COALITION FOR VETERANS eNewsletter - May 19, 2009

the COALITION For VETERANS
Director
Dr. Dennis M. Agin
LCDR USN-RET
80 N. Chesterfield Rd.
Columbus, OH 43209
19 May 2009


Shipmates,
HR 2254, the Agent Orange Equity Act is being proposed by the U.S. House Of Representatives Chairman Bob Filner. If and when passed this should eliminate any controversy concerning the VA and Agent Orange Disability Claims. To remove the “if” please write to your Representative and request him/her to support HR 2254.

(your representative)
335 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Please do this ASAP.

Thanks,
Dr. Dennis

A True story

TALK ABOUT A WEIRD STORY ................. CSI has nothing on this one

For those who have served on jury...this one is something to think about...Just when you think you have heard everything!!
Do you like to read a good murder mystery?

Not even Law and Order would attempt to capture this mess. This is an unbelievable twist of fate!!!!
At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, (AAFS)President, Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story:

On March 23, 1994........ the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus, and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide..
He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly.

Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

The room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun! The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr. Opus.

When one intends to kill subject 'A' but kills subject 'B' in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject 'B.'
When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant, and both said that they thought the shotgun was not loaded. The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun.. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, assuming the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident.. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.

Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the exquisite twist... Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder.
This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window.
The son, Ronald Opus, had actually murdered himself. So the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.
A true story from Associated Press.

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Coalition For Veterans © - March '09 Newsletter

the C OALITION F OR V ETERANS ©

t he CFV © 1 March '09 Newsletter

Shipmates,

The recent unfortunate decision by the Supreme Court NOT to hear Bluewater?Haas

will cause (as recently reported) the VA to respond to all those with a pending VA Disability

Claim. At this time the CFV does not have any further information on the subject.

BUT this will NOT deny a veteran the right to appeal a negative VA decision. It will be very

important that the following be done:

1) A veteran MUST be registered with the VA. If you are not or have not previously

registered and have been issued a VA IDENTIFICATION CARD – take your DD214 to

the nearest VA Medical Facility and register.

2) You must be examined by a VA physician for a routine examination.

3) If it is found that you have one of the many problems created by Agent Orange while

on active duty in Vietnam then you are allowed to file a claim . Under no circumstance

can you be denied the option to file a claim. Please contact me I you have never filed a

claim.

4) Once a claim is filed you will be issued a VA CLAIM NUMBER.

5) Public Law 100-687, Section 1204 , entitled "Out reach Services" requires VA to

conduct an active, continuous outreach program for furnishing Vietnam veteran

information relating to (1) the health risks (if any) resulting from exposure to herbicides

in Vietnam, as such information on health risks becomes known: and (2) This section

also requires VA to organize and update the Agent Orange registry to enable VA to

promptly notify veterans of any increased health risk resulting from exposure to Agent

Orange. VA Agent Orange Review Vol.7 NO.1 October 1989

Please inform me if you received the above notification letter (when) OR if you have

not..

6) The Complaint that the CFV filed on 20 January 2009 has not been answered by the

U.S. Department of Justice, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. We should be able to use

this complaint if and when the VA says NO to your claim because of the Supreme Court

Decision.

7) Please inform me and send me copies of anything that the VA sends you in writing.

8) I will be at the ship's reunion in Baton Rouge. I am hoping meet with you at the reunion.

Please call me if you have any questions.

Dr. Dennis (614) 204-9234

COV Blog

Dennis:

I must have inadvertently deleted your email asking if a blog would reach Blue Water and Brown Water sailors from the Vietnam era. To the best of my recollection you wanted to know if it would attract the B&BW sailors so that you could create a list of them.

I am afraid that there are no guarantees. When you start, the possibilities are from none (no-one finds your blog) to Millions of Vets find it. It's a crap shoot. I started with about 3 visitors a day on my website, and now there are over three thousand per day on the average. There have been spikes of over 40,000 per day.

It's sort of like going to the house of ill repute -"You pays yo' money, and takes yo' chances." Except, here there is no money involved, instead, it involves some writing.

I conclude that you are not particularly interested.

Regards, Gunner

PS - I am sending this to the email address that creates a post to the test website. Unfortunately, I had a typo in the email address that I sent you.