April 23, 2012 - When Ralph Bozella came home from Vietnam in 1972, he was happy he’d survived and was ready to get on with life.
Because he had escaped any serious wounds in combat, he never gave a thought to disabilities. Four decades later, his time in Vietnam is haunting his health.
But thanks to a little-known law, he is receiving thousands of dollars a month in disability pay and free health care for a common heart problem that he may have contracted when exposed to Agent Orange and other chemicals used to kill vegetation and expose the enemy.
Nearly 2.6 million Americans served in Vietnam, and anyone who set foot there during the war is eligible for compensation if they suffer from one of 16 ailments. Some are fairly common, like Type II diabetes, ischemic heart disease, and prostate cancer.
snip Bozella, like many combat vets, carried that emotional baggage until some fellow vets convinced him to get it checked out. “I found out I had PTSD…. my wife had been telling me that for years but I never listened to her,” he said.
Six years later, in 2010, he developed breathing and heart problems that required doctors to install a stent.
“They (the VA) determined that it was ischemic heart disease that was related to Agent Orange,” he said. Ischemic means decreased blood supply, and it is one of the most common forms of heart disease.
“If you were in ‘Nam, even for one day, and now have one of 16 medical conditions, you qualify for benefits, automatically,” Bozella explained.
There is no need for proof of actual exposure to Agent Orange or other poisons -- and that makes the program differ sharply from some other federal compensation programs. Nuclear weapons workers, such as those at the former Rocky Flats plant near Denver, must find records proving significant exposure to radiation and toxic chemicals before they can get aid, and that has been a major obstacle for them. read more>>>
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