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thedrifter
04-23-09, 06:54 AM
WATCHDOG PAGE B2 VA finally pays late veteran's benefits
April 23, 2009

The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't mind stringing along aging war vets desperate for help, but it does mind bad publicity.

How else would you explain the VA's speedy pension payment to the widow of Army Lt. Robert Dietrich of Bethlehem?

He waited nine months for his pension and died before he got a cent. The Watchdog wrote about it April 9, and the VA paid Dietrich's widow in less than two weeks.

Irma Dietrich got the disability pension benefits her husband had been approved for, but not paid, at the time of his death.



She also got a letter of apology from the red-faced VA office in Philadelphia.

''I recently became aware of how poorly this office handled your late husband's application for veterans benefits,'' Director Thomas Lastowka wrote. ''I wish to apologize for our performance. The supervisors of the units involved are just as embarrassed.''

The letter said the VA would review how the claim was processed to prevent the similar mishandling of other veterans' claims.

''I realize that at times, we do not deliver assistance as quickly as we should but in this case we performed extremely poorly,'' Lastowka wrote.

The VA was equally repentant in a letter to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who had intervened for Dietrich, a decorated World War II and Korean War veteran.

Lastowka said his office ''was clearly at fault in the mis-processing'' of the claim.

Dietrich's daughter, Monica Dietrich of Bethlehem, doesn't think her mother would have been treated so well if Specter's office and the Watchdog hadn't taken up her cause.

''I was so exhausted by the process, any positive outcome has provided a relief and vindication of sorts,'' Dietrich told me by e-mail. ''For me this represents over a year of work, chasing doctors, filling out forms, jumping through hoops to comply to a system very much broken. My father was very hopeful right to the end of his days that his government would come through with this pension because we had a letter stating it would. He died before it did come through.''

She said vets who are owed benefits from their country should fight for them.

''I am hoping that our persistence is a lesson to those who are on the same path,'' she said. ''Never give up!''

I hope vets feel encouraged and empowered by Dietrich's success. But isn't it disgraceful they have to fight for their benefits after fighting for their lives and our freedoms?

After taking on fascism, tyranny and terrorism, they shouldn't have to battle their own government for what they are entitled to.

''Unfortunately, the Dietrichs' experience with the VA is not unique, and I'll keep working on behalf of veterans so that claims are properly handled in a timely manner,'' Specter said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court put more pressure on vets to prove their claims in an opinion Tuesday.

When a benefits claim is filed, the VA by law must tell veterans what information to provide to justify their case. If that notice isn't given, the court ruled, the veteran must prove the VA's error made a difference in the outcome, presumably by showing what evidence they could have provided.

I've posted the Supreme Court opinion on my blog at http://blogs.mcall.com/watchdog/ . The case is Shinseki v. Sanders, 07-1209.

The other area veteran I wrote about this month, Ben Taroc of Bethlehem, hasn't heard anything new from the VA on his claim.

He's a former VA police officer who was forced to retire because a VA doctor told him his asthma, which he got while in the Marines, was totally and permanently disabling.

Yet the VA won't give him 100 percent disability compensation.

I put Taroc in touch with a local veterans' group that contacted me and offered to help him with his case.

I have heard from other Lehigh Valley veterans about their battles for benefits. I hope to share some of them in future columns.

The Watchdog is published Thursdays and Sundays. Contact me by e-mail at watchdog@mcall.com, by phone at 610-841-2364 (ADOG), by fax at 610-820-6693, or by mail at The Morning Call, 101 N. Sixth St., Allentown, PA, 18101.

Ellie