Testvet

if it is ever approved you have to do like retired military does go to an air force base with a passenger terminal and sit and wait until an airplane shows up going where you want to go, it might be the same day it might be a week, there is no reservation system for Space A flights you need lots of patience flying this way and lots of time

since voc-rehab has more money I need to see if I can get my quality of life items funded before they go broke again.

theorticals are only good for scientific applications and if you haven;t figured it our yet, the VA ain't scientific, it took them 4 months to add my dependents 2 weeks to set up my DD after I called the 1 800 number after my initial check came, I worked for the Post Office for 17 years all my checks are DD.

Our new Secret tary has not ever posted an e mail address I can give you a person who works there e mail addy, but e mail me, I do not want to mess up a good thing. It seems as if he does not want to talk with "veterans" he might get cornered. From what I have seen in the paer, he doesn;'t like to do the meet the veteran gatherings that Principi did all the time. He;s an important person, he appears to be to busy to be bothered, maybe it's because he's still working on that "new" cure for PTSD he keeps talking about. My e mail is testvet@aol.com

I didn't get told why but when I called to ask my SO a question last week I was told that he no longer worked there. Oh-oh, so I asked who would now be handling my case, I was told the man's name was Issac. okay who's Issac,? They said he would call me back, and I said yea right like I believe that. About 1705 hours the phone rang, and no one was here but me so I had to answer it, who calls at night besides telemarketers, it was Issac, talk about shock, I about had the big one............. anyway we talked for about 30 minutes it tunrs out Issac took my file as he is the office manager and has been kept in the loop for the past few years by the way of my SO asking him questions about my case. Issac use to work at BVA, Issac is one smart man, he basically told me he knows they have been running my file in circles on purpose, but he wanted to know was my purpose in life is to make the DRO as mad as possible or the get my 100% P&T? Duh, give me the P&T and I will go back into the woodwork where I spent the past 30 years, I don't want to spend the rest of my life litigating my VA claim. I am not greedy, I just want security for my wife and son, the same thing most of us totally disabled vets want. I re-wrote the 5 page nasty letter I wrote in response to the VARO letter about my heart claim related to Edgewood Arsenal, and reduced it to 2 pages, he seems to know what he is doing, so I will work with him trying to get this mess settled, Issac admits I have a good claim, it's just taking the attitudes of me and the DRO and cranking them down about 200 degrees.

I think to much happened to quick at the same time and some people are getting bad reps for the wat things fell, if we go back to the 100 vet PTSD study group that the shrink from Wisconsin? and JG Burkett used from Charleston SC that inspired the VA OIG to want the study of 72,000 veterans, which happened to become public about the same time Senator Durbin and Obama wrote the VA wanting to know why vets in Illinois were among the lowest paid vets in the nation and took the longest to get claims decided and the files tossed in the trash can, all came together to make a big confusing mess. After reviewing the first 2100 claims the VA OIG discovered it wasn;t fraud involved in the claims as the Shrink from Wisconsin and Burkett thought it was, it turned out to be sloppy records not getting the right copies from the Army, Marines or Air Force etc to put in the claim files to validate the stressors, the vets had the stressor verifications, it just turns out the vets are getting approved for TDIU at to high of a rate, now no one wants to look at the fact that to get to 100% for PTSD you basically have to be drooling, siucidal or in lockdown so most vets who can not work are awarded 70% TDIU because that is how the rating system works, but lo and behold PTSD is a devastating diease that many vets were able to cope with but then 20-40 years down the road the life they were barelty dealing with falls apart, leave them alone in the woods, or on a farm or in there basements and with meds yes they are alive but not capable of leading the "productive" life that Senator Craig thinks they are capapble of leading. yes, PTSD at the TDIU rate is expensive and with them diagnosing it faster for 19-21 year old OIF/OEF vets it is going to get real expensive real fast, this is just another result of war, not people trying to cheat a system, are there some frauds yes but not the 25% they expected to find it turns out less than 1% of the claims are fraudulent. PTSD is just a very expensive and long lasting disease. I have a solution quit getting involved wars, then the price will go down, disabled veterans cost money plain and simple.

weeding out the phonies is supposed to be the job of the VARO when they adjudicate the claims, if every claim is as thorough as mine was there are no phonies getting compensation for PTSD, anytime the IOM gets near reports for the government the veteran is usually on the short end of the stick. Why should a medical investigation team be deciding on issues like how much compensation a veteran deserves, at what point is he been "cured" we all know there is "no cure" for PTSD. Doctors don't set how much each veteran should get paid, so why should the IOM even have a committee to meet and discuss such issues. The VDBC is not a positive committee for veterans and neither is this "new" IOM PTSD review why have the National Center for PTSD that is paid for by the VA, why use the Mental health Manual IV for classifying PTSD cases, anytime the government says they are here to help you bring your own vaseline. This already has an independent panel of mental health professionals to help streamline the verification of PTSD for the VA, it's already paid for the National Center for PTSD has mental health professionals from across the nation involved. Why not utilize the expertise they already have, but then again the VARO describes their published documents and studies on PTSD and related physical ailments as internet garbage when they deny your claims citing their reports as published evidence. If they don't believe what the doctors post on the VA own website as legitimate research something is wrong, and I don;t think it's the doctors, I think it is the VARO's.

no you still have to use the VA, yes you can get an ID card for using commissary and PX and Non approriated fund activities etc not hospital tho.. dependents are also entitled to ID cards

yes the VA does do these type of surveys, if they asked you for crediit card info to pay for your prescriptions then it was bogus, they should never ask you for credit card info. But I have had three surveys over the years 2 in the mail and one telephonic

stretch, I am not saying the substances were different, but the men at Edgewood all basically knew what we were volunteering for, they never told us specifics, but we knew we were there for a 60 day human experimentation program. The SHAD vets were not told anything, they just happened to be on ships that were ordered into a certain area then sprayed or gassed. Totally unaware of anything that was happening to them, they did not discover there use as guinea pigs until decades later, we knew we were guinea pigs at Edgewood and we signed statements to that effect all 7120 of us. They used about 250 different substances on us over the 20 year test period from 1955 thru 1975, they may be similar in nature, but they were not the same circumstances. At least the government is acknowledging the SHAD vets, they are still ignoring the Edgewood test vets.

your logic makes no sense, Murray is one of this nations best vet advocates, her father was a disbled vet, she grew up in a home with him in a wheelchair. She led the fight to replace the 2 billion this year. A US Senator has nothing to do with state benefits for veterans, she makes federal laws not states, you need to talk to the people in Olympia about those laws. Vote against a person who has shown she votes for vets, look at her record, replace her with someone you don't know and you might end up with another John Thune he says he supports vets then votes against the extra 2 billion VA needed.

Stretch the Shad 112 tests are a complete different program the edgewood arsenal tests were from 1955 thru 1975 and involved LSD, Peyote PCP, mustard agents, sarin, and about 240 other different chemical weapons and drugs. Shad 112 was done without your knowledge we were used in experiments with no oversite and no control, they had german scientists doing the tests on us that were trained at Dachau and other fine German institutions from 1935 thru 1945, a totally different program.

Well all, I finally received a letter from the VARO after three years of processing my claim, where they mentioned my heart problems being related to chemical weapons and drug experiments conducted on me while on active duty in 1974 while at Edgewood Arsenal in the human experimentation program. They ignored it after I wrote Senator Graham, Congressman Wilson and President Bush, but in Sepetember I wrote Senator Craig head of the senate VA committee and explained my situation to him, they sent a letter to the VA, Renee Szybala made a mistake and sent me and him a letter stating that "yes, you volunteered for the "medical test" program on 10 July 1974 but you got sick before the tests started and were sent home according to your records at Columbia VARO" I sent him a thank you letter for finally getting them to address the issue of the chemical weapons and drug tests after ignoring it for three years, but my records in Columbia show I volunteered in May 1974 at Fort Lewis, I arrived at Edgewood on 25 June 1974, I was classified as a level A test subject for use with pyschochemicals, I did get sick on 3 July and was admitted to Aberdeen Proving Grounds Hospital until 10 July when I was discharged back to Edgewood where I remained until the 60 day TDY period ended and I left Edgewood on 22 August 1974 back to Fort Lewis. I also have the EPA reports that show the soil and water at Edgewood is contaminated with napalm toxins, mustard agents and sarin, and it shows where the EPA ordered the Army to cap the psots water wells in 1977 and they had to start piping water in from out of the Baltimore area. The report also states that Edgewood area will be hazardous to human life for decades to come. It is one of the most toxic super fund sites they have. They pulled my claim file back from the BVA to deal with this. I wonder wha they try to pull next. Persistence and letters help.

I agree with Pete file a NOD on the effective date, it should be back to 2002,, they denied me originally saying it was my fault the incident happened but when I finally got copies of the 4 general court martials of the guys they sent to Leavenworth for beating me and robbing me they paid me back to Dec 03, but they only gave me 50%SC so I am appealing the rating everything I have substantiates an award of 100% of 70%TDIU, and I ain't quitting, another thing if you are taking pysch meds and are having ED problems they are a side effect of the meds and file for the ED and that pays an extra 80 a month.100%P&T is better than TDIU congrats man you did good.......

Senator Craig said in this new economy men should be working until they are 70, he mentioned the door greeters at Wal Mart, how many hours a week do you have to work to make 2500 a month?

somebody needs to explain the difference between unemployed veterans and unemployable veterans, he obviously does not understand the difference. Getting a 5.25 an hour job is not going to keep any one living at a decent life style, then you still have some one yelling at you to speed it up and do more work. It's not like 55-60 year old guys are going to deal with a situation like that with PTSD, if they try to force them some young teenager manager at McD's is gonna have more trouble than he can handle. They can't make us whole and trying to force us to work at a degrading job is not the answer, if I have to get a job can I have the same one as the guy at Dorn records area that gets paid to sleep at his desk for 8 hours a day, he has a job but they don't make him do anything, but they can claim he's employed.

I recommend every one stock up on tranquilizers and vaseline .................

My SO had me sign a statement saying there was no further evidence to consider and to consolidate all the issues I have on appeal and send the file to BVA for ajudication. I am waiting now to see what happens.

nope sounds like you got it straight now, congrats on getting it after all this time

with the "witch Hunt" ongoing you might want to NOD your last denial for increase if it has been within one year and then appeal it to BVA to see if they will bump you up to either 70% TDIU or the 100% rating, roght now I don't think any VARO's are going to approve any new claims for TDIU for PTSD, I think the handwriting on the wall is for BVA to do it or you won't get it all. I am at 50% and they refused to admit me to the inpatient program due to poor health, I tried, I only see a shrink one on one, I don't do groups, I use to see him monthly, then it went to every 2 months now it's every 3 months, he told me beacuse of all the active duty troops they are seeing there are not enough apponitments for anything more often than that. Works for me I hate riding in the car anyway and the VA is 70 miles each way. If you have the time and it ain't no big deal I recomend you try the program like Berta pointed out if you are admitted to it, you get the 100% rate for each month you are there.

I know he's crazy, somewhere I read he took a complete set of golf clubs to Vietnam, excuse me how many grunts took their golf clubs? did they fit in the ruck sack ? I don't think so. If he was a officer he spent 6 months field and 6 months in Saigon.

Think about this GW Bush gave him an award for writing that book and all the "good" work he has done. Outting phonies is is commendable but this other garbage he spouts is just that garbage, he sounds like Nicholson that "PTSD is curable" show me in the DSM4 where it says that? Did Sec Nicholson have a epiphany?

Pete they talked me into getting that pnuemonia shot five or six years ago, never again in my life will I let them give me that shot, and I passed on the flu shot this year to. I hope the docs have told you to take at minimum a bayer baby aspirin every day for your heart, it's the easiest for thinning the blood. Peter for me sleeping was and still is hard, because waking up is one of the hardest things your body does every day, the mere fact waking up is a stressful thing for a person with heart problems, you should also after eating be sitting still as your stomach pulls more blood in to the system to digest your food it takes about 45 minutes before they recommend walking or any type of physical activity. Be pro-active on your treatment it is your body.

the VARO police have been told to hold at recording devices at the door they are not allowed in the building, and now that you have to go thru screening they are going to find them if you try to sneak them in, the only time I was ever refused to have my wife in the C&P exam room was for the PTSD C&P they have let her in for all the other C&P exams. You can try and record it, but like others have pointed out the hearing ooficer probably won't allow it, if it goes that far.

Jim this is the original post I was replying to, this medal was for Japan and germany post ww2