[Mb-civic] The Way Our Country Treats Returning Soldiers is a National Shame

[Michael Butler]

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State's Wounded Vets at Bottom for Benefits    €

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    The Way Our Country Treats Returning Soldiers is a National Shame
    By Tim Pluta 
    The Asheville Citizen-Times

     Friday 03 December 2004

     Supporters of our invasion of Iraq cheerlead from their armchairs for
the women and men of our military. Some folks send packages of goodies and
letters to soldiers and sailors. Veterans for Peace stand on a street corner
each week asking to bring our troops home. These are all examples of
different ways we express our support for U.S. soldiers.

     But what about support when they come back? While some historical
references reflect an effort to support our soldiers upon their return from
battle, our history of neglecting soldiers also flourishes and seems to be
getting worse.

     For example, in 1693 Plymouth Colony offered support with an order that
any disabled soldier injured while defending the colony would be maintained
by the colony for life. And in 1780, the Continental Congress offered half
pay for seven years to officers who served until the end of the war.

     However, the Continental Congress also promised some soldiers land in
exchange for their service. Looking at genealogy sites on the Internet, one
can find descendants of these soldiers still trying to collect on those
unfulfilled promises.

     In 1917, Congress authorized disability compensation, insurance and
vocational rehabilitation to help support the 200,000 wounded and 5 million
returning soldiers from World War I.

     On the other hand, in 1924, these same World War I veterans were
promised a bonus payment of $1,000. In July of 1932, during the Great
Depression, between 12,000 and 15,000 veterans and their families marched in
Washington, D.C., to demand immediate payment of their bonus. They camped in
shantytowns along the Anacostia River until their numbers grew to 25,000. At
one point, 20,000 veterans walked slowly up and down Pennsylvania Avenue for
three straight days protesting the government decision not to pay their
bonus. By late July, riots began after police shot two of the marchers. Gen.
Douglas MacArthur then led a machine-gun squadron, troops with fixed
bayonets and a number of tanks to destroy the shantytowns and disperse the
marchers with tear gas, injuring hundreds of veterans in the process.

     In 1944, the GI Bill of Rights was enacted. Veterans were supported by
providing money for education, low-interest mortgage loans and $20 a week
while looking for employment.

     While some of these benefits are still available today, nearly 300,000
current veterans can be found homeless each night, and more than 500,000
veterans will experience homelessness sometime during the year.

     Korean and Vietnam veterans received little of the support and
recognition that previous veterans received. Thirty years after being
exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, and suffering numerous medical problems,
a neighbor of mine finally began to receive compensation from our
government's admission that Agent Orange is toxic.

     Because of situations like this, nearly three times the number of
Vietnam veterans died after coming home than died during the war.

     Today, there are reports of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and
Afghanistan, being secretly transferred from Andrews Air Force base, under
the cover of darkness, to military transport planes and dispersed out to
military hospitals across the country. Why? So that we do not see them.

     Coffins of dead U.S. soldiers cannot be photographed returning home.
Why? So that we do not see them.

     Is this the kind of support we want to give to our soldiers? Hiding
them from the public eye? Relegating them to the streets to fend for
themselves? Are we trying to hide something?

     Is it easier to support the mythical, invisible image of a brave
soldier fighting for "glory" and "freedom" than it is to support the very
real limbless, psychologically damaged or lifeless person returning from
Iraq?

     Why are we increasing spending in Iraq to make more disabled veterans,
and then cutting spending to care for them when they come home by closing VA
hospitals and decreasing benefits?

     Come on. We can do better than that.

     If we really want to support our soldiers, let's demand proper medical
care and compensation when they come home. Let's make sure that every
soldier returning from duty in a war zone is evaluated for post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) so that we can detect and treat the estimated 1 in 3
Iraq veterans who will have it.

     Let's assure that all U.S. soldiers from the Gulf War, Afghanistan and
Iraq are tested for exposure to the wind - dispersed, depleted uranium (DU)
that is suspected to have caused numerous illnesses in more than 200,000
Gulf War veterans, and has caused and will continue to cause birth defects,
cancer and early deaths for decades to come. Support our troops? Yeah, bring
them home and help them heal.

     Tim Pluta is a veteran currently living in Mars Hill.

  

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    State's Wounded Vets at Bottom for Benefits
    BY Cheryl L. Reed
    The Chicago Sun Times

     Friday 03 December 2004

     Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew Derrig was fixing a dented .50-caliber
machine-gun round outside one of Saddam Hussein's palaces when the bullet
exploded. The blast cut through his hand, blew out an eye and scattered
shrapnel over the 18-year-old.

     Now, a year and a half later, the 2002 graduate of Luther North High
School in Jefferson Park has another concern: How much money will the
federal Veterans Affairs office in Chicago decide his injuries are worth?
Disability benefits can range from $109 to $6,576 a month for an unmarried
soldier.

     Derrig and other wounded soldiers returning from Iraq to Illinois have
good cause to worry. The VA office here is one of the stingiest when it
comes to deciding how much money a disabled vet's injuries are worth, a
Chicago Sun-Times examination of federal records shows.

     That finding comes even as the number of disabled vets is rising to
what's expected to be record levels, because of the war in Iraq and other
factors.

     Even though the VA's mission statement - "To care for him who shall
have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan" - comes from
Illinois' own Abraham Lincoln, disabled vets here face a tougher battle to
win benefits than those elsewhere.

     What¹s behind the rising tide of disabled soldiers? A key factor: The
military is keeping injured soldiers alive at an unprecedented rate. As
these survivors tap into the Veterans Affairs health-and-benefits system, it
could strain the VA.

   

 Wounded Warriors 
About The Series: The Chicago office of the federal Veterans Affairs agency
consistently awards less disability pay to disabled vets than do VA offices
elsewhere. With more wounded soldiers surviving today, the problem is likely
to get worse as more return from Iraq, reporters Cheryl L. Reed and Lori
Rackl found. 

Illinois¹ Wounded Vets Paid Less
Illinois vets each receive thousands of dollars a year less in disability
pay, on average, than vets from other states and U.S. territories. 

The top three:
1. Puerto Rico: $11,607
2. New Mexico: $10,851
3. Maine: $10,842

The bottom three:
50. Illinois: $6,802
51. Michigan: $6,733
52. Ohio: $6,710 
SOURCE: 2003 VA annual benefits report

Who decides what wounded vets get?
In Illinois, military veterans¹ disability claims are decided by 31 raters
in the Chicago regional office of the Department of Veterans Affairs, based
on medical, military and personnel records.


To appeal, vets can ask for a review by one of nine regional review officers
or by one of 300 attorneys and law judges on the Board of Veterans Appeals
in Washington - potentially a years long process.

Any further appeals go first to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans
Claims - which currently has six judges and then on to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit and, finally, the U.S. Supreme Court.

Photo Galleries
€ Stories of five Illinois veterans
€ John Gomez, paralyzed in Iraq
€ Lou Vargas, Vietnam veteran
€ How Illinois compares to other states
    Some disabled vets have waited years for a ruling on their benefits.
Some die waiting. Others press their appeals for decades.

     Federal authorities say the rules for deciding how much disability pay
a soldier will get are clear. But they acknowledge that staffers in Chicago
have consistently interpreted those rules more harshly than those elsewhere,
creating a situation soldiers and their advocates say unfairly punishes them
solely on the basis of where they live.

     "The folks who do the adjudication in Chicago are pretty tough," said
Ed Anderson, a senior analyst at VA headquarters in Washington. "Folks there
really look at everything with jaundiced eyes, and they are rather stringent
in their application."

     Six percent of Illinois' 922,000 veterans receive disability payments,
which are untaxed; the national average is 10 percent.

     The VA first began comparing disability awards given by each state's
regional VA office in 1998. Since then, Illinois has ranked at or near the
bottom nationwide. According to the VA's annual reports, Illinois ranked
dead last from 2000 to 2002 for payments to its wounded. Asked about this,
VA officials in Washington produced a new set of figures this week that put
Michigan last during those years and Illinois second to last.

     It isn't just chance, either, according to veterans advocates who note
that the VA staffers who make the decisions here follow the lessons of their
predecessors.

     "The Chicago raters were trained by guys who saw themselves as keepers
of the treasury, and they took that role seriously," said Randy Bunting,
assistant supervisor for Chicago's Disabled American Veterans organization.

     VA offices in Arkansas, Maine and New Mexico award the highest
disability benefits - $3,000 to $4,000 higher per veteran per year than
Illinois vets. Veterans in Wisconsin get nearly $1,000 more a year than
their Illinois counterparts. Soldiers from Puerto Rico see the biggest
awards - nearly $5,000 more a year than Illinois vets get.

     There shouldn't be such wide disparities, said U.S. Rep. Lane Evans,
(D-Rock Island), the ranking Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs
Committee. Responding to the Sun-Times' findings, Evans said he will seek a
congressional investigation when the new Congress convenes in January.

     "I don't like this," Evans said. "It's very serious for Illinois
veterans."

     Evans said he worries that claim delays will worsen as wounded U.S.
soldiers return from Iraq and flood VA hospitals and disability offices. A
higher rate of wounded soldiers is surviving injuries in this war than any
other prolonged conflict.

     No one in the Chicago VA regional office is intentionally trying to
slight vets here, said Michael Olson, director of the office, who said he
can't explain why Illinois has consistently ranked so low.

     "We are granting as much as we can," Olson said, quickly adding, "I'm
never happy that we are doing the best that we can."

     The average waiting time for a claim to be decided in Chicago is 137
days. Typically, that's only the first step in a long process with the VA.
Veterans can spend decades unemployed or working at low-paying jobs before
they get any substantial disability pay.

     Some Die Waiting for Benefits

    Even heroes can have trouble winning disability pay. Consider Jesus
Lugo, 45. The soldier from Des Plaines was burned over 40 percent of his
body when he pulled a fellow Marine from their burning barracks in Japan in
1979. The Marines honored him for his bravery. But Lugo didn't know he was
entitled, by federal law, to disability pay until after his discharge, when
a co-worker at McDonald's told him. In 1982, he was awarded a 10 percent
disability for his burns. He pressed his claim, and 16 years later the VA
increased his burn disability to 80 percent.

     "I hope the men and women coming back from Iraq now don't have to wait
as long as it took me to get disability," Lugo said.

     Korean War veteran James Gates' disability claims date to 1978. The VA
didn't decide the South Side man was entitled to any disability pay until
after he died in March of heart failure at age 69.

     "He never received a dime from the VA," said Bob Hodge, Gates' Chicago
attorney since 1989.

     Gates joined the Army at 17 in 1951 and fought in Korea. In 1953, he
was assigned to Camp Desert Rock in Nevada, where the government secretly
tested nuclear bombs. Blown out of a foxhole during a nuclear test, Gates
ultimately lost his teeth and developed a lung disease that doctors linked
to radiation exposure.

      The VA consistently rejected Gates' claims, ruling first that he
couldn't prove he had served in Korea and then in Nevada. After Hodge dug up
documents proving Gates' service record, the VA rejected Gates' doctors'
diagnosis.

     Like many other older veterans, Gates' fight with the VA was hampered
by the military's own poor record-keeping. Most of Gates' military records
were destroyed in a 1973 fire at a St. Louis VA records warehouse.

     Had Gates won his second appeal, the VA would have owed him hundreds of
thousands of dollars in retroactive disability payments, Hodge said. If a
vet can prove an error was made in a decision or continuously fights a
decision that ultimately is overturned, the VA has to provide retroactive
disability pay. But if a single appeal deadline is missed, a veteran must
start all over.

     "They should have made his case a priority," Hodge said. "But they
didn't. They never asked him to come in and give an account, and they never
tried to find witnesses. We'll never know what happened out there. Most of
the men are dead, and now so is Gates." 

     More Delays in Paying Disability

    Even when the VA does award benefits, it doesn't mean a veteran gets the
money. For instance, the VA is withholding $2,724 a month from Martin
Furlan, an 87-year-old World War II veteran from Antioch, until it decides
whether he can handle the money. In 1945, Furlan was deemed to have a 10
percent disability because of a gunshot wound in his foot. In 2000, the
Disabled American Veterans argued that Furlan should have received 20
percent. The VA agreed and had to pay Furlan the additional 10 percent
dating back 55 years, amounting to $14,738.

     But Furlan's niece, Sherry Faris, 45, of Burr Ridge, thought her uncle
should have received compensation for his other injuries, too. Furlan was
shot in the face, in the left eye, and his foot was mangled by
shell-fragment wounds. Since then, he has lived with severe eye pain and a
limp. Besides a Purple Heart, he was awarded the Silver Star and two Bronze
Stars.

     "I think a lot of veterans just give up," said Faris, who has spent the
past two years fighting the VA in Chicago for Furlan. "It's a flawed
system."

     Over the summer, Faris filed a new claim for her uncle. This time, the
VA awarded him 100 percent disability for post-traumatic stress disorder and
physical injuries. Even so, Furlan has to wait for a competency
investigation before receiving his new award. The VA still sends his old
award - $205 a month - without question.

     "This is no way to treat the men who defended our country," Faris said.
"They are the ones who almost died."

     Never Told about Benefits

    Furlan also has been fighting with the VA for her stepfather, Donald
Satkas, who was shot twice while serving in South Korea in 1951. He also
suffered frostbite on his nose, hands and feet, VA records show. Throughout
his life, Satkas had a host of medical problems, including a limp, skin
cancer, diabetes and colon cancer - conditions he believes were related to
his service. But Satkas didn't know he could get disability pay until he
noticed a poster detailing VA benefits at a VA hospital in 1990. By then, he
was 59.

     A veteran doesn't have to be injured in a war to get VA disability. Any
injuries or diseases suffered while enlisted or serving - including car
accidents - are covered.

     Injuries are judged on severity and rated from zero to 100 percent.
Loss of body parts, paralysis, deafness and blindness get higher payments.
The money is to offset unemployment or the inability to seek higher-paying
jobs. It's also meant to compensate for how injuries affect soldiers
socially.

     Satkas first filed a claim in 1990 and was awarded zero percent for the
bullet wound in his elbow. He appealed, and the VA gave him 10 percent -
about $76 a month. For 13 years, the low rating gnawed at Satkas. Then, in
September 2001, a stroke paralyzed him. During an MRI scan, the family
learned there was still a bullet lodged in Satkas' hip. In 2003, Satkas'
family filed a new claim. This fall, Satkas received his new rating: 80
percent, mostly for the effects of frostbite. The VA denied any benefit for
the bullet in his hip.

     "It shouldn't have taken this long," Faris said. "My father is 73 years
old. He should have been getting benefits the day he got discharged. Why
don't they tell them what they're entitled to? They just deny and deny and
hope you give up."

     Raters 'Tough' and 'Overwhelmed'

    The disabilities of World War II veterans are the most underrated, said
John Rodriguez, a Persian Gulf War veteran from the Disabled American
Veterans organization who helped Furlan and Satkas file their claims.

     "You can go to any VFW, and a whole bunch of veterans will tell you
that no one ever told them they could get benefits," Rodriguez said.

     At a picnic in 1999, Rodriguez met five veterans from various wars
who'd been awarded the Purple Heart for combat injuries. He asked about
their disability pay. None knew they were entitled to that. Rodriguez said
he filed claims for them, and all ended up with 100 percent disability pay.

     "The problem with the VA is that each regional office is so different,"
said Rodriguez, who also has worked in Montana, New York, Puerto Rico,
Georgia and Washington. "In Montana, I got claims done in one day. In
Chicago, it's a combination of [VA raters] being tough, ignorant,
compassionate and just so overwhelmed."

     Each month, the Chicago VA gets 1,400 to 1,500 disability claims. These
are decided by 31 raters, whose pay ranges from $52,195 to $81,323. The VA
expects the wait time to increase as more soldiers return from Iraq.

     In the past year, the Chicago office has decided 13,687 disability
claims - just under the national average. Veterans filed disagreements on 13
percent and formally appealed about 3 percent. The Board of Veterans Appeals
in Washington overturned Chicago raters 16 percent of the time last year.

     Michael Stephens, who oversees Chicago's disability raters, defends the
process, which is based on a review of medical and military records. "I
can't say there's a lot of wiggle room," Stephens said. "I can say that it's
a human process, and there is some room for individual variance."

     Psychological Wounds Tough to Prove

    Veterans representatives who file claims say there is a great deal of
subjectivity, especially involving post-traumatic stress disorder. About
three years after returning from Vietnam in 1968, Louis Vargas, of Crest
Hill, a town near Joliet, started having violent nightmares as he relived
being ambushed in the jungle, watching a soldier die and seeing the faces of
the dead he carried, he said. He began drinking heavily and picking fights.
Eventually, he couldn't stand to be in a crowd. He couldn't tolerate loud
noises. He became emotional while watching war footage. One night, he
recalls, his mother startled him in his sleep, and he pointed a gun at her.

     In 2000, Vargas had a breakdown. The chief doctor of the Post-traumatic
Clinical Team at the VA's Edward Hines Hospital near Maywood diagnosed
Vargas with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder and told him not
to return to his job as a mechanic at a nuclear power plant. Vargas never
returned. He spends his days attending veterans meetings and group therapy.

     But when Vargas applied for disability, using letters from a VA doctor
that say Vargas is unemployable because of post-traumatic stress disorder,
the Chicago raters told Vargas he couldn't prove he saw combat.

     "They think it's a joke to hold someone's life in their hands," said
Vargas, now 57. "At one point, they told me they would like me to prove that
I was in Vietnam."

     Much of Vargas' military record was destroyed in the St. Louis
warehouse fire. Vargas has spent the past four years accumulating documents
and pictures to support his account.

     "Lou has a strong claim," said Bunting, who wrote Vargas' appeal.

     Getting disability pay for Vargas' physical injuries has proved easier.
The VA awarded Vargas 20 percent disability for diabetes linked to Agent
Orange and 10 percent for a knee injury when a 208-pound ammunition round
fell on him. But the VA has repeatedly denied him anything for
post-traumatic stress disorder, even though Social Security awarded Vargas
full disability, about $1,800 a month, based on the VA doctor's diagnosis.

     Vargas' family says battling the VA has worsened his condition. His
wife, Bernice, recently quit her job. She's afraid to leave her husband
alone.

     "It's been four years of torment," Vargas said. "They get you so mad
and so angry, and they just expect you to say, 'The hell with it, and I'm
not going to do it any more.' "

     Vargas is still waiting for a decision from the Board of Veterans'
Appeals in Washington.

     Military Discharge Delays Pay

    Despite being paralyzed from the neck down in March after his tank
rolled into the Tigris River in Iraq, Joel Gomez, 24, of Wheaton, had been
waiting for the Army to decide that he was physically incapable of returning
to duty. The delay has cost Gomez more than $3,800 a month - the difference
between his military pay and his expected VA disability. VA pay doesn't kick
in until a soldier is discharged.

     "If I don't get discharged soon, I'm going to go Charles Manson on
somebody," Gomez said, exhibiting his dark humor as a ventilator noisily
pumped air into his lungs.

     Gomez, who is largely cared for by his parents, also hasn't received
his monthly military pay since April. Gomez received a $7,000 Army check
recently, but the military has to complete an audit to see how much it still
owes him, said Daniel Howell of the Paralyzed Veterans of America, who is
helping Gomez get VA benefits.

     "There's a big part of me that feels let down," Gomez said in a slow,
breathy voice that keeps tempo with his breathing machine. "It's like I've
been cast in the wind - that the military just forgot about me."

     A coughing spasm engulfed Gomez for several minutes as his father
looked on with concern. When Gomez regained composure, his father placed a
tube in his mouth, and Gomez sipped green tea.

     "It's like I'm 6 years old again," he said, looking around the tiny
room he first had as a child.

     Gomez said he doesn't regret joining the military at 17. "I'd do it
again," he said.

     On Nov. 10, Gomez finally got his discharge. The VA initially awarded
him $5,734 a month, which didn't cover the cost of in-home medical care. To
grant more, raters needed a doctor's letter saying Gomez was bedridden and
needed skilled medical care. After Howell got a VA doctor to do that, the VA
upgraded him on Nov. 23, to the highest rating - $6,576 a month.

     "It's a slap in the face when a soldier has to come back and wade
through all this bureaucratic red tape just to get benefits," Gomez said.
"It's sad that Illinois is so bad to its soldiers."

  

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