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45% of new veterans file claims for disability

Those returning from 2 wars have complicated care needs

In April, President George W. Bush greeted Melissa Stockwell, a former Army first lieutenant, following a mountain bike ride in Texas for veterans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Roberto Rodriguez/The Amarillo Globe News via AP

NEW YORK - America’s newest veterans are filing for disability benefits at a historic rate, claiming to be the most medically and mentally troubled generation of former troops the nation has ever seen.

A staggering 45 percent of the 1.6 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries they say are service-related. That is more than double the estimate of 21 percent who filed such claims after the Gulf War in the early 1990s, top government officials said.

What’s more, these new veterans are claiming eight to nine ailments on average, and the most recent ones over the last year are claiming 11 to 14. By comparison, Vietnam veterans are currently receiving compensation for fewer than four, on average, and those from World War II and Korea, just two.

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It is unclear how much worse off these new veterans are than their predecessors. Many factors are driving the dramatic increase in claims - the weak economy, more troops surviving wounds, and more awareness of problems such as concussions and post-traumatic stress. Almost one-third have been granted disability so far.

Government officials and some advocates say that veterans who might have been able to work with certain disabilities may be more inclined to seek benefits now because they lost jobs or can’t find any.

Aggressive outreach and advocacy efforts also have brought more veterans into the system, which must evaluate each claim to see if it is war-related. Payments range from $127 a month for a 10 percent disability to $2,769 for a full one.

As the nation commemorates the more than 6,400 troops who died in post-9/11 wars, the problems of those who survived also draw attention. These new veterans are seeking a level of help the government did not anticipate, and for which there is no special fund to pay.

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The Department of Veterans Affairs is mired in backlogged claims, but “our mission is to take care of whatever the population is,’’ said Allison Hickey, the VA’s undersecretary for benefits. “We want them to have what their entitlement is.’’

The 21 percent who filed claims in previous wars is Hickey’s estimate of an average for operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. The VA has details only on the current disability claims being paid to veterans of each war.

The Associated Press spent three months reviewing records and talking with doctors, government officials, and former troops to take stock of the new veterans. They are different in many ways from those who fought before them.

More are from the Reserve and National Guard - 28 percent of those filing disability claims - rather than career military. Reserve and National Guard personnel made up a greater percentage of troops in these wars than they did in previous ones.

More of the new veterans are women, accounting for 12 percent of those who have sought care through the VA. Women also served in greater numbers in these wars than in the past. Some female veterans are claiming post-traumatic stress due to sexual trauma suffered in the military - a new challenge from a disability rating standpoint, Hickey said.

The new veterans have different types of injuries than previous veterans did. That’s partly because improvised bombs have been the main weapon and because body armor and improved battlefield care allowed many of them to survive wounds that in past wars proved fatal.

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“They’re being kept alive at unprecedented rates,’’ said Dr. David Cifu, the VA’s medical rehabilitation chief. More than 95 percent of troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have survived.

Larry Bailey II is an example. After tripping a rooftop bomb in Afghanistan last June, the 26-year-old Marine remembers flying into the air, then fellow troops attending to him.

“I pretty much knew that my legs were gone. My left hand, from what I remember I still had three fingers on it,’’ although they didn’t seem right, Bailey said. Bailey, who is from Zion, Ill., ended up a triple amputee and expects to get a hand transplant this summer. He is still transitioning from active duty and is not yet a veteran.

Just over half of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans eligible for VA care have used it so far. Of those who have sought VA care:

- More than 1,600 of them lost a limb; many others lost fingers or toes.

- At least 156 are blind, and thousands of others have impaired vision.

- More than 177,000 have hearing loss, and more than 350,000 report tinnitus - noise or ringing in the ears.

- Thousands are disfigured, as many as 200 of them so badly that they may need face transplants. One-quarter of battlefield injuries requiring evacuation included wounds to the face or jaw, one study found.

“The numbers are pretty staggering,’’ said Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who has done four face transplants on nonmilitary patients and expects to start soon on veterans.

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Others have invisible wounds. More than 400,000 of these new veterans have been treated by the VA for a mental health problem, most commonly, post-traumatic stress disorder.

Tens of thousands of veterans suffered traumatic brain injury - mostly mild concussions from bomb blasts - and doctors don’t know what’s in store for them long-term. Cifu, of the VA, said that roughly 20 percent of active duty troops suffered concussions, but only one-third of them have symptoms lasting beyond a few months.

That’s still a big number, and “it’s very rare that someone has just a single concussion,’’ said David Hovda, director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center. Suffering multiple concussions, or one soon after another, raises the risk of long-term problems and post-traumatic stress, he said.