How many years does it take to serve before whatever health issues they have are considered to have occurred during service at least even if not caused by it? We assume if they become ill while serving, their medical needs would be tended to even if not caused by a combat wound. We assume wrongly. There are thousands of veterans suffering from Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, toxic exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan as the list grows longer and longer. The fact is, if these men and women did not deploy, did not enter into these combat situations, they would not have been exposed to that which may in fact kill them as sure as the enemy tried to.
This is wrong but this is not unusual. The question is, if you worked for a company as a civilian and later found out they jeopardized your health by what they did, you would sue to make sure your needs were taken care of and your family provided for because you could no longer do it for them. You would sue to make sure it did not happen to someone else. In the case when your employer happens to be the military, you can't sue and you must through yourself at the mercy of the people reviewing your case while they have a set of rules they have to go by. Don't we owe them at least what is equal to workman's comp?
The order of the ill: What doesn't kill you
Government waits for proof - sometimes for decades - before caring for sick veterans
Health care » The VA requires former service members to prove an illness was caused by military service.
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 01/15/2010 02:32:05 PM MST
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.The diagnoses were terrifyingly specific; the causes were maddeningly unclear. No one could tell Ogden what had gone wrong. But in between medical appointments, unable to do many of the activities he had planned for his retirement, the 67-year-old man had a lot of time for speculation.
Perhaps it was the Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant used by the U.S. military to destroy enemy jungle hideaways in Vietnam, linked to more than a dozen diseases and suspected of contributing to dozens more. Or maybe it was the bromide pills he took during his first trip to Kuwait in the early 1990s. The tablets were supposed to help increase survival during a chemical weapons attack, but are suspected of contributing to a slew of conditions known as Gulf War Illness.
Or possibly it was the putrid fumes and thick black smoke that wafted over the largest U.S. military base in Iraq from a 10-acre trash heap that was set ablaze in 2003 and, in subsequent years, burned all manner of toxic garbage. Some veterans and their families believe the Balad Air Base burn pit -- and similar operations scattered throughout Iraq and Afghanistan -- are to blame for numerous respiratory, neurological and cancerous conditions.
"It could be any of that or it could be nothing at all," Ogden conceded. "I don't think there is anyone out there who has the answers."
Because he can't prove that his illness is connected to his service, Ogden doesn't qualify for VA care. "We're fortunate that we have other means," said his wife, Kathy. "But we've tried to find someone from the VA who might be interested in looking at him, just to see if there's anything they can learn about him that could help other people. No one is interested."read more here
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