Posted inBenefits, Health Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle

Accuracy isn’t priority as VA battles disability claims backlog

Video: Adithya Sambamurthy  |  Read full transcript U.S. Navy cook Hosea Roundtree watched the 1983 shelling of Beirut from the deck of a ship, feelings of helplessness washing over him as people perished onshore. That memory haunted him, resurrected in flashbacks eight years later after a tour in the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. But […]

Posted inBenefits, Health Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle

Video: Errors at the VA

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs denied Navy veteran Hosea Roundtree’s disability benefits claim for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, saying it could find no evidence that he was in combat. When a VA claims processor tried to intervene, she says she was forced out. Veterans’ advocates say Roundtree’s case illustrates the VA’s priorities: productivity […]

Posted inBenefits, Health Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle

Video: Veterans’ disability benefits delayed

Marine Cpl. David Smith has struggled with PTSD since returning from duty in Iraq. The UC Berkeley student waited more than a year for approval of his disability benefits claim. TRANSCRIPT: [On-screen text: Marine Cpl. David Smith, now a political science student at UC Berkeley, has suffered from PTSD and depression since returning from Iraq. […]

Posted inHealth Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle

Suicides highlight failures in veterans’ support system

The entrance at the Menlo Park Division of the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs campus.Jason Henry/For The Center for Investigative Reporting Francis Guilfoyle, a 55-year-old homeless veteran, drove his 1985 Toyota Camry to the Department of Veterans Affairs campus in Menlo Park early in the morning of Dec. 3, took a stepladder and a rope out […]