[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 171 (Tuesday, November 6, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S13991]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

       By Mr. AKAKA:
   S. 2309. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify 
the service treatable as service engaged in combat with the enemy for 
utilization of non-official evidence for proof of service-connection in 
a combat-related disease or injury; to the Committee on Veterans' 
Affairs.
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, today I introduce the proposed Compensation 
for Combat Veterans Act. This legislation would remove a barrier to the 
fair adjudication of claims for VA benefits filed by veterans who have 
disabilities incurred or aggravated by their military service in combat 
areas. Under existing law, veterans who can establish that they served 
in combat do not have to produce official military records to support 
their claim for disabilities related to that service.
  At present, some veterans, disabled by their service in Iraq and 
Afghanistan as well as those who served earlier in Korea and Vietnam, 
are unable to benefit from this liberalizing evidentiary requirement 
because they have difficulty proving personal participation in combat 
by official military documents.
  Under an opinion of the Department of Veterans Affairs General 
Counsel, VA GC Opinion 12-99, veterans must establish by official 
military records or decorations that they ``personally participated in 
events constituting an actual fight or encounter with a military foe or 
hostile unit or instrumentality.'' Oversight visits by Committee staff 
to VA regional offices have found claims denied as a result of this 
policy because those who served in combat zones were not able to 
produce official military documentation of their personal participation 
in an actual fight.
  Some of these cases include a Marine Combat Engineer serving in Iraq 
who encountered IEDs, an Army veteran accidently shot in Iraq by a 
fellow servicemember, and an Army Infantryman whose records showed 
participation in the Tet offensive of 1968, but not ``personal 
participation in an actual fight.'' In other cases, extensive delays in 
claims processing occur while VA adjudicators attempt to obtain 
official military documents showing that a Marine who served in Bagdad 
or Fallujah was personally exposed to IEDs.
  The legislation I am introducing would overturn the General Counsel 
precedent opinion. I believe that the requirement in that opinion is 
inconsistent with the original intent of Congress in liberalizing the 
requirements for proof of service-connection in cases involving 
veterans who served in combat areas. As the Senate noted in 1941, in 
the report on the original bill providing special consideration for 
combat veterans:

       The absence of an official record of care or treatment in 
     many of such cases is readily explained by the conditions 
     surrounding the service of combat veterans. It was emphasized 
     in the hearings that the establishment of records of care or 
     treatment of veterans in other than combat areas, and 
     particularly in the States, was a comparatively simple matter 
     as compared with the veteran who served in combat. Either the 
     veteran attempted to carry on despite his disability to avoid 
     having a record made lest he might be separated from his 
     organization or, as in many cases, the records themselves 
     were lost.

  S. Rep. 77-902 to H.R. 4905 at 2.
  While some improvements have been made since 1941 in obtaining and 
maintaining records in combat areas, record keeping and transmittal of 
records in combat areas remains problematic.
  This bill would require that, in cases in which the veteran can 
demonstrate service in a recognized combat area and alleges 
disabilities related to that service the relaxed evidentiary principles 
intended by the Congress would apply, with no requirement for further 
evidence from the veteran regarding his or her specific activity.
  I urge all of my colleagues to support this measure, so that combat 
veterans of the current conflicts, as well as those who served in 
earlier conflicts, can receive the benefits they deserve in a timely 
manner.
                                 ______