GRRRR is right, and I've been emailing, writing snail letters and even
> calling Senators, Representatives, both at the Federal and State > level.
> Our nearest bigger newspaper, the Lebanon Democrat has been following
> this closely, along with Nashville newschannel 5, both the Walter Reed
> situation and our local VA Homes situation. YES, I agree
> cronyism!!!!!
> Notice ever that all the Pres's and Senators go to the NAVAL Hospital
> (Bathesda) rather than Walter Reed?? Do we wonder why????
From what I've gathered, the acute care and inpatient services at Walter Reed are still top-notch. It's the outpatient "care" that was privatized to Halliburton and rapidly went downhill because all Halliburton cares about is making money.
And in good news, Kevin Kiley tendered his resignation yesterday. Maybe someone qualified will be put in charge...oh, who am I trying to kid???
Yes, Kim, I also understand that the INPATIENT care is considered to be top-knotch. Here's another 'grrrr' tho... after all the trouble Vietnam Vets went to to get PTSD *recognized* (or as WWI, WWII, and Korea vets called it, 'shell-shock'), NOW the VA is disputing Iraq/Afghanistan Vet's claims of PTSD.... YEESH! Me thinks the ADMIRAL in charge of Bathesda should personally train whomever the new General will be at W.Reed.... :D Noreen
Noreen, why does that not surprise me, knowing how long it has taken to get at least some of the problems caused by Agent Orange exposure recognized? And they knew to BEGIN WITH that the stuff was harmful, but neve told the guys dropping it out of helicopters, etc.!!
Carey, Even tho the VA has a 'list' of like 17 diseases attributed to Agent Orange (Lymphoma, ie Don's being just one of them), they'll fight tooth and nail for the guys to prove their exposure! Our VA rep gave us a page right from the VA's BOOK as far as just being in the water's of 'Nam being proof enough, and told us to hang onto that page for dear life... we resubmitted copies of that page dozens of times while they hemhawed about Don't being in 'Nam and his exposure..... Noreen
That's the part that irks me most. For the record, I'm very much anti-war, but if soldiers are gonna be sent into a conflict they better have proper training and equipment, and defined lengths of deployment with long breaks between deployments. I also firmly believe that anyone who serves this country in the military, even if they never see combat and are stateside working in an office, deserves to have their medical needs taken care of for the rest of their lives, and at the highest level of care. To see and hear about wounded soldiers being put in "outpatient care facilities" that there's no way I would put the lowest criminal in saddens and enrages me. Then we have generals in charge who ignore what's going on - Kiley knew about this years ago and did nothing - and the new woman put in charge blames this whole thing on "the media" while continuing to ignore the problems. All I want to say to her is OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AROUND YOU!!! It's not "the media" that created the problem, but they did finally expose it to the rest of us, and that's their job (which they're finally starting to do again, but that's another issue).
Just once I want to hear someone in this administration say that they screwed up instead of relying on the old "mistakes were made" excuse. Well, they didn't happen by themselves, did they??? Decisions made at the highest levels of government led to the disasters we see. Grr...again.
"YarnWright" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@newsgate.x-privat.org...
Noreen, Dave's diabetes and associated heart disease is now attributed to Agent Orange exposure. Luckily, the person he had helping him in 2000 had a husband who also worked in the VA Admin and could pull records of where he was and if it was in an area that qualified. Since he left the VA hospital in the 70's from a psych ward [after being prescribing an addictive amount of tranqs(which an aunt(nurse) of his helped him get off)], he had PTSD, as well as hypertension, etc., and was in and out of the VA detox ward for alcohol many times before I met him. When he was found totally disabled as of Oct 1990 by Social Security in 1993, VA kept denying his disability claim, though they were treating him for diabetes, saying it wasn't service connected. It wasn't until 2002 or 2003 that he was listed as 100% disabled going forward, but only as of 2000, due to the finally published "presumption" list you mention. He's finally been seen by the travel board last April(2006), with a VA rep and his own lawyer, intending to take the claim back to 1990, however, in going through the records, it was discovered (and agreed to by the travel board judge) that he had never been given the assistance that should have been given him for all the filings he did from the 70's forward, so they are planning on looking at it from the late 70's forward, to determine what level of disability applies to when. Every couple of months he calls; last call he was told they were working on the cases heard in April 2006. I'm still saying I'll believe it when I see it.
What gets me is that the government has all the records of who was assigned where, pay records, etc. Why on earth should it be so hard to determine that someone was in 'Nam and where?!?!?! At least the Australians started taking care of their vets that served with ours, when problems came up. Any of our guys who took a settlement from Dow were told they couldn't come back at a later date with any other claims regarding the Agent Orange, though I suppose that might have to change now. That right there sends up red flags to me....
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