26 février, 2007 21:42
From the war front to the back of line
By Ron Harris POST-DISPATCHWASHINGTON BUREAU 02/26/2007
WASHINGTON — Allen Curry served a year in Iraq before being medically discharged for a bulging disc, nerve damage and mental problems that left him unable to work. But nearly two years after he applied for disability benefits, he's still waiting for an answer from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
A former Chicago postal worker, Curry was a driver and staff sergeant who saw plenty of action in 2003-04: His convoy was ambushed more than once, and he was involved in a number of firefights.
But Curry, 47, hasn't seen a paycheck in 14 months, and he's beginning to wonder about his country's commitment to veterans.
"People say, 'Support the troops,' but I don't think they really care," he said.
He's not alone. Tens of thousands of returning veterans who are unable to work because of mental and physical ailments from the war are struggling to make ends meet as they wait for the VA to decide their claims. The average wait has grown from two months to six, according to VA officials, and is much longer in some states.
Stan Baughn, director of veterans service through the Missouri Veterans Commission, a state agency that assists veterans with disability claims and other issues, said he and his staff are concerned about the time to process claims.
"If a person is injured to the point that they are unemployable, six months can be devastating to them," Baughn said.
Baughn said that when he started handling disability claims in 1997, resolving a case took about three months. It now takes six months to a year, he said.
The VA blames the delay on the dramatic increase in the number of claims since 2000; the number has risen nearly 40 percent, to more than 800,000 last year.
Claims by new veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan make up only about 4 percent of the increase, VA officials said. The largest increase has come from hundreds of thousands of claims by Vietnam War veterans, who are filing claims for injuries related to age. Others are filing claims for injuries caused by Agent Orange, a toxin sprayed during the war that was connected to illnesses such as diabetes and prostate cancer only in the 1990s.
Added to those numbers are veterans from Vietnam, the Korean War and even World War II who are now filing claims for unresolved mental health issues that have resurfaced because of the current war, the VA said.
"What you have is the science and the facts of war catching up," said Paul Sullivan, who from 2000 to 2006 monitored the flow of disability claims for the Veterans Benefits Administration, the arm of VA that handles disability claims. He is now director of research and development for the Veterans for America, a veterans support organization.
Sullivan and the VA said the longer waits are also due to the complexity of the claims of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who cite more injuries because medical advances allowed them to survive wounds that would have killed servicemen in previous wars.
Planning draws fire
Even though war veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan make up the smallest percentage of new claims, they are the hardest hit by delays in benefits because of their sudden loss of income.
Sullivan said the administration did not plan for new veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The VA said it plans to hire more claims adjusters, with the goal of bringing the wait down to 3 1/2 months. About 400,000 claims are pending, VA officials said.
But Pat Kerr, state veterans ombudsman for the Missouri Veterans Commission, said the additional adjusters, called "raters" by the VA, will have minimal effect in the first year and not much impact for an even longer period.
"It takes at least a year to train a rater," Kerr said. "And it can take upwards of three years to become an experienced rater."
Also, Kerr said, the experienced raters will be training the new workers, which could diminish the number and speed with which they adjudicate claims.
Steve Westerfeld, as spokesman for the Veterans Benefits Administration, said the agency is struggling to cut the wait time, but the increased load has made it difficult.
"It's a complex, multifaceted process that we work within," he said. "It's constantly being impacted by a variety of factors."
'Just holding on'
In Michigan, current waits for disability claims are about a year, said Charles Scott, who is service officer for Branch County Veterans Affairs in Coldwater, Mich.
"These guys are just holding on," he said. "I've got one guy who just got a retroactive check for $50,000. But while he was waiting nearly two years, he lost his house, his phone got cut off. Another guy was living with his wife in a cabin with no running water."
Some veterans have become homeless while they wait for benefits, said Clarence Rule, vice president of a veterans group in Coldwater, who cites two homeless vets in his town.
Others have committed suicide.
Former Marine Jonathan Schulze, an Iraq war veteran from Stewart, Minn., was the recipient of two Purple Hearts. The 25-year-old hanged himself four days after being told he was 26th on the waiting list for 12 beds in a VA ward for mental illness, his stepmother said.
Stephen Robinson is director of veterans affairs for Veterans for America, which won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize when it was then the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. When he talks with disabled vets, he sees what he calls "the second war."
"It's the war that people don't understand in their neighborhood, where men and women who have served with honor come home and struggle to reintegrate back into society," Robinson said.
"When servicemen and women are asked to wait for health care benefits or jobs when they come home from war, we have to ask ourselves, 'Are we honoring their sacrifices? Are we doing all that we can do to provide them with the tools to come home?' Clearly, the answer is no."
