Wisener and his wife Carol — who alone cares for him in their Florida home — had hoped to ease some of the financial and caretaking burdens when they filed a claim in April with the Veterans Administration to receive compensation for what are possibly service-connected ailments afflicting him.
Last week, after his claim had languished for more than a half-year, the VA denied most of it for lack of a document indicating he received an honorable discharge from the Air Force in 1955.
Wisener’s military records were among the millions destroyed in an archives fire in 1973.
“It’s been very frustrating,” Carol Wisener said in a phone interview last week from their home near Orlando.
On Monday, Sally Stenton, an attorney the Wiseners retained earlier this fall, appealed the denial to the Board of Veterans Appeals, where an administrative law judge will decide the case.
Stenton expressed dismay over the VA’s languid effort on the case during a Dec. 11 phone interview from her New Jersey office.
“In order to be entitled to VA compensation or pension benefits, veterans have to be able to show the character of discharge was honorable or general under honorable conditions,” Stenton said.
Wisener served in the Army from 1947 to 1951 and in the Air Force from 1951 to 1955.
“It literally took me 10 minutes of research to be able to prove that in order to serve in the Air Force, he had to have an honorable discharge from the Army,” she said.
Stenton submitted that information in November to the VA, which within 48 hours deemed Wisener’s discharge as “honorable for VA purposes,” she said.
The VA, however, requires evidence that Wisener was honorably discharged from the Air Force in regard to his most serious health conditions.
The VA had not provided answers to a written query by Stars and Stripes as of the time this article was published.
The 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis burned the records of about 18 million veterans, including about 80 percent of Army personnel discharged between 1912 and 1960 and 75 percent of Air Force personnel discharged between 1947 and 1964.
Wisener was orphaned as a very young child and raised in foster homes, he said in a phone interview Friday with the assistance of his wife because of a speech impairment left by surgery.
With few prospects at age 17, he enlisted in the Army and was stationed in Tokyo and Yokohama, he said.
After discharge, he made little headway in the civilian workforce and decided to enlist in the Air Force, he said.
He recalled being hospitalized for six months with rheumatic fever while in the Air Force in Colorado.
Any military records he might have once had were discarded decades ago.
The couple did not know until earlier this year that Wisener was potentially eligible for VA compensation for service-related conditions.
Stenton said that speed is critical in processing Wisener’s claim because of his frail health. The VA must perform a compensation exam on Wisener for his alleged medical issues while he still lives, she said.
“I’ve lost several veteran clients while their claim was in process, and the claim died with them,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
His death at that stage would preclude his wife from receiving what is called dependency indemnity compensation, Stenton said.
“The VA has refused to perform any [compensation and pension] exams on Earl, except hearing loss and tinnitus, because there is nothing in his service treatment records — records that by their own admission don’t exist!!" Stenton wrote in an email Tuesday.
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