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NAVY VETERAN FIGHTING FOR RADIATION COMPENSATION --

When a veterans law judge finally ruled in his favor only to have

the government low-ball his compensation award, he battled on.

 

 

Story here... http://www.lasvegassun.com/
sunbin/stories/nevada/2007/a
pr/09/040910855.html

Story below:

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Navy veteran in Las Vegas fighting for radiation compensation

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Atomic veteran Michael Hirschhorn didn't give up his fight for compensation when the Department of Veterans Affairs denied his claim for skin cancer.

He refused to quit after a Pentagon agency denied that he'd been exposed to radiation from nuclear blasts set off over the Pacific Ocean in 1962.

And when a veterans law judge finally ruled in his favor only to have the government, in his view, low-ball his compensation award, Hirschhorn battled on.

The 64-year-old former sailor from Las Vegas is still on his quest for compensation and is one of the relatively few atomic veterans who have successfully navigated the maze of disability paperwork to win an appeal.

Most veterans become discouraged, give up or don't want to endure the back-and-forth created when their cases are shuttled between different government agencies, Hirschhorn said last week.

Some die before their cases reach the appeals process, he said.

Hirschhorn said he hopes his case will set a precedent for other atomic veterans.

"There's 500,000 vets out there who are in a lot worse shape because they were exposed to ionizing radiation," Hirschhorn said. "Our government is lying to them."

He echoed assertions made last month in Las Vegas by R.J. Ritter, national commander of the National Association of Atomic Veterans Inc. Ritter was addressing an advisory board that makes recommendations on atomic veterans issues to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

In Ritter's estimation, up to 500,000 U.S. military and support personnel were exposed to radiation during atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, including sailors aboard military vessels and pilots who flew through radioactive clouds.

It also includes the soldiers and Marines who huddled in trenches at the Nevada Test Site, marched through fallout or landed in contaminated areas during parachute jumps.

Some 25,000 claims have been filed by atomic veterans seeking medical care or compensation since the early 1950s.

Ritter said that fewer than 100 claimants have received total compensation and that only 300 to 400 claimants have been given 50 percent of the compensation they sought.

In 2006, Hirschhorn convinced a judge for the Board of Veterans' Appeals in Washington that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency botched its assessment of how much radiation he was exposed to during a series of 1962 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests over the Pacific Ocean in the vicinity of Christmas Island.

He has since launched another appeal, saying a doctor attributes the development of his skin cancer to his Navy service aboard the USS Merrick, which passed through Pacific atomic test sites while returning to the United States from Japan.

Instead of receiving a 10 percent disability payment of $115 per month, Hirschhorn is seeking $900 a month, which represents a 60 percent disability rating.

"They do everything they can to stall these cases. ... Every time you get one of these (denial) letters, you get kicked in the teeth and you want to give up," Hirschhorn said. "They set it all up to make sure they can issue a denial."

Defense Threat Reduction Agency spokeswoman Cheri Abdelnour said the agency erred when it said the nuclear tests in Hirschhorn's case were "high altitude" blasts.

If that had been the case, personnel aboard ships passing through the area would have experienced minimal exposure to radiation.

In reality, the tests were conducted as much lower "air bursts" that created strong updrafts. The updrafts, according to Hirschhorn's citations of government documents, caused widespread distribution of highly radioactive fallout particles.

Nevertheless, Abdelnour said the agency stands by its assessment in Hirschhorn's case because none of the detonations that occurred while the USS Merrick passed through the region "produced fallout that impacted Christmas Island, Johnston Island, or any of the ships supporting the operation."

"We believe the veteran did not receive an appreciable radiation dose," Abdelnour wrote.

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Larry Scott  --