Vets fight for benefits
'We're combating an archaic VA system'
By Susan Morse
smorse@seacoastonline.com
January 04, 2009 6:00 AM
Retired Marine Staff Sgt. Ian LeJeune and others wounded in Iraq say they now are fighting a battle at home for veterans benefits.
The system penalizes veterans who are working and is overwhelmed by the large number of returning wounded, according to LeJeune, 30, of Brentwood.
If he had served in World War II or Korea and been wounded as severely as he was in Iraq, he said, he'd probably be dead. He would have at least undergone an amputation.
"World War I, World War II, Korea, if you got hurt, you got an amputation and that's it," LeJeune said. "Today an amputee gets a prosthetic limb and can be out running a marathon."
The system gives additional benefits to veterans who have lost a limb.
Getting benefits for post-traumatic stress, for losing flexibility, for being in the kind of shape in which you want to work but can't do what you once did — these are the kinds of injuries backlogging the system.
"We're combating an archaic VA system," said LeJeune, who has been in contact with the state's congressional delegation about his concerns.
Congress introduced a bill signed into law in December 2007 that increased veterans' funding to help reduce the 400,0000 backlogged claims and 177-day average wait, according to information from U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter's office.
"It has become an adversarial system," said Shea-Porter. "It certainly isn't supposed to be that way. The frustration we're hearing is accurate. Congress is aware of it. Part of the problem is, we didn't have resources; we were forced to make these terrible unfair decisions."
LeJeune has been fighting to get his disability rating at 100 percent. It is now at 90 percent.
In February 2005, a 9-foot rocket slammed into the barracks where LeJeune was sleeping. The explosion threw him across the room, he said, and burned both legs. He knew he was in trouble, he said, when he saw a priest standing over him, praying.
LeJeune has undergone 18 surgeries. He has gone from using a wheelchair, to a walker and now a cane. His left Achilles tendon is severed, he wears a leg brace, and there are plates inside his left foot and right knee. Doctors put a spinal cord stimulator in his back to help with the pain in his legs. A wire leads to batteries, which he can signal to send a tingling sensation.
Prior to his injuries, LeJeune planned to stay in the Marines. He is instead retired and works full time at Global Relief Technologies at Pease Tradeport. Because he's working, he said, he can't collect 100 percent disabled veteran benefits.
"I wanted to go back to work; it was more of a mental, therapeutic process to keep myself busy. I didn't want to sit home and feel sorry for myself. I could have gotten 100 percent disability."
Even if he got 100 percent, he said, it wouldn't be enough to support his family of five.
A single veteran receiving 100 percent disability pay gets $2,673 a month, according to Sgt. John Worrall, 54, a retired chief petty officer in the Navy and a National Guard sergeant.
That's about $32,000 a year.
"Two-thousand seven hundred dollars a month total disability," Worrall said. "That ain't a lot to live on, (along with) Social Security. I used to make $85,000 a year on the job. I'll be fine because I've planned for retirement. My ability to make that kind of money is gone. What happens to these kids who never had a career? You're going to make them live on three grand a month?"
If a veteran receives a "housebound" rating, the benefit is $2,993, he said.
There are also additional benefits for traumatic injuries, such as amputation or blindness, at about $4,000 a month.
The VA has a combined rating table, so benefits can go to 160 percent.
Worrall, of Brentwood, was activated in the National Guard in 2003.
"While I was there, I was hit by a roadside bomb," he said, "a month after my 50th birthday."
It took him four tries with the VA to get permanent, 100-percent disability pay, he said. An advocate with Disabled America Veterans helped him.
He's now an unpaid but official ambassador for Traumatic Servicemembers Group Life Insurance. He pays $1 a month for the coverage.
"Most people don't even know it's there," he said.
He works as a liaison for disabled veterans.
"I think there's more of a logjam because there's an awful lot of it at one time. There are people putting in for false claims. If you stick with it and honestly believe you deserve them ..."
He is fighting his own battle for retirement pay. The Disabled Veterans Tax forces disabled military retirees to give up one dollar of their pension for every dollar of disability pay they receive.
"I've got 28 years in service, I'm also due a retirement. It's been 27 months and I haven't got it yet. It's a fight every step of the way. ... I do worry about the guys that won't fight."
LeJeune also spoke of the guys who have given up fighting the system. He got help from the VFW in getting his original 70 percent disability rating increased.
"Not just for me," he said. "There are a lot of other veterans out there. Their will may already be broken."
LeJeune is in contact with other disabled veterans. One is Brentwood Police Detective Randal Frotton who served with the National Guard.
Frotton was wounded by a roadside bomb in March 2004, two weeks after arriving in Iraq. He was treated overseas and came home a year later.
"I ended up one of the walking wounded," he said. "I'm like Ian. I'm not going to quit my job so I can sit on the couch and collect disability. That's what's hurting us the most. They look at it as, 'it can't be that bad if you're going to work.' My biggest, biggest problem with VA is, all ratings are done by flexibility."
Frotton was active prior to his injury. He did Tai Kwon Do and kick boxing.
"After injuries, I'm half as good, I can't do karate anymore. (The VA) considers me in range normal."
Frotton is more than 60 percent disabled, he said. He was denied traumatic life insurance.
A veteran who assists veterans with VA claims in Manchester spoke on condition her name not be used.
"I see a lot of them going back with a lot of traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder; those are two major issues with vets coming from Iraq and Afghanistan," she said. "Some are being discharged with personality disorders. These are considered pre-existing into combat. They don't get any benefits for that, for a psychiatric disorder. It's not fair, because they're serving in combat and coming back with a lot of issues."
Among the hardest issues, she said, is the paper trail.
"If not in (the) service medical record, it didn't happen," she said. "Now the veteran is left with coming up with proof of what happened to him."
LeJeune complained of spending much time at the VA Hospital in Manchester rather than using more local health services because he wants to make sure the system has his paper trail.
The Manchester VA hospital is not full service, he said. Veterans are forced to go to Massachusetts or Vermont.
New Hampshire is the only state without a full-service veterans hospital, said Shea-Porter, who said she is working to change that.
LeJeune has been in contact with Shea-Porter and with Sen. Judd Gregg's office. Politicians contacted him, he said, after he wrote an opinion piece for the Nov. 21 Hampton Union in which he spoke of his battle with the Department of Veterans Affairs to get a suitable disability rating.
"Some of them appear to be aggressively trying to help me," he said.
"Our office has been working with Sgt. LeJeune since 2006," said Laena Fallon, press secretary for Gregg. "We are helping him through the process, with case work to try to make sure the lines of communications with Veterans Affairs are clear."
Said LeJeune: "We're going to take care of these folks returning home. If I really, really wanted to push the envelope, I'd be at the hospital every day. How do I keep a full-time job and do that? And the hours, they don't cater to people who work. I've been through so much, why should I have to fight? It would be so nice if my fight were over. There's power in numbers
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"I think there's more of a logjam because there's an awful lot of it at one time. There are people putting in for false claims. If you stick with it and honestly believe you deserve them ..."
Excuse me "false claims" who gave you the idea veterans are putting in for "fake claims" and the idea that the VA is only 400,000 claims behind is ludicrous they are 800,000 behind my claim is in it's 7th year of appeals my first BVA hearing is on Feb 4, 2009, the last time Senator Craig and Congressmen Buyer tried selling "its the fake claims and fraud" about 3-4 years ago they learned the claims that were reviewed were not fraud from veterans the problems were VA employees not properly documenting the files, the "fake claims rates are less than 2%" the problem is the VARO itself, not your fellow veterans, many die waiting for adjudication.Sphere: Related Content
