Master Sergeant Richard Matte Has Passed

Dick Matte has died. 

It hurt a lot to read Steve Caraker’s email with that news, even though it was sure to come. Dick’s long struggle with illnesses showed strength and bravery beyond what most of us can imagine…heart transplant, heart attacks, the loss of his legs and so much more suffering.

It hurts all of us to lose him, and our condolences to his family. He joins Mayleen Adams, Bob Boyd, Giff, Cliff Turcotte, Mike Lieb, Bill Schindler, General Walker and so many others for whom we cared. His arrangements are here.

Matte made the front page of the Boston Globe last June! He was featured in an article addressing the VA’s reluctance to deal with C-123 Agent Orange exposures and illnesses, and that coverage helped bring the public’s attention to this issue and its resolution on June 19. Secretary McDonald’s welcome decision to provide C-123 veterans our disability benefits was due in good part to Dick’s story told so publicly in the Globe.

Thanks to Arch Battista, John Harris and the Yale Veterans Legal Clinic, Dick's VA claim was honored and benefits established even before the VA decision. He and Paul Bailey are the only two C-123 veterans whose claims were awarded before VA decided to care for all of us.

As his friend Steve Carr wrote, we’ve lost a fellow airman and a good soldier. Dick’s faith grew even stronger with all struggles. Now he rests in the peace he knew was ahead. God Bless.

VA Secretary McDonald's March 17 Memorandum on C-123 Agent Orange Veterans

We haven't seen it but have had references from various sources. We've heard enough to be disappointed.

We'll have faith that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs meant for VA to respond effectively to C-123 veterans, but his Office of General Counsel (OGC) has been very effective in preventing any impact that matters.

Apparently responding to the January 8, 2015 report to the Secretary by the Institute of Medicine C-123 Agent Orange Committee, Secretary McDonald has issued a memorandum summing up the VA reaction and plan going forward, but his plan was created by OGC in defiance of the committee set up by the Secretary to recommend his response. The committee recommended a much more reasonable course, but the OGC felt it best to prevent veterans' care with their own plan.

Our first response to the Secretary's action is that we're grateful that the memorandum acknowledges the IOM report, and concurs with its finding of exposure and harm to the C-123 aircrews and maintainers.

Our next response is one of bewilderment. While the VA now agrees we were exposed and harmed flying the former Agent Orange spray aircraft, the Office of General Counsel developed its extra-legal approach which prevents any medical care or benefits. Widows, widowers and disabled vets whose claims have been in for years are blocked from any VA care.

How? By the OGC decision to limit service connection from March 17 going forward, and just to those Reservists who happened to develop their prostate cancer over the weekend duty. By limiting all benefits to Reservists whose ALS developed during their two-week annual training. By limiting benefits to Reservists whose soft tissue sarcomas, or any of the other recognized Agent Orange illnesses, developed during, and only during, their Reserve duties.

But there likely aren't any aircrew or maintenance personnel affected by the Secretary's memorandum because science and medicine know perfectly well these Agent Orange illnesses take decades to manifest themselves. Thus VA yields nothing, concedes nothing. Cares about nobody. Saves VA money.

We've learned that VA's OGC approach endangers today's Guard and Reserve forces. Reserve Component volunteers who deploy on some hazardous situation in which they are exposed to horrible diseases such as ebola and return to civilian status when the mission has been completed, will be refused care and benefits from the VA when the disease completes its two week incubation period and the Reservist is struck with horrible illness.

VA has responded to the four year C-123 thorn in its side with courtroom adversarial lightning bolts. VA found a clever way to say "We care" while simultaneously preventing care for all C-123 veterans as well establishing a new and magnificent barrier to all future pesky Reserve Component disability claims.

Dengue fever, malaria, ebola, burn bits, insect bites, dirty water, any and all other environmental hazards which present an illness taking time to develop...VA will care only for personnel (read none, except sudden-type situations like snake bites or chemical burns) who develop the illnesses while on duty. If a disease in its natural course takes a few days or weeks to develop and the Reservist has returned to civilian life in the meantime, too bad. VA announced April 16 it save money and keep appointment lines in its hospitals shorter by refusing any and all benefits with firmly-expressed appreciation for their service and regrets that the volunteer dead or dying servicemembers aren't real veterans.

OGC's inventive but certainly extra-legal approach has been challenged by Senate and House leaders, by veterans service organization, legal scholars, and C-123 veterans themselves.  At this point, things seem to have stalled for weeks. The Secretary's actual plan, announced to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee as ready for implementation by early March, still flounders.

And veterans are still refused care. And OGC has developed a whole new way to prevent care sought by today's veterans exposed to harmful biological or toxin agents. Real Perry Mason stuff, this!

By the way, let's hope the VA informs DOD of their decision, because somebody has to tell the Reserve Component servicemembers still volunteering for such duty placing them in harm's way without VA at their back.

Maybe some firm should market a special health insurance scheme for the US Army Reserve, US Marine Corps Reserve, Navy Reserve, Coast Guard Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard and Army National Guard.

As soon as those volunteers learn that once finished with their Reserve duty, VA won't care for them and neither will DOD's health care facilities, they'll either be out of the military or well-advised to insure themselves: DOD and VA won't.

Are C-123 Veterans Actually Veterans?

No. Not if VA Office of General Counsel can prevent it!

"You're not veterans. Even if you were veterans before or after Reserve duty or even veterans in both situations, you're not veterans for purposes of Agent Orange exposure unless you qualify as such during your Reserve tour."

That was the VA Office of General Counsel talking last Thursday at the Senate Russell Building, defending its views in front of veterans service organizations,  Yale School of Law, House and Senate staffers, the media and others. The legal definition of "veteran" was raised as a stumbling block in our path to VA health care and other benefits.

Of course, this element of the puzzle could have been raised long ago and resolved, but for some reason, VA has a record of throwing obstacles one after the other, rather than putting everything on the table for the puzzle to be seen in one piece. Having resolved the scientific question of exposure through the Institute of Medicine C-123 report released in January 2015 (a process first discussed and promised the veterans in 2012,) VA OGC identified the statutory definition of "veteran" as its next barrier to our claims.

It turns out that VA benefits are available for Reserve and Guard members only if injured during Reserve duty, or if the servicemember completes a period of recall to Active Duty during the period in question. It is the view that Reserve and Guard, even if legally qualified as veterans before or after the period in question, are not "veterans" under the law unless they meet this criteria.

Example: a Reservist sent to duty in West Africa returns home and reverts to civilian status, develops ebola two weeks later. but is not a "veteran." Reason: because the illness or injury didn't actually manifest itself while the person was in uniform, even though the exposure occurred during Reserve duty. As ridiculous as this sounds, this exact scenario was run past VA Office of General Counsel and they agreed: VA actually would refuse care to an ebola-exposed Reservist.

The example closely parallels our Agent Orange problem.  We were exposed to the toxin dioxin in Agent Orange during the C-123 years of 1972-1982. However, soft tissue sarcomas and other Agent Orange illnesses don't manifest  themselves overnight, but instead can take decades for the exposure to be manifested in disease.

VA says because we didn't actually develop prostate cancer during a drill UTA, we were not injured in our Reserve status and therefore are not seen by VA as "veterans" for purposes of protection. An exposure to a Reservist which doesn't cause an immediate injury doesn't qualify the Reservist as injured and therefore a veteran under the law.

As you can imagine, this extremely restrictive OGC view didn't go unchallenged last Thursday. Rather, everyone present was of one voice: exposed C-123 servicemembers are veterans and are due VA care and benefits. There are a couple foundations for this challenge: in 2002 VA Office of General Counsel provided a formal precedent-setting option that a Navy Reservist given an anthrax vaccine who later developed serious illness qualified as a  veteran. It held that the vaccine was a foreign substance which injured her at the time of inoculation, even though the complications became evident years later. Our point: dioxin is a foreign substance which injured us.

VA OGC didn't take this quietly, Instead, they did the amazing thing of declaring their 2002 decision to be in error and therefore not applicable to the C-123. Nobody there was willing to let VA cherry-pick or redefine their own references and it was clear any final solution doing that was headed straight for court.

Still, the conference ended without degenerating into total chaos. VA OGC agreed that proposed legislation would be withdrawn, and to rethink the opposing arguments, especially in light of the unified front against the VA position. VA also came to realize that somehow language had been inserted in the proposed legislation barring retroactive claim awards, even if those claims had been in their system for many years.

"Active Service Criteria for Veteran Status (from the Congressional Research Service

“An applicant for VA benefits must have “active military, naval, or air service” to be considered a veteran for most VA benefits. However, not all types of service are considered active military service for this purpose.

In general, active service means full-time service, other than active duty for training, as a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, or as a commissioned officer of the Public Health Service, the Environmental Science Services Administration or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or its predecessor, the Coast and Geodetic Survey.

Active service also includes a period of active duty for training during which the person was disabled or died from an injury or disease incurred or aggravated in the line of duty and any period of inactive duty for training during which the person was disabled or died from an injury incurred or aggravated in the line of duty or from certain health conditions incurred during the training.

Additional circumstances of service, and whether they are deemed to be active military service, are set out in law. For example, if on authorized travel to and from the performance of active duty training or inactive duty for training, a person is disabled or dies while proceeding directly to or returning from such duty, the duty will be considered to be active duty for training or inactive duty for training."

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.

Dr. Linda Schwartz, Former Flight Nurse, Confirmed as Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs!

From all who flew with her, our warmest congratulations!

 Veteran, Connecticut Veterans Commissioner, Nominated by President Obama in August 2013

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald today welcomed the confirmation of Connecticut Veterans Commissioner Linda S. Schwartz as Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Policy and Planning. 

In this post, Dr. Schwartz will help develop and review VA departmental policy, analyze Veteran trends and statistics, and evaluate VA transformation initiatives. She will play a critical role in guiding VA’s strategic planning and work to implement Secretary McDonald’s vision to transform VA into a nimble, high-performing and responsive organization.

“I welcome Dr. Schwartz to our leadership team,” said Secretary McDonald. “Based on her decades of devotion and hard work on behalf of Veterans and Veterans’ causes, I know she will have an immediate impact in the Agency’s continued mission of serving the great men and women who have proudly worn this Nation’s uniform.”

Dr. Schwartz, a disabled veteran, is currently the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs, a position she has held since 2003.  She concurrently serves as an Associate Clinical Professor of Nursing at the Yale School of Nursing, where she has been on Faculty since 1999, and was appointed Associate Research Scientist and Scholar.  

From 1980 to 1993, she taught at several University and College Schools of Nursing and held leadership roles in nursing organizations in Connecticut.  From 1979 to 1980, she was a caseworker in the Office of the Field Director of the American Red Cross at Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany. 

Dr. Linda Schwartz

Dr. Schwartz also served in the United States Air Force (USAF) Nurse Corps from 1968 to 1986, both on Active Duty and as a Reservist. She retired as a Flight Nurse Instructor, with the rank of Major after sustaining injuries in a USAF aircraft accident.  

She received her Bachelors of Science degree in nursing from the University of Maryland School Of Nursing; a Master’s of Science degree from Yale University School of Nursing; and a Dr. PH from the Yale University School of Medicine.

VA IG Report: "VA Managers Lied to Federal Investigators"

By Associated Press September 9 at 3:25 PM
"WASHINGTON — Managers at more than a dozen Veterans Affairs medical facilities lied to federal investigators about scheduling practices and other issues, the department’s inspector general said Tuesday. (Altogether, nearly 50% of VHA management lied to federal investigators, which is a crime.)

Richard Griffin, the VA’s acting inspector general, said his office is investigating allegations of wrongdoing at 93 VA sites across the country, including 12 reports that have been completed and submitted to the VA for review."

That was the bad news from September 9. It shows the breakdown of integrity at the VA's Veterans Health Administration. It leaves veterans convinced that Post Deployment Health and VA National Center for Ethics in Heathcare, both components of the Veterans Health Administration, cannot avoid sharing in this scandal. 

For Post Deployment Health, the failure is their dedication and creativity in obstructing veterans' exposure claims, even in the face of "as likely as not" medical and scientific evidence. The result of their actions has been the denial of VA medical care to an unknown number of post-Vietnam C-123 veterans.  

For VA's National Center for Ethics in Healthcare, their failure is avoiding action on ethical concerns brought to them regarding patient privacy and other issues. Instead of careful investigation in line with their mission statement, their response was to defer concerns to VA's IG which the Center knew had no jurisdiction, or other buck-passing non-solutions.

Other VA agencies have also failed veterans. VBA's Compensation and Pension Service failed Secretary Shinseki by drafting a crafty, disingenuous and error-ridden response to Senator Burr's C-123 inquiry. This is a perfect example of what General Shinseki meant by trusting in the honor and integrity of those helping him meet the needs of America's veterans.

For VA's Office of General Counsel, their failure is willingness to support Post Deployment Health in obstructing veterans' exposure claims by seizing non-existent authority to redefine fundamental scientific and toxicological terms. OGC, rather than guiding the Department in using the breadth of law and regulation to include veterans, instead created barriers to exclude otherwise eligible veterans. Responding to the Yale Law School brief on C-123 veterans, OGC attacked rather than welcomed legal research and scholarly confirmation of the veterans' eligibility for VA care.

For Veterans Benefits Administration Compensation and Pension Service, their failure is also obstructing eligible veterans' claims for exposure care. From preventing input to the JSRRC body of knowledge, from denying claims on the basis that TCDD (a known carcinogen) is harmless, to refusing to accept scientific and medical input supporting veterans' disability claims, Compensation and Pension has faithfully kept in step with VHA's insistence that "We cannot permit C-123 claims." Faced with scientific argument supporting C-123 veterans' exposure claims, VBA instead contracted for $600,000 to create obstruction and confusion, and also failed to follow its own regulations and honor commitments published in the Federal Register.

Clarification: IOM C-123 Study INCLUDED with other projects. Doesn't cost $1.8 million as we first reported

Thanks to the watchful eyes at the Institute of Medicine, we have both the opportunity and responsibility to correct a mistaken impression: The IOM C-123 study will be included with other issues in the cost we reported earlier: The C-123 study only costs a portion of what we first claimed.

Repeat: the actual IOM contract is for $1.7 million, and the C-123 study was tagged onto an existing contract and doesn't cost the public the higher figure we stated in earlier posts.

As for the utility of the study. The issue moves towards resolution and that's obviously a good thing from our perspective, as we insist we have science, medicine and law behind our claims.

Because the question of our exposure claims is, after all, resolved per the law, in this case our concerns were expressed because the months consumed by the study means ill veterans will continue to be barred from VA medical care when there is no legal excuse for that VA restriction.

Further, the question boils down to one of the law, which clearly states exposure needs to be proven by non-Vietnam veterans, not medical nexus, for inclusion in the presumptive category.

Thanks to M.P. for the opportunity to correct our statement. We try to find facts, draw conclusions, report data as given us...and not make errors such as this which affect readers' impression of our reliability.

We are passionate, but we are also truthful.