Vietnam Veteran Saved By EMS and Good Samaritan

Vietnam veteran survives stroke thanks to quick EMS response, mysterious Good Samaritan
FOX 5 DC
By: Anjali Hemphill
July 1, 2016

Frankino said this was his third time in his life he has come close to death. A few years ago, he survived cancer. And back in 1967 during the Vietnam War, he was aboard the USS Forrestal. He was part of the crew that helped put out a huge fire on that ship that killed 143 men.

WASHINGTON - A Vietnam veteran visiting Washington D.C. for the Fourth of July came face-to-face with death after having a stroke. His family said if it wasn't for some amazing doctors, the EMS team and a complete stranger, he may not have survived.

Joe Frankino is recovering at George Washington University Hospital surrounded by several family members.
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Burn Pits Killing OEF and OIF Veterans

Iraq, Afghan vets may have their own Agent Orange
Star Tribune
Mark Brunswick
June 18, 2016

“It makes me really mad,” said Muller, who monitored and edited video feeds from Air Force fighter jet missions while in Iraq. “I inhaled that stuff. It was all day, all night. Everything that they burned there, is illegal to burn in America. That tells you something.”

ELIZABETH FLORES – STAR TRIBUNE

Amie Muller received a chemotherapy treatment at Mayo Clinic, Thursday, June 16, 2016.

While it took nearly three decades for the U.S. government to eventually link Agent Orange, the defoliant used in Vietnam, to cancer, President Obama has pledged quick action to make determinations about the effect of the burn pits on perhaps as many as 60,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

ROCHESTER – They are known as the Agent Orange of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: Massive open-air burn pits at U.S. military bases that billowed the toxic smoke and ash of everything from Styrofoam, metals and plastics to electrical equipment and even human body parts.

The flames were stoked with jet fuel.

One of the most notorious was in Balad, site of the largest and busiest air base operated by the military in Iraq. More than 10 acres in size, the pit burned at all hours and consumed an estimated 100 to 200 tons of waste a day. It was hastily constructed upwind from the base, and its plumes consistently drifted toward the 25,000 troops stationed there.

During two deployments to Balad with the Minnesota Air National Guard, Amie Muller worked and lived next to the pits. And now, she believes, she is paying the price.

Diagnosed last month with Stage III pancreatic cancer, the 36-year-old mother of three from Woodbury has just completed her third round of ­chemotherapy at the Mayo Clinic here. As she undergoes treatment, she struggles with anger and awaits a VA determination on whether a host of ailments from migraines to fibromyalgia is connected to her military service at Balad.
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Virginia Pilot 'Help Us Investigate the Impact of Agent Orange'

Reliving Agent Orange: What the children of Vietnam vets have to say
The Virginian-Pilot
by Terry Parris Jr. and Charles Ornstein, ProPublica, and Mike Hixenbaugh
June 17, 2016

The children of Vietnam vets describe how they believe their fathers’ exposure to Agent Orange during the war has impacted their families and their health.

For the past year, ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot have examined how Agent Orange has impacted the health of Vietnam vets. We’ve written about Blue Water Navy veterans who are currently ineligible for benefits, as well as vets with bladder cancer and their struggle for compensation.

Help Us Investigate the Impact of Agent Orange

We’ve also asked vets and their family members to tell us how their lives have been affected by exposure to the toxic herbicide, receiving more than 5,000 responses.

ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot are looking into the multigenerational effects of Agent Orange. Please fill out the corresponding questionnaire if you are:
A veteran
Child of a veteran
Family member of a veteran
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Linked from Stars and Stripes

This is something we worry about all the time.  We keep worrying about every time he goes to the VA for tests. In 1993 my husband was entered into the registry because there was spraying when he was in Vietnam and where he was. The doctor said the words, "No adverse health effects yet." In other words, we knew there will be.

There are obvious risks to those who go into combat. Bullets and bombs are always on the minds of soldiers. What is not on their minds is that the government would risk their lives with what they do.

Agent Orange was supposed to save lives by getting rid of places for the enemy to hide.  It turned out that was what caused a lot more deaths, not just for those who survived Vietnam, but for their families as well.

News Investigation Gets Justice for Camp Lejeune Marine

TV news investigation prompts action on Camp Lejeune poison water VA claim
WJHL News
By Mark Douglas
Published: June 2, 2016

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Bob Miranda-Boulay says he suffers from 16 medical conditions brought about by toxic water he drank at Camp Lejeune while training as a recruit in the Marine reserves 21 years ago.

Now, after three years of waiting and medical claim denials by the VA Boulay has a glimmer of hope, thanks to an 8 on Your Side investigation that caught the attention of VA claims managers in Louisville, Kentucky. They arranged for a Skype hearing at the VA Service Center at Bay Pines Friday. “If it wasn’t for you doing the story I wouldn’t be here today,” said Boulay after the hearing.

Boulay’s attorneys say out of the blue they received a call from a VA hearing officer about a week after we reported on Boulay’s inability to get assistance from the VA. The story had been re-broadcast by other Media General TV stations and was linked on a number of websites catering to veterans.
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Camp Lejeune Marine Reservist "I Don't Count"

‘I don’t count’ – Camp Lejeune Marine reservist suffering after exposure to tainted water
News Channel 8
Investigative Reporter Mark Douglas
Published: May 9, 2016

Boulay wore the same uniform, crawled through the same mud and drank the same tainted water at Camp Lejeune as regular Marines, but doesn’t qualify for any benefits under the Camp Lejeune Family Act of 2012 because he was a Marine Reservist who was never called up for active duty.

“I don’t count,” Boulay said.

(WFLA) – Like thousands of other former Marines who served at Camp Lejeune Bob Miranda-Boulay suffers a long list of serious and life-threatening illnesses that he attributes to the toxic water that tainted wells at that training base in North Carolina over a period of 34 years.
“This was the Marine Corps that did this to us,” Boulay said.

Boulay insists he enlisted out of patriotism, but now feels betrayed by the Corps.

“I wanted to make a difference,” Bouley said. “I love my country and I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to be a Marine.”

Boulay says he was an amateur boxer in perfect health prior to his two months of infantry training at Camp Lejeune. About 30 years later he now suffers from liver and kidney disease and has survived a brain tumor. He takes a dozen medications to make it through the day and activated a pacemaker at bedtime to keep from dying in his sleep.

For years Boulay’s various maladies puzzled doctors who at one point chalked up his troubles to Lyme Disease. Now, Boulay’s doctor attributes his medical ills to the chemical-laced drinking water he consumed during training at Lejeune.

“Eventually like my doctor says I’m going lose the battle,” Boulay said. I’m only going hold it off so long.”

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Time For VA to Honor Camp Lejeune Contamination Victims

Veterans groups sue VA for identities of Camp Lejeune water 'experts'
Military Times
Patricia Kime
April 27, 2016

Nearly a million people, including troops, family members and civilian employees, may have been exposed to volatile organic compounds and other chemicals such as benzene and vinyl chloride in the drinking water at the coastal Marine Corps base, from 1953 until at least 1987, when the water treatment facilities supplying the contaminated water were closed.

Two veterans groups are suing the VA in the case of illnesses caused by exposure to contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

The organizations — The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten and Vietnam Veterans of America — filed suit Tuesday for documents related to disability claims and the Veterans Affairs Department's use of subject-matter experts to weigh in on them. The water was tainted by organic solvents and other cancer-causing chemicals from 1953 through 1987.
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Veteran "Webbie" Needs Lung Transplant, VA Said "No" Medicaid Said "Yes"

Family of veteran struggles to get him transplant
Veteran awarded with purple heart in desperate need of lung transplant
Rochester First
By Solina Lewi
s Published 04/27 2016

"I would have expected a lot more for a soldier who was injured numerous times, I mean he was blown-up, awarded a purple heart and still would have went back," said Rachel.

Jonathan Webster, also known as "Webbie" by his military buddies, has been in a a medically-induced coma after a rare reaction to chemotherapy caused both of his lungs to collapse.

"Just so happens he got the raw end of the deal, he got cancer-free but there were repercussions from that," said his sister, Rachel Hafner.
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Vietnam Veterans Fighting Agent Orange and Bladder Cancer Plus VA Over Claims

Armed with new research, Vietnam vets push VA to link bladder cancer to Agent Orange 
By Mike Hixenbaugh, The Virginian-Pilot
and Charles Ornstein and Terry Parris Jr., ProPublica
April 27, 2016

Eller is one of about 5,000 veterans and family members who’ve shared their Agent Orange exposure stories with ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot over the past several months. More than 125 of them said they’ve been diagnosed with bladder cancer. Hundreds more reported having one or more of the other conditions being reviewed by the VA.

Alan Eller has spent more than a decade trying to convince the Department of Veterans Affairs that his bladder cancer was the result of exposure to Agent Orange almost 50 years ago in Vietnam.

The Army vet has filed three claims with the agency, most recently in 2014, since a doctor told him the cancer was likely tied to the toxic herbicide.

Each time, even as he found additional doctors to vouch for the link between his cancer and his service, the VA rejected Eller’s claim, arguing there was no proof.

But a report last month by a prominent committee of scientists said there’s now research suggesting otherwise. As a result, the VA is studying whether it should reverse its position and add the condition to the list of illnesses it presumes to be linked to Agent Orange, which the U.S. sprayed across Vietnam during the war.
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Combat Did Not Kill Iraq Veteran But Burn Pits May

Cancer forces veteran to fight for his life
Daily Times
Hannah Grover
April 16, 2016

Retired New Mexico National Guard Master Sgt. David Montoya hopes a clinical trial in Texas can help save his life

"I knew it was the burn pits," he said. Montoya is among dozens of veterans throughout the country who have sued Halliburton and KBR Inc., companies that were contracted by the military to dispose of waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.

FARMINGTON — After two combat tours in Iraq, a local veteran is now fighting a battle against cancer.

David Montoya, a retired master sergeant with the New Mexico Army National Guard, is battling lung cancer. He talks about the experience on Thursday at the home of his girlfriend, Summer Martinez. (Photo: Steve Lewis/The Daily Times)

And his friends and family are trying to raise the money necessary to help David Montoya, a retired master sergeant with the New Mexico National Guard, receive treatment in Houston.

Montoya, 44, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2012 while serving at the National Guard Armory in Farmington.

"It happened so fast I had to have emergency surgery," Montoya recalled last week.

He said the tumor in his colon nearly caused the organ to burst. At the time, his prognosis was good. Doctors removed the tumor, and chemotherapy destroyed cancerous cells in his lymph nodes.

But at a cancer screening in February 2014, Montoya learned that the cancer was back, and, this time, it was in his lungs.
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Iraq Veteran Died After Burn Pit Exposure Before Justice Was Granted

Soldier who fought VA, blamed cancer on Iraq 'burn pits,' dies
FOX News
By Perry Chiaramonte
Published April 04, 2016

Ashely and John Marshall met while serving in the Army. John died last week, leaving behind his wife and two young children.

A decorated Army veteran who battled the VA over treatment for cancer he claimed to have gotten from working over burn pits in Iraq has died, his family said Monday.

Former Army Sgt. John Marshall, who went to his grave believing his cancer was caused by standing over burn pits where the military disposed of everything from disabled IEDs to lithium batteries, died at his home in Surprise, Ariz., March 29. He was 31, and left behind a wife and two young children.

"John was the type of guy who touched people even if he didn't know them that long," said Marshall's wife and fellow veteran, Ashley. "The amount of people that have come from all over to offer condolences has been amazing and overwhelming. I knew John was a great person, but it shouldn't have amazed me as it did that so many other people thought so, too."
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Here's the link to rules for a case like this. His claim does not have to die and they can fight to finally have his service honored.

Federal Benefits for Veterans, Dependents and Survivors
Chapter 13 Dependents and Survivors Benefits

And this as well
Compensation for Dependents

Evidence Required
Listed below are the evidence requirements for this benefit:
The Servicemember died while on active duty, active duty for training, or inactive duty training, OR
The Veteran died from an injury or disease deemed to be related to military service, OR
The Veteran died from a non service-related injury or disease, but was receiving, OR was entitled to receive, VA Compensation for service-connected disability that was rated as totally disabling
For at least 10 years immediately before death, OR
Since the Veteran's release from active duty and for at least five years immediately preceding death, OR For at least one year before death if the Veteran was a former prisoner of war who died after September 30, 1999

Marine Son Pretending To Be Doctor Shocks Mom During Chemo

Marine Surprises Mom During Chemotherapy by Posing as a Doctor: 'I Haven't Seen You for Almost Two Years!'
PEOPLE
Lindsay Kimble
April 1, 2016

While facing her first round of chemotherapy treatment after her breast cancer diagnosis, Mary Glasure was understandably nervous. The 59-year-old woman's family helped ease her fears, however, with an incredible surprise.

In an emotional video, Mary is seen meeting with doctors at the Tony Teramana Cancer Center in Steubenville, Ohio, when she encounters a very rude "doctor."

"I have a lunch appointment I need to get to so let's hurry up," the faux-physician in blue scrubs demands of Mary, which elicits a surprised response.

When Mary turns around to face the now-unmasked man, however, she quickly realizes it is actually her son, Corey Hoffmaster, a U.S. Marine.
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VA Taking Another Look at Agent Orange Casualties

VA might add more 'presumptive' illnesses for Vietnam veterans
Stars and Stripes
By Tom Philpott
Special to Stars and Stripes
Published: March 17, 2016

The IOM concludes that the research supports changing the strength of association to herbicide exposure for several ailments. For bladder cancer and hypothyroidism, it found “limited or suggestive” evidence of an association, an upgrade from previous “inadequate or insufficient” evidence.

By August this year many more thousands of Vietnam War veterans, those suffering from bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, Parkinson’s-like symptoms and even high blood pressure, could learn they will be eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs health benefits and disability compensation. Or perhaps not.

Difficult months of study lie ahead for a working group of senior scientists and health experts that VA Secretary Bob McDonald convened last week, following release of a 10th and final biennial review of evidence of health problems linked to Agent Orange and other herbicide exposures.

Every review in the series, going back two decades, has been conducted, as Congress mandated, by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a division of the National Academies of Sciences. Its latest review, Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2014, takes into account medical and scientific literature published from Oct. 1, 2012, through Sept. 30, 2014.

For only the second time, the IOM withdrew an earlier finding of that herbicide exposure may have caused an ailment, in this case spina bifida in children born to Vietnam veterans. For 20 years VA has used a preliminary finding of an association to grant children benefits. The IOM says it no longer believes the evidence merits retaining spina bifida in that category.
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Iraq Veteran Warns Others About Lung Cancer After Burn Pits

Iraq war veteran warns other vets to get their lungs checked
FOX2 News St. Louis
BY PAUL SCHANKMAN
MARCH 16, 2016

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO (KTVI) - An Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran from South St. Louis County is warning fellow veterans to have their lungs checked by a doctor.

His name is Tim Smith. He`s 37-years-old, and even though he says he has never been a smoker, doctors recently discovered he has lung cancer.

Now he's wondering if it might have been caused by a different kind of smoke.

'We`d see black smoke all the time, we`d see some weird colored smoke clouds up in the air that would turn different colors at times. We really didn`t know what it was,' said Smith.

He owns Patriot Contract Commercial Cleaning, which hires veterans to tidy up offices and schools.

But he says when he served in Iraq, there was no one hauling off trash.
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More Agent Orange Research Needed on Vietnam Veterans Kids

Researchers call for more study of Agent Orange's effects on Vietnam veterans and their kids
The Virginian-Pilot
By Mike Hixenbaugh
and Charles Ornstein, ProPublica
March 10, 2016

”Although progress has been made in understanding the health effects of exposure to the chemicals,” the committee members wrote near the end of the 1,115-page report, there are still “significant gaps in our knowledge.”

More than two decades of studying Agent Orange exposure hasn’t produced a solid understanding of how the toxic herbicide has harmed Vietnam War veterans and possibly their children, according to a report released Thursday.

Additional research is long overdue, the report said, but the federal government hasn’t done it.

Those are among the conclusions of a committee of researchers that, since 1991, has been charged by Congress with reviewing all available research into the effects of Agent Orange, which the U.S. military sprayed by the millions of gallons in Vietnam to kill forests and destroy enemy cover.

Over the years, the biennial reports produced by the committee have identified numerous illnesses linked to the herbicide, in some cases leading the Department of Veterans Affairs to extend disability compensation to thousands more veterans.

The committee members’ parting thoughts about the lack of necessary research offered a wake-up call to a federal bureaucracy and researchers who have largely moved on from studying the health consequences of a war that ended 40 years ago.
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Navy Veterans Want Navy to Fight For Them After Agent Orange Struck

Sick Navy vets hunt for decades-old records to prove they should get Agent Orange benefits 
The Virginian-Pilot
By Mike Hixenbaugh
Charles Ornstein
Terry Parris Jr.
ProPublica
1 hr ago

“It's hell,” said Ed Marciniak, of Pensacola, Fla., who served aboard the Norfolk-based USS Jamestown during the war. “The Navy should be going to the VA and telling them, ‘This is how people got aboard the ship, this is where they got off, this is how they operated.’ Instead, they put that burden on old, sick, dying veterans, or worse – their widows.”

During the Vietnam War, hundreds of U.S. Navy ships crossed into Vietnam's rivers or sent crew members ashore, possibly exposing their sailors to the toxic herbicide Agent Orange. But more than 40 years after the war’s end, the U.S. government doesn't have a full accounting of which ships traveled where, adding hurdles and delays for sick Navy veterans seeking compensation.

The Navy could find out where each of its ships operated during the war, but it hasn’t. The U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs says it won’t either, instead choosing to research ship locations on a case-by-case basis, an extra step that veterans say can add months – even years – to an already cumbersome claims process. Bills that would have forced the Navy to create a comprehensive list have failed in Congress.

Some 2.6 million Vietnam veterans are thought to have been exposed to – and possibly harmed by – Agent Orange, which the U.S. military used to defoliate dense forests, making it easier to spot enemy troops. But vets are only eligible for VA compensation if they went on land – earning a status called “boots on the ground” – or if their ships entered Vietnam’s rivers, however briefly.
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Veteran Poisoned by Agent Orange Finally Gets VA Disability

Veteran wins benefits after FOX 2 Agent Orange report
FOX 2 Now
BY CHRIS HAYES
FEBRUARY 29, 2016

Casto emailed us this morning, after our follow up interview, with even better news. He titled the e-mail "we won!" and went on to explain that the VA awarded him a 70% overall disability rating. He said after seven years of dealing with the VA on this, he believes he's now won the battle.

(KTVI) - A military veteran suspected to have been exposed to Agent Orange feared the VA would deny him benefits, waiting for him to die. Now a huge change since our story after an unexpected government response.

One week after our FOX Files investigation about vets denied benefits for exposure to Agent Orange, Bill Casto received a 27 page letter with a surprising acknowledgement.

Casto read from the letter, “It says ‘VA memorandum, herbicide exposure conceded dated February 5 2016.’ After all these years since 2009, when I originally filed my claim they`re admitting now that I was exposed to herbicide.”

He got the letter February 5th, one week after our report when Casto told us, “Deny, deny, deny until you die is what we say.”

67-years old and hooked to oxygen, he suspected the VA may be waiting him out.

Casto said, “There`s thousands of us in the same boat, thousands of us.”
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Five Veterans Among Those Who Died Waiting for VA

5 Veterans Who Died While Waiting for a Doctor’s Appointment with the VA

BY PARKER LEE (20 HOURS AGO) | MILITARY, NATION

Jeremy Sears

Image Credit: Screenshot/YouTube

After 5 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Marine Sgt. Jeremy Sears returned home with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

After doctors informed him of his condition, he waited from October 2012 to February 2014 for the VA to approve his disability claims — only to learn after 16 months that his claim had been denied.

Having never received a followup plan on how to manage his conditions, Sears would take his own life at a California gun range only a few months later.

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Terminal Burn Pit-Iraq Veteran Claim Denied by VA?

Report: VA Abandoned Terminally Ill Army Combat Veteran
Free Beacon 
BY: Morgan Chalfant 
February 24, 2016

Marshall missed mandatory meetings with the VA last year during which he would have had the opportunity to offer evidence connecting his cancer to his service in Iraq because he was hospitalized with pneumonia. While Marshall said he could still present such evidence, the VA will not listen to him.

A decorated Army combat veteran says that the Department of Veterans Affairs abandoned him in his fight against terminal cancer following his service in Iraq.

Pvt. John Marshall told Fox News that the VA has denied his claims that his service in Iraq, particularly his close proximity to burn pits, precipitated his cancer.

“It’s all just a big slap in the face. I tried to be the perfect soldier,” Marshall said. “I did everything I was told, and now they just forced my claim through and denied coverage and my benefits.”

Marshall, who now lives in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, was diagnosed with scar tissue sarcoma a little over a year ago. He attributes his illness to his time spent working over open burn pits, which a 2013 report from the Government Accountability Office designated as a likely cause of chronic health problems for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Beau Biden's Death May Save Lives After Burn Pit Exposures

Link Found Between Burn Pits and Cancers MSN

Joe Biden's eldest son Beau Biden returned home from his deployment to Iraq after serving two years in the U.S. military's occupation of the country. In a few months' time following his return, he began to experience an onset of illnesses, including a stroke that lead to brain cancer, which killed him in less than two years from that point. Beau Biden's case is not unlike many other veterans who have served overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a recent study has linked service in those countries to various cancers and bronchial illnesses. The common trait between the two is believed to lie within the open air burn pits, of which their are over 250 between the two countries, set up atop Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons program.

Florida Vietnam Veteran Still Looking For Answers

This is a confusing report to read. While it addresses some of the issues veterans should never, even have to face, like paying out of pocket for what should be done by the VA, it has the years leaving more questions. It says this Vietnam veteran received bad news from a VA doctor about cancer and advised to not wait to get treated for it. That was in 2008. Then it talks about canceled appointments in 2015 along with a drop in his disability.

Vietnam veteran: I want answers!
WFTV 9 News
by: Staff writer, Charlotte Sun
Feb 9, 2016

Bob Conetta loves America.

He would give anything to his country.

When he received his draft notice, he went into the U.S. Army and was sent to Vietnam, serving with the 1st Air Cavalry Division.

On July 20, 1968, outside Hue City, he gave his left leg, his right eye and most of his hearing when a mine was detonated near him.

This did not stop Conetta. He served as the financial secretary for the Utility Workers Union of America, Locals 1-2, in New York City. He was instrumental in creating Operation Family Reunion, a program that brings family members to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., to be with their loved one who has sustained serious wounds.

Despite his injuries, he moved forward with his life.

'Get the procedure done on my own’

After he retired and relocated to Punta Gorda, Conetta was diagnosed with prostate cancer -- one of the 15 presumptive conditions from Agent Orange.

On July 2, 2008, he had bloodwork.

On July 14, 2008, he had a biopsy.

On Aug. 26, 2008, he was scheduled for a bone scan -- six weeks after his biopsy that proved he had prostate cancer.

Conetta said the Department of Veterans Affairs doctor said he put him in for the bone scan but his cancer was aggressive, saying, "I implore you not to wait."
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