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Veterans can get answers, claims help at BTW center

Every Thursday, a volunteer is available to answer questions.

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10:16 PM Sunday, November 13, 2011

By Richard Wilson

Staff Writer

HAMILTON — Many veterans and their families are unaware of benefits they could qualify for regarding lingering injuries and ailments from wartime.

Cmdr. Phillip Alexander, chapter representative of the Disabled American Veterans, said that’s partly because new veterans benefits are approved regularly by U.S. Congress.

Alexander, a Vietnam veteran, and DAV representative Aaron Cunningham, a Vietnam-era veteran, volunteer to answer questions and help veterans in the claims process from 3 to 6 p.m. every Thursday at the Booker T. Washington Community Center.

Alexander and Cunningham said they will also be on hand every week at Brown’s Deli on the West Side when it opens.

“There are so many veterans who don’t know about all the benefits they are eligible for,” Alexander said. “The majority of claims we file are for people who are just getting started or who have been denied in the past.”

A few veterans recently attended a session at the center to get guidance on benefits they are seeking.

Veteran Mark Thomas said he injured his knee during a clandestine operation in Grenada in 1983.

He said his Fort Jackson, S.C.-based platoon was called in to provide “mop-up service” after elite U.S. forces stormed a hospital to free nurses who had been taken hostage by Cuban rebels.

He said he was injured while running for his life.

“We were being shot at and we were running for cover,” said the 46-year-old Hamilton resident.

Thomas has had six knee surgeries and walks with a cane and is seeking reimbursement for the medical costs. He has had to look for the original medical records because he was told the files were lost.

“You do service for your country, and they write you off as a number when you come back. That’s not right,” he said. “The red tape ... can go on for years and years.”

Clarence Phillips, a Hamilton native, served from 1966 to 1968 and fought in South Vietnam as a “ground pounder” infantry man.

Phillips, 64, is 100 percent disabled because of combat injuries. He said he was shot in the leg and cannot sit erect for long because of back pain. Only recently has the palms of his hands become dry and discolored, he said, and that has been linked to contact with Agent Orange, which was used to clear foliage around encampments to make it easier to spot an approaching enemy.

Phillips said the back pain is a lasting result from “hitting a booby trap.”

“I went as high as this ceiling,” Phillips estimated while standing in the center. “They told me I was in big trouble.”

There have been significant improvements in Veterans Affairs and Phillips said veterans are treated far better than when he returned from Vietnam.

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4542 or rwilson@coxohio.com.

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