Hi Jim,
Recently a friend of ours told us the VA raters are looking for keywords in buddy letters. Could you advise what some of them are? I am the wife of an OIF Veteran and am trying my best to write a good letter without it being a book.
There are some key things I want to stress in the letter and give good examples like it says to do but do not want to end up with a book. I don't know if this helps but things we are claiming are moody, sleep apnea memory loss (associated with gulf war syndrome) PTSD and a few other things. I have looked online for basic spouse buddy letter examples but can not find anything everything I find is peer to peer.
Thank you in advance for any help you may be to us,
Reply:
To my knowledge and belief, VA raters do not look for key words. Your friend is wrong. I'm not at all sure what the point would be? Search engines use key words, not people who are doing adjudications of claims. I communicate with a lot of raters and I've never heard this one.
It sounds as if you're considering writing a statement in support of claim (buddy letter) for your veteran. There's a reason you can't find examples of a spouse buddy letter. The fact is that no matter what you write, VA will lend it very little weight, if any at all. A buddy letter must come from an individual (a buddy) who has some expertise in diagnosing a medical condition or a witness to an actual event...like in combat.
The VA attitude is, "Hey, she's his wife. What's she going to say?" You have to admit that as his wife you have a built in bias. That also applies to parents, former teachers, pastors and ministers. VA doesn't give hardly any credit to anything those people say. A good buddy letter is just that...from a buddy who has first hand knowledge of something that happened that isn't in an official record. Maybe he witnessed an explosion near the veteran that wasn't officially recorded or something like that.
If you can record precise events of any medical crises or attest to particular instances of bizarre behavior that led to police intervention or hospitalization, that may help. I'm afraid that vague accounts of "moody, sleep apnea, memory loss" just won't get much attention. Those phrases could apply to much of the population of America...me included.
Beyond that, VA doesn't call it "Gulf War Syndrome" any longer. They prefer "Medically Unexplained Illnesses".
Please click http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/gulfwar/medically-unexplained-illness.asp
You may want to consider an IME/IMO for his claim.
Please click http://www.vawatchdog.org/imo-ime-medical-opinions-exams.html