Class-action lawsuit claims veterans are getting short-changed

July 23, 2007 03:31 PM

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC) - A class-action lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of US soldiers and Marines charges that the active duty military and veterans systems are still denying Iraq and Afghan war vets the care and benefits they deserve.

The lawsuit charges that the system is still broken, despite all the changes promised after the Walter Reed Army Medical Center Scandal. And many veterans agree.

Army Sgt. Charles Eggleston says he suffers the insomnia and hyper alertness of post traumatic stress, PTSD. "When you get blown up or something happens to you, it sticks with you."

Eggleston went to Iraq twice. Two months later he was hit by an IED. His face, hand, and spine were rebuilt. He's about to leave Walter Reed.

But Eggleston assumes he'll get less disability pay than he says he's due. "They give more money to the drug addicts and all these other guys, the evil-doers, and convicts than they actually give to the soldiers who fought and got injured in combat."

The lawsuit charges that's the pattern - great trauma care, great rehab, then a tangle of red tape, a backlog of 600,000 cases, and - in the end - insufficient financial aid and counseling from the Veterans Administration.

When the scandal broke at Walter Reed in March, President Bush fired top medical commanders and got the VA more money. But a commission headed by Bob Dole and Donna Shalala reports Wednesday on a veteran's system that critics charge is still broken.

Sgt. Eggleston says, "It makes you pretty mad. It really turns your stomach."

It's a system that a wounded 14-year veteran says is letting him down. Some say this is an unintended consequence of the Iraq war, that the VA system was not designed to help so many combat veterans.

Ellie