Thousands of vets could get benefits upgrade

Thousands of vets could get benefits upgrade
By KIMBERLY HEFLING,

Associated Press Writer



Mon Jan 25, 7:11 am ET



WASHINGTON – The military has agreed to expedite a review the records of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans discharged with post-traumatic stress disorder to determine whether they were improperly denied benefits.

The agreement stems from a judge's order in a class action lawsuit originally filed by seven combat veterans who alleged the military illegally denied benefits to those discharged because of the disorder during a six-year period that ended Oct. 14, 2008.

Legal notices are currently being mailed to about 4,300 veterans informing them that they can "opt-in" to the lawsuit until July 24 to participate in the expedited review. Attorneys for the veterans estimate that millions could be paid to veterans under the agreement, with some veterans receiving hundreds or more dollars in increased monthly benefits.

The National Veterans Legal Services Program was to discuss the suit at a press conference Monday.

Former Army Sgt. Juan Perez, 36, of Owosso, Mich., said the resolution of the suit filed in 2008 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims was a relief. Perez, a father of five who did two tours in Iraq, said he struggles with migraine headaches and an eye injury related to a head injury sustained in Baghdad. He also has nightmares and takes medication for his mood related to PTSD.

Since he left the military, he said he and his wife were laid off from their jobs and declared bankruptcy, in part because of medical bills from the birth of his two youngest kids.

"I'm glad that they are finally moving forward and reevaluating the soldiers that need to be reevaluated and doing the right thing," Perez said. "It's been kind of a struggle not only for myself but a lot of individuals that didn't get what they were supposed to get in the first place."

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after a terrifying event where the person was physically harmed or felt threatened. Symptoms range from flashbacks to problem drinking.

The lawsuit addresses the issue of the disability rating given by the military to veterans discharged with PTSD. Each of the seven plaintiffs was given a rating of 10 percent or less.

The law requires the military to assign a disability rating of at least 50 percent to those discharged for PTSD, said Bart Stichman, co-executive director the National Veterans Legal Services Program, a nonprofit organization that represents the veterans. Since October 2008, the military has given the 50 percent rating to those discharged with PTSD, Stichman said.

The higher rating ensures that the veteran receives lifelong monthly disability payments, free health care for the veteran and the veteran's spouse, as well as health care for the veteran's minor children.

If a veteran qualifies for a higher disability rating, they may receive back pay as well as reimbursement for health care expenses.

To help the affected veterans, the National Veterans Legal Services Program and Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP law firm have coordinated about 100 volunteer lawyers to offer free counseling.
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On the Net:
Information on lawsuit: http://www.ptsdlawsuit.com/
National Veterans Legal Services Program: http://www.nvlsp.org/
PTSD Information Center: http://ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/information/

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Morrison & Foerster Secures Victory for Troops Exposed to Chemical and Biological

http://mofo.com/news/pressreleases/16406.html

Morrison & Foerster Secures Victory for Troops Exposed to Chemical and Biological Weapons Testing in Case Against the U.S. Government

01/20/2010
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SAN FRANCISCO (January 20, 2010) – Morrison & Foerster yesterday won the right to proceed with a case against the CIA, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Army, filed on behalf of veterans rights organizations Vietnam Veterans of America and Swords to Plowshares, along with six veterans with multiple diseases and ailments, tied to a secret testing program in which U.S. military personnel were deliberately exposed to chemical and biological weapons and other toxins without informed consent. Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief that would free them from their secrecy oaths and grant them healthcare that they were promised.

On January 19, 2010, Judge Claudia Wilken of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, issued an order that overruled the government’s main arguments to dismiss the case, which were based upon lack of jurisdiction, failure to state a claim for relief, statute of limitations, sovereign immunity, and standing.

“The victory obtained for us by our attorneys at Morrison & Foerster finally gives us a chance to redress one of the unfortunate decisions that has made veterans second class citizens,” said Paul Cox, Board of Directors Member at Swords to Plowshares.

The court also dismissed a direct challenge to the Feres doctrine, which is an exception to the waiver of sovereign immunity that was created by the Supreme Court during the Cold War. According to Rick Weidman, Executive Director for Policy and Government Affairs at Vietnam Veterans of America, “the government became immune to damages suits by military veterans after Feres so the use of soldiers became cheaper than using guinea pigs.”

The human experimentation program launched in the early 1950s and continued through at least 1976 when it was suspended in response to hearings conducted by Congress. Thousands of experiments took place at the Edgewood Arsenal and Fort Detrick, as well as several universities and hospitals across America contracted by the Defendants. “Volunteers” were exposed to thousands of toxins under code names such as MKULTRA, including drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and cannabis; biological substances such as plague and anthrax; and noxious gases such as sarin, tabun, and nerve gases.

“The government has long reconciled its war prosecutions and reliance on international treaties with secret actions on its part. As the case moves forward, perhaps we will finally learn an answer to why our vets were made victims at Edgewood,” said Michael Blecker, Executive Director at Swords to Plowshares.

Morrison & Foerster Senior Counsel Gordon Erspamer is the lead attorney representing the veterans, along with partner Timothy Blakely and associates Stacey Sprenkel, Adriano Hrvatin, Tim Reed, and Jonathan McFarland. The case came on the heels of an earlier case the firm filed on behalf of veterans afflicted with Post-Traumatic Distress Disorder, which is now pending in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The firm is handling both cases pro bono.

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These are the same lawyers that did the PTSD lawsuit last year, they have the VA's number and have many "wins" under their belt against the government in their bad faith dealing with veterans, since I am one of the "test vets" I am doing the snoopy dance I will travel to San Francisco for the trial when it happens, I may have my benefits but I have been fighting for almost a decade for other "test vets" and gulf war veterans and just to be able to get this into a courtroom is a victory the DOJ threw everything but the kitchen sink at Gordon Erspamer and his team and they won the right to proceed to trial. Yea Gordy........

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Burn Pits, SHAD, Dugway, Edgewood Arsenal etc

Vets: Burn pits are killing us

Editor's note: Second in a three-part series



Combat had changed him.

Yet Andrew Rounds was still the adoring son his mother had sent off to war. He was still the hard worker who had helped her deliver newspapers after school. He was still the amiable soul who knew the names of everyone in the tiny village of Waterloo, Ore., from the mayor to the man who lived under the narrow bridge that crosses the river on the east side of town.

And he was home. That's all Lisa Rounds needed to know. After a year at war in Iraq, her son was safe.

Then his headaches began.

Then his sight went blurry.

Then he began to cough up blood.

Then he collapsed on the floor of his

Lisa Rounds shows the locket containing ashes from her son, Andrew Rounds, in front of the memorial wall in her Waterloo, Ore., home. Andrew died at age 22 after returning from Iraq and being diagnosed with leukemia. "Nov. 11 is his birthday, which is Veteran's Day," she said. "It seems so fitting now." (Beth Buglione / Special to the Tribune)parents' home.

By the time it was diagnosed, Andrew Rounds' leukemia had progressed so far that doctors didn't figure he'd last more than a few weeks. Ever the soldier, he fought on for nine months.

But the nation for which he had gone to war did not fight by his side.

From the testing of chemical and biological weapons on soldiers and some civilians during the Cold War, to the vast use of toxic herbicides such as Agent Orange in Vietnam, to the unexplained illnesses suffered by veterans of the first war in Iraq, military service has sickened generation after generation of U.S. service members.

But when confronted with ill and dying veterans, the nation's military leaders have turned to a time-honored tradition: denial.

The dismissals are sometimes followed -- years and even decades later -- by acknowledgment that an ailment was linked to military service and belated offers of care and compensation. But for many veterans and their families, the help comes far too late.

Now, responding to a new generation of sick and dying veterans, government leaders say they've learned from past mistakes. "My interest is how do we change what has been the 40-year journey of Agent Orange,

The Balad Air Base burn pit lights up the night in 2006. (Marshall Thompso)the 20-year journey of Gulf War Illness," Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said in 2009.

But acknowledging the problem may be the easy part. Changing history won't be.



Government waits for proof - sometimes for decades - before caring for sick veterans

Editor's note: First in a three-part series.



In Vietnam, Jim Ogden flew through clouds of Agent Orange. In Desert Storm, he hovered past burning oil fields. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, he worked near a thick black plume of burning plastic, metals, chemicals and medical waste.

Along the way he took injection after injection and swallowed pill after pill. He breathed in herbicides and pesticides. And he never questioned whether all of those drugs, toxins and poisons might someday do him harm.

Not until he lost his eyesight.

Now the former Marine and master helicopter mechanic can't help but wonder what, if anything, was to blame.

Though often in unintended and unexpected

Jim Ogden likes to spend time in his basement among the memorabilia of his career working with helicopters in hot spots around the world. Shortly after his last stint of service as a civilian helicopter mechanic in Iraq, Ogden became blind. Without a way to prove that his blindness is related to his military service, he isn't eligible for veteran's benefits. (Trent Nelson / The Salt Lake Tribune)ways, military service has sickened generations of U.S. service members. But the only way for veterans to ensure medical care and compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs is to prove that their illnesses are "service-connected." But the complexity of linking myriad mysterious ailments to military service -- and the budgetary burden of caring for millions of sick and dying veterans -- limits the number of veterans that the VA can help.

Thirty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War, the VA is still slowly adding to the list of conditions recognized as related to Agent Orange exposure. And nearly 20 years after the first U.S. war in Iraq, the VA still doesn't recognize Gulf War Illness as a diagnosis worthy of care or compensation -- even as a federal commission has determined the condition is real and affects tens of thousands of veterans.

That's to say nothing of veterans, like Ogden, who don't know how they got sick.

Meanwhile, military and political leaders have failed to heed lessons from past wars that could help identify mysterious illnesses.




Officials just now recognizing Agent Orange exposures

When he returned from Vietnam, James Randazzo figured himself fortunate.

"I came home alive," said the 60-year-old Utahn, whose service included more than two years north of Da Nang and demolition missions into North Vietnam. "That's plenty more than many others can say."

About a decade after returning home, Randazzo arrived at a Veterans Affairs hospital covered in pus-filled boils and red lesions. His skin was rusty orange. He itched all over.

"The people at the VA, they didn't even want to touch me," Randazzo said. "It was like they were afraid they would catch it."

No one could tell him what he had, or how he got it. Decades later, the condition still comes and goes -- and the Tooele resident still doesn't know why.

It took decades of research and political pressure before the federal government began recognizing certain medical conditions were related to Agent Orange exposure. Early this year, an order from Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki will take effect, permitting Vietnam veterans with certain types of heart disease, leukemia and Parkinson's disease to access additional care and disability payments.

Over the past 40 years, according to VA records, about 86,000 veterans who suffered from these conditions were denied benefits. Some will now collect retroactive compensation. Many others have already died.


Vets say toxic tests sickened them; government says prove it

Editor's note: Third in a three-part series.



Even those who know the area best won't step far off the narrow, muddy road that runs through the center of the desolate toxic dump at Utah's Deseret Chemical Depot.

It's been more than 30 years since the U.S. Army used this vast scrubland, known as the East Demilitarization Area, to dispose of a deadly arsenal of chemical and conventional munitions -- but the military still hasn't figured out how to clean up its mess.

The Defense Department does acknowledge the disaster, just as it has belatedly admitted having tested a gamut of chemical and biological weapons on military members in Utah's vast west desert during the Cold War. But the U.S.

Artillery shells rest and rust in a toxic dump in Tooele County. The U.S. military is trying to identify and mitigate the ecological problems left over from the Cold War. From 1945 to the 1970s, munitions and chemicals were disposed of in open trenches. The military doesn't know how it will clean up the dump and officials say it could take many decades. (Al Hartmann / The Salt Lake Tribune )government insists that the tests have contributed to long-term illnesses in only a handful of exposed service members. And that has led the Department of Veterans Affairs to deny almost all claims for care and compensation made by those who believe they got sick as a result of the tests.

Although the Cold War was fought mainly by proxy and politicians, it was not without its casualties: Many died while waiting on the military to so much as acknowledge its secret programs.

Now, Dwight Bunn fears he might also slip away before the government takes responsibility for its actions.

The former soldier is sick. And he wants to know why.

--

'Don't worry, this stuff won't hurt you.' »Bunn was 21 years old when he arrived at Dugway Proving Ground, just over the snow-dusted hills from the Deseret demilitarization dump, in Tooele County. The official mission of his unit, the 45th Chemical Company, was to create smoke screens for infantry assaults. But in the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, the Army had other uses for the group.

Among the company's secretive duties: Helping to dispose of the carcasses of animals used in chemical weapons tests.

Starting

David Davidson, an Army veteran, can't say definitively that he was sickened by his exposure to mass destruction munitions at Dugway -- but he can't say he wasn't either. The West Haven man now must undergo four hours of kidney dialysis three times a week. (Al Hartmann / The Salt Lake Tribune )in the 1940s and continuing through the 1970s, the Army tested and disposed of thousands of tons of chemical and biological agents in sparsely populated Utah, including munitions loaded with sarin, VX, mustard, tabun and various hallucinogens.

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Most all of you know my history I am one of the "test vets" of Edgewood Arsenal, there were 7120 of us who were used in the Cold War experiments, using all of the above named chemicals and about 250 more unnamed ones. If they won't tell the veterans what was used how are we supposed to believe that all the substances were safe? There are "double blind" experiments that no one knows who was used in them unless the government unseals the data and once they do that they can no longer use the data for future studies they are doing, so in a way they are still using some of us as test subjects and refusing to inform all of the veterans, all of the substances they were exposed to, yes they have confirmed the known test substances to the veterans, but what about the so called "blind studies"?

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Returning to Vietnam

Returning to Vietnam you might be interested in this article from the new January issue of Newsmax, a leading independent news site and magazine.

From the following article it appears we are becoming our fathers, many of us seem to have the urge to return to where many of our nightmares were created, my step father seemed to be a more calm man after he made a trip to Germany in the 70s, he had bombed much of it during WW2, Schweinfurt, Dresden, he flew the Berlin Airlift, but yes he had PTSD and no one can tell me differently. I have lived with it for to many decades and I watched him live with it, the trip showed him the people of Germany rebuilt their lives and time had moved on, and it was okay for him to do the same thing.

He was never able to watch the movie "Memphis Belle" past the first flak scene, that plane was in Dale's squadron, he knew the men and the officers. I won't share his words for some of them, they knew what he thought. One thing about Dale he was never shy about telling anyone what he thought about them.

I hope you enjoy the article:

Battleground tourism, especially to ’Nam, has become a vibrant business. Vets find the experience powerful and, sometimes, healing. CBS’ Peter Greenberg reports for Newsmax magazine.
Peter Greenberg, CBS News’ travel editor, is the author of numerous books under the “Travel Detective” banner. The most recent is Tough Times, Great Travels. He also hosts a weekly syndicated radio program heard on many stations around the country.

Jim doyle was just six months out of high school in Fresno, Calif., when he was drafted in 1968. By January 1969 he was in Vietnam, fighting with the 1st Infantry Division northwest of Saigon.

“I had never been out of the United States,” he recalls. Within days, he became familiar with terms such as trapezoid, iron triangle, and fishhook — all military IDs for hot-fire zones, or no-man’s corridors between the Cambodian border and Vietnam.

A year later, he was shipped back out. “I left with mixed emotions,” Doyle says, adding, “I was leaving all my friends behind. But I swore one day I would come back.”

When he did go back, as part of a 16-day trip in 1995, he was overcome with emotions, including shame and relief.

“We spent so much blood, energy, and treasure trying to blow this place up, and I didn’t know any better,” he says. As his plane was flying in, “I had this yin and yang of thrill and terror at the same time. But as soon as we landed in Hanoi, as soon as my foot hit the pavement, I felt this enormous weight come off my shoulders.” He’s been back 18 times since.

Like thousands of other veterans before him from other wars in other places, Doyle has become a battleground tourist.

These men and women, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, wives and husbands, don’t travel just to relive the past but also to remember, reconcile, and forgive. Family members who accompany the veterans discover, often for the first time, what their loved ones went through and what they continue to cope with. Throughout history, veterans have frequented locations where battles, both great and small, have been fought.

War nearly obliterated Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, and Normandy, but they now thrive on tourism.

By far the fastest-growing beneficiary of battlefield tourism is Vietnam, as increasing numbers of U.S. veterans go on more well-organized tours throughout the country than just about any other region in the world.

During the first six months of 2009, 225,094 Americans — mostly veterans and their families — visited Vietnam. U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has made several visits to Hanoi, where, as a U.S. Navy pilot, he languished in Hoa Lo Prison for 5 1/2 years after a Russian-made surface-to-air missile hit his jet in 1967.

Twelve years after his release, McCain flew back to Vietnam, returning to Hanoi on the 10th anniversary of the war’s end. He visited the lake where he was shot down, saw the monument the Vietnamese erected to mark the spot, even had tea with his hosts in a room next to the cell where he was kept.

He’s made a number of visits back to the country — taking his wife and son on some trips.

After World War II, soldiers who had fought in Europe and Asia had a desire to return to areas in which they had been stationed.

They wanted to show their families new locales and say goodbye to fallen comrades.

Not surprisingly, visitors to battlefields are interested in seeing history made “real.” For example, it’s one thing to read about the bombings and destruction of World War II, but seeing the ruins of a town made the war a reality to those who were not involved in the fighting.

For Doyle, the turning point remains his first trip back to Vietnam.

“We had information about a mass grave site in one of the provinces,” he recalls. “We all went there. We found the landmarks. It was the size of a football field. The ground was depressed. The air was very still. The heat was just oppressive.

“We all said prayers. I turned to a Vietnamese gentleman and he told me this is a good omen — the spirits of the dead finally released. I was overcome.”

Suddenly, a whirlwind came in, picked up leaves and scattered them. Doyle took it as a sign of the beginning of a new mission. Doyle and four other vets formed the Vietnam Veterans Peace Initiative, which works to build and fund clinics and schools in Vietnam.

Some vets return to their former battleground only once; they seek closure, find it, and never travel there again. Others, such as Doyle and Roger Helle, continue to return.

Helle did three tours in Vietnam, between 1965 and 1970, as a Marine. He was wounded three times, the final time, nearly fatally. During a particularly fierce firefight, a grenade went off at his feet. He was shot, and then bayonetted. Barely alive, he was taken by helicopter to Da Nang, then flown to Japan, where he was hospitalized for nine months. But he was among the lucky — many of his colleagues never made it.

“I relived Vietnam every night of my life with survivor’s guilt,” he says. “Why did I live and my friends get killed?

“I was nearly an alcoholic. I almost lost my wife. When America left Vietnam in 1975, I went into even more of a depression. I had left Vietnam, but it had never left me.”

So, 23 years after he landed in Saigon, he returned to Vietnam. It became the first of 20 trips Helle would make. He considers the experience the key to his true survival, redemption, and clarity. “I was shocked when I went back,” Helle says. “The Vietnamese were so happy to see us. So many years had gone by, and I didn’t know what to expect.”

Helle took his wife, son, and daughter along. “An old woman came up to me, grabbed my hand, and together we both started crying. It was a pivotal moment.”

Later, on a subsequent trip to help build medical clinics throughout the country, he met with a former Viet Cong colonel and told him that “Christ had taken away the wounds of my experience and allowed me to tell you that I love you.” The colonel replied: “I’ve never had anyone tell me that before. We’re not enemies. We are friends.”

In 20 years, Helle has escorted 1,200 volunteers to Vietnam with the group Vets With A Mission.

Bert Key, now 64, was in the 1st Marine Division in Chu Lai and did two tours between February 1966 and May 1968. He enlisted at age 18 from Portland, Ore., as a lance corporal and left as a staff sergeant. Forty years later, in March 2008, he took his wife there.

“When I joined the Marines, I was young and didn’t know much about the world outside Oregon,” he says. “And none of us knew anything about Vietnam other than that I was headed there.”

Once in Vietnam, the contradictions confronted him almost immediately. “Every time I got up in the air in a helicopter, I kept thinking, It’s so beautiful down there. I remember flying along the coast in a chopper thinking how amazing the place would be if peace ever broke out.”

But back then, there was a lot more to think about — mainly staying alive.

“I was consumed with painful irony all the time I was there,” he says. “It was always about the missed bullets. And those that hit. I saw people who died who shouldn’t have died, and people who lived who shouldn’t have lived, just because the bullet missed by inches.

“As a result, I couldn’t shake the unanswered question of why did I make it back and my buddies didn’t, so sooner or later, I had to go back.

“It was hard for me to explain. I couldn’t talk about it to people who weren’t there. I couldn’t even talk about it with my wife. I was dealing with demons.”

In 2004, Key met another Vietnam vet while working with the Army reserves in Afghanistan. “When we get home,” he told the other officer, “we gotta go back there.”

“Why?” the other veteran said.

“Because we owe it to the guys we left back there. We owe it to their spirit.” The two committed to the trip then and there.

Key connected with Global Spectrum in Virginia for a 25-day tour of Vietnam. “We saw everything,” he says. “In fact, I saw more of the country in 25 days than I saw in the 27 months that I had been on duty there.”

Key’s tour group of 16 included a set of brothers — one was a retired two-star general. They had just been told their father’s remains (from 1964) had been located.

“They were going for closure,” says Key.

When the group landed in Vietnam, Key hired a cab and an interpreter in Da Nang.

“It was surreal,” he says. “It was 93 degrees, 98 percent humidity. That’s how I knew I was back. But I got to walk the beach I landed on in 1966.

“I could remember running ashore just to find a palm tree to hide behind.”

On this most recent trip, however, he spied a little thatched hutch restaurant in a small fishing village.

“I walked over and saw a woman standing in front,” he says. “I was telling her I came ashore there in 1966. She remembered when the Marines landed there. She was only 8 years old then. Forty years later, she gave me a hug.

“It was indicative that Vietnam has gotten back to the business of living,” he says. “I came looking for all the pockmarked bomb holes. They’re all gone.” He dug down and filled a gallon plastic bag with sand and gave it to some of his fellow travelers.

“These tours aren’t for everyone,” says Julie Kink, who went to Vietnam for the first time with Military Historical Tours to retrace the steps of her brother, who died there 40 years ago.

On July 21, 1969, he was with the 9th Cavalry when his lightweight observation chopper was blown out of the sky. Two crew members died instantly. Kink’s brother was thrown from the helicopter. He lived for 12 days before dying.

“I was the youngest of four, and I had just turned 8 years old,” she remembers. “He was only 19. And my family didn’t talk about it.”

But many years later, Kink felt she needed not only to talk about it but also to experience it.

It took three years of searching just to find people who had crossed paths with her brother, and then to fine-tune the information.

“I wanted to put all the pieces together. I needed to go there,” she says. “I had to be there, not just for my brother, but for many others . . . for the other families that will never go there.”

She took along the names of 300 others killed in action. “During quiet times on the bus going through the country, I just read over the names and said them to myself in a time of peace,” she says. “It sounds kind of corny, but it’s something I had to do.”

It was a healing experience, she says. “I felt so welcome in Vietnam. And I just kept saying those names to myself. Throughout my search to learn about my brother, I just felt it was where I was supposed to be.”

TOP PLACES TO VISIT WHEN YOU’RE IN VIETNAM
Vietnam continues to grow in popularity as a destination, with better infrastructure and improved customer service. It doesn’t hurt that the dollar remains strong in major centers such as Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, Hoi An, Halong Bay, Da Nang, and Hue. Some highlights:

• The JW Marriott Hotel Hanoi is scheduled to open in 2012, adjacent to the city’s new national convention center, with four restaurants and 450 rooms. A JW Marriott in Da Nang is scheduled to open in 2013. Marriott has two properties in Ho Chi Minh City.

• In Ho Chi Minh City, the big tourist sites are Dong Khoi Street for people watching (right), shops, cafes, Notre Dame Cathedral (left), the old post office, Reunification Palace, and Ben Thanh Market — the city’s oldest and largest.

• Binh Tay Market is a less touristy version of a market and a great place to grab a bowl of noodles. For great dining, check out Quan An Ngon open-air restaurant, filled with locals.

• In Hanoi, visit the Old Quarter, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the Hanoi Opera House, the National Museum of Vietnamese History, and military sites like Hoa Lo Prison (known as the dreaded “Hanoi Hilton”), and the John McCain monument at Truc Bach Lake.

• Hue is a beautiful city with French architecture and cuisine. Much of it was destroyed, but it still has historic pagodas, temples, and royal tombs monuments that place it on the UNESCO World Heritage list. One of the must-see sites is the tomb of Tu Doc, a miniature royal palace that more than 3,000 laborers built in 1864.

• Da Nang is a major port city on the coast of the South China Sea. The only five-star resort now is the Furama Resort Danang, which plans to expand. Marriott is planning a property here in 2013. Raffles Da Nang is proposed to open in 2011 with about 150 hotel suites and 15 private residential villas for sale. Hyatt Regency and Spa Danang unveiled designs for a China Beach hotel that will resemble a traditional Vietnamese village. — P.G.

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Va. veteran guilty of false claims

Va. veteran guilty of false claims

A veterans group alerted authorities to a Norfolk man's false claims about his military honors.

By Mike Gangloff | The Roanoke Times

Even as he pleaded guilty to inflating his military record, Thomas James Barnhart insisted he'd received a Purple Heart.

"I was given a Purple Heart with no paperwork in Vietnam, so it was as if I had made up the award myself," Barnhart, 58, said Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jake Jacobsen said Barnhart, who lives in the Norfolk area, didn't stop with one Purple Heart. In paperwork filed when he transferred from the Navy to the Coast Guard, then in applications for disability benefits, Barnhart claimed an increasing array of honors. Ultimately he said he'd been a Navy SEAL, earned five Purple Hearts -- each supposedly marking a combat wound -- Bronze and Silver stars for valor, and more.

Barnhart's case echoed that of Randall Moneymaker, who in March 2008 was convicted of federal fraud and theft charges linked to false claims of combat missions and wounds that gained him a job as an Army recruiter and veterans disability benefits.

Jacobsen, who had prosecuted Moneymaker, said Barnhart also improperly sought benefits. In 1991 and 2005, Barnhart told Veterans Affairs interviewers tales of combat missions and a pilot dying in his arms. He said he'd been nominated for the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor.

All of that was bogus, Jacobsen said.

The prosecutor agreed that Barnhart was in the Navy from 1969 to 1979 and the Coast Guard until 1990.

But investigation showed only that Barnhart earned a medal for offshore duty during the Vietnam War. There was no record of combat or combat awards.

Barnhart pleaded guilty to violating federal Stolen Valor legislation by falsely claiming to have been awarded medals. He also pleaded guilty to a felony embezzlement charge tied to $13,923 in disability payments for supposed post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a short statement, Barnhart said he'd given the wrong reasons for why he suffered from PTSD, but seemed to defend the diagnosis itself.

Judge James Turk accepted Barnhart's guilty pleas and noted that his plea agreement said he would repay the disability payments along with whatever fines and prison term might be imposed. He scheduled sentencing for April 8.

After the hearing, Jacobsen, who served with the U.S. Army Reserve in Iraq, said military veterans, like fishermen, are prone to exaggeration. But falsifying service records for financial gain is "just galling," Jacobsen said.

So is claiming false honors during wartime, he added.

"You've got the real sailors, soldiers and airmen out there putting their lives on the line every day," Jacobsen said.

He said authorities were alerted to Barnhart's false claims by the veterans group AMVETS. Mary and Chuck Schantag, who run the group's ReportStolenValor.org Web site, could not be contacted Wednesday.

Doug Sterner, a Vietnam veteran from Colorado who was a leading advocate for the 2005 Stolen Valor legislation, said Barnhart's case shows the need for Congress to push the military to keep better records of medals such as Purple Hearts.

"There are literally tens of thousands of people who were given awards that never made it to paperwork," Sterner said.
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The sad part of this entire affair is the man had an honorable military career, he then chose to dishonor it by making false claims of medals awarded that never were, of performing duties he never performed. The Navy has a problem with sailors claiming to be the ultimate Navy combat person a "Seal" the Army has the problem with soldiers claiming to be "rangers" or "special forces/green berets" soldiers that spent 20 years or more of honorable service make up "whoppers" about "rambo style adventures" and spicing up their career, but then they turn it criminal by putting these lies to paper and asking for veterans compensation for PTSD using these made up adventures, claiming lost paperwork, fallen friends (found from known names of fallen soldiers on stories posted on the internet or found in magazines) hoping or knowing that the VA will not dig deep enough into the sham story and approve compensation payments.

This is fraud and it should aand is being prosecuted as such. I find it distasteful to even have to address these issues, the words "Duty, Honor and Country" are not just words most military personnel live their lives by these words, so to find scam artists abusing our lifestyle by these type of actions, it burns to the core.

Many veterans claim that these veterans are stealing from other veterans and the money they gain by making these flase claims is depriving a veterans from getting their benefits, which is also a complete lie. I don't know which lie is worse, if a veteran makes a claim to the veterans Administration and the claim is deemed to be service connected and a percentage is set of how disabled the veteran is and the award is made. No veteran is deprived of benefits because of these "frauds" much like the Social Security Disability if an award is made the checks are mailed, if the VA funds run low then the VA secretary will go to Congress and say I need this much money to pay compensation forthie rest of this year and this is how much we are going to need next year to pay compensation benefits, the benefits have nothing to do with the VA health care side of the VA, no programs have money taken away from them to pay comp claims, veterans are not stealing from other veterans, they ARE committing fraud against all US taxpayers.

Bottom line though as galling as these stories are frauds in the VA system is still the smallest of all government programs that offer compensation, there is less than 2% fraud in the VA system overall, medicare, food stamps, unemployment programs etc all have higher fraud rates than does the VA system. Fraud is dispicable regardless of whom does it, but there is just something a little more disgusting about military veterans doing it, especially retirees who spent a career defending this nation, that they dishonor it by these wild claims of heroics. The do great damage to those who do live by "Duty, Honor and Country".

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Changing Attitudes, misperceptions?

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I for one am thankful to CBS for doing these interviews, but like many attempts before them, like Bob Woodruffs attempt with Secretary James Nicholson who was one of the Secretary of the VA during President Bush's Administration, who claimed all of the new veterans were flocking to the VA medical centers for dental appointments, these interviews are just more cluelessness and attempts by chair sitters, to just get thru the interviews without addressing the sore of the problem.

A process that denies veterans and their families the benefits they deserve and have earned due to a medical condition caused by their military service. The process now entails a veteran making a compensation claim and the VA Regional Office denies it within 6 months to a year and then the veteran files an appeal to the Board of Veteran Appeals (BVA) which can then take up to four years to get the hearing and an judgement from the Judge, which then sends the claims file back to the Regional Office for the percentage to be determined and the award letter sent out with the back payment which this can take between four to six months after the Judge makes his decision.

Then if the veteran feels the award percentage is to low, they then have to file another notice of disagreement within one year and the appeal then goes back to the BVA which entails another 2-4 year wait and another hearing and the Judge will either remand it and tell the regional Office to get more information or another C&P exam from a doctor to tell the Judge exactly what the condition of the veteran now, and another few years will pass and soon the veteran has a decade involved in an attempt to get the proper award they feel they deserve.

Are all of the claims proper, no some claims are outrageous and the veteran sometimes expects percentages that are not justified, or some will ask for back pay to the 1960s or 1970s to the date of the incident that caused their PTSD, which is not justified. But no one has ever told the veteran that this can NOT happen and they can NOT be paid prior to the date when they filed a disability claim.

There are many veterans that once they retire from their civilian jobs and hear from their friends that they are getting 3,000 a month from the VA because they told the VA they have PTSD from Vietnam, some see a way to increase their retirement lifestyle by making claims for PTSD now and are filling the VA with claims of this type as they see a easy way to get some tac free money, the problem with these type of claims is that the veteran does NOT have PTSD and the VA will catch them as they go thru the claims process, it is not just file a claim and get a check.

The process to determine if a veteran does have PTSD can take months of evaluations, testing and interviews before a diagnosis is even made, then they have to be able to provide a stressor, in other words the date, location and the names of the people present when the life threatening incident took place and then the VA claims office will research it thru the military records to verify the incident did take place.

Not all veterans will be rated at 100% disabled either nor will they be entitled to the 100% disabled compensation rate, which is about 2900 a month right now.

The CBS episode states there are approximately 3 million veterans are getting compensation checks now out of the 25 million veterans that are still living. Not all veterans are getting checks for being disabled by military service, nor do they all use the VA hospital system for health care, the last numbers I have seen show about 5.5 million veterans enrolled in VA health care.

I was not impressed by Amanda Carpenters article in the Washington Times about Veterans Health care either Veterans' benefits entangled in red tape

Leading Democrats like to hold up the Veterans Benefits Administration as an example of how well government can provide health care. But veterans who deal with the complex federal bureaucracy have invented an unhappy refrain to describe the VBA: "Deny, deny until you die."

With this one paragraph she has poisoned the well so to speak, the VBA is not veterans "health care" that is handled by the VHA or the Veterans HealthCare Administration, the VBA is the claims side of the VA. The VA is actually 2 different entities one side presents all of the health care, doctors, nurses, clinics and hospitals and that is the VHA, she never addresses that issue in her article at all, she only talks about the claims side, and I have never heard any democrat or anyone else for that matter make any claims about the great job that the VBA is doing, because they don't doa good job, they do a miserable job of administering benefits to this nations veterans. They should be ashamed of them selves, paying and taking bonuses, while veterans and their families wait, wait and wait for the "PROMISE" to be kept.

This was the letter I wrote to Amanda Carpenter, in response to her article

Do facts matter? The VA is made up of two entities, the VHA is the Veterans Health Care, that includes hospitals, clinics and the doctors and nurses, and then there is the VBA which is veterans benefits administration which you have twisted together in your story rather than seperate.

Tonight CBS will be talking about the VBA which is benefits and the million claims backlog which has nothing to do with health care. The fact that the term deny deny, delay, delay until they die comes from the benefits side of VA or the VBA and not the VHA or the actual health care of the VA which as a 100% disabled veteran I have been getting care from them since 1997 when they did a triple bypass on me as a veteran working at the Post Office, I was NOT even service connected yet, bit back then any veteran could get health care and they charged my insurance company Blue Cross and Blue Shield for my care and they were paid.

Since I gave been disabled and granted service connection now the VA supplies all of my healthcare at no cost to me or my insurance companies. However when I became disabled Social Security processed my disability claim in 4 months Oct 2002 - March 2003 the VA took until June 2009 to grant my claim for coronary artery disease (CAD) and hypertension more than 6 and half years later and both agencies were working off the same medical records all provided by the VA Hospital.

I get great healthcare from the VA they just can't process claims worth a hoot, and that is a major point your article missed, was it accidental or was it done on purpose?

Will she correct her article to show the difference between benefits and health care, I doubt it, it doesn't fit the "Moonie agenda" to bash health care reform.

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60 Minutes exposes the VA hamster wheel

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