My Disagreement Letter to Depart of Veterans Affairs

Some time ago, I solicited from the Department of Veterans Affairs disability income for which I had honestly believed that I had earned but like many veterans who has to endure the decision of those who may have never served a day or only have this position of authority because they knew someone or their parents knew someone, I got a letter that truly made me sick to my stomach.  Apparently there needs to be a large paper trail in order to get the benefits earned after service.  Now none of this is explained to you before you sign on the dotted line and just how many are they expecting to think that far ahead when signing up for military service.  For many of us, the thought of not returning home is the primary concern not that after we do our time we have cataloged the necessary documents to get awarded our benefits.  And it surprises so many that veteran suicides are so high and tempers are so short.  Imagine being told that all this awaits you after your service and if you return from any kind or operation, exercise or conflict, being blessed to have survived and only having the benefits to hold on to as hope of ever fitting back into society.  Now your only ray of sunshine and your only grasp of normalcy is ripped away by some person sitting in some office somewhere, who knows nothing about you but have the power to judge you after only meeting you for less than ten minutes.  Would that not make you feel some type of way?  Image this is what all veterans, both recent and past, feel each and every time they have to subject themselves to the whims of these very same individuals, hell many of you who do not have a clue of what I speak get just as upset when your neighbor does not return the tools that they borrowed.

I was leveled by the response I received from the Department of Veterans Affairs and below is my letter of disagreement;

November 22, 2013

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Chicago Regional Office

2122 West Taylor Street

Chicago, IL 60612

I am in receipt of your decision of 14 November 2013 in which you state in your introduction that I am a veteran of the Peacetime and Gulf War Era and while I appreciate the acknowledgement, you forgot to mention a few others such as Lebanon and Grenada, just to set the record straight.  Since you convinced yourselves based on evidence with which you have no connection, please allow me this little indiscretion to share with you a story.

Back in the late 1979, mid 1980s, I was approached by a Marine recruiter who said that if I joined the Marines they would not only allow me to visit faraway places but help me pay for college.  Now being from a family of 10 and poor, bells and whistles went off in my head and I knew that this was my shot to get out of a very small southern and often times quite hostile for a young man of my race.  I would finally be able to achieve that dream which had once seemed purely untouchable.  I took him up on that offer and have not looked back since, that was until I had re-enlisted and was transferred to Yuma, Arizona.  There I learned that the education plan of which I fell under had undergone some changes and now all who wished to participate would have to contribute.  While down at my administration center I was setting up an allotment to contribute to this education plan and right after I had made just two monthly payments to this plan, it was revealed to me that since I enlisted back when no contribution was necessary I had been “grandfathered” in.  I never thought anymore about it until I learned right after being discharged and trying to take advantage of it that some administration clerk did not check back far enough to learn the truth and marked “no contributions” when it came to educational assistance.  I was left out in the cold by the very service and country that I was willing to die for, sweated for and even shed a few drops of my blood for.  However this was not the only broken promise this country has made to me, I learned much later.

We were asked to play “peacekeepers” in foreign lands and if you ever ask a Marine to keep the peace it’s like asking a cat to swim.  We did it because it was our job even with our magazines sealed in their pouches, a seal running through the magazine well of our M-16 and M-16A1 rifles and the order not to fire back unless told to do so.  That caused the lives of close to 400 of my fellow Marines and military members.  We were trained to never show pain and to be the best fighting force in the world but asked to scale down our dominance for a more mild existence and it costs bodies parts all over the place and many fellow brothers not to ever return home.  None of this was ever documented because all I got when I was separating was a notation on the documents accompanying this letter which in the eyes of your examiner and you is not proof of anything.  There were so many instances that I choose not to recant for fear of releasing more sleepless nights and distance added between me and my family but believe me when I say, none of you have no idea what course my life took and is currently taking because of these things.

So now, according to you and your examiner, my nightmares are not real, my sleeplessness is not true.  My instant desire to anger is not a fact and my “survivor’s guilt” is a lie.  According to you, I did not display any signs of trauma which in a way is a good thing because it tells me that maybe the worst for me is over and I can finally beat this thing because God knows how hard I and other veterans like myself, have tried.  You see we had PTSD long before it had a name and was considered a disease.  We had it when people used to call it “shell-shocked” and was dramatized by television actors diving under something yelling “incoming” and many thought it was funny.  We had it when men was supposed to just “suck it up” and not appear weak by complaining or running to medical facilities for treatment.  So you see, in my era, there would be no record of diagnosis for that reason alone.  I know how I lived yesterday, today and tomorrow but when was it necessary to have to convince total strangers that what you tell them is not some fiction from some book or Hollywood movie.  If that is what it takes to collect just one of the promises made then may God bless you.  You see, I’ve been unemployed since 2009 and every job I have tried to get after that has resulted in being over-qualified or under qualified.  Those that I was under qualified for were those that I had spent 9 plus years performing in the United States Marines and those that I was over-qualified for were those entry level positions sought for no other reason than to provide for my family and retain my manhood.

Your decision at 10% does provide much more income than I have had in a while but it will never be enough to achieve those dreams that has now escaped me.  Now I am too seasoned, mature or plainly put old to hire.  I can’t go back to school because I still have an outstanding debt from a student loan that I received to get my Associates degree and I can’t get unemployment because I worked for myself since leaving the military.  All in all, I will survive because God will provide and even though I am still extremely upset with not only your decision but the cavalier way to which you reached it, I should not be surprised that promises made were reneged upon since that appears to be the history of this nation.  Does forty acres and a mule sound familiar to you?

Respectfully

Ron Manns