"A FIRST STEP TOWARDS A GRASSROOTS VICTORY"...Reserve Officer Association (from the November/December issue)
Major
Wesley T. Carter, USAF (Ret.), is an ROA Life Member and chair of the
C-123 Veterans Association. While he didn’t start crewing on the C-123 until
1974, Maj Carter, a medical service officer, suffers ailments faced by many
Vietnam veterans.
Maj Carter, 66, wasn’t
motivated by his own medical situation. While the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) denied his claim for Agent Orange exposure, he is 100 percent
disabled due to other military-related injuries.
The
VA grants compensation for presumptive exposure to herbicides to those who
served in Vietnam. Between 1972 and 1982, about 1,500 Air Force Reserve men and
women served aboard 34 C-123s that had been used for the defoliation mission spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam
and other countries in Southeast Asia.
Retired
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Bailey was one of the 1,500. For nearly a decade in the
1970s, he flew the airframe #362 nicknamed “Patches”—the aircraft had
more than 600 bullet holes from enemy fire as it sprayed over Vietnam. He
suffers from prostate cancer and terminal metastatic cancer of the pelvis and
ribs.
Every claim filed by C-123
veterans without Vietnam wartime experience, including Lt Col Bailey’s, has
been denied, Maj Carter told The Huffington Post.
Several C-123 veterans were granted disability benefits after appealing denials
to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (BVA).
Maj
Carter brought this to the attention of ROA in 2011. In a testimony on Capitol
Hill, ROA included the plight of Air Force Reserve C-123 crew members,
including a statement before the VA Advisory Committee on Disability
Compensation.
In his labors, Maj Carter
is as much of a workhorse as was the C-123. He has contacted other nonprofits
for support, visited Capitol Hill, and reached out to scientists and medical
professionals to gain support for submitted disability claims. Through his
efforts, 14 high-ranking doctors, toxicologists, and environmental
scientists questioned the VA’s C-123 policy in a letter to Allison Hickey, VA
undersecretary for benefits, in November 2012.
Politicians
have also begun pressing the issue. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., ranking member
on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.,
have asked the VA Office of Inspector General to review whether the department
is inappropriately denying disability compensation to veterans who say they
were sickened by postwar contamination, the Washington Post reported in an article about Lt
Col Bailey.
In August, the VA reversed
its denial of Lt Col Bailey’s claim and granted him the presumption of
exposure. It was a significant decision.
“No such claim has ever
been approved [short of BVA]— Bailey’s is the first,” Maj Carter shared with
ROA. His efforts can be credited with changing VA policy.
It’s unknown whether Lt Col
Bailey’s success will lead to a reversal of VA C-123 policy or if the VA will
continue to maintain that carcinogenic dioxin and other components of Agent
Orange could not have posed health risks after Vietnam. However, in October,
the C-123 Veterans Association reported that a second veteran, MSgt Dave
Noonan, won his VA Agent Orange exposure claim. He joins Lt Col Bailey as the
only veterans to succeed in convincing the government of the validity of their
situation.
“Perhaps, dare we hope,
some change is coming?” Maj Carter suggested. One thing is certain. He—and
ROA—won’t stop fighting on behalf of C-123 veterans.
If you have had
legislative success as an individual or as part of an ROA department, contact
CAPT Marshall Hanson, USNR (Ret.), at mhanson@roa.org.
(note: LtCol Bailey passed
away from his Agent Orange exposures on October 27, 2013)
We learned from ROA leadership just tonight (January 24, 2014) of CAPT Hanson's passing and offer his family and friends our sympathies on the loss of this dedicated officer.
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