So. The old man has a claim in for Hep and cirrhosis. No dice. He starts to figure out what he needs and wham! Too late to even investigate a bucket list. His busy wife puts the claim together and assembles all the parts and pieces. She gets his vAMC crew to write up good nexus letters and off she goes. Not. All this carefully assembled evidence was gathered AFTER he passed. Sorry Charlene. No accrued bennies. No Dollar Drive.  She’s headed for Penny Lane . Forget that the old man was up to his knees in blood at Dak To with the 173rd Airborne getting his ass shot off. Forget that there is good documented evidence in his favor plus he gets the 1154(b) combat consideration. But he forgot to dot an i and several ts. No nexus= no dice. Claims denied. So much for valorous service. Boy, this just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside about how my vA does so much for me.

In this case, prior to his death, there was no such competent evidence of a relationship between the Veteran’s in-service combat activities and his hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver. The Board notes that the RO has awarded service connection for the cause of the Veteran’s death by way of an April 2010 rating decision, thereby acknowledging that his hepatitis C and liver cirrhosis are of service origin (and are likely related to his combat activities, his exposure to blood in particular); however, the Board is precluded from relying upon the evidence upon which that rating decision was based because it was not of record at the time of the Veteran’s death.

So Charlene has to go back to St. Pete and start over if she hopes to get any traction on this. The RO did grant for her but that can only be used in a new filing. This one’s toast. YessireeeBob. No adversarial chuckleheads around here. Everyone’s pro Vet. And just as soon as you refile, you can sit back and wait a couple of years to fix this stupidity.