{"id":56961,"date":"2014-12-09T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=56961"},"modified":"2014-12-09T09:45:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-09T14:45:41","slug":"va-steve-lowerys-navy-cross-wounds-arent-service-connected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=56961","title":{"rendered":"VA: Steve Lowery’s Navy Cross wounds aren’t service connected"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Las Vegas Review Journal<\/a> tells the story of Steve Lowery on March 5, 1969 when he earned the Navy Cross atop Hill 1308, three team mates were killed. Lowery and six others were wounded. One received the Medal of Honor, posthumously the others Silver and Bronze Stars. Lowery, however, earned the Navy Cross. But, according to Lowery, that’s not good enough for the Department of Veterans Affairs;<\/p>\n

Yet in the eyes of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the bullet from an AK-47 that ripped through his thighs and shrapnel from a \u201cChi-Com\u201d \u2014 Chinese Communist \u2014 grenade that pierced his right knee were not related to his military service.<\/p>\n

Nor was the neck injury he suffered near the end of his career when a moving van rear-ended his car when he was stopped at a light while on active duty in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the letter says from the VA Benefits Regional Office in Reno that rejected his claim for service-connected compensation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe determined that the following condition is not related to your military service,\u201d reads the Aug. 1, 2011, letter from \u201cA. Bittler,\u201d veterans service center manager. \u201cGunshot wound to left thigh; neck condition; shrapnel, right knee; gunshot wound, right thigh.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently, Mr Lowery has been playing these games since 1994 when he retired.<\/p>\n

That time, his war wounds were deemed not related to his military service because the VA had requested his medical file from Department of Defense archives but never received it. Without the file, there was no evidence of his wounds and thus no reason to schedule a physical examination, he was told.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey explained to me they had reached their decision with no health record in front of them. I asked how that happened, and he (the claims processor) said, \u2018Well, when we sent off a request to the archive to produce your medical records,\u2019 the only thing they had was my pre-induction physical and one visit to the Nellis Air Force Base hospital after I retired,\u201d Lowery said.<\/p>\n

He noted that VA officials made no further effort to resolve the two-decade gap in his medical file.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, so this is a lesson to all of you guys who are still serving, make copies of all of your records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Las Vegas Review Journal tells the story of Steve Lowery on March 5, 1969 when … VA: Steve Lowery’s Navy Cross wounds aren’t service connected<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56961","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=56961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}