Yale School of Law Seeks C-123 Veterans – Read Their Offer of Free Assistance

Yale School of Law, under Dean Michael Wishnie, offers a terrific veterans law clinic that has been instrumental in addressing C-123 veterans' Agent Orange claims. At great expense to the school, they've stood by us for several years as we presented our claims to the VA.

Their C-123 report on presumptive service connection is top-quality legal scholarship and persuasive to any fair-minded VA claims adjudicator. They want to help you. Free. Very good help, and very free. They want to hear from C-123 vets who did not serve in Vietnam - Vietnam vets are already qualified for benefits Yale seeks for the rest of us.

Dean Wishnie and his team also represented a Westover veteran at the Boston VA for a Decision Review Officer hearing...you can imagine the impact as the veterans' representatives were introduced to the VA folks.

Yale wants to keep helping. They are reaching out to all veterans and survivors to discuss certain legal strategies which can apply to us individually as well as our association.

Who: Primary fight crew, ACM, AGE, aerial port, AME, CAMS, life support, flight surgeons...personnel serving between 1972-1982 who had occupational duties on the C-123...that means hands-on, inside the airplane type of duty. Westover, Rickenbacker and Pittsburg units, plus Panama rotation.

The leaders of the C-123 Veterans Association ask each of you to cooperate. Doing so won't change any arrangements you may have for representation with a veterans service organization. Yale's powerful assistance to individuals and to the association is offered pro bono, of course. Other veterans legal clinics and some wonderful private law firms have also stepped up to represent our folks, all as a service in recognition of the sacrifices already made by C-123 veterans and our families.

For us lunkheads who never took Latin, that means free. I looked it up. Trust me. Jokes aside, the results these folks seek are vital and we can't get to our objective without your cooperation. Give them an email at c123.project@yale.edu.

VA Legal Office Challenged to Ethics Review

C-123 veterans have spent years seeking a sympathetic ear at the VA. By "ear," we mean someone focused on the law and veterans. For too long, individuals and sections at the Department of Veterans Affairs have predetermined C-123 veterans to be ineligible for exposure benefits. The law says otherwise!

Today, as we also did in June of this year, without response, this has been brought to the attention of VA's Assistant General Counsel. It is our hope that the most recent request won't be ignored as was the earlier. It is our hope that Attorney Hipolit has a few moments to offer our dioxin-exposed veterans the benefits prescribed by law, rather than allowing VBA and VHA to continue proscribing us from those protections.

Richard Hipolit, Assistant General Counsel
Department of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont
Washington, DC 20420 

Dear Mr. Hipolit, 

This June I brought to your attention concerns The C-123 Veterans Association has regarding blanket policy-driven denials of our veterans claims for service connection, but without response from your office.  

I request that you again consider our request, as it is inappropriate for the Department of Veterans Affairs to continue refusing medical care for veterans whose Agent Orange exposure is confirmed by several federal agencies as well as numerous university medical schools and schools of public health. 

We seek a better solution than the VA denying decisions until our veterans have entered hospice care to make such deserved awards, as was the case this July of Lieutenant Colonel Paul Bailey (Huffington Post July 10 2013, Washington Post 3 August 2013, page A1 and page A14, and Washington Post page A2 and UPI, 7 August 2013,  Fox News, 11 August 2013, Stars and Stripes, 15 August 2013, many others.) 

 We believe the blanket predetermination of our ineligibility, as per the verbal assurance given me on 28 February 2013 by officials of Compensation Services that no amount of proof from any university, federal agency or military service will permit approval of our claims to be improper. And not “veteran-friendly.”  

We believe VBA’s blanket refusal to accept expert toxicologists’ input in support of veterans’ claims to be incorrect, considering decisions by both the 8^th and 9^th Circuit Courts. 

We believe the failure to correct numerous prejudices and improper, VA-unique VHA Post Deployment Health redefinition of the word “exposure” to reintroduce medical nexus is an issue that demands attention from your office.  

If you feel I am incorrect in these assertions, I, as chair of a national veterans organization whose argument has been vetted by both the American Legion and Vietnam Veterans of America, then ask that the issue be referred to the ethics office which overseas both VHA and VBA. believe it proper for VA to adhere to the law, even without specific court orders to do so. Somebody at VA might agree. 

 Sincerely, 

Wesley T. Carter, Major, USAF Retired, Chair