. But I still check the mail daily hoping they made the decission already.