How Would You Handle

[Guest frank]

hoe would you handle this if va states no records found,no medical records what would you do?send a lod?for what va did nothing for you to file a lod,file a appeal? now va has just tied your hands, but wait you served in air force, and navy how did this happen? records a gone how do you prove you were in service? this happend to me, again ask what would you do ? frank

[Wings]

Frank, What's "lod" ???

The VA did in fact recover SOME, but not all of your SMR's. You do have a DD-214 to prove you are a veteran. So, why ask hypothetical questions that do NOT apply to your claim(s)?

PLEASE get a service officer Frank.

[Guest frank]

Frank, What's "lod" ???

The VA did in fact recover SOME, but not all of your SMR's. You do have a DD-214 to prove you are a veteran. So, why ask hypothetical questions that do NOT apply to your claim(s)?

PLEASE get a service officer Frank.

wings sorry i did mean to put letter of disagrement, and i do not have any claims in all as appeals, and ii don,t have any smr,and those are not mine,when i got records in 2003,that is how i found out what a mess va has made. there are no medical records for 46-49,there are no records at all, all i have is the hospital progress reports,that va must use. as far as a service officer,thety won,t help because they don,t knoe where to start. our va is the worse in the nation, they were on 60 mins,richt now i can handle this because of all the appeals,every appeal has a letter that is a cue,so va is working on the appeals frank

ps i did get my insurance back, and i don,t have to pay for it.

[Wings]

Dear Frank, Prior to the advent of personal computers, military service - (paper based) record keeping was a bare bones necessity. You're talking some 50 years ago, the military just didn't keep good medical records, if any! You are lucky to have the hospital progress reports. How did you secure them? I think you're 7 months in-patient hospitalization was VERY significant. Have you ever sought out your USS Hobson buddies, survivors to share stories with?! Were you on the Hobson or the Wasp?! I would think you'd get more information from service members??? Were they running some secret medical tests that have been de-classified??? ~Wings

[Wings]

Ill veterans who had radiation exposure now caught in bureaucratic web

Mark Reutter, Business & Law Editor

217-333-0568; mreutter@uiuc.edu

4/3/06

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:KAIR13v...t=clnk&cd=2

-snip-

“As of October 2004, roughly 18,275 atomic veterans applied for disability compensation, but only 1,875 of these claims were granted,” Podgor wrote. “Thus, nearly 90 percent of atomic veterans have been denied disability compensation.”

The question of how to compensate atomic veterans has persisted for more than 20 years. The number of veterans has dwindled as the debate continues. For example, Navy veteran Norm Duncan was assigned to Nagasaki, Japan, after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945 and spent three months cleaning debris and burying bodies. He later contracted stomach and lung cancer.

Trying to get his case decided by the VA was an exercise in frustration. Because his official military personnel file was destroyed in a 1973 fire, Duncan presented his discharge papers to the VA in 1998.

Three years later, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which reviews radiation claims for the VA, found Duncan’s name on a list of people who had served in the 31st Naval Construction Battalion at Nagasaki. It also found records that he saw a doctor for fever, chest pains and coughing up blood. A year after the government found his records, while his claim was still being processed, Duncan died.

In 1988, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act requiring the VA to pay disability benefits to atomic veterans with certain types of cancer, including leukemia, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, and cancer of the esophagus, colon and pancreas.

But to qualify for benefits, a veteran must prove that he was present in certain listed locations during listed time periods. This has proven to be difficult in part because of the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which destroyed about 17 million Official Military Personnel Files.

The lost records included those of all U.S. Army officers and enlistees discharged between 1912 and 1959, and U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force personnel discharged after World War II until as late as 1964.

If a veteran does not have one of the listed cancers, he must prove that he was exposed to a level of radiation that could cause cancer. A 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences found that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which made the estimates of radiation levels, grossly underestimated the probable levels of radiation.

In light of the 1973 fire that destroyed veteran records, Congress should amend the law to presume that veterans with claims were present at the required locations, with grounds for rebuttal by the VA.

Finally, according to the Illinois scholar, the federal courts should allow to proceed a class-action suit alleging that government officials concealed medical records detailing radiation exposure suffered by servicemen between 1946 and 1951.

According to the suit filed by 10 atomic veterans and others, a special government repository was established in August 1951 by the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project to keep records of military personnel participating in atomic weapons testing secret. The government has yet to publicly admit that this information exists.

In 1963, the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear testing in the atmosphere, outer space and under water, but permitted nuclear explosions underground.

Altogether, about 210,000 Americans, most of them servicemen, participated in atmospheric nuclear tests conducted between 1945 and 1962 in the U.S. and over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In addition, about 195,000 servicemen were stationed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where nuclear bombs were dropped in 1945, as part of the post-war occupation of Japan.

News Bureau, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

807 South Wright Street, Suite 520 East, Champaign, Illinois 61820-6261

Telephone 217-333-1085, Fax 217-244-0161, E-mail news@uiuc.edu

[Wings]

Atmospheric Nuclear Testing and The US Navy

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq4-1.htm

Atomic Veterans History Project

http://www.aracnet.com/~pdxavets/index.shtml

[Guest frank]

Ill veterans who had radiation exposure now caught in bureaucratic web

Mark Reutter, Business & Law Editor

217-333-0568; mreutter@uiuc.edu

4/3/06

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:KAIR13v...t=clnk&cd=2

-snip-

“As of October 2004, roughly 18,275 atomic veterans applied for disability compensation, but only 1,875 of these claims were granted,” Podgor wrote. “Thus, nearly 90 percent of atomic veterans have been denied disability compensation.”

The question of how to compensate atomic veterans has persisted for more than 20 years. The number of veterans has dwindled as the debate continues. For example, Navy veteran Norm Duncan was assigned to Nagasaki, Japan, after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945 and spent three months cleaning debris and burying bodies. He later contracted stomach and lung cancer.

Trying to get his case decided by the VA was an exercise in frustration. Because his official military personnel file was destroyed in a 1973 fire, Duncan presented his discharge papers to the VA in 1998.

Three years later, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which reviews radiation claims for the VA, found Duncan’s name on a list of people who had served in the 31st Naval Construction Battalion at Nagasaki. It also found records that he saw a doctor for fever, chest pains and coughing up blood. A year after the government found his records, while his claim was still being processed, Duncan died.

In 1988, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act requiring the VA to pay disability benefits to atomic veterans with certain types of cancer, including leukemia, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, and cancer of the esophagus, colon and pancreas.

But to qualify for benefits, a veteran must prove that he was present in certain listed locations during listed time periods. This has proven to be difficult in part because of the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which destroyed about 17 million Official Military Personnel Files.

The lost records included those of all U.S. Army officers and enlistees discharged between 1912 and 1959, and U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force personnel discharged after World War II until as late as 1964.

If a veteran does not have one of the listed cancers, he must prove that he was exposed to a level of radiation that could cause cancer. A 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences found that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which made the estimates of radiation levels, grossly underestimated the probable levels of radiation.

In light of the 1973 fire that destroyed veteran records, Congress should amend the law to presume that veterans with claims were present at the required locations, with grounds for rebuttal by the VA.

Finally, according to the Illinois scholar, the federal courts should allow to proceed a class-action suit alleging that government officials concealed medical records detailing radiation exposure suffered by servicemen between 1946 and 1951.

According to the suit filed by 10 atomic veterans and others, a special government repository was established in August 1951 by the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project to keep records of military personnel participating in atomic weapons testing secret. The government has yet to publicly admit that this information exists.

In 1963, the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear testing in the atmosphere, outer space and under water, but permitted nuclear explosions underground.

Altogether, about 210,000 Americans, most of them servicemen, participated in atmospheric nuclear tests conducted between 1945 and 1962 in the U.S. and over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In addition, about 195,000 servicemen were stationed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where nuclear bombs were dropped in 1945, as part of the post-war occupation of Japan.

News Bureau, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

807 South Wright Street, Suite 520 East, Champaign, Illinois 61820-6261

Telephone 217-333-1085, Fax 217-244-0161, E-mail news@uiuc.edu

wings god bless you, in needed that information,faxed, to va today.. to answer your question on hospital progress reports, i found them with records in 2003. this has nothing to do with hobsom. this is a/f 1993,rating offictor,re-open file set exam,38-ch5-pt 3 -m21=1,radiation came from the p-51 i worked on. my son was born with rear tumor,this tumor starts out as a twin,for some reason,it stops at a point,and turnes into a mass,this tumor can have eye cells brain cells,whater stage it stops it grows sets up it,s own blood supplt, just to give you a idea, i hold va responsabley for in 1984,this tumor turned to cancer,one kidney only works 20% this mass was 21 inches long,if va did noy hold back the 1993,rating and informed me of this test,we could of found the tumor in 1993,instead of 1984 this is not about money it,s about my goverment,payim-ng compensation to my son,and full medical care, so after we die i will know my son has income,and medical coverage, for the rest of his life,and i want it to be tricare,. i have nothing but the hospital reports, no smr,the only thing i can make out is medical discharge 100%. and can these records burn,in fire, in web page on fire ,states no medical records were in fire, they were lent out to va all over the country, again god bless you many times over, for a job WELL DONE frank