Nice & Easy

National Vietnam War Veterans Day March 29

Our National Day

March 29 is National Vietnam War Veterans Day that President Trump signed into law from the Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act of 2017.

I don't know how most of us Nam veterans survived in the years after the war. I was told to get back to El Toro Marine Base with the "rest of the animals" by the California Highway Patrol because I was trying to hitch a ride on a freeway ramp because we hadn't been paid and we had no money. They gave me a ticket. I tore it up.

I was spit on at LAX by war protesters from Berkeley and other Communist preaching schools, who were also giving blood to the North Vietnamese and calling us baby killers. We were under strict orders not to react while in the Marine Corps uniform. That was hard to do.

I came home alone late at night. My parents didn't have a car. No one greeted us. We were jerked out of the war and thrust back into civilian life without any time to adjust. I took a cab home. The driver had a brother in Vietnam so at least he understood.

I went downtown with my mother in uniform, and people crossed the street to avoid us. My Italian mother was angry about that. The war helped to kill her at a young age. My sister told me she cried every night I was gone. Once a military car stopped at the house and they came to our door. She thought I had been killed and lost it. Turns out they were looking for the guy next door who had gone AWOL and they got the wrong house.

I went to the American Legion with my father, a WW2 Navy vet. He introduced me as a Marine Nam vet. The Legion Members said: "Oh, we were in a real war not some police action."

My father grabbed my arm and we left, and he never went back. That's how we were treated back then. The Legion, VFW...none of them wanted us. When the WW2 guys started dying...then they wanted us, but it was too late. Most of us were bitter at the way we had been treated.

A few weeks after I came home my friend John Englert called me and told his brother Jimmy had been killed. At the funeral, his mother screamed at me because I had survived and Jimmy didn't. I could understand why she did that because of her agony, but it still made me angry. Everyone except our families seemed to been against us.

The VA back then would treat any veteran for anything, but I had to wait sometimes for six hours to see a doctor. We had to sit in the hall on the floor next to bodies on gurneys. They never had chairs back then. The doctors were medical students who probably knew about as much as we did about medicine. It was not a positive experience at all. I stayed away from the VA for a long time. They didn't have time to deal with Nam veterans.

I don't know how many of us are left, but those Nam veterans I know have been some of my best friends over the years. I truly believe we were and are the true last knights in shining armor because we answered the call without question and signed away our lives to defend our country at a time when we would have everyone against us. Our lives were forever changed. For a long time we were just considered to be psycho killers...for no reason other than we fought for our country when millions of others wouldn't.

I'm glad that perception is changing, but still when I hear someone called a hero today just because they graduated from boot camp, it makes me cringe. I can't help it. It's all about the way we were treated. For Nam vets, that will probably never change

PTSD Years Later: Stopping Therapy (Or Taking A Break)

My question is this. 

I am 100% P&T for PTSD. I have been in therapy for 16 years with no real cure. I am fed up with therapy and want to stop. Will the VA reduce me if I stop therapy?  Yes I am P&T with no future exams scheduled. I have Champ VA for my wife and children and education benefits for them. I have been 100% for 9 years. I know that 20 years at 100% they can’t reduce me unless fraud is involved. But if for some reason I am called in for a review.....can they reduce me because I stopped treatment (therapy). 

Answer:

I stopped direct therapy about five years after my T&P rating. I had gone to therapy almost five years before I was service-connected for PTSD. I went back years later for the 12 week PTSD session outpatient. 

Like all the rest of it, it never did me any good. If you have been in group or individual for 16 years, they can’t say you are not accepting treatment. Tell them it’s not doing any good. They know there is no cure. Then just don’t make any appointments and tell them you want to take a break. Sometimes therapy can make you feel worse after a session than you did before a session. That’s why I stopped, and one time my therapist fell asleep so I said screw this. They can’t cut you, and if you are P&T with no future exams, they are not going to mess with you. Don’t worry about getting cut.

Working While Rated Unemployable

Marginal Employment 

Some veterans will argue that when you have reached unemployable status, you are supposed to stay at home and sit in your house, or spend all your time at the VA. They are terrified of doing anything that could be remotely related to work, but the Code of Federal Regulations does not require a veteran to stop functioning.

  4.17 Total disability ratings for pension based on unemployability.

All veterans who are basically eligible and who are unable to secure and follow a substantially gainful occupation by reason of disabilities which are likely to be permanent shall be rated as permanently and totally disabled. For the purpose of pension, the permanence of the percentage requirements of 4.16 is a requisite. (One disability at 60% or above, or a 70% combination of  two or more, with one being at least 40%.)   

When the percentage requirements are met, and the disabilities involved are of a permanent nature, a rating of permanent and total disability will be assigned if the veteran is found to be unable to secure and follow substantially gainful employment by reason of such disability. Prior employment or  unemployment status is immaterial if in the judgment of the rating board the veteran's disabilities render him or her unemployable. In making such determinations, the following guidelines will be used:

(a) Marginal employment, for example, as a self-employed farmer or other person, while employed in his or her own business, or at odd jobs or while employed at less than half the usual remuneration will not be considered incompatible with a determination of unemployability, if the restriction, as to securing or retaining better employment, is due to disability.

(from 4.16) Marginal employment shall not be considered substantially gainful employment. For purposes of this section, marginal employment generally shall be deemed to exist when a veteran's earned annual income does not exceed the amount established by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, as the poverty threshold for one person. Marginal employment may also be held to exist, on a facts found basis (includes but is not limited to employment in a protected environment such as a family business or sheltered workshop), when earned annual income exceeds the poverty threshold. Consideration shall be given in all claims to the nature of the employment and the reason for termination.

 (b) Claims of all veterans who fail to meet the percentage standards but who meet the basic entitlement criteria and are unemployable, will be referred by the rating board to the Adjudication Officer .

  What all this means is that you don’t have to stop trying to earn some money when you are considered unemployable. The VA will, according to a letter I received a few weeks ago, check Social Security and IRS records on you each year  when you are rated unemployable, even if self-employed. So, in theory, if you work a job involving taxes you will be hassled, if you make a ton of money. (The law doesn’t provide much incentive to improve yourself  if  you are declared unemployable.)

  In part b above, the law states that you can file for  unemployability at any percentage if you can’t work based on a service-connected condition. The VA and probably the service organizations will frown on this, but it is your  right to file for unemployability if you can’t work. Don’t ley anyone tell you that you can’t file. It is the law.

(From the S-2 Report Newsletter)

Contact email

Dennis Latham Books of War and Other Creepy Things

The Trump Budget and Individual Uemployability

The Trump Budget and IU

There are rumors that the Trump budget will force everyone who is of retirement age (62) off of IU and on to Social Security alone to save money. This would mean a massive cut for seniors on  Individual Unemployability who need it the most. Most vets would lose over half their income.  

  This won't fly, and I will tell you why. If you are unemployable, you are considered 100%. Just because you lose the IU because of budget cuts does not mean you are suddenly employable.

  The VA would have to review every single case based on the level of disability, (even if they are eligible to collect Social Security because many people work past retirement age), and probably have to make everyone drawing IU before the budget cut 100% schedular.

  You are not suddenly employable once again just because they cut your funding. And if you are too old to work by then, they just can't cut your money and benefits to save funds. So you would switch from say 80% IU to 100% schedular. Same-same.

  I don’t think the cuts will ever happen, and if it does, I believe those already on IU will stay there based on their age.

  In my own case, I’m 70 years old. I'm 130% disabled (combined 90%) but next February I will have 20 years on IU rating. After 20 years of the same rating the VA is not supposed to be able to cut your percentage. You stay that way for life.

Diet Soda: Is It A Killer?

Diet Soda Killer?

I've seen two articles this morning on how bad a diet soda is for you. You have to be shitting me. All along they say you shouldn't have sugary drinks and now they are saying diet soda causes strokes and dementia...but when all the factors like smoking, age, weight, current medical problems, and health are figured in...the figures don't mean anything and are inconclusive. So in the end it's all bullcrap, probably promoted by the sugary drink manufacturers and the sugar growers.

They should be concentrating on the effects of mixing prescriptions and the many ingredients in the flu shots they now keep trying to push on people, who in nine out of ten cases get the flu anyway. Seems to me they would cause dementia and strokes more than any ingredient in diet soda.

At age 70, I have a case of Type 2 diabetes, which they say is from exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. I was exposed to it...but I never got diabetes until I started taking blood pressure meds, some of which make your blood sugar go up and down. So I quit drinking regular soda and switched to diet. Now they are saying diet soda can kill you?

When I first got back from Vietnam, normal blood sugar levels at the VA were 140 or under. Then it went down to 130. When I was diagnosed it was 125, and that day my blood sugar was 126. Years later, it was an automatic service connection, but since I was already 100% service-connected, the extra 30% didn't matter in the long run. Pretty soon they will have blood sugar levels down to 100, and anything over will be diabetes and you will have to take meds...and the only people happy will be the ones who own the drug companies.

Live your life. If you like diet soda, drink it. They don't really know what causes anything, and sugar is a lot worse for you than no sugar.

PTSD: Temporary Improvement

PTSD: Temporary

Improvement

You’ve been fighting a long time with symptoms of PTSD, and after the VA grants your claim, you are told that your compensation may be cut in the near future due to a temporary improvement  or even just an improvement.

  I tell veterans not to worry about this. PTSD is a lot different than a physical disability. Certain physical conditions do show improvement, and the rating percentage can be reduced at some point. But with PTSD, any long term improvement is not likely to happen (at least improvement that would deserve a rating cut).

  When you are first service-connected for PTSD, you may be called in for the first couple of years for a Comp Exam, but this doesn’t mean you are going to lose your percentage.

  The VA is so swamped with claims right now from the new wars that an easily settled PTSD claim is not going to be called back in any time in the near future. That would just add another claim to the already full docket.

  Also, the VA cannot cut a veteran with PTSD for any short term improvement without considering the entire claim history.

  One veteran who is currently 100% for Individual Unemployability was told that he would be called in for a future exam because ‘improvement was anticipated with continued therapy’.

  Just because a veteran improves on a temporary basis (there is no permanent long-term improvement of PTSD) does not mean the veteran is all of a sudden capable of holding a job, or spending months or years in some Voc Rehab training program. Still, it would be best for the veteran to continue therapy, or start therapy again until the condition is made permanent.

  The VA must follow regulations in the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) before reducing the percentages of any disabled veteran.

  Veterans who have held a rating for less than five years are protected under several rules. According to the CFR, the VA must find that there has been an improvement in the level of disability before reducing the percentage rating. The entire history of the disability must be reveiwed. The evidence must show that there has been some positive improvement in the veteran’s ability to live and work. (Improvement does not mean such silly things as your ability to walk your dog down a public street or playing cards once a year...such excuses have been used to cut veterans by saying their social interaction skills have improved).

  Any attempt at reduction must also include a current Compensation Exam covering the issue of the disability. A Comp Exam for PTSD which does not include the issues bothering the veteran is not valid.

  Veterans with PTSD can expect to keep their percentage without fear of reduction

CUE: When The VA Violates Their Own Laws

CUE

  CUE means the VA did something in your claim which is a clear violation of their own laws. One example can be when a veteran files a claim, the claim remains open until they adjudicate it.

  Many times, the claim will sit in a file for years before someone gets around to deciding the issues. Once in a great while, a veteran will submit a claim, and nothing will ever be done about it. Years later, the veteran may submit a new claim for the same disability. If the VA grants the claim, the effective date of the award should be the date of the old claim, not the new one.

  This applies only to claims that were never adjudicated. If the VA did anything in the way of rejecting the claim, then it has been adjudicated. I often suggest to every veteran to save every letter or piece of paper they receive from the VA. That way, if you do file for the same disability years after you haven’t heard about an original claim, you have the proof in hand. If you don’t save your paper work, the VA may say you never filed, and you wont be able to prove that you did.

  This situation is really not a mistake in the law, but a mistake in applying the law because they didn’t adjudicate your claim. In another case, a veteran was rated at 70% for PTSD and filed for unemployability based on the fact that he couldn’t work. Voc Rehab had turned him down for training, and he was on medication. The VA denied him the 100% rating because they said his isolation from society (typical among vets with PTSD) was self-imposed.

  The Code of Federal Regulations doesn’t say anything about self-imposed isolation, as far as I know. The only way you couldn’t have self-imposed isolation is if you were in prison in solitary confinement. The VA never mentioned anything about his inability to work or anything about his work history. The total isolation and withdrawal from society due to PTSD rates 100%.

  Not only did the VA violate the law by not examining him for his ability to work, they made up some fiction about his isolation. This is really grabbing at straws on their part, and is a clear violation of their own laws. This claim went to the Veterans Court of Appeals, and was remanded back to the Regional Office to be fixed. It had been going on since 1989. In the end, the veteran was granted 100% going back to 1989. He ended up getting somewhere around 60,000 in back pay.

  CUE can be hard to prove, but your service organization will probably be able to spot clear violations in the law, and follow up with you. If the service organization offers to take the case to the Veterans Court of Appeals, you probably have a good chance because they wont take a case they don’t think they can win.

  Any veteran rated at 70% for PTSD should file for unemployability when they can’t work.

   If you’re not sure about CUE in your claim, ask someone who knows the law. And never give up!


Dennis Latham Books

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.

Dennis Latham Books

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Bad Season 

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