Yale University Seeks C-123 Veterans To Discuss Agent Orange Claims – Westover, Pittsburgh & Rickenbacker

This is the veterans law clinic at Yale University and they want to hear from every single one of us who is a C-123 veteran, who did not serve in Vietnam, and who has or may have an Agent Orange illness. Yale's lead on the project to help us is Mr. Daniel Townsend at daniel.townsend@clinics.yale.edu

Now would be good. And it won't cost anybody anything. Its what they do. Help veterans expertly and for free. Pro bono, in Latin. I've worked my bottom off for four years to get C-123 veterans in this position and now I want you to do this for yourself and for all the rest of us. Aerial Port, AME, maintainers, Life Support and aircrew...get your name and telephone in to me. So far, only 30 names have been collected.

Yale Law = C-123 Veterans' Support - pro bono!

This is the agency which argued Dick Matte's claim (all their helping us is pro bono, of course) through the Boston VA Decision Review Officer and won that recent award. This is the superb law school which challenged VA head-on, explaining in great detail with their report how our Agent Orange exposures are covered under the law. These are the folks, under supervision of the dean of Yale's law school Michael Wishnie, who want hear from you.

Any questions just contact me.  Pilots LtCol John Harris and Col Arch Battista (he's also a retired attorney) and other Westover leaders have worked with these folks in the Dick Matte effort. Now we need your help on Yale's pro bono project involving all of us. Involving YOU!

Email them at daniel.townsend@clinics.yale.edu

Yale Law Veterans Legal Clinic Issues C-122 Exposure Brief – Concludes Veterans ARE Eligible for VA Service Connection!

On Saturday, after months of exhaustive research and investigation, Yale University's Veterans Legal Clinic published their brief which concludes C-123 veterans are fully entitled to service connection for Agent Orange-presumptive illnesses. 

Under the supervision of Dean Michael Wishnie, the comprehensive brief was completed by Daniella Rohr, Stephen M. Segal, and Laura Johns. The C-123 Veterans Association offers its heartfelt thanks for this outstanding example of legal scholarship. 

The brief will be posted on Yale's law clinic site, and is available to veterans and their advocates as valuable...perhaps someday decisive...argument for Agent Orange disability claims!

Again, Dean Wishnie, Mr. Segal, Ms. Rohr and Ms. Johns – thanks from all of us C-123 veterans!

Now, what happens next? 

VA has made it clear over the years that whatever proof is offered, VA will reject without regard as to source, content, accuracy or anything...VA refuses everything we submit to them. Yale's legal brief will be no different, regardless of legal accuracy and merit. Claim are even rejected with Compensation and Pension's Director, insisting that TCDD is harmless.

Remember that, because on 28 Feb 2013 we were officially informed by Post Deployment Health (via our meeting with Compensation and Pension) that no amount of proof from whatever source (university, federal agency, military, medical VA, legal, nothing!) will permit C-123 veterans' claims to be approved...their decision has already been made. 

The Deputy Consultant for VA Post Deployment Health even informed Major T. Redd, US Army Chemical Corps (then a Congressional Military Fellow) that no C-123 veterans' claims will be permitted to be approved...ever. That's from "veteran-friendly, non-adversarial, benefit of the doubt rests with the veteran" Veterans Affairs.

Strange, because for some reason both the Secretary and Under Secretary Hickey have mistakenly said no such blanket policy for denials exists. Still, their blanket policy by any other name is still...a blanket policy! 

VA must have also decided that their descriptions of our eligibility for exposure claims published in the Federal Register (8 May 2001 and 31 Aug 2010) will not be permitted to apply to us. This is because VA has modified the very word "exposure" to insure it can't apply to us.

Consider: Because VA is responsible for administering the various laws dealing with veterans' benefits, VA choses which laws to enforce and which laws VA will ignore. VA will construct interpretations to prevent any interference with the way they want to provide or deny benefits. 

Any flexibility in the law is used by VA against veterans' interests. If flexibility isn't there to use against veterans, VA will invent something in the same way they reinvented the word "exposure."