President Announces Major Veterans Initiatives

The White House

On Saturday, August 10, President Obama addressed the Disabled American Veterans and discussed his Administration’s work to secure our nation, wind down the war in Afghanistan, better serve our troops and military families, and honor our veterans. 

In his remarks, President Obama outlined the five priorities his Administration is focused on to ensure we are fulfilling our promises to all those who have served – ensuring the resources our veterans deserve; delivering the health care veterans have been promised; ending the claims backlog; protecting the dignity and rights of wounded warriors; and making sure all veterans have every opportunity to pursue the American Dream.

The President announced a new national action plan to guide mental health research and commitments from 250 community colleges and universities to aid veterans in their efforts to complete their higher education so they can compete for the high-skilled jobs of the future.

Additionally the President noted that we are turning the tide on eliminating the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) disability claims backlog, with a nearly 20% reduction over the last five months. The President also renewed his call on Congress to pass his Veterans Job Corps proposal to put our veterans to work protecting and rebuilding America, and to extend permanently the Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior tax credits for businesses that hire veterans. On Friday, August 9, the President signed into law the Helping Heroes Fly Act, to ensure wounded warriors and disabled veterans can travel with dignity.

Bailey Wins C-123 Agent Orange Claim! Thanks, VA

Win-Win in New Hampshire!

New Hampshire resident and C-123 veteran LtCol Paul Bailey was informed Monday that his claim for Agent Orange-related illnesses was approved by the Manchester VA after their earlier denial of the application. VA cited a complete package of proof which elevated Bailey's claim above the VA's famous "as likely to as not" threshold for such issues.

While Bailey is likely happier with this decision than VA officials in Washington, all should see it as a win-win outcome. The 1991 Agent Orange Act, and Title 38, and the 8 May 2001 Federal Register are clear enough – veterans like Paul who are exposed to military herbicides are to be treated for illnesses (those recognized by the VA as "Agent Orange presumptives) on the same basis as Vietnam veterans.

Whether veterans like Paul were to actually receive such treatment as per the law was the issue, in this, a contest at which both sides prevailed on Monday. This was two years after his claim was first submitted...and initially rejected in March

Why should VA and their Compensation Services officials be satisfied with their side of this "win?"
Because they found a way to follow the law. To meet the broad requirements of their oath of office. To care for a veteran by finding a path rather than obstructing it.

VA employees and leadership should all be well-pleased with this decision because their beleaguered agency found a way, perhaps through the independent spirit of VA officials in Manchester, to do what's right, as well as what's lawful.

To men and women of honor, that's always a victory.

VA Releases 2013 Benefits Guide - required reading for Vets & Vets Families!

Just released by the VA and ready for online reading or download. Some significant changes from last year...get your copy!

Veterans Health Administration Update VAntage Point Blog

Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.

Learn Your Benefits: VA’s 2013 Benefits Book Now Available

08/01/2013 04:46 PM EDT

Navigating the road to benefits, health care and other services offered by VA and the federal government can be difficult, frustrating and often confusing. Add that to the fact that each Veteran is different can increase the difficulty of trying …

Read More →

VA Considering Sleep Apnea Disability Program Revisions

VA Reconsiders Disability Ratings for Apnea

Jun 20, 2013

TOM PHILPOTT

21Add a Comment

VA Looks to Tighten Sleep Apnea Rating Schedule 

The Department of Veterans Affairs is studying changes to disability ratings for obstructive sleep apnea, particularly the 50-percent rating being awarded when VA physicians prescribe use of a CPAP, or continuous positive airway pressure machine, for sleep-deprived veterans.

"That's definitely going to be the one they look at," said Jonathan Hughes, a policy consultant for VA's compensation service.  "Because essentially there's no functional impairment related to that" 50-percent rating for obstructive sleep apnea  under the Veterans Affairs Schedule for Rating Disabilities (VASRD).

The good news for more than 114,000 veterans already drawing compensation for sleep apnea is their ratings would not be reduced with broad change to the rating schedule, Hughes explained.  Current law prohibits that.  Indeed, claimants still awaiting favorable decisions might not be impacted either because VASRD changes don't happen quickly.

The only date Hughes could quote with certainty is that an ongoing effort to modernize the entire VASRD is to be completed by January 2016.

When interviewed Tuesday at VA headquarters in Washington D.C., Hughes had just delivered a briefing on sleep apnea at a public hearing of VA Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation.  The panel, established in 2010, counsels the VA secretary on maintaining or readjusting the VASRD.

This day members wanted to know about sleep apnea including how the condition is rated in its various forms, how service-connection is established for a disorder largely associated with obesity, and what factors are behind the recent explosion of claims, as reported here in late May.

Mike Webster, a family law attorney in Florida, complained to the House Veterans Affairs Committee of widespread abuse of VA claims for sleep apnea.  Since then, Webster has heard from staff on the veterans affairs oversight subcommittee that a "team" is looking into his allegations.

 "Sleep apnea definitely has become more of an issue over the past several years," Hughes said as he began his briefing.  He gave some of the same data on sleep apnea cases published here, including that VA had rated 983 veterans for sleep apnea in 2001 and almost 25,000 last year.  He added that 13 percent of roughly 427,000 veterans who served after 9/11, and draw VA disability compensation today, have service-connected sleep apnea.

"Thirteen percent?  That's staggering," said committee member Dr. Michael Simberkoff, chief of staff of the VA New York Harbor Health System and a professor at New York University School of Medicine.

 The advisory committee chairman, retired Army Lt. Gen. James Terry Scott, also chaired the 2007 Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission. Scott asked colleagues to back his recommendation that VA Secretary Eric Shinseki commission the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies of Science, to conduct a study of sleep apnea in the veteran population.

"Short of a scientific study by a well-recognized and competent authority, I think we're still working with rumor and innuendo," Scott said after the briefing, which he said was "extremely informative and…put to rest a lot of different theories and conventional wisdoms."

One issue addressed was conventional wisdom by some sleep disorder experts that sleep apnea is related to post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Exposure" - The VA's Amazing Shell Game

It couldn't be simpler, right? What could be easier to understand than the idea of exposure?

For C-123 veterans who flew this former Agent Orange spray airplane after Vietnam, it turns out "exposure" has had VA's own special redefinition, just for their own use VA against Agent Orange veterans. VA "newspeak" has the VA saying scientific words like exposure will mean only what the VA says they mean, not what science, medicine, law or common sense tells us it means! VA has manipulated a straightforward word to prevent claims. "Keeping the pigs from the trough" is how some mid-level staffers put it.

It begins with the law and ends with the VA skirting legal rights of C-123 veterans. Agent Orange-exposed veterans can turn to the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical care and other benefits related to a list of illnesses recognized by the Institute of Medicine and the VA as being "Agent Orange presumptive illnesses," diseases such as prostate cancer and about 20 other ailments. The 1991 Agent Orange Act, various promulgations such as Title 38 USC and the 8 May 2001 Federal Register all refer simply to the word "exposure." Exposure can be by breathing, ingestion or skin contact with a contaminant.

And the C-123 veterans do claim to have been exposed. The post-Vietnam airplanes tested positive and "heavily contaminated with dioxin on all test surfaces" as read one test series. The contamination was repeatedly established by the Air Force toxicologists who identified the poisonous part of Agent Orange, dioxin. The vets flew the contaminated airplane between 1972-1982 and claim to have been exposed, some for up to ten years of their service. Numerous federal agencies such as the CDC, NIH and US Public Health Service have officially confirmed the airplanes' contamination and the veterans' exposure. Thinking, logically enough, that the facts were on their side the veterans approached the VA, only to be met with that agency's routine denial...no exposures ever happened, say VA officials.

The VA strategy to prevent C-123 claims? They could't avoid the AF tests proving Agent Orange contamination, so they opted to argue that the veterans somehow weren't exposed. As a basis of their scheme to skirt the law by denying the fact of exposure, VA tried to slip this special, VA-only redefinition into the Society of Toxicology in San Francisco at that society's 2012 meeting that exposure now has a new definition. "Exposure=contamination field+bioavailability."

That's the line tossed in to the middle of their Agent Orange poster display and for months, nobody  noticed. Only in mid-2013 did more careful reading of that poster remind veterans of a telephone conference with Veterans Health Administration's Deputy Director for Post-Deployment Health She informed C-123 veterans that, despite the contamination of their old warplanes, no exposure occurred (in the VA's mindset) because the veterans couldn't prove "bioavailability," - the specific harm done by the dioxin on the planes. She further explained that by the VA's definition none of the ground soldiers in the Vietnam War had ever been exposed, either, and few of the aircrews which actually sprayed the herbicide!

Fortunately, scientists and physicians outside the VA's control have disputed this special, post-2012 redefinition of a standard word well-understood in medicine and toxicology. Exposure is, as the definition above confirms, simply the contact with a contaminant. In some definitions, contact between the outer boundary of an organism and a contaminant. Same thing. In no situation is "bioavailability" a component of exposure, but rather, it flows from exposure. Consider: you drink coffee and are thus exposed to caffeine. Your heart rate may or not go up, and you've then had bioavailability - but you were first exposed.

VA Shell Game - with veterans' health?

VA compounds this act of confusion perpetrated on American veterans with a very special shell game performed by their Compensation Services, the folks who evaluate claims. C-123 veterans had submitted a raft of supporting independent professional medical and scientific opinions establishing their claim for exposure. Included were findings from independent toxicologists, retired US Army Chemical Corps officers,  Columbia University School of Public Health, Boston University School of Public Health, University of Texas Medical School, Oregon Health Sciences University, the NIH/National Toxicology Center, the US Public Health Service, the EPA and even the Director, CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Dr. Christopher Portier.

These scientists and physicians, acting independently and without compensation, all confirmed the C-123 veterans' exposure. In a stunning verbal shell game, VA junked each and every one of these experts' opinions! VA's Director of Compensation Services directed C-123 claims be denied even though supported with this evidence, stating that as scientists and not physicians (he conveniently overlooked the physicians' findings which the veterans submitted) they were not qualified to address medical nexus.  (Actually, toxicologists are professionally qualified to address issues of toxicity, exposure and often medical nexus as well, but that's another article.)

Did you get the VA switch? The scientists and physicians verified the question at hand -  the veterans' exposure, and C&P trashed the expertise of the world's leading Agent Orange experts by ignoring exposure and saying the were not qualified to discuss medical nexus. Two different issues, swapped around in his orders to regional offices sent out to insure all C-123 claims are denied.

However: Exposure is different than medical nexus. Medical nexus means being able to point to an illness as being caused by something...you drank heavily for forty years and have a bad liver. But that's not what the experts were addressing!

The law only requires veterans with Agent Orange-type illnesses to prove they were exposed. The medical and scientific experts confirmed the veterans were exposed. C&P denied the veterans' claims by ignoring overwhelming proof of their exposure by pretending the experts were discussing medical nexus.

Do you see which shell the prize is under? Wherever the VA says it is. Or nowhere. Just like VA's infamous "every benefit of the doubt to the veteran."

Check Your VA Claims File - Check for JSRRC Confirmation!

"JSRRC" stands for the Joint Services Records Research Center, stationed at Fort Belvoir, VA. The

JSRRC has other functions but the one we're concerned with is their role in confirming...or denying...a veteran's claim to have been exposed to Agent Orange.

Settling the question is no problem for Vietnam veterans because the law takes care of that via what is called "presumptive eligibility." If you were in Vietnam you're covered for the typical Agent Orange-presumptive illnesses.

For others, especially C-123 veterans, its is more complicated. The VA regional offices need to gather a lot of data, but at some point they almost always turn to the JSRRC for a report to verify the veteran's claim of exposure.

Early in our struggle, we noted the consistent denials of all exposure claims veterans put forward. I made an appointment with the JSRRC chief and visited in February to learn more about their operation and how we could submit official documentation to make their VA responses closer to our understanding of C-123 contamination. Needed - official US government documentation, because as archivists that is all they can work with.

Fortunately we had our stack of supporting information ready, it has been provided JSRRC and currently their responses to VA are closer to the facts as we know them. Today I added more documentation from the USAF Historical Records Research Agency and also two statements from senior US Public Health officials - USPHS commissioned officers are military officers, thus we have a nice set of two physicians backing up our exposure claims...in writing!

But if you turned in your claim any time in the last two years, you really should check your VA C-file. There probably is, or should be, a JSRRC report on you. That report needs to agree with your situation.

If not, submit a written request, stating your JSRRC response is incorrect and VA should request a restatement from JSRRC. Simple...but you have to initiate the request. Don't out it off!

VA Reports Claims Down to 124 Day Backlog - good news!

VA disability ratings 125-day backlog

The number of claims by military veterans waiting for more than 125 days for a disability compensation decision from the beleaguered Department of Veterans Affairs has fallen below a half-million for the first time in 21 months.

On Nov. 14, 2011, VA reported it had 498,403 such claims. Since then, a combination of factors including an ever-increasing number of war veterans asking for compensation for service-related problems, multiple claims, rules changes that made it easier to file for PTSD and Vietnam War-era Agent Orange exposure, a system still clogged with paper medical records and inadequate staffing caused the backlog to spike. The total peaked over that stretch at 588,959 claims on the books more than 125 days – the VA’s own standard – on March 23.

As of the latest report, July 15, VA reports that that number had fallen back to 498,410, or 66.9 percent of 745,224 total claims. 

Good job, VA!

- See more at: http://blogs.delawareonline.com/delawaredefense/2013/07/17/va-disability-ratings-125-day-backlog-drops-below-half-million/#sthash.HqrBiP2b.dpuf

Oregon Public Radio Interview: C-123 Veterans & Agent Orange

The interview with a C-123 Veterans Association member follows after about 45 seconds of local broadcasting. We discussed the aircraft contamination, the amusing strategies developed by the VA to prevent lawful claims, and what this has done to Air Force veterans.

http://www.kboo.org/sites/default/files/episode_audio/kboo_episode.2.130712.0900.2854.mp3

VA Secretary Receives C-123 Veterans' Appeal

Forwarded to the Secretary by the VA' Legislative Liaison, the C-123 veterans' appeal (click to download - 46MB PDF) ask the VA to designate the known C-123 Agent Orange spray aircraft (as confirmed by the USAF Historical Records Research Agency) to be "Agent Orange Exposure Sites."

If approved by the Secretary and implemented by the VA, this will allow C-123 veterans to gather whatever proof they can find placing them aboard the toxic C-123s, and apply to the VA for care of Agent Orange-presumptive illnesses such as prostate cancer and heart disease.

This would solve the terrible two year-old impasse which has bared C-123 veterans from VA medical care. Faced with mid-level VA bureaucrats who constantly fielded obstacles to keep the veterans at bay, C-123 veterans feel the Secretary's requested action is the only step available to provide essential medical care while it can still be of importance in their elderly years.

An alternate of another referral to the Institute of Medicine for a special work project (proposed in 2011 by the VA Veterans Health Administration but withdrawn almost immediately after its promise,) veterans and their legislators made clear that time no longer permits such an approach and executive action is called for!

FYI, Lynne Peeples of Huffington Post had a fine article about C-123 veterans, telling a warming story of Paul Bailey. Give it a read! Then, Sunday morning, Google "C-123 Agent Orange" and see what's new out of Washington, D.C.

Office of Secretary of Defense Linked to C-123 Agent Orange Evidence Destruction

Air Force documents uncovered recently via the Freedom of Information Act link the Office of Secretary of Defense to the actions by Air Force Material Command to destroy toxic C-123 transport aircraft, specifically to prevent veterans from learning of their exposure to Agent Orange. Revealed

were procedures untaken to bar Agent Orange benefits from already exposed aircrews and maintenance veterans, procedures involving press manipulation and destruction of the evidence which would support claims for Agent Orange benefits by over 1560 men and women.

C-123 transports, used earlier in Vietnam for spraying Agent Orange, remained contaminated with deadly dioxin for the decade the planes remained in service after the war, until they became obsolete and were retired in 1982. Although toxicologists first established the hazardous condition in 1979 the Air Force opted not to spend the necessary money (estimated at over $40,000 per aircraft) to properly decontaminate the fleet of C-123s and instead ordered base maintenance workers to wipe interior surfaces (those that could be accessed) with Dawn detergent and to cover the intense stench which sickened aircrews with area deodorants. Using paint scrapers and even dental picks, maintenance personnel scraped Agent Orange residue where it had caked up during Vietnam, but huge amounts remained inaccessible in the wings, under the cargo deck, and in portions of the landing gear wells. Agent Orange had even soaked into the paint, wood, leather, fabrics, ceramics, adhesives and other surfaces inside the C-123, little of which could be removed.

In 1994, twelve years after the fleet was retired to desert surplus storage in Arizona, more tests firmly detailed the toxicity of these medium assault transports in 1994 as the Air Force examined an aircraft ("Patches") being moved into the USAF Museum. Results: "Heavily contaminated on all test surfaces" and "A danger to public health," confirmed toxicologists from the highly-respected
USAF Armstrong Laboratories. At this time, either through oversight or a specific decision, the Air Force opted not to inform the veterans who'd flown these airplanes, veterans who'd previously been assured there was no risk of Agent Orange exposure, that in fact they'd been exposed for a full decade.

A more deliberate act by the Air Force to hide information from veterans about their exposure to Agent Orange was undertaken in 1996 by the USAF Office of Environmental Law. JAG attorney Major Ursula Moul directed that all information about C-123 contamination be "kept in official channels only," a deception costing the exposed veterans nearly two decades of awareness of their exposures. Two decades during which at least minor health precautions could have been observed, such as monitoring PSA numbers or limiting dietary fat intake.

After decades in storage the surplus fleet of C-123 transports needed to be eliminated as they couldn't be sold, parted out, or even buried as toxic waste. Seeking input, in 2009 the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) offered the Air Force the name of Dr. Al Young. Young is also a retired Air Force colonel, and his career has focused on use of Agent Orange from the earliest days of its use in Vietnam.

Young then guided the AF to the decision to destroy the old airplanes and in at least three memos to three different officials, introduced the point that if veterans learned of the airplane contamination, the old aircrews and maintenance folks would approach the VA for what Dr. Young called "presumptive compensation," meaning compensation for exposure illnesses and VA medical care as well. This apparently was something he felt should be prevented, even though the veterans had already been exposed and were presumably eligible for such care. His recommendation to destroy the airplanes to prevent veterans' awareness was repeated up the Air Force chain of command and finally approved by the Air Staff. All remaining C-123s were destroyed as toxic waste in June 2010. Young even helped Air Force Public Affairs craft a press release minimizing references to "Agent  Orange" and such attention-grabbing words - a press release never released but held in the event of media attention. There was none.

He was also mentioned in the letter from VA's Secretary Shinseki to Senator Richard Burr, Ranking Member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. The Secretary commented on Dr. Young's having volunteered details (even though he was under a $600,000 VA post-Vietnam Agent Orange consulting contract) analyzing the details of the dioxin the test results. C-123 veterans note that VA's Compensation Services has uniformly rejected expert independent evidence from toxicologists and other scientists, with the claim that such professionals, even though from an allied health profession, are unqualified to comment on medical nexus or exposures. Included in the rejected list are the Director of the CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Rear Admiral Robin Ikeda MD, as well as the Director National Institutes of Health/National Toxicology Center, and physicians from the US Public Health Service. All unqualified because their degrees are not in medicine (Compensation Service ignored those experts who were physicians, illogically grouping them instead in the unacceptable non-physician pile).

Is the VA cherry-picking their experts, accepting only those supporting the VA against C-123 veterans? Is the VA cherry-picking experts because, as Veterans Health Administration puts it, she "cannot permit" C-123 veterans' claims?

Veterans invite our fellow citizens to consider the CVs of experts who've weighed in on this issue. Google them...see who has the expertise and reputation to speak out on this subject.

For Veterans' Exposure: Dr. Linda Birnbaum, Dr. Christopher Portier, Dr. Jeanne Stellman, Dr. Aubrey Miller, Dr. Arnold Schecter, Dr. Fred Berman, Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk, Rear Admiral Robin Ikeda MD (US Public Health Service), Dr. Tom Sinks, Dr. Mark Garzotto, others from universities and federal agencies identified to the VA as members of the Concerned Scientists and Physicians. Please note all opinions were offered without compensation.

C-123 Veterans & Agent Orange in the News

Published today, in The Oregonian, principal newspaper of Oregon and southern Washington State:
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/07/many_veterans_suffering_from_d.html

Many veterans suffering from diseases linked to Agent Orange still can't get disability compensation   

As a "blue water sailor," Ralph Steele has a higher burden to prove Agent Orange-related illnesses than his counterparts who served ashore. (Motoya Nakamura / The Oregonian)

Print

By Mike Francis, The Oregonian 
Follow on Twitter
on July 04, 2013 at 1:00 PM, updated July 04, 2013 at 9:33 PM

Email

• Many veterans suffering from diseases linked to Agent Orange still can't get disability compensation
• 
  

     Forty years after the last U.S. troops left Vietnam, military veterans continue to tussle with the Department of Veterans Affairs over whether they should be compensated for their exposure to the herbicide and defoliant Agent Orange.

     Under Secretary Eric Shinseki, himself a Vietnam veteran, the agency has taken enormous strides to acknowledge that exposure to the toxic defoliant caused a variety of health problems, from birth defects to Type II diabetes to lung cancer. Shinseki has been applauded for adding more diseases, including Parkinson's and heart disease, to the list of maladies presumed to have been caused by Agent Orange. The expansion could make as many as 200,000 Vietnam War veterans eligible for compensation.

     Yet the reach of the herbicide, which contains toxic dioxin, extends beyond the classes of U.S. military veterans now presumed by the VA to be suffering ill health. Vietnamese people, too, have been afflicted with a range of diseases associated with Agent Orange. And even among U.S. veterans, gaps in recognition and compensation remain.

     Among those who have fought with limited success for disability compensation are the people who flew in aircraft carrying Agent Orange, are so-called "blue water sailors" who didn't set foot in Vietnam but who say they ingested the chemical, and people who served during the war in South Korea, where the defoliant was also used.

View full sizeMcMinnville's Wes Carter, when he served aboard a C-123USAF Photo

     McMinnville's Wes Carter, a retired Air Force Reservist who served aboard a C-123 aircraft that sprayed Agent Orange and other herbicides during the Vietnam War, has made himself into an expert on the Air Force's handling of C-123s, including the one he flew.

     While the war had ended by the time Carter flew aboard the aircraft, he remembers the terrible chemical stink that forced the crew to fly the unpressurized craft with windows and sometimes doors open. At his website, c123kcancer.blogspot.com, he has compiled extensive documentation that shows his aircraft and others were contaminated with toxins. Yet the Air Force destroyed the aircraft in 2010 specifically because they were toxic, and the Department of Veterans Affairs has not acknowledged a connection between the aircraft and Agent Orange-related diseases, citing no aircraft to test.

     Carter has suffered heart attacks and been afflicted with prostate cancer. He and other members of his C-123 crew "were more likely as not to have been exposed to excessive levels of dioxins," Dr. Fred Berman, director of Oregon Health and Science University's CROET Toxicology Information Center, wrote in a May 2011 letter to the Secretary of the Air Force and the C-123 veterans. Berman said the aircraft flown by Carter and the others were considered to be "heavily contaminated" with dioxins.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., has written to the VA about the C-123 veterans, urging Shinseki and to the VA's Inspector General to reconsider the VA's stance on claims by C-123 crew members.

     Merkley noted that, despite evidence of extensive contamination of the aircraft, VA representatives "have stated that it is not possible that C-123 air crews were exposed to dioxin because the residues had dried" -- a position Merkley said other experts had called "seriously flawed." He asked that the VA evaluate each disability compensation claim on its own merits.

     "Regardless of how a veteran gets exposed to Agent Orange, they still need to be treated fairly by the VA," Merkley said this week through a spokesperson. "A veteran who later flew planes that had been used to spray Agent Orange during the Vietnam War is still sick even if his Agent Orange exposure was non-traditional."

     The VA didn't respond to requests for comment about Merkley's letter or Carter's case.

     Ralph Steele of Southeast Portland was what the Navy calls "a blue water sailor" aboard the USS Oriskany aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War. The VA has said it can't conclude whether blue water sailors were exposed to dangerous levels of Agent Orange. But Steele said he has no doubt that the crew of the Oriskany, which cruised on extended stints in the Gulf of Tonkin, literally bathed in it.

     "All that stuff came out in the ocean. We took it in our evaporators. We ate it, we drank it, we showered in it, we washed our clothes in it."

     Steele said he has suffered two heart attacks and a stroke and has contracted diabetes and has an enlarged prostate. He has a 10 percent disability rating for tinnitus related to being around military aircraft, but he hasn't received any Agent Orange-related compensation. He, too, has spoken with Merkley's staff about his case.

     In response to a question about blue water sailors, a VA spokeswoman said “The 2011 Institute of Medicine report determined that there is currently insufficient scientific evidence for VA to warrant an extension of a presumption of exposure to herbicides such as Agent Orange to Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans.  However, VA will continue to accept and review all Blue Water Vietnam Veteran claims on a case-by-case basis.”

     Beaverton's Ron Weber was an enlisted man in the Army during the Vietnam War, but he served at Camp Casey in South Korea. In 2011, the VA widened its allowance for presumptive Agent Orange claims to include veterans who served near Korea's demilitarized zone.

     But, said Weber, there's a "huge crevasse" between the VA acknowledging that veterans were exposed to Agent Orange in Korea and granting disability compensation because of it. He has fought for years to get his disability rating for diabetes raised to 20 percent and said he has become known in the Agent Orange community as one of the few who has won disability compensation based on his service in Korea. He says he receives a dozen emails a day from people asking for advice.

     "I can't handle all the requests," he said. "The ones that kill me the most are from children and spouses."

     He said they tell him they didn't realize their loved one's behavior or sicknesses may have resulted from exposure to chemicals sprayed by U.S. forces. They say they wish they had.

     -Mike Francis