Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Marty Redding, Jr. (photo: Stephen J. Coddington, St. Petersburg Times)
The 10 months that Marty Redding Jr. spent fighting the Germans during World War II was nothing compared to the battle the Florida resident has fought over seven decades with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Despite a VA doctor’s diagnosis in 1947 that Redding suffered from “psychoneurosis, anxiety type”—what later became known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—the veteran was denied benefits. But that didn’t stop the former U.S. Army private from trying again and again and again to reverse the VA’s decision.
In 1997, Redding won a partial victory when the VA agreed he had PTSD and gave him a pension of $2,800 a month, as well as access to medical care. But the department refused to grant him retroactive benefits dating back to 1947. Redding, now 85, continues his fight today for back payments on his pension.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
A Soldier's 65-year Fight with the VA (by William R. Levesque, St. Petersburg Times)
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