Corps baseball cap, his once boyish face burned beyond recognition by a
suicide bomber's attack in Iraq just three days before Christmas 2004.
Ty Ziegel, a Marine, was badly wounded in Iraq. He battled the VA over
disability benefits when he returned.
He lost part of his skull in the blast and part of his brain was damaged.
Half of his left arm was amputated and some of the fingers were blown off
his right hand.
Ziegel, a 25-year-old Marine sergeant, knew the dangers of war when he was
deployed for his second tour in Iraq.
But he didn't expect a new battle when he returned home as a wounded
warrior: a fight with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"Sometimes, you get lost in the system," he told CNN. "I feel like a
Social Security number. I don't feel like Tyler Ziegel."
His story is one example of how medical advances in the battlefield have
outpaced the home front. Many wounded veterans return home feeling that
the VA system, specifically its 62-year-old disability ratings system, has
failed them.
"The VA system is not ready, and they simply don't have time to catch up,"
Tammy Duckworth -- herself a wounded veteran who heads up the Illinois
Department of Veteran Affairs -- told the Senate Veterans Affairs
Committee in March.
VA Acting Secretary Gordon Mansfield said cases like Ziegel's are rare --
that the majority of veterans are moving through the process and "being
taken care of." He also said most veterans are fairly compensated.
"Any veteran with the same issue, if it's a medical disability, ... it is
going to get the same exact result anywhere in our system," he said.
More than 28,500 troops have been wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
including about 8,500 that have needed air transport, according to the
U.S. military.
A recent Harvard study found that the cost of caring for those wounded
over the course of their lifetime could ultimately cost more than $660
billion.
In Ziegel's case, he spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army
Medical Center in Texas. Once he got out of the hospital, he was unable to
hold a job. He anticipated receiving a monthly VA disability check
sufficient to cover his small-town lifestyle in Washington, Illinois.
Instead, he got a check for far less than expected. After pressing for
answers, Ziegel finally received a letter from the VA that rated his
injuries: 80 percent for facial disfigurement, 60 percent for left arm
amputation, a mere 10 percent for head trauma and nothing for his left
lobe brain injury, right eye blindness and jaw fracture.
"I don't get too mad about too many things," he said. "But once we've been
getting into this, I'm ready to beat down the White House door if I need
to."
"I'm not expecting to live in the lap of luxury," he added. "But I am
asking them to make it comfortable to raise a family and not have to
struggle."
Within 48 hours of telling his story to CNN this summer, the Office of
then-VA Secretary Jim Nicholson acted on Ziegel's case. The VA changed his
head trauma injury, once rated at 10 percent, to traumatic brain injury
rated at 100 percent, substantially increasing his monthly disability
check.
Duckworth, the Illinois VA chief, knows exactly what Ziegel and other
severely wounded vets are going through. She lost both her legs when a
rocket-propelled grenade struck her Blackhawk helicopter on November 12,
2004. Her right arm was also shattered.
She told CNN she received "incredible care" at Walter Reed for 13 months,
but soon realized the transition to the VA wouldn't be as smooth.
"I started worrying about the fact that maybe this country won't remember
in five years that there are these war wounded," Duckworth said.
Garrett Anderson with the Illinois National Guard, for example, has been
fighting the VA since October 15, 2005. Shrapnel tore through his head and
body after a roadside bomb blew up the truck he was driving. He lost his
right arm.
The VA initially rejected his claim, saying his severe shrapnel wounds
were "not service connected."
"Who would want to tell an Iraqi or Afghanistan soldier who was blown up
by an IED that his wounds were not caused by his service over there?" said
Anderson's wife, Sam.
After pressure from Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the VA acted on
Anderson's case. He has since been awarded compensation for a traumatic
brain injury.
"It upsets me that the VA system operates in a way that it takes people of
power -- and who you know and what you know -- to get what you want," said
Anderson, who is now retired.
When asked about Anderson's case specifically, the VA's Mansfield said
such cases make him "more dedicated" to fixing the system.
In July, President Bush and a commission appointed to review the care of
veterans returning from war announced the need for a complete overhaul of
the disability ratings system, which dates back to World War II. The VA is
now considering action on the commission's recommendations.
Ziegel eventually won his battle. Still he feels for so many others he
believes are getting cheated by the system.
"We're feeding the war machine, but you never think of the war machine
that comes home and needs, you know, feeding back home," he said.
His family hopes they don't have to fight the VA again. In August, Ty
Ziegel's brother, 22-year-old Zach Ziegel, was deployed to Iraq.
"I want to make the VA system better because if he has to go through
anything I went through, that's really going to upset me. That'll make my
fuse real short and hot," Ty Ziegel said.
--Emily Probst, CNN
1 comment:
i certainly hope that changes are made in this system. there is no reason for these vets to go through ANY type of hassles when they come home, much less wounded vets!! i often wonder what happens to the money i donate to wounded warriors if this is the crap they go through. wounded warriors is HUGE! i know they get tons of donations. i suppose that money is more or less to make them more comfortable while hospitalized. but it should be enough to extend farther i would think.
i keep them in my prayers always.
much love,
karen
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