Vietnam Veteran Finally Gets Aid Increase

Dennis Agin had long sought higher disability benefits.

By Jeb Phillips

A Vietnam veteran who had been denied an increase in disability payment for years will now receive that increase, and possibly $12,000 in back payments, according to a letter he received yesterday from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Dispatch published a story Monday detailing the troubles that Ohio veterans have applying for compensation for disabilities connected to their military service. Dennis Agin, 65, of the East Side was the prime example.

The letter Agin received is dated Wednesday and begins: "We made a decision on your appeal received on November 18, 2004."

The Cleveland regional office of the Department of Veterans Affairs has actually made several decisions about Agin since he first submitted a claim in February 2004 asking for an increase in his compensation. All previous rulings went against him. The appeal mentioned in the letter was his first, although he has appealed other times since then and frequently submitted medical documents to support his case.

"I am amazed," he said at receiving the letter yesterday. "I feel really sorry for the people who have not been able to do what I was able to do. I guess I pushed some buttons."

In response to a Dispatch request for an interview yesterday, a spokeswoman for the department’s Cleveland office sent an e-mail stating the office could not comment on such short notice.

Agin developed Type II diabetes many years after his service aboard the USS Newport News as a dental officer, with some brief time spent in Vietnam. The department presumes some veterans developed certain illnesses because of exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange.

Veterans like Agin who control their diabetes with insulin injections and a restricted diet are considered 20 percent disabled; those who control it with insulin, restricted diet and regulation of activities are considered 40 percent disabled. The difference amounts to about $280 per month.

Agin’s doctors have repeatedly told him, in writing, to control his diabetes by using all three measures. But Veterans Affairs seemed to have interpreted "regulation of activities" differently from his doctors. They have continued to rate him as 20 percent disabled, saying he doesn’t have evidence that doctors want him to regulate his activities.

Until this week.

The department’s letter appears to grant Agin back payments as well, dating to March 1, 2004. That means Agin could collect $12,000 or more with this new decision.