Retroactive Disability Compensation: Today We WON!

–TODAY C-123 VETS WON A BIG ONE FROM THE VA! –

NOTE: I NEED TO HEAR FROM ALL C-123 VETS WITH CLAIMS SUBMITTED PRIOR TO JUNE 2015!

C-123 veterans have been barred from disability compensation for our Agent Orange claims
submitted prior to June 2015. That's when the VA finally started honoring our claims but not going back to the date submitted for those of us who filed before VA's June 2015 decision. TODAY WE BEGAN TO CHANGE THAT AND GET OUR BACKDATED BENEFITS!

The VA's Board of Veterans Appeals, acting on a vet's C-123 claim first submitted back in 2011, on Thursday approved his appeal that sought retroactive benefits to the date first filed, thus picking up four years of retroactive disability compensation due him.

How was this done? I'd read about the restrictions on retroactive benefits with liberalizing rules and was a party to the negotiations with Secretary McDonald that left us so dismayed by loss of benefits for which we'd waited years.

An idea formed: I'd also read that reservists with line-of-duty injuries can achieve legal veteran status. It was easy to find a couple citations on the BVA web site, so it seemed possible to anchor a C-123 Agent Orange claim or appeal with a C-123 hearing loss disability. The claim would be on a "fact-proven" basis because VA already recognizes our exposures and there would be no need for the liberalizing rule to convey veteran status via presumptive service connection. We owe sincere thanks to the C-123 pro bono team (Chicago and Denver) at Faegre Baker Daniels, plus the National Veterans Legal Services Project for their input.

Most of us have some hearing loss, and this particular vet had earlier submitted a straightforward hearing loss claim, earning the small disability VA typically grants for hearing loss and tinnitus, based on the vet's flying activities. Those activities included C-123 duty, so the hearing loss triggered legal veteran status during the 1972-1980 period he was also being exposed to Agent Orange.

With legal veteran status established by his hearing injury, the Agent Orange illnesses for this vet simply became additional illnesses that VA covered.

Although this particular vet was already 100% disabled for other issues besides Agent Orange, if he hadn't already been receiving a VA check this decision would give him compensation from 2011 to June 2015, or about $110,000...serious pocket change, indeed! His claim was meant to be our association's "poster-child" claim to try to pave the way for others.

What's this mean for you? If your claim was submitted to VA on or after June 19, 2019, nothing. If it was submitted before and you are neither retired military nor already on VA disability, it means your claim can be appealed, or re-appealed, citing this decision, so long as you have a claim you can also make for hearing loss or some other disability. BVA decisions don't set precedent, but VA administrative law judges do give them great weight on similar claims.

I emphasize the issue of hearing loss...most flyers (or infantry, artillery, EOD) have it to some degree. Many of us have tinnitus, for which there is no test and a veteran need only state that ringing in the ears has become a problem. That hearing loss (or any other LOD injury) having its origins back in our C-123 days, is a disability that satisfies the law's requirements for full legal veteran status...and opens the door for your Agent Orange claim being backdated!

This appeal is in my Facebook NOTES section and HERE IS THE ACTUAL DECISION