Call of Duty: veteran benefits denied

It discouraging to say the least that after serving my country I was honorably discharged in 1993 but when it came to applying for my GI Bill benefits, I was denied time and time again.  At no time was I given the details of it had to be used prior to 10 years after discharge, I had applied prior to the 10 years elapsing at Antelope Valley College in 1998 but due to some clerical error they could not find my information in their so called data base.  I have sent out letters to the VA and never received any response and at the time I was living in LA county and had my local Congressman's office even attempt to get it rectified but they kept stating I did not exist.   I had my service record (DD214) in hand and all forms were copied in my congressman's office and all items were then sent via Fed-Ex to the VA.  Now since I have moved to Bakersfield 10 years ago, I did not give up and kept applying for my GI Bill benefits.  I received a letter from the VA last year stating that I no longer qualified for the GI Bill since it has been over 10 years and that I may file an appeal.  I have filed 18 appeals to this date and still have not received any word back from the VA about this.  Since I have exhausted all options in trying to further my education and hearing from other Veterans having issues, I just came to the conclusion that our government does not care...........

Do not give up....I say again, do not give up.  It took me five years of battling the VBA, including five denial letters.  I appealed and received low-balled grants of 0%, 10%, 30%, 70%.  In the final stage, I requested a DRO hearing, along with paying $2,000 for an Independent Medical Opinion, by a doctor who was also a disabled veteran.  I finally was awarded  my earned 100% Permanent and Total Disability, along with Special Monthly Compensation.  I fought for our country, in the military for 21 years.  Be prepared to fight our country, in the form of the VBA again!  

To my fellow veteran in the Northern part of Calif., please continue to fight, and demand a better service from the Dept. of Veterans Affairs. Do not get disgusted and frustrated from all the fancy rhetorics they are doling out to cover their tract, and pacify us publicly.  The real truth of the matter is ,if all their claims are process correctly the first time there will be no appeals pending and no big awards in compensation after several years of waiting. If they process claims correctly the first time, there will be an  automatic 50% reduction in backlog of cases. There are so many incompetent raters and attitudes of interpreting the rules of Title 38 subject to their own desire at the time of processing. Raters and managers where this errors took place should be accountable for all this errors committed. For demonstration purposes, I would like to offer my case to all our benevolent Congressman and Senators so they can all see this obvious errors committed by our great Veterans Administration for benefits. One simple example is my COLA for 2012 which had already been approve and yet I am still being paid under the same old rate.  Other simple error are my award for Special Monthly compensation under letter K for lost of functions of both buttocks. This was approve last June 10, 2011 with an effective date of Oct. 2009 but up to this time there are no payments made. Earlier while waiting for a decision to correct their errors, I decided to file for a Petition for Writ of Mandamus after waiting for 16 months. To comply with my petition and address the court on time, they did not address their errors and concentrated only on my request for a higher level of Aid and Attendance benefits. Even in their statement of case they did admitted that a higher level of Aid and Attendance benefits should be granted on account of the lost of functions of both feet. If they are admitting this, why don't they correct their error instead of advising me to file for an appeal with the Veterans Board of Appeal. The errors they had committed are so glaring and obvious that if Congressman Filner of San Diego (Now Mayor of San Diego City) can see this , it will make him throw up. To all my fellow veterans , let us unite and ask our President for drastic action to solve this problem. We had been previously called and we serve, and now it is time for us to call on our  countryman and politicians to grants us  justice after so many years of endurance.