DOD DISABILITY EVALUATION SYSTEM UPDATE 01: Injured forces returning from Afghanistan and Iraq are going to get their own battalion of lawyers to represent their appeals to the military for health care and compensation. According to the Disabled American Veterans, three major
Washington, D.C., law firms have volunteered legal representation at no cost for service men and women navigating through the disability and compensation system at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the
National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the main U.S. hospitals receiving wounded soldiers off the battlefields.

DAV also handles appeals for the troops, but is finding itself under a growing backlog and not sufficiently equipped to take appeals through the federal court
system. DAV and other advocates have been complaining since the War on Terror began that seriously injured service men and women are being medically discharged because they are no longer fit for duty, but given such
low disability ratings that they don't qualify for lifetime compensation and benefits, including health care coverage for themselves or their families. "It seems that not only are they not receiving the compensation they are entitled to," but any further access for themselves and their families to military health programs and facilities is cut off, said Ron Smith, deputy counsel for DAV. Smith said the backlog for discharging soldiers is long and the bureaucracy is often complex and loaded with pitfalls. Some soldiers wait more than a year to get out of medical
hold, the limbo between deployable active duty status and discharge.

Danny Soto, a national service officer acting as an advocate for the soldiers and a liaison between DAV and Walter Reed, said much of the backlog is the result of an overload on the Physical Evaluation Board, which determines disability and compensation. The board plows through about 80 cases a week at Walter Reed alone, not counting the appeals. On top of that, JAG officers, the military attorneys assigned to represent the soldiers, are overloaded and soldiers donâ??t often feel the
attorneys are on their side, Soto said. "They are getting to the point where they just want to get out," Soto said of the soldiers who have become leery and weary of the evaluation process and frequently end up taking whatever disability pay they can. The law firms â?" which include, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, King & Spaulding and Foley & Lardner â?" will not only provide assistance to soldiers from the start of the process, but will assure the best interest of the soldier is well in hand, he said. Some soldiers have already expressed newfound confidence since the announcement.

Recent official reports, DAV investigations and personal accounts all suggest that the system appears to be unfairly stacked against individual soldiers, particularly in the Army. Defense Department officials
say they are working hard to rectify the problem. But the stack against the soldier seems evident. According to the current evaluation process, even if a service member has more than one potential disability, the military assigns a rating from 0 to 100% to just one injury that
renders the soldier unfit for duty. Anything below 30% affords the soon-to-be veteran a one-time severance check based on his or her rank and years of service and nothing else. Anything above 30% provides the soldier and his or her family with lifetime care, plus a pension based on the
member's active duty pay. In April, the congressionally-mandated Veterans Disability Benefits Commission provided Congress with preliminary findings from its investigation into whether the military has been lowballing disability ratings, a charge denied by the Pentagon. Its analysis is
based on thousands of disability records since the War on Terror began. It found that 81% of all disabilities between 2000 and 2006 were rated 0 to 20% by the military. Out of 50,676 Army soldiers deemed unfit for
duty, 27% received 0 percent ratings. In 59% of those cases, according to the commission's early findings, the VA has given a 30 to 100% disability rating to the same soldier who earned a zero to 30% rating from the military. [Source: Fox News Kelley Beaucar Vlahos article 12 Jun 07 ++]