VNVets

VASVW set to start House of Reps Campaign

2012-01-24T14:03:00.001-05:00

The Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War [VASVW] is set to begin its member mailing campaign to members of Congress.

Each member gets a personalized letter to their specific Representative, on VASVW stationery to print, fax and then mail to his or her US Representative. The letter is asking the Representative to support HR 3612, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2011. Included in the email is contact information including mailing address, and DC fax number of that member's Representative. The member is then asked to fax the letter to his or her Representative, and then physically mail it.

Members are also urged to contact their Representative's local office to arrange a meeting with their Representative, and/or to have one of VASVW's Legislative Advocates meet with the Representative and staff at their DC office.

Upon completion of the campaign in the House of Representatives, we will begin another campaign in the Senate that works the same way.

There is strength in numbers. Why not join the 400 members of VASVW today, and add your voice to the member's messages to Congress?

Click here to register to join today.

Welcome home and Welcome Aboard!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2012: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Eighth Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

New AO Ship List out!

2012-01-19T14:33:00.000-05:00

A new list adding 47 new ships to the list is now posted on the DVA website at this site: Ship List

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2012: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

The Exception to the Rule

2012-01-15T23:52:00.002-05:00

We have provided information that according to a paper presented by Dr. Jeanne Stellman of Columbia University before The Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange Exposure in September of 2010 no US Navy commissioned ships carried Tactical Herbicides to or from Vietnam. We were in attendance at that presentation.

Very clearly, Dr. Stellman, who made an impressive and incredibly deep study of Operation Ranch Hand Missions, made the statement that no herbicides were carried on US Navy commissioned ships.

We have no reason to doubt Dr. Stellman’s report.

We have been presented with an exception. A Blue Water Navy Veteran provided us with a photograph of what is apparently many barrels of Agent White on the deck of the USS Ponchatoula AO 148, a US Navy Fleet Oiler, in either 1966 or 1967.

As promised, here is the best rendition of the photograph in our possession.

Here is an expanded view:

According to the Veteran who supplied these images, and two others that were close-ups of the same barrels, the herbicides were loaded in Pearl Harbor, and off loaded to a barge at sea, off the coast of Vietnam.

Here is our take on this photo, which we believe to be a valid photograph of Tactical Herbicides onboard a US Navy Commissioned Vessel during the Vietnam War:

We believe these barrels were not a part of the US Air Force’s Operation Ranch Hand, but instead were destined for use as part of the US Army’s on-the-ground spray program on base perimeters, or, depending on which part of the coast of Vietnam it was off-loaded, it could have been destined to some of the remote bases along the Thai-Vietnamese Border, or the Thai-Cambodian Border, or the Thai-Laotian Border. They also could have conceivably gone to Brown Water use along the waterways that our Naval Riverine forces frequented. We do not believe these barrels would have been a part of the Air Force Ranch Hand Operation. This was likely a small supply for use on an ad hoc basis, such as for preparation of a watercourse for Naval Riverine Ops, or small outpost preparation in Thailand.

Accordingly, we believe this photo is likely the exception that proves the rule. At this point, after 6 or 7 months of having asked for proof such as this, this is the only proof to come forward. Undoubtedly there is other proof out there, but not much.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2012: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

AO on Navy Ships? [Updated and reposted]

2012-01-05T11:25:00.001-05:00

Warning: The following will contain a lot of information that will upset many of you who read it. Be advised. We have researched this quite extensively.

We periodically get claims and queries from folks who served in the Blue Water Navy off Vietnam during the Vietnam War. They claim exposure to tactical herbicides in several ways, the most frequent of which are from leaking barrels stored on a hangar deck, or in some space the crew regularly accessed, and the other route was in cleaning aircraft returned from low level missions over South Vietnam.

These folks actually believe this, and in some cases that belief is driven by a desperation forced upon them by Congressional inaction and DVA anti-Veteran policies. We don’t believe that any one of the folks making these claims are knowingly lying, but instead believe them to be seriously mistaken.

Here are some facts. All herbicides were shipped to Vietnam and turned over to the government of the Republic of Vietnam. The barrels were black and have bands painted around them near their middle or top, that were color coded to match the various rainbow herbicides. They got their common names from those bands. Barrels that were all orange did NOT contain Agent Orange. Black barrels with an orange band painted around the barrel did. Black barrels with a white band painted around them contained Agent White, and so on.

The barrels were shipped on merchant ships under short term contract to the Department of Defense, or on board USNS [US Naval Ships], which are merchant type vessels, usually for one type of cargo or another, contracted long term to the US Navy and some of their crew were Navy personnel. [USNS ships provide a much closer supporting role today than they did during the Vietnam War. Back then all they basically did was haul stuff, usually for the Navy, but sometimes for the Department of Defense, or if it was a smaller vessel it was used for research or spying.] USNS Ships were NOT commissioned Naval Vessels, as the Fleet vessels were. Hence the difference between USS [commissioned] and USNS [not commissioned].

On arrival in Vietnam, the barrels were turned over to the government of the Republic of Vietnam [RVN].

Each spray mission required approval from the RVN government, and requests for such missions went up the military chain of command, across DC to the State Department, back to the US Embassy in Saigon, to the Government of RVN and then back the same path. Approvals sometimes took many months to get back to where they originated. When they did, a requisition had to be made to the RVN government storage facility to get the appropriate barrels of tactical herbicides.

Think about it this way: What would the end use for these barrels be on smaller US Navy vessels? What were the Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts, and Mine Sweepers going to do with barrels of herbicides?

Ask yourself this question: How did Navy ships with herbicides on board take part in the spray process? What was their role?

The answers should be apparent. There was no Navy role in this.

Were there exceptions? It is possible. Anything is possible. But to claim they were carried on Aircraft Carriers and Cruisers and Destroyers, etc. just defies logic. Were there leaking barrels on those ships? Certainly, in all likelihood there were. Were they leaking tactical herbicides? No. Most likely it was light machine oil, dry cleaning fluid, or a chemical like Silvex that was used to clean the intake ports for the water desalinization system, or any of a myriad of other chemicals used in the day-to-day maintenance of US Navy warships. [Silvex is a nasty agent, almost as dirty as the tactical herbicides. But that is a story for another day.] The odds of contamination from barrels on board US Navy ships were astronomically higher for almost anything shipped in a barrel than they were for it to be tactical herbicides.

Let’s talk aircraft contamination. Our brave pilots, and they were extremely brave, would often risk their aircraft and themselves in performing their missions as precisely as possible. Delivering a weapon to the ground from an aircraft flying four or five hundred miles an hour requires a high degree of skill. Sometimes, when flying missions over dense jungle canopy, the pilots would fly so low their planes would come back with green stains on their bellies. That is really close air support. We are sure the grunts on the ground appreciated their efforts.

We have had folks tell us their aircraft came back with orange stains, apparent proof that their aircraft was contaminated by Agent Orange.

The tactical herbicides were colorless for the most part, and were mixed with oil to help the chemicals stick to the vegetation. We don’t know what caused the orange stains on their aircraft, but it wasn’t a tactical herbicide.

First, missions did not go where spraying was being done. There was no desire to draw attention to the spray missions and therefore draw fire from the ground. Enough ground fire occurred that several of the C-123’s were lost to enemy fire. Certainly, if a plane came under fire they would call for help from any available air assets nearby, and unless otherwise engaged, those air assets would respond, and would show up long after the spray aircraft beat a hasty retreat.

If a maintenance crewmember of an aircraft wants to tell us his aircraft came back to the Carrier with green stains on it, we have no problem with that. Orange stains are a different story. Perhaps the plane went too low over an orange grove. Perhaps any number of things happened. But coming back contaminated by tactical herbicides was not one of them. It might have been coolant, or hydraulic fluid, or any number of things -- but not Agent Orange.

In the Brown Water Navy, sometimes the small river vessels would spray directly from a barrel of herbicide on the deck of the patrol boat. There are photos of such on the Internet. But we are talking about Blue Water Navy here, not Brown Water Navy. Army personnel sprayed from helicopters, and from armored personnel carriers, and from trucks and jeeps. So did Naval personnel at the Naval Bases on both sides of the South China Sea. But such spraying was not conducted by fleet elements.

People send us photos of stacks of barrels on board Navy ships. The barrels are not the right color to contain tactical herbicides, nor are they marked correctly for that. Nevertheless, they insist the barrels contained Agent Orange. And they are wrong. We are sorry that we must be the bearer of bad tidings, but in our estimation, presenting a claim based on any of the above scenarios to the DVA would be ludicrous.

If someone has photographs, good quality photographs of barrels of tactical herbicides on board US Navy commissioned Blue Water vessels, send them to us using the “email me” link found near the top of the left column. We will gladly publish them here, and print a correction.

The best plan of action is to keep alive a general claim based on drinking water contamination via runoff as the Australians proved to happen. And join us [VASVW] in advocating for S.1629, the Senate version of the Agent Orange Equity Act, and its House version HR 3612. It is the best chance to gain benefits for Blue Water Sailors that exists today. Those two bills are far superior to the bill in the house, HR 812, which is the same bloated bill Bob Filner ran out two years ago, got plenty of support for, and then refused to take it out of the subcommittee where it was buried.

With bipartisan sponsors, both S.1629 and HR 3612 have a very good chance of passing and are far less expensive than the current House bill HR 812.

S.1629 and HR 3612 call for presumptive eligibility to be applied to crews on ships that were within the 12 mile limit to Vietnamese Territorial Waters. We believe that 90% or more of the ships in the Combat Zone approached the shore close enough to qualify at some point or another on their deployments.

So, join us at the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War [VASVW] today and help us with our grassroots campaign to move the Senate Bill forward. Click the word “Join”.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

HR 3612 Introduced in House!

2011-12-09T13:27:00.000-05:00

We are pleased to announce that HR 3612, a companion to S.1629, the Agent Orange Equity Act of 2011, Introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, has been introduced in the US House of Representatives by Congressman Chris Gibson of New York. Like Senator Gillibrand's bill, HR 3612 was introduced with bipartisan cosponsors.

Folks, these two bills, along with the fact that the DVA has requested the National Archives and Records Administration to post on the internet the Deck Logs of US ships that were deployed to Vietnam during the war, lead us to the hope that the time has finally arrived for the restoration of presumptive exposure to the Blue Water Navy Veterans of the Vietnam War.

The bipartisan support for both bills is icing on the cake.

We have added a tracker for HR 3612 at the top right of the page.

We at VASVW have just concluded our grass roots campaign where every member got two personalized letters to each of their Senators, to sign and fax and then mail. We will be conducting our campaign in the House on behalf of HR 3612 in early January!

Join us at VASVW [ Register ]. Numbers do help. Congress knows us from last year and that helps.

Folks, this is the best shot yet at getting the benefits restored. Pray, cross your fingers and toes, and keep pushing your Congressional delegation to sign on, support and fund, and pass these bills!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2012: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

"Air Raid Pearl Harbor, This is no Drill!"

2011-12-05T17:38:00.002-05:00

"Air Raid Pearl Harbor, this is no drill!"

The radio message flashed out in the clear from Pearl Harbor.

Seventy years ago, Japanese aircraft slashed through the morning skies over Pearl Harbor Naval Station, Ford Island Naval Air Station, Hickam Field Army Air Corps Station, and Wheeler Field and the Schofield Barracks Army Station on the northwest side of Oahu.

Alerted by the thump of bombs falling from high above, and from the rattle of machine gun fire from low flying Japanese A6M-2 Zero-Sen Fighters on strafing runs, the ships of the United States Pacific Fleet were slow to react. Slowly, battle stations were manned, and ammunition broken out from magazines was finding its way to US Navy gunners. It was far too little and far too late. Japanese Val dive bombers and Kate torpedo planes began streaking in on their runs, delivering telling blows to the big ships.

In human lives, the attack on Pearl Harbor was horrific. 2,403 were dead, and 1,178 wounded.

188 planes were destroyed, the vast majority on the ground, as only a few Army Air Corps fighters managed to get airborne. A further 159 aircraft were significantly damaged, leaving only 43 planes operational at attack’s end.

It was the toll in ships that was staggering, however.

“Battleships
· Arizona blown up with a loss of 1,177 men.
· Oklahoma capsized with a small part of her hull above water.
· California “sank gradually for about three or four days: and came to rest rather solidly on a mud bottom, with her mainmasts and the upper parts of her main batteries above water. “The quarterdeck [was] under about twelve feet of water...”
· Nevada, which had got under way, beached in the narrow channel opposite Hospital Point in a wrecked condition.
· West Virginia sunk at her berth.
· Maryland moderately damaged but not needing to go into drydock.
· Tennessee, seriously damaged aft in the officers’ quarters from fire and otherwise moderately damaged.
· Pennsylvania, in drydock, with considerable damages, “but not of vital nature.”
· Utah, then used as a target ship, capsized, having been at the Saratoga’s regular berth.
Light Cruisers
· Raleigh, Helena, and Honolulu moderately damaged.
Destroyers
· Cassin and Downes, in Drydock No. 1, severely damaged.
· Shaw’s bow blown off while in floating drydock, severely damaged.
Others
· Vestal (repair ship) was along side the Arizona when the raid commenced and was beached at Aeia to prevent further sinkage.
· Curtiss (seaplane tender) was badly damaged by a crashing plane and one 500-lb. bomb.
· Oglala (minelayer) capsized.”*

For the Japanese, the cost was minimal.

“Twenty-nine planes did not return: fifteen dive bombers and high-level bombers, five torpedo planes, and nine fighter escorts. The midget submarines inflicted no damage, and none returned to their mother ships; four were sunk, and one was wrecked on a reef, its captain captured. One I-class submarine was also sunk.”*

[*Dull, Paul S., A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1945). United States Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1978.]

In spite of the overwhelming destruction inflicted on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were foiled by a number of things that did not go according to plan, or were missed by the planners. The attack called for strikes particularly on the US Aircraft Carriers, however, they were at sea at the time of the attack and were missed. Additionally, millions of barrels of oil were stored in large tank farms behind the US Submarine base at Pearl Harbor, and also between there and another tank farm near Hickam Field. The Japanese left them totally unscathed. They also failed to attack the submarine section of the sprawling naval base. With the exception of a number of Cruisers and Destroyers based elsewhere throughout the Pacific, the surface fighting arm of the Pacific Fleet was on the bottom at Pearl Harbor, but the Aircraft Carriers, their pilots and planes were intact, as were the submarines, and their facilities at Pearl Harbor. The remains of the Pacific Fleet would not suffer for the want of oil to patrol the waters of the Pacific either.

The Japanese sneak attack catapulted the isolationist American nation to a Declaration of War, made by Congress the following day, at the request of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his stirring “Day of Infamy” speech.

The rest of the story…Arizona was the ship that suffered the most damage. Devastated when a bomb ripped through the main deck and exploded in the forward magazine. Arizona has come to symbolize the events of December 7th at Pearl Harbor. Some of her dead lie still entombed within her, the rest buried in the cemetery at the “Punch Bowl”. The USS Arizona remains in commission as a U.S. Navy ship.

The former battleship Utah was converted to an auxiliary vessel in 1931 and used as a radio controlled target ship. Later, she was converted back to a gunnery training ship. Moored on the opposite side of Ford Island from Battleship Row on December 7th the Utah was in the spot where the aircraft carrier Saratoga usually was to be found. Utah received the attention of dozens of Japanese planes; struck repeatedly by bombs and torpedoes, she rolled over and sank. Later the hulk was raised and moved closer to Ford Island where she remains today.

Horribly mangled by bombs and torpedoes, the Nevada, the only battleship to get under way, was intentionally beached to prevent her sinking. Repaired and returned to service by 1943, she took part in a raid on the Aleutian Islands and eventually made her way to the Atlantic where she provided shore bombardment at Normandy on D-Day in 1944.

Capsized, the Oklahoma was eventually partially raised but never repaired. A frantic rescue effort went on for days after the attack trying desperately to free men trapped inside the overturned hull.

Flagship of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Pennsylvania was in drydock at the time of the attack, sharing the drydock with the destroyers Cassin and Downes. Pennsylvania’s damage was minimal, thanks in no small part to the sturdiness of the drydock caissons. Japanese aircraft tried repeatedly to torpedo the Pennsylvania, but the drydock walls absorbed the hits. Not so lucky were the two destroyers in with the Pennsylvania, USS Cassin DD 372 and USS Downes DD 375. The Downes and Cassin were both salvaged with much equipment taken off their ruined hulls and installed on new hulls in the U.S. Re-launched, these “new” vessels went on to fight in many of the western Pacific Campaigns from 1943 on. The Pennsylvania was quickly repaired and returned to service. In 1944 she participated in the bombardment of Guam prior to the invasion there, and later saw action at the Battle of Surigao Straits.

The Tennessee was moored inboard of the USS West Virginia, and was thus protected from torpedo attack. She was scorched by the flaming oil from the Arizona, and received two bomb hits on her main gun turrets. After a period of repair and modernization in California, the Tennessee resumed duty, participating in all the major offensives of the Western Pacific from early 1943 on. Tennessee took part in the Battle of Surigao Straits and later had a hand in the sinking of the IJN super battleship Yamato.

Severely damaged by torpedoes and bombs, and sunk at her berth, California was a major salvage undertaking and was not completed until January of 1944. She took part in the major Pacific campaigns of 1944 and 1945, and fought in the surface action against Japanese Battleships at the Battle of Surigao Straits.

Perhaps the least damaged of all the battleships at Pearl Harbor, Maryland turned out to be the unluckiest. After a brief overhaul stateside in 1942, Maryland returned to combat status. While supporting Marine amphibious operations at Saipan in 1944 she was torpedoed by a Japanese plane. After another repair period, Maryland returned to the firing line at the Palaus Islands, and operated with the fleet during the Leyte invasion in October 1944. A month later she was struck in Leyte Gulf by a Japanese Kamikaze aircraft, requiring still another overhaul. She returned to the line just in time for the end of the war in the Pacific.

Next to the Arizona, the West Virginia took the worst beating at Pearl Harbor. Several bomb hits and at least seven torpedo hits all on one side. Excellent damage control kept her from rolling over, and thus allowed many of her crew to escape. She was re-floated and repaired, and back in action by July of 1944, in time to participate in the closing months of the war in the Pacific.

USS Helena CL 50. Helena was a brand new light cruiser. At Pearl Harbor she was struck in an engine room by a single torpedo, and was repaired to fight in the southwest Pacific campaigns of 1942 by July of that year.

USS Raleigh CL 7. Unlike the Helena, Raleigh was a much older vessel, built in 1924. Like the Helena, she was lightly damaged at Pearl Harbor, receiving one torpedo hit and a near miss by a bomb. She was repaired and back in the fight by summer of 1942.

USS Honolulu CL 48. Another relatively new cruiser, the Honolulu received only moderate damage to its hull and by mid January was repaired and escorting a convoy to San Francisco.

USS Shaw DD 373. The destroyer Shaw was in a floating drydock and received serious damage from a bomb. Her bow section was completely blown off. Repaired and restored for duty, Shaw went back in action in the summer of 1942.

USS Helm DD 388. The Helm, a relatively new destroyer, was slightly damaged by two near-miss bombs. She remained in service.

USS Curtiss AV 4. The Curtiss was brand new seaplane tender. A bomb hit her and a Japanese plane crashed into her upper works. She was repaired on the west coast of the United States and back at Pearl Harbor by February, 1942.

USS Vestal AR 4. The Vestal, a repair ship, was moored alongside the USS Arizona on December 7th. Struck by two bombs and further damaged by the explosion in the forward magazine of the Arizona, Vestal was moved to another part of the harbor where she was grounded to avoid sinking. Vestal was repaired and by August of 1942 she was busy repairing ships involved in the Guadalcanal campaign.

USS Oglala CM 4. Oglala was the fleet minelayer for the Pacific Fleet. An old ship, she was damaged during the attack by nearby torpedo and bomb explosions. She rolled onto her side and sank. Raised and repaired, she was returned to action as a repair ship for internal combustion engines in 1944.

Amazingly, of the twenty ships mentioned above, which indeed are the ones that received any damage of a nature greater than superficial, only Arizona, Utah, and Oklahoma were not raised, repaired and returned to wartime service. And Utah was little more than a hulk to begin with. Ultimately, one of the real stories about Pearl Harbor is this superb salvage effort to get the ships repaired well enough for a voyage to a West Coast shipyard, where they were repaired and in many cases overhauled and modernized, often returning to service in much finer condition than prior to the attack. The men and women who performed these tasks at Pearl Harbor are as big a set of heroes as any crew who sailed their ships against the Japanese in the Pacific.

All the ships served with distinction later in the war, and it was a fitting event at the Battle of Surigao Strait when Admiral Jesse Oldendorf led six U.S. Battleships, among them Pearl Harbor veterans California, West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and Pennsylvania in a classic “Crossing the T” maneuver, just as Togo had done at Tsushima Strait in 1905, and sank most of Vice Admiral Nishimura’s striking force of battleships and cruisers.

The salvage work done at Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the December 7th attack was finely managed and heroically carried out. Icing to the cake was added barely six months after the Japanese attack when the Naval Shipyard located at Pearl completed what would normally have taken several months to repair: the battle damage to the USS Yorktown from the Battle of Coral Sea, in 48 hours, allowing her and her aircrews to participate in the first major naval victory against the Japanese at the Battle of Midway. Aircraft from the three US aircraft carriers, the Hornet, Enterprise, and Yorktown, the ones that were missed at Pearl, sank four of the Japanese aircraft carriers that participated in the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor, the Hiryu, Soryu, Kaga and Akagi.

Oldendorf’s victory at Surigao Strait is a testament to that magnificent salvage effort as well.

Remember Pearl Harbor…70 years ago December 7th.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Bush Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2012: VNVets Blog; All Rights Reserved.

FRA: URGENT! Take Action on Amendments on Senate Defense Bill

2011-11-26T10:22:00.001-05:00

John R. Davis of the Fleet Reserve Association sent out this alert:

Take Action on Amendments to Senate NDAA

Senate consideration of the Senate version of the FY 2012 Defense Authorization bill (S. 1867) has begun and consideration of floor amendments are scheduled to occur next week. Please use the Action Center to ask your Senators to oppose Senator John McCain’s (Ariz.) amendment that would eliminate the percentage cap on future TRICARE Prime increases to the percentage increase in a retiree’s annual COLA increase. The McCain amendment would allow future TRICARE Prime increases to be based on a DoD index that would measure health care inflation.

Also ask your Senators to support several key FRA-supported amendments that include:

Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid’s (NV) two amendments to expand concurrent receipt for disabled retirees;

Senator Bill Nelson’s (Fla.) amendment to stop the deduction of VA death benefits (DIC) from SBP survivor benefits;

Senator Frank Lautenberg’s (N.J.) amendment that codifies into law that military retirees have at least in-part earned their TRICARE coverage with twenty or more years of arduous military service;

Senator Mark Pryor’s (Ark.) amendment that would authorize “veteran’s status” for service members who served twenty or more years in the Reserve Component;

Senator Carl Levin’s (Mich.) amendment to allow early retirement to reduce inequities during the expected reduction in end strength; and

Barbara Boxer’s amendment that urges DoD to provide service members with flexible spending accounts to pay out-of-pocket health and dependent care expenses with pre-tax dollars.

Please use this Action Center to contact your Senators on these important amendments.

Many thanks to the ever vigilant and action oriented Fleet Reserve Association.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2012: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Alert: Benefits threatened after Supercommittee fails

2011-11-22T15:49:00.001-05:00

This is just in from the VFW:

M E M O R A N D U M

To: National Officers, National Council of Administration,
Department Commanders, Department Adjutants, Past Commander-in-Chiefs, National Legislative Committee, Action Corps, VFW Ladies Auxiliary and VFW Management Team

From: Bob Wallace, Executive Director VFW Washington Office

Date: November 22, 2011

Re: What does Super Committee’s Failure mean to VFW?

The congressional Super Committee has thrown in the towel and admitted they cannot reach a bipartisan agreement to cut a minimum of $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade. Under the law passed this summer, mandatory cuts will now take place across all federal departments and agencies beginning January 2013.

Where and how much, however, is still to be determined.

Each cabinet secretary will decide where the cuts will be made after the White House Office of Management and Budget identifies which, if any, programs are exempt. Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare have been mentioned as being exempt, as have veterans programs, but no one has yet identified which veterans programs.

The VFW believes that veterans’ healthcare programs and benefits will be exempt from any cuts. Questions remain, however, about increased co-payments for visits and prescriptions, as well as charging VA category 7 and 8 veterans an annual enrollment fee. We will continue to monitor and report any new developments as they occur.

Over at the Defense Department are recommendations to change the pay and benefits of those currently serving and military retirees. The threats include changing the military retirement system for future enlistees, limiting retiree healthcare program enrollment, and imposing or increasing healthcare fees on all TRICARE programs, regardless of age. These proposals are in addition to possible reductions in force and cuts to other quality of life programs. The budget crisis has also forced defense hawks to choose between supporting people programs and new weapon systems development. Sadly, some have forgotten that it still takes people to occupy territory and to operate their shiny new aircraft, ships and tanks.

Our nation hollowed out its force after Vietnam and again after the first Gulf War. If the past 10 years have proven anything, it is that the All Volunteer Force works, but it comes with a price and a promise to maintain the quality of life programs for those few who serve. Since 9/11, many of the less than 1 percent of the population who volunteered to serve their nation have been deployed into the fight numerous times. The service-connected disabilities thousands have already received will require a strong and viable military healthcare system to return them to duty, and a strong and viable VA healthcare system to meet their lifetime care needs.

Traumatic Brain Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress, amputations, and the risk of suicide are predominate issues of a military force at war. The preservation of military and veteran benefits, improved quality and accessible healthcare, and continued medical research into alternative treatments is how our nation can properly repay those who go into harm's way.

Over the next year, many in Congress as well as thousands of registered lobbyists will be working hard to protect their special interests and programs. We must all work hard to protect the Department of Veterans Affairs health, benefits and cemetery administrations, as well as all military quality of life programs for the troops, their families and military retirees.

I ask each of you to contact your respective members of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to demand that these programs be protected. State Commanders and members of the National Legislative Committee must arrange individual face-to-face meetings with every member of their Congressional Delegation to alert them to our concerns. These meetings should be in addition to your visits to your Congressional delegations during the March 2012 Legislative Conference. I also ask that you report the responses you receive back to the VFW Action Corps at vfwac@vfw.org.

These meetings will be in addition to a massive outreach campaign to the entire U.S. Congress that I ask National Legislative Committee members to spearhead in each state and department. We need Congress to be flooded with letters and phone calls to protect veterans' programs and military quality of life programs from any cuts. This is an obligation of every member of the VFW and their families to keep the faith with our comrades who need us to be their collective voice in Washington. Please refer to the VFW website for constant updates and the "10 for 10" issues we have raised, along with sample letters for your use.

The VFW needs you to make your voice heard now, because the most powerful message Congress can receive is from the folks who employ them — their voting constituents.

Thank you for your continued support of America’s heroes.

ROBERT E. WALLACE
Executive Director
VFW Washington Office

Contact your Senators and your Representative immediately and get on them to prevent Veterans and Social Security Benefits from being cut.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2012: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Thanksgiving: Sarah Hale and Abraham Lincoln

2011-11-20T11:53:00.005-05:00

In 1621 the settlers of the Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts, gathered to celebrate a harvest of food they had no cause to even dream of when they landed. Thanks to the local Native Americans, the Wampanoag Tribe, who taught the colonists how to fish and gave them seeds to plant, the 102 colonists not only had sufficient food for the winter, they had enough to have a celebration of their bounty. [Claims for the first Thanksgiving rest in two other places, one a half-century earlier in 1565 at the Spanish Colony of St. Augustine, Florida, and the other in Virginia at the Jamestown Colony in 1607. The 1619 charter that founded the Charles City County village of Berkley Hundred included in its code an annual day of Thanksgiving.] Nevertheless, it remains Plymouth that we celebrate, in large part because of the symbolic rescue from death by starvation carried out by the generosity of the Wampanoag people.

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale spent 91 years on this earth, from 1788 to 1879. And during those 91 years she produced an incredible record into the history of this nation. And she goes pretty much unrecognized today. Sarah Buell was born, raised and married in Newport, New Hampshire. She married David Hale, a local attorney in 1813 and bore him five children. Sarah became a widow in 1822 and remained in mourning the rest of her life. Nothing out of the ordinary at this point for those times. But Sarah was different. Very intelligent -- much of her education was self attained -- and she wrote poetry. She published a collection of her poetry in 1823, followed soon after by a novel, Northwood: Life North and South. Northwood carried a message that slavery was not only bad for the slave it was bad for the masters, too, dehumanizing both.

In 1828 Sarah accepted a position in Boston as ‘editress’ of Reverend John Blake’s Ladies’ Magazine. In 1830 she published her second collection of poetry, Poems for Children, which included the now famous Mary’s Lamb, which we know as ”Mary Had A Little Lamb”. In 1837 she began editing the widely popular Godey’s Ladies Book, after Philadelphian Louis Godey bought the Ladies Magazine. There Sarah remained working for the next forty years.

Sarah was a thinker, and a powerful one. She went beyond many of the social thinkers of the day and did so with a quiet logic. In her capacity as editress of Godey’s, she was a major influence on women authors of the nineteenth century and on some men as well: Hawthorne, Holmes, Irving to name a few.

The year she retired, Thomas Edison spoke the first words to be recorded, on a device he invented. Those words were the first lines of Mary’s Lamb.]

Sarah is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. For a span of forty years during her life, she wrote to Congress asking for a national Thanksgiving Holiday. Her prayers were answered, but not by Congress.

Abraham Lincoln is well known for many of his speeches and historic documents: his two Inaugural Addresses, his Cooper Union Speech, his Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, among others. Here is one he seldom gets much credit for making.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

And so, Sarah Hale’s forty year effort to have Thanksgiving made into a national Holiday came to an end in 1863 at the hands of President Abraham Lincoln.

Times have been rough of late. The twenty-first century has offered little to further the cause of mankind. There is more conflict throughout the world than the world has seen for seventy years. Yet, every day, the sun rises and sets, crops grow and are harvested. We think too much and too often of what we do not have, and we forget what we do have. Thanksgiving is a reminder that we should do this, for “…They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.

Happy Thanksgiving!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2012: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Veterans Day

2011-11-11T11:38:00.002-05:00

In 1918, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour, a pre-arranged cease fire ended the hostilities between the Allies [The United Kingdom, France, The Russian Empire, the Japanese Empire, Italy, Belgium, Montenegro, Greece, Serbia, and the United States] and the Central Powers [the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria]. Thus ended "The Great War"..."The War to end all wars".

A year later, President Woodrow Wilson declared that date to be a holiday set aside for the solemn remembrance of the many dead from World War I. It was to be known as Armistice Day, to note the date that Germany signed the Armistice that ended the war.

Thanks to a small grass-roots movement centered in Emporia, Kansas in 1953, Congress passed a law establishing the date with a new name, Veterans Day, to honor all of America's Veterans from all eras. President Eisenhower signed it into law and it became law on June 1, 1954. With the exception of a few years in the 1970s, Veterans Day has been and always will be observed on November 11th, every year.

This year, as in so many other years, we are saddened by still another war ongoing, keeping our brave warriors far from their homes and hearths, in constant danger so that we may live in Freedom, Liberty, and Peace at home.

We ask that you pray for them, and for all Veterans, living and dead, who did their duty.

One of the more familiar pieces about Veterans was written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian physician serving in France during the War, after witnessing the death of his friend, 22 year old Lieutenant Alexis Helmer. Written in 1915, and published four years later as a small collection of his poems, In Flanders Fields is one of the most poignant remembrances of the price of war, and is applicable to all wars.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Remember our Veterans today, Veterans Day 2011. If you see some, thank them for their service.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Veterans Compensation COLA Signed!

2011-11-10T15:10:00.002-05:00

Senator Patty Murray’s Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2011 [S.894] was signed into law yesterday by President Obama. Veterans receiving Compensation or Pension from the DVA will receive a 3.6% increase starting in January [benefits paid on December 30 for January 2012].

This is in line with the COLA passed earlier for Social Security Retirement and Social Security Disability Insurance.

Many thanks to one of the best friends the American Veteran has in Congress, Senator Patty Murray from Washington State.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Congress passes Veterans COLA

2011-11-02T15:31:00.000-04:00

Congress passed the COLA for Veterans Compensation and Pension today, sending the bill to the White House where the President is expected to sign it.

The Veterans COLA for 2012 is the same as that for Social Security Benefits, 3.6%, and is the first increase in three years.

That said, Veterans and Social Security recipients should be aware that the Congressional Debt Reduction Committee is considering reductions in Veterans COLAs in the future by using a different method to compute them. This would mean lower increases if the economy indicates an increase is due.

There are members of Congress who are gearing up for a fight to protect some entitlement programs.

God forbid that Congress would start cutting by doing so to itself!

The committee must come up with a plan by November 23rd, and then Congress must approve it. Should any plan they come up with not be approved by Congress by December 23rd of this year, then $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts will go into effect, including Veterans Benefits and Social Security benefits.

We strongly urge you to contact your Congressman and BOTH your Senators and put them on notice that benefits to Veterans and Social Security Benefits must not be cut…must be protected.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Wherefore art thou VVA?

2011-10-22T19:45:00.001-04:00

So, where is the Vietnam Veterans of America [VVA] on these issues we’ve been dealing with over the past few weeks? We have done some digging and find that the VVA, on their website, under Legislative issues, lists and provides information for HR 812, and HR 2634, but S.1629, a bill exclusively for a large segment of their constituency, is missing. Bills introduced in the Senate later than Senator Gillibrand and Graham’s Bill are listed, but not their Agent Orange Act of 2011. Instead they list the bill that would provide money via the State Department to care for affected children in Vietnam, and in the US [children of Vietnamese origin and children of Vietnam Veterans], and Bob Filner’s financially bloated repeat of last year’s no-movement bill.

It’s kind of hard to go through the VVA’s capwiz support system to send messages to your representative and your Senators about S.1629 when it is not listed on the bill list. In contrast, The Fleet Reserve Association [FRA] keeps one open on their Action page.

The American Legion has been exceptionally supportive by publishing several informative articles in their magazine.

To be fair, the VVA presented testimony on its legislative agenda back in March of this year including two paragraphs about Blue Water Navy’s need for justice.

But we need to ask, what is the VVA doing to help the Blue Water Navy Veterans on a daily basis?

Restoration of benefits to the Blue Water Navy sailors from the Vietnam War is as simple as a short bill directing Congress to accept the Vietnam Service Medal, or the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for Service in Vietnam [the two are interchangeable…indeed, the AFEM, granted before the creation of the VSM, is exchangeable for the VSM], as the requisite criteria to establish presumptive eligibility for benefits under the Agent Orange Act of 1991.

It really is that simple. And we would remind folks that the Department of Veterans Affairs acted outside the law each time they changed their policy to exclude certain Veterans from presumptive eligibility, starting in 1991 with the Veterans of Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia [TLC], then in 1993 with USAF Veterans of Vietnam, and finally in 2002 with the exclusion of the Blue Water Navy from eligibility. Each time they failed to put their changes out for public comment, as is required by the Administrative Procedures Act. Indeed, legally, all three groups are still eligible. By making the medal the qualifying criteria, it clears the DVA of continued illegality and restores the rightful benefits to their proper Veterans.

We have made several attempts to reach out to the legislative folks at VVA, and unlike other Veterans Service Organizations, the door has been repeatedly slammed in our face. No explanation, no reason, simply no response whatsoever. How could a Veterans Organization refuse to work with groups of their very own constituency?

We suspect it is because of our stance on the Blue Water Navy bill in the Senate, and our stance on Filner’s bill last year and this year. We also suspect it is the “Old Boys Network.” Indeed, the folks we’ve been writing about lately constitute an “Old Boys Network”, and operate in support of each other. Yesterday’s Ed Mattson article was forwarded by none other than self-styled Chief Bozo himself, Paul Sutton. We have crossed electrons with Mr. Sutton on occasion, as one of the prime perpetrators of those who fill Veterans email boxes with a lot of really good information, but also with far too much that is irrelevant to the American Veteran.

He is another one, like Ed Mattson, who demands the whole apple at once…one bill to cover everyone everywhere who was ever exposed to dioxin containing herbicides. His particular niche is Guam. Doesn’t matter, he will try to latch on and get expanded any bill that deals with “Agent Orange”.

We’ve seen no evidence, no record whatsoever that either Mr. Mattson or Mr. Sutton has ever brought a bill of their own before the public, or Congress, dealing with compensation and medical coverage for anyone exposed to “Agent Orange”. They are content to keep their little hamster wheel running at full tilt leaving everyone behind by hijacking the bills of others.

And that is exactly what their approach to all of this is doing: leaving everyone behind!

Their first mistake is in lumping the Blue Water Navy in with everyone else. BWN once was eligible. Now BWN is seeking restoration of those benefits. There is a strong possibility that the appropriation for BWN is still in place.

They fail to see the strategy that if a small subset is successful, it makes the next subset more attractive to a Congress trying to cut benefits because:

1. Subsequent groups will be smaller by the numbers of the successful previous groups. Therefore, subsequent bills will be less expensive than a catch-all bill.

2. Once successful, there is an awareness in Congress to the issue as a whole and it will require less “education" of Representatives and Senators and their staffs.

As for the VVA’s legislative efforts on behalf of the missing pieces from the original Agent Orange Bill, the recent sum total of their efforts [and those of others] has yielded two consecutive bills introduced by Bob Filner that includes Johnston Island, and adds the Vietnam Campaign Medal as a qualifier. The inclusion of Johnston Island invites other locations where Vietnam Era Veterans served and were exposed, like Guam, Okinawa, Korea, and the Philippine, for starters, and anyone who received the Vietnam Campaign Medal [that is the green and white ribbon], to jump on board. This makes the bill prohibitively expensive, especially in the current fiscal atmosphere in Congress.

It makes those efforts irresponsible, doomed to failure from the start. Filner had 267 co-sponsors last session, more than enough to pass the bill, especially in a House controlled by his own party. He never lifted a finger to move it from the Sub-Committee where it was buried, and sat, gathering dust until it died 19 months after he introduced it.

By their own statement after a 2009 joint VA Committee hearing, VVA was trying at that time to craft a bill to cover Blue Water Navy AND the folks on Guam, Johnston Island, etc.

Yes indeed, their constituents served in those locations. And yes indeed their constituents served in the waters off Vietnam.

Sadly, these facts collectively forced Blue Water Sailors of the War in Vietnam to form small subgroups unaffiliated with any of the larger Veterans Service Organizations. We were not getting enough advocacy from the VVA, among others.

And so, we were “…left to fend…” for ourselves.

The Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War is publicly pledged to fight for Agent Orange benefits for all who have been contaminated, and if we get our group restored, we will not go away. We remain a viable grassroots movement with strength. Our advocacy strategies and tactics are somewhat unique, but effective. We have always advocated for the common sense approach to getting legislation enacted, meaning small bites of the apple. In the long run, it will be faster, more effective, and more complete than the opposite approach.

We certainly expect nothing from the Bozos that would indicate a sudden acceptance of our strategy. We would be shocked if it came. But we want our readers, and our members to know who is doing what, who isn’t, and why our bills aren’t getting passed.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

In Response to one of The Bozos

2011-10-21T21:38:00.001-04:00

As anticipated, the Bozos have responded. Indeed one, named Ed Mattson, started off by using an unattributed quotation that was inferred to have come from this blog.

He wrote an accusation of our writing the following quote:

“go get your own bill and fend for yourselves”.

Well, I defy anyone to find those words here on this blog. He further denigrates the Blue Water Navy [BWN] community by saying 10% of them do all the work. That’s how little he knows. Between the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association [BWNVVA] and the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War [VASVW] last year’s bill was given 267 Co-Sponsors almost exclusively the grassroots work of the members of those organizations.

Then he writes:

”… S-1629 may address issues of the Blue Water Navy… but it certainly isn’t a bill exclusively for Navy and Marine Corps veterans…”

Well, Mr. Mattson doesn’t know what he is talking about. Here is the ENTIRE text of S.1629:

112th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1629
To amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify presumptions relating to the exposure of certain veterans who served in the vicinity of the Republic of Vietnam, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 23, 2011
Mrs. GILLIBRAND (for herself and Mr. GRAHAM) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
________________________________________
A BILL
To amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify presumptions relating to the exposure of certain veterans who served in the vicinity of the Republic of Vietnam, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Agent Orange Equity Act of 2011'.
SEC. 2. CLARIFICATION OF PRESUMPTIONS OF EXPOSURE FOR VETERANS WHO SERVED IN VICINITY OF REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.
(a) Compensation- Subsections (a)(1) and (f) of section 1116 of title 38, United States Code, are amended by inserting `(including the territorial seas of such Republic)' after `served in the Republic of Vietnam' each place it appears.
(b) Health Care- Section 1710(e)(4) of such title is amended by inserting `(including the territorial seas of such Republic)' after `served on active duty in the Republic of Vietnam'.
(c) Effective Date- The amendments made by subsections (a) and (b) shall take effect as of September 25, 1985.

Does anyone see anyone else in here besides Blue Water Navy and Fleet Marines, and some Coast Guard Veterans? That is the sum total of the meaning of the words, “…inserting `(including the territorial seas of such Republic)' after `served in the Republic of Vietnam' each place it appears.”

Mr. Mattson then goes on to muddy the waters by launching into a rather disjointed and long winded explanation of how politics work…or his view of politics. He states:

”The strategy includes:
“* breaking up power alliances into smaller chunks that are easier to subdue/manage
“* preventing small power groups from linking up and becoming more powerful

“Hey, if I am wrong here, somebody please tell me. You can’t just make this up.”

Well, yes, you are wrong Mr. Mattson, and yes, to a large extent you are making things up here. Here is another example:

”So I beg to differ with the email I received telling me that Senate Bill S-1629 is just a bill for the Blue Water Navy, and for everyone else to go away. Yes…pursuing this line of thought by letting the government keep us separated on the issue of Agent Orange, on the issue of class warfare; and on the political highway the current administration is driving us down, I am afraid we are all destined to “go away”…our way of life, our freedom, our sense of what is right and wrong, with only a memory of what America once was.”

That’s an awful lot of hooey you have attributed to us, Mr. Mattson. And it is so far off base to be laughable. We have NEVER, EVER, indicated that we prefer “everyone else to go away.” We defy you to show where we asserted that wish. Had we done that, we would never, ever have written a bill and offered it to the Veterans who did not serve in Vietnam, yet were exposed to dioxin containing herbicides. We have repeatedly, on this blog, made that offer, and have the bill posted for anyone to read, download and try to get introduced in Congress, including three days ago:

“Not satisfied with the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act, the advocates want to pile onto S.1629 as well, and once again make the bill so expensive it will fail.

“In other words, in their attempts to leave no Veteran behind they are, for the third time, leaving everyone behind.

“We have repeatedly offered these groups and individuals a bill of their own. We have done so with the offer that we want no credit for the bill, they may claim it for themselves, modify it, and/or do whatever they want with it. We have emailed it to Veterans who were stationed on Guam and Okinawa, and are sick with dioxin related diseases, and we went to great lengths to advise them on how to organize and effectively campaign for their benefits. We are convinced that this is their best shot. And we understand that it will, if it happens, not do so until a year or more from now.”

Mr. Mattson, then said:

”The whole issue is not that the government can’t afford to rectify the Agent Orange problem. It’s that it cannot rectify the situation in its current fiscal state.”

Hmmm, where have I heard that before? Two days ago we wrote:

”You obviously do not have the ability to understand there is nowhere near the money to pay for everyone who has been exposed at one time.

“We’ll repeat that for you, and type it slower this time so you can keep up:

“You obviously do not have the ability to understand there is nowhere near the money to pay for everyone who has been exposed at one time.”

So, our assessment of the Bozos is that they do not know how to read, try to smear anyone who crosses their way of thinking by innuendo and outright distortions, and still just do not get it. The “it” they do not get is the fact that they are clamoring for something unattainable in one lump. If they had any cojones they’d climb aboard HR 2634, the Agent Orange Relief Act.

Oh, and as expected, Mr. Mattson threw in the obligatory “pity me” picture of disfigured Vietnamese children. Well, we do pity them, and apparently so does the US Government, hence, HR 2634, which you can read by clicking a link in the box for that bill at the top right of the page. It is for the most part, a bill for the State Department to provide aid for just such children, and the children of US Veterans who also are disfigured or stricken with hereditary diseases as a result of one or both parents being exposed to dioxin containing herbicides.

Feel free to read Mr. Mattson’s error-riddled diatribe at:

http://www.examiner.com/military-affairs-in-national/so-what-s-the-problem

Be sure to take in the “pity me” photograph at the left top of the page. It’s reminiscent of those starving African and abused animal commercials on cable channels that are designed to play on your guilt for having so much while what you are seeing is going on.

Mr. Mattson is described in his bio as a “medical researcher”. We would highly recommend that Mr. Mattson invest some time in researching what he is attacking rather than making things up out of thin air.

Certainly we disagree with Mr. Mattson’s approach to the Agent Orange issue. His is a global approach, while ours is a more focused approach. He is advocating something new, while we advocate for the restoration of benefits that were illegally removed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. He is advocating a one-shot cures all approach, which we believe defies all reason and reality. Unable to accept smaller bites, he and his fellow Bozos will continue to throw their weight around killing Veterans in the process. Apparently, Mr. Mattson feels it is better for US Veterans to die without benefits than for the deformed Vietnamese children to go untreated.

That, shipmates, is the crux of the issue. Unfortunately, he is only one of the Bozos. There are many more out there, writing articles in the Salem News, and the Examiner, and filling your inbox with stuff that is irrelevant to a Blue Water Sailor dying of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Be Careful of the Company You Keep

2011-10-20T17:10:00.001-04:00

A little history lesson is appropriate here. Back in the day…around the early 1970s, a couple of civilians, one of whom is a prominent economist today, and the other of whom is still leading dissent against wars, got together with a couple of disgruntled Vietnam Veterans who had formed a group called Citizens Commission of Inquiry [into alleged war crimes committed by the US troops during the Vietnam War] and formed a plan called The Winter Soldier Investigation [WSI], sponsored by that sterling group, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War [VVAW—not to be confused with the VVA or the VFW]. WSI was funded in part by the efforts of, among others, that person we all know so well as Hanoi Jane Fonda. Don’t act surprised.

Essentially, The Winter Soldier Investigation was a massive 3-day press conference held in Detroit [close to Canada, of course], at which press coverage was almost non-existent. However, a video was made and released in 1972. Testifying at this ‘press conference’ were many Vietnam Veterans, all of whom talked of atrocities and war crimes.

Subsequent to this, one of the most vocal and visible members of VVAW, Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade John Kerry [yes, THE John Kerry who is now a US Senator and ran unsuccessfully for President in 2004], wearing green fatigues, and his medals, testified before Congress and in the process made assertions based on testimony he heard at the Winter Soldier Investigation, that atrocities and war crimes were committed as a matter of course every day during the war…yes, that’s correct, atrocities were every day occurrences. He blamed the entire corps of officers ranked above himself as knowing about the crimes and atrocities and turning a blind eye toward it, leading him to the further assertion that such crimes and atrocities were US policy! Later, he even pointed the finger at himself for atrocities like…free fire zones, and using .50 caliber machine guns…really? The next day Kerry, when he was certain there was plenty of press around, joined a group of Veterans who threw their medals over a fence at the Capitol. [We quite frankly wonder where this stroke of conscience was while he was serving in Vietnam?]

And many of you wonder why you were shunned, and spit on, and called "baby killer" when you returned from the war, and why sometimes you had to sneak through an airport in civvies to make it home without being confronted by some bozos who bought into all this.

Well, a good many of those Bozos we have been writing about in the last two entries here are still at it. Some are running legal services for deserters and other troops who are accused of crimes, and celebrating victories like when the Army recently dropped plans to jail a trooper for a year for being AWOL. There’s a victory to be proud of!

Far too many of these folks likely found their way into the Department of Veterans Affairs [DVA], which could explain why the DVA has fought against Agent Orange benefits since the war was still going on.

Still far too many others are now very visible and vocal members of the Internet Veterans world, cranking out email after email filled with the most minute details of AO stories, and studies and research and investigative reports, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam. They aren’t just about what happened to the US Veterans who were exposed, these are the folks that are beating the drums to give benefits to EVERYONE who was EVER exposed to dioxin-containing herbicides. They are quite happy to revolt you with pictures of the grossly disfigured Vietnamese children. And as we made quite clear yesterday, there is no money to pay for such coverage for everybody.

So, why are they doing it? Well, they have to know Uncle Sam’s pockets have been picked clean by Congress after Congress, corporate greed, a bloated housing market, and a world wide recession. There is no money to be had for such a grandiose scheme.

But God help you if you have worked hard, and belong to a subset of exposed persons who successfully banded together and pressed for legislation of a far lower cost to cover just your group. You will be hard pressed to keep those other groups away from your bill, and every group that gets added to the bill pulls tens of thousands of dollars, or more, out of the US Treasury per person added. Billions per group: That’s Guam = $billions! That’s Okinawa = $billions more! There’s the Philippines = still $billions more! There’s Johnston Island = many $billions more!

Get the picture?

Many of these folks will not own up to having been members of VVAW. Some, however, still proudly put their membership in VVAW right underneath their USMC rank on the articles they send out.

VVAW was the group of Veterans who, while most of us were off fighting the war, fulfilling our duty, were back home joining demonstrations against the war, taking advantage of the "free love" generation, and undermining what we were doing over there.

Were they right? Well, is there any substantial difference between what we did in Iraq, and Kuwait and Vietnam? Our collective Uncle Sugar, who is currently about as broke as the guy who lost his mortgage on the last race at Churchill Downs, has this habit of stepping in to help the little guy. A dozen or so years after the truce was signed at Panmunjom ending the Korean War, or at least temporarily stopping it, we stepped in to help the South Vietnamese, because of the very real presence of a communist backed insurgency there. How is that different in principle from rescuing Kuwait from a Saddam Hussein takeover, or Afghanistan from the Taliban?

Well, perhaps it was different…maybe we were all over there indiscriminately shooting the place up, dumping 20 million gallons of what the government knew was highly toxic poison all over the country, burning out villages, executing and torturing civilians and the like. And we were, of course, the only ones doing any of that atrocity stuff. Weren’t we?

Not a justification, but quite frankly, I think the whole Winter Soldier thing and John Kerry's 'testimony' was 95% bulls**t.

Doesn’t matter, for our VVAW and other ‘peacenik’ friends are still making us pay for doing our duty.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

The Bozos have erupted!

2011-10-19T21:33:00.001-04:00

As expected, the accusations are flying in. As has been displayed in the past, the Bozos simply do not have the ability to read. But worse than that, is their attempt to smear with lies about what is posted here.

The difference is they do it in email. What we post here stays here for the entire world to see.

So here’s the message loud and clear:

Instead of fighting between groups over the internet, GET THE BALLS to introduce your own legislation. We don’t care whose deaths you invoke, as we can invoke plenty of our Blue Water Navy shipmates who have died waiting for benefits because the Bozos keep sinking the Blue Water Navy Bills.

You obviously do not have the ability to understand there is nowhere near the money to pay for everyone who has been exposed at one time.

We’ll repeat that for you, and type it slower this time so you can keep up:

You obviously do not have the ability to understand there is nowhere near the money to pay for everyone who has been exposed at one time.

So, what does this mean? Well, pay attention here…

It means that the cost of providing compensation and medical treatment for everyone exposed to dioxin containing herbicides will be so high as to never receive serious consideration by Congress.

It means there is not enough money available to cover the cost.

It means the United States is essentially broke right now, and Congress is considering CUTTING VETERANS AND MILITARY BENEFITS!

So, for the Bozos out there, and mostly you know who you are, we ask:

What is it about the government not having enough money to pay everyone that you fail to comprehend?

So, now we return to our offer…you know…the offer the Bozos refuse to take.

Bozos, wipe the spittle off your screens and follow the reasoning:

If there is not enough money to cover everybody, what is the next best option? Take smaller bites of the apple! See, that was easy, so easy even a Bozo can grasp it.

Small bites mean separate bills. Blue Water Navy has its bill and that bill is S.1629 at the moment.

There is no excuse in the world for other Vets not to have their own bill. We have offered one for several years, or they could have, should have drafted their own. As we mentioned the proposed Agent Orange Supplemental Act is free to any who wants to use it, change it claim it for their own. We don’t care. No strings attached.

There is no apparent leadership among the Bozos. Oh, there are plenty who are good at inciting their mobs to inundate with nasty accusatory emails filed with distortions, but there are no leaders. There is no one to unite them and focus them into one single group so that Congress can consider THEIR bite of the apple. It would be new to Congress. They would need time to study it, get the numbers right, find out who gets compensation and who does not, and then, if there is money by then, figure out the appropriations.

[But we have said all this before. We have been saying it repeatedly for years. And a few Bozo inciters have tried to make a mockery of the common sense truth. Some have even lied to Congress in an effort to discredit us.]

There simply is not enough money to pay everyone right now. So stop ruining what those who have organized and gone for the small bite can get! Organize yourselves, find a leader.

We will tell you that Congress will be a tough adversary as will the DVA. The DVA will lie and distort numbers. We witnessed them do it in open Federal Court in the Haas case. We witnessed them do it before the Institute of Medicine. And they’ve been doing it for half a century to avoid US government responsibility for dioxin poisoning, what amounts to a crime against humanity. It isn’t just the DVA, it is the Department of Defense, the State Department, and all the administrations since the war – that’s from Johnson to Obama and all who went in between.

Why? The enormous cost, of course. It’s all about the money and the liability that goes along with admitting to the crime. Why do you think they have fought so hard to avoid paying the Blue Water Navy? It isn’t because we weren’t exposed, it’s because they want to contain liability to the physical land limits of what was South Vietnam. They’ll pay reparations rather than pay us Veterans.

How sick is that? Oh, we do not suggest in any way at all that those reparations should not be paid, and they will in the form of massive foreign aid grants to Vietnam, ostensibly for cleanup, and the establishment of some medical assessment of contaminated areas and the children of Vietnamese who were exposed. But our own Veterans have been without as have their children.

US Veterans MUST come first.

So, we warn the Bozos that are fueling all of this, including Carlo, and some very popularly read ex-Marines named Paul to climb off. If you cannot be part of the solution, then stop being part of the problem and GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!

Let some real leaders step up and organize Vietnam Era Veterans and point them in the right direction.

This is really not that difficult. It is simply common sense.

Take the proposed bill. Use it. Get someone in Congress to introduce it. What a shame the so called ‘leaders’ of the Vietnam Era Vets [most of whom either have their benefits already or weren’t even Veterans to begin with!] have wasted so much time spinning their wheels jockeying for positions of influence with the online Veteran community. What enormous disrespect for America’s Veterans! We are in awe of the hubris and bombast these so called “web leaders” have displayed toward the Vietnam Veterans of this country. As a result of their campaigns, years have been wasted, Veterans have died, widows have gone without. They are worse than Congress as Congress at least allows some progress now and then. These Bozos have created a hamster wheel much more frustrating that that of the DVA.

Shame on them all for they have misled the very people they purport to help. Shame on them. Shame!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Silent No More

2011-10-18T22:43:00.004-04:00

There seems to be a conspiracy among certain groups of Veterans that is exceptionally damaging to any and all efforts to get compensation and treatment for exposure to Agent Orange – all people who were exposed to Agent Orange. We are not just talking about US Veterans, we are talking about Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, and Laotian nationals who were exposed, and the subsequent damage to many of their children.

Essentially, many of these who advocate for this in the US Veterans community are Marine and Army Veterans, most of whom are already receiving benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs [DVA]. Some of them are members of the liberal group that called themselves Vietnam Veterans Against the War [VVAW]. Others are highly placed in various major Veterans Service Organizations, and some others are simply members of small focused Veterans groups like the dog handlers who walked the perimeter of those US bases in Thailand, and another Blue Water Navy group.

They all write letters to the editors, and sometimes manage to get a small ‘op-ed’ type piece into a small newspaper.

And they all are clamoring to expand or combine three bills currently in Congress:

1. HR 812, a repeat of the Agent Orange Equity Act, introduced by Bob Filner [D-CA] during the previous two Congresses, and both loaded down by groups who wanted added to the bill, making it simply too expensive to pass. This version is identical to the one last session that was so expensive that Filner let it die in Sub-Committee, even though it had over 160 co-sponsors…more than sufficient to pass the bill.

2. HR 2634, The Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act, also introduced by Bob Filner. This bill aims: “To direct the Secretary of State to provide assistance for certain individuals affected by exposure to Agent Orange and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to enhance the availability of medical care for descendants of veterans of the Vietnam era, and for other purposes.” This would provide money to the government of Vietnam to do cleanups of dioxin hotspots, and do medical treatments of the disfigured children of those Vietnamese exposed to dioxin. This is an enormously expensive bill.

3. S.1629, The Agent Orange Equity Act, co-introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY] and Senator Lindsey Graham [R-SC]. This bill, as currently written, would restore benefits to the Blue Water Navy Veterans who served off the shore of Vietnam, but restricted to those who’s vessels sailed inside the territorial waters of the then-Republic of Vietnam.

We have posted trackers for all three of these bills at the top of the right hand column. You can read the latest version of the legislation by clicking on the top link in each block.

Not satisfied with the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act, the advocates want to pile onto S.1629 as well, and once again make the bill so expensive it will fail.

In other words, in their attempts to leave no Veteran behind they are, for the third time, leaving everyone behind.

We have repeatedly offered these groups and individuals a bill of their own. We have done so with the offer that we want no credit for the bill, they may claim it for themselves, modify it, and/or do whatever they want with it. We have emailed it to Veterans who were stationed on Guam and Okinawa, and are sick with dioxin related diseases, and we went to great lengths to advise them on how to organize and effectively campaign for their benefits. We are convinced that this is their best shot. And we understand that it will, if it happens, not do so until a year or more from now.

We call S.1629 a ‘restoration’ bill because from 1991 until 2002 any member of the Blue Water Navy who received the Vietnam Service Medal was entitled to presumtive exposure to herbicides benefits, but in 2002. the DVA illegally removed the Blue Water Navy from presumptive eligibility. Our preference for S.1629, which seeks to restore those benefits, is to expand the physical limits of the waters to include the entire 'Combat Zone', and to add those Veterans who served in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Most of those who served in Laos and Cambodia, and many of those who served in Thailand are already eligible for presumptive eligibility since they also served in Vietnam itself. In other words we want to see the Vietnam Service Medal restored as the qualifying criteria for presumptive exposure to dioxin-containing herbicides.

What these bozos, and they ARE bozos cannot grasp is that there is not enough money to pay for it all- for everyone in the world who was exposed during the Vietnam War. One span of 5 minutes near the top of any network news broadcast should be enough to convince even a bozo that the nation's economy is headed down hill and has been for several years. So, we ask the bozos here, publicly, where is the money to come from for benefits and medical care for all these Vietnam Era Veterans, and the foreign nationals who were exposed?

We have, from the start in 2008, when legislation was first introduced, advocated small bites of the apple. S.1629 is NOT an expensive bill at less than $2 billion total, but when you add ALL the Vietnam Era Veterans who served on Guam, Okinawa, at Subic Bay, in Korea, Panama, Hawaii, Johnston Island, and elsewhere, you are likely talking about up to $2 trillion. Adding the foreign nationals who were exposed will drive the cost up perhaps as high as $10 trillion!!!!

Where is Congress going to get that money when they are trying to reduce the deficit, and reduce the nation's debt?

Part of the mission of the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War [Join VASVW now] is, after the Blue Water Navy bill is passed, to continue advocating for benefits for Vietnam Era Veterans.

All those Veterans deserve benefits and medical coverage. The only valid question is how can they be paid for.

It is painfully obvious that the bozos simply plunge blindly onward trying to latch onto any and all bills that even mention Agent Orange. They give no thought to getting their own bill introduced.

In their effort to see that no Veteran is left behind, they repeatedly leave everyone behind. Its a vicious circle and they continue to insert themselves into it rather than using common sense.

In the right hand column is a section titled Proposed Agent Orange Legislation Links. In that section are two links. We hereby issue this challenge to these bozos: to take a copy of the Supplemental Act and get it introduced in Congress. We doubt they will do it, so after a reasonable time has passed and they have not backed off their efforts to load their groups onto S.1629, we will publish a list of the bozos' names and organizations. Folks will be surprised at some of the names on that list. Very high ups in the Veterans Service Organizations.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

The Wives

2011-10-12T21:12:00.000-04:00

[Note: This is a reposted and updated entry that needs to be put up over and over to remind folks of the role played by the wives in all of this struggle.]

They write. They call. They fax. They file form after form. They drive wherever they need to go in order to document, present, appeal, or argue their case. And they are frequently shut out.

No sailor wants to make that last voyage without providing for his widow, and/or his family. One of the ways to do so is to file a claim with the Department of Veterans Affairs under the Agent Orange Act of 1991. Unfortunately, and apparently illegally, the DVA stopped approving claims in 2002 for Navy Veterans who served in the “off shore waters of Vietnam”.

…John was hospitalized three nights ago with what has been diagnosed as pneumonia resulting from multiple myeloma. The doctors aren’t holding out much hope. What can I do? We’re out of money. John’s claim was denied because he did not set foot on the ground…

In many cases, those sailors with pending claims died before their claims were decided. Their claims died with them. Their widows got…absolutely nothing.

In 2002, the DVA modified their procedural manual to stipulate that a veteran filing for Agent Orange Presumptive benefits must provide proof that he actually set foot on the ground in the Republic of Vietnam. The DVA made this change after issuing a “precedential opinion” in 1997 from their own office of General Council. They did all of this on their own, without any instigation from Congress, or the various Veterans Service Organizations. But they also made the manual change without offering it up for public comment first.

…My husband served three tours on Destroyers off the coast of Vietnam between 1965 and 1971. He never set foot on the ground there. In 1998 Bob was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, and a year later with cancer of the prostate. They operated, and he tested clear of the cancer for a while, but in 2005 his PSA suddenly skyrocketed. He went in for tests and they found the cancer was back and it had spread throughout his body. They removed one of his lungs late last year, but by summer the other was full of cancer. He was hospitalized repeatedly. None of the treatments really worked. They sent him home last week, in time for his 60th birthday, with days to live. His claim with the VA died with Bob this morning at 5:17 AM. I have no idea what I will do now…

I receive four to seven of these a week. Every week. Fifty two weeks a year. I read them through my tears, and theirs. God! How could so many sailors have been so blessed with such strong wives!?

How could an agency of the United States Government act in such a crass and inhumane manner? Not only was their action illegally done, it was unjustified and unjustifiable, and we felt confident the court would say that in its decision in the Haas case. It was a cruel and heartless action, done coldly. My first claim was rejected in 2003 with the words, “You did not serve in Vietnam.” I have the medals, and the cruise book, and the envelopes and letters sent home free from the combat zone to prove it.

To be perfectly honest, I pray that people like Anthony Principi, Jim Nicholson, and the author of the precedent that was used to change the manual, Mary Lou Keener, rot in the lowest level of Hell for all eternity. So grievous were their actions that even that fate may be too good for them.

…he had been treated for heart disease and other problems for about five years, all after being diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. Yesterday after lunch he went in to take a short nap. When I went to wake him for our afternoon walk, he was gone. He should have gotten VA benefits, but he was denied and never appealed it. The Lord knows we could use the money for his funeral, and to pay off the mortgage on the house. I don’t want to lose this place. It has too many memories of us in it…

They come in emails, and in their words, through our tears, I see theirs. And in their words I see behind their tears an aura of nobility, grace and strength. These are not women to be trifled with, to be shunted aside with barely a glance, or ignored completely.

These women fulfilled a compact with their sailors, and because their sailors fulfilled a compact with their government, and died as a result of that compact, their wives must be compensated, even though their husbands were not.

We strongly urge the citizens of this nation to take up this cause and make it one of their goals, to see that justice is done for these good and strong women – the wives, widows, and daughters of our Blue Water Naval Veterans of the Vietnam War.

What the DVA did in 2002 was not only illegal, but because it was illegal, it was stupid. Because they did not follow due process of the law, they made a clear and unmistakable error in changing their policy without asking for public comment first, as required by law. Any of their actions subsequent to that policy change are therefore illegal if the DVA personnel followed that policy in the changed manual section.

The Courts, or better yet, Congress, which could save the Veterans and their Wive's a lot of unnecessary legal action, should issue a law connecting prior claims denied under these illegal changes. Because the DVA erred, anything that was ruled subsequent to that error based on that error, must be reviewed and overturned and benefits issued retroactive to the date of the claim. That includes any claims that died when the claimant died, any claims that were rejected based on the erroneous policy change, and appeals that were denied based on that change. Everything in those categories should be reconnected and reprocessed back to the date of the original claim, non-severed by any failure to appeal as well. It was the DVA that erred, not the claimants.

The court or Congress, should also rule that all these claims should be processed to the issuance of benefits within 6 months, including retroactive benefits.

…God gave me thirty wonderful years with my sailor, and I treasure every second of those years. Even the cross words that were sometimes exchanged will be sorely missed. When he took that final voyage last spring, the VA had not completed his claim. Now they won’t even answer my letters and calls. I had to put the house up for sale last summer, and am now living in a small apartment downtown so I can get around. But it is a dangerous neighborhood. I’ve been mugged twice, but all they got was a few dollars. They could have asked me for it and I would have given them the money. Ralphie would have given them each a bloody nose for their trouble. Sometimes, when I am trying to make a decision, I think, “what would he have done?” I was a housewife, I get no retirement from Social Security. I have a little bit left from Ralph’s IRA, and from the sale of the house, but that will be gone in a few years. I don’t know what I’ll do then…

We owe these courageous women a debt that goes far beyond mere gratitude. In many cases, we owe them our lives. Not many of us are financially secure. The presence of VA Benefits will go along way toward building that financial security for us to leave behind. Our wives, and children deserve it because we earned it, and they did, too. They care for us in our pain and illness, they comfort us, they haul us around to doctors, clinics, labs, and offices, and in between all that other stuff they write, phone, fax, and email on our behalf.

Gentlemen, Attention on Deck! To the indomitable and courageous wives, widows, sweethearts, and daughters of the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans, hand salute!

Two!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Bush Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011 VNVets Blog -- Now in our Sixth Year of Service toVeterans; All Rights Reserved.

DVA Delivers Slap in the Face to Veterans

2011-10-09T13:10:00.000-04:00

Back on September 1st we received a press release from the DVA. After reading it, we were incensed at the misguided, misdirected efforts and spending by the DVA. We were so angry we decided to wait and calm down before writing about it here.

The DVA conducted a study of its own doctors to measure job satisfaction.

Well, la-di-da! We are so overjoyed that their doctors are happiest doing research on us Veterans, rather than simply treating us, that we almost wet ourselves.

Here is one of the statements from the press release:

VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Robert A. Petzel added, "With physician job satisfaction vital to both workforce retention and better patient outcomes, the study holds important implications for maintaining a high performance health system."

Petzel, along with VA Chief Academic Affiliations Officer Dr. Malcolm Cox, VA Chief Research and Development Officer Dr. Joel Kupersmith, and VA Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health Dr. Robert L. Jesse, co-authored a related commentary to the study, "Building Human Capital: Discovery, Learning and Professional Satisfaction," also published in the August issue of Academic Medicine.

And this, although it was the lead paragraph, details the conclusions drawn from the study:

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) physicians who spend at least 20 percent of their time in research activities are more likely to have greater job satisfaction and report more favorable job characteristics, according to an article published July 27 in the August issue of Academic Medicine. The study, "Job Characteristics and Job Satisfaction among Physicians Involved with Research in the Veterans Health Administration," also shows higher job satisfaction among physicians conducting research in VA facilities located on the same campus or within walking distance of an affiliated medical school.

We are not upset that the doctors are performing research, indeed, the DVA medical staff has made very important discoveries in treatment of many different injuries, wounds and diseases. It is a record that should instill pride in anyone attached to that staff.

No, what lights our fire is that the DVA had to spend money to conduct a useless study. Common sense could have told any rational person the outcome of the study, that doctors doing what doctors do, especially research, leads to a contented employee. And to have staff wasting their time and the taxpayers money to not only conduct this study, but to also write a journal article about it is hideously ludicrous! The waste of time, and money here is inexcusable. Not that the DVA is known for not wasting money.

And the raters in the regional offices get bonuses for denying claims and thereby saving the taxpayer money! And that money goes to projects like these to be squandered?

We have advocated here on more than one occasion that the DVA conduct a comprehensive study of Vietnam Veterans, determining by where they served during the Vietnam War, compared to their rates and types of diseases, what the relationship to their health is to the use of tactical herbicides in Vietnam. We offer a model for such a study. Click to view a copy of our proposed study: Morbidity and Mortality among Vietnam Veterans and Vietnam Era Veterans.

The DVA will never agree to commission such a study, however, as it’s outcome will show the Department-wide conspiracy to deny benefits to Vietnam Veterans that goes back over 40 years.

Such a bias is driven by two divergent political philosophies: a liberal philosophy that wants nothing to do with “that dirty Vietnam War!”, and a conservative philosophy that is in place to protect the chemical companies – each a giant corporation [think: Dow, Monsanto, Hercules, Diamond Shamrock, DuPont], that, were the truth told, would cripple the chemical industry, affect the agri-business industry, and have a very adverse effect on the economy. Both political sides also fear the repercussions of the ultimate culpability and liability falling on the United States government for what has become a crime against humanity.

As you can probably tell by now, we are even more incensed than we were initially at the gross negligence, no…make that gross criminal negligence by a Cabinet Department that has the mission to care for the Veterans of this nation, and another Cabinet Department that ill uses those men and women while they become Veterans. Do not believe for one moment that the Department of Veterans Affairs is alone in this, for the Department of Defense has been complicit all along, to cover up their criminal acts when contracting for the manufacture, packaging, delivery and use of tactical herbicides.

It’s time to pay the piper.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Records Research Options

2011-10-07T21:27:00.003-04:00

Veterans have any number of options open to them to locate and obtain copies of their military records, including their personnel file, medical records, and ships’ deck logs.

Our recent posts call for Veterans to do most of their own legwork. Granted, that is indeed the best idea. However, it may not be the most practical method of gaining those documents that would support a claim.

Some of these documents will fall directly to the Veterans to take the steps necessary to obtain. We will start with these.

Your Military Personnel File:

Start here: http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/

The National Archives and Records Administration [NARA] in St. Louis is now the repository of the military records of millions of Veterans. At the site linked above, you can request your records online. There is a form that you MUST download, sign, and fax back to them, and instructions for doing so are provided. It should not take as long as it used to when the Navy held the records [also in St. Louis…the place had a catastrophic fire a few decades ago which is now the source of excuses for missing records, and has been for thirty years]. You should get your military medical records at the same time.

Your Ship’s Deck Logs:

http://www.strangearchives.com/Site/About_Strange_Archives.html

email Susan Strange

email Cliff Callahan

First, note that Cliff Callahan is a separate researcher from Susan Strange. Cliff does not have a website.

The first thing you must do is narrow down the dates. If you have a copy of a Cruise Book, which can help as it often contains a chronological list of events, look for dates when your ship operated within sight of land. Not radar sight, but visible sighting of the landmass of the Republic of Vietnam, otherwise known as RVN, South Vietnam, or in our context, just Vietnam. If you could see the coastline from the deck of your ship, odds are that you were within the territorial waters of RVN. The higher that deck was from the waterline, the less chance that you were within territorial waters. In other words, Aircraft Carriers, ships like the USS Sacramento AOE 1, and some of the LSDs had high decks. Smaller Navy Ships and Coast Guard ships were more likely to have spent time in territorial waters, and actually many were within hundreds of yards from the beach.

Look first for anchorage of your ship. Obviously, if you were anchored in any bay, inlet, cove, harbor, or estuary along the coast of RVN, you were well within territorial waters. Find the dates and ask your researcher for just those dates. It will save you a lot of money by saving the researcher time and effort to narrow down your search. If you can say, “It was probably in the first half of August in 1970 that we anchored.”, it would be a very easy and narrow search for the researcher, and the more exact the narrowing the more you save. Those are the pages of the Deck Logs you want copied.

If you go to NARA’s Modern Military Branch located at Adelphi, Maryland [right next to College Park and just off the Washington Beltway], [where most ship’s deck logs are stored] to research for yourself, here are some tips:

Go Early. The earlier you get your request in for the records to go through, the sooner you will get them retrieved for you, which maximizes the time you have to go through them, and make copies. [Note, when you log in, if you want copies, you must post an advance from a credit card as part of the check in process. SECURITY IS EXTREMELY TIGHT at NARA.

Narrow your search parameters. Use the method described above to narrow your search parameters.

Be smart. If you think your ship made multiple trips inside territorial waters in the course of a deployment, ask for the entire span, not the separate months [for example, May, August, September, December of 1968 and January of 1969, ask for the span March, 1968-March, 1969]. That is more for you to go through, but much faster and easier for those who work the repository to pull the records. By padding the start and finish you can cover any times you might have missed…it’s been over 40 years, you know.

Be careful. Your deck logs are THE original smooth copies and are large pages, 11 X 17 inches. They are very hard to copy. [Our own experience was to get a month done in one hour, with some damage to the originals, so we stopped and bit the bullet, and contracted with NARA to provide copies that covered our entire deployment. It cost about $300 for 8 full months, and it took three months to get them. But we have them, and every page is marked as an official copy from NARA.]

Other Sources for Deck Logs [CHECK THESE FIRST!]:

http://vasvw.org/Decklogs.htm [VASVW’s small collection but these are all exclusively Vietnam War Deployments. There is also a place to upload copies of ship’s deck logs that can be added to the collection.]

http://veteransinfo.org/deck_logs.html [Steve Burns Veterans Info pages contain this short list of deck logs that can be downloaded.]

Cruise Books:

Cruise Books can be of immeasurable help with photos, and chronological lists of events during a deployment, ports visited, anchorages, combat actions, flight ops, SAR actions, recreational activities, and so on -- also statistics. The Department of Veterans Affairs accepts evidence from Cruise Books as valid.

Here are some resources for cruise books:

http://navysite.de/cruisebooks/ [free access]

http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=2348&o_iid=48167&o_lid=48167&o_sch=Web+Property [While this appears to require membership in Ancestry.com, these SHOULD be free. No one should charge for access to veterans Records.]

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special/cruise_main.htm [The US Navy Repository and it has an enormous library of Cruise Books. You cannot scan them, but you can take photos of them. If you do not live in range of Washington, DC, you can get one shipped to your local library – instructions are on the page at this link. Otherwise, get a researcher to go to the Washington Navy Yard to research the book AFTER you ascertain that one exists and is in their collection.]

http://www.e-yearbook.com/navy_cruise_books.html [a limited collection that you can look at online as they are scanned images of the pages, but you must be a member…may be a fee.]

Other Information:

The United States Navy History and Heritage Command can be accessed through this portal page:

http://www.history.navy.mil/index.html [You can find all sorts of records, including After Action Reports, and the annual ship’s histories required as of 1965 [???] to be submitted by the Commanding Officer of every ship in the Navy, giving a narrative of all the ship experienced during the previous calendar year. Also, there is a great repository of photographs of Naval Ships online at this site.]

http://www.navsource.org/ [A treasure trove of photographs of almost every single ship the US Navy ever commissioned after photography was invented. Also, you can find on each ship’s page all kinds of info from radio and signal flag call signs, to awards, and technical details about the ship. The photos are usually chronological from launch to the end of the ship’s life, and where possible the source of the photo and location of it is listed. THIS IS A FANTASTIC FREE SITE.]

Photographic evidence, when properly sourced and verified, is excellent evidence for your claim.

So, there you have some resources to delve into to gather any available evidence you may need.

You may also find helpful this repost of an older post on this Blog that deals with gathering and handling documents. It’s the handling of the documents you should pay attention to, as it is essential that you mark your documents properly, and care for them, send the proper versions to the DVA, and so on.

http://vnvets.blogspot.com/2011/06/repost-obtaining-and-using-documents-to.html

Good luck and good hunting!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

More from a Sailor Veteran of the Vietnam War

2011-10-06T19:58:00.002-04:00

We have heard more from John Morrow. Here is some excellent advice from him on filing claims with the DVA:

I dug through old records today to find the office in Washington, DC that shipped ship's official logs to me from the USS Fort Marion LSD 22. Here is the address.

[VNVets note: Navy ship Deck Logs are held at the Modern Military Branch of the National Archives, Adelphi, Maryland. That would be the first stop for any Blue Water Sailor. This office below does not maintain records, but instead they go where the records are and research.]

Director
Department of the Army
U.S. Army Joint Services Records Research Center
7701 Telegraph Road
Kingman Building, Room 2C08
Alexandria, VA 22315

The Director was kind enough to send me a very specific letter on his letterhead and state that I was where I said was on a specific date (the date of my "stressor" for PTSD and a day that I have relived many, many times). This letter clearly carried weight with my reviewer at the DVA because it had government stationary, real places and dates and lists of other commands affected (US Navy groups in Danang and USMC combat marine commands).

I do not know if this address and contact will help efforts for vets to make progress on their claims but I hope so.

The REAL message to individuals is, in my opinion, to:

Carry their OWN torch.
Do their OWN research. You do not get something for nothing.
Do not make up ANYTHING because they think they should get VA Disability Checks like a buddy of theirs.
If you were not "in the shit" do not pretend you were!
You must learn the ropes of carrying your OWN claim forward (there is no magic or superman to do the work for you (service advocates only "file" your claim...they do not research and substantiate it. That is YOUR job).
Lying in your filings is a FEDERAL offense -- do not do it!
Make LOTS of phone calls or personal calls to people in the right offices and departments. That's LOTS of phone calls. Each person they talk to can be a pointer to a better resource OR be THE person to give you some progress.
People will HELP you. Do not take advantage of them and do not stretch any truths to them.
I do remember that ships logs can be retrieved in person. That means you go to the right facility in Washington, get the actual documents and do the copying yourself in their office. Otherwise you pay a buck or two per page and have to wait your turn (months) for some clerk to do the copying for you. If your claim is important enough to you then go there, or have a friend who can, go there. You can get all the real details of accomplishing record retrieval from the people in DC and then you "do it". It is not your right that this will be done for you. The gentleman I got this letter from explained all this to me and then he volunteered to actually do this stuff for me...incredible. I was more than impressed with his feelings for a veteran even though he had never served. He felt he wanted to do something himself for a guy that had served.

Too many vets are waiting for the whole thing to just change...don't we all wish! Again, I hope some piece of this can be used productively. I believe in us veterans and wish to help in my own little way if possible.

You have indeed, John. Thank you again.

Good advice folks.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

A Letter from a Sailor Veteran of the Vietnam War

2011-10-05T19:10:00.000-04:00

We received this letter today from a Vietnam Veteran of Naval Service. We think it speaks for itself.

My name is John J. Morrow. I live in Marion, Iowa and I served onboard the USS Fort Marion LSD-22 in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. Our mission was to land and retrieve landing assaults-- USMC, US SEAL teams, UDT teams, Beach Jumpers, SeaBees (and we did lots of them). My knowledge is relatively personal of AO instances because I was a navy quartermaster. My job (with a couple others) was to record all and any instances that, in my judgment, needed to be written into the official ship's log. Therefore I needed to know exactly where we were, what operation we were taking part in, who and what vessels came and went into our amphibious well deck and at what times, etc. This gave me an up close view of our missions, unlike most of the 100 or so other crew members I served with.

Those ships log records were then "scrubbed" at the end of each month of operation and some things were removed for the official records. They were then sent to Washington (they are still there, even for an old flat-bottomed tub like the one we were on). They were rewritten in personal hand written form on board our ship--all capital letters (re-done by the quartermaster with the nicest hand printing). Those were signed by the old man and sent through the chain of command to permanent record in Washington, DC. I have in my possession most of the permanent ships log records (from the 1968-1969 deployment) in copy format from the office that maintains them. These are the official Fort Marion record.

No one ever put our ship on THE "AO exposed list"...in my opinion that is some kind of joke. We anchored nightly in Danang harbor, had personnel in and out of in-country missions (myself included), spent nights anchored in the barrier islands of Vietnam, and were on and above the DMZ near Qua Viet, were fired upon by the artillery emplacement in Cap Lai (roughly six miles north of Cua Viet river). That event was 18 April, 1969 and did NOT remain in the ship's log....go figure!!! On another event in the barrier islands, we sent our guys at 2am to rescue a SEAL Team extraction gone very wrong -- never was left for permanent record!!??

I think "the record" is BS, but it is what it is. You simply cannot erase real fear, memory and strange events from one's mind. Those still remain. Particulars of dates and "the record" may have been cleansed of certain events for some reason or reasons but I know my fellow squids and I still have OUR memories. And those memories involved guys being in and among a lot of AO territory and waters.

Further I can remember seeing virtually all the attack boats and landing craft we loaded in and out on the beaches carried 55 gallon drums that they confiscated and painted with Olive Drab paint. Those drums, one or two on each craft, carried additional diesel fuel. Those were like having a can of gas in the trunk of your car for emergencies. Most of those drums came from locations where they were emptied of their original AO liquids (MILLIONS of gallons). When diesel fuel was loaded from those drums into the fuel tanks of those boats it burned old AO in the exhaust fumes as long as it was refilled and emptied - laced with the poison of Agent Orange. I think it is well known that some of the first incidences of AO exposure were seen in the poor babies born to brown water sailors and their wives, with birth defects. There were lots of early exposures in this manner.

I personally have had five heart attacks, five way heart by pass surgery, serious lung disorders, diabetes, neuropathy, joint disorders, skin disorders, liver disorders -- the only thing I have not had (thank God) is cancer. Also included are hearing loss and PTSD. Nobody is telling me that I don't have the scars that bear witness!!! The DVA has given me 100% coverage only because I had pictures of me "on the ground" in Vietnam. They will NOT state Agent Orange in my records...they only refer to the diseases related to Agent Orange by specific name (heart disease, diabetes, etc). Seems strange I have the EXACT stuff that is officially listed as AO symptoms! It is pure crap and my buddies with the SAME symptoms are left wanting.

I saw your article and read that you wanted email instances of AO so here it is...my first chance to VENT. Some guys were drafted into service but many, many more volunteered to go. Myself, and others, counted ourselves as believers of injustice to Vietnam’s citizens and believers in the rights of the Constitution (virtually) to all people! To come back to the disrespect we did, and now to have this injustice exist, is so incredibly wrong. I read your articles monthly and in many cases reread them again. It is shameful that our lawmakers and government turn their heads on vets because "there are so many affected that the VA cannot afford to make things right".

There is an old saying, "Kill them all and let God sort them out!". Who could have known that to the government that included Vets and Agent Orange victims of all kinds? Vietnam Veterans are now so old that few remember what we did. Couple that with the fact that people don't seem to WANT to remember, and others yet seem to feel that we were "baby killers" in the frenzy of war and human tragedy. Our messages are the voices of "old men" and are lost in the din of today’s world.

May God have mercy on us and may those to whom we now look for assistance with our older years war wound care see clear to do right! Keep your powder dry, for the battle continues!!!

John J Morrow QM3 USN
USS Fort Marion LSD 22

Thank you John Morrow, for your Service, and for your most eloquent and touching letter.

It grows less easy every day to conjure up the memories from back then. Sometimes they are too painful, other times it is simply too far back to go. But sometimes they come back on their own. Painful or not, they belong to us, and only we can know them. We own them. They are ours alone. Each of us; and when we die, a large portion of the facts, the truth, dies with us. If you can, for the sake of all your children and grandchildren, so that they may know the truth about that war, write those memories down. Leave them with someone who will know what to do with them – to whom they should be given. It is important.

Bravo Zulu, John, Bravo Zulu.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Buddy Statements

2011-10-03T18:43:00.001-04:00

We have received a lot of comments about Buddy Statements. We thought it advisable to clear that matter up.

We raised the issue of Buddy Statements simply as a precaution so that if and when your Regional Office demands proof that you were on board your ship for the '...48 hour period when the ship was in Territorial Waters...' [this is an example], you will be prepared with that proof in the form of a buddy statement.

Buddy statements are an acceptable form of verification in the absence of any other.

Your experience will vary from Regional Office to Regional Office, as there is no standardization on how claims are handled. Someone rated 100% in one office, will only get 70% in another state, and 20% in a third Regional Office and denial in four or five others. Apparently, within the DVA's rating system there is no Rosetta Stone.

Better to have this in hand than to search around trying to find some shipmates if and when the VA demands it.

Buddy statements are simple. All it amounts to is a clear, concise statement that says something like this example:

"I hereby state that Sonarman Second Class John Q. Public was serving on board the USS Reluctant* during the period 8 October to 13 October, 1969, and did not leave the ship during that time."

You can get this notarized [don't sign it until you are told to by the Notary Public!] or not, but they will carry more weight if you do.

Make sure you send only a copy. You should have your claim number on the page, too.

Obviously, your ship's Association website would be the place to start to search for a shipmate who was aboard when you were. If you have a cruise book, use it to help direct your search.

[Note: USS Reluctant* was the fictional ship on which the film "Mister Roberts" was centered. Place your ship's name in place of that.]

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Sens Gillibrand & Graham introduce BWN Bill S.1629

2011-10-01T18:04:00.002-04:00

New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand joined with South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to introduce S.1629.

Here is the text of the bill:

112th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1629
To amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify presumptions relating to the exposure of certain veterans who served in the vicinity of the Republic of Vietnam, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 23, 2011
Mrs. GILLIBRAND (for herself and Mr. GRAHAM) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
A BILL
To amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify presumptions relating to the exposure of certain veterans who served in the vicinity of the Republic of Vietnam, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Agent Orange Equity Act of 2011'.
SEC. 2. CLARIFICATION OF PRESUMPTIONS OF EXPOSURE FOR VETERANS WHO SERVED IN VICINITY OF REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.
(a) Compensation- Subsections (a)(1) and (f) of section 1116 of title 38, United States Code, are amended by inserting `(including the territorial seas of such Republic)' after `served in the Republic of Vietnam' each place it appears.
(b) Health Care- Section 1710(e)(4) of such title is amended by inserting `(including the territorial seas of such Republic)' after `served on active duty in the Republic of Vietnam'.
(c) Effective Date- The amendments made by subsections (a) and (b) shall take effect as of September 25, 1985.

Now, what this will mean when it passes is that sailors on ships that drew within 12 miles of the coast of Vietnam during the war will be granted presumptive exposure to dioxin-containing herbicides under the Agent Orange Act of 1991. It has been posted to the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.

However, unlike previously when the Vietnam Service Medal was used to establish eligibility, now sailors will be required to provide proof, usually via Ship’s Deck Logs that show the ship they were on at the time did indeed close to within the territorial limit off the Republic of Vietnam. The Tonkin Gulf does not qualify because it is off what was then North Vietnam, and the DMZ [De-Militarized Zone].

So, if you have a claim, whether it is active or not, even though it has been denied, you could become eligible for benefits. If you have an inactive claim get it opened up again, if it is active and you get denied, appeal!

You should also begin obtaining your ship’s Deck logs. If you know the approximate dates your ship entered territorial waters [generally, if you could see the Republic of Vietnam from the deck of your ship with the naked eye, you were likely within 12 miles from the coast, and therefore inside the Territorial Waters of the Republic of South Vietnam], you can ask a researcher [we list two near the top right column here under Military Research] to get the specific dates for you.

Once you have the date[s] and proof [deck logs] of being inside the twelve mile limit, you will need a buddy statement that clearly states that your buddy remembers that you were on board during that time.

If this bill passes, and it should if it is left as is, the DVA will not like it, and will not make things easy on you. So get your documentation lined up now. Just in case. You do not need to file that documentation yet, but keep it on hand in a safe place and ONLY SEND CERTIFIED [by a Notary Public] to the DVA. So, get your buddy to have his written statement notarized by signing at the Notary’s office.

For those whose ships anchored in coastal waters, such as off Vung Tau, and other locations, those dates are the ones you need to work with. Proof you were aboard [buddy statement], and that the ship anchored in coastal waters at a certain date and time [deck logs] will get your AO claim approved if you have one of the AO diseases.

There is a bill in the House of Representatives, HR 812 that we do not endorse. It was introduced by Congressman Bob Filner [D-CA], and is the exact same bloated bill that we helped get over 265 cosponsors for last year, and he never even took it out of the subcommittee. Repeat: WE DO NOT ENDORSE HR 812.

We are staking our claim with S1629, as it does not include anyone else except Blue Water Navy. It is not as inclusive as we had hoped – we wanted to have TLC and all BWN included, but it is what it is and we should get the benefits for those it will cover as soon as possible.

To that end, we recommend that you join us at the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War. We will be launching a grass roots campaign to get Senators to sign on as cosponsors. So join us, there is strength in numbers. Visit the VASVW Forum site at:
http://vasvw.org/forum/member.php?action=register and register today!

Also, as usual, our friends at the Fleet Reserve Association have already put up their Capwiz page for automated pre-written letters sent by email to your state’s US Senators. Here is the link: http://www.capwiz.com/fra/issues/alert/?alertid=54045631

Time for action is now. You’ve had the spring and summer off, now we need to get this passed ASAP and then pushed through the House.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Our Take on the IOM Report

2011-09-30T23:12:00.000-04:00

There were several things that struck us as significant when we read the Summary section of the Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2011 yesterday. Two in particular got our attention as both were pointedly remarks aimed at the DVA for things they did/do, and things they should be doing.

First, let’s look at this statement:

This committee recommends that the VA should more actively query their own medical databases to identify potential associations between Vietnam service and specific health outcomes, particularly for those outcomes that are less common. Moreover, if a perceived conflict of interest exists in surveying their own databases, it is recommended that an external advisory group be formed to determine the best mechanism for mining this information so that these medical databases could be available for external study.

We have called for a study to be made. We suggested that all Vietnam Vets be asked to participate, not just those in the DVA databases. We would like to see the study determine who has what diseases, not just AO, but all diseases, and where and when they were in the Combat Zone, and whether they were air crew, ground troops or Naval personnel. We would include as a separate group, military personnel who served in locations where herbicides were stored, or in the case of Korea, used. As one control, we would suggest that Vietnam Era Veterans who did not serve in Theater, and did not receive either the Vietnam Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for service in Vietnam, or the Vietnam Campaign Medal be similarly polled. As a second control we recommend a comparable cohort of civilians who were in the 17-35 age group during the Vietnam era.

We note this passage from the Summary as well:

It is especially important that longitudinal analyses be conducted on cancer, cardiovascular, and reproductive outcomes represented in the complete database assembled in the course of the Air Force Health Study. The committee endorses VA’s actions toward restarting the congressionally mandated National Vietnam Veterans Longitudinal Study, derived from the cohort originally studied in the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study.

We agree, but in light of the previous quoted concern for a potential “conflict of interest” if the DVA conducted its own study, we think all studies should be removed from the purview of the DVA. And their Databases should be, MUST BE audited continually. Admiral Zumwalt, in his report of 1989 that led to the Agent Orange Act of 1991 called the DVA out for its meddling and corruption of data and results in studies regarding Herbicides and Vietnam Veterans from the very start of such studies shortly after the war ended, a period of about 15 years up until that time. Apparently such corruption by the DVA continues even today.

We note the words in the paragraph above, ”…if a perceived conflict of interest exists in surveying their own databases, it is recommended that an external advisory group be formed to determine the best mechanism for mining this information so that these medical databases could be available for external study.”, and we agree. We think the large Veterans Service Organizations such as the American Legion, the VFW, VVA, FRA, Amvets, and others toss their hats and their cash in the ring to fund the study, contracting it to a reputable university with a record of doing good statistical analysis studies.

Those same words are an implied slap at the reputation DVA has for meddling and corrupting scientific studies to suit their own agenda. The very concept that a Cabinet Level Department has an agenda of any kind beyond the mission of that department is reprehensible. Politics and ideologies simply cannot be allowed to influence the straightforward carrying out of the department’s mission.

It is time for the DVA to clean up its act and begin carrying out its self-described mission “…to care for him who shall have borne the battle…”

We have stated before, that ”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield.", and it continues to be true today for all Veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the shame of the Nation.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

IOM “Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2010” Released

2011-09-30T02:14:00.000-04:00

The Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2010 has just been released. It contains some disappointing information such as the lack of proof of a connection between dioxin and cancers of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines, colon, etc...essentially the entire alimentary canal. But it also contains some suggestive comments about the DVA.

The study was performed by the National Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine, in its biennial review. The review in this case began in 2009 and ended in 2010. The reports are usually released in late summer, but this one may have been delayed by Senator James Webb's call for a review of the IOM's previous peer review and conclusions and recommendations based on the Australian Study that found a path to exposure through water contamination and the shipboard evaporation system of making fresh boiler and potable water.

This study was to cover the following:

A) whether a statistical association with herbicide exposure exists, taking into account the strength of the scientific evidence and the appropriateness of the statistical and epidemiological methods used to detect the association;
B) the increased risk of disease among those exposed to herbicides during service in the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam era; and
C) whether there exists a plausible biological mechanism or other evidence of a causal relationship between herbicide exposure and the disease.

The Committee is charged with, among other things:

In conducting its study, the present committee operated independently of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and other government agencies. The committee was not asked to make and did not make judgments regarding specific cases in which individual Vietnam veterans have claimed injury from herbicide exposure. This report provides scientific information for the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to consider as VA exercises its responsibilities to Vietnam veterans. The committee was not charged to focus on broader issues, such as the potential costs of compensation for veterans or policies regarding such compensation.

In addition to the above charge, the VA made an additional request arising from the decision making at VA necessitated by the findings of Update 2008. The sponsor asked that, when summarizing the evidence available to support the association of a health effect with exposure to the components of the herbicides used by the military in Vietnam, the committee address whether or not all the points that have rather imprecisely become known as the Bradford Hill (1965) “criteria” for causality (strength, consistency, specificity, temporality, biologic gradient, plausibility, coherence, experiment, and analogy) had been satisfied by the information available.

The study made some recommendations, among them classifying specific diseases as to the relative likelihood of a causal connection between exposure to Dioxin/TCDD and the specific disease. They were ranked as:

Sufficient Evidence of an Association: Soft-tissue sarcoma (including heart), Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (including hairy cell leukemia and other chronic B-cell leukemias), Hodgkin lymphoma, Chloracne.

Limited or Suggestive Evidence of an Association: Laryngeal cancer; Cancer of the lung, bronchus, or trachea; Prostate cancer; Multiple myeloma; AL amyloidosis; Early-onset peripheral neuropathy (category clarification from Update 2008); Parkinson disease; Porphyria cutanea tarda; Hypertension; Ischemic heart disease; Type 2 diabetes (mellitus); Spina bifida in offspring of exposed people.

Inadequate or Insufficient Evidence to Determine an Association.
Cancers of the oral cavity (including lips and tongue), pharynx (including tonsils), or nasal cavity(including ears and sinuses); Cancers of the pleura, mediastinum, and other unspecified sites in the respiratory system and intrathoracic organs; Esophageal cancer; Stomach cancer; Colorectal cancer (including small intestine and anus); Hepatobiliary cancers (liver, gallbladder, and bile ducts); Pancreatic cancer; Bone and joint cancer; Melanoma; Nonmelanoma skin cancer (basal cell and squamous cell); Breast cancer; Cancers of reproductive organs (cervix, uterus, ovary, testes, and penis; excluding prostate); Urinary bladder cancer; Renal cancer (kidney and renal pelvis); Cancers of brain and nervous system (including eye); Endocrine cancers (thyroid, thymus, and other endocrine organs); Leukemia (other than all chronic B-cell leukemias, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia and hairy cell leukemia); Cancers at other and unspecified sites; Infertility; Spontaneous abortion (other than after paternal exposure to TCDD, which appears not to be associated); Neonatal or infant death and stillbirth in offspring of exposed people; Low birth weight in offspring of exposed people; Birth defects (other than spina bifida) in offspring of exposed people; Childhood cancer (including acute myeloid leukemia) in offspring of exposed people; Neurobehavioral disorders (cognitive and neuropsychiatric); Neurodegenerative diseases, excluding Parkinson disease; Chronic peripheral nervous system disorders; Hearing loss (newly addressed health outcome); Respiratory disorders (wheeze or asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and farmer’s lung); Gastrointestinal, metabolic, and digestive disorders (changes in hepatic enzymes, lipid abnormalities, and ulcers); Immune system disorders (immune suppression, allergy, and autoimmunity); Circulatory disorders (other than hypertension and ischemic heart disease); Endometriosis Effects on thyroid homeostasis; Eye problems (newly addressed health outcome); Bone conditions (newly addressed health outcome).

Please note that most of these indicate a direct causal relationship, and not an indirect one. For example, Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 often has associated peripheral nerve damage and eye problems, and coverage for those situations is included under the DVA's current Agent Orange policies.

Despite the assertions by the staff of Senator Webb to the contrary, the Institute of Medicine does indeed make recommendations to the DVA. In fact, that is specifically what these studies are all about. Accordingly, the IOM essentially calls for increased studies, including:

This committee recommends that the VA should more actively query their own medical databases to identify potential associations between Vietnam service and specific health outcomes, particularly for those outcomes that are less common. Moreover, if a perceived conflict of interest exists in surveying their own databases, it is recommended that an external advisory group be formed to determine the best mechanism for mining this information so that these medical databases could be available for external study.

The committee for Update 2008 concluded that it was plausible that exposure to the herbicides sprayed in Vietnam could cause paternally-mediated effects in offspring as a result of epigenetic changes and such potential would most likely be attributable to the TCDD contaminant in Agent Orange. There is a growing body of evidence that TCDD, and also arsenicals, can induce epigenetic changes in animal models, but there remains extremely limited data on the risk of paternal exposure to xenobiotics in general, and the VAO chemicals of interest in particular, resulting in adverse effects on their offspring. Consequently, this committee continues to recommend that laboratory research be conducted to characterize TCDD’s potential for inducing epigenetic modifications. Further, the committee recommends development of epidemiologic protocols to address the logistical challenge of determining whether adverse effects are being manifested in the adult children and grandchildren of Vietnam veterans as a result of paternal exposure. The best cohorts for revealing potential associations would be those with known, well-characterized exposure information. Another alternative would be to adopt a case-control approach and explore whether information about Vietnam exposure or specific herbicide exposure could be ascertained in any of the many birth cohorts that have been established in the past several decades. To hone in on a paternal effect, however, it will be necessary to establish that the mothers did not have the opportunity for exposure above background levels to the chemicals of interest.

As in previous years, this committee recommends the pursuit of additional research in toxicology. The development of animal models of various chronic health conditions and their progression would be useful for understanding the possible contributions of the chemicals of interest to compromise the health of aging Vietnam veterans. Specifically, determining the mechanism by which dioxin-like chemicals induce B cell cancers and how this exposure alters the susceptibility to developing obesity and components of metabolic syndrome would fill important knowledge gaps. Additional health problems, such as metabolic syndrome, COPD, and measuring meaningful biomarkers of immune/inflammatory disease merit study in human populations.

The committee notes that the earlier investment in studying several exposed populations is now producing useful findings; the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Seveso, Air Force Health Study, and Army Chemical Corps cohorts all merit continuing follow-up or more comprehensive analysis. It is especially important that longitudinal analyses be conducted on cancer, cardiovascular, and reproductive outcomes represented in the complete database assembled in the course of the Air Force Health Study. The committee endorses VA’s actions toward restarting the congressionally mandated National Vietnam Veterans Longitudinal Study, derived from the cohort originally studied in the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study.

The committee notes that its recommendations are similar to those offered in previous
updates and that there has been little activity in several critical areas. The fate of the assemblage of data and biologic samples from the Air Force Health Study remains unsettled; in the interim, critical integrative analyses such as longitudinal evaluation of the cancer data have not yet been made public, and the unique potential of this resource languishes. It is the committee’s conviction that work needs to be undertaken promptly to resolve questions regarding several health outcomes, importantly COPD, tonsil cancer, melanoma, Alzheimer disease, and paternally transmitted effects to their offspring. Creative analysis of VA’s own data resources and further work on cohorts that have already been established may well be the most effective way to address those outcomes and to gain a better understanding of the role of herbicide exposure in development of Parkinson’s Disease in Vietnam veterans.

You can read or download the report at the following link. Downloads in Adobe .pdf format are free.

http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Veterans-and-Agent-Orange-Update-2010.aspx

We will assess this study tomorrow and post that assessment tomorrow evening.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

More on Our Veteran and the Games DVA is Playing

2011-09-01T20:15:00.001-04:00

What appears to be happening at the DVA is perhaps best defined as a bunker mentality.

For more than half a century the Department of Veterans Affairs [and prior to that name they were known as the Veterans Administration], has fought against granting benefits to ANYONE for exposure to Agent Orange.

It is a matter of record that the DVA and its predecessor, the VA, did everything within its power to prevent Agent Orange exposed Veterans from receiving one second of medical treatment, and one penny of compensation for the poisoning they received at the hands of their own government while doing their duty in Combat and Combat Support roles in the Vietnam War.

Indeed, this was an extraordinary effort by the DVA, one that included tampering with scientific studies, something that was at the very least highly unethical, probably highly illegal, and indeed, meets the level of malfeasance in office and criminal negligence when you consider what they were working so hard to prevent: benefits for those Veterans poisoned during the Vietnam War.

This went on for decades. Political and economic motivations were involved, probably from some members of the anti-Vietnam War movement who somehow obtained secure middle and upper level management positions in the DVA, and made every effort to see that those who fought in the war died an early death without benefits, treatment, and without leaving a legacy for their survivors. Legal issues were [and still are] in play as well. If this 19 million gallon spray job over about eight years and just about every square inch of the Republic of Vietnam [South Vietnam] was indeed a massive human and ecological disaster that we now know it to be, then someone was responsible and would be required to pay in a civilian court, and, who knows, perhaps even a criminal court. After all, the Chemical manufacturers warned the Department of Defense that the contracted strength of the chemicals was extremely toxic, and extremely hazardous to handle. Exposure was life threatening if the concentrations and exposure were high enough. Even lower exposure levels would result in serious deadly diseases. And the Department of Defense warned the Chemical Manufacturer that unless they provided the chemical as contracted, in the strength required, and without warnings on the barrels, those Chemical Companies would be subject to "criminal sanctions". [See Federal Court case Winters v. Diamond Shamrock.]

[That puts the onus completely on the United States Government. Nevertheless, when a group of Veterans, with the assistance of several Veterans Service Organizations, sued in Federal Court, the US Government bargained its way out of the suit, leaving the Chemical Manufacturers dangling in the wind. They paid.]

Enter our first hero. Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Jr. Initially, Zumwalt, or Zum as he was somewhat affectionately known to the enlisted men under his command, was in charge of a Cruiser-Destroyer Flotilla in Vietnam, then became Naval Advisor to General Creighton Abrams, and Commander of Naval Forces, Vietnam. Zum was the man who ordered the spraying of herbicides in the southern half of South Vietnam. His son was a young officer in the Riverine forces [Brown Water], and he was exposed to herbicides regularly. Zumwalt's son died of cancer in 1988. Zum, who went on to be Chief of Naval Operations, went to work on his retirement, digging into the herbicide issue and there were plenty of Vietnam Veterans dying far too young from all kinds of cancers.

It was Zum who did enough scientific evidence gathering, and who provided much of the impetus to force Congress to pass the Agent Orange Act of 1991. He also exposed the DVA's efforts to "cook" some scientific evidence away from the herbicides, fudging numbers, and results in scientific studies, and applying pressure to scientists and government workers to go along with their efforts. Hence, the potential for criminal liability among those DVA, and Department of Defense personnel, who did the dirty work.

Grudgingly, the DVA gave way and began paying Agent Orange benefits to anyone with a Vietnam Service Medal. But right from the start they began eliminating, first carving out the Veterans who served in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, where we now know herbicides were widely used around base perimeters, on bases to clear vegetation, and along the frontier with Vietnam where we had outposts. Then in 1993 they removed the Air Force Veterans from presumptive eligibility essentially saying "You flew over it." Never mind that mostly it was the Air Force that sprayed it, and that almost all the combat and combat support squadrons rotated through South Vietnam and Thailand during the war, meaning they set feet on the ground. In 2002 they removed the Blue Water Navy, essentially saying the chemical, and/or its effects, stopped dead at the shoreline. As we now know, thanks in large part to the government of Australia, neither the chemical, nor its effects stopped at the beach. Nevertheless, the Blue Water Navy remains largely ineligible, despite increasing evidence that a large part of it spent considerable time in brown water. Those ships, as the DVA is shown the evidence, are granted presumption of exposure for the crews that were on them when the ship was in brown water.

Enter our second hero. Commander Jonathan Haas, USN, Ret. Haas served on the USS Mt. Katmai AE 16, an ammunition ship, in Vietnam. He filed a claim for exposure claiming direct spray while the Katmai was close inshore. The case wound its way from the Regional Office into the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

Enter our third hero...or group of heroes. The National Veterans Legal Services Program is a non-profit organization comprised of attorneys and their staffs who work for Veterans, advocate changes in DVA and DoD policy, and generally do great things for a lot of Veterans. They argued the Haas case at the USCAVC and won, overturning the rejection of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Board of Appeals.

The word flashed around the country and many new claims were filed, and others were updated. The DVA appealed the decision of its own court, and won at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC. NVLSP, and Haas, appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which declined to hear the case.

But now the cat was out of the bag. US Naval Veterans of the Vietnam War were armed with the knowledge that the Veterans Court saw things differently than the policy wonks and lawyers at the DVA, and with the new knowledge of the Australian government's great work in the scientific study of how Navy ships make fresh water. The study showed that if the seawater was contaminated by dioxin, from runoff, or spillage, or overspray, when processed to make fresh water for the ships' crews, the dioxin would not be eliminated, but in fact, concentrated. The sailors showered in it, drank it in their coffee, ate it in their mashed potatoes, and drank it right from their scuttlebutts [water fountains] on the ships.

Now there are Veterans groups comprised of Blue Water Sailors, and those groups advocate in Congress to get the DVA policy changed, they advocate in the offices of the DVA to change the policy to include the Blue Water Sailors, and they push the media to increase public awareness of the situation. The pressure is on the DVA.

It's been over four decades, this fight.

A VA Press release yesterday announced that since the addition a year ago of the three new diseases [Parkinson's Disease, Hairy [B-cell] Leukemia, and Ischemic Heart Disease] to the list of diseases eligible for treatment under the Agent Orange Act, the DVA has paid out:

2.2 BILLION DOLLARS IN RETROACTIVE BENEFITS FOR THOSE THREE NEW DISEASES!

That had to stick in the craw of those miscreants at the DVA who have been responsible for over four decades of misinformation, malfeasance, criminal negligence, and other illegalities and felonies perpetrated on the American Veterans of the Vietnam War.

There is a new bill in congress which will restore benefits to the Blue Water Navy. There are other efforts underway currently as well. The American Legion, the VFW, the Fleet Reserve Association, and the VVA are all keenly aware of the issue and are actively advocating the restoration of benefits to the Blue Water Navy Veterans of the Vietnam War in Congress and with the DVA, and the public. The heat is on. And the DVA is now making some whopper sized mistakes.

We have been informed that Our Veteran received word from the DVA Regional Office that two letters were written on his behalf and sent to President Obama. No one seems to know who wrote the letters, exactly, but the suspicion here is that those letters were generated by a certain Regional Office in a large southern state, not by any advocates for Our Veteran, knowing that such letters seriously slow a claim. The claim gets pulled and a slow investigation is made. It can take months, perhaps years before that claim gets put back into the hands of a rater. Additionally, our Veteran received letters from his Regional Office that STILL claim he or a relative worked for the DVA, thus requiring his claim record be sealed. Once sealed, it takes a pretty high-up person to open it, as happened when Our Veteran's Representative's staffers went to the DVA in DC. And they are still denying claims for diseases which Our Veteran never filed a claim.

Needless to say Our Veteran's Representative and his staff, and the attorneys working on Our Veteran's case are asolutely irate.

The DVA keeps making decisions based on their own say-so, that they have no way to back up, and prove their own assertions. These decisions range from the Office of the General Counsel all the way down to the claims raters in the Regional Offices.

For example, they deny Blue Water Navy Veterans presumption based on their assertion that there was no Blue Water exposure. They have not one whit of scientific evidence to back that decision. Nothing! Zip! Zilch! Nada! But the Blue Water Veterans have the Australian Study. And we here have been advocating a Vietnam Veterans Morbidity and Mortality Study for years. And the DVA absolutely KNOWS the outcome of such a study would force them to grant presumption to Blue Water Navy Veterans.

Also, the story told by our Second Veteran, the one who works in a Regional Office, tells of the raters making decisions to deny claims in the face of well grounded claims from the Veterans.

Yes, the miscreants in the DVA hierarchy are feeling the heat. They are making mistakes in their fight to prevent those benefits. And someone, at some point, might just call for an investigation by the Department of Justice into the actions at ALL LEVELS of the DVA regarding these issues.

Four decades of abuse by a government cabinet department is entirely too long for a crime to continue.

Stop the madness now. Restore the Vietnam Service Medal as the qualifying criteria for exposure, and let the last of us die with what little we have left. Stop making those who fought that unpopular war pay for the decision to fight it. We did the honorable thing and went to war for our country. Our country, those who lead it, but do not fight the wars, made the decision to fight. Whoever you are at the DVA, your ill will is egregiously misguided and misdirected. May you rot in Hell for all of eternity for what you and your minions have done to several million honest men and women.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Update on one of our Veterans

2011-08-29T00:01:00.000-04:00

The DVA is a very devious organization. When our Veteran's Congressman's staff met with the DVA and confronted them with the record of what the DVA had done to him, the DVA man asked for two weeks. He knew Congress was about to go into recess, and that in two weeks none of the staffers would be in DC. So follow-up will wait until after Labor Day when Congress returns.

Needless to say, the Congressman's staff, and the Veteran's attorneys a PO'd beyond all recognition.

In the meantime, the regional office sent a packet to the Veterans denying him benefits for diseases he actually never claimed. He also got a letter saying his "...claim had been received but there had been so many lately...etc."

"Delay, deny, until they die" at work in this instance.

Obviously, the DVA is rife with anti-Veteran sentiment up and down their chain, and lying to the face of Congressional staffers is probably worth a promotion.

The DVA has repeatedly displayed a callous disregard for the true rights of Veterans, a lack of respect for those who fought, and often spilled their blood for the right of the very people now passing judgment on the Veterans to seek and hold those jobs.

I wouldn't give a flying fig for any of those DVA bloodsuckers. They've got their cushy government jobs and to hell with the American Veteran.

And this goes all the way to the top, to Secretary Shinseki and his boss, and the many men who preceded him in the oval office. Collectively they have turned a blind eye to the needs of Veterans for the care they should be given. The attitude of the bloodsuckers that "delay and deny until they die" stems from the attitudes in the Whitehouse from Andrew Johnson until the current occupant.

It is the shame of a great nation that their leaders, and those who work for them are such small men with small minds.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

August 30 Claim Deadline for AO New Disease Retro Payments

2011-08-18T17:26:00.000-04:00

This warning just in from the American Legion Online:

Vietnam-era veterans who have medical diagnoses for three presumptive conditions related to Agent Orange exposure need to file their disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs by Aug. 30 in order to qualify for up to one year of retroactive benefits.

The three diseases recently added to VA's list of presumptive conditions related to Agent Orange exposure or other herbicides during the Vietnam War are ischemic heart disease, hairy cell and other B-cell leukemias, and Parkinson's disease.

"Veterans who suffer from these presumptive conditions can apply for disability benefits at any time," said Verna Jones, director of The American Legion's Veterans Affairs & Rehabilitation Division. "But they need to apply by the Aug. 30 deadline in order to possibly get up to a year's worth of benefits retroactively,"

Widows and widowers whose spouses have died from Agent Orange presumptive conditions may also qualify for retroactive benefits and are encouraged to file for dependent indemnity compensation by Aug. 30.

Veterans can file for disability claims online at VA's Agent Orange Fast Track Claims Processing System.

URL for this article:

http://legion.org/veteransbenefits/158350/agent-orange-claim-filing-deadline-aug-30

Many thanks to the as-ever alert American Legion!

Get those claims in ASAP, folks!

An Open Letter from Jim Davis Founder of Veterans for Change

2011-08-04T16:41:00.000-04:00

Jim Davis, Founder and CEO of Veterans for Change, has done it again, this time in an open letter to his Congressional Representative, Senators, and the President of the United States of America, In God We Trust!

Reproduced here with the permission of the author, Jim Davis:

Jim Davis
Founder and CEO, Veterans-For-Change,
Son of Retired Marine
Garden Grove, CA 92840

August 4, 2011

Dear Senators Boxer and Feinstein, Congresswoman Sanchez, and President Obama,

It's been bad enough government grows in size almost every day, our financial situation gets worse and worse to the point that by the time 2040 rolls around, the United States will not longer be the United States as we will have such a massive debt we won't even be able to meet the interest payments.

Then we will no longer be a free nation, we will be owned by whom ever the lender with the greatest investment is, either Russia or China.

Congress and the President are constantly asking Americans to sacrifice to make our nation grow, but sacrifice to what end and what growth?

Social Security funds have constantly been borrowed against and never repaid, the retirement age is continually increased forcing those in the working class to work 5-10 years longer just to retire on a meager income which WE and our employers pay into and Congress and the President are excluded from.

You force our Veterans to sacrifice even more! Not only have they served their Country with pride, honor and dignity, but then are forced to come home and continue to battle with the very same Country they served!

But they're asked to do even more, to give up benefits, services, medical care, is this how our Country thanks them for their service?

Then we have the children through no fault of their own are asked to give up too, by means of education cuts, reduction in teachers, and increases in class sizes.

When was the last time a member of Congress gave up a portion of their salary? When was the last time a member of Congress had their benefits cut?

Mr. President, you are the leader of this country, and with that position comes great responsibility, and with that responsibility some very hard and very tough decisions must be made.

But, Mr. President, where were your hard line decisions on cutting staff, cutting salaries, cutting benefits, cutting bonuses and perks? They're non-existent because you expect, no you demand that the American public give it up so the rich become richer on the backs of the working class and poor.

Congressman Boehner should not nor should any member of Congress even be thinking about raising the social security retirement age!

No member of Congress should be thinking about cutting the NDAA budget or the VA budget. You want and must make cuts, but start at the top!

Congress must stop acting like children in a sand box or on a playground and end the fighting among yourselves and do the job WE THE PEOPLE put you in office to do!

We did not hire you to fight, we did not hire you to spend our hard earned tax dollars on pet projects or giving it away in social programs for illegal aliens, and for the record no I will not ever address an illegal alien as an "immigrant" to me that is a slap in the face, an insult to all the millions who have come to our country using all fully legal methods and protocols.

And for once it would be nice it all 535 members of Congress stood tall before the American Public and said yes we will fight any form of Amnesty, any form of Immigration Reform and we will demand full enforcement of our immigration laws!

And for once it would be really nice if all 535 members of Congress were to put their heads together and find ways to cut our budget by no less than 20% across the board starting at the top and working your way down, avoiding Seniors, Veterans and Children!

You want to bring back more jobs, then I'd strongly suggest you look at all businesses in the United States who export jobs. Tax them heavily to do export jobs and tax them heavily on all products made in a foreign country and shipped into the United States for purchase.

Stop waiving import and export fees no matter who is involved. If they want to do business then let them do it and pay to do it!

It's not that hard, and keep in mind YOU do work for us, we do NOT work for you!

You saw a huge upset in 2010 elections with members of Congress, well rest assured we are all ANGRY and mad as hell and no we will NOT take this mess any more!

So I very strongly urge you to think very long and very hard and develop a budget we can live by and prove you can reduce government spending.

We the People are still paying $40 for a generic 60 watt light bulb. If our federal employees can't find a better price, well then they need to be replaced! Think about it!

Congresswoman Sanchez, I have a challenge for you. If you are as dedicated to Veterans as you have claimed to be, then let’s schedule a town hall meeting here in Orange County and I will personally notify all Veteran Service Organizations and pack a hall for you!

Respectfully,

Jim Davis
Founder & CEO Veterans-For-Change,
Son of Retired Marine

Outstanding Jim. Indeed, all three branches of government have totally lost touch with the American people, and indeed, with America itself.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Update on Tale of Two Veterans

2011-07-30T20:38:00.002-04:00

We received the following information by email from "Our Veteran", the Veteran whose claim file had been security sealed for 8 years without his knowledge.

We thought you readers should know what happened. Our Veteran wrote:

"I sent your blog to our Congressman, and 4 people from his office in DC, including his Chief of Staff, in response to our action, drove directly today [Friday] to the VA building in DC, stood in front of a high person's desk, and said, "How long do you think it will take to rate this terminal vet's claim?", showing them a doctor's letter and other items from June 20, 2003.

"The VA bigwig was indeed able to open the file!! The bigwig, eyes bugged out, said, "Can you give us two weeks?" And there WERE timely claims and appeals in 'Our Veteran's' file, after all. Imagine that! Hmm.

"The pen is mightier than the sword -- sometimes."

Sometimes it is. But in this case it is the 'sword' that was wielded by Our Veteran's Congressman's office. Here's hoping the DVA does the right thing and give's this Veteran back his life.

Over the past 8 years, they have lost almost everything they own spending their money on medical bills trying to keep Our Veteran alive.

They deserve better. So do all our Veterans. So does our Country.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

A Tale of Two Veterans

2011-07-28T12:38:00.000-04:00

We have two stories about Veterans that will be of interest to many. We believe neither is fictional. We believe both are true accounts. One story is from a Veteran who works in a VA Regional Office [RO], and has written to us about the anti-Veteran mindset of lower level management and as a result, some raters in the Department of Veterans Affairs [DVA] claims system. The other is a Blue Water Navy Veteran, whose experience is from the other side of the desk.

We will keep both of these folks anonymous to protect them, one because his job is on the line and the other because his claim is currently pending. Yes, folks, there is a real threat to both of them from the DVA.

Our Blue Water Navy Veteran has been chasing his claim for years - since 2003. He and his wife are near destitute from paying medical bills that should have been covered long ago by the DVA Compensation system. But like most Blue Water Navy Veterans, the rejections keep coming, and appeals don't go anywhere, and the claims keep getting re-filed.

On a recent visit to the Regional Office he made a request to see his file. After filling out the papers he waited two hours until he was called back. The VA Claims person stated he could not open the file. It was labeled "Sensitive Level Seven". He was asked if had ever worked for the DVA. The answer was no, never. The Claims person said that was the only reason a file would be labeled "Sensitive Level Seven", and that he was not cleared to open it. Apparently a "Sensitive level Seven" indicates a person employed by the DVA, locked tight to protect the privacy of the employee. Our Veteran never worked for the DVA.

A search was made for someone with the clearance to open the file. Again he was asked if he had ever worked for the DVA. Again the answer was no. When that person opened the file, our Veteran was informed there were no open claims in it, all had been denied. The file was never opened the entire time it went through the claim process, because no one had authority to open the file, it was simply denied repeatedly. That went all the way to the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, for which our Veteran had to hire an attorney. Further, they were told:

“all the claims had expired. You have no claim pending with the VA at all, there was no action on the claims, no appeals, nothing” [‘despite there BEING action on every file, every claim, every appeal, every request for records, etc’]”….any claims person at the VA could ‘Classify’ a file as such” [sending it to la-la land’] “…it took someone in Washington with the clearance to conduct a review, and IF agreed, then to remove it…call Washington to get it removed…"

Our Veteran was never told who to speak to in Washington.

A quick call to the attorney and a suit was immediately filed against the DVA.

All of you with denied claims should check to see if your claim file is closed and labeled with a security level. It may be one easy way for the DVA to simply "deny, deny and wait for them to die."

Our other Veteran is an employee in a Regional Office. He has worked claims, and reviewed claims. His story is one of frustration with his peers, his managers, and what he calls "the culture of the DVA".

In his letter, he tells of claims handlers who purposefully rate claims low, for example, rating a PTSD claim at 50% when it clearly met the 70-100% level. Others find reason after reason, legitimate or not, to deny Veterans claims.

He writes:

"When the Secretary came out last year and told us that VA was going to be advocates for veterans, not adversaries, I was told to disregard that, it will never happen. The Secretary said that he was going to change the culture of VA. So far I have seen not one scintilla of evidence that anything has been done to change the culture - at least not among those who rate disability claims. All of the energy is directed at getting rating decisions done - the numbers. There is no effort to make sure claims are fairly rated - just that they are done correctly - i.e., don't miss any issues, don't forget to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's"."

He also reports on a general attitude of disgust for those Veterans filing claims for PTSD. He writes that the DVA needs to address that issue because it is "...causing ratings to be woefully diminished or denied and were creating an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance of such attitudes..."

He writes:

"The prevailing attitude is still, if there is anything there that can be used to deny or diminish a rating, that's what is done. Our training to "grant if you can, deny only if you must" is just lip service. There is no reality in that at all. Raters know that the best way to avoid errors on quality review is to lowball ratings or deny claims. Period...So, what is a veteran to do with this kind of stuff going on?...I'm still waiting for the Secretary and VA to address the issue of culture change within the VA. The primary focus, in my humble opinion, on culture change, has to start on the rating teams if anything positive for veterans is ever to be accomplished. I'm not optimistic at all."

We were neither shocked nor surprised at what we read from this person. If you work with Veterans long enough you get to hear lots of stories, some horror stories, some not.

What we get from this, and from our second Veteran's letter is that there are some ROs where the anti-Veteran bias glares as bright as the sun, ruining the lives of many of the Veterans caught in its glare. Apparently, our DVA employee/Veteran is working in such. And that is a shame. Here we have a Veteran trying to work the system properly and he is forced to do so in an environment that is the antithesis of positive help for Veterans. [And can you imagine what it is like for that worker?]

We get email from DVA workers from ROs around the country asking for advice or clarification on things, and we have worked directly on occasion with some very positive claims personnel, who truly are trying to help their Veteran claimants. One even made the point that there were many "good" workers out there who genuinely cared about the Veterans and did what they could to help them. We agree. Unfortunately, there are not nearly enough to make the horror stories that Veterans have about their experiences with the DVA claim system the exception and not the rule.

We've mentioned before that if two Veterans with identical backgrounds and identical health profiles apply for benefits in two different ROs, one will likely be denied, the other will likely be approved. There is no consistency. There is no standardized training. And there is obviously no legitimate review of anyone's work being done above low level management.

We like the current Secretary. We would love to see him succeed at his attempts to improve the DVA. We wish we could help. But apparently his underlings have him walled off, and THEY make the policy decisions. What a sham, and what a shame.

We hope to follow up on these stories sometime in the near future.

Stay tuned...as Bette Davis once said on the silver screen, "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night!"

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Veterans and the Debt Limit

2011-07-27T11:16:00.000-04:00

Just a short note to let you all know that we are hearing from the Veterans Service Organizations that they are working directly with the Administration and with Congress to guard the US Military and the US Veterans and the dependents of both from budgetary reductions.

VVA passed along a note to some of its members, but not posted on its website as of 10 AM today, that contains the following message:

"Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) was one of the key veterans and military organizations present at a briefing at the White House late Tuesday regarding the potential impacts if the nation defaults on its loans on August 2. The debt ceiling must be raised by next Tuesday to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations. While senior Presidential advisors neither endorsed nor opposed any of the competing plans put forth by Democrats and Republicans, they did stress the President's continuing strong commitment to active-duty military, veterans, and our families."

VFW also sent out a release today about yesterday's White House Meeting. Mr. Fred Burns, the VFW Washington Office Director of Administration and Operations was at this meeting, and had this exchange with the Administration officials:

"During the question and answer period, Mr. Burns asked if the President's strong commitment to veterans and military families remains the same. Mr. Carson answered with a resounding 'Yes'!"

Additionally, the VFW made this statement in its press release:

"The VFW maintains its position to not agree to any Administration or Congressional proposal to deny or limit any health care program or benefit to eligible veterans, or to increase fees on any eligible veterans, service members, their families or survivors."

Now, if only Congress would hold to these promises...

Stay tuned folks.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

A Veteran's Worst Enemy...Part Two

2011-07-25T19:34:00.001-04:00

We don’t usually go public with things like this, but one of my comments raised the ire of some folks in one of the national Veterans Service Organizations, sparking some inquiries, and a slam by email. So, for once, we will offer this explanation of our comment. Please bear with us.

Most Veterans belong to one or more of the national Veterans Service Organizations, such as the American Legion, with over 3 million members, the Veterans of Foreign Wars with almost a million and a half members, and others such as the Fleet Reserve Association, AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Veterans of Modern Warfare, and Vietnam Veterans of America.

Veterans have come to rely on these organizations for many reasons, including providing Service Officers to help with filing claims at the VA, and operating local Chapters or Posts, and the social clubs that usually go with them. Veterans also rely on these organizations as their voice in Washington -- not just their voice, but their eyes and ears as well, to keep an eye peeled on Congress, the President and his Cabinet, and even the Courts for decisions and actions that would impact Veterans. It is an enormous and daunting task. And Veterans should be grateful for these fine organizations, and the work they do on their behalf.

Veterans Service Organizations generally have an "umbrella" spread over the particular group of Veterans they serve. Obviously, the largest is the American Legion, which serves ALL Veterans. The VFW serves those who served overseas in combat or combat support roles, in combat theaters or areas supporting combat operations. Smaller segments of the Veteran population are served by some of the other groups, like the Fleet Reserve Association which serves Naval Personnel, and the VVA, which serves the Vietnam Veterans.

Last week Senator Coburn, R-OK, introduced an amendment to the Military Construction/Veterans Affairs Act, which sets up funding for 2012. The Amendment would have changed how Agent Orange claims were dealt with by the DVA, by requiring the establishment of "a causal relationship" between the Veteran's disease and their exposure to dioxin-related herbicides. This would have essentially ended Agent Orange benefits.

Our inbox was hit immediately with two alerts, one from VFW, one from FRA. We immediately posted here asking all Veterans to go to the CapWiz page hosted by FRA to automatically send a letter of objection to both their Senators. FRA makes it very easy to do this.

We also wondered, since Agent Orange and other dioxin-containing herbicides is strictly a Vietnam War problem, where was VVA?

As it turns out, we received a rather nasty email from one of the high muckety-mucks at VVA, informing us that VVA was the organization that caught this move of Senator Coburn’s, and didn't we know that VVA had been the entity to notify FRA and VFW?

Ummm…how in the world would we know that?

Well, let's see...we heard from FRA, VFW, American Legion, but not...VVA. Not even the second day when further emails from the VFW and FRA, and the American Legion announced the success of the effort to hammer the Senate grass roots style, and get the motion tabled...thank you Senator Murray!

So when we posted the thank you to all for their efforts, we included a question about the VVA being absent from the effort to reach out directly to Veterans to help with the effort. That generated a rather gratuitous slam by the VVA official, and upset some VVA folks.

Today we received the VVA's Web Weekly, which, among other things, recounted the events surrounding Senator Coburn's amendment.

The VVA's public thank you to its own Veterans waited until today.

The appearance is that VVA relied on other groups to reach out to Veterans, including those under their own umbrella, apparently eschewing a special edition of their VVA's Web Weekly email system to go directly to their constituency. We have to ask: Why? Why take the chance of missing someone? Certainly, VVA has some members who do not belong to any other Veterans Organizations. Unless those members are tuned in elsewhere, which in our experience is highly unlikely, they will have gone through the whole event without hearing word one about it before today, IF they get the VVA's Web Weekly [which is sent out about three times per month, rather than on a weekly basis].

We work hard on this blog, and on the group we formed here three years ago, the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War. We pride ourselves on getting the word out when things happen, as quickly as possible after we hear it and confirm it. We also provide help in understanding what is happening. Compared to the national Veterans Service Organizations, this blog, and the VASVW Forums reach less than a thousand persons. We do our part, but we’re small. So when we see one of the biggies dropping the ball when it comes to keeping their people informed, and involved, we'll point that out.

We have a great working relationship with FRA, VFW, and American Legion. We've reached out several times to VVA, and have been largely ignored, shunned even...a sad way for the umbrella organization to treat an organized, specific segment of their own constituents.

Our “shot” was not fired at the membership of VVA. It was fired at the organization’s administrative team for dropping the ball by not communicating to its own Veterans.

We enjoy life membership in the VVA...and the American Legion, VFW, FRA, AMVETS, DAV, and more than a few other national Veterans Service Organizations. One of our best friends, another VVA member, repeatedly reminds us that, "A Veterans worst enemy is another Veteran," a sentiment many members of the VVA will recognize when they read it. How unfortunate it is that Veterans have enemies among their own peers, for only the Veterans lose as a result.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Great Work! Success in the Senate!

2011-07-21T17:06:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to all who contacted their Senators over the past 48 hours. There was success garnered from that effort, led by our friends at the Fleet Reserve Association and the Veterans of Foreign Wars [Where, oh where, was VVA on this?].

Yesterday, a motion to table the amendment won in the Senate 69-30 with one member not voting.

Go to this Senate Roll-Call page to see who voted for the motion to table and who voted against it. Keep that in mind come election time.

In the meantime, work on those Senators who voted against the motion to table. They must be educated. Call, write, fax. Get to them and let them know what they did wrong and why, and warn them they need to show a different side to get reelected.

Tabled means the bill is effectively dead...for the moment. A motion to pick it up can be passed at any time. That would be unusual, but not unheard of. So be vigilant. Keep those old Mark I A1 eyeballs peeled back for this one, or others like it.

Great work folks! Bravo Zulu!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Emergency Action Required: Oppose HR 2055 Amendment 564!!!

2011-07-20T13:21:00.001-04:00

FRA has issued the following alert [and VFW has also]:

Oppose Amendment to MilCon/VA Spending Bill (HR 2055)

Senator Coburn (Ok.) has filed an amendment (#564) to the Military Construction/ Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill (HR 2055) that will require a "causal relationship" for presumption for service connection for diseases associated with Agent Orange exposure that will significantly restrict benefits to Vietnam veterans. Vietnam veterans are presumed to be exposed to Agent Orange if they have certain conditions or diseases after the VA determines that a positive association exists between the exposure and the occurrence of the disease. Congress chose this mechanism because it is nearly impossible for Vietnam veterans to prove that exposure to Agent Orange caused their disease. Requiring a "causal relationship" would essentially mean that VA benefits for Agent Orange exposure would be out of reach for many Vietnam veterans that were exposed to the Agent Orange herbicide. Please use the FRA Action Center to ask your Senators to vote NO on this floor amendment # 564 for HR 2055.

Here is the link to the FRA's Action Center

Please lodge your opposition immediately!

This is hideous.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

An Editorial from Veterans-For-Change Founder Jim Davis

2011-07-01T17:49:00.000-04:00

The following is the lead editorial in the weekly Veterans-For-Change newsletter that arrived in my mailbox on July 1. We think it is important that you read this.

It is hereby reproduced with the permission of the author, Jim Davis:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

This-N-That

Over this past week I’m sure many of you have seen where there was a VAIG Report released showing some 280+ cases of sexual assault in VA Clinics and facilities nationwide.

These are only the cases reported, and most sexual assaults go unreported, but what has or will the VA do?

I’ve looked, searched, made calls and asked questions, but there seems to be no charges are being filed against any of these individuals, why? Is this the same type of government cover-up we’re all accustomed to?

Then we have the Houston National Cemetery who has just popped into the spotlight the last few days and their Director who seems to have an agenda of her own on banning the following:

· VA Forbids Mention of God at Funerals for Veterans and Requires Families to Submit Prayer for Approval to the Government

· VA instructs the VFW and a Private Funeral Home that they may not present the option of prayer to families

· VA Tells Volunteers to Remove "God Bless" from Condolence Cards to Grieving Families

· VA Closes Cemetery Chapel; Uses it for Storage

How is this honoring those who served this great nation of ours and given their lives in service to our country? Where is the Veteran Community outrage?

You served your country with dignity, honor and pride, you’ve earned your benefits, care and a final resting place, but we continually allow Congress, the DoD and the VA to treat Veterans worse than second class citizens.

To continually deny you benefits and medical care or to slowly strip you of earned benefits and care, hike the Tricare premiums, yet we can send billions of dollars in aid to foreign countries who for the most part are against the United States.

We have over 100,000 homeless Veterans across the country, and I’m sure you’ve seen where the ACLU has filed a class action lawsuit again the West Los Angeles VA for not providing the care, benefits and housing for the homeless Veterans.

There are at least 12 buildings that have sat vacant for more than 25 years on VA Land, they’ve known of the homeless situation there for decades and chose to ignore it! Why? Did they think it would go away all on its own? It won’t!

Now they have a “Master Plan”, but the problem is it only involves one building, but no way to fund the renovation to make it useable for Homeless Veterans which means they have no plan at all, yet Secretary Shinseki has vowed to end homelessness among Veterans by 2015. I wonder how he plans this grand plan if VAMC’s are allowed to lease out land to private entities and elitists.

Veterans-For-Change brought on a whole new program in September 2010 called the Homeless Heroes Project. With that came the Homeless Backpack program which was launched in December 2010 with 100 backpacks being distributed.

This year the goal is 300+ which would cover both Los Angeles and Orange Counties and our major sponsor this year is Southern California Gas Company and a strong supporter, the Garden Grove Police Department. And just in the past few days the Long Beach Health and Human Services has pledged to come on board with distribution through their homeless outreach program.

I’ve personally sent out many letters to local VFW Posts and American Legion Posts in Garden Grove, Anaheim, Buena Park, Santa Ana, Orange, Westminster, Midway City and am waiting to hear back from these various posts.

So as we say in all our newsletters, “If Veterans don’t help Veterans, who will?”

All across the country thousands of Veterans are either on the verge of ending up on the street or are there now and through no fault of their own. So, if we can’t help them who will?

I was told by one Veteran I was working with that I had provided local resources to with telephone numbers and when I checked with that Veteran a few days later I was told one of our Nationally Chartered Veteran Service Organizations said he didn’t qualify.

A single parent with three children living with him on the verge of losing everything and excuse me, he didn’t qualify?

So again I ask, if Veterans can’t help Veterans, who will?

My best regard and respect to you all, and thank you for your service to our Country!

Jim Davis

Founder & CEO
Veterans-For-Change

-----------------------------------------------------

Thank you Jim. As usual, a fine job of identifying the problems and clarifying the issues.

Please visit Veterans-For-Change at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VETERANS-FOR-CHANGE/

A worthy group for any and all Veterans to join and support.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Repost: Obtaining and Using Documents to Support Your Claim [VA and SSA]

2011-06-14T03:16:00.000-04:00

This is a repost of valuable information for obtaining and handling documents for filing claims with the DVA and/or SSA:

We are going to post a series of tips here to help Blue Water Veterans with their claims. The more information the Veteran can get for himself, the greater the control over his claim. That applies to those who are filing their own claims and to those using the services of a Veterans Service Officer.

It is important that all of your records be available to the Department of Veterans Affairs [DVA or VA], or the Social Security Administration [SSA] when you are filing a claim with either body. Even if you are working with a Veterans Service Officer, you should have copies of all the documents that are being submitted. Such documents include, but are not limited to:

1. Your complete medical records
2. Your complete service record
3. Your ship’s deck logs

We will tell you where to obtain these records, and why they are important.

First, however, here are some steps to take in the process of obtaining official documents or copies of official documents. Please note that these steps are common sense steps to help you stay organized throughout the process of your claim, and to make things easier for whoever is processing your claim. You never know when someone is grateful for you making it easy for them may be the difference in how he approaches the decision making process. If your case is close, it might make the difference. Also note that some of these steps may cost you a few dollars at a time, some more so, but in the long run may be worth much more in return.

Whatever official documents or certified copies of such you obtain, the first thing you should do is arrange a safe, fireproof location to store them.

Stop in at your local Staples, or office supply store, and get a couple of self-inking stamps made up. One should have your name, and address. A second should have your Name and VA Claim number. A third one is for Social Security and it should have your Name and Social Security number. Maximum cost for this should be under $30.

Next, either make or have 2 sets of copies made of all the official documents and certified copies. If you own a multipurpose printer [printer, copier, scanner, fax], you are in very good shape. The price of these has come down and their quality has gone up. Even if you have only a regular printer you can save a lot of time and aggravation. Count the number of copies you need to have made. Count out an equal number of blank pages and run them through the printer, placing your Name, Address, and VA Claim Number in the center of the page. [For copies for Social Security, use your Social Security number rather than your VA Claim Number.] Also, place the following words near your personal information: “Page ____ of _____ pages.” When the copying is done, you should serially number all those pages to help you, and anyone else working with the set of documents keep them in order. It also helps if one gets mislaid. You would then know which one must be replaced and can send it to whoever lost it. That is why you need to keep a second, working copy of your documents. Create separate file folders for them.

On the front of those pages, after they are printed, use your self-inking stamps to mark your name and VA Claim Number [or name and Social Security Number for SSA Applications], somewhere on the page where it does not interfere with what is on the page. Usually there is room at the bottom for this info. Stamp it on each and every page.

To the documents:

1. Medical Records:
Make sure that all your physicians, specialists and other health care workers [including hospitals…tell them to send a copy of all your records from your hospitalization to your family physician] send copies of any and all lab reports, and records of your visits and treatment plans, plus any prescribing information to your family physician. If you do this studiously, and you should insist upon it, then all of your pertinent medical records will be in one place: in the office of your family physician. When it comes time to gather all your current medical records, you only need to go to one place to obtain copies. Most physicians, when told it is for the VA or the SSA will cut you a break and either not charge you, or reduce the charge for copying. Most specialists do send a letter to your family physician and include copies of all test results and x-rays.

Make sure if you change physicians, you get a copy of all your medical records from the physician you are leaving and take them to the new physician and allow them to copy for their records. That gives them the records, and you then have a copy for all your records up to that date.

2. Your complete Personnel Record:
Most of the time, the VA and the SSA deal only with your DD-214 [Page 4 of the Navy Personnel File]. This usually has all the pertinent information, unless you served in more than one duty station or aboard more than one ship. It generally will only have your last duty station or ship and whatever personnel information to be recorded that was generated during that stay. This is important to understand especially if you were a Reservist, as well. Some reservists had several ActDuTra [active duty for training] periods before going on active duty, and may have had more after they came home from their two, three, or four year hitch on Active Duty. In such cases, this information may not show up on your DD-214.

Additionally, if you were TAD anywhere, having the rest of your personnel file should prove that, and that might be exactly the proof you need to prove “feet on the ground”, or a specific exposure.

To request your records, you should go to the following website:

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/

This site will allow you to go to the National Archives and Records Administration [NARA] application for Military Personnel Records. Follow the directions carefully. This process in the past has taken over a year before the records arrived, so start now and be patient.

3. Your ship’s Deck Log:
If your personnel record does not show proof of you being “foot on the ground” or in a place where you were exposed to Agent Orange, your ship’s Deck Log might very well be able to do so. Also, it would be additional documentary evidence in support of your claim as your Personnel Record will show you stationed aboard during a period the Deck Log makes reference to a working party ashore, or some such.

For most Blue Water Vietnam Veterans, ships Deck Logs are to be found at the Modern Military Branch of the National Archives, located just off the Washington Beltway in College Park, Maryland. It is a fascinating facility to visit, and you are encouraged to do so. If you do, go early and get your request in as soon as you get there, as it takes a while to pull the physical records from the archives. Logs from 1941 through those that are 30 years old or older are in the Modern Military Branch, National Archives, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park MD 20740-6001 [telephone (301) 837-3510]. Be prepared for heavy security, and when you sign in you must answer some questions on a computer, sign some pledges dealing with the handling of documents, and get a photo ID good for one year. Repeat visits are somewhat easier to accomplish.

These are the smooth copied Deck Logs hand written by a revolving set of Officers on board the ship, copied weekly from the rough daily log. They are official documents and are signed by the ship’s Captain and countersigned by the XO.

You may not need an entire period, but just certain dates. If you have a Cruise Book, that can sometimes help you pin point the dates.

The cheapest route to take is to just get copies made of specific dates. These are on oversized [10x15 inch] paper [the Navy went to 8 ½ x 11 log books after we all got out!], so special copiers are set up to deal with the size. But the copiers are sometimes balky.

We copied one month’s worth of log entries, about 50 over-sized pages as most entries ran over onto the back of the page. Because we had waited so long for the box to come up with the log entries, and then the copier we were using was constantly changing the settings, we decided to contract the NARA staff to copy and ship me the rest. It came to about $230 for an additional eight months.

Here is what is contained in the deck logs according to Navy Regulations:

• Absentees
• Accidents [material]
• Accidents/Injuries [personnel]
• Actions [combat]
• Appearances of Sea/Atmosphere/Unusual Objects
• Arrests/Suspensions
• Arrival/Departure of Commanding Officer
• Bearings [navigational]
• Cable/Anchor Chain Strain
• Collisions/Groundings
• Courts-Martial/Captain's Masts
• Deaths
• Honors/Ceremonies/Visits
• Incidents at Sea
• Inspections
• Meteorological Phenomena
• Movement Orders
• Movements [getting underway; course, speed changes; mooring, anchoring]
• Passengers
• Prisoners [crew members captured by hostile forces]
• Propulsion Plant Status changes
• Receipts and Transfers [of Crew Members]
• Ship's Behavior [under different weather/sea conditions]
• Sightings [other ships; landfall; dangers to navigation]
• Soundings [depth of water]
• Speed Changes
• Tactical Formation
• Time of Evolutions/Exercises/Other Services Performed

This information can prove invaluable in supporting your claim. If you cannot go to this incredible facility you can probably call and get a researcher to collect the data for you, but that might be more expensive.

The facility is on its own campus, has good parking, and beautiful grounds. Inside in addition to the records and archives are a small book-gift shop, a small snack shop, and a large, well appointed cafeteria. Security is very tight, and you are not allowed to take anything onto the floors with you. There are rental lockers in the basement for handbags, coats, pens, pads, and other research tools. There is plenty of scratch paper and pencils around on the research floors. The check-in process takes about 40-60 minutes before you even get to the research floor.

Note: any Deck logs that are less than 30 years of age are in the custody of the Ships History Deck Logs Section, Naval Historical Center, Building 57, 805 Kidder Breese Street SE, Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5060. All inquiries concerning research access to logs that are less than 30 years old should be sent to the Ships History Deck Logs Section.

Logs that are less than 30 years old are held in either paper or microfiche form, stored in the Washington National Records Center, 4205 Suitland Road, Suitland MD 20746. Logs from 1979 through February 1993 are on microfiche in the Ships History Deck Logs Section. Logs from 1990 through 1993 are partly on microfiche in the Deck Logs Section, partly on paper at the Records Center. All logs from March 1993 are on paper and stored at the Records Center. The logs that are classified must be sent to the proper authorities for declassification review before they can be researched or copied.

One other thing: If for some reason the above does not contain specific enough information to satisfy either the VA, or SSA, or both, and your claim involves combat action, you may need one other resource: The Navy Historical Society mentioned above also stores all ships’/units’ action reports, which were required after every engagement. That might be another source for validation of your claim, as it is usually more specific than the deck logs.

There you have it. If you are doing your own claim [probably online] via VONAPP or on the Social Security website, you will be required to provide verification of your claim. The above documents are, in most cases, all you will need. We packed ours up into several small boxes [about a ream of paper in each] and shipped them to the VA with our claim number on the outside of the boxes. We also shipped them return receipt requested. That proved they got to where they were intended, and showed us the date when they arrived.

If you are ill and can no longer work, you should apply for Social Security Disability in addition to your VA claim. It too can be a long and ugly process, but in the end, if you go to a hearing, things will work out. You must have an attorney for the appeal to Social Security and the attorney is paid from your lump sum if you win, up to a maximum of $5,400. Our appeal took almost 18 months from initial rejection to the hearing. Nevertheless, when that lump sum comes in, it is a huge load off your mind, as is the monthly income.

VA claims, at least to date, are not permitted to use attorneys to argue the claim before the Board. So there should be no fee for any VA claim, though Congress may change that at any moment.

The SSA almost automatically denies about ¾ of all claims up front [ours was denied before we even finished submitting our paperwork!] forcing the engagement of an attorney and the paying of a fee out of your lump sum. If you lose your appeal with Social Security, there is nothing owed to the attorney. In other words, the SSA is using private attorneys that you must hire to cut down on fraudulent claims, and forcing the claimant to pay for it. Something is very wrong with that.

Good luck, endure, and keep the faith.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Repost: Latest News From VASVW

2011-06-10T19:46:00.001-04:00

[This is another repost stemming from the problem with the Feedblitz notice system.]

VASVW has completed the transition from Yahoo! Groups to a privately hosted Forum. The Yahoo! Groups website is now gone.

We are up and running with the following websites:

VASVW Main: http://www.vasvw.org/

VASVW Forum: http://www.vasvw.org/forum

The Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War was established in August of 2008, so we are now approaching our third anniversary. During that period, VASVW has established a reputation of inclusion in decision making by all members, active grass roots legislative efforts, innovative methods of working with Congress, and a reputation for veracity, and integrity that Congress and other Federal Government agencies respect.

We have members from all branches of service, widows and survivors, and sailors who served in every type of ship and water craft during the Vietnam War. From Submarines to Aircraft Carriers, from Swift Boats to Destroyers and Cruisers, from Oilers and Ammo ships to Communications and Landing Ship Docks and from Sweeps to Coast Guard Cutters, we’ve served in them all.

Our current president, Roger Postera is a USAF Veteran who served in RVN, Thailand, and Korea during the Vietnam War. Four of our officers are wives or widows of Veterans.

Come join us and be an important part of something that will help Veterans. Join VASVW today! Go to

http://vasvw.org/forum/member.php?action=register

and become of part of a difference maker in the lives of Veterans.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Repost: VA Issues new rule covering CLL for BWN!

2011-06-09T12:17:00.000-04:00

[Due to some problems with the feed, this post's email notifications never went out. We are trying a second time.]

In an addendum to the May, 2011 Compensation and Pension [C&P] Bulletin, the Department of Veterans Affairs has finally indicated they accept the connection between Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma [NHL] and Chronic Lymphocytic Lymphoma [CLL]. As Vietnam Veterans who served in the Blue Water Navy were covered under the Agent Orange Act of 1991 for NHL [But NOT caused by exposure to Agent Orange!] in a special section of Title 38, so, too, can those who have CLL now get coverage.

Here is the citation from the May 2011 C&P Addendum*:

”Under the provisions of 38 CFR § 3.313, Veterans who served in Vietnam, including service in the waters offshore, are entitled to a presumption of service connection for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

We have received questions about the connection between non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and small-cell lymphocytic lymphoma. Discussions with medical professionals at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and with our attorneys at the Office of General Counsel (OGC) led to the conclusion that these diseases should all be considered the same disease for purposes of § 3.313. We will update the manual to reflect this determination.”

*[courtesy of the National Veterans Legal Services Program]

Unfortunately, this comes years too late for many of our Blue Water Veterans, for example, Ex-Intrepid. However, we urge widows and survivors of those who died without benefits because they had CLL not NHL, please restart your claims immediately. If you need help, contact your local VVA, American Legion, AMVETS, VFW or DAV representative and get them to help reopen your claim. VA should pay back to the date of claim, or the date of diagnosis of CLL, whichever occurred later. Most importantly, widow’s benefits [Disability Indemnity Compensation or DIC] should be paid or brought up to date.

Important Note: This coverage does NOT require exposure to herbicides like Agent Orange, but only service in the Vietnam Theater [receipt of the Vietnam Service Medal or the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for Service in Vietnam] on the high seas off the Republic of Vietnam [in the Combat Zone].

Please spread the word and waste no time getting the claims opened, reopened or adjusted!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Latest VASVW News!

2011-06-05T15:01:00.000-04:00

VASVW has completed the transition from Yahoo! Groups to a privately hosted Forum. The Yahoo! Groups website is now gone.

We are up and running with the following websites:

VASVW Main: http://www.vasvw.org/

VASVW Forum: http://www.vasvw.org/forum

The Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War was established in August of 2008, so we are now approaching our third anniversary. During that period, VASVW has established a reputation of inclusion in decision making by all members, active grass roots legislative efforts, innovative methods of working with Congress, and a reputation for veracity, and integrity that Congress and other Federal Government agencies respect.

We have members from all branches of service, widows and survivors, and sailors who served in every type of ship and water craft during the Vietnam War. From Submarines to Aircraft Carriers, from Swift Boats to Destroyers and Cruisers, from Oilers and Ammo ships to Communications and Landing Ship Docks and from Sweeps to Coast Guard Cutters, we’ve served in them all.

Our current president, Roger Postera is a USAF Veteran who served in RVN, Thailand, and Korea during the Vietnam War. Four of our officers are wives or widows of Veterans.

Come join us and be an important part of something that will help Veterans. Join VASVW today! Go to http://vasvw.org/forum/member.php?action=register and become of part of a difference maker in the lives of Veterans.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

VA Issues new rule covering CLL for BWN!

2011-06-02T12:59:00.001-04:00

In an addendum to the May, 2011 Compensation and Pension [C&P] Bulletin, the Department of Veterans Affairs has finally indicated they accept the connection between Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma [NHL] and Chronic Lymphocytic Lymphoma [CLL]. As Vietnam Veterans who served in the Blue Water Navy were covered under the Agent Orange Act of 1991 for NHL [But NOT caused by exposure to Agent Orange!] in a special section of Title 38, so, too, can those who have CLL now get coverage.

Here is the citation from the May 2011 C&P Addendum*:

”Under the provisions of 38 CFR § 3.313, Veterans who served in Vietnam, including service in the waters offshore, are entitled to a presumption of service connection for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

We have received questions about the connection between non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and small-cell lymphocytic lymphoma. Discussions with medical professionals at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and with our attorneys at the Office of General Counsel (OGC) led to the conclusion that these diseases should all be considered the same disease for purposes of § 3.313. We will update the manual to reflect this determination.”

In Memoriam

2011-05-30T11:25:00.002-04:00

"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven."

Psalms, 107:23-30, KJV

On this Memorial Day we salute our fallen shipmates.

Robert M. Taylor, USS Camden AOE 2
Steven F. Boody, USS Koiner, DER 331
Richard Appling, USS Intrepid CVS 11
Bruce Langston, USS Takelma ATF 113
Thomas LaLiberte, USS Constellation CVA 64*
Philip Clickner, USS America CVA 66
James Bradford, USS Estes AGC 12

* President of VASVW 2009-2010

These men served in the Blue Water Navy in the Vietnam War, and then served in the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War. We mourn our members "still at sea" as we do all of the nation's fallen.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

A Recommendation for Memorial Day

2011-05-29T00:47:00.001-04:00

[Note: A correction in the day of this has been made. The films will air on Monday Night, when Memorial Day is observed. Sorry for the error.]

As we approach Memorial Day, with all the parades, backyard BBQ parties, and other ceremonies and festivities, we need to get a handle on what this day means.

Turner Classic Movies has been running a marathon of some of the best war movies made about American Troops [mostly]. While To Hell and Back, the Audie Murphy story, is one of the best at portraying a true war hero, it was left off this year's list of films.

The cost of war is what Memorial Day is about. There is no greater cost than one's life. Hollywood has glorified the soldiers and airmen, and sailors and certainly the Marines who fought with courage, and died while doing so. And it is these men and women that we honor on Memorial Day. But there are other costs as well, as so many of us know. The scars - both physical and emotional, the diseases, and the loss of innocence are all included in the cost of war.

In this vein I would like to recommend two films that will run on Turner Classic Movies on Monday night. From 8 until 11 PM Eastern Time, TCM will be running one of the finest films dealing with the return of Veterans from the war, The Best Years of Our Lives. From 11 PM until 2 AM Eastern Time TCM will be showing Since You Went Away.

The Best Years of Our Lives stars Frederick March, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy and Theresa Wright, among others. One of the three returning Veterans is portrayed as a Navy Veteran returning with no hands. He is portrayed by Harold Russell, who really lost his hands in a training accident stateside during WW II, and he steals the movie from the rest of the cast. In fact, he is the first and only person to win two Oscars for the same role. He won Best Supporting Actor, and a separate special Oscar for what his performance meant to many crippled and handicapped Veterans.

Since You Went Away is not about military personnel, but about the home front, and what they had to deal with during WW II. It is a surprisingly well told story, well acted, and certainly, of great interest. It is also extremely poignant. It has perhaps a better known and larger cast that Best Years: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Joseph Cotten, Monte Wooley, Lionel Barrymore, Hattie McDaniel [of Gone With the Wind fame], and many more familiar names and faces.

I would highly recommend these two films as very appropriate for Monday night. If possible, you might want to catch them both even though they run long and late. They are well worth the investment in time and emotions. And your emotions will be in play during both of them. Keep a box of tissues at hand.

If you can't watch them, try to tape them or Tivo them. If not, try to rent them and watch them.

Since You Went Away won one Oscar and was nominated for eight others, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, and Supporting Actress. It perhaps should have won more.

The Best Years of Our Lives won 8 Oscars, including Russell's two, and was nominated for a ninth Oscar; Best Actor, Supporting Actor [Russell], Best Picture, Best Music, and so on.

These are probably two of the best films ever that you may not have heard of, or even watched. But they are two films that every Veteran, and every family member of a Veteran should watch -- every time they are presented. Those who are portrayed in these two films deserve no less, and neither do you.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

More on the IOM Study

2011-05-20T16:41:00.003-04:00

More on the IOM Study

After listening to the conference regarding the release of the IOM Study on Blue Water Navy and Agent Orange, there are a number of conclusions to be drawn.

First, the IOM Committee was tasked with the wrong parameters. The point they made in the conference is that there are no qualitative statistics gathered by anyone that could prove exposure, or non-exposure to a statistical certainty.

Second, by their conclusion that they could prove neither the liklihood of exposure to Dioxin, nor the non-exposure, they left the door open for the correct scientific approach, which is a statistical analysis and comparison between all Vietnam Veterans and all Vietnam Era Veterans current day as to who has which and how many AO-related diseases. This would be a mortality/morbidity study and the breakdown would be four groups: Brown Water Navy, Ground troops, Blue Water Navy, and the control group: Vietnam Era Veterans.

Note: We make the distinction between Vietnam Veterans, those who received either the Vietnam Service Medal or the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for Service in Vietnam, and those who served during the Vietnam Era but who did not receive either of those medals.

Therefore, when we ask Congress to introduce, support, fund and pass the Agent Orange Restoration Act of 2011, we will also ask them to request such a study to be contracted out by the Institute of Medicine.

Based on the reading of the report and the testimony in the conference held today it is our opinion that the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Study of Agent Orange and Blue Water Navy Veterans did an outstanding job. Their task was a difficult one. One can read between the lines and see what, perhaps, they really wanted to say, but could not because of the limits of their task, which was set by the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs at the frantic urging of Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, a decorated Vietnam Veteran of the Marine Corps.

It is a sad state of affairs that a Vietnam Veteran of his stature would do, say, and believe the things he has done and said, all in opposition to anyone outside the Marines.

In the end, the IOM did what it was tasked with doing, which once again makes them heroes.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

IOM Report a wash!

2011-05-20T14:11:00.003-04:00

The Institute of Medicine's Report is in and the results are stunningly disappointing. They could not reach a conclusion either way. Here is their published statement on the issue.

"The committee’s judgment is that exposure of Blue Water Navy Vietnam veterans to Agent Orange-associated TCDD cannot reasonably be determined."

It is to their credit that the IOM committee did not rule out the possibility.

While we have called for mortality studies before, perhaps this will prompt such an examination of the Blue Water Sailors medical issues as a group, when compared to those of the ground and Brown Water forces in Vietnam.

Stay tuned.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

IoM Report Due Friday, May 20!!!!

2011-05-13T12:37:00.000-04:00

[Note: This should have been posted 24 hours ago but Blogger was down for that period.]

We just received the following heads up from the Institute of Medicine:

Dear Interested Parties:

The Institute of Medicine will be releasing the prepublication version of the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange Exposure Report to the public on Friday, May 20th, 2011. An electronic version of the report will be available beginning at 2 p.m. that day. To view the report, please visit our website at www.nationalacademies.org and type in “blue water” in the search box; it will take you directly to the report.

In addition, a briefing to discuss the findings of the report with veterans and other interested parties will be held the day of the release at 3 p.m. in room 208 at the Keck Center of the National Academies. The Keck Center is located at 500 5th St., NW Washington, DC 20001.

Space is limited; please let us know in advance if you plan to attend the briefing. If you would prefer to participate by phone, we can provide you with a call-in number. Please notify us by Thursday, May 19th if you are going to call in to the briefing.

I have a lot of faith in this committee, they know what they are doing and I believe they will come up with the right results. Nevertheless...

...now is the time to pray.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

VASVW Changes Forum Location

2011-04-22T09:45:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note about the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War [VASVW]. The VASVW Forum on Yahoo! Groups will be shutting down at midnight, April 30, 2011. Members should be transitioning now to the new forum at:

http://www.vasvw.org/forum/

and new members should be going to that forum to register for membership at:

http://vasvw.org/forum/member.php?action=register .

The new VASVW forum site offers different forums for different topics. For example, we have a Quarterdeck forum for new folks just joining, to check in and to ask questions about VASVW and the forums...and we have a Fantail forum where we share sea-lies...er...sea stories with each other. There are forums for Agent Orange Information, Medical Issues, the DVA, and even a Back Porch, where you can "post about anything while you put up your feet and open up a cold one".

If you want to help us see to it that Congress does the right thing by all Vietnam Veterans, join us at VASVW.

The Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War, Inc.
Service to the Nation decades ago, now back in action!
"Fortitudine vincimus!" - By endurance we conquer!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Attention Vietnam Era Veterans of Okinawa

2011-04-13T09:28:00.001-04:00

An article was recently published in the English edition of The Japan Times that discusses the plight of those Vietnam Era Veterans who's service was on the Japanese Island of Okinawa. Many barrels of herbicides were stored on the island and to some unknown extent it was used there as well. Read the story Evidence for Agent Orange on Okinawa, by Jon Mitchell, in The Japan Times.

The story of these Veterans is the same as those who served on Guam, in the Philippines, on Johnston Island, and so on. These Veterans are the subject of the second of two proposed Agent Orange bills awaiting introduction in Congress. The Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War [VASVW] is advocating the two bills [the proposed Agent Orange Restoration Act, and the proposed Agent Orange Supplemental Act], in order to provide benefits for Vietnam Veterans who had their benefits under the Agent Orange Act of 1991 taken away by the Department of Veterans Affairs [the AO Restoration Act], and for Veterans who served outside of the Vietnam Theater of War but were exposed to herbicides that were stored, used, tested or shipped through their location [the AO Supplemental Act].

Those Veterans who served on Okinawa [and other locations] would be covered by the proposed Agent Orange Supplemental Act, necessary because they are a separate class of Veterans who served outside the Combat Zone/Vietnam Theater of War. [Read about the difference between the two bills.]

Thanks to Jon Mitchell and the editors at The Japan Times for bringing the Okinawa issue before the public. The hope here is that US wire services pick up the story. And perhaps a Veterans magazine might publish it as a different view of the Vietnam War and its deadly consequences.

Visit the VASVW website for information about our efforts to spur Congress to "do the right thing" and cover all Veterans exposed to dioxin-containing herbicides.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Why two bills?

2011-04-03T18:20:00.000-04:00

Glad you asked.

The proposed Agent Orange Restoration Act restores benefits to Veterans included in the original Agent Orange Act of 1991 [those who served in the Blue Water Navy, and those who served in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia [TLC] during the Vietnam War. This restores eligibility for presumptive exposure to herbicides to all who received the Vietnam Service Medal [VSM], or the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for Service in Vietnam [AFEM-V]. These Veterans "subgroups" are not new to Congress, and we think the appropriation for them is still in place, and that the DVA is using the money for other purposes, such as new construction.

The proposed Agent Orange Supplemental Act will provide presumptive eligibility to a new class of Vietnam Era Veterans who did NOT earn either the VSM or the AFEM-V. Therefore, it covers any Veteran of the Vietnam Era, who served anywhere else in the world at the same time herbicides were used, stored, or shipped from/to/through that location, and have developed an official Agent Orange Disease. It is the same coverage as the Restoration Act [which is the same coverage as that provided under the current version of the Agent Orange Act of 1991, as amended.]

The major difference to Congress is the cost.

The Restoration Act will cost approximately $1.8-3 Billion the first year [due mainly to retroactive lump sum payments], and approximately $400-600 Million per year after that, declining each year as the Vietnam Veterans die off. Dependents Indemnity Compensation [Survivors Benefits] will require additional funding beyond the death of the last Vietnam Veteran. This is a simple bill, the language of which simply restores the VSM, or the AFEM-V as the primary qualifier for presumptions.

The Supplemental Act covers a class of Veterans totally new to Congress. The language of their bill needs to be added to Title 38 via the legislation. Appropriations must be found for this bill. Costs need to be developed based on the population of the covered class of veterans. This will take time. Congress needs to be educated on this class of Veterans and how they were exposed. This will take time. This will cover those who served during the Vietnam Era in such places as Panama, the Philippines, Okinawa, Guam, Johnston Island, Japan, Hawaii, and essentially at almost any US or NATO Base anywhere in the world since herbicides were used throughout.

Accordingly, by the nature of things, the Restoration Act should find an easy path to passage. Conceivably, the appropriations should not be a problem since the original 1991 appropriations are still in place, and this class of Veterans [BWN, TLC] is already covered under it. [This makes it the problem of the DVA to re-divert the money it is already spending elsewhere [rather than returning it to the US Treasury!] and ask for new appropriations in their spending bill to cover whatever they were using the money for]. The cost for this coverage essentially goes to zero.

Funding for the Supplemental Bill will take an enormous effort as there is no sure set of numbers at this time beyond the fact that approximately 5.3 million men and women [and sometimes their dependents] served in areas covered by this bill during the Vietnam Era, who are NOT Vietnam Veterans but are Vietnam Era Veterans.

While we are asking both bills to be introduced together, they will not travel on the same path or on the same timeline.

But the two bills will prevent the loading up of the Restoration Act with groups that will drive the cost up, as it has the past three years [two bills, in the last two sessions of Congress died in committee because of costs driven sky high by the addition of Vietnam Era Veterans to the bill.]

On the plus side, while there is little prospect for the immediate passage of the Supplemental Act, the passage of the Restoration Act would be a major step toward the recognition of just how bad the devastation from dioxin-containing herbicides was, and still is. And those who served outside of the Vietnam Theater of War will finally have a bill to call their own, where they can band together and provide the kind of advocacy-specific impetus needed to pass their bill. It is a different class of Veterans and requires different language than the Restoration Act.

For those of you who actively advocate for these bills, feel free to download them from the links at the top right of the page, and forward them to your Representative and both Senators, and ask them to help introduce, cosponsor, fund and pass both bills. Then, truly, no one will be left behind.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Misinformation Alert

2011-04-02T11:46:00.000-04:00

An article in a state level Veterans Magazine was brought to our attention yesterday. While the information in the article is accurate, it is outdated by almost 5 years and therefore woefully incomplete.

The article touts the Haas case decision in the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, in August 2006, and states that the decision in that case is now the law, so get your claims in fast if you were Blue Water Navy.

As we found out subsequent to the USCAVC decision, it did not stand very long. The Department of Veterans Affairs [DVA] filed an appeal immediately, and the case moved on to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [USCAFC]. We attended the oral arguments in the case at the US Court House in Washington, DC in November, 2007. The Court issued its decision to reverse the USCAVC officially in October of 2008. Commander Haas, and his legal team, headed up by the National Veterans Legal Services Program, appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States [SCOTUS]. SCOTUS did not select the case for review, thereby letting the USCAFC decision stand.

Subsequently the case was remanded back to the Regional Office via the USCAVC, and the Board of Veterans Appeals [BVA]. The case was dead.

In separate DVA claim action, Commander Haas did eventually get his claim for direct exposure approved, but it had nothing to do with the legal case as described above.

It is an unfortunate accident when the alert that flashed around the Internet in August and September of 2006 gets republished as if it is current news. In fact, the current policy of the DVA is that Blue Water Navy Veterans must prove boots on the ground, or service in Brown Water to have their presumptive Exposure to Herbicides approved for benefits and medical coverage.

Though the correct bill has not been introduced in Congress quite yet, we are hopeful it will be in the coming days. We do not support HR 812 which is Bob Filner's reissued HR 2254 from the last session. Mr. Filner let HR 2254 die in committee despite having over 260 cosponsors. It died because it was written to cover almost anyone anywhere who had ever been exposed to herbicides during the Vietnam Era. Because it went so far beyond the scope of restoring benefits to Veterans who were to be included in the original Agent Orange Act of 1991, the cost became prohibitive at $27 billion.

We ask all of our readers to contact their Veterans Service Organizations [American Legion, VVA, VFW, DAV, FRA, etc.] and ask them to NOT support HR 812. It will not cover all the Veterans who should be covered. Ask them to support introduction of the Agent Orange Restoration Act and the Agent Orange Supplemental Act immediately! When they are introduced, contact your elected Congressional Representatives and Senators, and ask them to cosponsor and fully fund the bills. [See top right of this page for links to the proposed legislation].

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

A Veteran's Worst Enemy...

2011-03-30T10:12:00.002-04:00

...is Another Veteran.

That's right: a Veteran's worst enemy is another Veteran.

There is a document going around the Internet right now that essentially lays the failure of HR 2254 [The Agent Orange Equity Act of 2009] squarely at the feet of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The document claims the DVA distorted figures used by the Congressional Budget Office in coming up with a cost for the bill, resulting in a greatly inflated cost that killed the bill despite the fact that some 260 Congressmen signed on as Cosponsors.

The Document's author is the head of a Blue Water Navy group [not VASVW]. The document lists a number of "lies" which are charged to the DVA in making their estimates, and claims these lies made the bill too expensive to pass.

What's wrong with this picture?

First, the author himself is one who shares the responsibility for the cost estimates to be so high. He is one of the people who sat on the "secret" committee led by Kurt Priessman [an Air Force Veteran of service in Thailand during the Vietnam War], that sent an August, 2008 letter to Bob Filner, [D-CA], then Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. That letter asked Filner to add additional groups to his first effort at restoring benefits to those who served in groups the DVA had removed from eligibility for presumptive exposure to herbicides under the 1991 Agent Orange Act. In addition to covering the Blue Water Navy, Blue Sky Air Force, and the Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia [TLC] Veterans, this "secret" committee of Veterans asked Filner to add Veterans who served on Johnston Island and Veterans who received the Vietnam Campaign Medal.

Read the letter in this previous post: How HR 6562 got hijacked.

Both of those groups open the door to adding huge numbers to the bill. Essentially, it was this letter that sank Filner's first effort, the Agent Orange Equity Act of 2008. Then, the letter found its way into the language of the second Filner effort, the Agent Orange Equity Act of 2009. [Now it has also been included in the third effort by Filner, the Agent Orange Equity Act of 2011!]. Read the bills and you see "Johnston Island" and "Vietnam Campaign Medal" specifically included in the bills. That language stems from the August 2008 letter composed by the "secret" committee of Veterans.

So the real lie here is in blaming the DVA for the demise of the Agent Orange bill not once, but twice, because of its estimates of potential claims resulting in a $27 billion bill. What causes those high estimates are the inclusions of the words "Johnston Island" and "Vietnam Campaign Medal," because including Veterans under those qualifiers adds tens [perhaps hundreds] of thousands of potential claims to a bill that should be offered to no more than 60-80,000 Vietnam Veterans who served in the Blue Sky Air Force, Blue Water Navy and TLC.

We note that the Vietnam Campaign Medal is a foreign award, and should not be used as a qualifier for US Veterans benefits. What it in fact does in this case is to add all the outside locations [outside the Vietnam Theater] that stored or trans-shipped herbicides to and from South Vietnam. That would be Guam, Okinawa, the Philippines, and potentially several other locations. That would also include Johnston Island. Veterans who served at those locations received the VCM, in lieu of the Vietnam Service Medal, because they did not serve inside the area of combat operations designated for the Vietnam Service Medal, otherwise known as the Combat Zone. Recipients of the Vietnam Service Medal could also receive the Vietnam Campaign Medal if their tour of duty in the Combat Zone was longer than six months.

The Medal that should be in the bill is the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for service in Vietnam. The AFEM was "awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces who, after July 1, 1958, have participated in a United States military operation and encountered foreign armed opposition, or were in danger of hostile action by foreign Armed Forces." [Wikipedia] and operations included in the list are: VIETNAM (1 JUL 58 - 3 JUL 65); CAMBODIA (29 MAR 73 - 15 AUG 73) - NO NAVY UNIT ELIGIBLE; THAILAND (29 MAR 73 - 15 AUG 73) - NO NAVY UNIT ELIGIBLE; Laos 19 April 1961 - 7 October 1962. [OpNavNote 1650 Mar 2002] Those who received this medal are eligible to exchange it for the Vietnam Service Medal.

We have noted on here before, that in their zeal to "leave no one behind", the other Blue Water Navy group has left everyone behind, twice.

We have offered our proposed legislation to any Veterans to advocate the bills in Congress. The proposed bills are specifically designed to keep the restoration of benefits illegally removed from the Agent Orange Act of 1991 by the DVA, separate from the institution of legislation providing benefits to anyone who served anywhere during the Vietnam era, and did not receive the Vietnam Service Medal, and who was exposed to herbicides as documented by the Department of Defense.

We don't want credit for the bills, we want them to pass. Anyone is free to claim credit for them.

But at the same time, we issue this warning: once the Agent Orange Restoration Act and the Agent Orange Supplemental Act are introduced, Do not go near the Restoration Act to try to alter who it covers.

We have very little in the way of positive feeling for the Department of Veterans Affairs, but when some Veteran shamelessly accuses the DVA of lying to Congress to cover up what he did that left so many behind - twice, we are forced to speak up and correct the record. His actions make all Veterans look bad. And the evidence is there in the bills, and in the letter.

A Veteran's worst enemy is another Veteran.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

New Research Recommendations

2011-03-04T12:51:00.001-05:00

New recommendations are now in order for professional research help. Tim Frank has moved on to a professional research position, and we asked for a recommendation. He gave two, and both have agreed to allow us to post their information on VNVets Blog.

Susan Strange and Cliff Callahan come highly recommended by Tim.

Susan has a website through which you can reach her, and see a glimpse of her work. Susan's site, Strange Archives, offers a wide variety of research areas. She can also be reached at her email: strangeresearch@mac.com .

Cliff Callahan does not have a website at the moment but can be reached by email at callahan331@aol.com .

Both are experienced researchers at the NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] Modern History Branch at Adelphi, Maryland, where the bulk of the records from the Vietnam War, including Naval vessels deck logs; and at the Naval History and Heritage Command, located at the Washington, DC Navy Yard, where items like After Action Reports are archived.

They also have experience in researching other repositories.

We recommend that before you contact either Susan Strange or Cliff Callahan you understand that they do this for a living, so they charge. You will need to inquire about their rates.

Additionally, any research or information you may have should be gathered before your call. For example, if you are trying to prove your ship went into a Vietnamese port, try to pin down the date. A Cruise Book may offer the answer. Cruise Books have been collected at the Naval History and Heritage Command for a number of years now. If you don't have one, perhaps the NHHC does, and it might be the place to start to zero in on dates, as events of the deployments are often chronicled in those books.

Welcome to the fight, Mr. Callahan and Ms. Strange!

We have added a section on the right sidebar under the heading Military Research, that will connect you to either of these researchers.

Good luck! And Good Hunting!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Legion Magazine publishes follow-up

2011-03-03T09:49:00.000-05:00

As you know, last summer the American Legion Magazine published an article on Blue Water Navy's fight to get benefits restored [archived link]. It featured members of VASVW. Now, the author, Ken Olsen, has written a follow up titled "Still Adrift" [archived link], in the March, 2011 issue of the Legion Magazine.

Our thanks go out once again to the great folks at the American Legion, and their Magazine staff for the support they are giving us in keeping this issue out before the public.

We urge all to read the article.

Thanks again to a great reporter Ken Olsen, and the Editor of the American Legion Magazine, Jeff Stoffer, and his staff who put out a great product!

Bravo Zulu!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Filner Intros HR 812: Doomed to die in committee.

2011-02-23T20:50:00.001-05:00

Bob Filner introduced HR 812 on Friday last, and it is the exact same bill he introduced in early May of 2009, the bloated, super expensive bill that he refused to move from committee last year even though there were over 255 co-sponsoring members of Congress -- far more than the 218 required to pass a bill in the US House of Representatives.

The language of the bill is identical to HR 2254 that he introduced in the last session of Congress, and then failed to support.

We are working to get the Agent Orange Restoration Act, and the Agent Orange Supplemental Act introduced sometime in the coming weeks. While the Supplemental Act covers Vietnam Era Veterans [not Vietnam Veterans] who were exposed to dioxin-containing herbicides, and it is very expensive -- VERY EXPENSIVE.

The Agent Orange Restoration Act seeks to restore benefits intended by Congress in the original Agent Orange Act of 1991, which have since been voided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. It seeks to restore the Vietnam Service Medal [or the Armed Forces Service Medal for Service in Southeast Asia], and a documented illness from the current list of Agent Orange related-diseases as the sole qualifiers for presumptive exposure to dioxin containing herbicides. In short, if you got the medal, and an AO disease, you are service connected. No more "boots on the ground".

As Filner's bill did last year, HR 812 will seek to "leave no one behind," but its failure will result in ALL being left behind.

Please contact your Representative and your Senators and urge them to NOT support HR 812.

Meanwhile, you can help get the right Bill passed by joining us at VASVW. Click on the Orange VASVW logo in the left column of this page for more information, or visit:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vasvw/

Membership is and always will be free, and it is open to all.

The Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War, Inc.
Service to the Nation decades ago, now back in action!
"Fortitudine vincimus!" - By endurance we conquer!

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." --Edmund Burke

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Survival

2011-02-02T11:18:00.001-05:00

Veterans

Please pay attention to this very carefully. Survival is of paramount importance. Many of you are in a tight spot financially, some more than others.

I have recommended on more than one occasion that you get to your local Social Security office and file a joint application for Social Security Disability Insurance [SSDI] and Supplemental Security Income [SSI].

The application will be processed and, if eligible, you will get one or the other, not both, but it will be the one that maximizes your benefit.

If you worked, but can no longer work, and you paid into Social Security, the money you receive will likely be SSDI, and it can be a great blessing. In fact, it is YOUR money, so go for it. You will be eligible after a short time for Medicare parts A [hospitalization with co-pays and deductibles] and B [doctors visits].

If you did not work, or did not pay into Social Security you will likely receive SSI. This is usually a lesser amount than SSDI. In most states, SSI will also provide you with Medicaid, and it usually means full medical, dental, hospitalization and prescription coverage. You will not be required to give up your Veterans Pension to receive this benefit. SSI is not considered countable income against your Veterans Pension.

If you are 62 or older you may be eligible to collect your Social Security retirement benefits.

In any case, if you cannot collect any of these, then swallow your pride [which you can't eat] and go to your local Welfare office and apply for Cash, Food Stamps and Medical Benefits. Not all states have all three benefits. They will, however, allow you to survive on enough cash and food stamps to eat decently, and to have at least some of your Medical bills covered, usually all of them.

At the very least, you are likely eligible for Food Stamps. Take advantage of them. You paid your taxes, now reclaim some of them.

And, VERY IMPORTANT, do not forget to apply for these benefits for your wife as well. Include her on the applications. If she spent her life as a housewife, she will likely be eligible for SSI. If she worked more than a few years, she will be eligible for SSDI or SS Retirement depending on her age.

One last thing: most of us qualify for classification as "low income". There is a Federal Program called Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. You may apply any time from December to March or April for help with your heating bills.

Your local County Welfare Office will also help you apply for Social Security Benefits and usually is where the LIHEAP Program is run.

Now, if you are receiving any service connected disability compensation from the VA, you can also receive SSDI or SSI, or any retirement pension including Social Security. You may also be eligible for Food Stamps and some Medicaid Coverage depending on your income level.

Medicare is the Federal Medical insurance program associated with Social Security benefits [SS Retirement, SSDI, SSI, or Railroad Retirement].

Medicaid is medical coverage administered by state Welfare Agencies [usually county offices] using a combination of Federal and State funding.

Simply put, you cannot afford to ignore these potential benefits. Go apply. Get yourself and your wife some money that you are entitled to, and some medical coverage.

Note: Federal law prohibits the counting of the value of your home and one vehicle against these benefits. You cannot lose your home by applying for and receiving any of the benefits mentioned.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Major Victory for Korea DMZ Vets

2011-01-27T08:18:00.000-05:00

Just about two years ago we published an entry here about the Army troops that served on or near the Korean DMZ during the Vietnam Era.

ATTN Army Korean DMZ Vets from 1967-71

In the entry from January 24, 2009, we discussed the disparity in Title 38 language granting exposure to the children of Veterans who served at or near the Korean DMZ between September, 1967 and August 1971, and the Vets themselves who were limited to the period April, 1968-July, 1969. It made no sense to say that a child was qualified under presumed exposure to his Veteran father or mother, who was serving in the Army on Korean DMZ duty, was eligible over a four year period but the Veteran himself was eligible only during a 15 month period. Exposure is exposure. We recommended all Korean DMZ vets of that era file claims immediately if they served at any time during that expanded time frame on or near the Korean DMZ.

Yesterday, the VA announced a new final rule on eligibility for presumptive exposure to herbicides for those Veterans who did DMZ duty in Korea. While it is short eight months it is a major advance for the Veterans. Here is the applicable paragraph from the DVA Press Release:

Under the final regulation published today in the Federal Register, VA will presume herbicide exposure for any Veteran who served between April 1, 1968, and Aug. 31, 1971, in a unit determined by VA and the Department of Defense (DoD) to have operated in an area in or near the Korean DMZ in which herbicides were applied.

Korean DMZ Veterans of the 1968-1971 era should press their claims now.

Sometimes, the DVA does the right thing, although all-too-often belatedly.

A note to all Veterans: This is one more monster knocked to the ground among the many that the DVA [and Congress] has erected in our path to rightfully earned benefits.

We intend to knock a good many more down.

One way you can help is to join VASVW. The Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War is committed to the restoration of benefits to Veterans of the Blue Water Navy, Blue Sky Air Force, and those who served in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia [TLC]. Those benefits were part of the original Agent Orange Act of 1991 and the DVA removed those groups from eligibility without public notice and without prompting from Congress. Come join us and help us right a wrong. Additionally, we advocate a separate piece of legislation for any Veteran who served anywhere in the world during the Vietnam Era, where herbicides were used, stored, or trans-shipped.

Join us at VASVW

Membership is and always will be free, and is open to all Veterans and Veterans advocates alike.

Welcome home Army Vets!

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

VASVW Elects Officers

2011-01-25T20:31:00.002-05:00

In December, the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War [VASVW] conducted their third election of officers. The results are as follows:

President Steve Burns
Vice President Phil Elliott
VP for Public Relations Ann Langston
VP for Membership Janet B. Davis
Secretary Barbara Wright
Treasurer Wendy Carr-Durbin

Executive Board at-large Gary Vierra
Executive Board at-large E. A. Rex King

Trustee Dennis Myers
Trustee Ted Williams
Trustee George Mitchell

Chief Executive Officer Bill Miltenberger

Non-elected positions remain filled as before:

Chaplain Steve Burns

Senior Legislative Advocate Michael Teaney
Senior Legislative Advocate Janet B. Davis
Senior Legislative Advocate Ann Langston
Senior Legislative Advocate William G. Jeff Davis

We welcome the new slate of officers and wish them well in their endeavors. They have already begun the tasks of setting up for a new round with Congress, and the public.

As always, membership in VASVW is open to all, so why not join us at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vasvw/

We are 200 strong and growing daily. Come be a part of something positive. Come help us affect changes in in how the American Veteran is treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Seventh Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

The Agent Orange Supplemental Act

2010-12-05T01:34:00.001-05:00

Below is the bill we have made available before, to other groups, to Congress, and to at least one of the major national Veteran Service Organizations. As you will see, it creates an entirely new section in Title 38 to allow for different eligibility criteria, and different methods of exposure. Please note, there are no names on this, or on any other bills we have proposed in the past. Never were, never will be. We do not write these for the purposes of ego but to create legislation that has the best chance at passage, and of doing what it is intended to do, provide benefits for all who were exposed, anywhere in the world, to the poison contracted for by the US Department of Defense in the 1950s through 1972. Those who advocate this project need to check their own egos and get past them. It's not the 'who,' its the 'what.'

Here is the proposed Agent Orange Supplemental Act; take it and use it, but use it in the spirit in which it is written:
------------------------------------------

111th CONGRESS

HR 0000, a Companion Bill to S 0000

The Agent Orange Supplemental Act of 2009
To amend Title 38, Part II, Chapter 11, Subchapter II by adding Section 1119 to authorize and clarify the award of benefits for those Veterans who served during the Vietnam Era, but did so outside the Vietnam Theater of Operations, and were presumed to have been exposed to herbicides.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
In , 2009, Mr. Xxxxx introduced the following bill; it is co-sponsored by Representatives:

A BILL
To amend Title 38 USC to authorize the award of benefits to Veterans presumed to have been exposed to certain herbicides while serving in locations outside the Vietnam Theater of Operations during the period beginning on January 9, 1962, and ending on May 7, 1975.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; REFERENCES TO TITLE 38, UNITED STATES CODE.
(a) Short Title- This Act may be cited as the `Agent Orange Supplemental Act of 2009'
.
(b) References- Wherever in this Act an amendment is expressed in terms of an amendment to a section or other provision, the reference shall be considered to be made to a section or other provision of title 38, United States Code.

SEC. 2. CLARIFICATION OF AUTHORITY TO ESTABLISH PRESUMPTIONS BASED ON HERBICIDE EXPOSURE; CONFIRMATION OF RETROACTIVE PAYMENT.
(a) Title 38, Part II, Chapter 11, Subchapter II is amended by adding at the end the following new section:

Sec. 1119. Presumptions of service connection for diseases associated with exposure to certain herbicide agents; presumption of exposure for veterans who served during the Vietnam Era but outside of the Vietnam Theater of Operations.

(a) (1) For the purposes of section 1110 of this title, and subject to section 1113 of this title--
(A) a disease specified in paragraph (2) of this subsection becoming manifest as specified in that paragraph in a veteran who, during active military, naval, or air service, served outside the Vietnam Theater of Operations during the period beginning on January 9, 1962, and ending on May 7, 1975; and
(B) each additional disease (if any) that (i) the Secretary determines in regulations prescribed under this section warrants a presumption of service-connection by reason of having positive association with exposure to an herbicide agent, and (ii) becomes manifest within the period (if any) prescribed in such regulations in a veteran who, during active military, naval, or air service, served outside the Vietnam War Theater of Operations during the period beginning on January 9, 1962, and ending on May 7, 1975, and while so serving was exposed to that herbicide agent, shall be considered to have been incurred in or aggravated by such service, notwithstanding that there is no record of evidence of such disease during the period of such service.
(2) The diseases referred to in paragraph (1)(A) of this subsection are the following:
(A) Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma becoming manifest
(B) Each soft-tissue sarcoma other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi's sarcoma, or mesothelioma.
(C) Chloracne or another acneform disease consistent with chloracne.
(D) Hodgkin's disease.
(E) Porphyria cutanea tarda
(F) Respiratory cancers (cancer of the lung, bronchus, larynx, or trachea)
(G) Multiple myeloma
(H) Diabetes Mellitus (Type 2).
(I ) Hairy Cell Leukemia
(J) Parkinsons Disease
(K) Ischemic Heart Disease
(3) For purposes of this section, the term ``herbicide agent'' means a chemical in an herbicide used in support of the United States and allied military operations in the Vietnam Theater of Operations, and in locations outside the Vietnam Theater of Operations during the period beginning on January 9, 1962, and ending on May 7, 1975.
(4) For purposes of this section, the term “Vietnam Theater of Operations” is defined as The Republic of Vietnam, The inland waterways of the Republic of Vietnam, the waters off shore of the Republic of Vietnam, and in the sky above the Republic of Vietnam, and in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia during the period beginning on January 9, 1962, and ending on May 7, 1975.
(5) For purposes of this section, the term “Outside the Vietnam Theater of Operations” is defined as any and all locations identified by the Department of Defense as a base, installation, unit, ship, aircraft, or other military entity on or in which herbicides were used, stored, shipped from, or through.

(b) (1) Whenever the Secretary determines, on the basis of sound medical and scientific evidence that a positive association exists between
(A) the exposure of humans to an herbicide agent, and
(B) the occurrence of a disease in humans,
the Secretary shall prescribe regulations providing that a presumption of service connection is warranted for that disease for the purposes of this section.
(2) In making determinations for the purpose of this subsection, the Secretary shall take into account
(A) reports received by the Secretary from the National Academy of Sciences under section 3 of the Agent Orange Act of 1991, and
(B) all other sound medical and scientific information and analyses available to the Secretary. In evaluating any study for the purpose of making such determinations, the Secretary shall take into consideration whether the results are statistically significant, are capable of replication, and withstand peer review.
(3) An association between the occurrence of a disease in humans and exposure to an herbicide agent shall be considered to be positive for the purposes of this section if the credible evidence for the association is equal to or outweighs the credible evidence against the association.

(c) (1) (A) Not later than 60 days after the date on which the Secretary receives
a report from the National Academy of Sciences under section 3 of the Agent Orange Act of 1991, the Secretary shall determine whether a presumption of service connection is warranted for each disease covered by the report. If the Secretary determines that such a presumption is warranted, the Secretary, not later than 60 days after making the determination, shall issue proposed regulations setting forth the Secretary's determination.
(B) If the Secretary determines that a presumption of service
connection is not warranted, the Secretary, not later than 60 days after making the determination, shall publish in the Federal Register a notice of that determination. The notice shall include an explanation of the scientific basis for that determination. If the disease already is included in regulations providing for a presumption of service connection, the Secretary, not later than 60 days after publication of the notice of a determination that the presumption is not warranted, shall issue proposed regulations removing the presumption for the disease.
(2) Not later than 90 days after the date on which the Secretary issues any proposed regulations under this subsection, the Secretary shall issue final regulations. Such regulations shall be effective on the date of issuance.

(d) Whenever a disease is removed from regulations prescribed under this section--
(1) a veteran who was awarded compensation for such disease on the basis of the presumption provided in subsection (a) before the effective date of the removal shall continue to be entitled to receive compensation on that basis; and
(2) a survivor of a veteran who was awarded dependency and indemnity compensation for the death of a veteran resulting from such disease on the basis of such presumption shall continue to be entitled to receive dependency and indemnity compensation on such basis.

(e) Subsections (b) through (d) shall cease to be effective on September 30, 2030.

(f) For purposes of establishing service connection for a disability or death resulting from exposure to a herbicide agent, including a presumption of service-connection under this section, a veteran who, during active military, naval, or air service, served outside the Vietnam Theater of Operations during the period beginning on January 9, 1962, and ending on May 7, 1975, shall be presumed to have been exposed during such service to an herbicide agent containing dioxin or 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, and may be presumed to have been exposed during such service to any other chemical compound in an herbicide agent, unless there is affirmative evidence to establish that the veteran was not exposed to any such agent during that service. Locations identified by the Department of Defense as having been a location, base, unit, ship, aircraft, or other military installation where herbicides were used, stored, or shipped from or through.

(g) Presumptions established pursuant to this section shall be considered to be presumptions established pursuant to the Agent Orange Act of 1991. Awards based on such presumptions are subject to section 5110 of this title and may be made effective earlier than the effective date of the regulation establishing the presumption, and must be made back to the date of first claim.

(h) Applicability-- The provisions of section 1119(g) as added by this Act apply to any determination made on or after the date of enactment of this Act, or prior to it back to the date of first claim.

(i) The Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs is directed to proceed with all dispatch to process the claims pending from Veterans who are affected by this act, and all new claims filed under the provisions of this act.

[Created 09/14/2008]
[amended 08/03/2010]
[Edited 11/20/2010]
--------------------------------------
Feel free to distribute this as you see fit, to submit to your Representative or Senators to persuade them to introduce it next session. Be prepared that this requires a new appropriation and some in Congress will likely demand new science, and the cost of this bill will be extremely high, so there will be problems attempting to get it through.

VASVW is committed to advocating this bill as well as the Agent Orange Restoration Act.

While you cannot copy from this page, we have posted the proposed Supplemental Bill and the proposed Restoration Bill on the VASVW.org website:

The Agent Orange Supplemental Act - Proposed

The Agent Orange Restoration Act - Proposed

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2011: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Sixth Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

The Agent Orange Restoration Act of 2010

2010-12-01T18:38:00.000-05:00

This is the proposed bill we have presented to Congress. It contains the language that HR 2254/S.1939 should have included -- and no more.

BEGIN
111th CONGRESS

S.0000
The Agent Orange Restoration Act of 2010
To amend title 38, United States Code, chapter 11, to clarify that an award of benefits based on a regulatory presumption established pursuant to 38 U.S.C. 1116 can be made effective earlier than the date the regulatory presumption was established, in effect, to the date of the first claim; and to clarify that the presumption of herbicide exposure provided by 38 U.S.C. 1116(f) applies to veterans who served in Vietnam on land or on Vietnam's inland waterways and to those who served only in waters offshore or in airspace above, or in Thailand, Laos, or Cambodia.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
December 2010
Senator xxx introduced the following bill:

A BILL
To amend title 38, United States Code, chapter 11, to clarify and show the intent of Congress that an award of benefits based on a regulatory presumption established pursuant to 38 U.S.C. 1116 can be made effective earlier than the date the regulatory presumption was established, in effect, to the date of the first claim; and to clarify that the presumption of herbicide exposure provided by 38 U.S.C. 1116(f) applies to veterans who served in Vietnam on land, or on Vietnam's inland waterways, and to those who served only in waters offshore of the Republic of Vietnam, or in airspace above the Republic of Vietnam, or in Thailand, Laos, or Cambodia. The determining factor will be receipt of the Vietnam Service Medal, or the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal issued for service in the Vietnam War.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; REFERENCES TO TITLE 38, UNITED STATES CODE.
(a) Short Title- This Act may be cited as the `Agent Orange Restoration Act of 2010'.

(b) References- Wherever in this Act an amendment is expressed in terms of an amendment to a section or other provision, the reference shall be considered to be made to a section or other provision of title 38, United States Code.

SEC. 2. CLARIFICATION OF AUTHORITY TO ESTABLISH PRESUMPTIONS BASED ON HERBICIDE EXPOSURE; CONFIRMATION OF RETROACTIVE PAYMENT.
(a) Section 1116 is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(g) Presumptions established pursuant to this section shall be considered to be presumptions established pursuant to the Agent Orange Act of 1991. Awards based on such presumptions are subject to section 5110 of this title and may be made effective earlier than the effective date of the regulation establishing the presumption, and must be made back to the date of first claim.

(b) Applicability- The provisions of section 1116(g) as added by this Act apply to any determination made on or after the date of enactment of this Act, or prior to it back to the date of first claim.

(c) The Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs is directed to proceed with all dispatch to process the claims pending from Veterans who are affected by this act, and all new claims filed under the provisions of this act.

SEC. 3. CLARIFICATION OF DEFINITION OF SERVICE IN THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.

(a) Paragraph (f) of section 1116 is amended by adding to the end of that paragraph the following: `For the purposes of this presumption, a veteran will be considered to have served in the Republic of Vietnam if the veteran received either the Vietnam Service Medal or the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for service in Vietnam.'

(b) Applicability- The provisions of section 1116(f), as amended by this Act, apply to any claim pending on the date of enactment of this Act, including a claim to reopen or revise a previous claim, to any claim previously denied on the basis of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ interpretation of the definition of “Service in Vietnam” requiring a Veteran’s service to have included his or her presence on the land mass of the Republic of Vietnam, and to any claim filed on or after the date of enactment of this Act. Benefits severed by the Department of Veterans Affairs on the basis of any revised policy interpretations of the definition of “Service in Vietnam” requiring a Veteran’s service to have included his or her actual presence on the land mass of the Republic of Vietnam shall be reinstated in full, with full retroactive benefits. Benefits will be paid to the date of first claim in all cases under this authority, minus any previous payments paid on the claim. In all cases under this authority, failure to file an appeal subsequent to a denial based on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ revised policy interpretation of the definition of “Service in Vietnam” requiring a Veteran’s service to have included his or her actual presence within the land mass of the Republic of Vietnam shall not interrupt retroactive benefits.
END

Next up: the proposed Agent Orange Supplemental Act.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2010: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Sixth Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Shed No Tears for The Agent Orange Equity Act

2010-11-29T19:12:00.000-05:00

First, open a window and allow fresh air into your room...there will be several stinkbombs in what you are about to read.

Next, some background.
In August of 2008 a group of Veterans gathered online in secret and wrote a letter to Bob Filner, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. Filner had introduced the Agent Orange Equity Act of 2008 a month earlier. It was designed to restore the benefits to Veterans who Congress intended to include in the original Agent Orange Act of 1991, but the Department of Veterans Affairs had taken away in a series of illegal steps starting in 1991 by barring Veterans who served in Thailand, Laos, and/or Cambodia [TLC] during the Vietnam War, then in 1993, by barring the "Blue Sky Air Force", those aircrews who flew combat, cargo, transport, and medevac aircraft over South Vietnam; and finally in 2002, by barring any member of the Blue Water Navy who served off the coast of South Vietnam and did not set foot on the ground. Illegal? At each step of the way, the DVA failed to put any of those changes to the policy, or to their policy manuals out for public comment as required by the Administrative Procedures Act. Each of those changes were, and still are, illegal.

That secret group, comprised by about 30 or so Air Force Veterans from TLC, and at least three Blue Water Navy Veterans, requested that Filner add additional groups of Veterans who did not receive the Vietnam Service Medal - VSM [or its equivalent, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for Service in Vietnam or AFEM-VN], but specifically requested Veterans who received the Vietnam Campaign Medal, or VCM,, issued for service of 6 months or longer in areas outside of the Vietnam-TLC Theater of War, but in support of the war effort there; and specifically requested coverage for Veterans who served on Johnston Island, where Herbicides were gathered after the cessation of spraying in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

The addition of those outside groups, which included Johnston Island, Guam, Okinawa, the Republic of the Philippines, Korea, Panama, and other locations involved with the transport of herbicides to Vietnam, and their storage in those locations, ran the cost of the bill right out of the ballpark, making it too expensive for a Congress winding down the second year of the 110th Congress. The bill died in Committee, sunk under its own weight. Stink Bomb #1

Fast forward to the spring of 2009.
After a long delay, in April, 2009 representatives of the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War [VASVW] visited Chairman Filner to urge him to reintroduce the bill. He agreed after expressing some concern about the cost. [As you will see, he was not addressing the exact same bill he introduced in July of 2008, but rather a version that was closer to what had sunk under its own weight after the addition of the outside groups noted above to the bill.] After promising us seats at the bill's legislative hearings, Filner also detailed a staff member to work with VASVW toward passage of the bill.

The following week, as promised, Filner introduced the Agent Orange Equity Act of 2009, HR 2254 [and six months later a Senate version, S.1939 was introduced by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.] As soon as we read the bill, we contacted the staffer to explain that the bill, as worded, contained some errors. The inclusion of Johnston Island was incorrect, and the use as an eligibility qualifier of the Vietnam Campaign Medal should have been corrected to the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for Service in Vietnam. The staffer defended the wording as correct and would not agree to a change no matter what we said. Stink Bomb #2 And so, HR 2254/S.1939 was as doomed from the start as HR 6562 was in 2008 after the secret group's list was added to the bill.

Do not cry for the Agent Orange Equity Act of 2009...
...it was never intended to be passed. As introduced, it was, quite simply, Too Damned Expensive! Regardless of the spending spree of the 111th Congress, the AO Equity Act of 2009 was prohibitively expensive. Stink Bomb #3

We researched and argued the numbers, but the whole time we were doing so, we were counting on getting to those hearings to get the language fixed. We made countless visits to Congressional offices [both houses] and talked to staff about the language of the bill, and how it should be corrected to make the bill strictly restorative. We were, in all but one office, that of Senator James Webb, successful in winning support for the bill on those terms: No Johnston Island, no VCM, replaced by the AFEM-VN. That made the bill completely restorative.

We were never permitted access to Chairman Filner after that April, 2009 meeting. Either Filner, or his staff acting on their own, barred any appointment requests, and letters, faxes and emails to Filner from VASVW. And of course, there were no legislative hearings. None. Filner pawned off a hearing on the Agent Orange Longitudinal Study as a sop to the only VASVW representatives to get to see him in 18 months.

The language of the 2009 bill was the result of the secret group's letter in August of 2008. The specific inclusion of Johnston Island and the Vietnam Campaign Medal is a direct link to that letter.

That, then, is twice the secret group has sunk the bill. Our understanding is that as late as mid-October, about 6 weeks ago, The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association [BWNVVA] was still advocating for the inclusion of those external groups in the bill. For all we know, they still do. We have no information to the contrary. Two and a half years of legislative advocacy down the drain is one thing, but the premature deaths in poverty of so many Veterans is something else entirely.

"A Veteran's worst enemy is another Veteran."
And there is no excuse for it. In September of 2008, we visited Chairman Filner and gave him copies of two bills, one a restoration act, fleshed out to cover and protect full retroactive benefits regardless of whether the Veterans appealed a denial or not, and the other a supplemental act that covered not just Guam, or Okinawa, or Korea, but any Veteran of the Vietnam Era, who had NOT received the VSM or the AFEM-VN, but served anywhere else in the world where dioxin based herbicides were used, stored, or shipped through. Filner claimed he liked them. We spread them around, even gave them to other advocacy groups. So, they had two years to write their own bill, or advocate for introduction of the one we wrote. They did neither, which makes their culpability that much worse. In their zeal to "leave no one behind," they left everyone behind -- twice! Stink Bomb #4

Why would the DVA strip benefits from so many Veterans?
We simply do not know why they would go against the sound advice of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, who recommended in his 1991 report to the DVA [that was used as a guide for writing the Agent Orange Act of 1991], a broad based, simple qualifying factor, such as the Vietnam Service Medal [or the AFEM-VN], and a qualifying dioxin-related disease to grant presumptive eligibility of exposure. Better, he said, to grant benefits to a few who were not exposed and get 99% of those who were, than to limit the qualification and let many who were exposed fall through the cracks.

We do not know. But we do have ideas. One is that some legal factor would create another class of dioxin poisoned Veterans that would force a new class action suit to be opened up against not only the chemical companies that produced the herbicides, but also the US Government/Department of Defense for ordering the overly dangerous formula of the mix in the barrels and despite the pleadings of at least one chemical company, refusing to allow any danger warnings or symbols to be placed on the barrels filled with the rainbow herbicides.

Another is to re-channel the money Congress appropriated for the benefits of those who were removed from eligibility by the DVA, and use it for other purposes. Some of those purposes might be, for example, bonuses for their mid and upper-level management, land and building acquisition, and especially in recent years, the funding of the Rural Health Centers expansion, which would include land acquisition, building design, construction, local permits, medical equipment and supplies, the hiring and training of staff at each facility, and the current overhead for each facility.

We think it would be infinitely less expensive to issue a Medical Coverage card to each Veteran eligible for health care, and let that Veteran go wherever he chooses for treatment, with the exception of Service Connected disabilities, which would require at least regular monitoring, and/or treatment at a VA Medical Center.

Either way, to the best of our knowledge, the Congressional appropriation for AO Benefits for BWN, TLC, BSAF Veterans and their survivors, is still in place, but is being spent on other things. And that is Stink Bomb #5.

Last Best Hope
Pray. Pray like you never have before. There is still a glimmer of hope for a bill this session, another effort to come at it from a different direction and get a different bill, the Agent Orange Restoration Act, passed this session. Congress is only in session for a few more days. Pray. Pray that we can finally slay this monster that is prematurely killing us in poverty.

Wait a while yet, then you can close that window.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Obama Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2010: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Sixth Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

A Thanksgiving Wish

2010-11-24T09:13:00.000-05:00

May the blessing of a bountiful harvest spread over your homes and keep you from the wolves of hunger,

May the blessings of friendship spread over your lives and keep you from the lions of loneliness,

May the blessings of love spread over your hearts and keep you from the depths of hate,

May your paths always be smooth and level and keep you from the grasping fingers of temptation,

May your life be ever blessed with the love from family that will keep you in riches beyond measure.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Though we are mostly without this year, we must still be ever thankful for that which we do have.

Before I take my first bite of turkey on Thursday, I will raise my glass to toast you all, my shipmates and friends here and gone. And then I will toast to the last Thanksgiving...without benefits.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Bush Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2010: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Sixth Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or copying of the contents of this blog without the express permission of the author is unlawful.

Veterans Day: A Sermon on Sacrifice

2010-11-11T11:39:00.000-05:00

Last year we participated in a special service honoring Veterans at a local church. We joined the Pastor of the church in the Sermon, in which we attempted to define sacrifice as it pertains to our Veterans, and indeed, to all persons. Here is that Sermon.

Pastor: Introduction

When I began to consider our Veteran’s Day observance and how to plan worship, the first thing I had to consider was the assigned scripture reading. When I saw that it was Hebrews, with an emphasis on Jesus as a sacrifice, it seemed a perfect reading to explore on this particular Sunday. Sacrifice is a word that we throw around pretty freely, and yet seldom pause to consider what it really means. This seems an excellent occasion to do just that.

The Letter to the Hebrews is a puzzling, and sometimes disturbing book of the Bible. It is easily overlooked since it is not a letter written by Paul, and also because its language is very strange to us. It is the language of temple, priest, altar, atoning blood …Old Testament terms that we thought we had left behind in the New Testament. It is unfamiliar territory for which we have no point of reference. But the book of Hebrews does center on a word that we use quite frequently: sacrifice.

Our task this morning is to clarify what we mean by the word “sacrifice”, and to examine the distinction between the sacrifice made on our behalf by Jesus Christ, and the sacrifice made on our behalf by our military veterans. How is it the same, and how is it different?

Response: A brief statement about the importance of a Veteran’s Day observance.

The word Veteran stems from the Latin word vetus, meaning old. We think of Veterans that way, yet, today we look around and see those we call Veterans of a much younger age. The parades are no longer for the old men in tight suits and campaign hats, but also for younger men and women, who have borne the battle.

Barely a month before his death, Abraham Lincoln strode to the rostrum on the steps of the United States Capitol Building and gave one of his greatest speeches -- his Second Inaugural Address. The Great Emancipator ended his short speech with words that have echoed down the long and dusty halls of history:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

The long Civil War was ending, and Lincoln knew it. His thoughts had already turned to reconstructing the nation torn apart by a war that killed more than a half-million men. And in those thoughts Lincoln chose to lay the groundwork “…to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan…”

Today, those words still hold as a receipt for a debt owed by a nation that sends its young folks off to war as surrogates for its citizenry, as representatives of a National Policy, and as the purveyors of Democracy, Liberty, and Freedom. During that time, they are called troop, soldier, sailor, Marine, airman, Coast Guardsman…but once that service is ended, they are, forevermore, Veterans of the United States military.

As Veterans, they deserve a special place of honor in our society, and our culture, for they have written a blank check, backed by their own life and limb, and serving in place of all of us who do not go, and to keep us all free.

Pastor: The General Definition of Sacrifice

Sacrifice is a word people use when they find themselves indebted to someone or some group for things that sustain life or rescue life. [Peter Schmiechen defines sacrifice, 53-54, Saving Power] People speak of their parents making sacrifices. We honor people who speak the truth and who suffered consequences for it, such Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King. We describe the loss of life in war as a sacrifice made to defend a nation or made for a cause like freedom.

The word sacrifice has these general uses when we wish to refer to something done for us, without concern for self. When the sacrifice involves the shedding of blood, we reach a level that has power far beyond what we can estimate in words. ‘Sacer’ means holy and ‘facere’ means “to make”. As Gil Bailie points out in his many writings on sacrifice-- that does not really define the many ways in which “sacrifice” is used since there are many ways of “making holy” that are not sacrifices, and sacrifices that, in effect, make nothing holy. The recent shooting at Foot Hood

Response: The nature of sacrifice as offered during war

On September 12th, 1861, a 25 year old farmer from nearby southern Lancaster County left his farm, and family and marched off to war against the Confederacy with the 79th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the Lancaster Rifles. In late 1863, this two year regiment reenlisted en masse, earning the right to proudly display the word “Veteran” on their Battle Colors -- the 79th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Nearly four years after his enlistment, Sergeant William T. Clark returned to that farm, older by those four years, experienced in soldiering, and nursing wounds that would eventually kill him four decades later. Clark, wounded three times at the Battle of Perryville, KY, in 1862, and again at the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, would serve as the Judge of Elections in November of 1864 when members of his regiment proudly voted for Abraham Lincoln’s reelection.

Clark’s blank check cost him the partial use of one arm and issues with his intestinal tract due to his wounds, and a lifetime of battling malaria from his time in the deep south. During his nearly four years in the 79th Pennsylvania, Clark, and the Regiment, spent less than 60 nights under a roof.

On September 29th, 2006, another 25 year-old’s blank check was cashed. Petty Officer Michael Monsoor, a United States Navy Seal, already a recipient of the Silver Star and the Bronze Star for courage and gallantry above and beyond the call of duty, gave his life in Service to his country, and to his fellow Seals. His official citation reads as follows:

"FOR CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY AND INTREPIDITY AT THE RISK OF HIS LIFE ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY AS AUTOMATIC WEAPONS GUNNER FOR NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE TASK GROUP ARABIAN PENINSULA, IN SUPPORT OF OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM ON 29 SEPTEMBER 2006. AS A MEMBER OF A COMBINED SEAL AND IRAQI ARMY SNIPER OVERWATCH ELEMENT, TASKED WITH PROVIDING EARLY WARNING AND STAND-OFF PROTECTION FROM A ROOFTOP IN AN INSURGENT HELD SECTOR OF AR RAMADI, IRAQ, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR DISTINGUISHED HIMSELF BY HIS EXCEPTIONAL BRAVERY IN THE FACE OF GRAVE DANGER. IN THE EARLY MORNING, INSURGENTS PREPARED TO EXECUTE A COORDINATED ATTACK BY RECONNOITERING THE AREA AROUND THE ELEMENT’S POSITION. ELEMENT SNIPERS THWARTED THE ENEMY’S INITIAL ATTEMPT BY ELIMINATING TWO INSURGENTS. THE ENEMY CONTINUED TO ASSAULT THE ELEMENT, ENGAGING THEM WITH A ROCKET-PROPELLED GRENADE AND SMALL ARMS FIRE. AS ENEMY ACTIVITY INCREASED, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR TOOK POSITION WITH HIS MACHINE GUN BETWEEN TWO TEAMMATES ON AN OUTCROPPING OF THE ROOF. WHILE THE SEALS VIGILANTLY WATCHED FOR ENEMY ACTIVITY, AN INSURGENT THREW A HAND GRENADE FROM AN UNSEEN LOCATION, WHICH BOUNCED OFF PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR’S CHEST AND LANDED IN FRONT OF HIM. ALTHOUGH ONLY HE COULD HAVE ESCAPED THE BLAST, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR CHOSE INSTEAD TO PROTECT HIS TEAMMATES. INSTANTLY AND WITHOUT REGARD FOR HIS OWN SAFETY, HE THREW HIMSELF ONTO THE GRENADE TO ABSORB THE FORCE OF THE EXPLOSION WITH HIS BODY, SAVING THE LIVES OF HIS TWO TEAMMATES. BY HIS UNDAUNTED COURAGE, FIGHTING SPIRIT, AND UNWAVERING DEVOTION TO DUTY IN THE FACE OF CERTAIN DEATH, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR GALLANTLY GAVE HIS LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY, THEREBY REFLECTING GREAT CREDIT UPON HIMSELF AND UPHOLDING THE HIGHEST TRADITIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE."

For his extraordinary courage, his country awarded him the Medal Of Honor.

Navy Seals wear a distinctive gold pin combining a trident, anchor and Eagle. At his funeral, Navy Seals lined up on each side of his coffin and as it passed, each one slapped his Seal pin into the wooden lid as a final tribute to their fallen brother.

Petty Officer Michael Monsoor’s blank check was paid in full.

Pastor: The nature of sacrifice in scripture

The book of Hebrews takes the Old Testament notion of sacrifice and casts it in New Testament terms. [N.T. Wright, 94f, in Hebrews for Everyone] In the old system, the priests went daily into the Temple (the successor of the wilderness tabernacle) and the high priest went annually into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. Sacrifices were made as part of those rituals. In the “old” notion of sacrifice- the people were rescued from sin by the life of the sacrificial animal. Their sins were symbolically placed on the sacrificial animal, as a substitute for them. People could begin again, with a clean slate.

N.T. Wright says that Hebrews points to an inherent flaw in the old system. If my car is not working, and I have to take it back to the mechanic week after week—he obviously has not succeeded in fixing it. The fact that the old sacrifices had to be made over and over again meant that they had not gotten to the root of the problem.

Hebrews explains that all along, the tabernacle or Temple was always a temporary substitute for something brand new being worked out by God. The new sacrifice system spoken of in Hebrews is not the blood of animals, but the blood of the Messiah. Finally, the sacrifice of Jesus reaches deep inside of us, to transform us at the core of our being. We are not washed clean, we are made brand new. The priests stood daily at their sacrificial duties. Jesus doesn’t have to offer his sacrifice anymore. It is complete.

When Jesus submitted to those who killed him rather than exercising violence, the temple veil was torn in half and something brand new happened on that darkest of days. An event that first seemed to be so terrible and final was transformed by Christ into a brand new way of existence. We worship a God who chooses to suffer violence rather than meet it in kind. God enters into humankind’s 10,000 year cycle of violence and thus breaks the cycle forever.

Response: Where and how does love operate in the actions of the warrior who goes forth on our behalf?

In the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 15, verse 13, Jesus instructs us:

“…Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

In this way, Jesus defines sacrifice as an act of love. Not an act of hate, or an act of war, but an act of love. So who is it that is the object of this love? Well, it is those who serve with the Veteran most assuredly, and any Veteran can tell you that the bond between those who serve in war together indeed creates a “band of brothers." Some Veterans will deny this bond, calling it brotherhood, but we know it is love, for so Jesus showed us. Did he not lay down his life for all of us? Did he not choose to allow others to end his life in a most horrible fashion, knowing full well what was in store for him, and did he not do so without remorse, without a second thought? And that love extends back to us…to you…to me…to all of us, for did He not go in our stead? Did the Veteran not go in our stead?

And so, it is love that causes men like William Clark to leave a verdant farm and loving family to march off to war, and to stand shoulder to shoulder with his friends, neighbors and fellow soldiers, braving the heat and ferocity of battle, even though wounded.

And men like Michael Monsoor, who laid down his life for his friends.

Those blank checks are far too often paid for in blood and breath, tears and trauma, yet…yet…they were written and tendered with love.

Pastor: Conclusion:

How do we compare the sacrifices made by our Veterans and that made by Jesus on the cross?

1. Both are both costly and precious
2. Both are made in love
3. But only the sacrifice of Jesus shows us the way out of the cycle of violence in which we have been held for millennia.

Jesus lived a non-violent life and through his life teaches us to do the same. But the Christian Church has been ambivalent about war since the theory of just war was developed by St. Augustine. The theory assumes that non-violence is the norm for Christians, but expresses conditions in which we can ignore these fundamental Christian teachings.

We are still locked into a cycle of violence that sends out substitutionary sacrifices (Military men and women), because we are unable to live in the way that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. We have not yet learned the new way of being that Jesus demonstrated for us, in his sacrifice. In Christ, God is creating a new way of being, a new community of reconciliation by resisting and overcoming the power of the world with God’s saving power.

By Jesus’ resistance to violence he breaks the cycle of violence. “It is possible” proclaims the cross! “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” With these words, Jesus inaugurates a new age. We have only to embrace this wondrous love, and show it in our own lives and actions to help usher in this new age. We best honor our Veterans by working for peace, so that this generation of warriors might be the last.

End

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation's honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."-- VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Bush Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"--VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." --President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."--President George Washington

Copyright © 2005-2010: VNVets Blog -- Now in our Sixth Year of Service to Veterans; All Rights Reserved.