Veterans can apply to upgrade discharge for PTSD Staff report 6:39 p.m. EST December 17, 2014

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1 VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2 FEBRUARY 2015 P.O. Box 844 Sanford, ME president@vva1044maine.org Officers Joseph Armstrong President Dan Marquis Vice-President One Vice-President Two John Flagler Linda Davis Secretary Treasure Jim Lurvey Quartermaster Jim Davis Chaplain Jim Currier AVVA Chapter Representative Jim Davis Historians Candice Lurvey Veterans can apply to upgrade discharge for PTSD Staff report 6:39 p.m. EST December 17, 2014 (A special web page has been launched to assist veterans seeking to upgrade punitive discharges related to behavior problems caused by post-traumatic stress. The web page provides information and applications to seek an upgrade to discharge from service. The page can be found at It follows a recent directive to the Army's Review Boards Agency to give liberal consideration to requests for discharge upgrades from veterans who say they were kicked out of service because of problems related to PTSD. Thousands of Vietnam-era soldiers may have been given punitive discharges because they suffered from PTSD before it was recognized as a debilitating medical condition, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel acknowledged in September.. The ARBA is the Army's highest level of administrative review for personnel actions taken by lower level organizations, and is comprised of several boards for considering the claims of soldiers and former soldiers who appeal unfavorable information in their personnel records. Discharge upgrades are important because they are linked to benefits available through Veterans Affairs, such as treating PTSD-related symptoms, according to information provided by the Army. The Army could not provide an estimate of how many applications it will receive as a result of the outreach campaign. However, a class action suit brought by veterans groups, including the Vietnam Veterans of America, estimates that one third of the 250,000 other-than-honorable discharges issued to Vietnam-era veterans may have been PTSD-related. Veterans who previously were denied an upgrade can re-apply under the new guidance, and the Army Board for Correction of Military Records will consider the application a new case, according to the Army. 1

2 Editors Note: The new guidance only applies to veterans who received "other than honorable" discharges. It does not apply to veterans who received less than honorable or dishonorable discharges because of serious infractions. Components of the Review Boards Agency include the Army Board for Correction of Military Records, the Army Discharge Review Board and the Army Grade Determination Review Board. All - Just a reminder and for clarification to those who may be interested in applying. According to the article: The new guidance only applies to veterans who received "other than honorable" discharges. It does not apply to veterans who received less than honorable or dishonorable discharges because of serious infractions. It is best to check with the board in this matter before proceeding. These request for upgrades should be done by the veteran directly with the individual service boards. I assume it would help to have a current diagnosis of PTSD or a history of diagnosis and treatment, before they start the process or it may be in vain. It appears that this is a DOD initiative so applies to all services, so the veteran should go to the specific board, i.e. Army, Navy, and Air Force etc. Here is a link to the DOD Letter to the various Boards: laiming%20ptsd.pdf Here are helpful links to the various boards of corrections of military records: Army: Navy and Marines: Air Force: 2

3 The Lingering Story of Agent Orange JANUARY 2015, BY JOHN T. CORRELL The assumption in the 1960s was that the use of herbicides in Vietnam did not pose a significant danger. The UC-123K tactical transport known as Patches got its name the hard way. The aircraft was held together nose to tail with repairs to the battle damage inflicted by almost 600 hits from enemy ground gunners in Vietnam. When its flying days were over, Patches was retired to the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, as a memorial to the airmen who flew the dangerous Ranch Hand missions from 1962 to Ranch Hand used herbicides to defoliate the vegetation in Vietnam, where the jungle provided concealment and cover for Viet Cong insurgents. It began as a peripheral notion in 1961 on a White House list of techniques and gadgets that might be tried in lieu of all-out combat and expanded from there. At its peak in 1969, Ranch Hand employed only 25 spray planes, but the results and consequences went far beyond anything the White House ever imagined. Local commanders and ground forces swore by Ranch Hand, which stripped bare the enemy ambushes and hiding places. It was part of a broader operation named Trail Dust, which included spraying from backpacks, trucks, and riverboats, but the main operation was Ranch Hand. The propeller-driven C-123 had long since been declared obsolescent but it found new purpose in Vietnam. In 1968, auxiliary jet engines were mounted under the wings, making takeoffs less hazardous for the heavily loaded Ranch Hand aircraft. The enhanced model was designated UC-123K. The spraying was done from treetop level and was especially risky with the original equipment, which dispensed no more than one-and-a-half gallons of herbicide per acre, half the amount necessary for defoliation. Before the Ranch Hand crews got better sprayers that pumped three gallons an acre, they had to fly a second mission against each target. The ground gunners knew this and were waiting for them. With the improved system it took four minutes to empty the 1,000-gallon tank and cover an area 16 kilometers (10 iles) long and 80 meters (260 feet) wide. About 10 percent of the Ranch Hand sorties destroyed crops supporting the Viet Cong a priority for the South Vietnamese government but the vast majority of them were flown to expose the enemy s strongholds and travel routes. Even critics of the program concede that this saved many thousands of American and allied lives. The Ranch Hand achievements are seldom remembered today, eclipsed by the enormous controversy about Agent Orange, the principal defoliant used in Vietnam. It is widely agreed now that the herbicides deemed safe to humans in the 1960s might cause cancer and other ailments. By an act of Congress in 1991, a deadly health risk is presumed for those exposed to Agent Orange. Among other revelations, the most famous of all Ranch Hand airplanes, Patches, was found to be highly contaminated with Agent Orange residues and had to undergo an extensive cleanup before it could be put on display at the Air Force Museum. A Rainbow of Defoliants The herbicides came in 55- gallon drums marked with colored bands four inches wide. The defoliants were named for the color of the bands: Agents Blue, Green, Pink, Purple, White, and the most famous of all, Agent Orange, referred to simply as Orange by the Ranch Handers. The active ingredients were the same as weed killers used for years in the United States on farms, along highways and power lines, and in popular lawn care products sold to homeowners. The compound 2,4-D destroyed broad-leaf weeds and 2,4,5-T worked on brush and hardwoods. However, unlike the commercial products which cut the weed killers with inert thinners, the military herbicides were sprayed full 3

4 strength. In the early part of the war, the preferred herbicide was Agent Purple, a patented product of the Dow Chemical Co., consisting of half 2,4-D and half 2,4,5- T. Dow could not produce enough to meet the demand but was wary about permitting others to make up the difference on license. In 1964, Ranch Hand began replacing Purple with Agent Orange, the same mixture without patent complications. There were some complaints about the defoliation program, but these came mostly from ecologists and opponents of the war in general. Industry and the Pentagon defended the chemicals as safe. A government-sponsored survey by the independent Midwest Research Institute in 1967 found no reason for alarm. Little attention was given to scattered instances of skin rashes among plant workers, farmers, loggers, and other handlers. Warning signals went off with the release in October 1969 of a National Institutes of Health study reporting laboratory experiments in which high concentrations of 2,4,5-T led to birth defects in mice. The basic problem was not the weed-killing ingredients themselves; it was the dioxins, a kind of impurity created in small amounts as byproducts in the manufacturing process. Dioxins are everywhere in diesel exhaust, in Styrofoam cups and Formica tabletops, in smoke from trash fires and toxic in extreme doses. Production of 2,4,5-T generated a poisonous dioxin abbreviated as TCDD. In response to the NIH study, the Department of Defense prohibited the use of Agent Orange around population centers. In April 1970, the departments of the Interior, Agriculture, and Health, Education, and Welfare suspended the uncontrolled use of 2,4,5-T in the United States and the DOD over the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff temporarily halted the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. The temporary halt was never lifted, and when supplies of other herbicides, chiefly Agent White, ran out, the Ranch Hand operation came to an end. A Spark in Chicago: As it turned out, the interdepartmental restrictions on 2,4,5-T in April 1970 did not amount to that much. They did not affect use for control of weeds and bush on range, pasture land, forest, or rights of way on nonagricultural land. Nor did they apply to products for sale to homeowners. The Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency saw no imminent hazard from 2,4,5-T. To some extent, this reflected the political power of the chemical and agricultural industries but, at the same time, the scientific evidence about 2,4,5-T was ambiguous. The Agent Orange controversy as it exists today began in Chicago in Maude de Victor, a benefits counselor in the local Veterans Administration office, put together a file on 57 cases of Vietnam veterans whose problems she believed to be related to chemicals in Vietnam. She shared her suspicions with a TV news producer whose documentary, Agent Orange: The Deadly Fog, was broadcast by WBBM, the CBS affiliate in Chicago, in March Within weeks, VA got 500 claims for exposure to Agent Orange, 300 of them from Chicago and the other 200 from Arkansas, where veterans picked up the message and repeated it. The issue soon went national, focusing largely on Army ground troops who said they had been exposed to the herbicides. Some of the news accounts exaggerated the circumstances, depicting the jungle as dripping or drenched with herbicides, hardly possible with a maximum dispersal rate of three gallons per acre, which works out to less than a teaspoon per square foot. Nevertheless, there was enough substance for the issue to gain traction in Congress and in public opinion. Politicians made speeches and President Jimmy Carter formed an Agent Orange Inter-Agency Working Group that was eventually elevated to cabinet council status. In 1979, the Environmental Protection Agency stopped most use of 2,4,5-T, declaring it unavoidably contaminated by dioxins. The EPA action came just before the annual spraying season, when seven million pounds of 2,4,5-T were to have been spread on forests, pastures, and along power lines and highways. A number of newly formed veterans groups took up the charge, notably the Vietnam Veterans of America, a mainstream offshoot of the Vietnam Veterans 4

5 Against the War. In 1979, lawyers representing the veterans filed a class action lawsuit against Dow and six other Agent Orange manufacturers. The case never went to trial, settled instead in 1984 when the companies agreed to establish a $180 million fund for Vietnam veterans and their families. The chemical companies did not acknowledge any fault, but the net effect was a significant blemish on the image of the industry. In 1983, Dow abandoned the effort to have 2,4,5-T declared safe. Production had stopped after the EPA ban in 1979, but this decision also ended sales from inventory, which had continued. The Air Force Association today published its major review ( -of-agent-orange.aspx) of our C-123 post-vietnam Agent Orange exposure situation. As noted, the issue remains with the Institute of Medicine which releases its year-long investigation (designed under tight constraints issued by the VA) on January 9. Social Security: Special Extra Earnings For Military Service Since 1957, if you had military service earnings for active duty (including active duty for training), you paid Social Security taxes on those earnings. Since 1988, inactive duty service in the Armed Forces reserves (such as weekend drills) has also been covered by Social Security. Under certain circumstances, special extra earnings for your military service from 1957 through 2001 can be credited to your record for Social Security purposes. These extra earnings credits may help you qualify for Social Security or increase the amount of your Social Security benefit. Special extra earnings credits are granted for periods of active duty or active duty for training. Special extra earnings credits are not granted for inactive duty training. If your active military service occurred From 1957 through 1967, we will add the extra credits to your record when you apply for Social Security benefits. From 1968 through 2001, you do not need to do anything to receive these extra credits. The credits were automatically added to your record. earnings that have been credited to military service personnel. Military service in calendar year 2002 and future years no longer qualifies for these special extra earnings credits How You Get Credit For Special Extra Earnings The information that follows applies only to active duty military service earnings from 1957 through Here's how the special extra earnings are credited on your record: Service in 1957 Through 1977 You are credited with $300 in additional earnings for each calendar quarter in which you received active duty basic pay. Service in 1978 through 2001 For every $300 in active duty basic pay, you are credited with an additional $100 in earnings up to a maximum of $1,200 a year. If you enlisted after September 7, 1980, and didn't complete at least 24 months of active duty or your full tour, you may not be able to receive the additional earnings. Check with Social Security for details. After 2001, there are no special extra earnings credits for military service. Note: In January 2002, Public Law , the Defense Appropriations Act, stopped the special extra 5

6 Report: Agent Orange Planes Hold Risk Years After Vietnam WASHINGTON Jan 9, 2015, 6:05 PM ET Associated Press The health of some U.S. Air Force reservists could have been put at risk from the residue left in planes that sprayed Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, the Institute of Medicine reported Friday. There's not much data about the level of contamination, but limited testing years later make it plausible that some reservists exceeded guidelines for exposure to the toxins in the defoliant, the report concluded. At issue are 24 C-123 planes that, after the military stopped spraying Agent Orange, went on to be used by Air Force reserve units for such things as medical and cargo transport. About 1,500 to 2,100 personnel trained and worked on them between 1972 and Later, some reservists blamed cancer and other illnesses on residues left in the planes, but they were denied disability claims if they did not serve in Vietnam. Friday's report, requested by the Department of Veterans Affairs, did not address disability policy but could influence future claims. A committee of the institute, an independent agency that advises the government on health, examined the results of some air and surface tests taken for dioxin and herbicides in the planes between 1979 and The report stressed that there's little data, and little information about the reservists' activities on the planes. But because chemical residues were found on interior surfaces, the reservists had some exposure, the committee decided, rejecting assertions that the dried material couldn't have spread. Some levels were in a range that international guidelines say merits "cautionary consideration," the panel said. "Levels at the time of their exposure would have been at least as high as the taken measurements, and quite possibly, considerably higher," committee chairman Robert Herrick of the Harvard School of Public Health said in a statement Friday. Put together, the available data "supports the expectation that the health of some of the personnel was adversely affected," the report said. 6

7 President s Corner Hello Everyone Let me begin by saying that not a day goes by that I am not proud to say that I am the president of WA Chapter 1044 and each of us shows this in his or her own way, we all have ghosts that are in the closet when it comes to Viet Nam. I can say that I am the most comfortable when I am around other Vietnam Vets. We share a common bond, a bond that can never be broken. We can disagree, argue but we all have that bond, a bond that we will bring to our grave. Come join us at a membership meeting where we can laugh, and share our common bond. Meetings are held on the first Sunday of each month at the Sanford Elks Lodge 13 Elm Street Sanford. Meetings start at 1:30 (1300) Take time to visit our website at where you will be kept updated on all the exciting things that we have planned for then upcoming year. I look forward to working with you all and hope to see you at our meetings. Respectfully Joseph Armstrong President IMPORTANT!! Due to a conflict is scheduling our February meeting will NOT be held on 1 February 2015 as scheduled but has been changed to Sunday 8 February Same time and location 7

8 From the Desk of our Events Coordinator Jim Davis Events The month of January has come to an end, and now we are entering the month of February. Here is the roster of events to come in the next few months. February Sunday the 8 th Color Guard Training 12:30pm to 1pm. Social Hour 1pm to 1:30pm Membership Meeting!:30pm to 3pm March (March is Women Veterans Appreciation Month) Sunday the 1st Board of Directors Meeting 12:30pm to 1:30pm Membership Meeting 1:30pm to 3:30pm 8

9 March cont. Vietnam Veterans Appreciation Day Sunday the 29th 12:30 pm. 2:00pm At the Nasson Collage Ampi Theater 145 North Street Sanford, ME April Sunday the 5 th Easter Sunday the 12th Honor Guard Training 12:30pm to 1pm Social Hour 1pm to 1:30pm Membership Meeting 1:30 to 3pm The month of May is looking to be a busy month. There is at least 3 Fallen Warrior Ceremonies planned. Plus our monthly BOD and Membership meetings. For more information, questions, and concerns please contact me. Cell: Home; jimd16@comcast.net 9

10 Membership in VVA is the Right Choice First I want to say "WELCOME HOME " The goals of Vietnam Veterans of America are to promote and support the full range of issues important to Vietnam veterans. To create a new identity for this generation of veterans and to change public perception of Vietnam veterans. VVA is a "home of our own" - a community of fellowship with people who share our experiences, needs, and hopes for the future. Be as active as your time, talents, and interests allow. Or, simply be a proud member of VVA, knowing that your membership helps VVA work for you and your fellow Vietnam veterans. Membership includes a subscription to our award-winning newspaper, The VVA Veteran, bringing you updates on issues and legislation affecting veterans, as well as unique articles on the people, places, and history of the Vietnam experience. Membership is open to U.S. armed force veterans who served on active duty (for other than training purposes) in the Republic of Vietnam between February 28, 1961 and May 7, 1975, or in any duty location between August 5, 1964 and May 7, Our chapter is very active working hard to help our brothers and sisters, their families and veterans of today. We meet once a month at the Sanford Elks Lodge 1470 located at 13 Elm Street Sanford. Meetings start at 1:30 (13:30) If you would like further information on joining our chapter please me your mailing address at president@vva1044maine.org I will send the information to you. 10

11 February 2015 S M T W T F S February 08 February 2015 Chapter Meeting 11

12 March 2015 S M T W T F S March 01 March 2015 Chapter Meeting 29 March 2015 Vietnam Veteran Welcome Home 12

13 Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 1044 and the Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 1044 invites you to our 4 th annual Welcome Home Open House featuring a special viewing of The Story of the Vietnam Veterans Viewing of documentary will start at 1:00 p.m. When: Sunday March 29, 2015 Time: Where: Refreshments will be available as well as veterans benefits information PUBLIC INVITED For more information contact Joe Armstrong Jim Davis Memorial The Last Landing Zone 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm Nasson Community Center 145 North Street Sanford, Maine 13