At War with the DVA: Right and Wrong

by VN Vets

My friend says, "With the DVA, it’s about right and wrong, and they are just wrong…on so many things they do, and don’t do." She is absolutely correct.

We would add that Congress is frequently in the same boat. At least their intent is good…sometimes.

Representative Linda Sanchez [CA-39] has introduced a resolution on the floor of the House to create a Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day. The intent, of course, is to honor all Vietnam Veterans. And there is where we come to the sticking point.

It used to be that if you received the Vietnam Service Medal, then you were a "Vietnam Veteran." Now, however, we who served on ships afloat in the South China Sea and Tonkin Gulf, along with Air Force personnel who overflew the Republic of South Vietnam on many different types of missions, nearly all combat, or combat support, and those who served in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, despite our Medal awards, have essentially been reclassifed by the Department of Veterans Affairs as "Vietnam Era Veterans."

If Vietnam Veterans allow this day to go into effect, tens of thousands of us who have been told our fight in the Vietnam War doesn’t count will not be so honored because the DVA says we are NOT "Vietnam Veterans", but rather "Vietnam Era Veterans." Representative Sanchez and the 63 members of Congress who have co-sponsored her resolution [HRes 234] intend that we all be included. But Congress is too complicit in allowing 18 years to pass with the DVA hijacking the Agent Orange Act of 1991 without lifting a finger to stop them. So much for Congressional oversight.

We who are in limbo, however, feel differently. We have yet to be welcomed home. Our treatment at the hands of the DVA has been maliciously reprehensible, and probably criminally malfeasant and negligent. An oblivious Congress has allowed the DVA to hijack the Agent Orange Act of 1991 right from the start, 18 years ago. They have hijacked it, not with science, for there is no science to back what they have done, but with legalese. They have used legal mumbo-jumbo to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Vietnam Veterans from the benefits that Congress intended for them, and in so doing, moved them from the category of "Vietnam Veterans," to the category of "Vietnam Era Veterans".

Consider, Blue Water Sailors have been denied their Agent Orange Benefits with the words, "You did not serve in Vietnam." That phrase means we are not "Vietnam Veterans". It means we are Vietnam Era Veterans, just the same as any Army guy who spent the war years in Germany, or Air Force guy who spent the war years in Spain, or the Navy guys who were on Atlantic Fleet ships that were never deployed to Vietnam.

We were there. Many of us were on ships that provide the Army, Marines, Air Force, and our allies in the South Vietnamese military with gunfire support from just off the beaches of Vietnam. Others served on ships that launched sortie after sortie of bombing and strafing missions over both North and South Vietnam.

But despite evidence to the contrary, the Department of Veterans Affairs ASSERTS that Agent Orange stopped at the beach, and never went any farther, and never drifted through the skies, or if it did, it never crossed the coastline. Such "science" boggles the mind.

The members of VASVW have agreed to submit to their respective Congressional Representatives, the following resolution:

Whereas the government of the United States has declared through the Department of Veterans Affairs, that Veterans who served only in the waters off shore, the airspace above, and in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War are NOT Vietnam Veterans, but Vietnam Era Veterans, and

Wheras such discrimination includes true heroes such as Senator John S. McCain, and the hundreds of thousands of Veterans who volunteered for Vietnam Service, and

Wheras such discrimination is done in the face of the fact that all three of the groups involved were involved in combat operations, and were awarded the Vietnam Service Medal, not the Vietnam Era Service Medal, and

Whereas such Veterans are accorded less than War Veteran status by dint of these discriminatory actions, and

Whereas such Veterans then have been determined not worthy of the Welcome Home for Vietnam Veterans, and

Whereas such shameful treatment by the Government of the United States is contrary to all the historical records and true facts, and

Whereas the United States Congress has offered a resolution establishing a Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day,

Be it resolved that we Veterans and members of the Veterans Association of Sailors of the Vietnam War refuse to be so honored, and ask that all Vietnam Veterans refuse such honors, and that no welcome home is acceptable until such time as ALL true Vietnam Veterans are fully restored with their honor and their legacy, and their Veterans Rights and Benefits.

 Congress wants us to feel welcome? Sorry, no can do.

We ask that all of you reach out to your Representative, especially if they are on the co-sponsor list below and get a copy of our resolution above into their hands.

Here is the list of current co-sponsors of Representive Sanchez’s HRes234.

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez [D-TX]
Rep. Gwen Moore [D-WI]
Del. Madeleine Bordallo [D-GU]
Rep. Bob Filner [D-CA]
Rep. Timothy Bishop [D-NY]
Rep. David Loebsack [D-IA]
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers [R-WA]
Rep. Ben Chandler [D-KY]
Rep. Joe Courtney [D-CT]
Rep. Joe Donnelly [D-IN]
Rep. Melissa Bean [D-IL]
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher [R-CA]
Rep. Donna Edwards [D-MD]
Rep. Barton Gordon [D-TN]
Rep. James McGovern [D-MA]
Rep. Betty McCollum [D-MN]
Rep. Raul Grijalva [D-AZ]
Rep. Barney Frank [D-MA]
Rep. Yvette Clarke [D-NY]
Rep. Tammy Baldwin [D-WI]
Rep. Tim Holden [D-PA]
Rep. Phil Hare [D-IL]
Rep. Dennis Moore [D-KS]
Rep. Michael Arcuri [D-NY]
Rep. Christopher Carney [D-PA]
Rep. Maurice Hinchey [D-NY]
Rep. Heath Shuler [D-NC]
Rep. Lincoln Davis [D-TN]
Rep. Marcy Kaptur [D-OH]
Rep. Russ Carnahan [D-MO]
Rep. Mazie Hirono [D-HI]
Rep. Dennis Cardoza [D-CA]
Rep. Jerry Moran [R-KS]
Rep. Jay Inslee [D-WA]
Del. Gregorio Sablan [I-MP]
Rep. Michael Capuano [D-MA]
Rep. Joe Baca [D-CA]
Rep. Candice Miller [R-MI]
Rep. Adam Schiff [D-CA]
Rep. Donald Young [R-AK]
Rep. Betty Sutton [D-OH]
Rep. John Sarbanes [D-MD]
Rep. Harry Teague [D-NM]
Rep. Martin Heinrich [D-NM]
Rep. Bart Stupak [D-MI]
Rep. Diane Watson [D-CA]
Rep. John Adler [D-NJ]
Rep. Brian Higgins [D-NY]
Rep. Robert Brady [D-PA]
Rep. James Moran [D-VA]
Rep. Eddie Johnson [D-TX]
Rep. Elijah Cummings [D-MD]
Rep. Leonard Boswell [D-IA]
Rep. Ben Luján [D-NM]
Rep. Timothy Walz [D-MN]
Rep. Charles Gonzalez [D-TX]
Rep. Steve Scalise [R-LA]
Rep. Bruce Braley [D-IA]
Rep. Mike Ross [D-AR]
Rep. James McDermott [D-WA]
Rep. Luis Gutiérrez [D-IL]
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords [D-AZ]
Rep. Frank Wolf [R-VA]

If Congress wants to welcome us home, let them restore our benefits and take steps to keep the DVA from doing the same to our latest Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Leave no one behind.

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation’s honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."– VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Bush Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"–VNVets