Deny, Deny, Until They Die

Editorial by Shad Meshad

(LOS ANGELES) – Garry Lee Price is dying of cancer in a hospice in Sacramento while the Veterans Administration stalls on his service-related disability claim. His doctors give him two weeks to live. When he dies, the claim dies. And that’s the point. The Veterans Administration, the health services side of the organization, has already determined that the cancer was caused by Garry’s exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.

 Garry was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, a soft tissue sarcoma, in April 2008 by VA physicians. He has a tumor the size of a softball growing out of the side of his neck.

According to the Veterans Administration’s policy on Agent Orange-related disability, this soft tissue sarcoma is one of eight medical conditions where Vietnam Veterans “do not have to show that their illness is related to their military service to get disability compensation. VA presumes that their condition is service-connected.”

This should, by all rights, make Garry eligible for full disability benefits immediately.

But Garry’s terminal status, and presumed service-connected disability, instead of spurring the administration to expedite his claim, has given them an extra reason to stall.

And they have.

For years, “deny, deny, until they die,” has been a common refrain among the Veteran community to describe what they see as the Veterans Administration’s unspoken policy of dragging their feet on claims processing until the Veteran applying dies. Then, the claim doesn’t have to be paid. Garry and his wife Bonnie are the latest victims of this policy.

The Veterans Administration’s website states that Agent Orange-related claims take an average of 204 days or about 7 months to process. It also states that their goal is to speed the processing of these claims to 74 days.

Garry first visited the VA with completed disability claim forms in June 2008, after two heart attacks and his cancer had kept him from earning income for almost a year.

He was told that day by a VA claims representative that, since he was terminal, he should not bother applying, because the processing time would take longer than he had to live. Discouraged, Garry left with the forms still in his hand.

Garry sought help from the National Veterans Foundation who helped him file his claim, and in October 2008, mailed in the paperwork to the VA.

In December 2008 he received a form letter stating that his claim had been received. He is still waiting, one year after he first walked his claim into the VA offices.

When Garry dies, the claim dies. Then, Bonnie Price has to start the process all over again. She’s not sure she can emotionally handle that. In the meantime, Garry and his wife have had to sell most of their belongings on craigslist to live.

Garry Lee Price volunteered for the U.S. Army in November 1966 and served 2 years 7 months and 4 days in the military, most of that time in Vietnam. He worked transporting sensitive documents through areas with heavy Agent Orange spraying.

He received an honorable discharge with the rank of Sergeant on June 17th 1969. During his service, he was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Good Conduct Medal, Vietnam Service Medal and Army Commendation Medal.

The frustrating irony is that the medical side of the Veterans Administration has already determined Garry’s terminal cancer is service-connected, and that the benefits side is still not convinced enough to approve Garry’s claim.

This is something that the National Veterans Foundation has seen many times before in their work assisting Veterans in crisis. “It’s like the left-hand doesn’t know, or really care, what the right hand is doing,” says National Veterans Foundation President and Founder Shad Meshad. “The issue here is that, if the VA paid all the claims that are rightfully due, they’d go broke. So, they stall on cases like Garry’s until the Veteran dies, counting on the fact that the family will be too overwhelmed to pursue it after he or she is gone.”

Garry Lee Price served his country. He served overseas during war and, there, he was exposed to dangerous chemicals by his own people, chemicals that will prematurely take his life, possibly in the next few days. But the Veterans Administration, following a policy of “deny, deny, until they die,” doesn’t seem to care enough to expedite his claim.

How many more Garry Price type tragedies have to happen before the VA serves the needs of those heroes who have guaranteed our freedom with their blood?

For more than 30 years, NVF Founder and President Shad Meshad has worked as a therapist for veterans and an advocate for veterans’ rights. After receiving his master’s degree in psychiatric social work from Florida State University, he enlisted in the army in 1970 and served as a counselor for U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Upon his return to the U.S., Meshad founded and directed the Vietnam Veterans Re-Socialization Unit at the VA Hospital in Los Angeles, California. It was the first program of its kind, focusing on the readjustment problems of Vietnam veterans. During this time, Meshad was among the first to study the disorder now known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.