Blue Water Navy Veterans Urged to File Claims Now
The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act was signed into law in June 2019, by President Donald Trump. The act restores and expands veterans disability benefits to those potentially exposed to Agent Orange, while serving on open-sea ships off the coast of Vietnam during the war. Vietnam War blue water sailors had their disability eligibility denied by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2002. These same veterans may now be eligible for retroactive benefits.
The law went into effect in January 2020 and requires the VA to contact veterans who initially filed a disability claim that was subsequently denied.
In addition, the VA can no longer deny disability benefits to eligible blue water Navy veterans. However, in order to qualify for Agent Orange-related benefits, a veteran must have one or more of the medical conditions that the VA presumes to have been caused by exposure. The 14 presumptive conditions are:
- AL Amyloidosis
- Chloracne
- Diabetes Mellitus Type
- Hodgkin’s Disease
- Ischemic Heart Disease
- Chronic B-cell Leukemia
- Multiple Myeloma
- Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Early onset Peripheral Neuropathy
- Porphyria Cutanea Tarda
- Prostate Cancer
- Respiratory Cancers
- Soft Tissue Sarcomas
The Injured Veterans legal team urges eligible blue water Navy veterans and their survivors who believe they may be due benefits to contact a veterans benefits advocate at Injured Veterans and file a claim as soon as possible, even if they’ve been denied a claim for Agent Orange exposure in the past.
The VA is supposed to prioritize cases based upon veterans who are either at least 85 years old or those with more severe, life-threatening ailments. The most important thing to remember is that the sooner veterans submit their disability claims for benefits, the sooner they or their families can begin receiving the medical care and compensation they earned during their wartime service.
The Injured Veterans legal team at Gordon & Partners is here for military veterans and their families. Please contact us immediately, if you are having difficulty with your claim or you are not receiving the disability benefits to which you are entitled. Call us at 1-888-231-9144 or fill out the form on this website.
Read the full story here: https://www.dav.org/learn-more/news/2019/submit-blue-water-claims-now/
