My College Roommate Wins 100% Disability Claim - after VA lost his papers for half a century!

Yesterday my college roommate Paul heard from VA that his supplemental claim for disability has been approved. He's now backdated 100% to December 2020! Great news, following the first claim being approved earlier for hearing loss at 40%. My strategy helping him was to tie certain current problems to his hearing loss as secondary issues. VA has agreed, following an appeal that reversed their initial denial.

Now, he will get a better disability compensation, medical care for himself and family, some state benefits and, if and hen needed, nursing home or other such advanced care.

These are earned entitlements which he has been denied for the past half-century. Denied VA medical care, GI home loan, every state benefit withheld. There's no catch-up for what he's been refused.

Remember: this is a good outcome but it really is an immense VA failure! Paul first applied for VA disability benefits when he was released from active duty in 1969. He lived with his disability and forgot all about the VA claim which, decades later, was finally found in his Army dental records. The VA never found this critical document: It took his attorney Katrina Eagle a couple hours. Perhaps...VA didn't give a damn?

A veteran has a reasonable beef with the VA when they take half a century to resolve a claim, meanwhile denying all federal and state benefits. Paul has a beef, but right now he's simply glad things have gotten straightened out.

The VA tried. Dragged it out fifty years, and if only the process had taken a bit longer, until Paul had passed, VA could cancel his claim altogether because when the vet dies, so does the claim. Too bad, VA. At least you made it into your disgusting "Claim Ignored 50 Years Club."

Over half a century. But who's counting?

Helped my college roommate get huge VA retroactive disability check

$155,000. It will be in his bank on Monday," said his attorney K. E, when she called to give me the great news. My old college roommate has won a 52-year old VA claim he'd long-forgotten having submitting in 1969 when he left active duty. 

I got his initial VA claim approved earlier this year at 40% disability with an initial check for $7,000, paying what was due from November 2020 when I mailed it. However, I knew he needed professional help trying to get other serious disabilities related to what the VA decided is already service-connected.

I recommended the attorney I knew best, who also has her solo veteran-focused practice near my friend. Her expertise uncovered the fact that his initial claim had been submitted back in 1969, filed and lost somehow into his VA dental records and never adjudicated. She slapped the paperwork into the mail to catch up with this VA error, and today's great news comes as a blessing for my old friend.

What a happy day!

VA Benefits for a “Traditional Reservist?”

Absolutely! Hearing injuries resulting from armor, heavy weapons, flight or aircraft maintenance duties might qualify you for VA compensation and other benefits. Here’s how. 

Traditional reservists aren’t eligible for most VA benefits because “active duty for training” doesn’t count towards true veteran status – even if it is a year or more such as Undergraduate Pilot Training. Regardless of how long one’s initial active duty for basic and technical school might be, the law doesn’t recognize that as “active service.” 

VA recognizes completion of an active-duty enlistment, or active duty during wartime to qualify a servicemember for benefits, but UTAs, annual tour, active duty for basic and other training are grouped into ineligible “active duty for training.” No bennies. 

BUT – there’s a big exception to that if you experience a disabling injury or disease. Tinnitus is just one such injury. That ringing in the ears, or wind noise or low hum is caused by loud noises. Noises like a C-123 or C-130 makes. Noises like an M-16 makes at 154dB.

Flyers, tank crews, infantry, artillery and others around loud noises in a military setting often suffer tinnitus, and VA recognizes that as a frequent disability - in fact, it is the most common disability veterans have. 

If you have tinnitus or hearing loss you might be entitled to VA care and compensation for that disability, and if you are, that makes you a veteran with all the benefits that wartime veterans receive. Benefits that you’ve earned from damage done your ears.

I looked into this in December 2020 to help a man who was an army reservist with tinnitus from his basic training back in 1968.  He fired the M-14 rifle and did not have any ear protection. Noises of 85 dB and above can cause permanent hearing loss and tinnitus, and our aircraft are far noisier than that: The C-130 cockpit is steady at over 112 dB. The noise is even worse in the aircraft rear! 

After my altitude chamber ride at Edwards AFB I started flying C-130 transports in 1974. I recall that by 1976 or so we received the 3M yellow foam earplugs. They only provided some protection from noise hazards but it was all we had plus our crew headsets; even together they were of little help. 

There was still significant noise reaching the inner ear to cause damage. This kind of damage is permanent and cumulative and can evidence itself in worsening tinnitus and/or hearing loss even years later. 

Here is my point in the VA’s own words: 

“When a claim for service connection is based on a period of active duty for training, there must be evidence that the individual concerned became disabled as a result of a disease or injury incurred or aggravated in the line of duty during the period of active duty for training.”

That is per 38 U.S.C. § 1131 (see also 38 U.S.C. § 1110; 38 C.F.R. § 3.303(a). See CAVC Hensley v. Brown –

  “claimant may establish direct service connection for a hearing disability initially manifest several years after separation from service on the basis of evidence showing that the current hearing loss is causally related to injury or disease suffered in service.”( 5 Vet. App. 155, 164 (1993).” Also see VA Training Letter 10-02 at 15 (rescinded re: incorporation into VBA Adjudication Procedures Manual (M21-1), pt. III, subpt. iv, ch. 4, § D.1-3) 

VA compensation for a 10% tinnitus disability is a modest $144 per month. For someone who served in the reserve components the real importance here isn't the money but rather a hearing injury establishes legal veteran status with all the benefits that attach to being a wartime veteran (we’ve been in a period of war ever since Desert Storm.) 

Sometimes there are secondary issues to adding to hearing loss like depression or hypertension. There can even be tertiary issues, something like hearing loss causing depression which is known to cause heart issues. Rarely, there have been vets getting up to 50% disability ( benefits plus $995/month) based on hearing loss and complications. 

You might not need them now, but benefits can include elderly/low-income pension rights, medical and pharmacy (perhaps with modest co-payments,) rehab, hearing aids, VA home loan, education, and even a new program for veterans called Veteran Directed Care. 

It is for vets faced with significant loss of ADLs (activities of daily life.)
There is no disability rating required, only that a vet be enrolled in VA health care, and with it help can be offered for whatever ADL shortfalls the vet experiences.

If you believe you have tinnitus or hearing loss, or maybe some other issue that began during service and still affects you, get advice from the VA hotline, one of the veterans’ service organizations like DAV or VFW, or your city/state VA office. Get a claim entered immediately because benefits are dated from when VA gets your claim, not when they approve it months later. 

Late note: the Army reservist whose claim I helped prepare got a welcome disability rating of 40% service connection (backdated to date of his application) when VA approved his claim in early June 2021; he has a couple issues still pending that could increase the award significantly. This all went back to hearing injuries during basic training and AIT over half a century ago; good thing he saved, the documentation from his sick call and hospital treatments!

I hope this helps someone!

Wes Carter, USAF Retired

Medical Service Corps

Helped My Old College Roommate With His VA Claim

PAUL, my old (we're both 75) roommate from college days, Army buddy, fellow IBM employee and friend for over half a century, is almost totally deaf.  

Paul (L)  and Wes, San Diego 1967

He hears sounds but needs powerful hearing aids to grasp the words. We first met as roommates during college and were occasionally bunkmates in the Army. Travels over the years gave us the opportunity to stay in touch. I'm writing this note about Paul to remind all veterans that military service has made us brothers and sisters; we must always help others, including getting them help from the VA when needed.

No Vet left behind. Ever.

Paul was supposed to be best man at my wedding at the March AFB chapel on June 14, 1969. Instead, he found himself headed off for Army basic training. While at Fort Bragg an incident on the rifle range left him totally deaf for days. He was seen at the base medical clinic but the damage was done: he gradually regained most of his hearing after a week of rest, but then year after year, the ears "rang" louder and louder as Paul's tinnitus developed. And so did his bilateral hearing loss worsen. A lot! 
 
This was a half century ago. Specialist-5 Paul Hansen was a traditional Army reservist, serving his initial six months of Active-Duty, but without full-time active duty after that to qualifying him as a "veteran" per the law; nothing that would leave him eligible for VA care or any other benefits. Paul did his six year military obligation and began the rest of life's complicated journey in earnest.

Paul moved between Tokyo and California while I bounced around the country with my civilian and military careers. Once, after I left the Army to fly for the California Air National Guard, I was able to take Paul on a flight with me to Massachusetts for his aunt's funeral. Because we kept in touch and visited occasionally plus weddings and funerals, I noticed Paul's advancing hearing loss and urged him to file a disability claim at the VA.

In fact, around 2014 I even filled out his VA claim for him! But Paul is the reigning world champion of procrastination; the application lay somewhere, ignored, then trashed or perhaps shuffled into some unrelated pile of documents never to be seen again. Okay, I'm a nag. Phone call after phone call, "how ya doin" was followed by reminding him to file with the VA. It never happened.

Paul's hearing loss was significant, but the real goal was for him to establish veteran status with VA. This would entitle him to hearing aids but also vital health care for a multitude of other problems. The disability compensation of his claim was an insignificant concern  – in poor health, twice-widowed and living alone, Paul needed the wide range of VA benefits due disabled veterans but he'd never be a veteran, much less a disabled veteran, without getting around to submitting his claim.

It got to the point that we both realized a claim just wasn't going to get done in our lifetime or before the sun burned out. With Paul's permission I used his power of attorney and applied to the VA for tinnitus and hearing loss disabilities. The initial obstacle of getting Paul to file finally accomplished, we next moved to finding proof of his Army rifle range problem. I filed a request with the Army's personnel records center in St. Louis and the vital proof of injury medical records were promptly sent to us. 

Then there had to be an effective argument that even though he was a traditional Reservist over fifty years back, Paul's injury should entitle him VA care and benefits. Usually VA will only consider problems a year after discharge, probably not Paul and more than half a century later! Paul wasn't even a statutory veteran per the law because he'd never been on active duty after basic training. 

I have a medical background and I also remembered a key detail: The law provides that Reservists and National Guard troops, if they have a disabling injury during their training, the requirements for full veteran status are met. Further, because Paul's training was during the Vietnam War he'd have a wider range of important coverages as a wartime veteran – but only if he succeeded in his claim. 

I also wrote a lengthy report about the Army's poor history of troops' hearing injuries in the years before earplugs were even permitted on a rifle range. I quoted similar VA disability claims from other veterans who won their claims, even years later like Paul. Because of Paul's age and health, his claim needed to be approved on our first pass, not rejected for correction or appeal. Too often, claims have flaws that delay the process a year or even longer for an appeal. At best, we hoped that Paul would get a small 10% disability award for his tinnitus and hearing loss but also worried about any delays for this increasingly frail man.

This week, VA notified him it approved the claim on the initial application. Paul Hansen thus became our newest honored disabled veteran. 40% disabled, not just 10% as first hoped. Two other major health issues are still under consideration and we're hoping it will put Paul over 50% disability, at which point all his medical care is provided free. Other benefits he can get now:

• Benefits for Veterans 40-50% Disabled, plus compensation
  • Preventive care.
  • "Level 2" VA medical priority group
  • Inpatient (hospitalization) services.
  • Military PX and commissary use.
  • Care in the Community
  • Ancillary services.
  • Mental health care.
  • Geriatrics and extended care.
  • Medical equipment/prosthetic items and aids.
  • Old age, low income pension (income-based.)
  • Medical travel.
  • Veteran-Directed Care program, a budget to help with activities of daily life.
  • Medication/supplies
    

The VA decision on his application also made his disability retroactive to December 2020, the date VA received his claim. Paul, faced with many health issues, is finally entitled to VA hearing aids and so many other benefits. Paul isn't poor but the VA check will be useful.

California has some property tax exemptions and other benefits, mostly kicking in at a 100% disability. We'll have to see if Paul's remaining issues are going to be service-connected.

Here, I'll take a firm grasp on myself and control the urge to tell Paul what his disability checks would have totaled (over $35,000) if HE'D ONLY DONE AS I SUGGESTED SEVEN YEARS AGO. I've helped vets with their VA claims but just one other went back over half a century like Paul's. That was for Bob Edwards, church friend and former Navy officer for whom we got a total disability based on World War II injuries 63 years earlier.

A note: Paul's dad's Coast Guard leather bridge coat (he's wearing it in the top photo) saved my life, quite literally, sometime around 1967 in Riverside, California. But that's another story.