FOX News
Cristina Corbin
May 29, 2014
"What drove me crazy was that they had the same information in 2008 and they denied me," he told FoxNews.com. "That’s what blows me out of the water. Ever since 1974, when I first asked for benefits, they've had the same information."
The Veterans Administration is under fire for its long waiting lists, but it's unlikely any of America's service members can match the claim by Milton Rackham: It took 68 years before he was given the benefits he earned in battle.
The 89-year-old Rackham, of Belding, Mich., lived for decades without any benefits because the VA told him his records were lost in a fire in Missouri, the World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient told FoxNews.com.
"They always said, 'we can't help you,'" recalled Rackham, a former engine mechanic with the U.S. Navy who suffered injuries during the war and later struggled to find work.
"It made me feel like I was worthless," he said.
In 2011, Rackham's friend, Myrl Thompson, began writing about Rackham's war stories, and arranged meetings between the veteran and VA officials over the benefits he allegedly never received. Roughly two months ago, Rackham claims he started receiving $822 a month from the VA as well as $7,000 in back-pay.
read more here
Ohio veteran finally applies for benefits at 106
This one explains part of what was going on back in 2008.
PTSD:WWII veterans first time claims riseAs you can see, there has never really been a time when all of our veterans were taken care of enough.
Still fighting war stress: VA granting more first-time disability claims to veterans in their 80s than ever before
The Press-Enterprise
By JOE VARGO
April 13, 2008
They beat Hitler, turned back the tide of Japanese imperialism and when the war ended, returned to civilian life to forge careers and raise families while seemingly unfazed by the horrors of combat many witnessed.
As World War II veterans have aged, and reflected on the dreadful experiences of war and carnage, more and more exhibited the symptoms of a malady unheard of when they went off to battle 65 years ago: post traumatic stress disorder.
And now, as they finally seek counseling and medical treatment, the department of Veterans Affairs is receiving -- and granting -- more first-time disability claims to veterans in their 80s than ever before.
Since 2000, the number of World War II veterans collecting disability from stress-related causes has risen 50 percent -- from 16,914 to 24,268 -- despite the deaths of 2 million veterans in that time.
In recent years, Veterans Affairs has established outreach programs to locate and assist aging veterans, set up vet-to-vet self-help groups and doled out disability payments, said Peggy Willoughby, spokeswoman for the VA's National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Willoughby, speaking by telephone from the center's headquarters in White River Junction, Vt., said Veterans Affairs doctors can't identify one overriding reason why World War II servicemen are coming forward now. She said she believes it's a combination of better information, outreach and counseling.
Guys like Gene Davis, of San Jacinto, say it's about time.
"We were done wrong," said Davis, 85, who spent almost a year in a German prison camp in 1944-45. "We didn't get what we deserved. There was no understanding of what was going on."
read more here
Milt is a friend of the family. He was denied 7 times... began applying for benefits in 1973.
ReplyDeleteCopies of his memoirs can be ordered here:
www.nightmarepatrolproject.weebly.com
Milt is a friend of the family. He was denied 7 times... began applying for benefits in 1973.
ReplyDeleteCopies of his memoirs can be ordered here:
www.nightmarepatrolproject.weebly.com