Moved by a huge tide of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress, Congress has pressured the Department of Veterans Affairs to settle their disability claims – quickly, humanely, and mostly in the vets’ favor.
Moved by a huge tide of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress, Congress has pressured the Department of Veterans Affairs to settle their disability claims – quickly, humanely, and mostly in the vets’ favor.
The problem: The system is dysfunctional, an open invitation to fraud. And the VA has proposed changes that could make deception even easier.
PTSD’s real but invisible scars can mark clerks and cooks just as easily as they can infantrymen fighting a faceless enemy in these wars without front lines. The VA is seeking to ease the burden of proof to ensure that their claims are processed swiftly.
But at the same time, some undeserving vets have learned how to game the system, profitably working the levers of sympathy for the wounded and obligation to the troops, and exploiting the sheer difficulty of nailing a surefire diagnosis of a condition that is notoriously hard to define.
"The threshold has been lowered. The question is how many people will take advantage of that," said Dr. Dan G. Blazer, a Duke University psychiatrist who has worked with the military on PTSD issues. PTSD, he adds, is "among the easiest (psychiatric) conditions to feign."
Mark Rogers, a longtime claims specialist with the Veterans Benefits Administration, agrees. "I could get 100 percent disability compensation for PTSD for any (honorably discharged) veteran who’s willing to lie," said Rogers, a Vietnam-era vet who is now retired. "I just tell him what to say and where to go."
Some claims are built on a foundation of fake documents; in other cases, the right medals – plus a gift for storytelling – secure unearned benefits. Consider:
-Gulf War veteran Felton Lamar Gray told a VA psychologist he was spattered with "blood and chunks of head" when his "best friend" was shot in the face in Iraq. But only after the VA rated Gray 100 percent disabled did anyone check into his stories – and discover the comrade he spoke of is very much alive and said he barely knew Gray.
-Thomas James Barnhart is a Coast Guard veteran who used forged documents to convince VA doctors he was an elite, much-decorated Navy SEAL. Barnhart’s tales of daring rescues and of cradling a dying helicopter pilot in his arms won a congressman to his cause and helped him get a 30 percent PTSD disability rating from the VA, before he was outed by a watchdog group.
-Vietnam-era veteran Keith Roberts of Gillett, Wis., said he was traumatized when he was prevented from rescuing a friend being crushed under a Navy airplane, and was eventually granted 100 percent disability. But when the case was reopened, investigators could find no evidence that Roberts was even present when the accident occurred.
Each of these cases represents potentially millions of dollars in tax-free benefits over the veteran’s lifetime – benefits that may continue while the veteran works and even into retirement.
"There’s pressure from the public to sympathize with veterans and treat them with respect," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig J. Jacobsen in Roanoke, Va., who prosecuted Barnhart and has handled other such "stolen valor" cases. "And you don’t want to go questioning their stories unless you have a very good reason to do so. … So I think it’s hard to sift out the phonies from that."
PTSD is an undeniably real sickness whose symptoms – flashbacks, vivid nightmares, intrusive thoughts, exaggerated startle response, emotional numbness – can be debilitating. As of Fiscal Year 2009, nearly 390,000 veterans were receiving benefits for PTSD, making it the fourth-most prevalent service-connected disability, according to the VA.
Authorities have tried to brace the public for a tidal wave of psychically damaged veterans from the current wars. Of the roughly 1.6 million troops who have served in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 134,000 had been seen at VA health care facilities for "potential PTSD" as of late last year, according to a government report. Researchers suggest the numbers of actual sufferers are much higher.
A much-cited telephone survey published in 2008 by the Rand Corp. suggested that 300,000 veterans of the current wars were suffering from PTSD or major depression. A more recent study by researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School and Stanford University estimates that the PTSD rate among Iraq War veterans will be about 35 percent.
In its latest budget request, the VA estimates it will receive more than 1.3 million disability claims in 2011 – a 30 percent increase over last year. New claims continue to pour in from veterans of Vietnam, Korea and even World War II.
Veterans groups have sued the VA, complaining that claims take months and even years to be approved, and that some veterans had committed suicide as a result.
Last year, U.S. Rep. John J. Hall, D-N.Y., introduced legislation to streamline the VA claims process, especially for veterans in traditionally noncombat roles. Arguing that the system failed to recognize the changing face of war, Hall said the claims process had become an obstacle to healing, "inflicting upon the most noble of our citizens a process that feels accusatory and doubtful of their service."
Copyright 2010 Associated Press.
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