74AES – 439AES Annual Reunion Dinner

 September 13, 2025

C-123 Veterans Thank Jeanette DeForge, "Springfield Republican" Reporter

74/439 AES Annual Dinner, Friday Sept 25 in Chicopee

74AES Executive Committee

Steve Caraker and Rosemary Costa have worked their usual magic to organize another great dinner for everyone this Friday evening at the Munich House in Chicopee Center.

Good friends, good food, and I hear they even serve beer. RSVP to Steve.

Hey – I'm coming in hopes of seeing Steve in lederhosen!

Barbara Haskins, wife of Dick Haskins, has passed.

Our hearts go out to Dick Haskins on the loss today of his wife Barbara. Please keep the Hanskins family in your prayers. Dick is a long-time veteran of the 74AES/439AES at Westover.

                        ....all your friends from Westover!

BVA Gives VA C-123 Agent Orange Committee Example to Follow

VA's C-123 Committee should be guided in large part by Board of Veterans Appeals decisions over these last many years.

VA should realize that existing regulations, a decade of very specific Federal Register publications, well-established science even before the 9 January 2015 Institute of Medicine report, and the historical record all led Veterans Law Judges to their 100%* approval of C-123 appeals.

Every single one*. Even without the impact of the IOM report. Before the Joint Services Records Research Center began confirming C-123 aircraft exposures per VA M21-1MR (clearly detailed in Part IV Subpart ii Chapter C Section C.) With no new regulation, no new legislation, no need for additional Federal Register explanations. No need for any delay keeping our veterans from submitting claims for fair consideration, and on award finally allowed to enter VA hospitals.

No reason and certainly no excuse for VA to continue saving money by keeping our folks out of their hospital wards. A simple field training letter should do the trick.

Decisions by the Board of Veterans Appeals do not set precedent for other veterans' claims.

Everyone, including C-123 veterans, understands that quite well. What those decisions do, however, is offer an example of expert thought process by the Veterans Law Judges.

That example is an important one which the committee set up within Veterans Benefits Administration and Veterans Health Administration might consider carefully.

Because every BVA decision has been in favor of Reserve and Air Guard C-123 veterans.*

The point is that all claims which have been denied by BVA (and that is every single C-123 claim that ever was submitted*) have been reversed and awarded by the careful consideration at BVA.

BVA Veterans Law Judges had available to them in their decisions today's VA regulation VA M21-1MR, the veterans' medical information, and the historical and scientific information about these former Vietnam War Agent Orange spray warplanes.

BVA decisions are based on applicable law and the interpretation of the overall situation. Awards are made when the law's requirements are met. Any question, any interpretation, is made in a pro-veteran and non-adversarial manner. Issues in dispute are resolved in the veteran's favor if evidence reaches "as likely to as not" threshold.

BVA judges have shown for years that C-123 veterans' claims need nothing more in law or regulation to be awarded when appropriate. VA could do it today.

Friends of veterans, C-123 aircrews, maintainers and aerial port veterans have reached and far surpassed that threshold!

VA has benefited hugely by blocking C-123 claims for these years. Our vets have been denied VA medical care, pharmacy, rehab, counseling, independent living assistance, Chapter 20, children's educational benefits and allowances, burial, prosthetics, and compensation for their service-associated illnesses.

Any further delay, any further effort by VA to save more money by postponing the full inclusion of C-123 veterans into the Veterans Health Administration and Veterans Benefits Administration protections is unconscionable.

BVA already showed the VHA committee that nothing else is needed.

All VA has to do is open their doors and understand that C-123 veterans have established presumptive service connection for the recognized Agent Orange illnesses.

Just as we have done for many, many years, only to find our claims wrongly decided against us.

To us, there is no part of "clear" remaining. All is perfectly clear: JSRRC, USAFHRA, IOM, VA M21-1MR, 1991 Agent Orange Act. Clear as can be and not needing any new regulation nor Federal Register posting to make any clearer.

Keep that word in your mind, dear VA. Clear.

Clear on 31 August 2010 in the Federal Register Volume V, No. 168, page 53205. Clear? Any effort to make more clear only clouds the issue with attendant delay in providing the medical care we're all focused on, and that is unethical and contrary to VAM21-1MR itself.

A point where we take offense. The entire VA application process is build around the term "compensation." This is deceptive. Most non-veterans, and too many folks in the media, don't understand that vets are not permitted any care until their claims...in a process called compensation claims"...are decided.

At our ages, and our illnesses, we feel the process should be termed "medical care application" instead of compensation claim. Financial compensation may indeed follow if appropriate, but even a zero percent service connection permits the medical care to be provided a veteran.

Stop making us look like we're financially motivated We take offense.

We're looking hard for VA heros...volunteers welcome! Be one!
----------------

*All of them, other than LtCol Aaron (Tim) Olmsted's claim which was denied on appeal for the ridiculous reason given by the Board's opposing attorney that Tim hadn't shown his C-123s had ever been in Vietnam.

That was an obvious error by BVA and perhaps also an ethical question which should be raised in conversation with the attorney who skillfully blocked Olmsted's claim by such deception. VA has a duty to assist veterans in claims and the proof of Tim's airplane Agent Orange background took one email and a couple days to obtain when the veterans inquired. Why didn't the VA inquire?

Why the vicious motivation of the VA opposing attorney to win even in the face of VA's errors and the veteran's eligibility? We don't understand why the American Legion which represented Olmsted in his appeal failed to right this wrong, but it is still on the table in our conversations with VA officials.

The Republican: C-123 Editorial 2/4/2015

The Republican again published an editorial demanding action on C-123 veterans' Agent Orange claims. Among these vets, of course, are aircrews, aeromedical folks, maintenance and aerial port....those with hands-on with the C-123s any time between 1972-1982.

We're grateful to the Republic for noting our plight and covering it with accuracy and compassion.

The press has done its job.

May we hope for similar concern and effective action from Massachusetts legislators on behalf of the C-123 veterans, most of whom live in the Commonwealth? Perhaps...something a bit more forceful than a simple letter sent to the VA so long ago? Perhaps a phone call to VHA to explain firmly that veterans need and deserve their care and benefits now, not months from now.

Current VA regulations already cover these veterans. All that's happened is science has informed the VA that C-123 veterans were exposed to Agent Orange, and VA's regulations describe the proper course of action and no new legislation, regulation or Federal Register comment are necessary.

Springfield (MA) The Republican: Major C-123 News Article by Reporter Jeanette DeForge

Today's The Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts) carries a major article addressing the C-123 exposure situation and VA's tepid reaction to the definitive Institute of Medicine report issued on January 9, 2015.

The Republican, and reporter Jeanette DeForge, have carried news about this situation for four years, since C-123 veterans first filed a formal Inspector General complaint through the United States Air Force. That IG complaint was denied, as were all the veterans' complaints and requests for inquiries with the Department of Veterans Affairs, between 2011 and 2015.

But The Republican carried the story. The Republican saw the kernel of truth, and story after story, editorial after editorial, Deforge revealed the details of an intricate legal, historical, aeronautical, military and medical puzzle the veterans from Westover AFB, Rickenbacker ANGB and Pittsburgh IAP found themselves struggling through.

DeForge is due our thanks...not for her favoritism or special treatment, but because she and her publisher faithfully played their roles in fulfilling the Constitution's expectations of journalists, in its First Amendment guarantees of freedom of the press.

Thank God for that freedom, for The Republican, and for Jeanette DeForge.  They make wearing our flight suits for these past decades worth it all.

AGENT ORANGE
• Westover Reservists exposed to Agent Orange, federal officials rule after 4-year battle
• Support grows for Westover veterans who served in planes contaminated by Agent Orange, but VA scandal stymies efforts
• Editorial: U.S. government needs to own responsibility for Agent Orange exposure at Westover as it does for radiation exposure at Chapman Valve
• Editorial: U.S. government's treatment unconscionable of Westover veterans exposed to Agent Orange
• Westover Air Reserve veterans exposed to Agent Orange file complaint with Department of Defense

HOW LONG CAN VA TAKE TO IMPLEMENT IOM C-123 FINDINGS? (see Feb 4 entry)

How long might we and our families have to wait for VA to act on the C-123 Agent Orange exposure situation?

FIRST FACT: VA could do what's needed tomorrow. Checking with legal scholars specializing in veterans law, and re-reading the Yale University School of Law C-123 report, it is clear that no new legislation is necessary to permit C-123 veterans into the VA healthcare system.

Previous announcements in the Federal Register addressing non-Vietnam herbicide exposures detail VA assurance of treating us with presumptive service connection, and VA's regulation VAM21-1MR (which courts said "has the force of law") have language already in place...so nothing need be done except – do it! 

Note: in comments to the Springfield (MA) Republican published 2/3/2015, a VA spokeswoman said it will take VA "several months."  UNCONSCIONABLE FOOT DRAGGING! What does Post Deployment Health calculate to be our veterans' death toll between January 9 (release date for the IOM report) and "months" later?

SECOND FACT: VA could drag this out beyond our imagination. They could imagine that new legislation is necessary to do what they already have authority to do, and VA Office of General Counsel could direct the whole thing to die by pretending to ask Congress for new legislation. Any legislation coming from that might be enacted, but only years after the last of us has had the final fly-over. They know this. Going to the legislature to ask for authority or guidance VA already has just won't cut it with either house.

THIRD FACT: Next-to-worst case is VA dragging out approval by waiting out the 60 days permitted after an IOM report. Then, burning off another 60 days proposing new regulations with a Federal Register posting (which would only be a repeat of their earlier statements) and then 90 days after that to effect new regulation. VA might see this as a present to us wrapped with a beautiful silk bow – but its not. Seven months to men and women our ages, with our diseases, brings a certain death count and VA knows this perfectly well.

Truth is truth, and VA has the truth in hand now from the IOM report. It is the same truth VA had on their desks seven to eight years ago – when more of us were alive. Truth, law, science together should move VA to make the right decision by us, but it sure would have been welcome those many years ago.

In their last Federal Register comment regarding non-Vietnam Agent Orange ("military herbicide") exposures, VA made their planned treatment of us clear. Very clear. Perfectly clear.

VA even used that very word. What part of "Finally, we wish to make clear" has been left unclear? Of course, VA made this commitment to the Congress and the American people before we came along with our exposure claims but I just can't imagine the Department...the Secretary in particular...reneging on making it "clear."

NASDVA Asked to Inform VSOs & Veterans About C-123 Developments

We again have asked the National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs to inform C-123 veterans and their survivors of developing eligibility news coming from the VA.

Over the four years of our effort to get VA itself to assist our veterans, NASDA has never responded to inquires or requests and we hope the recent IOM report and VA's reassuring comments since 9 Jan 2015 will help enlist their experts. Even earlier assistance from then-president Dr Linda Schwartz, Connecticut's Commissioner of Veterans Affairs, brought only silence.

We face a tremendous sea-change. VSOs, claims officers, attorneys, veterans themselves and all the web sites and printed literature will have to be inclusive of C-123 veterans' eligibility. Those details, once fleshed out by the VA, need to get in place immediately.

(1/31/2016: actually, we never heard a single word from NASDVA)

C-123 Veterans' Progress With VA Claims Thru 1/31/2015

C-123 Issues First Brought to VA Leadership– April 2011
           
C-123 Claims Honored by VA through 1/31/2015– ZERO, nadda, not a single one

Date All Scientific Information in Hand by VA to Award C-123 Exposure Claims – 2010

C-123 Veterans' Deaths Since 2008 – total is unknown but among others it includes:

BG Mike Walker
Col Warner Jones
MSgt George Gadbois
Maj Cliff Turcotte
MSgt Bill Schindler
MSgt Bill Gifford
MSgt Bob Boyd
MSgt Mike Lieb
Col Ed Paskowitz
Col Jim Gallin
SSgt Maleine Adams
LtCol Paul Bailey
MSgt Roy Menard
Col Ed Lincoln
LtCol Fred Fowler
MSgt Ron Ploof
LtCol Tim Olmsted
LtCol Betty Lalibrete
MSgt Ray Menard
Col Paul Hoffman
Col Jim Gallin
LtCol Bob Kirshling
TSgt S. Glenn

Just an idea: Drones

Perhaps...not a good idea right now? BTW, these Phantoms record wonderful still and video.

Ohio NPR Covers C-123 Exposure Issue

Ohio's NPR reporter, Lewis Wallace, does a complete and fair job reviewing the C-123 post-Vietnam Agent Orange exposures. He details how Patches came to be the lightening rod for veterans' attention, and the difficulties moving VA forward on acknowledging veterans' disability claims. Visit for text and audio.

Secretary McDonald's Key Point Addressing the Institute of Medicine Annual Meeting

"Employees across the Department have rolled up their sleeves, and work is underway to make the changes to VA systems, procedures, and culture that the law requires. We’ve done a lot, but there’s a lot left to do if we’re to right the wrongs, institute reforms and employee accountability, modernize, and recruit the numbers of healthcare professionals we need.We are committed to doing the right thing—delivering the right programs, in the right way, at the right time, for those special Americans we serve."

Let's trust that the Secretary's assurances will lead the C-123 Committee towards the right decisions – decisions about fully embracing our veterans rather than, as many feat, develop schemes to evade the IOM conclusions and the impact their report has on the issue of presumptive service connection.

ROA Calls on Secretary McDonald To Do The Right Thing For C-123 Veterans!

Yesterday, Reserve Officer Association Executive Director Major General Jeffrey Phillips added ROA's powerful voice to the Air Force Times and other calls for the Department of Veterans Affairs to act quickly, and inclusively regarding C-123 veterans' claims.

ROA first sought justice for C-123 vets in 2012 and subsequently, the late CAPT Marshall Hanson's very nice article about us in 2013. We appreciate this leadership and trust ROA's voice will be heard...loud and clear.

"Best Care Anywhere" - new book about VA health care & how it would work better for America

What the heck? Is this for real??

You just have to wonder...what amazing timing for a book about how the VA "turned itself around from scandals," published just as the Department of Veterans Affairs was running head-on into the Perfect Storm of 2014!

Part of patient care is getting that care to the patient. Locking the door to keep eligible veterans out doesn't satisfy anybody's definition of patient care. The veterans' primary battle with VA is not the care given by health professionals which is quite excellent, but trying to get into their hospitals, past the gate keepers who (mis)manage the claims system.

Some have asked why VA seems to lack the courage, the heart, the brains to avoid these scandals. Those scandals should not be permitted to taint everyone at VA.

Anyway, if you want it, here's the data from Amazon. To the author: planning an update??

VA? Can you hear us knocking at the door?

Hello in there? 

VA?

VA? Can you hear us?

Can't you hear us knocking? Can't we come in yet?

We're sick and its cold out here. You've kept us standing for years. Some of us have died, knocking at your doors.

Won't someone please come approve our disability applications which have been on your desk for years, and unlock your hospital door.

We want to come in for help. Now is much better than later!

We served. What more do you ask of us? 

Can't you hear us knocking? Hello?

Thank you.

    C-123 Veterans

AF Times: C-123 Veterans Were Exposed!

Veterans Affairs: A "HAMPSTER WHEEL" DISABILITY APPEALS PROCESS"

Veterans advocates: Stop the VA 'hamster wheel' disability appeals process

By Heath Druzin Stars and Stripes Published: January 22, 2015

Paper files of benefits cases crowd shelves at the Department of Veterans Affairs office in Los Angeles, December 5, 2012.

RICK LOOMIS, LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

RELATED

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  ‘FUBAR on steroids’: Congressmen blast VA about construction debacles

  In the latest black eye for the Department of Veterans Affairs, congressmen grilled officials Wednesday over construction mismanagement that has cost the department hundreds of millions of dollars in overruns and delayed major projects by years.

The effort to clear a massive backlog of veteran disability claims is hurting efforts to address a similar backlog in appeals of denied claims, say advocates demanding reforms to an onerous “hamster wheel” system that leaves veterans languishing for years.

A congressional subcommittee hearing Thursday focused on the appeals process, noting that the Department of Veterans Affairs has about 350,000 pending appeals of denied service-connected disability claims.

“I am aware that the [VA] chose to prioritize certain initial claims in recent years, but I must say that when veterans in my district share that they waited six, eight, 10 years to resolve a meritorious appeal of a service-connected disability claim, I just find that alarming and unacceptable,” Rep. Ralph Abraham, R-La., said.

Veterans wait an average 3½ years to get an initial decision and often years longer for the VA to finalize that decision. There are almost 510,000 original disability claims pending, with more than 240,000 deemed “backlogged” — meaning the veteran has been awaiting a decision for at least 125 days.

VA & C-123 Veterans: "A Bellwether Moment" for Secretary McDonald (Navy Times Editorial)

Editorial: A bellwether VA moment

2:27 p.m. EST January 23, 2015

Bob McDonald must turn around VA.

New Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald has the Herculean task of trying to right his scandal-­plagued department, a mighty challenge forcefully defied by institutional resistance to change and a bureaucratic belief that its core mission is to serve the best interests of the government rather than those of the men and women who served the country in uniform.

VA's latest success in embarrassing itself involves the Air Force's fleet of C­-123 aircraft that sprayed the toxic defoliant Agent Orange on the jungles of Southeast Asia in the Vietnam War.

After the war, the planes were scrubbed down and kept in service, with 1,500 to 2,100 troops flying on them before they were retired for good in 1982. Many of those troops are now sick with cancer and other illnesses that they've long claimed were caused by toxic residue lingering in those C­-123 airframes.

That charge was backed up in 2012 in a government report. In customary fashion, VA's response was complete denial. Now, a new scientific review has come to the same conclusion as the earlier report — "with confidence." It's the latest in decades of VA health controversies: depleted uranium, burn pits, tainted anthrax vaccine, and more. 

In the pointed words of Rick Weidman of Vietnam Veterans of America, VA's standard approach to veterans' environmental health issues is "delay, deny, wait 'til they die."

McDonald somehow must turn around this massive, calcified outfit that still lacks vision, accountability, and, most importantly, trust among many of the

veterans it was created to serve.

VA officials promise to respond to the newest C-­123 report. That response will go a long way toward determining whether McDonald can effect the changes so badly overdue at VA.

House Veterans Committee Chair Blasts VA

He said it, right out loud. In the stately halls of Congress.

"FUBAR on steroids." Congressman Miller was referring to the Department of Veterans Affairs. If the phrase FUBAR is unknown to you, enjoy watching Saving Private Ryan again!

FUBAR for VA wan't good. It was Chairman Miller shooting from the hip with a couple full belts from his verbal .50 cal M2, expressing the nation's concerns over VA construction, claims, appeals backlogs and other scandals.

We don't know if VA opposition to C-123 claims these past four years fits into his FUBAR F-bomb, but we do know the delay has denied us medical care and also has cost us money. Denied state benefits because we still wait for VA disability ratings. Denied property tax relief while waiting for the VA to process our claims. Our kids, all now past college age anyway, denied tuition waivers due children of disabled veterans. There is a "catch-up" check of VA disability benefits when a long-delayed claim is finally approved, but there is no catch-up for everything denied the veteran during the years of waiting for "the big brown envelope" to arrive with a disability decision.

In our case, scientists have had everything the VA needed to properly adjudicated our exposure claims since at least 2008. VA, on the other hand, had everything it needed to delay our service connection ratings for these past years, and now seems ready to help only because the Institute of Medicine report showed the way.

That's their job, it seems. Our was to fly aeromedical evacuation. Both are important jobs with people's lives in the balance. We did our jobs to perfection. The airplane business is like that...imperfection equals death. The medical business of aeromedical evacuation is like that, too. Imperfection equals patient suffering or death. We did our jobs to perfection.

Can you imaging their take on us if we waited four years to do our jobs, getting around to picking up a load of patients? And doing our job only when forced to?

No...we were volunteers. We were professional and we were caring. The nation, and our fellow servicemembers, could and did count on us. No four year delay like we were handed by the VA.