Vietnam vet?

Question:

I was Air Force. I flew over 1110 hours of combat flight time out of Okinawa as a North Vietnamese linguist handling multichannel intercept. I never set foot on the ground. I did however contract MS while flying those missions which shut my ears off sending me stateside and leading to a 6 month early out. Nam vet or Nam era vet?

 

Jim's Reply:

Like many Blue Water Navy veterans and pilots of various aircraft you served in the coastal area and the air space over the country of Vietnam but you aren't getting full credit as a "Vietnam veteran" because you didn't set boots on the ground.

I've advocated for others who flew clandestine missions out of Okinawa and although they had TDY orders, without clear evidence of having landed and touched the soil of The Republic of Vietnam, VA consistently denied agent orange benefits. We finally prevailed only after we turned up a photo of the vet on an airfield in Vietnam with the tail number of his aircraft in plain view.

The most common definition of a Vietnam veteran involves boots on the ground service because that's the qualifier for agent orange presumptive benefits. 

The Blue Water Navy is finally starting to see some disability benefits from agent orange exposure but not everyone agrees with how that's being dished out. Pilots who flew over the air space of Vietnam aren't eligible for AO benefits unless they were in aircraft dispensing or having been used to dispense AO and even then, the benefit isn't presumptive.

Are you a Vietnam vet? I think so. Others may not. We'll see if we get any comments.