Posted 6/17/2013 3:41 AM (GMT 0)
Bill:
Mine is held up, because it was turned down in SC, after wasting almost 2 years fighting with them on the smallest of technicalities. They tried everything to keep me from sending it to appeal in DC. WHen I finally insisted, the SC folks literally called me nasty names on the phone and hung up on me.
THen my files got "lost" in DC, imagine that. My local county VA people have been great, but only have so much control.
It has been in Washington for 1 1/2 years now. They even know the exact person at the exact desk that has my files now.
I contacted my U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (you see his name in the news all the time), he was very decent, looked into it, found it in the hardship category now, but said he was told there were, and I quote from a letter from him, "there were tens of thousands in that category", and that there was nothing more he could do to get me bumped up.
On my last trip to the county folk, they had my doctor prepare a pretty grim letter of my condition and prognosis, as well as some additional military records. But the person in DC said, that in 2012, they were only starting to process the hardship cases that were filed in 2005 (7 years behind at that point), and that I would simply have to wait my turn. How's that for a slap in the face?
These are the same people, that argued in SC, that I was in the Navy while I was still a junior in high school in FL in 1968. I joined on my 18th birthday on July 13, 1970, two years later. They told me on the phone, that I was wrong. If they are that f**d up on the most basic facts, I feel that it's utterly hopeless.
And for the record, I have a straight forward Honorable Discharge. Not a medical discharge, a regular honorable discharge.
I have now found a law firm that claims they can help vets out in my situation for contingency, but I don't feel real warm and cozy, and wondering if its just a scam in disguise.
I will be visiting my county folks in a week or two, and see if they can check back with the person holding my records.
This is what I get for not being a draft dodger, having a low lottery number, or not ducking into college, etc. I thought I was doing the right moral thing at the tender age of 18. I realize I was lucky to come home with all my limbs attached or not home in a body bag, but still, I served my time, I was in Nam, and I and served honorably. Yes I am bitter, plus we fought in a war that wasn't a real war, according to the media, a police action if I remember, then like many others of our time, was treated like utter s**t when we got back home.
Sorry, didn't start this out to be a vent. I really honestly believe that VA wants as many of us aging Viet Nam vets to simply die off and go away so they don't have to make good. At the rate my claim has gone, and if it continues, they may get the last laugh with me.
Sorry, over with. Will be quiet now.
david
p.s. I am third generation military in my family, my oldest son makes it 4 generations. My family names has done its donation for the causes through the years.