Monday, December 30, 2019
Blue Water Navy Veterans’ disability claims to be decided beginning Jan.1, 2020
Did you serve in the offshore waters of the Republic of
Vietnam between Jan. 9, 1962, and May 7, 1975? If so, then you’re considered a
Blue Water Navy (BWN) Veteran.
On Jan. 1, 2020, the Blue Water Navy Act of 2019 goes into
effect. This Act was signed into law on Jun. 25, and extends the presumption of
herbicide exposure, such as Agent Orange, to BWN Veterans who served as far as
12 nautical miles from the shore of Vietnam and have since developed one of 14
conditions related to exposure. Some of these conditions include Type 2
diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, many forms of cancer and others.
How do I know if I’m eligible?
The best way to find out if you’re eligible is to work with
an accredited claims representative or Veterans Affairs (VA) regional office to
understand eligibility requirements before filing a claim. You don’t need to
prove contact with herbicides to be eligible.
How do I file a claim for compensation benefits?
You can file an initial claim (that has not been previously
decided by VA), by submitting Form 21-526EZ, Application for Disability
Compensation and Related Compensation Benefits. CLICK HERE to initiate your new
claim.
You can also contact an accredited Veterans Service
Organization (VSO) to assist you with your application. To access a list of
VA-approved VSOs, CLICK HERE. You may also contact your state’s Veterans agency
should you need additional assistance with the application process.
What if I’ve previously filed a claim that was denied?
VA will be using the new law to automatically review claims
that are currently with the VA review process or under appeal. However, if you
had an herbicide exposure claim with one or more presumptive conditions denied
in the past, you are urged to file a new claim.
When you begin the claims process, be sure to provide or
identify any new and relevant information regarding your claim, such as the
dates the vessel you were serving on traveled through the offshore waters of
the Republic of Vietnam or updated medical information.
Friday, December 27, 2019
The VA Extends Benefits to Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Jan. 1
by David Miller
The Department of Veterans Affairs begins deciding Blue
Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019 claims, Jan. 1, 2020. This extends the
presumption of herbicide exposure, that includes toxins such as Agent Orange,
for veterans who served offshore of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam
War.
Signed into law June 25, the law specifically affects Blue
Water Navy Veterans who served as far as 12 nautical miles offshore of Vietnam
between Jan. 6, 1962 and May 7, 1975. The law also applies to veterans who
served in the Korean Demilitarized Zone between Jan. 1, 1967 and Aug. 31, 1971.
Survivors of veterans can file claims for benefits, based on
the veteran’s service, if the veteran died from at least one of the presumptive
conditions associated with Agent Orange. The law also provides benefits for
children born with spina bifida, if their parent is or was a veteran with
certain verified service in Thailand during a specific period. The Blue Water
Navy Act also includes provisions affecting the VA Home Loan Program. The law
creates more access for veterans to obtain no-down-payment home loans,
regardless of the loan amount.
Veterans who want to file an initial claim for an herbicide
related disability can use VA Form 21-526EZ, Application for Disability
Compensation and Related Compensation Benefits or work with a VA-recognized
Veterans Service Organization to assist with the application process. Veterans
may also contact their state Veterans Affairs Office.
BWN veterans who previously filed a claim seeking service
connection for one of the 14 presumptive conditions that was denied by VA, may
provide or identify any new and relevant information regarding their claim when
reapplying. To re-apply, veterans may use VA Form 20-0995, Decision Review
Request: Supplemental Claim. As a result of the new law, the VA will
automatically review claims that are currently in the VA review process or
under appeal.
COLA Increase Announced for 2020
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced a 1.6
percent increase in the Cost of Living Adjustment for the calendar year 2020.
This directly affects military and federal civilian retirees, survivor benefit
annuitants, disabled veterans and Social Security recipients. The new COLA rate
is effective Dec. 1, 2019 and the adjustment will appear in the Dec. 30, 2019
payment.
David Miller is a resident of Lexington Township, Maine He is
retired Navy.
Liver flukes and bile duct cancer 2017 study: Schumer says ‘use what’s useful’
In Long Island last week, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer
revealed that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is about to launch a
major study on ‘toxins.’ But what Schumer pointed out is that Long Island’s own
Northport VA already did a 2017 study on a rare, cancer-causing parasitic
toxin,
“In the Spring of 2017, our local VA in Northport conducted
a study on a rare, toxic cancer-causing parasite—and environmental
exposures—known as liver fluke,” said U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. “Now, it
was just a pilot study, but Northport examined nearly 100 veterans who may add
value to the larger medical questions so many have related to bile duct cancer
and Vietnam vets. We have samples, antigen markers, and more; there’s good
stuff here from this smaller study, but it is largely sitting on a shelf, and
we are here today to say: use what’s useful.”
Schumer says there must, and should, be some use for even
aspects of the Northport data as part of the VA’s newly-announced large-scale
research effort on toxins and environmental exposures, and he is urging the
agency to act. The Senator demanded that as part of this new study, the VA
incorporate Long Island’s data, or some of the information from its
participants, in hopes to speed the new effort and give local vets the answers
–and the care—they deserve. Schumer made the case that the VA should not
advance another big study on toxic or environmental exposures without
considering the incorporation of Long Island veterans’ data on Liver-Fluke, and
the rare cancer that this exposure might deliver.
Soil sampling finds traces of Agent Orange components
The final test results are in for Agent Orange soil samples
taken in November 2018, and one sample does show traces of 2,4,5-T, a herbicide
component of Agent Orange, as well as 2,4,5-TP, also known as silvex.
The findings are stated in a report by Weston Solutions Inc.
provided to the Guam Environmental Protection Agency on Dec. 17, said agency
spokesman Nic Lee. The tests were started at the request of the government of
Guam and Joint Region Marianas.
The Guam and U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies
collected samples from five subsites in off-base areas that were believed to
have been exposed to Agent Orange, officials stated.
"An area off of NCS road, along Route 3 and in the
vicinity of Potts Junction and a pipe line tie-in located in Tiyan were among
the first areas to be sampled. USEPA’s on-scene coordinator, Harry L. Allen,
and USEPA Superfund Technical Assistance and Response Team contractors from
Weston Solutions Inc. performed the sampling," the release stated.
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Friday, December 20, 2019
Author Larry Heinemann, National Book Award winner for ‘Paco’s Story, dead at 75
Larry Heinemann, who said he grew up in a home without books
but produced searing works of literature about the Vietnam War, died Wednesday
at 75.
“The war,” he once said, “has been like a nail in my head,
like a corpse in my house.”
The Chicago native had been living in Bryan, Texas, near
College Station, where he’d been a writer-in-residence at Texas A&M
University from 2005 until retiring in 2015, according to relatives. He had
cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and died at CHI St. Joseph
Health Regional Hospital in Bryan.
The Army veteran’s novel “Paco’s Story” won the National
Book Award for fiction in 1987, surprising the literati by besting a field that
included Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and Philip Roth’s “The Counterlife.”
He was shipped in March 1967 to Vietnam, where he survived
what he called “the longest night of my life.” His battalion and future
Hollywood director Oliver Stone’s were engaged in the same battle with North
Vietnamese soldiers.
“We killed 500 guys
in one night, and trust me, it took all night,” Mr. Heinemann wrote of that
battle in his 2005 nonfiction book “Black Virgin Mountain: A Return to
Vietnam.”
“The s--- flew all
night,” Mr. Heinemann wrote of the carnage. As the sun came up, “We could
finally look out down front: corpses everywhere, bare feet and flies…”
When it came time to bury the dead, he wrote, “We did it
like you’d make lasagna — a layer of bodies and body parts, a generously thick
broadcast of quicklime. . .another layer of bodies, and so on.”
VA must fill its 49,000 vacant jobs, senator tells Wilkie
The Department of Veterans Affairs has more than 49,000
vacant jobs. Of those, more than 43,000 are in the Veterans Health
Administration.
Those staff shortages mean veterans aren't getting the care
they deserve at VA, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., a leader on the Senate Veterans
Affairs Committee, said in a letter to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie this week.
Veterans can't get appointments quickly and high turnover means they struggle
to build relationships with their doctors.
VA began reporting its vacancies in 2018, and since then,
the number has only increased.
Since learning of the tens of thousands of vacancies,
Congress has provided additional powers and incentives to try to help fill
those jobs, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said. But the problem remains, and
veterans suffer because of it, he said.
"I write today with serious concerns about how VA is
making use of the numerous new authorities Congress has provided to help VA
identify and address its persistent workforce shortage," Tester wrote.
"Despite these new authorities, VA has yet to reduce the number of
vacancies."
While patients who see private doctors are scheduling more
than 5 percent more appointments, VA in-house appointments have increased 3
percent from fiscal year 2018-19.
"Lack of sufficient medical and support personnel is
partially to blame," Tester said.
Tester said he remains "consistently frustrated"
that VA hospitals and clinics, "particularly those in rural areas, are
dramatically understaffed."
Because VA is short-staffed, Tester said veterans across the
U.S. "continue to face barriers to access the quality and timely care they
have earned," adding that he regularly hears from veterans that
"vacancies and constant turnover in VA facilities negatively impact how
quickly they can get appointments as well as the quality of their relationship
with their doctor."
Tester called on VA to provide answers on how the additional
Congressional resources are being used and how it plans to address the staffing
shortfalls.
"Veterans across the country continue to face the
effects of an understaffed VA," he said.
Cancers strike veterans who deployed to Uzbek base where black goo oozed, ponds glowed
WASHINGTON U.S. special operations forces who deployed to a military
site in Uzbekistan shortly after the 9/11 attacks found pond water that glowed
green, black goo oozing from the ground and signs warning “radiation hazard.”
Karshi-Khanabad, known as K2, was an old Soviet base leased
by the United States from the Uzbek government just weeks after the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks because it was a few hundred miles from al Qaeda and Taliban
targets in northern Afghanistan.
The base became a critical hub in the early days of the war
to provide airdrops, medical evacuation and airstrike support to U.S. ground
forces in Afghanistan.
But K2 was contaminated with chemical weapons remnants,
radioactive processed uranium and other hazards, according to documents
obtained by McClatchy.
At least 61 of the men and women who served at K2 had been
diagnosed with cancer or died from the disease, according to a 2015 Army study
on the base. But that number may not include the special operations forces
deployed to K2, who were likely not counted due to the secrecy of their
missions, the study reported.
As part of McClatchy’s continued investigation into the
rising rates of cancers among veterans, members of those special operations
forces units who were based at K2 are speaking out for the first time because
of the difficulty they have faced in getting the Department of Veterans Affairs
to cover their medical costs.
“After returning from
combat years later, we are all coming down with various forms of cancer that
the [Department of Veterans Affairs] is refusing to acknowledge,” said retired
Army Chief Warrant Officer Scott Welsch, a special operations military
intelligence officer who deployed to K2 in October 2001. He was diagnosed with
thyroid cancer in 2014.
Indonesia lets plastic burning continue despite warning on health danger
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Indonesian government, stung by a
report that found burning plastic for fuel is poisoning residents in an East
Java village, is allowing the illegal burning to continue while it challenges
the environmental study.
Tofu makers in the village, Tropodo, who have long burned
waste plastic to fuel their kitchen boilers, have seen sales plummet in recent
weeks over fears that dioxin, a toxic chemical, produced from the fires is
contaminating their tofu.
Rather than enforce a ban on the burning of waste plastic,
much of which came until recently from the United States, the Ministry of
Environment and Forestry appointed a panel of Indonesian experts to counter the
report released last month by Indonesian and international environmental
groups.
At a news conference, officials said the Tropodo test was
flawed because it relied on testing dioxin levels in chicken eggs. Eggs are
commonly used for testing contamination because chickens effectively sample the
soil as they forage and toxins accumulate in their eggs.
“Chickens are smart,”
said one government expert, Mochamad Lazuardi, a professor of veterinary
medicine at Airlangga University in the city of Surabaya. “They will not eat
something hazardous.”
Warner calls on Trump administration to reverse decision blocking Agent Orange benefits
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) took to the Senate floor this
week to draw attention to the plight of Vietnam-era veterans struggling to get
benefits for illnesses related to toxic herbicide Agent Orange.
In his speech, Warner called on the Trump administration to
reverse its decision to block an expansion of approved Agent Orange–related
conditions that automatically qualify a veteran for benefits.
According to documents obtained by the Military Times, in
early 2018 White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick
Mulvaney blocked a request by then-Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin
to add three medical conditions (bladder cancer, Parkinson’s-like symptoms and
hypothyroidism) to the list of approved Agent Orange–related conditions.
The documents reveal that an estimated 83,000 veterans would
have been made eligible for coverage if the decision had gone through.
“There is more than enough evidence to expand the list of
Agent Orange–related conditions. We should be thanking these veterans for their
service, not nickel and diming them,” Sen. Warner said. “I urge my colleagues
to listen to the veterans in their states. And I urge the White House to let
the V-A provide these veterans with the benefits they’ve earned.”
Another big boost for VA funding in latest federal budget deal
The fiscal 2020 budget deal finalized by Congress on
Thursday will give the Department of Veterans Affairs another hefty funding
increase next year.
The $1.4 trillion budget deal, which avoids a partial
government shutdown until at least next fall, includes nearly $217 billion for
VA operations, matching the White House’s request for veterans program
operations. The total is more than a 9 percent boost for the department,
significantly more than most other federal agencies.
That’s the largest budget in VA history, and continues a
nearly 20-year run of significant spending hikes in the department. In fiscal
2001, the VA budget totaled about $45 billion. In fiscal 2011, it was about
$125 billion.
Those increases have caused concerns among fiscal
conservatives on Capitol Hill, but not actual public opposition to the VA
spending increases.
In an interview with Military Times in November, VA
Secretary Robert Wilkie said his officials are working to ensure they money is
being spent efficiently and effectively but “I haven’t heard anybody get up and
say publicly ‘enough is enough’ with the VA budget.”
Mandatory spending on medical benefits and disability claims
amounts to almost three-fifths of all VA spending for next fiscal year.
Discretionary spending alone, which totals $92 billion, is increasing about 6
percent from fiscal 2019 levels.
The bill includes $80.2 billion for the Veterans Health
Administration, including $9.4 billion for mental health services, $222 million
for suicide prevention outreach, $585 for gender-specific care for women and
$300 million in rural health initiatives.
Lawmakers included $125 million extra for processing
disability claims from “blue water” Navy veterans, whose cases will begin being
processed on Jan. 1. That money is designed to help hire new staff and pay for
overtime work, not to cover the estimated $6 billion cost of awarding the
benefits over the next decade.
Budget deal advances VA private care program backed by Trump
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's expansion of a program
aimed at steering more veterans to private health care is getting an $8.9
billion boost as part of the massive government spending bill approved by the
House, setting up a potential battle over the direction of the Veterans Affairs
Department.
The deal provides $81 billion for VA medical care to treat
9.3 million veterans, including the $8.9 billion for private care under a law
passed last year expanding the Veterans Choice program. Another $11.3 billion
is on tap for private care in 2021.
Major veterans groups have cautioned against
"cannibalizing" VA programs to pay for Choice, which they worry could
lead to privatization of VA.
The program gives veterans wider access to private care when
they have endured lengthy wait times or the treatment was not what they had
expected. The price tag could soar as the expanded program takes hold, putting
the VA at risk of future budget shortfalls.
Democratic presidential contenders including Vermont Sen. Bernie
Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have urged reinvestment in the
VA over expanded private care options. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Pete
Buttigieg, a mayor of South Bend, Indiana, have said they will roll back or
change some of the Trump administration's rules on Choice.
"As the increasing need for medical care by wounded,
ill and injured veterans and their family caregivers is being forced to fit
under tight budget caps, we are concerned necessary resources could be shifted
away from the VA healthcare system, which independent research has shown
provides higher quality care than the private sector," said Joy Ilem,
national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans.
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
TSU alum, former Vietnam POW meets widow of pilot who shot down his fighter jet
A Tennessee State University alum who was a prisoner of war
in Vietnam recently traveled to Southeast Asia and met the widow of the pilot
who shot down his fighter jet nearly 50 years ago.
Lt. Col. James W. Williams, 75, said the highlight of his
trip back to Hanoi, Vietnam was meeting Nguyen Thi Lam, the widow of Do Van
Lanh, the North Vietnamese pilot who shot him down, according to a TSU press
release.
Williams was flying his 228th combat mission when his F-4D
Phantom was hit over North Vietnam on May 20, 1972. He was then take to the Hoa
Lo Prison (aka Hanoi Hilton) and held captive for 313 days, before being
released with other American POWs on March 28, 1973, two months after the
completion of the Vietnam War.
Last month, Williams, along with several other Vietnam
veterans, returned to Hanoi, Vietnam as part of a trip organized by the Dallas,
Texas-based group Valor Administration, members of the Vietnam-USA Friendship
and North Vietnamese combat veterans. He said he did not know he was going to
meet Lam until he got to Vietnam and that the meeting was awkward at first, but
changed the more their conversation continued.
“I found out her
husband died in 1980,” Williams said. “She showed me pictures of him. I
expressed my condolences for his passing. The trip definitely helped me. It
gave me some closure.”
Congress to VA: Tell us your plan for adding diseases to Agent Orange presumptives list
The massive federal funding bill introduced Monday would
require Veterans Affairs leaders to reveal whether they plan to add new
diseases to the Agent Orange presumptive conditions list.
The legislation includes a provision requiring VA to report
to Congress within 30 days the reasons for a two-year delay in announcing any
decisions, a cost estimate for adding new diseases and the date VA plans
implement a decision.
Following release of the National Academies report in 2016,
former VA Secretary David Shulkin said he had made a decision on three diseases
and an announcement on the outcome would be forthcoming, but it never came.
In March, Dr. Richard Stone, executive in charge at the
Veterans Health Administration, told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that
a decision on new presumptive conditions would come “within 90 days,” but that
never happened either.
Eating Detroit River fish: How much is too much?
Those who eat fish two or more times a month from the
Detroit River have higher levels of mercury, PCBs and dioxins.
People who eat fish from the Detroit River two or more times
per month have higher toxin levels in their blood and urine than national
averages, a recent state health department study showed.
Blood and urine samples taken from 273 frequent river
anglers had two to three times the average amount of mercury and PCBs, as well
as elevated dioxin levels, according to the Michigan Department of Health and
Human Services.
The findings, state health officials say, highlight the
importance of following Michigan‘s Eat Safe Fish guidelines, which list the
toxins suspected in different types of fish and how many meals of those fish
are safe to eat in a month or year. That may be easier said than done for many
metro Detroit families who rely on fish they catch from the river as a food
staple.
VA loan fees to fund benefits - Pitting one generation of veterans against another
When Congress passed the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act and President Donald Trump signed it on June 25, it was applauded as overdue help for retired military exposed to Agent Orange. Little notice was given to how it was being funded: a two-year hike in VA loan fees.
In other words, rather than have the U.S. government pay for the health costs for Vietnam veterans, the bill was being footed by younger soldiers and sailors buying homes with mortgages backed by the Veterans Administration. Most of those buyers were rolling that fee into their loan, meaning they’ll be paying the fee hike off for 30 years, with interest.
A month later, the House of Representatives passed another bill to help veterans, this time funded with an extension to the temporary Blue Water hike in mortgage fees. This bill, H.R. 3504, would pay for adapting homes for disabled veterans and provide educational benefits to military spouses and children. It passed the House in July and is pending in the Senate.
Now, seven members of Congress have written to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to ask that future bills not be paid for by increasing VA loan fees. Seven members of the House signed the Dec. 9 letter, from both major political parties: Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Filemon Vela (D-TX), Steve Stivers (R-OH), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) and Denver Riggleman (R-VA).
“While we stand behind our support for both bills, we recommend that spending on future veterans’ benefits should be shared by the broadest base of Americans or paid for through the direct appropriation of funds, rather than through offsets that fall squarely on veterans,” the letter said. “We must ensure our veterans receive the benefits and services they have earned in a way that does not reduce the value of other earned benefits and services that are central to their financial and social well-being.”
Friday, December 13, 2019
VA extends benefits to offshore Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans January 1st
VA US DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
NEWS RELEASE
Office of Public Affairs
Media Relations
Washington DC 20420
(202) 461-7600
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VA extends benefits to offshore Blue Water Navy Vietnam
Veterans January 1st
Law also affects survivors of Veterans, certain dependents
and Veteran homebuyers
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
begins deciding Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019 claims, Jan. 1,
2020, extending the presumption of herbicide exposure that include toxins such
as Agent Orange, to Veterans who served in the offshore waters of the Republic
of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Prior to the measure, only Vietnam War Veterans who served
on the ground in Vietnam or within Vietnam’s inland waterways were eligible to
receive disability compensation and other benefits based on a presumption of
herbicide exposure.
"Guts: The Lane Evans Story"
Former Illinois Congressman Lane Evans is the subject of a
new biography. Devin Hansen of Rock Island says it took eight years, plus two
years to find a publisher, to finally release "Guts: The Lane Evans
Story."
Hansen says he first got the idea in 2006, about the time
Evans resigned from Congress due to the effects of Parkinson's Disease.
"I first met Lane in 1983 when I was 8 or 9 years old.
I followed his career, as a political junkie growing up, and he always voted
the way I would want a representative to vote. So I admired him a lot, and he
had a lot of celebrity around here, he helped so many people. He had such a
legendary status locally I thought it would be nice to bring that story to a
national audience."
He scoured back
issues of local newspapers, interviewed friends and associates, and spent time
with the Lane Evans papers at Western Illinois University.
Evans' father was a firefighter and his mother was a nurse,
and Hansen says Evans never forgot where he came from.
"His brother said politics was their sport - when they
were around the dinner table that's what they discussed. And Lane saw how
people, especially in the early 80's with the recession, how the working class
was getting shafted, and he identified with a lot of people due to his
upbringing. When he got into Congress, in the first year he was sleeping on the
couch in his office, and he returned 10 per cent of his salary, and he said that
constituents don't get these pay raises and benefits, so why should I."
Reporters can remember the day after each election, very
early on cold November mornings, seeing a lone figure outside factories in the
Quad Cities - that was Evans spending hours shaking hands and thanking his
supporters.
And long with organized labor, some of his strongest
supporters were farmers, but not all of them.
"The farmers - he kind of had a love-hate relationship
with. He quit the Agriculture Committee after his first term and I think that
upset a lot of farmers. But throughout his career he was always working for the
small farmers, not the big agri-businesses And that was something a lot of
people didn't necessarily understand."
Lane Evans also focused his attention in Congress on helping
veterans - he served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.
Defense bill tasks DOD to map out where troops could've been exposed to toxins from burn pits
WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a
$738 billion defense bill that includes two key provisions to eliminate
existing burn pits and require the Defense Department to map out where troops
were exposed to toxic fumes.
The two provisions introduced by Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif.,
could set the foundation for veterans to claim disabilities after falling ill
to health hazards caused by burn pits in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Egypt.
"We took an important step toward ending the military’s
use of toxic burn pits and helping burn pit exposed veterans get the care and
benefits they need,” Ruiz said.
The Defense Department banned most burn pits in combat zones
amid a whirlwind of lawsuits and claims from post-9/11 veterans that their
health took a toll after exposure. Now the military mostly uses clean-burning
incinerators. But the Pentagon’s policy gives wiggle room in areas where burn
pits are the only feasible way of getting rid of waste. In places where troops
are operating in austere conditions installing incinerators might not be
possible.
In an April 2019 report to Congress, the Defense Department
acknowledged burn pits are a health risk to troops. The report found there are
nine burn pits still in operation — seven are in Syria and there’s one in
Afghanistan and another in Egypt, which are the burn pits that Ruiz’s provision
sets to eliminate.
However, even if the Defense Department compiled a list of
burn pits, there could be a number of dead ends with the data. But without any
formal mapping, it can be difficult for veterans to prove they served near a
burn pit.
EPA and Justice Department announce $245 million agreement for cleanup at the Allied Paper Inc./Portage Creek/Kalamazoo River Superfund site
WASHINGTON (December 11, 2019) — The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Department of Justice, the Kalamazoo River
Natural Resource Trustee Council, and Michigan Department of Environment, Great
Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) today announced a proposed consent decree that would
require NCR Corp. to clean up and fund future response actions at a significant
portion of the Allied Paper Inc./Portage Creek/Kalamazoo River Superfund site.
The consent decree also includes payments related to natural resource damages
and past cleanup efforts at the site. The consent decree is subject to a 30-day
public comment period.
“This is a terrific
settlement,” said EPA Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance Susan Bodine. “It not only ensures that responsible parties will
continue to clean up contamination at the Kalamazoo River Superfund site, but
also ensures that both past and future costs incurred by the EPA and the state
will be recovered.”
“This agreement marks
a milestone in efforts to clean up Superfund sites in the Great Lakes region,
and especially to address the legacy of paper mill generated PCB contamination
in the Kalamazoo River watershed,” said Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey
Bossert Clark of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources
Division. “Under this settlement, cleanup
and restoration efforts will be accelerated and that’s really good news for
communities in the region and the environment.”
“Today’s agreement is
a big step towards cleaning up the Kalamazoo River,” said EPA Regional
Administrator Cathy Stepp. “This Administration is committed to cleaning up and
restoring contaminated sites so they can be put back to productive use in the
community.”
America's Chemical Warfare Tour: How Agent Orange Destroyed Vietnam
More than 10 years of U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam
exposed an estimated 2.1 to 4.8 million Vietnamese people to Agent Orange. More
than 40 years on, the impact on their health has been staggering.
In the end, the military campaign was called Operation Ranch
Hand, but it originally went by a more appropriately hellish appellation:
Operation Hades. As part of this Vietnam War effort, from 1961 to 1971, the
United States sprayed over 73 million liters of chemical agents on the country
to strip away the vegetation that provided cover for Vietcong troops in “enemy
territory.”
Using a variety of defoliants, the U.S. military also
intentionally targeted cultivated land, destroying crops and disrupting rice
production and distribution by the largely communist National Liberation Front,
a party devoted to reunification of North and South Vietnam.
Some 45 million liters of the poisoned spray was Agent
Orange, which contains the toxic compound dioxin. It has unleashed in Vietnam a
slow-onset disaster whose devastating economic, health and ecological impacts
that are still being felt today.
This is one of the greatest legacies of the country’s
20-year war, but is yet to be honestly confronted. Even Ken Burns and Lynn
Novick seem to gloss over this contentious issue, both in their supposedly
exhaustive “Vietnam War” documentary series and in subsequent interviews about
the horrors of Vietnam.
Former VA secretary David Shulkin: Serving your country ‘shouldn’t be this hard’
David Shulkin, 60, former Veterans Affairs secretary, was
President Trump's only Cabinet member confirmed 100-0 by the Senate. He was
fired in 2018.
The title of your book is “It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to
Serve Your Country.” Can you talk a little about what drew you to serve your
country in the VA?
You know, the title actually, interestingly, has a double
meaning. First of all, the book is really for veterans and about veterans. And
so I believe when you raise your hand to defend the country, you go off and you
come back and you need our help, that it shouldn’t be this hard to get the help
that you need. And so the bureaucracy that veterans in the past have
experienced — the wait times; the trouble accessing services; the continued
issues they’re having with getting the benefits that they deserve, including
[some] Vietnam veterans who are now waiting more than 50 years [and] still
can’t get the benefits from exposure to Agent Orange — it just shouldn’t be
that hard. But of course, then the second meaning has to do with when you go
into public service, whether you’re a career employee or whether you’re a
political appointee going in to serve your government, that this should not be
the experience that people are exposed to, the environment of personal attacks,
the underhandedness and the sabotage of people trying to do their jobs. And
we’re still seeing the same thing happening today.
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Dioxin Remediation Project Kicks Off at Bien Hoa Airbase in Vietnam
A ceremony, held by the US Agency for International
Development (USAID), the Vietnam Defence-Air Force Service and the National
Action Centre for Toxic Chemicals and Environmental Treatment (NACCET), was
attended by Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh, US Deputy Chief of Mission
in Vietnam Caryn R. McClelland, and representatives from ministries and
sectors.
USAID plans to clean up 37 hectares at the airbase. The
objective is to first eliminate the risk of further dioxin migration off base,
working with Dong Nai authorities to clean up surrounding areas, and treating
contaminated soil.
The US has government committed US$300 million to restoring
the airbase and its surrounding areas, which will take 10 years to complete.
Speaking at the event, Deputy PM Binh hailed the efforts of
Vietnamese and US experts for their meticulous preparations for the project.
Over 3.6 million hectares of forest were destroyed while 4.8
million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange/Dioxin, he said, adding
that the toxic chemical was still taking its toll on the third generation.
Advocates: VA needs to make rules to compensate Guam Agent Orange vets
Military Veterans Advocacy, a veterans advocate group base
in Louisiana, is urging Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie to have the
VA quickly create rules to compensate vets who served on Guam and Johnston
Island and were exposed to Agent Orange.
The request was first made a year ago.
‘No policies have yet
been crafted’
"Last spring, MVA representatives met with Wilkie, who
said he would look into the issue. Wilkie visited Guam in July, but no policies
have yet been crafted or implemented to provide care to sick and terminally ill
veterans with Agent Orange-related illnesses," MVA said in news release.
The organization has acquired and presented substantial
evidence that veterans who served on Guam between 1972 and 1980, and on
Johnston Island from 1972 to 1977, were exposed to toxins of Agent Orange,
Cmdr. John Wells, the MVA lead attorney, said in the release.
"Secretary Wilkie has that information. We understand
that federal agencies require some time to implement policies and new rules, but
our first request to Sec. Wilkie on this matter was on Dec. 3, 2018 – 366 days
ago. Veterans are sick and dying and can't get proper benefits from the
VA," he added.
Congressmen 'demand' White House stop blocking VA from helping Agent Orange-exposed vets
Tens of thousands of veterans sick from Agent Orange
exposure still are waiting on the Department of Veterans Affairs to decide
whether it will cover their illnesses.
The veteran service organizations and members of Congress
who represent them have had enough.
House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Takano,
D-Calif., and Rep. Josh Harder, another California Democrat, sent a letter to
the White House recently demanding the administration step aside and allow VA
to extend disability benefits for four Agent Orange-linked diseases.
Democrats in the Senate and VSOs also previously blasted the
White House, accusing the administration of "turning your backs on Vietnam
vets who are suffering."
An Institute of Medicine report in 2016 found evidence that
bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease have
likely links to the toxic herbicide. In 2018, the National Academies of
Sciences found evidence linking hypertension, or high blood pressure, to the
toxic herbicide as well.
Expanding the list of health conditions presumed to be
caused by Agent Orange exposure could provide disability pay and health
benefits to more than 83,000 veterans.
Two years ago, then-VA Secretary David Shulkin decided to
add more diseases to VA's list of health concerns that qualify a veteran for
Agent Orange disability benefits, but White House officials stood in Shulkin's
way, according to documents obtained by a veteran through the Freedom of
Information Act and provided to Connecting Vets.
Takano's letter was addressed to Mick Mulvaney, director of
the Office of Management and Budget, one of the officials implicated in the
documents as allegedly blocking VA's efforts to expand benefits.
"We write today to demand that you stop your efforts to
block the inclusion of four diseases in the (VA) presumptive list for Agent
Orange exposure," the letter reads. "Media reports and official
documents show that you personally intervened to stop tens of thousands of
veterans affected by these diseases from getting the health care they
deserve."
Friday, December 6, 2019
50 Years Later: A look back at the Vietnam Draft Lottery
ROCKFORD (WREX) — December 1st marked 50 years since the
Vietnam War Draft Lottery. A process that would pull millions of young men out
of the United States, and place them directly onto the front lines.
Dick Nielsen, a Rockford resident, served six tours for the
Navy in Vietnam.
Nielsen says he wanted to carry the Navy tradition on in his
family. By chance, he enlisted about two weeks before his draft card came.
"I still have my draft card by the way, proof I didn't
burn the darn thing. "
James Newbury, on the other hand, says he knew he'd be
drafted. So instead, he enlisted in hopes of a shorter tour.
"I volunteered for the service, that way I didn't have
to do three years," says Newbury. "I only did two years."
This was was a new frontier for loved ones at home to
navigate. For the first time, they had a front row seat.
"For our parents, they could watch on TV and hear the
body count from every excursion," says Nielsen.
But as Nielsen and Newbury left their homes to face the
unknowns of war, a second battle broke out. This one happening back here in the
states. Draft card burning, protests, and unrest mounting across the country as
people aggressively opposed the US's involvement.
"I was really mad at this country," says Newbury.
"I really was. For what the students were doing and the other stuff. I was
mad at them."
As anxiety mounted in the United States, thousands of miles
away, soliders like Newbury spent days on end embeded in the jungle. They never
knew what danger lurked around the corner.
Read what others say
Court will not lift VA-imposed stay on Blue Water Navy claims, says delay cannot extend past Jan. 1
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it will
not lift the stay on Blue Water Navy Vietnam veterans' claims imposed by
Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie earlier this year.
The court heard oral arguments last month in a lawsuit filed
by veterans nonprofit group Military Veterans Advocacy Inc. (MVA). The lawsuit
asked that the court lift the VA-imposed delay on processing Blue Water Navy
Vietnam veterans' Agent Orange disability claims. The delay affects more than
400,000 veterans or surviving family members who could be eligible for
benefits, according to VA.
"Although the court did not lift the stay and found
that Congress intended for the stay to apply, we still consider this a
win," Retired Navy Commander John Wells, director of litigation and
chairman of the board of MVA, told Connecting Vets. "They have stated in
no uncertain terms the stay cannot go beyond Jan. 1, 2020."
After decades of trying to win disability benefits from the
VA, thousands of Blue Water veterans exposed to toxic herbicide Agent Orange
are still waiting for a chance to receive disability benefits -- even after a
landmark court decision and a law awarding those benefits passed Congress and
was signed by President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit attempted to overturn a stay ordered by Wilkie
and first reported by Connecting Vets in July. The stay was allowed under the
Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act passed by Congress and the president,
Wilkie says, and it stalled all claims processing until Jan. 1, 2020.