Veterans

That’s why groups including Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion came to Shinseki’s defense after Klein’s call to resign. That’s why Joseph Violante, legislative director of Disabled American Veterans, told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the VA is moving “down the right path” with many of its reform plans even while “processing over a million claims annually, which in my mind is something phenomenal.”

Violante described VA leadership as the most open he has seen in almost 30 years working veterans issues in Washington D.C. He had particular praise for Allison A. Hickey, under secretary for benefits.

At the same hearing, Bart Stichman, executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, praised Shinseki. The organization successfully sued the VA, initially more than 20 years ago, to compensate Vietnam veterans for diseases presumed caused by wartime exposure to herbicides including Agent Orange. Stichman said Shinseki showed courage when, facing a rising claims backlog in 2009, he added three new diseases to the VA’s list of diseases compensable for Vietnam veterans because of Agent Orange.

This required the VA to re-adjudicate 150,000 claims previously denied and to process more than 100,000 fresh claims from Vietnam veterans, including for most anyone with heart disease who ever served in Vietnam.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/04/06/2545670/veterans-groups-divided-over-claims.html#storylink=cpy