Two dozen veterans and military dependents recently attended a seminar on filing claims for illnesses linked to water contamination at Camp Lejeune.
Tony Musolino, a senior service officer of Vietnam Veterans of America, presented a brief in Jacksonville Saturday about the Veterans Affairs process for victims of the historic water contamination at the base spanning from 1957 to 1987. It is estimated that more than one million people were impacted with a range of diseases, such as cancer, infertility, and Parkinson’s disease.
The meeting focused on the differences between filing a claim as an active duty service member or as a military dependent. He says the purpose of these seminars are to help people understand the most effective way to complete these forms to avoid delays in approval.
“They don’t fill the form out right. They don’t get the right information. You see, in this dependent form – as an example – it asks for the DD-214 four times, so you have to attach it four times. That’s the rule,” he said.
If a claim excludes all four copies of the DD-214, it will be rejected. It is one of several reasons Musolino recommends working with a veterans service organization (VSO) on the claims process.
“A VSO knows more about it than you do because you’re looking at it as ‘me personally.’ I’m looking at it like you, me, and the law,” Musolino said.
When Musolino asked if anyone in the room had been affected by the contamination, nearly everyone raised a hand. They shared personal stories of losing loved ones to leukemia, miscarriage, and other diseases. Attendee Donna Marie Crowell says her daughter died an hour and a half after delivery in 1975, after her husband returned from Vietnam, when they were living in a home directly across from base housing.
“Well, she was a full-term baby. She was born with one quarter of one lung,” Crowell said.
She has filed repeated claims receiving no answers regarding potential links between where she lived and her family’s loss, leaving her frustrated.
“We’ve just been denied, denied, denied,” she said.
Congressman Walter Jones sent representatives to the meeting – including Mike Anglen, senior military and veterans advisor. He says his attendance is part of broader outreach efforts in military communities.
“We just have a huge population of veterans, active duty, retired, and then a lot of the families stick around afterwards. So, anything that we can do to just try and get out with the community,” he said.
Anglen, who served eight years in the Marine Corps, told The Daily News that he receives at least a dozen inquiries weekly concerning the historic water contamination. For those having issues with the filing process, he recommends a few options.
“The first thing they need to do is contact the Veterans Service Officer – whether it’s the county or through one of these organizations, and then from there, if they run into resistance or occasionally things get lost or filed incorrectly, they can always contact us and we’ll do a Congressional inquiry of where it’s at, who’s working on it,” Anglen said.
For information on filing VA claims, contact a local DAV Service Officer at 910-455-3400 or http://davnc16.com.
To connect with Congressman Jones’ office on any topic related to military or veterans, Mike Anglen can be reached at Mike.Anglen@mail.house.gov or 252-931-1003.
http://www.jdnews.com/news/20171204/meeting-addresses-va-claims-process-for-lejeune-contamination-victims
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