After a long argument, Congress and the Department of
Veterans Affairs opted to grant benefits to Navy veterans whose ship duties
during the Vietnam War might have exposed them to agent orange. The job of
administering benefits fell to the Veterans Benefits Administration. Visiting
Federal Drive with Tom Temin in studio to explain a program that got underway
last month, the VA undersecretary for veterans benefits, Dr. Paul Lawrence.
Interview Transcript:
Dr. Paul Lawrence: The president, on June 25th of last year
signed the Blue Water Navy Act Vietnam Veterans Act to provide Agent Orange
benefits to those folks who had been in the blue waters 12 nautical miles off
the shore of Vietnam during the conflict. So if you’ve been exposed to Agent
Orange and you have some of the conditions, now you can have access to both
health care and benefits. So it resolves a long running dispute. What exactly
was the Republic of Vietnam? The interesting thing about this law was once it
was signed, the Secretary was allowed to stay it, pause it for six months while
we got ready so that we could be ready on January 1st. There was a great deal
of concern that wouldn’t be ready. But we were ready and we began granting on
January 1st. We’ve been doing that now for a little more than six weeks. We’ve
gotten about 18,000 claims. We’ve granted about 1000. You know, survivors
benefits is real important. As you could imagine, a lot of veterans from Vietnam
are older. They may have passed, for conditions perhaps. Their families can
apply for benefits.
Tom Temin: I want to get to some of the issues concerned
with how long ago that was. But before we do, is this anyone who can prove they
were in the Blue Water Navy in ships that carried this material back and forth?
Is that all that’s needed to be able to get these benefits.
Dr. Paul Lawrence: We will find your ship, so the veterans
don’t have to prove they were there. They have to have the conditions, and
they’re listed on our website VA.gov, search blue water. You can find the
conditions. If you have conditions and you were in service off there, your
record shows us where you were. We’ll find the ship you were on. It’s not so much your ships carry the Agent
Orange, it is that it made its way into the water, then the water made its way
onto the ships. That’s the thinking.
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