Jim
Fausone
Veteran
Disability Lawyer
After handing thousands
of veteran claims for disability over a dozen years some patterns emerge.
One of the more frustrating is the loss of military records that veterans need
to prove disability claims to the VA.
A joint investigation by ProPublica and The Seattle Times has
found that the recordkeeping breakdown was especially acute in the early years
of the Iraq War, when insurgents deployed improvised bombs with devastating
effects on U.S. soldiers. The military has also lost or destroyed records from
Afghanistan, according to officials in previously undisclosed documents.
The loss of field records — after-action write-ups, intelligence reports and
other day-to-day accounts from the war zones. This is a chronic problem
that certainly dates back to the World War II, Vietnam and other war zones.
Recordkeeping was so poor in Afghanistan from
2004 to 2007 that "very few Operation ENDURING FREEDOM records were saved
anywhere, either for historians' use, or for the services' documentary needs
for unit heritage, or for the increasing challenge with documenting Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)," according to an Army report from 2009. Entire brigades deployed
from 2003 to 2008 could not produce any field records, documents from the U.S. Army Center of Military History show.
So guys, save your records. Keep notes of
your buddy's name and the letters and emails you wrote home. That may be
the only proof you have years from now about your service experiences.
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/missing-war-records-complicate-benefit-claims-by-iraq-afghanistan-vets-1.196570
No comments:
Post a Comment