Number of disabled vets on the rise

Surviving severe injuries
The American Legion’s Smithson says the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are resulting in more severe injuries — amputations and traumatic burns — the kind of injuries that troops in Vietnam and earlier wars would not have survived.

Smithson says today’s veterans also are filing claims for more disabilities.

“People are more aware of the benefits they are able to file for (because of) better outreach,” Smithson said. “It’s not like the WWII generation and Korean war generation where they weren’t aware of what they could file for, and they were also reluctant to file if they didn’t think they needed it.”

Iraq veteran Christopher Bain filed for about 10 disabilities after his tour in 2004. Bain came under mortar fire outside Baghdad and was hit several times. He successfully fought doctors who wanted to amputate his left arm. But 10 operations later, he still needs help getting dressed each day. An electrical stimulator implanted in his upper buttocks helps dull the pain from his injuries.

“It’s hard, you go through certain periods of remorse,” said Bain. “I am never going to be the man I once was.”

Gerald Herbert / AP Army Stf. Sgt Ryan Kelly of Abilene, Texas, runs down a hallway as he tries out adjustments made to his new prosthetic leg as Andrew Steele, a prosthetist/ orthotist watches inside the U.S. Army Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. Kelly was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Bain suffers from tinnitus, post-traumatic stress disorder and serious injuries to his arms. He receives a check each month for $2,618 that helps the former Army staff sergeant pay the mortgage, food and clothing costs for his family of five in Williamsport, Pa.

Bain is one of about 755,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Of that group, the VA says more than 181,000 are collecting disability benefits.

Another factor driving up costs and the overall number of disabled veterans is Vietnam. Veterans from that era make up the biggest group of vets today receiving disability compensation. At the end of 2006, more than 947,000 Vietnam vets were getting monthly checks.

“You see an awful lot of Vietnam veterans over the course of the years have gone from a 30 percent to 40 percent disability rating up to 100 percent when their employment years start to wane a little bit,” said David Gorman, a Vietnam War veteran who is executive director at the Washington headquarters of Disabled American Veterans.

Aging's toll
Conditions, such as a bad back or knee, can worsen with age and draw higher payments. A big concern for Vietnam vets is diabetes. Last year, more than 271,000 veterans were receiving disability benefits for diabetes. Most of the disabilities — 236,000 of them — were linked to Agent Orange exposure.

Veterans who are approved for disability receive monthly checks for injuries or illnesses sustained or aggravated while on active duty. Ratings are scaled from 0 to 100 percent in 10 percent increments. A rating of 10 percent, for example, is given to tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, which is increasingly common for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan because of roadside bombings. Ratings for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury can range from 0-to-100 percent, and 10-to-100 percent, respectively.

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Former Army Sgt. Michelle Saunders was rated at 70 percent by the VA after being shot at during a 2004 convoy mission in Iraq. The bullet was caught in her flak jacket, but she sustained painful injuries, including two ruptured disks in her lower back and nerve damage to her right leg.

“It’s turned me from a really alive, pretty happy person into somebody who is numb. I don’t know how to feel anymore,” she said.

Saunders gets a disability check each month from the VA for just under $800.

Annual benefits run from $1,404 for a veteran rated at 10 percent to about $30,324 for those at 100 percent. Severe disabilities, such as the loss of a limb, draw additional compensation.

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