ptsd Combat Vets And

[Berta]

This might give Willey here and other combat vets the VA's take on stressors-

and what is conceded and what is not :

PTSD granted: one example

http://www.va.gov/vetapp07/files1/0702210.txt

The veteran had no combat awards but his evidence was consistent and his stressor was verifiable.

In other BVA recent cases this is the criteria they use:

"If VA determines that the veteran engaged in combat with the

enemy and his alleged stressor is combat-related, then his

lay testimony or statement is accepted as conclusive evidence

of the stressor's occurrence and no further development or

corroborative evidence is required, provided that such

testimony is found to be consistent with circumstances,

conditions, or hardships of service. See 38 U.S.C.A.

§ 1154(; Cohen v. Brown, at 146-47; Zarycki v. Brown, at

98; 38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f)."

That is the condition for conceding the stressor occurred.

My husband had to put his commander into a body bag after they took a big hit.

The firefight was not the stressor. The loss of this commander was.

Also Rod's buddy was blown up right in from of him by a hidden bomb.

Rod found him-that is what he found was undescribable and horrible with the body tag on it.We made many tracings from the wall on this vet.This was his best friend in Vietnam. That was a stressor.

Ho Chi Mihn on the radio said his USMC platoon would be overrun on Christmas eve 1965.

They were on high alert.

They took incoming into a tent as they tried to sleep-no one could sleep.

The incoming missed them all and it caused the tent pole to collapse. That was not a stressor.

I wish that service reps would explain to combat veterans what they need for these claims-

the PH and certain combat awards denote combat but they do not denote the facts of the stressor-

if the veteran-in their claim-states the stressor and how it is consistent with their MOS and time and place of their unit- this is when the VA will most likely concede the stressor-

if it then raises to the level of what a stressor really is-per VA regs.