Tens of thousands of veterans are falling through Voc Rehab's cracks

Video Wounded Soldiers' Homefront Battle
More than 41,000 U.S. servicemen and women have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wyatt Andrews reports that for some of these soldiers job training is tough to come by.

Notebook: Reporting on Disabled Vets
Wyatt Andrews and Jill Rosenbaum Describe How They Found Problems Within in a Key VA Program for Wounded Veterans
(CBS) By Wyatt Andrews, correspondent and Jill Rosenbaum, producer

After eight years of war, you might think the system for delivering benefits to America's most disabled war veterans would be well organized, efficient and as caring as possible. It's not.

A two-month CBS News investigation of the Department of Veteran's Affairs' (VA) most important benefit program helping disabled vets return to work, a benefit most vets call "Voc Rehab," revealed a program which is beset with contracting and staffing problems -- which often throws needless roadblocks in front of eligible veterans, and which either tolerates or can't prevent wrongful benefit denials for some of the nation's most deserving former warriors.

And because Voc Rehab benefits are only available to disabled veterans, many of whom have already waited years, but finally received a VA disability rating, a wrongful denial coming from Voc Rehab causes an added level of bitterness and sense of betrayal.

The VA does provide Voc Rehab services and training to tens of thousands of veterans every year, but has also consistently been criticized by federal watchdogs and Congress for not tracking the program's true failure rate. The last GAO report on this point, from January of 2009, said Voc Rehab was only successful in its mission 68 percent of the time. And while generally, rehabilitation and training services are difficult to provide to veterans with medical problems or increasingly PTSD -- and are not expected to approach a 100 percent success rate-- the 68 percent figure, given the war-caused spike in applications, means that tens of thousands of veterans are falling through Voc Rehab's cracks. (Source: GAO Report: VA Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment, pages 2, 25)

• Two time Army veteran Jeremy Smith (he joined, left and rejoined after 9/11) is a former Army medic whose spinal cord was injured by a grenade in Afghanistan, as Jeremy raced to treat his fellow soldiers under fire. Jeremy, who is wheelchair bound, says he was turned away by a VA benefits counselor, who falsely claimed Jeremy wasn't disabled enough to qualify.

• Former Marine Sergeant Kenny Lyon's rescue from a battlefield in Iraq and subsequent recovery from the loss of much of his left leg was the subject of a profile on "60 Minutes." Kenny says on his first day of classes at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania last year, a VA counselor called to deny the Voc Rehab tuition benefits Kenny long thought had been approved. On his first day of class, in other words, he was being asked to turn around and find another college.

• Former Army Lt. Greg Modica was wrongly told by his Voc Rehab counselor the VA would not allow disabled vets to attend flight school. After Greg presented notes of this conversation to the office of Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross (D), the congressman demanded an accounting. Within days, the VA's Little Rock office quickly changed gears, approved Greg for flight school and transferred his case file to a higher level counselor. But during that first conversation, the Little Rock counselor, who is white, told Greg, who is African American, that while flight school was out of the question, Greg could always take his plea for help to Oprah.

• Former Marine Cpl. Brandon Frazier is a veteran of the sustained 2004 Marine assault in Fallujah. Brandon has enough hearing loss and PTSD to meet Voc Rehab's disability requirements, but was falsely told by a VA counselor that Voc Rehab benefits do not cover college level pre law. They do. And since the time of Brandon's improper denial, he's borrowed $40,000 to pay for college himself.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/26/eveningnews/main6248242.shtml