Today, the Veterans Administration has once again come knocking asking for information regarding my spouse and our marital status. In 2003-04 the VA contacted me and asked if I was married. I told them, yes. They asked how many years and if it was to the same person. I told them, yes. Within this question, they had asked of me, was a fact not clarified. In 1999 we had divorced, only to reconcile in November of 2000 while sharing the Thanksgiving Holidays in Great Falls, Montana.

In December 2000 we continued to reconcile our differences and decided in January 2001 we would both leave Montana and go to Washington State and live under the traditional Common-Law Marriage afforded us by Montana State Statutes. We had decided on a traditional Common-Law-Marriage in November 2000 with the full intent to officially marry in Washington State when we were both ready. The intent was there and it was emphatically stated when I informed the VA that we were married during their assessment process for my service-connected injuries in lieu of my compensation package.

This situation calls into question the time frame associated between August 12, 1999, the date of our Divorce Degree, to November 2000 when we agreed to give it another try. I admit I utilized our old Marriage Certificate to prove our marriage with the clear distinction that we were now living together since November of 2000 as husband and wife. I imagined an additional 33 years waiting for the Veterans Administration to acknowledge our reconciliation and Common-Law-Marriage; the last 33 years battling the bureaucracy weighed heavy in this decision. We figured this situation would be easily validated if questions surfaced at a later date through various legal documents regarding our mortgages, vehicles, insurance polices and utility bills. I thought this issue was not one that would present a problem for us later. I thought this period of time being separated would amount to only a few dollars difference, as I stated on the phone with the VA’s representative. This situation I’ve been told, will not be the case.

Sometimes our expedient action leads to second-guessing later. I would venture to speculate these actions might be a reprisal for voicing concern over Iraqi and Afghanistan soldiers returning injured and disabled. This is my real concern. The one I’ve been voicing from coast to coast, to all politicians alike, and to many private news agencies, in light of all the hardships that I had to personally suffer as a direct consequence of “those at the helm” who didn’t exactly take a pro-active position in regards to addressing my injuries and difficulties experienced when I returned from Vietnam.

I am determined not to allow this to happen again. Changes need to be made. The VA needs to meet the obligations and responsibilities owed these men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan injured and disabled. These soldiers, these Veterans, shouldn’t have to sacrifice what little life they have left, nor the dreams they surrendered prior to being put into harm’s way, battling the VA. I have been pro-active in getting the word out about these soldiers’ needs; imagine spending 33 years gathering documents and evidence to get treatment for injuries suffered. Imagine coming home and facing a government that’s only marginally addressing your health care needs and financial problems.

I feel no one should be overlooked as I was. Looking back at my service, I still have nightmares. Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) have been a major focus of my criticisms. This is not an easy situation to embrace after the military had left me up river without a paddle. Then the Veterans Administration failed to render appropriate aid after I was injured in Vietnam, which placed my entire family in a compromised position for more than 33 years afterwards. I’m surprised either of us survived the torment and anguish experienced as a consequence of this struggle to right a wrong.

The VA granted me a compensation award in 2003 with a 70% service-connected disability that went back to 1994, not to 1970. Should anyone fault an injured soldier who didn’t have the ability to correct his/her own maladies that were, in my opinion, life threatening? A closed head injury a soldier sustains doesn’t exactly paint a rosy picture for those adhering to Federal guidelines in a comprehensive fashion.

Then I received a 100% disability rating dating from 2000. Should I be concerned about the 24 years prior that clearly had extreme elements of injury but couldn’t be substantiated without securing lost memories? This does upset me. It upsets me to no-good-end thinking about it. This issue has created images of the past that concern me greatly, and I venture to say, the future well-being of a family that’s been put through the ringer so many times before.

The personal negligence and calculated maneuvering by our government representatives and their proxies who were, and are still associated with various Veterans Affairs Programs today, continues to amaze me. The amount of trust citizens in general still have in regards to the VA’s performance and service to our aging veteran population and their needs is staggering. It’s very difficult for me to be optimistic about this today with respect to the 33 years these programs cost me in resolving my service-connected issues with them. How can we ignore these particular characters after 19 deaths were reported not long ago from a VA Hospital in the upper mid-west? This is yet another example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Now the Veterans Administration has denied my service-connection claim for Tuberculosis. They stated that there’s no evidence of this disease, nor has there been, that the x-rays were negative, and only a positive skin test was obtained for this disease then treated with a 9 month treatment regiment of INH. What’s that mean? The Everett Clinic informed me that I had blood in my urine, that my chest x-ray showed 2 or 3 nodules in the right lower lobe of my lung. What’s that? Isn’t that also the result of one’s own body battling a particular disease? Aren’t these findings consistent with the body’s own immune system putting this disease in check? Isn’t it a known fact that as you age those cells become active again in many cases?

The Snohomish Health Department has informed me that I tested positive. The doctor at the Everett Clinic referred me to their services stating that I probably contracted the disease while I was in Vietnam. Just because I was treated doesn’t mean the disease is gone, nor the damage it caused throughout my body. The CDC had to increase the medical treatment for this disease from 6 months of INH to 9 months. They discovered that as people aged they were testing positive again. They displayed little concern about the side effects INH has on the joints, or those nodules that harbor what’s left of that diseased tissue?

Some people believe these administrative and health care problems go much deeper than those 19 veterans that died. I suppose on the other hand you can say that I am the problem; everybody has some sort of denial aspect associated with his or her personality!

The frustration and anxiety from these long years of exposure to all these alterations that I’ve had to live through unnecessarily have left me quite cynical of this whole affair. Even my recent colonoscopy done at the Puget Sound Veterans Hospital was botched and left incomplete. I had to undergo surgery to complete the original procedure. The findings discovered at that time contradicted the first when successfully completed by a private physician! It’s so difficult to have these issues revisited again. I’d like to say thanks for another opportunity to get all this off my chest. My therapist tells me this kind of dialogue is healthy, sometimes! 
 

Sincerely, Robert T. & Valerie R. Griffin