Local Veteran Denied VA Disability Benefits
Memories of the first Gulf War in 1991 fade further into history amid the ongoing military conflict in the Middle East.
“So as far as they are concerned, I was never in the Gulf War”, says 52 year old Robert McDermott of Santa Maria who was with a mobile radio communications squad attached to the U.S. Army’s 3rd Armored Division for the invasion of Iraq from Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm in January 1991.
“They had chemical weapons distributed to their front line units, even though they didn’t use them as far as I know, we bombed them”, McDermott says, “and the wind was blowing in our direction, we found their major chemical weapons storage area and our own people burned it, they put us in the oil fires and kept us there for three months before they sent us home, so we were breathing that stuff everyday.”
A machinist by trade since he left the Army, McDermott says he is no longer able to work due to what he believes is full blown Gulf War Syndrome along with its debilitating symptoms including severe headaches, eye problems, no mucus or saliva, chronic diarrhea, cramping and muscle spasms.
“What I’ve been told is the symptoms that I have and most other guys have are not from an acute exposure, but they are from long term, low level exposure”, McDermott says, “nerve agents, or to the smoke and chemicals and stuff from the oil fires or from the experimental vaccines that they used on us.”
McDermott, who grew up in Pismo Beach, says he lived with various forms of the symptoms since he left the Army more than 20 years ago but they became more severe only recently.
“I didn’t contact the VA until last December”, McDermott says, “since then there has been nothing but losing records, denying that any of my symptoms have anything to do with the Gulf War.”
“I’m furious”, says McDermott’s wife Kimberlee who is now Robert’s full-time caregiver.
She says she has hit a wall trying to get help from the VA, “everything they have asked for I have provided, three times, five times, ten times, and they still tell me they don’t have the document or they didn’t get the phone call.”
The couple rely on temporary State Disability benefits that run out next year for their income and private insurance coverage for Robert’s ongoing treatment and the wide array of medication he takes, with their medical bills piling up.
Newly appointed VA Administrator Robert McDonald, a former Fortune 500 CEO, has pledged to make sweeping reform in the massive organization to address various complaints from veterans including cases like the McDermott’s
“Somebody at the VA told me their mantra is stall and deny until they die”, Kimberlee McDermott says, “because they don’t want to pay out benefits to the veterans who are sick.”
Central Coast News reached out to the Department of Veterans Affairs at the national and regional level about Robert McDermott’s denied claim for permanent disability benefits, we were told federal health privacy law prevents them from commenting specifically about his case.
