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Veterans aren’t lying about PTSD
As the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and Veterans Benefit Administration (VBA) made significant steps last year in improving the ludicrous regulations for veterans obtaining disability benefits for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), it has become more clear that anti-veteran forces in the military, the American media, think-tanks and the DVA are still dedicated to preserving the culture of delay, deny and hope you die.
Agent Orange, PTSD, Gulf War Syndrome, Mesothelioma, Sexual assault, veterans gaming the system; the push-back has begun.
Nowhere is this anti-veteran culture more obvious than in the national Associated Press.
As the new House of Representatives takes aim at veterans benefits, we believe the 2010 column is even more relevant these next two years during the new legislative session. Now, the new anti-veteran message includes not just fraud, but debt, cost, efficiencies, personality disorder and privatization.
From the Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wisconsin)
The Wisconsin State Journal and many newspapers across the country ran an article by national Associated Press writer Allen Breed this month disparaging veterans’ disability benefits.
The benefits system is so veteran-friendly that Breed mocks it as “an open invitation to fraud.”
The AP article reads like a deliberate hit piece on America’s veterans and still provokes outrage.
Long overdue welcome-backs such as the LZ Lambeau event are great. But what our veterans really need is a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs system that truly cares for them, not forcing veterans negotiating everyday life to jump through hoops until they give up and go away.
Breed quotes Mark Rogers, a longtime claims specialist with the Veterans Benefits Administration, who says: “I could get 100 percent disability compensation for post traumatic stress disorder for any (honorably discharged) veteran who’s willing to lie.”
Debatable at best, but can Rogers guarantee that he can get disability compensation for veterans who speak the truth?
No chance, say veterans’ advocates who compare the process of getting disability compensation to fighting an enemy you can’t engage, the infamous Veterans Affairs fog of “delay, deny, and hope you die.”
Says one angry Vietnam Army combat veteran, Bob Walsh, an attorney who battles the VA every day on behalf of veterans, “What about the claims of all the honest veterans that languish in the system for decades until they die.
“They freeze to death on the streets or blow their brains out in the garage. The veterans’ benefits claims system is a national tragedy, and men like Mark Rogers are the problem, not the solution for our veterans and their families.
“What a great attitude for an employee who is paid to serve disabled veterans.”
The Veteran Administration’s own office of Inspector General semiannual 2008-2009 report cites fewer than 100 benefits fraud cases per year, and you had better believe that they look hard.
The organization Veterans for Common Sense notes, there “is no widespread fraud problem at VA. Out of more than one million claims per year, less than a score are ever investigated for fraud.”
But there have been think tank-inspired attempts to seek out veterans claiming they have PTSD and to discredit them.
A Wisconsin Navy veteran referenced in Breed’s article was unjustly caught up in this dragnet.
Keith Roberts was charged and convicted of mail fraud, sentenced to five years in federal prison for accepting disability benefits from the VA for his diagnosed PTSD.
The VA’s policy continues to be that veterans have to prove there was a precipitating incident that led to their PTSD – as if trauma is not the natural outcome of exposing anyone to the miseries of war.
Under pressure from veterans groups, the VA is expected to publish more reasonable regulations in the near future.
In February, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts questioned Assistant to the Solicitor General Anthony Yang in federal benefits-related case, Astrue v. Ratliff.
Marine in China Beach
Asked Justice Roberts, “In litigating with veterans, the government more often than not takes a position that is substantially unjustified?”
Yes, he was told.
Roberts found this “really startling.”
Mr. Chief Justice, you’re right.
What we do to our veterans is startling, and calling their benefits system an open invitation to fraud is outrageous.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=74849
Posted by Veterans Today on Jan 21 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under Benefits, Vet News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Great article (again) and post, Mike.
Thanks for all you do!
T.V.
I Try and understand how people like him can state that it is a easy open system for the taking,Just quick and easy money, Hell just come on down and load up you truck,It’s that easy.
Well the TRUTH is, I have been dealing with this disease for 40 years and when I was pretty much thrown out of the VA in 1972 I just walked away and spent the last 40 years much like a car idling just waiting to run out of gas,I have been pretty much home bound for 25 years, Shit we shoot dogs for humane reasons,why not just do this for us.maybe he would be happy than, except he would say cost to much for the bullet.
I decided 2 years ago to apply again for the benefits again and I can tell you they have put me through hell, and If I was to capture a Vietcong 40 years ago ,I would not treat him as bad as the VA treat me.
If I could give this jerk 10 percent of the pain I am in, He would blow his head off.
Stay with us Mike, the weasels on Capital Hill wouldn’t make a pimple on your butt…They are ungrateful and self-centered, only concern that they have is for themselves..but, YOU are not alone..We still have some Vietnam Veterans sucking air, and as long as we breath we have a SAY..we NEED to STICK TOGETHER and keep on pressing the issues with Capital Hill, Maybe some one on the Supreme Court will be man enouth to STOP ALL the abuse and make things right….Maybe some well Known Actor/Actress will realize this abuse and assist the Veterans by being a voice…..Mr. Bob Barker already DID..bless him, hopefully others will too…meantime stay the course..hold your ground…GET ALL VETS TO COME TOGETHER…stay strong..Mike
Tragic, well written entirely correct and factual article. A very competent County VA Officer told me: “… more than have, that is 50% of Veterans walk away from their benefits. It is that complicated and that hard to get them.
Many of the so called Business Talking Heads on Fox News refer to retireed Public Servants as: “… on the dole …” Men and women that spend decades in the fire and police service, emergency medical, public works, public health, guarded and opertated prisons are now considered “… on the dole …” Fox News regularly runs programs calling for states to declare bankruptcy so they do not have to honor retirement contracts. O.K. now for Vets. All of us made a contract with the United Staes of America. We agreed to give the United States years of our lives and – if needed our lives too. In return the United States agreed to take care of the sick, wounded, injured military and their families.
Look for the business talking heads on Fox News and many politicians to go after the Vet and their families. Soon men that are missing large portions of intestines and other body parts will be declared: “… on the dole … ”
Expect soon reviews of Vets that receive disability. I will be happily amazed if I am wrong. Lip service (and benefits)are paid to Vets but for how long? Local (i.e. township, city, county), state and federal pensions are under attack. Vets benefits will be next. Or should we “TRUST” the new guys and girls in Congress?
Well done, Mike.
Best personal regards
Dale R. Suiter
I can certainly relate to this article although I did have a participating event in
my life that led to PTSD. I was in charge of recovering and identifying twenty five
of my own shipmates bodies and still had a hard time proving PTSD. After two divorces and a life of pure misery the VA granted me one hundred percent for that plus a physical disorder. I think the VA does look into this very deeply and am appalled
at the statement made above that any honorably discharged veteran could receive one hundred percent disability for PTSD if he were willing to lie.
Correction that makes a big difference. Justice Roberts said, NOT substantially justified.
Woops, sorry, you got it right (“unjustified”). I was sitting in the courtroom when Justice Roberts expressed dismay about the level of unjustified denials, and it was gratifying. In the past I represented a lot of VN vets with PTSD, who were claiming SSD benefits. We’d use the SSD evidence to help get SC benefits. Back then, lawyers could not be paid more than $10 to represent a veteran, and couldn’t even get their expenses reimbursed without petitioning the Dept of Veterans Affairs. Sen. Tom Daschle did a great deal of work to get rid of the bar to vets getting attorneys. He tried to legislate a right of appeal to the federal courts. The compromise was the Court of Veterans Appeals.
I have been thinking all night about Allen Breed and I think he needs to do a little homework and try and encompass the realm of things as a whole,
Why not write about the military jags and commanders that just do or did what ever they wanted back to the start of Vietnam, how many times they just discharge sick or injured soldiers without due process.
Why not write about all the serviceman that came home and to relive the pain started drinking and using drugs and no one cared till it became media attention.,
Why not write about because of above the homes that the above caused to be a single parent of which were dealing with trauma from what the service member tried to cope
Why not write about during the 1960s. in the neighbor hood I grew up in,housing projects, how I seen more death by time I was 15 ,than most soldiers see during a war.during the riots.
Why not write about how every time I turn the news on, the honorable US government is fighting,our president is bad mouthing another president.our children’s mentors? I think not.
I mean lets face we are a polite nation of angry war loving, adulteress lying country ,that thinks we walk on water and that a Politian is so full of crap he could start a church.
I was reading a book on WW11 the end of Germany and I had no idea that we made the old people,woman and children stand in the death camps and see what there government did,and than made them bury all the holocaust victims as punishment,
Thanks, Good Day.