Marine with backlogged VA claim gets first check

Retired Marine Master Sgt. Aaron Helstrom talks in a story broadcast on the "CBS Evening News" July 10, 2012. / CBS

(CBS News) A retired Marine master sergeant who told CBS News last month about his problems getting disability payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs received his first check Wednesday, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

Master Sgt. Aaron Helstrom, who was severely wounded in Iraq in 2003, told Martin in a "CBS Evening News" story broadcast July 10 that he expected to start receiving payments when he retired from the Marines in December 2011.

Instead, for seven months, he received form letters from the government advising him that his claim was being processed.

Gov't backlog leaves veterans waiting for benefits

On Wednesday, three weeks after the story was broadcast, Helstrom received his first payment from the government.

(Below, watch David Martin's story from last month)

[etcm]

And this Sergeant Major got "Special treatment" above hundreds of thousands of other disabled vets that are waiting their turn, to get his claim adjudicated in such a 'short' time.

A better idea would be to keep the wounded warriors on active duty (with active duty pay and benefits) with a special VA application process UNTIL the VA adjudicates the claim, then discharge-that way the promise of disability compensation is not a check in the mail two years later which is a normal wait!

[Mathion]

I know exactly what will fix this: For every vet whose disability hasn't been cleared (approved or denied) and who is sitting in VA limbo, you withhold the pay for VA administrators that month starting from the top and working down, so until every claim is processed in a timely manner (within a month of the last evaluation), that top dog gets NOTHING.

A friend of mine has obvious TBI symptoms from repeated blows to the head working on a carrier in the Persian Gulf (usually from working in the bilges where space is tight) for about two years along with a shoulder injury from falling down a ladder that limits his mobility was denied disability.

Once his combat zone benefits end, he'll be on social security - if they even acknowledge it as a valid claim. He is unemployable as he is.

I don't blame the administration since it's done all it can do to see that vets get what they deserve. I blame a bloated and inefficient VA. It is in serious need of revamping from the top down.

[cotn712]

GOD Bless you. I am a Vietnam Veteran's Widow whose husband, also th Father of our three children, died in July of 1996. His death was certified by the VA as a result of his exposure to Agent Orange and his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I am now in my 16th year of the VA Claims process. After flying to Washington, D.C. in 2008, the U S Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims "remanded" my family's file favorably - yet, I have never received one dime from VA Spousal Benefits. Our family's story was told on the website in June of 2012 at: www.americanwidowproject.org

[ballwyllo]

My appologies to the brave marine. As a U.S. citizen I am sorry that I continue to re-elect politicians who either refuse or are unable to change the bureaucracy that continues to poorly serve our fellow citizens. In this case only the glare of media spotlight moves the process. It is not what you do in the spotlight that makes you a hero, it is how you act when no one is looking. Shame on you VA but shame on me for letting the VA continue to fail.

[credibility2]

..shameful and outrageous...