Tuesday, December 20, 2016

PTSD Claims & Combined Ratings



BLT 1/3 Vietnam 1967



PTSD Claims & Combined Ratings

  When you file a claim for PTSD, you believe combat stressors have altered your life. Combat stressors are the key to the original rating. The VA admits you experienced events that changed your life forever. When you apply for an percentage increase, the increase is not based on additional stressors. You don't need additional stressors when you apply for an increase.

  Some veterans believe the more stressors they submit during the course of the claim, the higher their percentage. After the initial service connection, your percentage is based on your ability to function and support yourself in the work force. 

  Most combat veterans mistrust authority, which can make life difficult when you job search or try to hold a job. Many veterans who had a position of authority in the service suffer from extreme survivor guilt over troops they lost. They often do not want to be put in a position of responsibility for others again. When you add drinking, drug addiction, paranoia, startle response, lack of sleep, and inability to feel emotions, it results in a bad case of PTSD.

  Some veterans can mask it for awhile, but others fall apart sooner. A severe employment handicap covers any increase beyond initial service connection. So if you put in for a increase, you must stress the problems you have at work if you are working or with a past employer if you no longer work. Don't bring up additional stressors unless they directly relate to your job. Many PTSD combat veterans prefer to work isolated so they don't have to deal with other people. This can result in job problems or self-employment, sometimes in a family business. The VA cannot penalize veterans for being self-employed

Combined Ratings
  When a veteran has more than one disability the VA combines them, based on the principle that a veteran can never receive more than 100% disability. I’ve met veterans with up to five distinct 100% disabilities, but there is no way to go past 100% for compensation without receiving an additional letter award for loss of use or missing limbs.

  The VA and service organizations use a rather complicated numerical formula involving fractions to combine percentages, but there is a simple way to do it that will be accurate 99% of the time, if not all the time. I call it the Disabled-Wellness Formula.

  I will use a veteran with three disabilities received in this order: 30% for back  injury, 10% for hearing  loss, and then 30% for PTSD.
  Added up they total  70%, but they will actually combine out to 60%. The veteran will lose 10% in the process. This is how it works:
  
  The 30% back injury service connection makes the veteran 30% disabled but leaves the veteran 70% wellness (functional).

  When the veteran receives an additional 10% for hearing loss, you multiply 70 x 10 (you multiply the new percentage by the amount of wellness and drop the zeroes on the end.)
  
  This leaves a total of 7. Any result below 5 means no increase. A result of 5 or above means going to the next higher percentage.
  
  In this case, a 7 means going up to a 10% disability. The veteran loses nothing and will now have a 30% back injury rating plus a 10% hearing loss rating for a total of 40%.
  
  The veteran has a 40% disabled and 60% wellness. But the veteran now receives a PTSD service connection rated at 30%. When you add them all together, it equals 70%, but due to the combined formula, it doesn’t turn out that way.

   You multiply the  new 30% by the wellness 60% and drop the zeroes for a total of 18.
  
   Since the 8 is above a 5, you go up to the next higher percentage. In this case, the 18 goes up to a 20. The veteran receives and additional 20% disability rating, even though he was granted 30%.
  
  The veteran now combines out at 60% even though he is 70% disabled and only 30% well.
  
  We can take it even further. Say the veteran gets another 50% for a brain tumor. Multiply the 60% by the 30% wellness and drop the zeroes. In this case, it’s a total of 18.
  
  Since it’s 5 or above, the 18 goes up to 20%. The veteran would get a combined rating of 80%, even though he is now 120% disabled.
  
 This combined 80% rating would leave the veteran a 20% wellness, meaning he would have to obtain another 50% disability to get another 10% on the combined percentage.
  
  To obtain enough percentage to actually reach 100% combined, the veteran would need two more 50% disabilities, leaving him actually 220% disabled to receive 100%.
  
  This probably wouldn’t be necessary by then because the veteran would probably be rated unemployable and get the 100% for unemployability.

  
  I imagine there are one or two instances where this formula could be wrong, but for most circumstances, it will work when a veterans want to figure their own combined rating.

Friday, November 25, 2016

PTSD Claims: VA Unemployability

Over the years my advice has probably helped over 2000 Vietnam veterans get service connections, most for PTSD. I wrote the original instructions for PTSD claims while I worked for the VA. There were no instructions up to that point (1987). I developed the format for the stressor letter and what to include and not include, and hints on how to act at a comp exam. I also became an expert on how to get increases in PTSD Compensation when warranted. The VA approved my instructions and they have been used in some form ever since. I could not represent veterans but I could give them advice to use along with their service organization rep. The small article below is on unemployability.

Paragraph (a) below is the CFR requirement for unemployability. The VA and even some service organizations will tell you that you must meet those percentage requirements to be considered for unemployability. The VA will probably turn you down if you don’t meet those percentage criteria.





(a)Total disability ratings for compensation may be assigned, where the schedular rating is less than total, when the disabled person is, in the judgment of the rating agency, unable to secure or follow a substantially gainful occupation as a result of service-connected disabilities: Provided, that, if there is only one such disability, this disability shall be ratable at 60 percent or more, and that, if there are two or more disabilities, there shall be at least one disability ratable at 40 percent or more, and sufficient additional disability to bring the combined rating to 70 percent or more.



In paragraph (b) of the same section, the CFR does a complete turn around, stating you don’t have to meet the percentage requirements for unemployability if you can’t work. So if you can’t work because of service-connected disabilities and the VA turns you down because you don’t meet the percentage criteria, they violate their own law, unless they examine you again to bring your percentage up to fit the criteria in (a) if you are unable to maintain employment. They just can’t tell you that you don’t meet the requirement and you should go away.
(b) It is the established policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs that all veterans who are unable to secure and follow a substantially gainful occupation by reason of service-connected disabilities shall be rated totally disabled. Rating boards should submit to the Director, Compensation and Pension Service, for extra schedular consideration all cases of veterans who are unemployable by reason of service-connected disabilities, but who fail to meet the percentage standards set forth in paragraph (a) of this section
. The rating board will include a full statement as to the veteran’s service-connected disabilities, employment history, educational and vocational attainment and all other factors having a bearing on the issue.For example: If you are 50% for PTSD, but you can’t work because of the PTSD, then the VA must re-examine you and kick your percentage up to 70%, if the actual cause of your unemployment is PTSD.


It is up to you to file for the unemployability. It can be a drawn out process if there are other disabilities or factors involved such as alcohol, drug addiction, or physical disability. You will also probably have to be rejected by Voc Rehab for retraining. Considering the age of most Vietnam veterans with PTSD or other disabilities and a spotty employment record, Voc Rehab isn’t likely to qualify such veterans for retraining. If you have years of treatment for PTSD, the Regional Office may not turn you down on your claim for an increase. There is no sure way to tell. I went from 50% to 70% to unemployable within six weeks, after fifteen years of treatment.

Now, what may happen is the Regional Office may turn you down if you file for an increase for unemployability. Then, you appeal to the BVA. The BVA will more than likely send it back to the Regional Office for additional work. You will then be called in for an additional Comp Exam and then you are likely to get the increase. (This is the best case scenario if nothing gets screwed up with your claim along the way.) The main thing is to never give up on the claim.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Claim Appeal Stalled






Claim Appeals
  
I reported last issue on a veteran who received a notice from the DAV that they didn’t know what his gender was after 40 years. This is ridiculous.
  Now, the same veteran has received a notice from the VA on his appeal that they don’t know who is representing him because there is no representative listed.
  I believe the DAV and the VA both dropped the ball on this one. I don’t know how, but the veteran is service-connected for wounds and it has to be listed somewhere in his claim that the DAV represents him. He had already filed a previous claim using the DAV.
  He called me after he had called the DAV, cussed them out and told them they were killing Nam vets with their lack of help.
  If he had called  me before he called the DAV, I would have told him not to call and cuss them out. You really shouldn’t cuss people out you want to help you.
  I understand his frustration. Nam vets are on the back burner now. Like WW 2 vets, the VA wants us gone. I just read today that the medical field no longer wants to test vets over 75 for colon cancer. This is for insurance purposes, I’m sure. It costs money to keep us alive. The New World Socialist Order wants old working class people, especially veterans they can’t use for service any longer, to die.
  Another article showed unclaimed veteran bodies in the morgues so long before they are buried that the bodies had rotted in the body bags. This is terrible, but nothing is being done about it.


Monday, August 15, 2016

New Tactic To Stall VA Claims: Gender

I'm in the back in a blue shirt.
B Company Reunion at the wall 2012

New Tactic To Stall Claims: Gender

   A Marine Vietnam veteran called me the other day. I had been advising him on his claim for Agent Orange since he had major heart surgery back in 2014.  His claim had been on appeal because the VA is trying to fight an increase for Ischemic Heart Disease under the presumptive Agent Orange Ruling for heart disease. He has heard nothing on his appeal since 2014.
  He had been trying to call the local DAV (his rep) for months and kept getting busy signals or no call backs. He called Cleveland, and finally got a call back from a DAV Rep. The guy was kind of nasty to him, like he was bothering him, and told him an appeal can take 4-7 years.
  My friend got angry over that, but what was worse, the DAV guy also said his claim was stalled because they didn’t know his gender.
  “I’ve been service-connected from Nam since 1971. My first name is John, and you’re telling me they don’t know my gender. What the hell is that?”
  “You don’t have to cuss at me,” the DAV guy said, and hung up on him.
  When he told me this, I got as angry as he did. An appeal should not take that long, especially with a Nam veteran. He also had cancer in addition to a five-way bypass.
  And on top of that they insult him with this gender thing.
  (For a Nam veteran with an obvious male name, that is an ultimate insult. The VA is just trying to stall until he dies. I believe they want all us Nam veterans to die, just like they do the WW2 veterans and they did with WW1 veterans.)
  Since he is from Ohio, I told him to contact his Congressman. Steve Chabot had also grilled Clinton in her scenario that went nowhere, but he was in there trying.
  Chabot’s office responded and they are making an inquiry. Once a politician makes an inquiry, things usually move along faster on a claim.
  John should be 100% for his Agent Orange conditions, dating back to the day of his diagnosis and surgery. He submitted all the documentation they asked for several times. (It’s amazing how much stuff the VA loses if you don’t send it certified where someone has to sign for it and get a returned receipt.)
  Finally after he followed my advice to send it certified, they received it. I believe that most times if you don’t send them something certified, it gets tossed.
  The gender thing was a new one on me, and I got really angry that anyone would try to use that on us. I also feel the DAV Rep should be instantly fired. Anymore it seems like the organizations are working for the VA and not the veteran.
  If you have to send anything to the VA on request, I would sent it certified/return receipt. I went through the same thing back in 2009 when one of my stents caused a problem a few months after being placed and I had a minor heart attack.
  The local hospital kept sending the paperwork to the VA a total of three times, and each time they said they didn’t get it. I went to the hospital. They were nice and said they would send it once more. I asked them for it and I sent it Certified/Return Receipt, and told the hospital that would be the only way the VA would admit getting it.
  The people at the hospital couldn’t believe what the VA does to us veterans on the claim end. And it is truly a crime.
  I will post updates on my friend. I hope he can outlast them. I still shake my head over that gender thing. It truly shows how brain dead and insulting some people at the VA and service organizations can be.



Thursday, June 2, 2016

PTSD From War


Leaving the deck of the USS Okinawa in an H-34 chopper/BLT 1/3 Vietnam 1967

PTSD From War

  I read an article this morning about a Navy Public Relations Officer taking his son to Vietnam for a visit. He had spent six months in Saigon during the war and wanted to see the place again.
  He talked about Hanoi, and how the people make 8.00 a day and work seven days a week, and how the Uncle Ho Burial place, where he was on display, was the highlight of the peoples’ lives.
  The more I read the angrier I got, from their claiming to have shot down 35,000 American war planes to their claiming to have won the war. (When you lose three million and the other side loses 58,000, that’s not a win. Politics ended that war and got many Americans killed. We didn’t lose nothing on the ground.)
  Then, he talked about how the Hanoi government claimed the American prisoners were all treated good and showed pictures of them playing volleyball and other ridiculous stuff.
   I know most of the Vietnamese who were alive when I was in Vietnam are gone...but I can’t get my hatred of that war or that country out of my mind. It’s not even so much hate anymore. It’s a rage at how that place changed all of our lives.
  I could never go back there. I left myself over there, and what came home was someone new who was lost. I didn’t even know who I was. I came home and sat in a chair and just stared straight ahead, not believing I was home, and wondering what I was going to do now that I was home. My parents didn’t know me. My mother would stare at me, knowing something had changed but she felt helpless to understand what was wrong.
  I couldn’t go back and I don’t know if I’ve ever gone forward in the sense that I left the war behind.
  I didn’t understand PTSD when I came home. I didn’t even know it existed or that I had it. I understand it better now, and I imagine I used to be a lot worse than I am now. I know I was because at one point I blacked my living room windows out with garbage bags so know one could possibly know where I was inside and take a shot at me.
  But even now after dark, I can’t sit in a room to relax unless I have the shades drawn.
  My feelings have never changed about Vietnam. Some guys can go back to the actual place and make peace with themselves. I could never do it. I would either breakdown and cry or I would want to begin shooting. In my heart, I still feel that Vietnam and the  people  are still my enemies.
  I imagine a lot of people from WW2 and Korea feel the same way about their enemies and their countries. The same with veterans of the new Iraq and Afghan Wars.
  Like many vets with PTSD, I try to keep it hidden. I do believe if you were in Vietnam  or any conflict and under fire or forced to deal with the dead and wounded, you have some symptoms of PTSD. You are not the same person you were after you came home. Some veterans can’t handle it as well as others.
  I believe PTSD is worse for Vietnam veterans in part because we felt everyone in Vietnam hated us and everyone back home hated us, and we didn’t know why the people back home hated us.
   I get angry today when the media and others call anyone who even joins the reserves a hero. If you are in boot camp you are a hero, if you are on a ship you are a hero, if you are in the military at all you are a hero.

  To me, a Marine with PTSD, this is overkill; an attempt by the media to now display phony patriotism. It has nothing to do with the actual veterans. Their families will always consider them heroes. This is an over-attempt by a media that hates the military to make people think they respect the military...when they actually think anyone who serves is a fool, just like they thought anyone who served in Vietnam was a baby killer.
  I guess I’m just one of those people who can never go back or make peace with myself about that war,

 from the S-2 Report Newsletter
(c) copyright 1994-2016

Friday, April 29, 2016

The Valid PTSD Compensation Exam


The Valid PTSD Comp Exam

If you receive physical wounds in combat, and the VA examines you for compensation, the examiner won't be the guy who works in the cafeteria or a social worker. The examiner will be a medical doctor, one who probably specializes in your injury. Veterans should expect the same treatment when being examined for a PTSD rating. If the VA calls you in for a Compensation Exam, you must be examined by a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist is also a medical doctor. A psychologist is not a medical doctor, and any Comp Exam for PTSD by a psychologist, if it goes against the veteran, should be considered an invalid Comp Exam based on non-medical opinion.
I'm bringing this up because a veteran just contacted me saying they are sending him to a child psychologist for a PTSD Comp Exam. That makes it an automatic invalid Comp Exam if it goes against him. So, if you apply for PTSD and you get turned down, and you find out the person you saw is not a medical doctor, then appeal on the grounds of an invalid Comp Exam. Say this:
I wish to appeal the decision on my PTSD claim because it was an invalid Comp Exam and I was not examined by a qualified medical doctor.
That is all you have to put in the appeal. Also, if the Comp Exam does not cover your war issues that are causing the PTSD, it is also an invalid Comp Exam.
I wish to appeal the decision on my PTSD claim because the examiner did not cover the war issues that have caused my PTSD.
If you get caught in such a scenario, appeal just as above. If your National Service Officer does not want to co-operate with you (a lot of them don't want to be bothered or don't like you knowing what to do), tell that person you will go over their head if they don't want to help you. Since they may not want to lose their job, that should bring them around.
Remember, you can file a claim at any time for anything that injured you in the military. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't or you are wasting your time.
Semper Fi
Books by Dennis Latham

Sunday, April 24, 2016

The Bad Season Returns

A New Cover from Clocktower Books


Something stalks Owenton Hollow...in rural Kentucky during certain summers known as the bad season. Locals bury their dead and keep the events secret so the media will avoid Owenton County, which had become a prime marijuana source. By 1995, several outsiders had built houses near the hollow, and the DEA began enforcing drug laws in Owenton County. 

None were aware of the danger they faced. 

Based on fact and myth, this is an account of what happened when a misfit squad of strangers led by a Marine Vietnam veteran faced the impossible...an enemy that could not die. 

Critics raved. Gary Braunbeck, Bram Stoker Horror Award Winner, called The Bad Season "a fast, hard, unnerving ride from first page to last." 

Hellbound Books' Walt Hicks wrote: "The Bad Season crackles with an eerie, eldritch energy that shines a pallid light on a netherworld of fact and myth." 

This is the Clocktower Books Second Edition (2016).


The Bad Season link is below

Friday, March 11, 2016

Vietnam Tet Offensive 1968

                       


Vietnam Tet Offensive 1968
(first time pictures published anywhere)




Deadly 122 rockets (click to enlarge)


Marine Corps Vietnam/ Tet Offensive 1968
Camp Books north of Danang during Tet 1968. 122 mm rockets fired into base almost daily. Sometimes several times a day, and a lot at night. You either lived or you died. Each rocket was six feet long and carried 40 pounds of TNT. It could explode on impact or be delayed to bury in the soil and then explode. All the shrapnel usually went forward from the blast so if it passed over your head before impact, you were usually safe.
(You could be KIA or injured by blast, too. I had a Timex watch and my left arm was outside the bunker when a rocket exploded. The watch stopped at 6:00 and could not be fixed.)
They sounded like freight trains coming at you. If the train sound passed over you, you waited for the blast on impact. If the train sound stopped like it was cut off, you were in trouble because it was close or on top of you. Little different than mortars. If a mortar passed over, you were safe, but the one that lands on you makes no sound. That's why the saying, "You never hear the one that gets you," is true.
Rockets were real bad. They couldn't aim them for accuracy but only point them in the right direction. They had a six mile range. When they hit someone usually died.
In B Company, most rockets passed over us on the North end. We were the blocking force for any ground assault, and almost every other fighting hole had a machine gun. Our numbers were few but our fields of fire were deadly.
The mess hall was at center base, empty at the time at night. One man KIA, could have been 50 during chow. The other two buildings were empty, I believe, or everyone inside would have died.
(The base camp in the movie Full Metal Jacket was Camp Books)
Semper Fi, Marines and all Nam Vets

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Vietnam Shrine




Vietnam Shrine
  

  My family doctor outside the VA is someone I see on an emergency basis when I feel that I won’t be able to get a VA appointment in a timely manner.
  Her family is from Egypt but she has been here forever and considers herself American and loves our country. She is older than me and very wise, and we have long talks about everything. She gave me some advice.
  “Stop watching the news,” she said. “This isn’t the America we knew. These people are all crazy. We don’t even go back home to see relatives anymore because they are all crazy in Egypt, too.”

  This is great advice. I’ve tried not to get angry about things since she told me that. Sometimes, even an old Nam vet needs someone to give him directions. She could be a Gunny.
  Then she told me about her trip to Vietnam with her husband. She said it’s all North Vietnam now and looks nothing like it did when Americans were there during the war.

  She also told me she saw something that really surprised her. Each time they build something in Vietnam, the people erect a shrine, usually religious. They saw one large building under construction with a shrine that was a statue of an American soldier. It had fresh flowers, food, and a full bottle of whiskey as an offering. No one would ever think of touching the whiskey or the food.
  She asked the tour guide what it meant and told him she was surprised to see a shrine to an American soldier.
  “Americans are an important part of our history,” the guide said. “Many died here, and we must erect a shrine to appease the spirits of dead Americans who fought here so they won’t put a curse on our new building. The whiskey and food is our offering.”
  She told me she never thought she would see anything like the respect the Vietnamese show for dead Americans warriors. I never thought I would hear of anything like that, either.

  That war still haunts all of us including the new generations in Vietnam. I’m surprised the Communist government would allow such a shrine, but I guess they have to respect the religious customs of their people in a place where so many have died.