WASHINGTON — Violent memories ambushed Lionel Sosa.
Sosa, of Gulfport, Miss., couldn’t escape them. Shards of what happened in South Vietnam in 1966 burst inside the 78-year-old Army veteran, shredding his peace of mind, he said.
For years, Department of Veterans Affairs examiners repeatedly denied Sosa’s claim of suffering from service-connected post-traumatic stress disorder. Inadequate evidence, one examiner said. Too vague, said another. Unsupported by “objective test results,” ruled a third.
Now a special federal court for veterans has given Sosa a fighting chance to obtain the diagnosis he’s been seeking. If he succeeds this time, his VA benefits will increase, as will, perhaps, the terminally ill man’s belief in the system that so far has frustrated him.
“I am sorely disappointed in the VA,” Sosa said in a telephone interview. “They didn’t do nothing for me.”
Sosa’s time grows short.
The retired commercial artist has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He said doctors have given him just months to live.
At one point, thinking about a potential increase in VA benefits, he imagined taking a vacation with his wife, Sheryl. Now, having given up morphine because of hallucinations, he ranks his pain at 8 on a 10-scale, and future planning is stripped to the bone.
Sosa started seeking post-traumatic-stress disability compensation more than a dozen years ago. It was a prolonged process that has since carried him through many medical exams, administrative hearings and court proceedings.
A U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims judge, in a Nov. 4 decision, sided with Sosa and ordered another review. This time, Judge Mary J. Schoelen ruled, officials must consider all the “additional evidence and argument” Sosa submits. The ruling gives Sosa an advantage but does order a specific outcome.
Schoelen, a former staff attorney with Vietnam Veterans of America, made clear her impatience with the ponderous bureaucracy that goes beyond the Board of Veterans Appeals.
“The court notes that (Sosa’s) claim has been pending since 2004 and has been remanded by the board three times for additional development,” Schoelen wrote, adding pointedly that she “regrets that this claim must be remanded to the board but expects that the secretary (of veterans affairs) will handle this claim in an expeditious manner.”
Until now, Sosa and his Rhode Island-based attorney, Robert V. Chisholm, have faced seemingly endless hurdles.
“I submitted all the information they asked for,” Sosa said. “They just kept saying, ‘Submit more paperwork. Submit more paperwork.'”
Sosa enlisted in the Army in 1956. Starting in 1966, he served in Vietnam for 13 months as with the 27th Engineer Battalion. When he left Army service, which included time in the National Guard, he held the rank of staff sergeant.
