The U.S. government continues to deny medically retired veterans pay they earned

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Subject: The U.S. government continues to deny medically retired veterans pay they earned

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The American Legion Magazine
April, 2006

Insult To Injury

The U.S. government continues to deny medically retired veterans pay they earned

By Steve Brooks

Martin Rue’s right arm bears little resemblance to a normal human arm. Scars run up and down it. Uneven patches of skin can be seen where bullets ripped through his flesh.

During his recovery at Great Lakes Naval Hospital, Ill., doctors described Rue’s right thumb as “ape-like.” He lost use of it and can no longer button his shirt, zip his fly or tie his shoe with his right hand. He had to learn how to write with his left hand. The wounds Rue suffered during the Vietnam War earned him the Purple Heart, as well as a service-connected disability rating of 100 percent.

He’s never fully recovered. Ulcerations on his right leg force him to soak the leg in saltwater every day before he dresses. He battled bone-marrow infections after his discharge from the Army. Every two years or so he’s back in the hospital for extended stays. But Rue – a member of Thomas Larkin Memorial American Legion Post 237 in Oglesby, Ill. – wouldn’t trade his military service for perfect health. “When another country wants to be free, we need to help them find that means,” he says. “Women, children, citizens of that country shouldn’t have to be afraid. I feel it’s our obligation to help those countries, and I wouldn’t change a thing about serving in the military.”

But Rue would change one thing about the years following: the inequity he’s faced since he was medically retired by the Army. He draws a monthly disability payment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but his Army retirement pay is forfeited by the amount of his disability compensation. Each month Rue receives a statement from the Department of Defense listing his retirement pay as more than $1,100. But because of the offset, the statement shows Rue’s net retirement pay as $0.

He is a Chapter 61 veteran as stated under Title 10, U.S. Code: medically retired with less than 20 years in the service, therefore ineligible to receive retirement pay and disability compensation. He is denied what is known as concurrent receipt. Chapter 61 veterans number more than 130,000. Rue calculates more than $300,000 in lost retirement pay through the years.

“We didn’t ask to be retired,” Rue says. “I went through three physical evaluation boards before they threw me out. We’re not asking for much here. We just want what we believe we’ve earned.”

A Class System

In 1891, Congress passed a law prohibiting active-duty and retired military personnel from receiving disability payments.

Current law denying concurrent receipt for service-connected military retirees was established in 1944 by Public Law 78-314, allowing retired military personnel to waive an amount of their retirement pay equal to their veterans disability compensation. The advantage for the veteran is that military retirement pay is considered taxable income, while veterans disability compensation is not.

Different types of disabled military retirees receive different levels of compensation:

Combat-Related Special Compensation recipients are retirees with 20 or more years of service with combat-related medical disabilities. They receive concurrent receipt: their full military retirement pay along with their tax-free VA disability compensation.

Twenty-year retirees who are rated 100 percent for individual unemployability are having their military retirement pay phased in during the next three years. Other military retirees with 20 or more years of service and service-connected disability ratings of 50 percent to 90 percent are receiving a phased-in version of their retirement pay and full VA disability compensation.

All other military retirees with fewer than 20 years of service, including Chapter 61 veterans, and all other military retirees with more than 20 years of service who are rated 40-percent disabled or less are still subject to the dollar-for-dollar offset. Congress is well aware of the problem. Some call it a “disabled veterans tax,” terminology The American Legion has adopted.

H.R. 303, the Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2005, introduced by Rep. Mike Bilirakis, R-Fla., provides concurrent receipt to retirees with 20 or more years of service who are rated less than 50-percent service-connected disabled. It eliminates the phase-in for all disabled veterans. It also allows Chapter 61 retirees to apply for CRSC, for which they currently do not qualify. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has introduced similar legislation, S. 558, in the Senate.

H.R. 995, introduced by Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Ill., provides for payment of CRSC to Purple Heart recipients medically retired with less than 20 years of service.

H.R. 1366, also introduced by Bilirakis, allows veterans who have combat-related disabilities to collect VA disability compensation and CRSC concurrently, regardless of their years of service.

H.R. 2076, another Bilirakis measure, permits certain retired servicemembers with service-connected disabilities to receive both disability compensation from VA and either retired pay based on years of military service, or CRSC. Its Senate companion measure – S. 845, introduced by Reid – permits military retirees with service-connected disabilities to receive disability compensation and either retired pay or CRSC and eliminates the phase-in period. Rue is a staunch supporter of Weller’s H.R. 995 but is in favor of any legislation that will provide concurrent receipt to all retirees.

“Those rated at 60-percent service connected or above, chances are they are going to have trouble getting a good-paying job,” Rue said. “I don’t blame corporate America for that. Because of our compensation laws, hiring someone who is service-connected is an accident waiting to happen. But most severely disabled people I know want to work. They want to prove to themselves that they’re still productive. But the fact is some of them cannot. How can you raise a family on a disability payment alone? That barely puts you above the poverty level.”

Patriotism’s Price

In 1965, Rue was a letter winner as a freshman defensive end for Northeast Missouri State’s college football team. At 6-foot-3, 220 pounds, he helped his squad to an undefeated season in conference play. He hoped to one day play pro ball.

But a higher calling came. After watching protests against the Vietnam War, Rue chose his own form of support for the U.S. troops. In April 1966, he joined them.

“I was upset by all the protests I saw and by the way our troops were being treated when they came home,” Rue said. “So I volunteered. It seemed more important than playing football. It was my way of protesting. I felt that if the South Vietnamese people wanted the right to live out from under the rule of communism, we owed it to them to help.”

Forced to wait if he wanted to join the Marine Corps, Rue instead signed up with the Army. Originally given a clerical job, he longed for the infantry. So he employed a bit of creativity to get what he wanted.

“I told my commander I was going to break every typewriter in the place until I was sent to the infantry,” he said. “It took five typewriters ‘falling’ off my desk before they sent me where I wanted to go.”

Rue landed in Vietnam in October 1966. Five months later, while part of a three-man reconnaissance mission, he was wounded. He spent 14 months at Great Lakes, undergoing 15 major surgeries. He was in a cast from the hips down. In his own words, he wasn’t much to see.

“I went from 220 pounds to 150. I was all bones,” he said. “I had a cousin who was a nurse, and when she came to see me and saw my wounds, she got sick. She was a nurse, but my wounds were so bad they made her physically ill.”

When Rue came home, he initially couldn’t use his right leg. Crutches served as a replacement; his leg dragging the ground when he moved. Once a quick defensive end chasing down quarterbacks, he suddenly had to learn to walk again.

Rue tried going back to school but eventually went into the insurance business, earning a broker’s license and specializing in life insurance and estate planning. But because he occasionally missed work for weeks at a time during hospital stays, keeping him from meeting a newly established sales quota, he was forced into a disability retirement. He went on Social Security disability before taking his current job as a nationally accredited service officer and superintendent of the Veterans Assistance Commission of LaSalle County, Ill.

“If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it again because I still believe in it,” said Rue of his military service. “But we need all the help and support we can to end this unfairness.” Otherwise, he said, those now serving in the armed forces will continue to pay an unfair price while others benefit.

“One of the best means to increase your cash flow or lifestyle is war,” Rue said. “It’s the only industry where you can produce billions and billions of dollars worth of goods that will be destroyed tomorrow. And then you have to replace them. That’s why defense contractors contribute so much to political campaigns.

“But do they care about the soldier? No. It’s always been said that if the leaders of countries had to actually fight the war, there’d be no more wars. They forget quickly the price our soldiers pay.”

Steve Brooks is senior editor at The American Legion Magazine.