Report Finds Sharp Increase in Veterans Denied V.A. Benefits

Good enough for enlistment, bootcamp, deployment...but DQ'ed for VA benefits based upon an 'other than honorable' discharge. When did they get 'broken' and who should attempt to make these young men and women 'whole' after serving their country?

REPORT: After deployment, Mr. Bunn, suicidal and haunted by nightmares, went absent without leave. The Marine Corps charged him with misconduct and gave him an other-than-honorable discharge. As a consequence, the Department of Veterans Affairs does not technically consider Mr. Bunn a veteran and has denied him permanent heath care, disability pay and job training intended to ease his return to civilian life. According to a new report, he is one of a growing number of veterans ruled ineligible for benefits because of less-than-honorable discharges. Former members of the military like Mr. Bunn are being refused benefits at the highest rate since the system was created at the end of World War II, the report said. More than 125,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have what are known as “bad paper” discharges that preclude them from receiving care, said the report, released Wednesday by the veterans advocacy group Swords to Plowshares. The report for the first time compared 70 years of data from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. It found that veterans who served after 2001 were nearly twice as likely as those who served during Vietnam to be barred from benefits, and four times as likely as men and women who served during World War II.