Dear Sgt. Shaft:
As you know too well, veterans who are injured on active duty and then leave under honorable circumstances are eligible to have their military medical records evaluated by the Department of Veteran Affairs after they leave the military. Depending on the level of injury, a given veteran may receive a disability rating and monthly payment from the VA for such injury. If, however, the veteran retires from the military, that same VA payment which a non-retiree received is subtracted from the veteran's military retired pay. Military retirees make up only about 5 percent of the VA's disability workload. Congress, in the 1999 Defense Appropriations Bill, has started the process of reversing this injustice by giving back to military retirees with disability ratings of 70-100 percent a small portion of their pay, which most have been forfeiting for years. There is a catch -- the retiree's VA disability rating of 70-100 percent must have been awarded within four years of retirement. In my case, this took more than five years, in large part because of backload and incompetence in the VA. The VA regional office for the Washington metro area is last in the VA system, 58th out of 58 for claims processing. There is supposed to be an appeals system within the Office of Secretary of Defense to remedy such situations, but no one seems to know whom to contact. There are thousands of military retirees in this area who may be affected by such adverse actions by a non-responsive VA and DOD bureaucracy. Can you find out how this appeal process is supposed to work, and, if it is failing, can you put your formidable skills to work to fix it?

Frustrated in Virginia

Dear Frustrated:
Implementation of the "special compensation" is currently underway. Retirees who are eligible and who were retired within the past six years began receiving the "special compensation" this past March 1, retroactive to October 1, 1999. This represents those retirees who are easily identified in VA's electronic database. All other eligible retirees who must be identified from paper records were scheduled to start receiving their special compensation on April 1 and May 1, again retroactive to October 1, 1999. Also, the system is supposed to pick up individuals such as you whose claim took so long to adjudicate but whose effective date for compensation rated 70 percent or higher and was made within the four-year window.

The Sarge agrees with the Non-Commissioned Officers Association that "special compensation" in the Fiscal Year 2000 Defense Act is an interim first step. Very likely, additional interim steps will have to be taken before the ultimate goal -- that of full concurrent receipt -- is achieved. The Sarge urges all vets to rally around NCOA's commitment to eliminate the offset entirely. The Association will continue its efforts on concurrent receipt legislation in the House of Representatives (H.R. 303) as well as on an identical bill (S.2357) introduced into the Senate last month (April 5). The Association is now working to gain Senate co-support for the bill.

Dear Sgt. Shaft:
I'm asking for your support for my uncle, in the hospital recovering from a broken ankle and having difficulty with physical therapy. Here is his story.

During WWII my uncle was in the 101st Airborne. He went into France the night before D-Day in a glider and survived the landing. During a battle near Sainte-Mere-de-Eglise he was wounded and in the heat of battle was Left Behind--Left for Dead. Days later, when people came to remove the casualties from the battlefield, they found him still alive. Doctors performed surgery on the spot to remove shrapnel from the right side of his brain. When he came home he had a steel plate in his head, his speech was severely impaired, and the left side of his body had limited mobility. He still has shrapnel in his right arm; doctors were afraid to remove it because it might cause him to lose the use of his arm. To this day he still has the same speech and mobility problems.

If you listen to him carefully, he will tell you how proud he is of his service to his country. Never have I heard any self-pity from him. His younger sister, Di, has cared for him since he came home from the war. His family was told he would be lucky to live to age 30; today he is in his 70s. I am asking for cards to cheer him on and prayers that he will gather the same strength he had on the battlefield that allowed him to be Left Behind--Left for Dead. If my uncle doesn't improve, he will have to be put in a nursing home with rehabilitation services because Medicare won't pay for home rehabilitation. All he wants is to be home with his sister and live in dignity. And she is heartbroken he may not come home. After all these years I would hate to see him left behind again.

Dave Pellerin
Pittsfield, MA

Dear Dave:
Thank you for your moving letter about your uncle. Readers, please drop "get well" wishes to Raymond Pellerin, Berkshire Medical Center, 725 North Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201. And thanks, Raymond, for your service to your country.

Shaft Shot
A Shaft shot at the national media for not covering the memorial services of the 19 Marines killed April 8 when their MV-22 Osprey aircraft crashed at an airport in Marana, Arizona. These young leathernecks' untimely supreme sacrifice deserved national TV and radio network recognition, so our citizens could have shared in the grief of the entire Marine Corps family. This is one Marine who will have these 19 young Marines in his mind and heart this coming Memorial Day.