Veterans Face Ruin Awaiting Benefits As Wounded Swamp VA

UPDATE May 25, 2012
My two cents
After having lived with some of these same problems, it is heartbreaking to know so little has changed. My husband didn't want help from the VA when he got home from Vietnam. He wanted to work. He adopted his father's attitude that the VA was for "guys that couldn't work" especially the veterans missing arms and legs. No matter how hard I tried to get him to go to the VA, it took ten years from the time we met for him to go to a Veterans Center. The fight to have his claim approved took 6 years.

What veterans and their families go through is a pile of bills that cannot be paid getting higher as someone at the VA says, "Well once the claim is approved, you'll get all the money prorated" as if all the suffering means nothing.

First comes denial. The veteran says they don't need help. It isn't that bad. They just need time to get over it. As their family is falling apart, their job is in jeopardy, they begin to think they should get some help. They look at veterans living with physical wounds and think they don't deserve the same kind of help for their own wounds. A bullet wound leaves a visible scar but you can't see the whole damage done. A bomb blast leaves scars on the body but you can't see what lives beneath the flesh. PTSD and TBI can't be seen with your eyes. You have to see them with your heart and know the human you see lived through something you probably will never have to experience because they did it for you.

Then there is the stigma they don't want to face. They don't want the label they still don't understand. As claims are denied, they begin to think that whatever is going on inside of them is their fault and not because they survived combat. After all, the VA is there for them and if the VA is turning down their claims, well then, it has to be their fault. It is like a knife in their back.

Somehow they find the courage to file an appeal. They may even get some help from organizations like the DAV to help them with all the paperwork that has to be done exactly right. More time goes by, more damage done to their families and to them but still they find just enough hope to keep fighting for what they wouldn't need help with if they didn't serve. The world no longer makes sense to them. A lot of veterans end up homeless because of the stress placed on them and their families. Everyone is at the end of their endurance. A VA doctor told me many years ago for ever 10 veterans filing a claim, 8 drop out from frustration, but it also could be because they lose the support of family members and friends. None of this is good. Most of it makes PTSD worse and for a veteran with TBI they cannot fight alone. What are we if we cannot take care of our disabled veterans and stop putting them through more hell than they survived during combat?

Veterans Face Ruin Awaiting Benefits As Wounded Swamp VA
By William Selway
Bloomberg News
May 23, 2012

Rebecca Tews sat at her kitchen table in North Aurora, Illinois, stared into her laptop and tried to find a place for her family to live.

The 43-year-old psychologist spent seven years fighting for disability benefits for her husband, Duane Kozlowski, after he left the U.S. Army, unable to hold a job because of brain damage and post-traumatic stress. She borrowed $20,000 from her father’s and grandfather’s retirement accounts, stopped paying her student loans and ran up tens of thousands of dollars in bills for Duane’s tests and medical care.

While she eventually got the benefits, her credit is in ruins. This month, an eviction notice was taped to the door of her rented 5-bedroom home. She’s worried about finding a landlord willing to rent to her, Duane and five children.

“It’s basically been like a tornado,” she said of her struggle with the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department. “It’s wiped out our future. It’s wiped out our relationship with our extended family. It’s wiped everything out and we’re starting out again below ground.”

Tews and Kozlowski, 44, are among thousands of former soldiers and their families suffering the effects of a Veterans department overwhelmed by a decade of fighting overseas. With the Iraq war finished and troops returning from Afghanistan, record numbers of former service members are turning to the federal government for disability pay, adding to a backlog of claims and delays that have dogged the agency for years.
read more here