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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.

I have a service connected disability have records showing how the injury has affected me throughout the years and affected my work history where I had to take off work 1 and a half years then went back part time (16 hrs a wk) to see if it would affect me which it did so after being there 2 yrs (and husband coming in after his job to help me) I finally left in 2013. I wanted to know could i file based on this information? I am having a lot of apps and is in extreme physical pain which has caused some mental and emotional pain from dealing with this so long. The problem is that the injury occurred but the doctors do not know what's wrong. They do not have an official medical diagnosis. I spoke to my Dr yesterday and explained to her that I am in a very bad place because I'm not working because of the extreme pain and that it do not make sense that they cannot tell me what's wrong so ssdi has not approved me because there's no diagnosis, Va is only paying 20%, and I can't work because of the injury and i was perfectly healthy when i entered the military. Its all very stressful and we are really struggling financially. She said she think I may have myalgia and chronic pain and something else and she thinks the depression, anxiety, and insonnia is coming from it but she wants to run more test. Can I file for based on this so far? Since its an ongoing process?