SLIDELL, LA – More than 100 members of Congress sent a letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin this week, urging him to provide follow-up information from his congressional testimony earlier this year questioning the validity of Agent Orange claims by U.S. Navy veterans who served in the coastal waterways of Vietnam.
Military Veterans Advocacy, a Slidell, Louisiana-based nonprofit serving the interests of service members and veterans, has long advocated for the restoration of benefits for these veterans – benefits they received until a reversal of VA policy in 2002. The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2017, which was heard in committee in April and which has 295 co-sponsors, would undo the damage caused by the policy change.
"Military-Veterans Advocacy thanks these 103 members of Congress for their support to the 90,000 veterans of the Blue Water Navy," said Cdr. John Wells (USN, Ret.), executive director of Military Veterans Advocacy. "These veterans deserve the benefits that were stripped away from them in 2002 by the then-Secretary of Veterans Affairs. We call on Secretary Shulkin to restore these benefits and to do so promptly."
In April, Wells testified before the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability and Memorial Affairs and met with Shulkin to seek support for the policy change from both the administration and congress.
For more information
Slidell’s Military Veterans Advocacy Gets Congressional ‘Agent Orange’ Benefits Help
