Veterans underreport disability claims

Several points need to be raised in response to the Herald's May 2 news story "Fraud taints vets programs."

1. The few frauds often get mentioned, but there is rarely mention of the number of veterans who do not make disability claims. Based on the statistics in the article, and the number of veterans known to have served in combat zones, we can conclude the number of veterans with war related psychological problems not making disability claims is in the hundreds of thousands.

2. It used to be that the VA provided treatment to veterans who needed care, but did not make formal disability claims.

Now, with the VA charging for services, even for combat related problems, often veterans have to make a claim to get care, so, of course there are more claims.

3. Remember, the overwhelming majority of combat veterans making claims are doing so about events that may include the terror of battle or witnessing the horrible deaths of people, some of whom were close comrades. Until the last few years claims evaluators often required proof of incidents to which there were no surviving witnesses, and even after the mental health field started accepting the existence of post-traumatic stress disorder (in the early 1980s) some evaluators would claim combat related stress reactions were due to pre-existing problems. If the review process has become less adversarial, is that unreasonable?

4. When veterans do not make disability claims for legitimate injuries, physical and psychological, it is easy for society to hide the true and full cost of war, and make the best decisions about engaging in what General Sherman called "Hell."

All this does not mean that claims should not be investigated, they should be, but it can be the sensitive process veterans deserve.

Howard Lipke

Wheeling