{"id":49159,"date":"2014-05-30T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=49159"},"modified":"2014-05-29T22:12:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T02:12:07","slug":"vet-waits-68-years-for-bennies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=49159","title":{"rendered":"Vet waits 68 years for bennies"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROS sends us a link to Fox News<\/a> which tells the story of 89-year-old Milton Rackham who never gave up applying for his VA benefits despite the fact that his records were lost in the Missouri fire, and finally scored on his last attempt; <\/p>\n

Rackham, who grew up herding cattle in Rigby, Idaho, said he enlisted in the Navy when he was 17 years old — against the wishes of his mother. He fought aboard the PT Boat 81 in the Aleutian Islands for his first year. He later transferred to the South Pacific, where he was severely injured while defending a U.S. ammunition supply ship during a Japanese kamikaze attack. The explosion caused Rackham serious shrapnel wounds that nearly led to the amputation of an arm and leg.<\/p>\n

After spending two years in Navy hospitals in Hawaii and Manila, Rackham returned to civilian life in Rigby. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently, the VA had the same information when he applied in 2008 as they had when they awarded him his $800 benefit and $7000 back pay. <\/p>\n

“What drove me crazy was that they had the same information in 2008 and they denied me,” he told FoxNews.com. “That\u2019s what blows me out of the water. Ever since 1974, when I first asked for benefits, they’ve had the same information.”<\/p>\n

“Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction,” Rackham said. <\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Rackham also indicated that he was advised by friends to appeal the $822 and the $7,000, which amounts to 10 months in back pay, but he opted not to, saying, “I won’t live long enough to go through the VA process one more time.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROS sends us a link to Fox News which tells the story of 89-year-old Milton Rackham … Vet waits 68 years for bennies<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-issues","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}