Lars S. was the quintessential Veteran of the Vietnam war conflict. He was a distinguished member of the long grey line. That’s a euphemism for a West Point graduate. He was in it for the long term as a profession. He was born at the right time (in his mind) to take advantage of the brewing conflict in SEA. He trained in Aviation and got his rating in rotary wing aircraft in 1966. Let me explain that. There are fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft. We in the Air Force looked at F-4s as normal fixed wing flying devices. Congress decided to let the Army partake of this in a slightly different mode. They let the groundpounders have choppers. Hueys and their cousins do not have wings. The rotor blades are the wing and double as the propulsion device. This is insane and very dangerous as we all know when they get shot up. The Army sees it differently.

Lars was an accomplished chopper pilot and for a year he flew a Huey gunship in I Corps. He came home as a lot of us did with a different perspective on how we treat our fellow man. In a word, he was traumatized. In 1982 the military invented the term PTSD to replace “battle fatigue”. Lars was one of the first recipients. He had also had a mishap when someone shot out his tail rotor with a B-40 near Monkey Mountain. When that happens the correct procedure is to allow the collective to float to neutral, fall out of the sky and just before splatting, engage the collective to slow the descent. This is called autorotation and feels like being in an elevator coming down from the 60^th floor at 140 knots. You usually bend the skids when you land if you do it correctly. Lars did it by the book and walked away from it with his door gunners and copilot in one piece. The Huey was totaled.

Fast forward to the nineties.  I met Lars in 1990 via the real estate and construction industry. His wife sold houses for us. Lars had problems with his back due to the Huey incident. He was a tough guy but the injury got progressively worse. VA wouldn’t give him SC for it as he didn’t claim it for another 20 years.  Worse, he didn’t appeal. He did get an increase to 50% for his PTSD issues over the years but the SC for the back injury eluded him. He would file again, lose and walk away. He did this no less than 4 times with no success. When DM2 became presumptive, he got 20% for that and finally reached 60%. He never filed for TDIU because he didn’t have the magic 70%.

When I began my new fight for Hep./PCT in 07, Lars and I regularly got together on Wednesdays for lunch to discuss how to win at this crazy game. In 08 he came down with prostate issues and later, pancreatic cancer. I planned to help him attain SC for these as well as his back problem. Before we could formulate a plan his health declined. He passed in 09 while I was in the Seattle VAMC letting the VA’s Doogie Howsers play with my insides. He never got P&T and his wife ended up with burial benefits and no DIC.

This was so avoidable- so unnecessary-in a word, tragic. He had all the ingredients to win but never marshaled his assets for a concerted attack. He used cardboard box filing cabinets from the liquor store- the kind with 12 cubbyholes. Every time he moved they got misplaced. Trying to assemble his claim was like one of those 20 year old 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzles that are in the kid’s closet.  I worked with him for almost a year before I went in for surgery in 4/09. My stay changed from the Gilligan Island three hour tour to a year and four surgeries. Lars was gone and there was nothing for it.

Which brings us to the point of all this. Lars was of the opinion that he could simply amass a number of 10%s and 20%s and finally get to the magic 100 and Nirvana. He was unaware of how VA adds up your disabilities. He had used numerous VSOs over the years in pursuit of all this and not one told him how it works. He was very opinionated and wouldn’t listen to me as I was a newbie. I learned by reading 38 CFR from cover to cover.  The long and the short of this is that you can’t get there from here. VA designed it that way. Platitudes aside, you will never get to 100% absent a 100% rating in one venue. You can get close, like 90% but you won’t get to 100% scheduler absent the physical rating. Notice the big leap on all ratings charts from 60-70% up to 100. I suppose you can, but allow me to illustrate what it would take.

When Lars passed he was rated 60%. This consisted of 50% for his PTSD, 20% for the DM2 and 10% for the tinnitus. He was in the pipeline for a rating on the prostate issue when he passed. His wife never pursued it and I was far too ill to volunteer by then.  According to the 38 CFR §4.25 ratings table, 50% + 20%= 60%. 60% + 10% =64%. 64% rounds down like the IRS leaving 60%.  See table below.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/38/4/25

Now, scroll down a little to 64 and digest this morsel.  Move sideways until you see the 96 on the far right which will round up to 100%. Now backtrack to the top and notice the 90 above that column. You will need a 90% rating on top of your 60% to attain your 100% scheduler. Even had Lars managed to survive his battle with the prosate/pancreas issues, he might only have attained a separate rating as high as 60%, still leaving him in limbo. Granted, he could have legitimately attained TDIU at that point and sadly, had he pursued the matter, he could have attained it much earlier in 2002 when he got the DM2 rating, assuming a concerted push to attain 70% for the PTSD.

TDIU is not quite the panacea that VA and VSOs tout it to be. It is a temporary rating always subject to revision downwards based on annual reexaminations. TDIU will get you one of those neat military DEERS cards that allow you to shop at the PX or commissary. What it will not get you is entitlement to the benefits associated with Chapter 35. One of these benefits is DIC for your spouse after you pass. This is also the program that will pay for your children’s college, as well as your wife’s, should she elect to do so. Many states have a program that gives free tuition to the children of Vets rated Permanent and Total. In most states this extends to wives as well. This is the meat of your rating.  69¢ a pound chicken is all well and fine, but a $48,000 college education buttressed by $965 a month from the VA per dependent for 4 years is reason to sit up and take notice. DIC currently runs about $1250/mo. Do the math.

VA is also not munificent in handing out P&T. Look at these figures. There are currently 27 million Veterans, 8 million of whom are service connected from 0 to 100%. Of the 8 million 357,000, give or take a couple of thousand are actually P&T. Where do you want to be? Even if and when you attain that 100% scheduler, you still have to wait two years minimum for another gander under the hood to make sure you’re still as ill as you were when they gave you the 100%. I can show you how to beat that, but not here today.

The moral of the story is perseverance. Half-hearted attempts will gain you nothing. VA counts on this. PTSD-addled Vets have an unfortunate proclivity for failing to follow through and complete things. Lars was one semester away from his law degree and never attained it. One final reason not to dissemble is you must be P&T for 10 years in order for the spouse to get DIC. This is all the more true for PTSD Vets. If you die of hepatocellular carcinoma due to your SC hep. in less than 10 years , the spouse still gets it because it’s SC. Very few Vets actually die from PTSD unless you count the ones who commit suicide. VA doesn’t remunerate you or your spouse for that. So many rules. So little time.

P.S. Sorry for any confusion. I had to repost to remove wrong tags.