85 Year Old Vet Finally Gets Comped

[gdsnide]

This has to be a record for the amount of time a Veteran has taken to get compensation A soldier's 65-year fight with the VA

[ranger11bv]

The VA should be sued over this!!!

[Testvet]

Delayed or improperly rejected claims at the VA “are a catastrophic problem,” says Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense. “Marty should be labeled a hero for never giving up.”

part of the problem is despite the VA has never paid compensation for soldiers heart, shell shock or any of the other terms PTSD has been known by over the decades seems to be ignored here, if you read deeper into the article they granted him 70% TDIU in 1997 he would have been what 72 at the time he was probably already drawing SS at this point so he was probably one of the first retired men to get a claim granted at the TDIU rate for PTSD tthen they went back and granted him a 10% award from 1945 - 1997 probably in an attempt to shut him up and let him "win" but no he wants 100% back to 1945 and we all know that is never going to happen hell will freeze over first he wants 400,000 for back pay bottom line they won't pay it and we all pretty much assume that I am shocked they even gave him 10% back to 1945 to me that is just a huge win

some people see him as a hero in attempting to get the VA to correctly compensate him for PTSD back to WW2 as we all know the VA did not officially recognize PTSD as a compensable issue until the DSM III was published in 1980 did they pay any Nam veterans back to 1965 or 1971? No they paid them back to when DSM III was published

other people will see him as what is wrong with the PTSD compensation program he worked his entire life after he retired he fought with the VARO and finally got his PTSD granted and the article does not state his progression thru the percentages but I doubt he filed a claim and they gave him 70% TDIU on the first attempt so many people will look at him as one of the veterans who spent the entire time from when they left the military working and then when they retired they learned of the opportunity to improve their retirement compensation by filing a VA claim they won't look at how his PTSD agffected his life, how many jobs he held, his 4 divorces, other problems legal or booze etc all they will see is a greedy vet trying to get 400,000 as a lottery win before he dies and tis story will bring back out the veterans whose ships sank in WW2 and Korea and will be wanting back pay for PTSD back to the day the ship sank I feel sorry for the VSOs that will have to deal with them after all this guy got his claim paid they won't look at the part where he filed a stress claim in 1945 and found a way in 1997 to reopen the 1947 paperwork they will demand the same benefits this guy got 65 years later and it just ain't going to happen......I don't know if this is a blessing or a curse to tell you the truth

[john999]

I see this old vet as a guy who suffered for 50 years before the VA even admitted he suffered from the affects of combat stress. I know that soldiers who had breakdowns from acute combat fatigue were compensated if they never recovered. I don't know how many of these guys never recovered from mental breakdowns during combat, but there was no help for the thousands who lived with PTSD for the rest of their lives. The VA dianosed this old guy with severe anxiety in 1947. They denied his claim saying there was no record of such a DX in service. It does not take much imagination to understand that his problems more likely than not resulted from prolonged combat exposure. The old vet worked, but his life was wrecked by the war. I think he deserves every penny he can get. How many of these old guys are even alive? More die every day. The Greatest Generation who actually fought the war were treated like trash after Uncle Sam got what he wanted. I don't think there will be a rush of WWII vets since most are over 80 years old. If they can get compensated for PTSD more power to them.

[myround0]

Un-freaking-real

[Notorious Kelly]

I don't wanna see any of YOU trying to break this record...;)

[john999]

I'm going for 40 years of retro. I will probably be 85 by the time I get it, heh, heh.