UPDATE: VA stiffs Normandy survivor ...for 60 years
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
09/24/09 4:40 PM EDT
A World War II Navy veteran who was severely wounded on the second day of the Normandy Invasion is still trying to get the Department of Veterans Affairs to pay him his disability benefits – 60 years later!
John Burres, who lives in Moro, Oregon, was knocked unconscious on April 27, 1944 when his minesweeper was hit by enemy fire and he was blown 100 feet into the air. He landed on top of a gun mount and suffered a serious head wound that left a still-visible hole in his skull. Two friends kept the unconscious sailor from drowning as their minesweeper sunk. His son, Jim Burres, joined his 88-year-old father’s fight with the VA 12 years ago after “clear and unmistakable errors” were found in his case file.
Jim Burres told The Examiner that when his dad was discharged in 1945, his 23-page medical record included a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), even though the military supposedly didn’t discover the psychiatric condition until 1980. But the record made no mention of the Purple Heart the elder Burres had been awarded, allowing the Navy to discharge him on psychiatric grounds “so they wouldn’t have to pay him benefits.”
After 12 years, Jim Burres finally got his dad reinstated at a 50 percent disability level - which increased his monthly check from $104 to $2,700 – but only after spending two years researching veterans’ law and asking the incompetent Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs to stop representing his father. Burres says the VA still owes his dad about $350,000 – and he has an appeal pending with the Board of Veterans Appeals six decades after his service injury.
“The VA throws out bones all the time, but many veterans’ families are destitute,” he says. “It’s heart-breaking.”
It’s more than heart-breaking, it’s unconscionable. With all the billions of dollars this nation spends on foreign aid, corporate bailouts, and political pork, it’s beyond belief that we have allowed our wounded warriors to be kicked to the curb like this. But unless there’s a very big shake-up in Washington, this is the cruel fate now awaiting members of the military lucky enough to return from Iraq and Afghanistan alive.
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