It would appear that that is exactly how it made you feel. Wonderful.
Frankly, I don't find the mistreatment and/or the attempts to marginalize our returning Veterans funny, nor does it give me a "Happy" feeling, not at all.
Today is the 60th anniversary of the battle for Iwo Jima. Almost 26,000 men died taking that island. My grandfather ows his life to those Marines. He had to land his crippled B-29 there after his plane was shot to pieces, two of his crew were wounded and his tailgunner was dead. They would have all most certainly died at sea, been taken prisioner or if they were really lucky, rescued. But the wounded would have died for sure had Iwo not been availible. God bless the Marines and Sailors who died fighting for that island.
Well, GEEPERS. Thanks for shit-hammering me! How nice of you. I don't remember calling you any names, but you go right ahead...!
You mean like saying? The only thing more surprising to me than your gullability,Yea, I guess calling someone gullible is a compliment, my belated thanks for that then.
 It seems that you had a bad day yesterday, since you also told someone over at Salmings Barto fuck-off...so to speak?
What in the hell are you talking about? I'm beggining to think you don't know either. I've never even heard of or been in Salmings Bar let alone told anyone in it to fuck off.
 But I am certainly glad that you write them letters. That has proven to be SUCHan effective way of serving the needs of our Veterans...In fact, I bet they listen to you, and write legislation for Veterans JUST because of your letters !!! Try showing UP
You're right Bill, you're the only one who does anything for Vet's you're the Mother Theresa of veterans. I agreed with you about the level of funding being inadequate. I've complimented you many times on what you do and applaud you for it, yet you continually malign me by saying I don't do enough or implying it. (ie;Try showing up)Â Frankly i'm tired of it and tired of your bullshit acting like you're the only one who cares or does anything to try and make a difference so spare me your friggen martyr act and your horn blowing.
I guess you didtake the time to post, less than 2 weeks before yesterday. But then, who's counting, eh?
Well lets see Bill, I posted on the 9th and said until yesterday I hadn't been on for almost 2 weeks. So the day before the 9th would be the...... 8th what a concept. I've been out of town so I kinda remembered not posting, But yea, who's counting.
Sixty years ago today, more than 110,000 Americans and 880 ships began their assault on a small volcanic island in the Pacific, in the climactic battle of the last year of World War II. For the next 36 days Iwo Jima would become the most populous 7Â 1/2 square miles on the planet, as U.S. Marines and Japanese soldiers fought a battle that would test American resolve even more than D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge had, and that still symbolizes a free society's willingness to make the sacrifice necessary to prevail over evil--a sacrifice as relevant today as it was 60 years ago.
The attack on Iwo Jima capped a two-year island-hopping campaign that was as controversial with politicians and the press as any Rumsfeld strategy. Each amphibious assault had been bloodier than the last: at Tarawa, where 3,000 ill-prepared Marines fell taking an island of just three square miles; at Saipan, where Army troops performed so poorly two of their generals had to be fired; and Peleliu, where it took 10 weeks of fighting in 115-degree heat to root out the last Japanese defenders, at the cost of 6,000 soldiers and Marines.
Iwo Jima would be the first island of the Japanese homeland to be attacked. The Japanese had put in miles of tunnels and bunkers, with 361 artillery pieces, 65 heavy mortars, 33 large naval guns, and 21,000 defenders determined to fight to the death. Their motto was, "kill 10 of the enemy before dying." American commanders expected 40% casualties on the first assault. "We have taken such losses before," remarked the Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith, "and if we have to, we can do it again."
Even before the attack, the Navy's bombardment of Iwo Jima cost more ships and men than it lost on D-Day, without making a significant dent in the Japanese defenses. Then, beginning at 9 a.m. on the 19th, Marines loaded down with 70 to 100 pounds of equipment each hit the beach, and immediately sank into the thick volcanic ash. They found themselves on a barren moonscape stripped of any cover or vegetation, where Japanese artillery could pound them with unrelenting fury. Scores of wounded Marines helplessly waiting to be evacuated off the beach were killed "with the greatest possible violence," as veteran war reporter Robert Sherrod put it. Shells tore bodies in half and scattered arms and legs in all directions, while so much underground steam rose from the churned up soil the survivors broke up C-ration crates to sit on in order to keep from being scalded. Some 2,300 Marines were killed or wounded in the first 18 hours. It was, Sherrod said, "a nightmare in hell."
And overlooking it all, rising 556 feet above the carnage, stood Mount Suribachi, where the Japanese could direct their fire along the entire beach. Taking Suribachi became the key to victory. It took four days of bloody fighting to reach the summit, and when Marines did, they planted an American flag. When it was replaced with a larger one, photographer Joe Rosenthal recorded the scene--the most famous photograph of World War II and the most enduring symbol of a modern democracy at war.
Yet, in the end, a symbol of what? Certainly not victory. The capture of Suribachi only marked the beginning of the battle for Iwo Jima, which dragged on for another month and cost nearly 26,000 men--all for an island whose future as a major air base never materialized. Forty men were in the platoon which raised the flag on Suribachi. Only four would survive the battle unhurt. Their company, E Company, Second Battalion, 28th Regiment, Fifth Marine Division, would suffer 75% casualties. Of the seven officers who led it into battle, only one was left when it was over.
But the Marines pushed on. Over the next agonizing weeks, they took the rest of the island yard by yard, bunker by bunker, cave by cave. They fought through places with names like "Bloody Gorge" and "The Meat Grinder." They learned to take no prisoners in fighting a skilled and fanatical enemy who gave no quarter and expected none. Twenty out of every 21 Japanese defenders would die where they stood. One in three Marines on Iwo Jima would either be killed or wounded, including 19 of 24 battalion commanders. Twenty-seven Marines and naval medical corpsmen would win Medals of Honor--more than in any other battle in history--and 13 of them posthumously. As Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, said, "Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue."
Yet even this valor and sacrifice is not the full story of what Iwo Jima means, or what Rosenthal's immortal photograph truly symbolizes. The lesson of Iwo Jima is in fact an ancient one, going back to Machiavelli: that sometimes free societies must be as tough and unrelenting as their enemies. Totalitarians test their opponents by generating extreme conditions of brutality and violence; in those conditions--in the streets and beheadings of Fallujah or on the beach and in the bunkers of Iwo Jima--they believe weak democratic nerves will crack. This in turn demonstrates their moral superiority: that by giving up their own decency and humanity they have become stronger than those who have not.
Free societies can afford only one response. There were no complicated legal issues or questions of "moral equivalence" on Iwo Jima: It was kill or be killed. That remains the nature of war even for democratic societies. The real question is, who outlasts whom. In 1945 on Iwo Jima, it was the Americans, as the monument at Arlington Cemetery, based on Rosenthal's photograph, proudly attests. In the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970s, it was the totalitarians--with terrible consequences.
Today, some in this country think the totalitarians may still win in Iraq and elsewhere. A few even hope so. Only one thing is certain: As long as Americans cherish the memory of those who served at Iwo Jima, and grasp the crucial lesson they offer all free societies, the totalitarians will never win.
Mr. Herman, a historian, is the author, most recently, of "To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World" (HarperCollins, 2004).
And by the way... GDubbya tried to have a big-deal (and very-premature) "Welcome Home" celebration for the troops, and even claimed "Victory" and the end of "Major Operations" on board an Aircraft Carrier... so long ago? Perhaps he can plan another such "Welcome Home" for the troops, with as much self-promoting gobbledeegook as that absolutely rediculous and VERY political photo-op...?
I am sure the troops will love it...as they did the last time.(He may even invite that pseudo-journalist-gaybird that he and his staff planted, and somehow got past HISSecret Service, to pose as a REAL journalist, inside the White House and for more than a YEAR...?) Now there was a security-breach worthy of impeachment.
If it had been Clinton, as Jon Stewart so eloquently put it, "The crowds,
with torches , would have lined the streets outside the White House to crucify the guy".
I wonder how long it will take to crack-open THIS story...among others?
[Edited 2 times. Most recently by on Feb 24, 2005 at 05:40am.]
Awright ... I have told you and everyone else who reads this forum, exactly what I would hope they would receive when they return from active-duty, over and over and over again. Since you cannot show me any "Celebratory Honors" they might now receive... Let me just say that they don't get HALF the recognition they deserve, and that will most certainly become even MORE pronounced, if Republicans have their way...and as they have shown already, so often.
But just for you ... And in keeping with your cross-examination Spanish-Inquisition question, I would not grantthem "ALL" anything, since I don't have the power to do so, but if I were Prez, I would immediately push for absolute and FREE Â healthcare for
LIFE
... Indeed I would. And IF they were injured permanently
whileserving on active-duty, and in ANY job, anywhere whatsoever, then they would receive the same benefits they receive
NOW from the VA system... Including compensation, if they are awarded it. It isn't like they just go out and ask for Comp you know... Veterans often wait as much as 5 years to get any compensation for injuries, and the numbers of those who actually GET VA-Comp, is a small part of that whole pie-chart...which is shrinking in size, yearly.
But even as I answer your rediculous question, the government, led by GDubbya and Co., has introduced MORE legislation to
CURB VA Healthcare and continue to
GUT that part of the government's FORMER guaranteed benefit to those who have serve in uniform, by making it even MORE difficult for Veterans to get ACCESS to that system ... which is their Goal:
2.4 Million Veterans Will Pay New Fee
HeraldNet
February 26, 2005
Republican majorities on the House and Senate veterans' affairs committees have voted to impose an enrollment fee of at least $230a year on 2.4 million veterans-one of every three now eligible for Veterans Affairs Administration health care.
Those targeted are in priority categories 7 and 8, meaning they are neither poor nor suffering from service-connected disabilities. Half of the 2.4 million used the VA health system last year.
The Bush administration proposed the enrollment fee to hold down costs. The VA committees rejected another Bush proposal to raise co-payments on VA-filled prescriptions for these same priority 7 and 8 veterans. While both committees endorsed enrollment fees , differences emerged. The Senate panel, chaired by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, embraced the Bush plan for a straight $250 annual fee.
The House committee, chaired by Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., voted to set the fee for priority 7 enrollees at $230, matching the enrollment fee of under-65 military retirees using Tricare Prime, the military managed care program. For priority 8 veterans, Buyer proposes a sliding scale fee of $230 to $500, depending upon veteran income.
Now this all seems so ... "Novel", but the fact is that this is but 1 more example of how
Republicans have led every single effort to abolish benefits and cut the teeth out of promised-services and benefits for Veterans, and they will continue to do so, no matter HOW MUCH they SAY they are increasing the VA Budget during their bullshit campaigns... As they continue to prove, over and over and over again. It is a FACT, that until about 1980 or so, every single person who served in uniform, was told that this "Guarantee" was written in stone: "You will get VA Healthcare, for life
". The courts have ruled that that promise, since it wasn't based upon any actual Law, was bullshit, so even WWII Veterans who may have fought Germans and been injured, cannot now go into the VA and get ANY healthcare help, and that is just a fact
. You are of course free to go out there and look, for yourself... but I doubt you would actually go thereand see the lines for yourself...?
In other words Rick... I would not give them anything that they have not earnedor do not deserve, but the Republicans just seem to like changing
those variables, in spite of the fact that they have led the efort to make hundreds of thousands MORE Veterans, in the last say, 15years???
Can ya dig-it?
Gee, I hope so.
[Edited 2 times. Most recently by on Feb 27, 2005 at 05:15am.]
A bill for an act relating to local government; Excluding certain facilities from the Big Marine Park Reserve; providing for planned unit development zoning classification for certain facilities.Â
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA: Section 1. THE DISABLED VETERANS REST CAMP ; EXCLUDED FROM BIG MARINE PARK RESERVE... "Notwithstanding any law, determination, or plan to the contrary, the property occupied by the Disabled Veterans Rest Campon Big Marine Lake in Washington County is excluded from the Big Marine Park Reserve and is not subject to regulation as part of the Metropolitan Council's regional recreational open space system".
Sec. 2. ZONING DISTRICTS PROVIDED.
Notwithstanding any law, determination, or plan to the contrary, any nonprofit camping facility serving veterans and their families as of the effective date of this act shall constitute a planned unit development district for purposes of county and municipal zoning.      Â
Sec. 3. EFFECTIVE DATE: Sections 1 and 2 are effective the day following final enactment.
Of course, I will also actively support this Bill with my presence, and I hope ALL Veterans who give a crap will also come, to try to STOP local-government from TAKING this property ... And since you asked Rick, the ONLY reason this bill is even on the docket for consideration in the MN. Senate, is because Washington County WANTS the Camp, and has tried everything they know of to GET IT, including using Emminent-DomainLaws, for 20 years now. Hopefully, the legislature will shut them down...!
("The Veteran's Rest Camp", was purchased for and used ever since, by Veterans and their Families only, with preference given to Disabled Veterans
, always. It came into existance in 1926. It is a Non-Profit facility, and costs the taxpayer Â
NOTHING .) It is also FREE, to any active-duty personnel.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is expanding clinics in Raleigh and Charlotte and wants to build nine new ones to accommodate a boom in North Carolina's population of veterans and to put doctors closer to where the veterans live.
North Carolina's population of military retirees is 780,000-- up about 100,000 since 1980 according to state officials. An expected wave of combat veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would add to it.
But the federal government did not provide money for three new North Carolina clinics that the VA wanted in the current budget, and it's unclear when or whether those clinics or the other six proposed for construction by 2012 will be built. President Bush's recently proposed 2006 budget isn't likely to help much, veterans advocates say. "If Congress goes along with the administration's budget, there are veterans who are getting treatment now who will be pushed out ," said Charles F. Smith, who heads the state Division of Veterans Affairs. His division helps veterans get their federal benefits.
Officials of the American Legion, a veterans association, testified to the U.S. Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee that the proposed budget was a disaster for veterans and that the portion earmarked for medical care needed to be $2.4 billion greater. They also have accused the administration of trying to drive more than a million veterans out of the system by requiring higher prescription co-payments in some cases and a $250 enrollment fee for some veterans.
Rick, why don't you write to Mr. Charles F. Smith, and ask him just what the hell he REALLY wants for Veterans... OK?
My questions may seem a bit impolitic, but I'm just curious.
I hope the Iraq war veterans get all the recognition they deserve. But the way you've been portraying their situation, it seems like you think they're some kind of forgotten people. In the minds of the country, they seem to be front and center.
Frankly Rick, the Honors that Veterans receive or do not receive are the responsibility of both the community they live in, and the Constitution. The only real question you should ask yourself is, "what have I done to recognize the men and women who have sacrificed years of their lives, in my stead".
Yesterday I returned to MN. and just in time, as the MN Senate was considering bill #467, which would give The Veteran's Camp in Wash. Co. special-consideration and exemptionfrom the Washington County Commissioners, their (8th) regional park, and their covetous eyes for that property, which has been successfully run by Veterans, since 1926 and at NO cost, to ANY taxpayer.
The bill passed through the Committee, unanimously, and it is being sponsored by state Sen. Michelle Bachman, who is about as
republican
as you can get, and who works closely with Pawlenty.
Three-cheers , for her
.
I was also there, in room #123 at The State Capital building (with about 50 other Veterans), from a WWII Veteran (who was 'stationed' at Stalag #17
for two years as a POW, to an active-duty Gulf War Army Staff Sgt., now home on leave, from IRAQ. I am hoping that the Picture taken of all of us (by the PP ?) will show up in that paper, soon.
This bill,#467,is a bill that everyone can support, and in doing so they will be heaping "Celebratory Honors", on all Veterans. Honestly, I don't think that there are ever
Long delays, inconsistent rulings and incompetent advocates mean injured veterans sometimes die waiting to obtain disability payments.
BY CHRIS ADAMS and ALISON YOUNG
Washington Bureau- Knight Ridder
DRY RIDGE, Ky.
Alfred Brown died waiting. He was a 19-year-old soldier fighting in Italy when shrapnel from an enemy shell ripped into his abdomen in 1945. His wounds were so severe that he was given last rites. When Brown came home, the government that had promised to care for its wounded veterans shorted him instead. Not until 1981, however, did Brown realize that his monthly disability payment was less than he should have received. He launched what would become a 21-year battle. "As a member of the so-called 'Greatest Generation,' I am well aware of the large numbers of us passing away," he wrote the nation's chief veterans judge in 2001. "I am prepared to meet our Creator. My fear is that your court will not make a decision in my case."
Brown was right. He died a year later, and his case died with him . Closing the books on the case, Judge Kenneth Kramer acknowledged the court likely would have ruled in his favor. Brown is one of tens of thousands of veterans who have had to fight their own government to win disability payments. A Knight Ridder investigation has found that injured soldiers who petition the Veterans Affairs Department for those payments often are doomed by lengthy delays, hurt by inconsistent rulings and failed by the veterans' representatives who try to help them. The investigation was based on interviews with veterans and their families from around the country and on a review of internal VA documents and computerized databases. Many documents were made available only after Knight Ridder sued the agency in federal court.
A HUGE AGENCY
The VA is a mammoth agency that serves 25 million veterans with a far-flung health care system and a separate disability and pension operation. The agency spends more than $60 billion a year, more than $20 billion of it on disability compensation. But the Knight Ridder investigation found that the VA serves neither taxpayers nor veterans well. Some veterans never get what they're due , while antiquated regulations mean that others are paid for disabilities that have little effect on their ability to hold jobs or aren't related to military service . The investigation identified three points where cases often go wrong: the selection of a special representative, called a veterans service officer; the review by a regional VA office; and the filing of an appeal. Among the findings:
Â
1• Many of the VA-accredited experts who help veterans with their cases receive minimal training and are rarely tested to ensure their competence. These veterans service officers work for nonprofit organizations such as the American Legion, as well as states and counties, but their quality is uneven, and that often means the difference between a successful claim and a botched one.
2• The VA's network of 57 regional offices produces wildly inconsistent results, which means that a veteran in St. Paul is likely to receive different treatment and more generous disability checks than one from Detroit.
3• Veterans face lengthy delays if they appeal the VA's decisions. The average wait is nearly three years, and many veterans wait
10 years for a final ruling. In the past decade, several thousand veterans died before their cases were resolved.
"How a veteran seeking benefits gets treated should not be an accident of geography," said George Basher, the director of the New York State Division of Veterans' Affairs, one of 50 state agencies that help veterans. "Unfortunately, the current system makes that a virtual certainty." In interviews late last year, then-VA Secretary Anthony Principi and other VA officials admitted to many shortcomings, but said things had improved since the Bush administration took over. "This agency was underwater in 2001," Principi said. "My people have made tremendous progress." The current secretary, R. James Nicholson, who was sworn in recently, had no comment
. There have been some improvements in the past three years. However, when it comes to delays, cases that need to be redone and backlogs, Knight Ridder found, things are the same or worse than they were in the 1990s, when the agency vowed to clean up its act. For the family of Kentucky veteran Alfred Brown, that decade brought nothing but frustration. If a decision had come before he died, Brown could have collected nearly 45 years of back pay, his attorney said. Based on VA payment rates, that would have been worth about $30,000. "It wasn't so much the money," said his son Clayton Brown, on a day when he visited his father's grave north of Lexington. "He felt he was robbed. He almost gave his life up, and this is what he was getting in return?"
INJURIES RATED
VA workers are reminded daily of the pledge by Abraham Lincoln
" ...
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan
. ..." But the task isn't as simple as it used to be. The VA makes disability payments for injuries as obvious as an amputated leg and as complex as post-traumatic stress disorder. They include combat wounds and peacetime injuries, since veterans are serving their country whether they're in a Humvee in Iraq or in boot camp. Veterans are given ratings from zero to 100 depending on how severe their disabilities are. Payments ranging from $108 to $2,299 a month are supposed to reflect lost earnings potential. But, according to the Government Accountability Office, the disability payments are based on 60-year-old labor market assumptions. So veterans who have desk jobs in today's economy can draw checks based on the fact their disabilities would keep them from good manufacturing jobs. The system stems from a time when war injuries often were less complex. Today's soldier faces mental illnesses unacknowledged two generations ago, as well as wounds that often were fatal in earlier wars. Beyond that are tough fiscal realities. While most payments can be linked directly to service, veterans also can qualify merely if they're diagnosed soon after their discharge.
In all, the VA pays nearly $1 billion a year for disabilities that the GAO says generally aren't directly linked to veterans' service in the military.
HELPERS' EXPERTISE VARIES
Applying for disability benefits requires veterans to navigate a labyrinth of bureaucratic rules and unforgiving deadlines. It can require the skill of an investigator and the knowledge of a physician. That's why national veterans groups have for decades provided free help. About 40 veterans service organizations, such as the American Legion and Disabled American Veterans, are authorized to handle VA claims, as are many state veterans agencies. But Knight Ridder found that the network of VA-accredited service officers is a patchwork of well-meaning helpers whose training and expertise vary widely. Contrary to its own regulations, the VA does little to ensure that veterans receive competent representation from veterans service organizations. Yet the agency prohibits vets from hiring their own attorneys until after their claims have been denied, in effect adding years to the appeals process. Two-thirds of veterans who submit claims are assisted by service officers. Picking the right one can determine whether they get the full payment they're due, a fraction of it or nothing. "The best advocates can be very good, and lousy ones can be awful," said Ron Abrams, the joint executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, which trains service officers. For example, the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs has tracked the outcome of every claim filed by veterans groups that receive state funding since July 2003. The groups' success rates range from 53 percent to 81 percent. Among the busiest individual service officers, those handling 30 or more decided claims, the success rates can range from 35 percent to 98 percent, the state's data show.
The VA, through its national accreditation program, is supposed to ensure that all service officers are responsible and qualified. In fact, the VA does little more than rubber-stamp names submitted by veterans groups. About 11,000 service officers are on the VA's roster — about 80 percent of whom are accredited through nonprofit groups. VA regulatory files reveal the agency has done little in decades to determine the adequacy of the training provided or check the quality of the claims. Only rarely does the VA suspend or revoke a service officer's accreditation. When it does happen, it's generally the result of criminal charges rather than incompetence. "What we do is take it on the word of the service organization that the individual has had sufficient training," said Martin Sendek of the VA's general counsel's office. That training, however, varies widely, according to a Knight Ridder survey of 13 of the largest veterans groups and all 50 state veterans departments.
At one end of the spectrum is Disabled American Veterans, which has full-time paid national service officers and a 16-month training and testing program that's so regimented it qualifies for 10 hours of college credit. Then there are groups such as American Ex-Prisoners of War and Catholic War Veterans that rely largely on part-time volunteers who aren't required to complete any courses or pass any tests. "We don't get paid, so we're not going to be that strict with these people," said Doris Jenks, the training director for American Ex-Prisoners of War. Nonprofits generally have less stringent requirements for service officers than those working for the 33 state veterans agencies that responded to the survey.
Just 62 percent of nonprofits and 73 percent of the state agencies require continuing education for all service officers, something experts consider crucial given the VA's constantly changing rules. Only 38 percent of nonprofits and 67 percent of states require a test before recommending that the VA accredit a representative. And once accredited, few service officers are ever tested to ensure their competence: While 27 percent of the states require later testing, only one nonprofit, Disabled American Veterans, had that requirement.
NO RECOURSE
VA officials bristled at suggestions that their oversight of accredited service officers is lax and said they are unaware of any systemic problems. Retired Vice Adm. Daniel Cooper, the VA's undersecretary for benefits, said the VA corrects any mistakes that service officers might make. If anything needs to be done to make an application complete, Cooper said, "we do it." General counsel Tim McClain noted that veterans have extensive appeal rights. "There are a lot of checks and balances in the system," he said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, however, repeatedly has ruled that veterans are out of luck when they've been steered wrong by VA-accredited service officers. Ask Gerry Corwin.
As the navigator aboard a B-24 bomber during World War II, Corwin survived more than 30 missions over Japanese-controlled waters. He came home to Minneapolis with two Air Medals — and disabling nightmares and flashbacks.
There were images of his buddies burning in planes and of a friend killed on a mission that Corwin persuaded him to take. By December 1984, those nightmares began to overtake the TV executive.
Corwin applied for disability benefits and was denied, in part because the VA couldn't find many of his military records, which had burned in a 1973 fire at a national archive in St. Louis.
So Corwin went to the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs and enlisted the help of Kirk Jones, a service officer who had become VA-accredited a year earlier through the state and the American Legion.
Jones submitted a three-sentence letter on Corwin's behalf and didn't take any steps to prove Corwin's claim. He didn't, for example, push for a psychiatric examination from the VA. He didn't round up statements from Corwin's crew to corroborate that they had been sent home in May 1945 for "combat fatigue." "I should have suggested a VA examination," Jones, who no longer is a service officer, said recently. He acknowledged that he had minimal training when he first handled Corwin's claim. That 1984 claim went nowhere. In 1995, Jones, who by then had gained extensive experience plus classroom training, restarted Corwin's claim. He did all the things he hadn't done a decade earlier and more. This time, Jones helped Corwin win compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder and a heart problem. Jones filed several appeals, and each time the VA granted more benefits, eventually declaring Corwin totally disabled in 1998. Even so, the veterans court ruled last summer that Corwin can't collect back pay from 1984 through 1995 because the proper documents weren't filed in 1986 to keep his original claim alive. Corwin's loss is tens of thousands of dollars, he and his lawyer estimate.
"It would mean a home. Let's start with that," said Corwin, 82, who with his wife, Katherine, has been living in a house her family owns in rural Mississippi.
"To have to come back and to fight 20 years to get what you're supposed to be given, and to fight your own government for it, is disappointing," he said.
ERRORS IN 13 PERCENT
Even when a service officer does a good job, veterans' claims often get bogged down in the VA's 57 regional offices, where veterans' claims are processed. Nationwide, errors are made in 13 percent of claims, more than three times the agency's hoped-for rate of 4 percent, according to a VA quality-control database that reviews a sample of the decisions. That translates to 103,000 errors a year; in many cases they can result in either an overpayment or an underpayment of benefits. "I don't think anybody is proud of the fact that we have" a 13 percent error rate, said Michael Walcoff, who oversees the agency's regional offices. Errors often trigger appeals, sending thousands of veterans into an ongoing cycle of mistakes, appeals and rehearings. The percentage of claims that are approved ranges from 89 percent in St. Paul to less than 70 percent in Jackson, Miss., and Cheyenne, Wyo., according to an annual VA survey of veterans. Perhaps not surprisingly, "satisfaction" among veterans is highest in St. Paul, at 73 percent, compared with 50 percent in Atlanta.
REGIONS VARY
Knight Ridder found that disability ratings, which determine the size of a veteran's monthly check, also vary widely. An analysis of 3.4 million veterans claims shows that major mental ailments, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia, are subject to bigger regional swings than major physical ailments such as bad backs and knees. For example, veterans with PTSD assigned to the Wilmington, Del., office are more likely to have the highest disability rating than their counterparts in Lincoln, Neb. In Delaware, 34 percent of those with PTSD have the highest rating; in Lincoln, it's 10 percent. Because major psychiatric disabilities on average pay more than the major physical ones, the wider swings have a dramatic impact on payments. The different ratings may help explain a puzzle noticed by veterans every time the VA releases its annual report: Average disability checks vary by state. The VA wouldn't comment on Knight Ridder's analysis but said in a statement that it is investigating regional differences, which it attributed to "extremely complex" factors. The GAO last year reported that the VA "cannot provide reasonable assurance that similarly situated veterans who submit claims for the same impairment to different regional offices receive reasonably consistent decisions."
APPEALS A MINEFIELD
The final minefield is the VA appeals system. It's a problem the VA recognizes. "It takes too long. We all agree on that,'' said Ron Garvin, acting chairman of the Board of Veterans' Appeals. With the average disability payment now $7,860 a year, back-benefit awards can be substantial. An award is calculated as though the VA made the right decision when the claim was first filed. Some veterans with severe disabilities win $100,000 or more. But if a veteran dies with his or her case under appeal, the case dies, too.
In the past decade, more than 13,700 veterans died while their cases were in some stage of the appeals process, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of a VA appeals records database. (While precise estimates aren't available, the VA said experience suggests a few thousand of them wouldn't have actively pursued their appeals.) Even if a veteran wins a case but dies before receiving payment, his family is often out of luck. Unless the veteran had an eligible spouse or dependent child, the money stays in the U.S. Treasury. In an October interview, then-Secretary Principi said he was "stung" when he learned a few years ago how common it is for veterans to die with their cases in limbo. While some deaths are inevitable, given the VA's elderly clientele, "it's not acceptable," he said.
He also suggested that a recently formed commission on benefits could reconsider the legal barriers that prevent heirs other than a wife or dependent child from receiving a deceased veteran's back benefits. The VA has admitted its processes are too slow and too prone to errors. But the agency has repeatedly ignored recommendations to eliminate redundant steps.
One exhaustive review in 1996 declared the entire claims-and-appeals process "cumbersome and outmoded" and in need of an overhaul. Since then, " I wouldn't say that we have changed the system in any major way
," said the agency's Walcoff. In fact, VA data show that delays and the percentage of cases being sent back for rehearing are basically unchanged since the agency vowed to reduce them.
ONE CLAIM
In the mid-1990s, about the time it promised to speed things up, the VA also denied Berlie Bowman's claim. Bowman, an outgoing kid following in his father's military footsteps, had gone to Vietnam in 1967. "When he was drafted, he went without a fuss," said his sister Paulette. "He was a different person when he came back." He was skittish, quick to anger, uneasy in crowds. The family trod warily around him — "learned to wake him from a distance by touching his feet with something," his VA file said. Over three decades, he ran through 30 jobs; he lived in a small trailer on a curvy North Carolina road. His first disability claim, in 1971 for "nerves," was denied. His second try, in 1995, met a similar fate. That time, though, Bowman pushed back. Working with an attorney, he assembled evidence to show that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and to document that it had started in Vietnam. The case received six different rulings, until Bowman fell ill with pancreatic cancer. On June 16, 2004, the Board of Veterans' Appeals finally agreed with Bowman's claim. It declared that "credible supporting evidence" showed that Bowman suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his time in Vietnam, just as Bowman had contended for nine years. Bowman's attorney immediately pestered the VA for Bowman's back benefits, dating to 1995. By then, Bowman's cancer treatment had been stopped. On June 21, attorney Dan Krasnegor or his assistant talked with the VA every two hours. On June 22, they were told that the official disability rating was complete and that only final signatures were needed before Bowman's check for $53,784 could be cut.
Â
Â
Berlie Bowman died that night, and his claim died with him
. No check was sent.
A Knight Ridder database that allows veterans to compare their payments and their disability determination is at
www.twincities.com
. To view additional photos and hear the voices of several of the veterans highlighted in this article, go to
www.twincities.com
.
The VA serves
25 million veterans
with a far-flung health care system and a separate disability and pension operation. The agency spends more than $60 billion a year, over $20 billion of it on disability compensation.
And this article, mostlytalks about the VA-Beaurocracy and the incompetance of many who claimto be helping Veterans and are a part of that bureaucratic nightmare. The real healthcare-questions aren't even dealt with.
I think it's a pretty good story. I don't know what you mean by the "real healthcare questions." I think you encounter some predictable skepticism from certain quarters when there are claims of debilitation from Post Traumatic Stress. There's a tendancy to believe the claims that result in a scar, it looks like.
It looks like a flawed system, like any other large bureaucracy. Overwhelmed and undertrained staff trying to keep a lot of promises with a finite pool of money. There might be one or two people trying to game the system. I bet the caseworkers have heard some tales.
I couldn't tell you what the answer is. I suppose more money is part of it.
Well, I know a lot of the case-workerspersonally...VFW, PVA, VVA, Legion and Purple Heart, and I can tell you that without question, all of them are NOT the same. For instance, the PVA(Paralysed Vets) have a pretty good rep. here in MN., but if you go to FL. for example, they don'tpull the same weight as do the Vet's Reps. here, and their VA is as sick as you will find. In Texas, the DAV has a hodge-podge of ill-trained reps. with different "gifts", as many as it has major cities, and the worst VA Hospitals,
bar none . You mightfind a good one, you probablywill not. If you have ever been to the Waco Tex. VAMC, you wouldget angry, even if you aren't a Vet. It is third world care, at best . I am serious. San Diego, 2nd only to Mpls. and we are reputed to have the best VA Hospital in the nation. But even The bestwormy apple, is still wormy.
Yet, here in St. Paul/Mpls., (and at the Whipple FED Building at Ft. Snelling) we have about the best DAV and VFW reps. anywhere, and we are lucky in that way. In fact, the last 2 State VA Commissioners were both DAV Reps. out there, before they went on to become State Commissioners in the governor(s) Cabinet(s).
But that article was a good one, in what it did say about the beaurocracy, but as stated earlier they glossed over the actual "Health Care" questions, instead focusing on the Compensation questions, and I believe they quite correctly pointed out the many inconsistencies in the system, but I felt it was also incorrect
in many ways, probably because the writers have never had to USE the health-care they provide out there, which is faulty at best...and as I have said, over and over again, and because they MAY not be Veterans.
I also believe that the writers pointed out what they perceived to be a certain amount of "fraud", on the part of us Vets in trying to take advantage of the Compensation system. I am sure there are a few of those types, because I have met a few whop just want to find a check. But for the most part, the system in place HERE, weeds out the bullshit-claims pretty well, but NOT all the time and sometimes they make some of those with very-real complaints and disabilities
 wait YEARS
to get a fair-shake...much more than any "fraudulent" claims.
The fix? Make certain that ALL Veteran Representatives go to the same schools, and take the same courses, and are ALL Veterans who have had to use that system, and know it well. I believe also that someone who was not disabled as a direct result of active-duty injuries(and that means if they were ON DUTY when they became permanently-injured...(Like as if they were on their way TO work, or TO their homes after workor they were in uniform and overseas, etc., but NOT if they crashed their cars while out drinking... or, Off-Duty in some stateside billet???), that they should be limited in what they can receive in Compensation. I will be hung-out to dry, perhaps, for saying that, but it is an easy fix that would save hundreds of Millions$, if not Billions$ in payments, for disability compensation.
Yeah, like all the people on the S.W. corner of that lake, including one Resort that had been there for 75 years. The county just came in and said, "Take this money, or take nothing, and get out".
They also wanted very-much to take our parcel, of course, as it has developed roads and the ONLY beach on that area of the Lake, not to mention hudnreds of thousdands of dollars in infrastructure (electrical, cabins, BBQ areas, tenting sites and plumbing, among other things?) and they never even came close to doing an " Impact Study " on the effects that allowing tens of thousands MORE people to have access to that Lake, would have done TO the lake...which is that it would have become another
mud-hole , much like Coon Lake is now. Â 20+ years of their threats seem
to be over... Yet the same state Senator who championed our Bill, is now leading the "Fear"Â fight against Gays, in the state senate...
Ms. Michelle Bachmann(Hey, Ray Vandeveer is also a Republican and a friend.)
I hate to say it, but the truth is that Ms. Bachmann is one of THE biggest opportunists IN the legislature. (No Secret)
The very-big motors on some of the bass-boats that tear-up the bottom in that body of water, yearly, make it so unpleasant to fish by mid July so, without catching tonsof weeds floating all over the lake thanks to the over-sized props and motors), that most people fish only during the week. I always thought it was bullshit that there were restrictions on motor-sizes over 25HP up in the boundary waters areas... Now I would welcome it on our Local-Waterways.
Anyway, yes...We can say that WEstopped them from taking our land and our History in fact, and perhaps saved that Lake in the process, at least for a few more years.
James Tisdale helped fight some of the Army's toughest World War II battles, from North Africa to Anzio's bloody beach and into Bavaria, where he helped liberate the Dachau death camp. In the years after, the 83-year-old retired postal worker from Lumberton never asked for Veterans Administration health benefits.
But now that he's fighting what might be his last battle, with Alzheimer's disease, his family is making use of the state-run veterans nursing home in Fayetteville. Veterans such as Tisdale -- whose health problems aren't service-related -- might soon have to look elsewherefor help, though. The Bush administration is proposing to
end
the $59-a-day payments to state veterans nursing homes for such cases.Patients with service-related or "catastrophic" health problems still would qualify , but others -- who compose an estimated
60 percent
of the two N.C. veterans homes' populations -- wouldn't. (No matter What  "Priority Group"they may be in..., and Nationwide.)
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it will continue payments for current patients, but with typical nursing home turnover, the state homes could soon have empty beds and financial trouble. The average male patient in the homes stays about a year. Tisdale's son, Fayetteville homebuilder Bud Tisdale, said that he thinks his father is getting terrific care and that it's hard to find a home so good with Alzheimer's patients.
"He did his duty, he came back and never sought any VA benefits except a VA loan, and here, at the end of his life ...," Tisdale's voice trailed off. "Here we are, fighting a war, and are you going to
cut benefits from those who fought earlier wars to pay for this one
?  "I just don't see the logic." (Neither does anyone else, Sir.  Maybenow you will stopvoting for more Republicans, finally...?)
The White House Press Office referred questions about the cuts in the proposed fiscal 2006 budget to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which in turn referred them to the federal VA.
(I bet they did.)
These cuts to the 119 state veterans homes across the nation would save nearly $300 million, according to documents provided by the VA. They are part of a plan to shift the VA's health-care focus to veterans who need help the most, specifically those with service-related health problems or low incomes, said Terry Jemison, a VA spokesman in Washington.
( Bullshit . They are meant to cut-off ANY federal funding to these Homes, period. They are now treating Vet's Homes as if they were Planned Parenthood clinics...! )
The effects on the homes would be
devastating
, said Donald Mooney, a Washington spokesman for the American Legion, the nation's largest veterans group. "It would just put a lot of state veterans homes out of business," he said.
In some states, he said, the cuts would affect more than
80 percent of the veterans
Just because there hasn't been one, huge designated Parade for the Troops doesn't change my perception that they're recognized and duly celebrated. And the conflict isn't over yet. I dont' think there was a ticker tape parade in New York every week.
Fund raisers, concerts, send offs of various kinds of are going on fairly often.
It's a helluva lot more accurate than saying they're "marginalized."
"Where were the parades and celebrations, in 1970-76? How about in 1953?"
Someof Republican Congressman Tom Delay's (Tex) recent votes on Veterans Issues... (and these same issues are touted as successful votes FOR Veterans by the Right...In fact, GDubbya signed this bill into LAW, 12-8-03):
HR 2297 - 2003 - To amend title 38, United States Code, to improve benefits under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.Abill that was supposed to change a number of benefits offered to military veterans...including:
- Allows for a widow of a veteran to remarry after age 57 and still be eligible for veterans' dependency and indemnity compensation (DIC), home loan, and educational benefits
- Expands benefits for Filipino veterans who fought for the United States during World War II
- Increases funds for specialty adapted housing and transportation for disabled veterans
- Expands educational benefits for National Guard members forced into full time duty
OH NO!!! Delay didn't even VOTE on it ...
TWICE .
It should also be remembered that Republican Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Chris Smith(R-N.J.) sponsored that bill
and for that and other "Moderate" support for Veterans, Delay had him removed from his chairmanship position, just recently in fact!
Then there are the last 3 consecutive VA-Budgets that Tom Delay has personally pushed to REDUCE, by BILLIONS...in the last 4 years. He isn't even as moderate as Neo-Conservatives.
Awright, Bill, you've griped about this to just about everyone now. It's time to pin you down.
What do you think each returning veteran should receive in terms of monetary or material compensation and celebratory honors? Where should they be held and who should attend? How often should they take place?
Don't use your answer to carry on about "GDubbya." Be specific.
[Edited 3 times. Most recently by on Feb 24, 2005 at 07:05am.]
Are you really
a veteran? Better check it, fast. I did. I've got my DD-214 that says "honorable discharge." I've got the red-white-and-blue VA identification card complete with lousy picture and the "service-connected" rating. So, I must be a veteran. Right? Not if
Rep.
(R-IN), chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, has his way. Buyer is trying to rewrite the definition of "veteran" in a cold and calculated manner that could cost millions of veterans their benefits. Buyer recently won a political tug-of-war and replaced Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) as chairman of HVAC. Smith was known as a true friend of veterans and often broke ranks with his party to forward legislation favorableto the veteran's community.
with journalist Tom Philpott, Buyer stated, "While some veterans' organizations like to create a theme, that 'A veteran is a veteran [and] there is no difference,' I disagree." Shortly after winning the chair at HVAC, Buyer said, "Some of the veterans service organizations, they are having this belief that everyone should have open access to the VA system, when in fact I believe that the VA system should follow its core constituency and the intent of Congress when we laid out our priorities, and that was in fact to take care of our disabled and indigent veterans first." (This subject was covered in my Military.com article on "
Welfarizing the VA
.")
So, what is happening here? Buyer is trying to redefine "veteran," and in so doing, reshape benefit programs to meet his new definition. In short, this means fewer benefits for fewer veterans. The two keys here are Buyer's references to "intent of Congress" and "core constituency." By rejecting the "intent of Congress" when they passed legislation defining benefits and eligibility, Buyer is telling us Congress was wrong and he is going to change it. By referring to the VA's "core constituency" as "disabled and indigent veterans," he is eliminating veterans who do not fall into those categories. This is just plain absurd! And it is wrong! As Buyer continues to redefine who is really a veteran, here is some of what's at stake.
will hold its first meeting soon. The Commission will review whether Congress went too far by allowing concurrent receipt of military retirement and VA disability payments. Also on the table is a change in the way disability ratings are determined, and a restructuring of the definition of "service-connected." Buyer says he cannot guarantee veterans who currently have disability ratings that they will be exempt from Commission findings. Buyer also wants the Commission to consider offering lump-sum payments to veterans with current disability ratings of 20 percent or less. These "cash now" settlements would deny veterans the right to pursue any compensation claims in the future. A veteran with a progressive condition, one that causes degenerative disability with age, would have no right to further compensation. What's really on the table when it comes to redefining a veteran and available benefits? Buyer says, "I think everything should be on the table." Everything! Buyer is even suggesting that service-connected disabilities be combat-related only. This would eliminate treatment and compensation for injuries received while on active duty but not directly related to combat.
Buyer also took aim at the veterans' service organizations, saying their view that all veterans should have access to VA healthcare abandons values like duty and sacrifice. He chided the service organizations for using inflammatory rhetoric. "I asked them to be very careful with the words they select because ... they have an impact all over the country. It is upsetting to me when someone refers to veterans as whiney," Buyer stated. Well, there you have it in his own words. The chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee calling our service organizations "whiney" and accusing them of abandoning values like duty and sacrifice.
It would be easy to dismiss Buyer as part of some lunatic fringe on Capitol Hill trying to stick it to veterans. But that is not the case. Buyer speaks for the majority in Congress who speak for the current administration. And, Buyer is the one guilty of inflammatory rhetoric. Demeaning our service organizations and their attempts to preserve veterans' benefits is a slap in the face to ALL veterans. Our service organizations have, in the past, often done too little too late. Sometimes we wondered where they were as the VA budget took hit after hit. Now they find themselves in the position of doing what they were meant to do and being castigated for it.
Fellow veterans, if this is not a call to action, I don't know what is. We cannot allow Congress to redefine who is a veteran. We cannot allow Congress to restructure veterans' benefits and reshape the definitions of disability. We have worked too hard for too long to not receive proper recognition for our service to our country. It's time to put severe pressure on Congress
did just that when they jammed Committee hearings, booing and jeering Buyer and others who want to cut benefits. This new level of activism must increase if we are to preserve our benefits and guarantee a properly funded VA for the veterans of the future.
In 1789 President
George Washington said," The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive veterans of earlier wars and how they were treated and appreciated by this country."
If we do nothing now we will only be able to say that we did nothing.
Disabled American Veterans National Commander James E. Sursely today expressed  the organization’s bitter disappointment that the United States Senate blocked an amendment to the $80 billion supplemental appropriation bill to provide $2 billion to cover a critical shortfall in funding for veterans medical care. "Less than half way through the current fiscal year, Veterans Affairs medical facilities across the country have already run out of money and face huge deficits, an emergency-situation if there ever was one,” Sursely said. The amendment failed to win approval in two procedural votes that saw just one Republican, Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter , along with every Democrat and the Senate’s lone Independent, voting in favor. The amendment, offered by Senators Patty Murray(D-Wash.)and Daniel Akaka(D-Hawaii), would increase funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs by $1.98 billion for the current fiscal year and designate it as emergency spending. Some $840 million of that money would be used to provide each veterans regional health network with an additional $40 million. The amendment designated $610 million to address the needs of servicemembers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and $525 million would be used to provide mental health care and treatment for veterans.
Â
Y
ep, it's another travesty for Veterans. So was the liethat GDubbya used against J. Kerry during his effort to be re-elected, when he blamed him for the shortfall of approriations money that amounted to $87 Billion, money that eventually was one of 3 $80+ Billion bills that were passed since that time anyway (including the original amount),and which covered all of the money that Kerry was accused of being "Against". Now the shoe is on the other foot, and Dubbya's own party has voted en-masse to reject the proper funding of care for those returning from the War. What a crock, that our veteran-servicemembers now have to deal with, through NO fault of their own, nor of any election bullshit. This time, it is across the spectrum, except for Sen. Arlen Specter, who voted as an American .
Â
That's Politics!...and Screw veterans...right?
[Edited 8 times. Most recently by on Apr 15, 2005 at 03:14am.]
Yes Fold, we would all listen to him. You and your "paper fell on me" disability, not so much.
Yes, well... we all know that the only time you ever served in anything, was perhaps in JAIL... But notin the United States Armed Forces.
And actually, you don't have a fucking CLUE about how, when or what happened that got me my "Disability" as you put it, but we all knowthat you ain't got the big-tubby- stones to accuse me or any other Veteran for that matter, anything like what you just said, in person. Because after all, never mind that you didn't serve in uniform... I am sure someone would have thrown you to the sharks, but the fact is that you are a just a big, fat-coward, who throws rocks at others from behind a computer screen .
Long delays, inconsistent rulings and incompetent advocates mean injured veterans sometimes die waiting to obtain disability payments.
BY CHRIS ADAMS and ALISON YOUNG
Washington Bureau- Knight Ridder
DRY RIDGE, Ky.
Alfred Brown died waiting. He was a 19-year-old soldier fighting in Italy when shrapnel from an enemy shell ripped into his abdomen in 1945. His wounds were so severe that he was given last rites. When Brown came home, the government that had promised to care for its wounded veterans shorted him instead. Not until 1981, however, did Brown realize that his monthly disability payment was less than he should have received. He launched what would become a 21-year battle. "As a member of the so-called 'Greatest Generation,' I am well aware of the large numbers of us passing away," he wrote the nation's chief veterans judge in 2001. "I am prepared to meet our Creator. My fear is that your court will not make a decision in my case."
Brown was right. He died a year later, and his case died with him . Closing the books on the case, Judge Kenneth Kramer acknowledged the court likely would have ruled in his favor. Brown is one of tens of thousands of veterans who have had to fight their own government to win disability payments. A Knight Ridder investigation has found that injured soldiers who petition the Veterans Affairs Department for those payments often are doomed by lengthy delays, hurt by inconsistent rulings and failed by the veterans' representatives who try to help them. The investigation was based on interviews with veterans and their families from around the country and on a review of internal VA documents and computerized databases. Many documents were made available only after Knight Ridder sued the agency in federal court.
A HUGE AGENCY
The VA is a mammoth agency that serves 25 million veterans with a far-flung health care system and a separate disability and pension operation. The agency spends more than $60 billion a year, more than $20 billion of it on disability compensation. But the Knight Ridder investigation found that the VA serves neither taxpayers nor veterans well. Some veterans never get what they're due , while antiquated regulations mean that others are paid for disabilities that have little effect on their ability to hold jobs or aren't related to military service . The investigation identified three points where cases often go wrong: the selection of a special representative, called a veterans service officer; the review by a regional VA office; and the filing of an appeal. Among the findings:
Â
1• Many of the VA-accredited experts who help veterans with their cases receive minimal training and are rarely tested to ensure their competence. These veterans service officers work for nonprofit organizations such as the American Legion, as well as states and counties, but their quality is uneven, and that often means the difference between a successful claim and a botched one.
2• The VA's network of 57 regional offices produces wildly inconsistent results, which means that a veteran in St. Paul is likely to receive different treatment and more generous disability checks than one from Detroit.
3• Veterans face lengthy delays if they appeal the VA's decisions. The average wait is nearly three years, and many veterans wait
10 years for a final ruling. In the past decade, several thousand veterans died before their cases were resolved.
"How a veteran seeking benefits gets treated should not be an accident of geography," said George Basher, the director of the New York State Division of Veterans' Affairs, one of 50 state agencies that help veterans. "Unfortunately, the current system makes that a virtual certainty." In interviews late last year, then-VA Secretary Anthony Principi and other VA officials admitted to many shortcomings, but said things had improved since the Bush administration took over. "This agency was underwater in 2001," Principi said. "My people have made tremendous progress." The current secretary, R. James Nicholson, who was sworn in recently, had no comment
. There have been some improvements in the past three years. However, when it comes to delays, cases that need to be redone and backlogs, Knight Ridder found, things are the same or worse than they were in the 1990s, when the agency vowed to clean up its act. For the family of Kentucky veteran Alfred Brown, that decade brought nothing but frustration. If a decision had come before he died, Brown could have collected nearly 45 years of back pay, his attorney said. Based on VA payment rates, that would have been worth about $30,000. "It wasn't so much the money," said his son Clayton Brown, on a day when he visited his father's grave north of Lexington. "He felt he was robbed. He almost gave his life up, and this is what he was getting in return?"
INJURIES RATED
VA workers are reminded daily of the pledge by Abraham Lincoln
" ...
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan
. ..." But the task isn't as simple as it used to be. The VA makes disability payments for injuries as obvious as an amputated leg and as complex as post-traumatic stress disorder. They include combat wounds and peacetime injuries, since veterans are serving their country whether they're in a Humvee in Iraq or in boot camp. Veterans are given ratings from zero to 100 depending on how severe their disabilities are. Payments ranging from $108 to $2,299 a month are supposed to reflect lost earnings potential. But, according to the Government Accountability Office, the disability payments are based on 60-year-old labor market assumptions. So veterans who have desk jobs in today's economy can draw checks based on the fact their disabilities would keep them from good manufacturing jobs. The system stems from a time when war injuries often were less complex. Today's soldier faces mental illnesses unacknowledged two generations ago, as well as wounds that often were fatal in earlier wars. Beyond that are tough fiscal realities. While most payments can be linked directly to service, veterans also can qualify merely if they're diagnosed soon after their discharge.
In all, the VA pays nearly $1 billion a year for disabilities that the GAO says generally aren't directly linked to veterans' service in the military.
HELPERS' EXPERTISE VARIES
Applying for disability benefits requires veterans to navigate a labyrinth of bureaucratic rules and unforgiving deadlines. It can require the skill of an investigator and the knowledge of a physician. That's why national veterans groups have for decades provided free help. About 40 veterans service organizations, such as the American Legion and Disabled American Veterans, are authorized to handle VA claims, as are many state veterans agencies. But Knight Ridder found that the network of VA-accredited service officers is a patchwork of well-meaning helpers whose training and expertise vary widely. Contrary to its own regulations, the VA does little to ensure that veterans receive competent representation from veterans service organizations. Yet the agency prohibits vets from hiring their own attorneys until after their claims have been denied, in effect adding years to the appeals process. Two-thirds of veterans who submit claims are assisted by service officers. Picking the right one can determine whether they get the full payment they're due, a fraction of it or nothing. "The best advocates can be very good, and lousy ones can be awful," said Ron Abrams, the joint executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, which trains service officers. For example, the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs has tracked the outcome of every claim filed by veterans groups that receive state funding since July 2003. The groups' success rates range from 53 percent to 81 percent. Among the busiest individual service officers, those handling 30 or more decided claims, the success rates can range from 35 percent to 98 percent, the state's data show.
The VA, through its national accreditation program, is supposed to ensure that all service officers are responsible and qualified. In fact, the VA does little more than rubber-stamp names submitted by veterans groups. About 11,000 service officers are on the VA's roster — about 80 percent of whom are accredited through nonprofit groups. VA regulatory files reveal the agency has done little in decades to determine the adequacy of the training provided or check the quality of the claims. Only rarely does the VA suspend or revoke a service officer's accreditation. When it does happen, it's generally the result of criminal charges rather than incompetence. "What we do is take it on the word of the service organization that the individual has had sufficient training," said Martin Sendek of the VA's general counsel's office. That training, however, varies widely, according to a Knight Ridder survey of 13 of the largest veterans groups and all 50 state veterans departments.
At one end of the spectrum is Disabled American Veterans, which has full-time paid national service officers and a 16-month training and testing program that's so regimented it qualifies for 10 hours of college credit. Then there are groups such as American Ex-Prisoners of War and Catholic War Veterans that rely largely on part-time volunteers who aren't required to complete any courses or pass any tests. "We don't get paid, so we're not going to be that strict with these people," said Doris Jenks, the training director for American Ex-Prisoners of War. Nonprofits generally have less stringent requirements for service officers than those working for the 33 state veterans agencies that responded to the survey.
Just 62 percent of nonprofits and 73 percent of the state agencies require continuing education for all service officers, something experts consider crucial given the VA's constantly changing rules. Only 38 percent of nonprofits and 67 percent of states require a test before recommending that the VA accredit a representative. And once accredited, few service officers are ever tested to ensure their competence: While 27 percent of the states require later testing, only one nonprofit, Disabled American Veterans, had that requirement.
NO RECOURSE
VA officials bristled at suggestions that their oversight of accredited service officers is lax and said they are unaware of any systemic problems. Retired Vice Adm. Daniel Cooper, the VA's undersecretary for benefits, said the VA corrects any mistakes that service officers might make. If anything needs to be done to make an application complete, Cooper said, "we do it." General counsel Tim McClain noted that veterans have extensive appeal rights. "There are a lot of checks and balances in the system," he said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, however, repeatedly has ruled that veterans are out of luck when they've been steered wrong by VA-accredited service officers. Ask Gerry Corwin.
As the navigator aboard a B-24 bomber during World War II, Corwin survived more than 30 missions over Japanese-controlled waters. He came home to Minneapolis with two Air Medals — and disabling nightmares and flashbacks.
There were images of his buddies burning in planes and of a friend killed on a mission that Corwin persuaded him to take. By December 1984, those nightmares began to overtake the TV executive.
Corwin applied for disability benefits and was denied, in part because the VA couldn't find many of his military records, which had burned in a 1973 fire at a national archive in St. Louis.
So Corwin went to the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs and enlisted the help of Kirk Jones, a service officer who had become VA-accredited a year earlier through the state and the American Legion.
Jones submitted a three-sentence letter on Corwin's behalf and didn't take any steps to prove Corwin's claim. He didn't, for example, push for a psychiatric examination from the VA. He didn't round up statements from Corwin's crew to corroborate that they had been sent home in May 1945 for "combat fatigue." "I should have suggested a VA examination," Jones, who no longer is a service officer, said recently. He acknowledged that he had minimal training when he first handled Corwin's claim. That 1984 claim went nowhere. In 1995, Jones, who by then had gained extensive experience plus classroom training, restarted Corwin's claim. He did all the things he hadn't done a decade earlier and more. This time, Jones helped Corwin win compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder and a heart problem. Jones filed several appeals, and each time the VA granted more benefits, eventually declaring Corwin totally disabled in 1998. Even so, the veterans court ruled last summer that Corwin can't collect back pay from 1984 through 1995 because the proper documents weren't filed in 1986 to keep his original claim alive. Corwin's loss is tens of thousands of dollars, he and his lawyer estimate.
"It would mean a home. Let's start with that," said Corwin, 82, who with his wife, Katherine, has been living in a house her family owns in rural Mississippi.
"To have to come back and to fight 20 years to get what you're supposed to be given, and to fight your own government for it, is disappointing," he said.
ERRORS IN 13 PERCENT
Even when a service officer does a good job, veterans' claims often get bogged down in the VA's 57 regional offices, where veterans' claims are processed. Nationwide, errors are made in 13 percent of claims, more than three times the agency's hoped-for rate of 4 percent, according to a VA quality-control database that reviews a sample of the decisions. That translates to 103,000 errors a year; in many cases they can result in either an overpayment or an underpayment of benefits. "I don't think anybody is proud of the fact that we have" a 13 percent error rate, said Michael Walcoff, who oversees the agency's regional offices. Errors often trigger appeals, sending thousands of veterans into an ongoing cycle of mistakes, appeals and rehearings. The percentage of claims that are approved ranges from 89 percent in St. Paul to less than 70 percent in Jackson, Miss., and Cheyenne, Wyo., according to an annual VA survey of veterans. Perhaps not surprisingly, "satisfaction" among veterans is highest in St. Paul, at 73 percent, compared with 50 percent in Atlanta.
REGIONS VARY
Knight Ridder found that disability ratings, which determine the size of a veteran's monthly check, also vary widely. An analysis of 3.4 million veterans claims shows that major mental ailments, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia, are subject to bigger regional swings than major physical ailments such as bad backs and knees. For example, veterans with PTSD assigned to the Wilmington, Del., office are more likely to have the highest disability rating than their counterparts in Lincoln, Neb. In Delaware, 34 percent of those with PTSD have the highest rating; in Lincoln, it's 10 percent. Because major psychiatric disabilities on average pay more than the major physical ones, the wider swings have a dramatic impact on payments. The different ratings may help explain a puzzle noticed by veterans every time the VA releases its annual report: Average disability checks vary by state. The VA wouldn't comment on Knight Ridder's analysis but said in a statement that it is investigating regional differences, which it attributed to "extremely complex" factors. The GAO last year reported that the VA "cannot provide reasonable assurance that similarly situated veterans who submit claims for the same impairment to different regional offices receive reasonably consistent decisions."
APPEALS A MINEFIELD
The final minefield is the VA appeals system. It's a problem the VA recognizes. "It takes too long. We all agree on that,'' said Ron Garvin, acting chairman of the Board of Veterans' Appeals. With the average disability payment now $7,860 a year, back-benefit awards can be substantial. An award is calculated as though the VA made the right decision when the claim was first filed. Some veterans with severe disabilities win $100,000 or more. But if a veteran dies with his or her case under appeal, the case dies, too.
In the past decade, more than 13,700 veterans died while their cases were in some stage of the appeals process, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of a VA appeals records database. (While precise estimates aren't available, the VA said experience suggests a few thousand of them wouldn't have actively pursued their appeals.) Even if a veteran wins a case but dies before receiving payment, his family is often out of luck. Unless the veteran had an eligible spouse or dependent child, the money stays in the U.S. Treasury. In an October interview, then-Secretary Principi said he was "stung" when he learned a few years ago how common it is for veterans to die with their cases in limbo. While some deaths are inevitable, given the VA's elderly clientele, "it's not acceptable," he said.
He also suggested that a recently formed commission on benefits could reconsider the legal barriers that prevent heirs other than a wife or dependent child from receiving a deceased veteran's back benefits. The VA has admitted its processes are too slow and too prone to errors. But the agency has repeatedly ignored recommendations to eliminate redundant steps.
One exhaustive review in 1996 declared the entire claims-and-appeals process "cumbersome and outmoded" and in need of an overhaul. Since then, " I wouldn't say that we have changed the system in any major way
," said the agency's Walcoff. In fact, VA data show that delays and the percentage of cases being sent back for rehearing are basically unchanged since the agency vowed to reduce them.
ONE CLAIM
In the mid-1990s, about the time it promised to speed things up, the VA also denied Berlie Bowman's claim. Bowman, an outgoing kid following in his father's military footsteps, had gone to Vietnam in 1967. "When he was drafted, he went without a fuss," said his sister Paulette. "He was a different person when he came back." He was skittish, quick to anger, uneasy in crowds. The family trod warily around him — "learned to wake him from a distance by touching his feet with something," his VA file said. Over three decades, he ran through 30 jobs; he lived in a small trailer on a curvy North Carolina road. His first disability claim, in 1971 for "nerves," was denied. His second try, in 1995, met a similar fate. That time, though, Bowman pushed back. Working with an attorney, he assembled evidence to show that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and to document that it had started in Vietnam. The case received six different rulings, until Bowman fell ill with pancreatic cancer. On June 16, 2004, the Board of Veterans' Appeals finally agreed with Bowman's claim. It declared that "credible supporting evidence" showed that Bowman suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his time in Vietnam, just as Bowman had contended for nine years. Bowman's attorney immediately pestered the VA for Bowman's back benefits, dating to 1995. By then, Bowman's cancer treatment had been stopped. On June 21, attorney Dan Krasnegor or his assistant talked with the VA every two hours. On June 22, they were told that the official disability rating was complete and that only final signatures were needed before Bowman's check for $53,784 could be cut.
Â
Â
Berlie Bowman died that night, and his claim died with him
. No check was sent.
A Knight Ridder database that allows veterans to compare their payments and their disability determination is at
www.twincities.com
. To view additional photos and hear the voices of several of the veterans highlighted in this article, go to
www.twincities.com
.
The VA serves
25 million veterans
with a far-flung health care system and a separate disability and pension operation. The agency spends more than $60 billion a year, over $20 billion of it on disability compensation.
And this article, mostlytalks about the VA-Beaurocracy and the incompetance of many who claimto be helping Veterans and are a part of that bureaucratic nightmare. The real healthcare-questions aren't even dealt with.
Sorry, but that is 6', and 225. I could stand to lose 10lbs.  I suppose, but you could stand to lose that much, just off of your 1.8 in. shoulders.
And I amvery-sorry, but your " Too Funny's " pale in comparison too the ones you get in the background, dip-shit. I suppose you might have noticed how nobody ever responds to your absolute nonsense "retorts" to other people's posts, but then I would not be surprised if you thought everyone's posts were meant for you, either.
However, the most important thing to remember, is that you might and you might NOT be noticed by the smarter folk in here, everytime you post anything. Cool, eh? But just think ...You're i n a class all by yourself! (And I include my goofy-nutbuddy Jethro, also NOT in your class.) Not even he, is as fucked-up as you.
Buh-Bye now.
[Edited 2 times. Most recently by on May 7, 2005 at 07:26am.]
Glad it will finally be laid to rest. It only highlights the too many cases government comes in and steals land under emminent domain. Glad that the other side finally won one. Sadly it's the exception to the rule. Way to many people have been forced from their homes and business under the guise of e.d for the "public good".
Oh yeah, hey Fat-Man...? It is ME, Bill. I am traveling, doing a JOB... (what's yours, you block head?) By the way,I NEVER said that the current state of the VA Health Care System is GDubbya's fault alone... Only that he seems hell bent on making it even worse. K, stupid?
Until I get back to MN., this is the only moniker the cooler will allow me to use, right now, Sadly.
I say that because it forces me to see your ignorant-posts again. But I won't bother you with details you don't understand, especially since I must be off to attend meetings in an hour, so I am now looging-off, you simple-mindeddope.
Col. Hackworth...Three times put in for the Medal of Honor. Received (2) Distinguished Service medals, the Army's second highest award for valor in combat. (8) Sliver Stars in combat. (10) Bronze Stars in combat. (8) Purple Hearts. That's right, 8!!!
Yes Fold, we would all listen to him. You and your "paper fell on me" disability, not so much.
It would appear that that is exactly how it made you feel. Wonderful.
Frankly, I don't find the mistreatment and/or the attempts to marginalize our returning Veterans funny, nor does it give me a "Happy" feeling, not at
all.
"I don't find the mistreatment and/or the attempts to marginalize our returning Veterans funny,"
Quit exaggerating. What attempt is being made to marginalize them?
They're the most celebrated group I've seen in my lifetime.
[Edited by on Feb 15, 2005 at 06:22am.]
Fold is making up crap just to pick his daily fight.
It certainly is easy to tell someone else to "show up" when you DON'T WORK, eh Fold?
Today is the 60th anniversary of the battle for Iwo Jima. Almost 26,000 men died taking that island. My grandfather ows his life to those Marines. He had to land his crippled B-29 there after his plane was shot to pieces, two of his crew were wounded and his tailgunner was dead. They would have all most certainly died at sea, been taken prisioner or if they were really lucky, rescued. But the wounded would have died for sure had Iwo not been availible. God bless the Marines and Sailors who died fighting for that island.
Â
[Edited by on Feb 19, 2005 at 02:06pm.]
Well, GEEPERS. Thanks for shit-hammering me! How nice of you. I don't remember calling you any names, but you go right ahead...!
You mean like saying? The only thing more surprising to me than your gullability,Yea, I guess calling someone gullible is a compliment, my belated thanks for that then.
 It seems that you had a bad day yesterday, since you also told someone over at Salmings Barto fuck-off...so to speak?
What in the hell are you talking about? I'm beggining to think you don't know either. I've never even heard of or been in Salmings Bar let alone told anyone in it to fuck off.
Â
But I am certainly glad that you write them letters. That has proven to be SUCHan effective way of serving the needs of our Veterans...In fact, I bet they listen to you, and write legislation for Veterans JUST because of your letters !!! Try showing UP
You're right Bill, you're the only one who does anything for Vet's you're the Mother Theresa of veterans. I agreed with you about the level of funding being inadequate. I've complimented you many times on what you do and applaud you for it, yet you continually malign me by saying I don't do enough or implying it. (ie;Try showing up)Â Frankly i'm tired of it and tired of your bullshit acting like you're the only one who cares or does anything to try and make a difference so spare me your friggen martyr act and your horn blowing.
I guess you didtake the time to post, less than 2 weeks before yesterday. But then, who's counting, eh?
Well lets see Bill, I posted on the 9th and said until yesterday I hadn't been on for almost 2 weeks. So the day before the 9th would be the...... 8th what a concept. I've been out of town so I kinda remembered not posting, But yea, who's counting.
Sixty years ago today, more than 110,000 Americans and 880 ships began their assault on a small volcanic island in the Pacific, in the climactic battle of the last year of World War II. For the next 36 days Iwo Jima would become the most populous 7Â 1/2 square miles on the planet, as U.S. Marines and Japanese soldiers fought a battle that would test American resolve even more than D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge had, and that still symbolizes a free society's willingness to make the sacrifice necessary to prevail over evil--a sacrifice as relevant today as it was 60 years ago.
The attack on Iwo Jima capped a two-year island-hopping campaign that was as controversial with politicians and the press as any Rumsfeld strategy. Each amphibious assault had been bloodier than the last: at Tarawa, where 3,000 ill-prepared Marines fell taking an island of just three square miles; at Saipan, where Army troops performed so poorly two of their generals had to be fired; and Peleliu, where it took 10 weeks of fighting in 115-degree heat to root out the last Japanese defenders, at the cost of 6,000 soldiers and Marines.
Iwo Jima would be the first island of the Japanese homeland to be attacked. The Japanese had put in miles of tunnels and bunkers, with 361 artillery pieces, 65 heavy mortars, 33 large naval guns, and 21,000 defenders determined to fight to the death. Their motto was, "kill 10 of the enemy before dying." American commanders expected 40% casualties on the first assault. "We have taken such losses before," remarked the Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith, "and if we have to, we can do it again."
Even before the attack, the Navy's bombardment of Iwo Jima cost more ships and men than it lost on D-Day, without making a significant dent in the Japanese defenses. Then, beginning at 9 a.m. on the 19th, Marines loaded down with 70 to 100 pounds of equipment each hit the beach, and immediately sank into the thick volcanic ash. They found themselves on a barren moonscape stripped of any cover or vegetation, where Japanese artillery could pound them with unrelenting fury. Scores of wounded Marines helplessly waiting to be evacuated off the beach were killed "with the greatest possible violence," as veteran war reporter Robert Sherrod put it. Shells tore bodies in half and scattered arms and legs in all directions, while so much underground steam rose from the churned up soil the survivors broke up C-ration crates to sit on in order to keep from being scalded. Some 2,300 Marines were killed or wounded in the first 18 hours. It was, Sherrod said, "a nightmare in hell."
And overlooking it all, rising 556 feet above the carnage, stood Mount Suribachi, where the Japanese could direct their fire along the entire beach. Taking Suribachi became the key to victory. It took four days of bloody fighting to reach the summit, and when Marines did, they planted an American flag. When it was replaced with a larger one, photographer Joe Rosenthal recorded the scene--the most famous photograph of World War II and the most enduring symbol of a modern democracy at war.
Yet, in the end, a symbol of what? Certainly not victory. The capture of Suribachi only marked the beginning of the battle for Iwo Jima, which dragged on for another month and cost nearly 26,000 men--all for an island whose future as a major air base never materialized. Forty men were in the platoon which raised the flag on Suribachi. Only four would survive the battle unhurt. Their company, E Company, Second Battalion, 28th Regiment, Fifth Marine Division, would suffer 75% casualties. Of the seven officers who led it into battle, only one was left when it was over.
But the Marines pushed on. Over the next agonizing weeks, they took the rest of the island yard by yard, bunker by bunker, cave by cave. They fought through places with names like "Bloody Gorge" and "The Meat Grinder." They learned to take no prisoners in fighting a skilled and fanatical enemy who gave no quarter and expected none. Twenty out of every 21 Japanese defenders would die where they stood. One in three Marines on Iwo Jima would either be killed or wounded, including 19 of 24 battalion commanders. Twenty-seven Marines and naval medical corpsmen would win Medals of Honor--more than in any other battle in history--and 13 of them posthumously. As Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, said, "Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue."
Yet even this valor and sacrifice is not the full story of what Iwo Jima means, or what Rosenthal's immortal photograph truly symbolizes. The lesson of Iwo Jima is in fact an ancient one, going back to Machiavelli: that sometimes free societies must be as tough and unrelenting as their enemies. Totalitarians test their opponents by generating extreme conditions of brutality and violence; in those conditions--in the streets and beheadings of Fallujah or on the beach and in the bunkers of Iwo Jima--they believe weak democratic nerves will crack. This in turn demonstrates their moral superiority: that by giving up their own decency and humanity they have become stronger than those who have not.
Free societies can afford only one response. There were no complicated legal issues or questions of "moral equivalence" on Iwo Jima: It was kill or be killed. That remains the nature of war even for democratic societies. The real question is, who outlasts whom. In 1945 on Iwo Jima, it was the Americans, as the monument at Arlington Cemetery, based on Rosenthal's photograph, proudly attests. In the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970s, it was the totalitarians--with terrible consequences.
Today, some in this country think the totalitarians may still win in Iraq and elsewhere. A few even hope so. Only one thing is certain: As long as Americans cherish the memory of those who served at Iwo Jima, and grasp the crucial lesson they offer all free societies, the totalitarians will never win.
Mr. Herman, a historian, is the author, most recently, of "To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World" (HarperCollins, 2004).
<SECTION:CONTENT_FOOTER>http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006317
</SECTION:CONTENT_FOOTER>
And by the way... GDubbya tried to have a big-deal (and very-premature) "Welcome Home" celebration for the troops, and even claimed "Victory" and the end of "Major Operations" on board an Aircraft Carrier... so long ago? Perhaps he can plan another such "Welcome Home" for the troops, with as much self-promoting gobbledeegook as that absolutely rediculous and VERY political photo-op...?
I am sure the troops will love it...as they did the last time.(He may even invite that pseudo-journalist-gaybird that he and his staff
planted,
and somehow got past HISSecret Service, to pose as a REAL journalist, inside the White House and for more than a YEAR...?) Now there was a security-breach worthy of impeachment.
If it had been Clinton, as Jon Stewart so eloquently put it, "The crowds,
with torches
, would have lined the streets outside the White House to crucify the guy".
I wonder how long it will take to crack-open THIS story...among others?
[Edited 2 times. Most recently by on Feb 24, 2005 at 05:40am.]
Seek help, Fold.
Awright
... I have told you and everyone else who reads this forum, exactly what I would
hope
they would receive when they return from active-duty, over and over and over again. Since you cannot show me any "Celebratory Honors" they might now receive... Let me just say that they don't get HALF the recognition they deserve, and that will most certainly become even MORE pronounced, if Republicans have their way...and as they have shown already,
so often.
But just for you ... And in keeping with your cross-examination Spanish-Inquisition question, I would not grantthem "ALL" anything, since I don't have the power to do so, but if I were Prez, I would immediately push for absolute and FREE
 healthcare
for
LIFE
... Indeed I would. And IF they were injured
permanently
whileserving on active-duty, and in ANY job, anywhere whatsoever, then they would receive the same benefits they receive
NOW
from the VA system... Including compensation, if they are awarded it. It isn't like they just go out and ask for Comp you know... Veterans often wait as much as 5 years to get any compensation for injuries, and the numbers of those who actually GET VA-Comp, is a small part of that whole pie-chart...which is shrinking in size, yearly.
But even as I answer your rediculous question, the government, led by GDubbya and Co., has introduced MORE legislation to
CURB
VA Healthcare and continue to
GUT
that part of the government's FORMER guaranteed benefit to those who have serve in uniform, by making it even MORE difficult for Veterans to get ACCESS to that system ... which is their Goal:
2.4 Million Veterans Will Pay New Fee
HeraldNet
February 26, 2005
Republican
majorities on the House and Senate veterans' affairs committees have voted to impose an
enrollment fee
of at least $230a year on 2.4 million veterans-one of every three now eligible for Veterans Affairs Administration health care.
Those targeted are in priority categories 7 and 8, meaning they are neither poor nor suffering from service-connected disabilities. Half of the 2.4 million used the VA health system last year.
The
Bush administration
proposed the enrollment fee to hold down costs. The VA committees rejected another Bush proposal to raise co-payments on VA-filled prescriptions for these same priority 7 and 8 veterans. While both committees
endorsed enrollment fees
, differences emerged. The Senate panel, chaired by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, embraced the Bush plan for a straight $250 annual fee.
The House committee, chaired by Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., voted to set the fee for priority 7 enrollees at $230, matching the enrollment fee of under-65 military retirees using Tricare Prime, the military managed care program. For priority 8 veterans, Buyer proposes a sliding scale fee of $230 to $500, depending upon veteran income.
Now this all seems so ... "Novel", but the fact is that this is but 1 more example of how
Republicans
have led every single effort to
abolish benefits
and cut the teeth
out
of promised-services and benefits for Veterans, and they will continue to do so, no matter HOW MUCH they
SAY
they are increasing the VA Budget during their bullshit campaigns... As they continue to prove, over and over and over again. It is a FACT, that until about 1980 or so, every single person who served in uniform, was told that this "Guarantee" was written in stone: "You will get VA Healthcare, for life
". The courts have ruled that that promise, since it wasn't based upon any actual Law, was bullshit, so even WWII Veterans who may have fought Germans and been injured, cannot now go into the VA and get ANY healthcare help, and that is just a
fact
. You are of course free to go out there and look, for yourself... but I doubt you would actually go thereand see the lines for yourself...?
In other words Rick... I would not give them anything that they have not earnedor do not deserve, but the Republicans just seem to like
changing
those variables, in spite of the fact that they have led the efort to make hundreds of thousands MORE Veterans, in the last say, 15years???
Can ya dig-it?
Gee, I hope so.
[Edited 2 times. Most recently by on Feb 27, 2005 at 05:15am.]
 Fuck Off Man...
Ouch, the master of wit strikes again. Mosquitoes in Febuary, damn.
A bill for an act relating to local government; Excluding certain facilities from the Big Marine Park Reserve; providing for planned unit development zoning classification for certain facilities.Â
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:Â
Section 1. THE
DISABLED VETERANS REST CAMP
; EXCLUDED FROM BIG MARINE PARK RESERVE... "Notwithstanding any law, determination, or plan to the contrary, the property occupied by the Disabled Veterans Rest Campon Big Marine Lake in Washington County is excluded from the Big Marine Park Reserve and is not subject to regulation as part of the Metropolitan Council's regional recreational open space system".
Sec. 2. ZONING DISTRICTS PROVIDED.
Notwithstanding any law, determination, or plan to the contrary, any nonprofit camping facility serving veterans and their families as of the effective date of this act shall constitute a planned unit development district for purposes of county and municipal zoning.
     Â
Sec. 3. EFFECTIVE DATE:Â
Sections 1 and 2 are effective the day following final enactment.
Of course, I will also actively support this Bill with my presence, and I hope ALL Veterans who give a crap will also come, to try to STOP local-government from TAKING this property ... And since you asked Rick, the ONLY reason this bill is even on the docket for consideration in the MN. Senate, is because Washington County WANTS the Camp, and has tried everything they know of to GET IT, including using Emminent-DomainLaws, for 20 years now. Hopefully, the legislature will shut them down...!
("The Veteran's Rest Camp", was purchased for and used ever since, by Veterans and their Families only, with preference given to
Disabled Veterans
, always. It came into existance in 1926. It is a Non-Profit facility, and costs the taxpayer Â
NOTHING
.) It is also FREE, to any active-duty personnel.
How Fold-like. Dodge the meat of a question and attack Bush and all Republicans. Exactly what he was asked NOT to do.
See what you get when you try to be civil with him?
Sorry for the double post
[Edited by on Feb 11, 2005 at 09:45am.]
"And in keeping with your cross-examination Spanish-Inquisition question, .."
The Inquisition wouldn't have stopped until they got a complete answer and they wouldn't have tolerated any griping about the king and his court.
But I'll take what I can get.
[Edited by on Feb 27, 2005 at 07:30am.]
I'd go to welcome Zeph back regardless of who is there.
Do you need a new box of Kleenex, Torpid?
Vets' Health Needs Grow
The News and Observer
February 28, 2005
The Department of Veterans Affairs is expanding clinics in Raleigh and Charlotte and wants to build nine new ones to accommodate a boom in North Carolina's population of veterans and to put doctors closer to where the veterans live.
North Carolina's population of military retirees is 780,000-- up about 100,000 since 1980 according to state officials. An expected wave of combat veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would add to it.
But the federal government
did not provide money
for three new North Carolina clinics that the VA wanted in the current budget, and it's unclear when or whether those clinics or the other six proposed for construction by 2012 will be built. President Bush's recently proposed 2006 budget isn't likely to help much, veterans advocates say. "If Congress goes along with the administration's budget, there are veterans who are getting treatment now who will be
pushed out
," said Charles F. Smith, who heads the state Division of Veterans Affairs. His division helps veterans get their federal benefits.
Officials of the American Legion, a veterans association, testified to the U.S. Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee that the proposed budget was a disaster for veterans and that the portion earmarked for medical care needed to be $2.4 billion greater. They also have accused the administration of trying to drive more than a million veterans out of the system by requiring higher prescription co-payments in some cases and a $250 enrollment fee for some veterans.
Rick, why don't you write to Mr. Charles F. Smith, and ask him just what the hell he
REALLY
wants for Veterans... OK?
I mean,
Pin Him Down
...K?
And you are the one who didn't answer.
I'll try again, though I don't know why.
On celebratory honors: Where should they be held and who should attend? How often should they take place?
My questions may seem a bit impolitic, but I'm just curious.
I hope the Iraq war veterans get all the recognition they deserve. But the way you've been portraying their situation, it seems like you think they're some kind of forgotten people. In the minds of the country, they seem to be front and center.
What else do you want for them?
heh
irony
Frankly Rick, the
Honors
that Veterans receive or do not receive are the responsibility of both the community they live in, and the Constitution. The only real question you should ask yourself is, "what have I done to recognize the men and women who have sacrificed years of their lives, in my stead".
Yesterday I returned to MN. and just in time, as the MN Senate was considering bill #467, which would give The Veteran's Camp in Wash. Co. special-consideration and exemptionfrom the Washington County Commissioners, their (8th) regional park, and their covetous eyes for that property, which has been successfully run by Veterans, since 1926 and at NO cost, to ANY taxpayer.
The bill passed through the Committee, unanimously, and it is being sponsored by state Sen. Michelle Bachman, who is about as
republican
as you can get, and who works closely with Pawlenty.
Three-cheers
, for
her
.
I was also there, in room #123 at The State Capital building (with about 50 other Veterans), from a WWII Veteran (who was 'stationed' at
Stalag #17
for two years as a POW, to an active-duty Gulf War Army Staff Sgt., now home on leave, from IRAQ. I am hoping that the Picture taken of all of us (by the PP ?) will show up in that paper, soon.
This bill,#467,is a bill that everyone can support, and in doing so they will be heaping "Celebratory Honors", on all Veterans. Honestly, I don't think that there are
ever
enough of those.
OK Rick?
[Edited by on Mar 3, 2005 at 04:42am.]
:::sigh:::
Battling the VA
Long delays, inconsistent rulings and incompetent advocates mean injured veterans sometimes die waiting to obtain disability payments.
BY CHRIS ADAMS and ALISON YOUNG
Washington Bureau-
Knight Ridder
DRY RIDGE, Ky.
Alfred Brown died waiting. He was a 19-year-old soldier fighting in Italy when shrapnel from an enemy shell ripped into his abdomen in 1945. His wounds were so severe that he was given last rites. When Brown came home, the government that had promised to care for its wounded veterans shorted him instead. Not until 1981, however, did Brown realize that his monthly disability payment was less than he should have received. He launched what would become a 21-year battle. "As a member of the so-called 'Greatest Generation,' I am well aware of the large numbers of us passing away," he wrote the nation's chief veterans judge in 2001. "I am prepared to meet our Creator. My fear is that your court will not make a decision in my case."
Brown was right. He died a year later,
and his case died with him
. Closing the books on the case, Judge Kenneth Kramer acknowledged the court likely would have ruled in his favor. Brown is one of tens of thousands of veterans who have had to fight their own government to win disability payments. A Knight Ridder investigation has found that injured soldiers who petition the Veterans Affairs Department for those payments often are doomed by lengthy delays, hurt by inconsistent rulings and failed by the veterans' representatives who try to help them. The investigation was based on interviews with veterans and their families from around the country and on a review of internal VA documents and computerized databases. Many documents were made available only after Knight Ridder sued the agency in federal court.
A HUGE AGENCY
The VA is a mammoth agency that serves 25 million veterans with a far-flung health care system and a separate disability and pension operation. The agency spends more than $60 billion a year, more than $20 billion of it on disability compensation. But the Knight Ridder investigation found that the VA serves neither taxpayers nor veterans well. Some veterans
never
get what they're
due
, while antiquated regulations mean that others are paid for disabilities that have little effect on their ability to hold jobs or
aren't related to military service
. The investigation identified three points where cases often go wrong: the selection of a special representative, called a veterans service officer; the review by a regional VA office; and the filing of an appeal. Among the findings:
Â
1• Many of the VA-accredited experts who help veterans with their cases receive minimal training and are rarely tested to ensure their competence. These veterans service officers work for nonprofit organizations such as the American Legion, as well as states and counties, but their quality is uneven, and that often means the difference between a successful claim and a botched one.
2• The VA's network of 57 regional offices produces wildly inconsistent results, which means that a veteran in St. Paul is likely to receive different treatment and more generous disability checks than one from Detroit.
3• Veterans face lengthy delays if they appeal the VA's decisions. The average wait is nearly three years, and many veterans wait
10 years
for a final ruling. In the past decade, several thousand veterans died before their cases were resolved.
"How a veteran seeking benefits gets treated should not be an accident of geography," said George Basher, the director of the New York State Division of Veterans' Affairs, one of 50 state agencies that help veterans. "Unfortunately, the current system makes that a virtual certainty." In interviews late last year, then-VA Secretary Anthony Principi and other VA officials admitted to many shortcomings, but said things had improved since the Bush administration took over. "This agency was underwater in 2001," Principi said. "My people have made tremendous progress." The current secretary, R. James Nicholson, who was sworn in recently, had
no comment
. There have been some improvements in the past three years. However, when it comes to delays, cases that need to be redone and backlogs, Knight Ridder found, things are the same or worse than they were in the 1990s, when the agency vowed to clean up its act. For the family of Kentucky veteran Alfred Brown, that decade brought nothing but frustration. If a decision had come before he died, Brown could have collected nearly 45 years of back pay, his attorney said. Based on VA payment rates, that would have been worth about $30,000. "It wasn't so much the money," said his son Clayton Brown, on a day when he visited his father's grave north of Lexington. "He felt he was robbed. He almost gave his life up, and this is what he was getting in return?"
INJURIES RATED
VA workers are reminded daily of the pledge by
Abraham Lincoln
" ...
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan
. ..." But the task isn't as simple as it used to be. The VA makes disability payments for injuries as obvious as an amputated leg and as complex as post-traumatic stress disorder. They include combat wounds and peacetime injuries, since veterans are serving their country whether they're in a Humvee in Iraq or in boot camp. Veterans are given ratings from zero to 100 depending on how severe their disabilities are. Payments ranging from $108 to $2,299 a month are supposed to reflect lost earnings potential. But, according to the Government Accountability Office, the disability payments are based on 60-year-old labor market assumptions. So veterans who have desk jobs in today's economy can draw checks based on the fact their disabilities would keep them from good manufacturing jobs. The system stems from a time when war injuries often were less complex. Today's soldier faces mental illnesses unacknowledged two generations ago, as well as wounds that often were fatal in earlier wars. Beyond that are tough fiscal realities. While most payments can be linked directly to service, veterans also can qualify merely if they're diagnosed soon after their discharge.
In all, the VA pays nearly $1 billion a year for disabilities that the GAO says generally aren't directly linked to veterans' service in the military.
HELPERS' EXPERTISE VARIES
Applying for disability benefits requires veterans to navigate a labyrinth of bureaucratic rules and unforgiving deadlines. It can require the skill of an investigator and the knowledge of a physician. That's why national veterans groups have for decades provided free help. About 40 veterans service organizations, such as the American Legion and Disabled American Veterans, are authorized to handle VA claims, as are many state veterans agencies. But Knight Ridder found that the network of VA-accredited service officers is a patchwork of well-meaning helpers whose training and expertise vary widely. Contrary to its own regulations, the VA does little to ensure that veterans receive competent representation from veterans service organizations. Yet the agency prohibits vets from hiring their own attorneys until after their claims have been denied, in effect adding years to the appeals process. Two-thirds of veterans who submit claims are assisted by service officers. Picking the right one can determine whether they get the full payment they're due, a fraction of it or nothing. "The best advocates can be very good, and lousy ones can be awful," said Ron Abrams, the joint executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, which trains service officers. For example, the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs has tracked the outcome of every claim filed by veterans groups that receive state funding since July 2003. The groups' success rates range from 53 percent to 81 percent. Among the busiest individual service officers, those handling 30 or more decided claims, the success rates can range from 35 percent to 98 percent, the state's data show.
The VA, through its national accreditation program, is supposed to ensure that all service officers are responsible and qualified. In fact, the VA does little more than rubber-stamp names submitted by veterans groups. About 11,000 service officers are on the VA's roster — about 80 percent of whom are accredited through nonprofit groups. VA regulatory files reveal the agency has done little in decades to determine the adequacy of the training provided or check the quality of the claims. Only rarely does the VA suspend or revoke a service officer's accreditation. When it does happen, it's generally the result of criminal charges rather than incompetence. "What we do is take it on the word of the service organization that the individual has had sufficient training," said Martin Sendek of the VA's general counsel's office. That training, however, varies widely, according to a Knight Ridder survey of 13 of the largest veterans groups and all 50 state veterans departments.
At one end of the spectrum is Disabled American Veterans, which has full-time paid national service officers and a 16-month training and testing program that's so regimented it qualifies for 10 hours of college credit. Then there are groups such as American Ex-Prisoners of War and Catholic War Veterans that rely largely on part-time volunteers who aren't required to complete any courses or pass any tests. "We don't get paid, so we're not going to be that strict with these people," said Doris Jenks, the training director for American Ex-Prisoners of War. Nonprofits generally have less stringent requirements for service officers than those working for the 33 state veterans agencies that responded to the survey.
Just 62 percent of nonprofits and 73 percent of the state agencies require continuing education for all service officers, something experts consider crucial given the VA's constantly changing rules. Only 38 percent of nonprofits and 67 percent of states require a test before recommending that the VA accredit a representative. And once accredited, few service officers are ever tested to ensure their competence: While 27 percent of the states require later testing, only one nonprofit, Disabled American Veterans, had that requirement.
NO RECOURSE
VA officials bristled at suggestions that their oversight of accredited service officers is lax and said they are unaware of any systemic problems. Retired Vice Adm. Daniel Cooper, the VA's undersecretary for benefits, said the VA corrects any mistakes that service officers might make. If anything needs to be done to make an application complete, Cooper said, "we do it." General counsel Tim McClain noted that veterans have extensive appeal rights. "There are a lot of checks and balances in the system," he said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, however, repeatedly has ruled that veterans are out of luck when they've been steered wrong by VA-accredited service officers. Ask Gerry Corwin.
As the navigator aboard a B-24 bomber during World War II, Corwin survived more than 30 missions over Japanese-controlled waters. He came home to Minneapolis with two Air Medals — and disabling nightmares and flashbacks.
There were images of his buddies burning in planes and of a friend killed on a mission that Corwin persuaded him to take. By December 1984, those nightmares began to overtake the TV executive.
Corwin applied for disability benefits and was denied, in part because the VA couldn't find many of his military records, which had burned in a 1973 fire at a national archive in St. Louis.
So Corwin went to the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs and enlisted the help of Kirk Jones, a service officer who had become VA-accredited a year earlier through the state and the American Legion.
Jones submitted a three-sentence letter on Corwin's behalf and didn't take any steps to prove Corwin's claim. He didn't, for example, push for a psychiatric examination from the VA. He didn't round up statements from Corwin's crew to corroborate that they had been sent home in May 1945 for "combat fatigue." "I should have suggested a VA examination," Jones, who no longer is a service officer, said recently. He acknowledged that he had minimal training when he first handled Corwin's claim. That 1984 claim went nowhere. In 1995, Jones, who by then had gained extensive experience plus classroom training, restarted Corwin's claim. He did all the things he hadn't done a decade earlier and more. This time, Jones helped Corwin win compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder and a heart problem. Jones filed several appeals, and each time the VA granted more benefits, eventually declaring Corwin totally disabled in 1998. Even so, the veterans court ruled last summer that Corwin can't collect back pay from 1984 through 1995 because the proper documents weren't filed in 1986 to keep his original claim alive. Corwin's loss is tens of thousands of dollars, he and his lawyer estimate.
"It would mean a home. Let's start with that," said Corwin, 82, who with his wife, Katherine, has been living in a house her family owns in rural Mississippi.
"To have to come back and to fight 20 years to get what you're supposed to be given, and to fight your own government for it, is disappointing," he said.
ERRORS IN 13 PERCENT
Even when a service officer does a good job, veterans' claims often get bogged down in the VA's 57 regional offices, where veterans' claims are processed. Nationwide, errors are made in 13 percent of claims, more than three times the agency's hoped-for rate of 4 percent, according to a VA quality-control database that reviews a sample of the decisions. That translates to 103,000 errors a year; in many cases they can result in either an overpayment or an underpayment of benefits. "I don't think anybody is proud of the fact that we have" a 13 percent error rate, said Michael Walcoff, who oversees the agency's regional offices. Errors often trigger appeals, sending thousands of veterans into an ongoing cycle of mistakes, appeals and rehearings. The percentage of claims that are approved ranges from 89 percent in St. Paul to less than 70 percent in Jackson, Miss., and Cheyenne, Wyo., according to an annual VA survey of veterans. Perhaps not surprisingly, "satisfaction" among veterans is highest in St. Paul, at 73 percent, compared with 50 percent in Atlanta.
REGIONS VARY
Knight Ridder found that disability ratings, which determine the size of a veteran's monthly check, also vary widely. An analysis of 3.4 million veterans claims shows that major mental ailments, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia, are subject to bigger regional swings than major physical ailments such as bad backs and knees. For example, veterans with PTSD assigned to the Wilmington, Del., office are more likely to have the highest disability rating than their counterparts in Lincoln, Neb. In Delaware, 34 percent of those with PTSD have the highest rating; in Lincoln, it's 10 percent. Because major psychiatric disabilities on average pay more than the major physical ones, the wider swings have a dramatic impact on payments. The different ratings may help explain a puzzle noticed by veterans every time the VA releases its annual report: Average disability checks vary by state. The VA wouldn't comment on Knight Ridder's analysis but said in a statement that it is investigating regional differences, which it attributed to "extremely complex" factors. The GAO last year reported that the VA "cannot provide reasonable assurance that similarly situated veterans who submit claims for the same impairment to different regional offices receive reasonably consistent decisions."
APPEALS A MINEFIELD
The final minefield is the VA appeals system. It's a problem the VA recognizes. "It takes too long. We all agree on that,'' said Ron Garvin, acting chairman of the Board of Veterans' Appeals. With the average disability payment now $7,860 a year, back-benefit awards can be substantial. An award is calculated as though the VA made the right decision when the claim was first filed. Some veterans with severe disabilities win $100,000 or more. But if a veteran dies with his or her case under appeal, the case dies, too.
In the past decade, more than 13,700 veterans died while their cases were in some stage of the appeals process, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of a VA appeals records database. (While precise estimates aren't available, the VA said experience suggests a few thousand of them wouldn't have actively pursued their appeals.) Even if a veteran wins a case but dies before receiving payment, his family is often out of luck. Unless the veteran had an eligible spouse or dependent child, the money stays in the U.S. Treasury. In an October interview, then-Secretary Principi said he was "stung" when he learned a few years ago how common it is for veterans to die with their cases in limbo. While some deaths are inevitable, given the VA's elderly clientele, "it's not acceptable," he said.
He also suggested that a recently formed commission on benefits could reconsider the legal barriers that prevent heirs other than a wife or dependent child from receiving a deceased veteran's back benefits. The VA has admitted its processes are too slow and too prone to errors. But the agency has repeatedly ignored recommendations to eliminate redundant steps.
One exhaustive review in 1996 declared the entire claims-and-appeals process "cumbersome and outmoded" and in need of an overhaul. Since then, "
I wouldn't say that we have changed the system in any major way
," said the agency's Walcoff. In fact, VA data show that delays and the percentage of cases being sent back for rehearing are basically unchanged since the agency vowed to reduce them.
ONE CLAIM
In the mid-1990s, about the time it promised to speed things up, the VA also denied Berlie Bowman's claim. Bowman, an outgoing kid following in his father's military footsteps, had gone to Vietnam in 1967. "When he was drafted, he went without a fuss," said his sister Paulette. "He was a different person when he came back." He was skittish, quick to anger, uneasy in crowds. The family trod warily around him — "learned to wake him from a distance by touching his feet with something," his VA file said. Over three decades, he ran through 30 jobs; he lived in a small trailer on a curvy North Carolina road. His first disability claim, in 1971 for "nerves," was denied. His second try, in 1995, met a similar fate. That time, though, Bowman pushed back. Working with an attorney, he assembled evidence to show that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and to document that it had started in Vietnam. The case received six different rulings, until Bowman fell ill with pancreatic cancer. On June 16, 2004, the Board of Veterans' Appeals finally agreed with Bowman's claim. It declared that "credible supporting evidence" showed that Bowman suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his time in Vietnam, just as Bowman had contended for nine years. Bowman's attorney immediately pestered the VA for Bowman's back benefits, dating to 1995. By then, Bowman's cancer treatment had been stopped. On June 21, attorney Dan Krasnegor or his assistant talked with the VA every two hours. On June 22, they were told that the official disability rating was complete and that only final signatures were needed before Bowman's check for $53,784 could be cut.
Â
Â
Berlie Bowman died that night, and his claim died
with him
. No check was sent.
A Knight Ridder database that allows veterans to compare their payments and their disability determination is at
www.twincities.com
. To view additional photos and hear the voices of several of the veterans highlighted in this article, go to
www.twincities.com
.
The VA serves
25 million veterans
with a far-flung health care system and a separate disability and pension operation. The agency spends more than $60 billion a year, over $20 billion of it on disability compensation.
And this article, mostlytalks about the VA-Beaurocracy and the incompetance of many who claimto be helping Veterans and are a part of that bureaucratic nightmare. The real healthcare-questions aren't even dealt with.
What do you think, Rat?
I think it's a pretty good story. I don't know what you mean by the "real healthcare questions." I think you encounter some predictable skepticism from certain quarters when there are claims of debilitation from Post Traumatic Stress. There's a tendancy to believe the claims that result in a scar, it looks like.
It looks like a flawed system, like any other large bureaucracy. Overwhelmed and undertrained staff trying to keep a lot of promises with a finite pool of money. There might be one or two people trying to game the system. I bet the caseworkers have heard some tales.
I couldn't tell you what the answer is. I suppose more money is part of it.
[Edited by on Mar 6, 2005 at 06:55am.]
Who is Fold pretending to be now?
Thanks, Rob. A good reminder that evil must be defeated despite the cost.
Well, I know a lot of the case-workerspersonally...VFW, PVA, VVA, Legion and Purple Heart, and I can tell you that without question, all of them are NOT the same. For instance, the PVA(Paralysed Vets) have a pretty good rep. here in MN., but if you go to FL. for example, they don'tpull the same weight as do the Vet's Reps. here, and their VA is as sick as you will find. In Texas, the DAV has a hodge-podge of ill-trained reps. with different "gifts", as many as it has major cities, and the worst VA Hospitals,
bar none
. You mightfind a good one, you probablywill not. If you have ever been to the Waco Tex. VAMC, you wouldget angry, even if you aren't a Vet. It is third world care,
at best
. I am serious. San Diego, 2nd only to Mpls. and we are reputed to have the best VA Hospital in the nation. But even The bestwormy apple, is still wormy.
Yet, here in St. Paul/Mpls., (and at the Whipple FED Building at Ft. Snelling) we have about the best DAV and VFW reps. anywhere, and we are lucky in that way. In fact, the last 2 State VA Commissioners were both DAV Reps. out there, before they went on to become State Commissioners in the governor(s) Cabinet(s).
But that article was a good one, in what it
did say
about the beaurocracy, but as stated earlier they glossed over the actual "Health Care" questions, instead focusing on the Compensation questions, and I believe they quite correctly pointed out the many inconsistencies in the system, but I felt it was also
incorrect
in many ways, probably because the writers have never had to USE the health-care they provide out there, which is faulty at best...and as I have said, over and over again, and because they MAY not be Veterans.
I also believe that the writers pointed out what they perceived to be a certain amount of "fraud", on the part of us Vets in trying to take advantage of the Compensation system. I am sure there are a few of those types, because I have met a few whop just want to find a check. But for the most part, the system in place HERE, weeds out the bullshit-claims pretty well, but NOT all the time and sometimes they make some of those with
very-real complaints and disabilities
 wait
YEARS
to get a fair-shake...much more than any "fraudulent" claims.
The fix? Make certain that ALL Veteran Representatives go to the same schools, and take the same courses, and are ALL Veterans who have had to use that system, and know it well. I believe also that someone who was not disabled as a
direct result
of active-duty injuries(and that means if they were ON DUTY when they became permanently-injured...(Like as if they were on their way TO work, or TO their homes
after workor they were in uniform and overseas, etc., but NOT if they crashed their cars while out drinking... or, Off-Duty in some stateside billet???), that they should be limited in what they can receive in Compensation. I will be hung-out to dry, perhaps, for saying that, but it is an easy fix that would save hundreds of Millions$, if not Billions$ in payments, for disability compensation.
Just my opinion, mind you. "
Dino
" may feel differently.
Â
excellent Rob.
Veterans WinOne, Finally...!
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/11076283.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Still a jackass.
Yeah, like all the people on the S.W. corner of that lake, including one Resort that had been there for 75 years. The county just came in and said, "Take this money, or take nothing, and get out".
They also wanted very-much to take our parcel, of course, as it has developed roads and the ONLY beach on that area of the Lake, not to mention hudnreds of thousdands of dollars in infrastructure
(electrical, cabins, BBQ areas, tenting sites and plumbing, among other things?)
and they never even came close to doing an "
Impact Study
" on the effects that allowing tens of thousands MORE people to have access to that Lake, would have done TO the lake...which is that it would have become another
mud-hole
, much like Coon Lake is now. Â 20+ years of their threats
seem
to be over... Yet the same state Senator who championed our Bill, is now leading the "Fear"Â fight against Gays, in the state senate...
Ms. Michelle Bachmann(Hey, Ray Vandeveer is also a Republican and a friend.)
I hate to say it, but the truth is that Ms. Bachmann is one of THE biggest opportunists IN the legislature.
(No Secret)
The very-big motors on some of the bass-boats that tear-up the bottom in that body of water, yearly, make it so unpleasant to fish by mid July so, without catching tonsof weeds floating all over the lake thanks to the over-sized props and motors), that most people fish only during the week. I always thought it was bullshit that there were restrictions on motor-sizes over 25HP up in the boundary waters areas... Now I would welcome it on our Local-Waterways.
Anyway, yes...We can say that WEstopped them from taking our land and our History in fact, and perhaps saved that Lake in the process, at least for a few more years.
[Edited by on Mar 9, 2005 at 04:40am.]
still a dumbfuck potato farmer
Veteran Homes Face Cuts
The News and Observer
March 19, 2005
James Tisdale helped fight some of the Army's toughest World War II battles, from North Africa to Anzio's bloody beach and into Bavaria, where he helped liberate the Dachau death camp. In the years after, the 83-year-old retired postal worker from Lumberton never asked for Veterans Administration health benefits.
But now that he's fighting what might be his last battle, with Alzheimer's disease, his family is making use of the state-run veterans nursing home in Fayetteville. Veterans such as Tisdale -- whose health problems aren't service-related -- might soon have to look elsewherefor help, though. The Bush administration is proposing to
end
the $59-a-day payments to state veterans nursing homes for such cases.Patients with service-related or "catastrophic" health problems still would
qualify
, but others -- who compose an estimated
60 percent
of the two N.C. veterans homes' populations -- wouldn't. (No matter
What
 "Priority Group"they may be in..., and Nationwide.)
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it will continue payments for current patients, but with typical nursing home turnover, the state homes could soon have empty beds and financial trouble. The average male patient in the homes stays about a year. Tisdale's son, Fayetteville homebuilder Bud Tisdale, said that he thinks his father is getting terrific care and that it's hard to find a home so good with Alzheimer's patients.
"He did his duty, he came back and
never
sought any VA benefits except a VA loan, and here, at the end of his life ...," Tisdale's voice trailed off. "Here we are, fighting a war, and are you going to
cut benefits from those who fought earlier wars to pay for this one
?  "I just don't see the logic."
(Neither does anyone else, Sir.  Maybenow you will stopvoting for more Republicans, finally...?)
The White House Press Office referred questions about the cuts in the proposed fiscal 2006 budget to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which in turn referred them to the federal VA.
(I bet they did.)
These cuts to the 119 state veterans homes
across the nation
would save nearly $300 million, according to documents provided by the VA. They are part of a plan to shift the VA's health-care focus to veterans who need help the most, specifically those with service-related health problems or low incomes, said Terry Jemison, a VA spokesman in Washington.
( Bullshit
. They are meant to cut-off
ANY
federal funding to these Homes, period. They are now treating Vet's Homes as if they were Planned Parenthood clinics...! )
The effects on the homes would be
devastating
, said Donald Mooney, a Washington spokesman for the American Legion, the nation's largest veterans group. "It would just put a lot of state veterans homes out of business," he said.
In some states, he said, the cuts would affect more than
80 percent of the veterans
population
.
And this, is just the beginning.
[Edited by on Mar 19, 2005 at 04:04am.]
Just because there hasn't been one, huge designated Parade for the Troops doesn't change my perception that they're recognized and duly celebrated. And the conflict isn't over yet. I dont' think there was a ticker tape parade in New York every week.
Fund raisers, concerts, send offs of various kinds of are going on fairly often.
It's a helluva lot more accurate than saying they're "marginalized."
"Where were the parades and celebrations, in 1970-76? How about in 1953?"
I don't know. What's your point?
Someof Republican Congressman Tom Delay's (Tex)
recent
votes on Veterans Issues... (and these same issues are touted as successful votes FOR Veterans by the Right...In fact, GDubbya signed this bill into LAW, 12-8-03):
HR 2297 - 2003 - To amend title 38, United States Code, to improve benefits under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.Abill that was supposed to change a number of benefits offered to military veterans...including:
- Allows for a widow of a veteran to remarry after age 57 and still be eligible for veterans' dependency and indemnity compensation (DIC), home loan, and educational benefits
- Expands benefits for Filipino veterans who fought for the United States during World War II
- Increases funds for specialty adapted housing and transportation for disabled veterans
- Expands educational benefits for National Guard members forced into full time duty
OH NO!!!
Delay didn't even VOTE on it
...
TWICE
.
It should also be remembered that Republican Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Chris Smith(R-N.J.)
sponsored that bill
and for that and other "Moderate" support for Veterans, Delay had him removed from his chairmanship position, just recently in fact!
Then there are the last 3 consecutive VA-Budgets that Tom Delay has personally pushed to REDUCE, by BILLIONS...in the last 4 years. He isn't even as moderate as Neo-Conservatives.
Yet now, because of Terri Schiavo,he's a saint?
[Edited by on Mar 22, 2005 at 04:42am.]
Awright, Bill, you've griped about this to just about everyone now. It's time to pin you down.
What do you think each returning veteran should receive in terms of monetary or material compensation and celebratory honors? Where should they be held and who should attend? How often should they take place?
Don't use your answer to carry on about "GDubbya." Be specific.
[Edited 3 times. Most recently by on Feb 24, 2005 at 07:05am.]
Larry Scott
: Are You
Really
a Veteran?
Rep. Steve Buyer
is
redefining
your status...
March 29, 2005
www.military.com
Are you
really
a veteran? Better check it, fast. I did. I've got my DD-214 that says "honorable discharge." I've got the red-white-and-blue VA identification card complete with lousy picture and the "service-connected" rating. So, I must be a veteran. Right? Not if
Rep.
Steve Buyer
(R-IN), chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, has his way. Buyer is trying to rewrite the definition of "veteran" in a cold and calculated manner that could cost millions of veterans their benefits. Buyer recently won a political tug-of-war and replaced Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) as chairman of HVAC. Smith was known as a true friend of veterans and often broke ranks with his party to forward legislation favorableto the veteran's community.
Not so with Buyer. In a recent
interview
with journalist Tom Philpott, Buyer stated, "While some veterans' organizations like to create a theme, that 'A veteran is a veteran [and] there is no difference,' I disagree." Shortly after winning the chair at HVAC, Buyer said, "Some of the veterans service organizations, they are having this belief that everyone should have open access to the VA system, when in fact I believe that the VA system should follow its core constituency and the intent of Congress when we laid out our priorities, and that was in fact to take care of our disabled and indigent veterans first." (This subject was covered in my Military.com article on "
Welfarizing the VA
.")
So, what is happening here? Buyer is trying to redefine "veteran," and in so doing, reshape benefit programs to meet his new definition. In short, this means fewer benefits for fewer veterans. The two keys here are Buyer's references to "intent of Congress" and "core constituency." By rejecting the "intent of Congress" when they passed legislation defining benefits and eligibility, Buyer is telling us Congress was wrong and he is going to change it. By referring to the VA's "core constituency" as "disabled and indigent veterans," he is eliminating veterans who do not fall into those categories. This is just plain absurd! And it is wrong! As Buyer continues to redefine who is really a veteran, here is some of what's at stake.
The bipartisan
Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission
will hold its first meeting soon. The Commission will review whether Congress went too far by allowing concurrent receipt of military retirement and VA disability payments. Also on the table is a change in the way disability ratings are determined, and a restructuring of the definition of "service-connected." Buyer says he cannot guarantee veterans who currently have disability ratings that they will be exempt from Commission findings. Buyer also wants the Commission to consider offering lump-sum payments to veterans with current disability ratings of 20 percent or less. These "cash now" settlements would deny veterans the right to pursue any compensation claims in the future. A veteran with a progressive condition, one that causes degenerative disability with age, would have no right to further compensation. What's really on the table when it comes to redefining a veteran and available benefits? Buyer says, "I think everything should be on the table." Everything! Buyer is even suggesting that service-connected disabilities be combat-related only. This would eliminate treatment and compensation for injuries received while on active duty but not directly related to combat.
Buyer also took aim at the veterans' service organizations, saying their view that all veterans should have access to VA healthcare abandons values like duty and sacrifice. He chided the service organizations for using inflammatory rhetoric. "I asked them to be very careful with the words they select because ... they have an impact all over the country. It is upsetting to me when someone refers to veterans as whiney," Buyer stated. Well, there you have it in his own words. The chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee calling our service organizations "whiney" and accusing them of abandoning values like duty and sacrifice.
It would be easy to dismiss Buyer as part of some lunatic fringe on Capitol Hill trying to stick it to veterans. But that is not the case. Buyer speaks for the majority in Congress who speak for the current administration. And, Buyer is the one guilty of inflammatory rhetoric. Demeaning our service organizations and their attempts to preserve veterans' benefits is a slap in the face to ALL veterans. Our service organizations have, in the past, often done too little too late. Sometimes we wondered where they were as the VA budget took hit after hit. Now they find themselves in the position of doing what they were meant to do and being castigated for it.
Fellow veterans, if this is not a call to action, I don't know what is. We cannot allow Congress to redefine who is a veteran. We cannot allow Congress to restructure veterans' benefits and reshape the definitions of disability. We have worked too hard for too long to not receive proper recognition for our service to our country.
It's time to put severe pressure on Congress
. Recently
400 disabled veterans
did just that when they jammed Committee hearings, booing and jeering Buyer and others who want to cut benefits. This new level of activism must increase if we are to preserve our benefits and guarantee a properly funded VA for the veterans of the future.
In 1789 President
George Washington said,"
The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive veterans of earlier wars and how they were treated and appreciated by this country."
If we do nothing now we will only be able to say that we did nothing.
www.YourVABenefits.org
Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act
Bill # H.R.515
Original Sponsor:
Lane Evans
(D-IL 17th)
Cosponsor Total: 93
(last sponsor added 04/08/2005)
  88Democrats
  1 Independents
  4Republicans
A worthy bill.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 14, 2005-
(AP)
Â
Disabled American Veterans National Commander James E. Sursely today expressed  the organization’s bitter disappointment that the United States Senate blocked an amendment to the $80 billion supplemental appropriation bill to
provide $2 billion to cover a critical shortfall in funding for veterans medical care. "Less than half way through the current fiscal year, Veterans Affairs medical facilities across the country have already run out of money and face huge deficits, an emergency-situation if there
ever
was one,” Sursely said. The amendment failed to win approval in two procedural votes that saw just one Republican,
Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter
, along with every Democrat and the Senate’s lone Independent, voting in favor. The amendment, offered by Senators Patty Murray(D-Wash.)and Daniel Akaka(D-Hawaii), would increase funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs by $1.98 billion for the current fiscal year and designate it as emergency spending. Some $840 million of that money would be used to provide each veterans regional health network with an additional $40 million. The amendment designated $610 million to address the needs of servicemembers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and $525 million would be used to provide mental health care and treatment for veterans.
Â
Y
ep, it's another travesty for Veterans. So was the liethat GDubbya used against J. Kerry during his effort to be re-elected, when he blamed him for the shortfall of approriations money that amounted to $87 Billion, money that eventually was one of 3
$80+ Billion
bills that were passed since that time anyway (including the original amount),and which covered all of the money that Kerry was accused of being "Against". Now the shoe is on the other foot, and Dubbya's own party has voted en-masse to reject the proper funding of care for those returning from the War. What a crock, that our veteran-servicemembers now have to deal with, through NO fault of their own, nor of any election bullshit. This time, it is across the spectrum, except for Sen. Arlen Specter, who voted as an
American
.
Â
That's Politics!...and Screw veterans...right?
[Edited 8 times. Most recently by on Apr 15, 2005 at 03:14am.]
right...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Yes Fold, we would all listen to him. You and your "paper fell on me" disability, not so much.
Yes, well... we all know that the only time you ever served in anything, was perhaps in JAIL... But notin the United States Armed Forces.
And actually, you don't have a fucking CLUE about how, when or what happened that got me my "Disability" as you put it, but we all knowthat you ain't got the big-tubby-
stones
to accuse me or
any other Veteran
for that matter, anything like what you just said, in person.
Because after all, never mind that you didn't serve in uniform... I am sure someone would have thrown you to the sharks, but the fact is that you are a just a big, fat-coward, who throws rocks at others from behind a
computer
screen
.
Wow... Courage "Under Fire"
[Edited by on May 7, 2005 at 06:09am.]
Get what you wanted now...?
[Edited by on May 7, 2005 at 06:09am.]
Battling the VA
Long delays, inconsistent rulings and incompetent advocates mean injured veterans sometimes die waiting to obtain disability payments.
BY CHRIS ADAMS and ALISON YOUNG
Washington Bureau-
Knight Ridder
DRY RIDGE, Ky.
Alfred Brown died waiting. He was a 19-year-old soldier fighting in Italy when shrapnel from an enemy shell ripped into his abdomen in 1945. His wounds were so severe that he was given last rites. When Brown came home, the government that had promised to care for its wounded veterans shorted him instead. Not until 1981, however, did Brown realize that his monthly disability payment was less than he should have received. He launched what would become a 21-year battle. "As a member of the so-called 'Greatest Generation,' I am well aware of the large numbers of us passing away," he wrote the nation's chief veterans judge in 2001. "I am prepared to meet our Creator. My fear is that your court will not make a decision in my case."
Brown was right. He died a year later,
and his case died with him
. Closing the books on the case, Judge Kenneth Kramer acknowledged the court likely would have ruled in his favor. Brown is one of tens of thousands of veterans who have had to fight their own government to win disability payments. A Knight Ridder investigation has found that injured soldiers who petition the Veterans Affairs Department for those payments often are doomed by lengthy delays, hurt by inconsistent rulings and failed by the veterans' representatives who try to help them. The investigation was based on interviews with veterans and their families from around the country and on a review of internal VA documents and computerized databases. Many documents were made available only after Knight Ridder sued the agency in federal court.
A HUGE AGENCY
The VA is a mammoth agency that serves 25 million veterans with a far-flung health care system and a separate disability and pension operation. The agency spends more than $60 billion a year, more than $20 billion of it on disability compensation. But the Knight Ridder investigation found that the VA serves neither taxpayers nor veterans well. Some veterans
never
get what they're
due
, while antiquated regulations mean that others are paid for disabilities that have little effect on their ability to hold jobs or
aren't related to military service
. The investigation identified three points where cases often go wrong: the selection of a special representative, called a veterans service officer; the review by a regional VA office; and the filing of an appeal. Among the findings:
Â
1• Many of the VA-accredited experts who help veterans with their cases receive minimal training and are rarely tested to ensure their competence. These veterans service officers work for nonprofit organizations such as the American Legion, as well as states and counties, but their quality is uneven, and that often means the difference between a successful claim and a botched one.
2• The VA's network of 57 regional offices produces wildly inconsistent results, which means that a veteran in St. Paul is likely to receive different treatment and more generous disability checks than one from Detroit.
3• Veterans face lengthy delays if they appeal the VA's decisions. The average wait is nearly three years, and many veterans wait
10 years
for a final ruling. In the past decade, several thousand veterans died before their cases were resolved.
"How a veteran seeking benefits gets treated should not be an accident of geography," said George Basher, the director of the New York State Division of Veterans' Affairs, one of 50 state agencies that help veterans. "Unfortunately, the current system makes that a virtual certainty." In interviews late last year, then-VA Secretary Anthony Principi and other VA officials admitted to many shortcomings, but said things had improved since the Bush administration took over. "This agency was underwater in 2001," Principi said. "My people have made tremendous progress." The current secretary, R. James Nicholson, who was sworn in recently, had
no comment
. There have been some improvements in the past three years. However, when it comes to delays, cases that need to be redone and backlogs, Knight Ridder found, things are the same or worse than they were in the 1990s, when the agency vowed to clean up its act. For the family of Kentucky veteran Alfred Brown, that decade brought nothing but frustration. If a decision had come before he died, Brown could have collected nearly 45 years of back pay, his attorney said. Based on VA payment rates, that would have been worth about $30,000. "It wasn't so much the money," said his son Clayton Brown, on a day when he visited his father's grave north of Lexington. "He felt he was robbed. He almost gave his life up, and this is what he was getting in return?"
INJURIES RATED
VA workers are reminded daily of the pledge by
Abraham Lincoln
" ...
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan
. ..." But the task isn't as simple as it used to be. The VA makes disability payments for injuries as obvious as an amputated leg and as complex as post-traumatic stress disorder. They include combat wounds and peacetime injuries, since veterans are serving their country whether they're in a Humvee in Iraq or in boot camp. Veterans are given ratings from zero to 100 depending on how severe their disabilities are. Payments ranging from $108 to $2,299 a month are supposed to reflect lost earnings potential. But, according to the Government Accountability Office, the disability payments are based on 60-year-old labor market assumptions. So veterans who have desk jobs in today's economy can draw checks based on the fact their disabilities would keep them from good manufacturing jobs. The system stems from a time when war injuries often were less complex. Today's soldier faces mental illnesses unacknowledged two generations ago, as well as wounds that often were fatal in earlier wars. Beyond that are tough fiscal realities. While most payments can be linked directly to service, veterans also can qualify merely if they're diagnosed soon after their discharge.
In all, the VA pays nearly $1 billion a year for disabilities that the GAO says generally aren't directly linked to veterans' service in the military.
HELPERS' EXPERTISE VARIES
Applying for disability benefits requires veterans to navigate a labyrinth of bureaucratic rules and unforgiving deadlines. It can require the skill of an investigator and the knowledge of a physician. That's why national veterans groups have for decades provided free help. About 40 veterans service organizations, such as the American Legion and Disabled American Veterans, are authorized to handle VA claims, as are many state veterans agencies. But Knight Ridder found that the network of VA-accredited service officers is a patchwork of well-meaning helpers whose training and expertise vary widely. Contrary to its own regulations, the VA does little to ensure that veterans receive competent representation from veterans service organizations. Yet the agency prohibits vets from hiring their own attorneys until after their claims have been denied, in effect adding years to the appeals process. Two-thirds of veterans who submit claims are assisted by service officers. Picking the right one can determine whether they get the full payment they're due, a fraction of it or nothing. "The best advocates can be very good, and lousy ones can be awful," said Ron Abrams, the joint executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, which trains service officers. For example, the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs has tracked the outcome of every claim filed by veterans groups that receive state funding since July 2003. The groups' success rates range from 53 percent to 81 percent. Among the busiest individual service officers, those handling 30 or more decided claims, the success rates can range from 35 percent to 98 percent, the state's data show.
The VA, through its national accreditation program, is supposed to ensure that all service officers are responsible and qualified. In fact, the VA does little more than rubber-stamp names submitted by veterans groups. About 11,000 service officers are on the VA's roster — about 80 percent of whom are accredited through nonprofit groups. VA regulatory files reveal the agency has done little in decades to determine the adequacy of the training provided or check the quality of the claims. Only rarely does the VA suspend or revoke a service officer's accreditation. When it does happen, it's generally the result of criminal charges rather than incompetence. "What we do is take it on the word of the service organization that the individual has had sufficient training," said Martin Sendek of the VA's general counsel's office. That training, however, varies widely, according to a Knight Ridder survey of 13 of the largest veterans groups and all 50 state veterans departments.
At one end of the spectrum is Disabled American Veterans, which has full-time paid national service officers and a 16-month training and testing program that's so regimented it qualifies for 10 hours of college credit. Then there are groups such as American Ex-Prisoners of War and Catholic War Veterans that rely largely on part-time volunteers who aren't required to complete any courses or pass any tests. "We don't get paid, so we're not going to be that strict with these people," said Doris Jenks, the training director for American Ex-Prisoners of War. Nonprofits generally have less stringent requirements for service officers than those working for the 33 state veterans agencies that responded to the survey.
Just 62 percent of nonprofits and 73 percent of the state agencies require continuing education for all service officers, something experts consider crucial given the VA's constantly changing rules. Only 38 percent of nonprofits and 67 percent of states require a test before recommending that the VA accredit a representative. And once accredited, few service officers are ever tested to ensure their competence: While 27 percent of the states require later testing, only one nonprofit, Disabled American Veterans, had that requirement.
NO RECOURSE
VA officials bristled at suggestions that their oversight of accredited service officers is lax and said they are unaware of any systemic problems. Retired Vice Adm. Daniel Cooper, the VA's undersecretary for benefits, said the VA corrects any mistakes that service officers might make. If anything needs to be done to make an application complete, Cooper said, "we do it." General counsel Tim McClain noted that veterans have extensive appeal rights. "There are a lot of checks and balances in the system," he said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, however, repeatedly has ruled that veterans are out of luck when they've been steered wrong by VA-accredited service officers. Ask Gerry Corwin.
As the navigator aboard a B-24 bomber during World War II, Corwin survived more than 30 missions over Japanese-controlled waters. He came home to Minneapolis with two Air Medals — and disabling nightmares and flashbacks.
There were images of his buddies burning in planes and of a friend killed on a mission that Corwin persuaded him to take. By December 1984, those nightmares began to overtake the TV executive.
Corwin applied for disability benefits and was denied, in part because the VA couldn't find many of his military records, which had burned in a 1973 fire at a national archive in St. Louis.
So Corwin went to the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs and enlisted the help of Kirk Jones, a service officer who had become VA-accredited a year earlier through the state and the American Legion.
Jones submitted a three-sentence letter on Corwin's behalf and didn't take any steps to prove Corwin's claim. He didn't, for example, push for a psychiatric examination from the VA. He didn't round up statements from Corwin's crew to corroborate that they had been sent home in May 1945 for "combat fatigue." "I should have suggested a VA examination," Jones, who no longer is a service officer, said recently. He acknowledged that he had minimal training when he first handled Corwin's claim. That 1984 claim went nowhere. In 1995, Jones, who by then had gained extensive experience plus classroom training, restarted Corwin's claim. He did all the things he hadn't done a decade earlier and more. This time, Jones helped Corwin win compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder and a heart problem. Jones filed several appeals, and each time the VA granted more benefits, eventually declaring Corwin totally disabled in 1998. Even so, the veterans court ruled last summer that Corwin can't collect back pay from 1984 through 1995 because the proper documents weren't filed in 1986 to keep his original claim alive. Corwin's loss is tens of thousands of dollars, he and his lawyer estimate.
"It would mean a home. Let's start with that," said Corwin, 82, who with his wife, Katherine, has been living in a house her family owns in rural Mississippi.
"To have to come back and to fight 20 years to get what you're supposed to be given, and to fight your own government for it, is disappointing," he said.
ERRORS IN 13 PERCENT
Even when a service officer does a good job, veterans' claims often get bogged down in the VA's 57 regional offices, where veterans' claims are processed. Nationwide, errors are made in 13 percent of claims, more than three times the agency's hoped-for rate of 4 percent, according to a VA quality-control database that reviews a sample of the decisions. That translates to 103,000 errors a year; in many cases they can result in either an overpayment or an underpayment of benefits. "I don't think anybody is proud of the fact that we have" a 13 percent error rate, said Michael Walcoff, who oversees the agency's regional offices. Errors often trigger appeals, sending thousands of veterans into an ongoing cycle of mistakes, appeals and rehearings. The percentage of claims that are approved ranges from 89 percent in St. Paul to less than 70 percent in Jackson, Miss., and Cheyenne, Wyo., according to an annual VA survey of veterans. Perhaps not surprisingly, "satisfaction" among veterans is highest in St. Paul, at 73 percent, compared with 50 percent in Atlanta.
REGIONS VARY
Knight Ridder found that disability ratings, which determine the size of a veteran's monthly check, also vary widely. An analysis of 3.4 million veterans claims shows that major mental ailments, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia, are subject to bigger regional swings than major physical ailments such as bad backs and knees. For example, veterans with PTSD assigned to the Wilmington, Del., office are more likely to have the highest disability rating than their counterparts in Lincoln, Neb. In Delaware, 34 percent of those with PTSD have the highest rating; in Lincoln, it's 10 percent. Because major psychiatric disabilities on average pay more than the major physical ones, the wider swings have a dramatic impact on payments. The different ratings may help explain a puzzle noticed by veterans every time the VA releases its annual report: Average disability checks vary by state. The VA wouldn't comment on Knight Ridder's analysis but said in a statement that it is investigating regional differences, which it attributed to "extremely complex" factors. The GAO last year reported that the VA "cannot provide reasonable assurance that similarly situated veterans who submit claims for the same impairment to different regional offices receive reasonably consistent decisions."
APPEALS A MINEFIELD
The final minefield is the VA appeals system. It's a problem the VA recognizes. "It takes too long. We all agree on that,'' said Ron Garvin, acting chairman of the Board of Veterans' Appeals. With the average disability payment now $7,860 a year, back-benefit awards can be substantial. An award is calculated as though the VA made the right decision when the claim was first filed. Some veterans with severe disabilities win $100,000 or more. But if a veteran dies with his or her case under appeal, the case dies, too.
In the past decade, more than 13,700 veterans died while their cases were in some stage of the appeals process, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of a VA appeals records database. (While precise estimates aren't available, the VA said experience suggests a few thousand of them wouldn't have actively pursued their appeals.) Even if a veteran wins a case but dies before receiving payment, his family is often out of luck. Unless the veteran had an eligible spouse or dependent child, the money stays in the U.S. Treasury. In an October interview, then-Secretary Principi said he was "stung" when he learned a few years ago how common it is for veterans to die with their cases in limbo. While some deaths are inevitable, given the VA's elderly clientele, "it's not acceptable," he said.
He also suggested that a recently formed commission on benefits could reconsider the legal barriers that prevent heirs other than a wife or dependent child from receiving a deceased veteran's back benefits. The VA has admitted its processes are too slow and too prone to errors. But the agency has repeatedly ignored recommendations to eliminate redundant steps.
One exhaustive review in 1996 declared the entire claims-and-appeals process "cumbersome and outmoded" and in need of an overhaul. Since then, "
I wouldn't say that we have changed the system in any major way
," said the agency's Walcoff. In fact, VA data show that delays and the percentage of cases being sent back for rehearing are basically unchanged since the agency vowed to reduce them.
ONE CLAIM
In the mid-1990s, about the time it promised to speed things up, the VA also denied Berlie Bowman's claim. Bowman, an outgoing kid following in his father's military footsteps, had gone to Vietnam in 1967. "When he was drafted, he went without a fuss," said his sister Paulette. "He was a different person when he came back." He was skittish, quick to anger, uneasy in crowds. The family trod warily around him — "learned to wake him from a distance by touching his feet with something," his VA file said. Over three decades, he ran through 30 jobs; he lived in a small trailer on a curvy North Carolina road. His first disability claim, in 1971 for "nerves," was denied. His second try, in 1995, met a similar fate. That time, though, Bowman pushed back. Working with an attorney, he assembled evidence to show that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and to document that it had started in Vietnam. The case received six different rulings, until Bowman fell ill with pancreatic cancer. On June 16, 2004, the Board of Veterans' Appeals finally agreed with Bowman's claim. It declared that "credible supporting evidence" showed that Bowman suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his time in Vietnam, just as Bowman had contended for nine years. Bowman's attorney immediately pestered the VA for Bowman's back benefits, dating to 1995. By then, Bowman's cancer treatment had been stopped. On June 21, attorney Dan Krasnegor or his assistant talked with the VA every two hours. On June 22, they were told that the official disability rating was complete and that only final signatures were needed before Bowman's check for $53,784 could be cut.
Â
Â
Berlie Bowman died that night, and his claim died
with him
. No check was sent.
A Knight Ridder database that allows veterans to compare their payments and their disability determination is at
www.twincities.com
. To view additional photos and hear the voices of several of the veterans highlighted in this article, go to
www.twincities.com
.
The VA serves
25 million veterans
with a far-flung health care system and a separate disability and pension operation. The agency spends more than $60 billion a year, over $20 billion of it on disability compensation.
And this article, mostlytalks about the VA-Beaurocracy and the incompetance of many who claimto be helping Veterans and are a part of that bureaucratic nightmare. The real healthcare-questions aren't even dealt with.
What do you think, Rat?
Hmmmmmmmm, i'm on ignore for the last 2 years. Right mr. 5'-10" 220 lbs? Too funny!
Sorry, but that is 6', and 225. I could stand to lose 10lbs.  I suppose, but you could stand to lose that much, just off of your 1.8 in. shoulders.
And I amvery-sorry, but your "
Too Funny's
"
pale
in comparison too the ones you get in the background, dip-shit. I suppose you might have noticed how nobody ever responds to your absolute nonsense "retorts" to other people's posts, but then I would not be surprised if you thought
everyone's
posts were meant for you, either.
However, the most important thing to remember, is that you
might
and you might
NOT
be noticed by the smarter folk in here, everytime you post anything.Â
Cool, eh? But just think ...You're i
n a class all by yourself! (And I include my goofy-nutbuddy Jethro, also NOT in your class.) Not even he, is as fucked-up as you.
Buh-Bye now.
[Edited 2 times. Most recently by on May 7, 2005 at 07:26am.]
Glad it will finally be laid to rest. It only highlights the too many cases government comes in and steals land under emminent domain. Glad that the other side finally won one. Sadly it's the exception to the rule. Way to many people have been forced from their homes and business under the guise of e.d for the "public good".
goody
Oh yeah, hey Fat-Man...? It is ME, Bill. I am traveling, doing a JOB... (what's yours, you block head?)
By the way, I NEVER said that the current state of the VA Health Care System is GDubbya's fault alone... Only that he seems hell bent on making it even worse. K, stupid?
Until I get back to MN., this is the only moniker the cooler will allow me to use, right now,
Sadly.
I say that because it forces me to see your ignorant-posts again. But I won't bother you with details you don't understand, especially since I must be off to attend meetings in an hour, so I am now looging-off,
you simple-minded dope.
Buh Bye...
Oh and, complain to Floyd.
Col. Hackworth...Three times put in for the Medal of Honor. Received (2) Distinguished Service medals, the Army's second highest award for valor in combat. (8) Sliver Stars in combat. (10) Bronze Stars in combat. (8) Purple Hearts. That's right, 8!!!
Yes Fold, we would all listen to him. You and your "paper fell on me" disability, not so much.