The following letter was delivered to the following recipients: Board of Veterans Appeals, Department of Veterans Affairs, Disabled American Veterans Service Office, Air Commando Journal, The Honorable Mitch McConnell.
Dear Honorable Addressees:
Received the subject letter at approximately 12.45 p.m., March 4, 2022, read letter but didn’t understand new court information or Advance on the Docket whereas I called the 1-800-827- 1000 number and spoke with clueless individual. Moreover, from my thirty-five years of employment primarily under the federal government’s umbrella one can always determine the dishonesty and corruption of the agency by the inability to contact the agency and receive a factual response; so it seems our once honorable Department Veterans Affairs has become an agency without integrity. A PDF version of the letter can be found at the bottom of this page.
Now to respond to the text of the letter:
ORDER: Service connection for a thyroid disorder is denied.
Item one of the letter is in error regarding dates of military service which I have advised on different occasions: Date of Service September 30, 1960- October 1, 1980.
Item two should not be applicable. We did not serve in the military as class members such as Nehmer class; we were members of the US Armed Forces engaged in an illegal war in Southeast Asia.
CONCLUSION OF LAW: In recent years, laws have been written not for the citizen or the military member but to protect the political parties, the President, the full- time members of Congress, and the inept US Judicial System. Moreover, in the multiple correspondence I submitted to the Department of Veterans Affairs regarding the disease of hypothyroidism I haven’t to date received a response. In fact, in one communication, after learning hypothyroidism may be added to a presumptive list of diseases associated with Agent Orange exposure, I wrote the VA’s Burial Insurance section that I was followed for hypothyroidism and asked the disease added to my listing of service connect disease. Yes, I submitted a required form as well.
I read the conclusion of the Nehmer Law and the rater and author of the Appeals Order did not identify that under certain circumstances veterans in Laos and Thailand may receive disability payments for their Agent Orange exposure however, in my case, there would not be additional monthly monetary compensation as I understand the VA’s Rules and Regulations. My intent was burial expenses, should I expire from a thyroid related disease.
Regarding my thyroid problems: I have been treated and followed by thyroid problems beginning in the 1990s. Currently, I have a throat/neck goiter, I can feel the growths under my chin, the endo doctor found lymph nodes and nodules in my thyroid, my fingernails have ridges, the eyebrow hairline has greatly diminished, trouble with my stomach with the gastro clinic didn’t answer, ear and eye problems according to the internet may be caused by thyroid difficulties plus I have been taking a thyroid medication for years. Not related maybe I have a nodule, recently re-CAT Scanned for years in my chest from asbestos exposure which the VA attempted to change to residuals of pneumonia or some other exposure in my military career. have been honest to you from day one however I question your integrity.
Now, over the years, I have provided the Department of Veterans Affairs with real-time information regarding our country’s involvement in the Kingdom of Thailand and the Kingdom of Laos prior to becoming the People Democratic Republic of Laos however apparently raters are denied the information or maybe the VA is covering up true claims to provide health care and benefits for the non-career or short-term enlistee. For crying out loud, when I was employed as an Administrative Officer of the Day at the Louisville, KY VAMC, I wrote Senator Mitch McConnell and Congresswoman Anne Northrop about the corruptions, dishonesty, fraud, and fraudulent claims by former service members without success. In fact, the honorable Senator McConnell, in person, said I waited too long before writing him. The Louisville Medical Center medical retired me with a just diagnosis, in my opinion, of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. No! I didn’t see individuals blown up or killed but I was the supervisor of the US Embassy’s Air Attache Command & Control Center and one-time Ground Forward Air Controller at Moung Soui (LS-108) Laos surrounded by thousands of North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao Forces, without a weapon, and the three or four other individuals (aircraft mechanic, munitions, electrician, and other maybe), without weapons. We were flown into the site before dawn and picked up after dark by Air America air resources; the last day/evening for me, the NVA sent a sapper squad on to the airfield and blew up SO-gallon drums of fuel and water. Sadly, command decided to continue the air operations farce against the North Vietnamese but not ferry the 56th Special Operations Wing personnel, on temporary duty from Udorn Royal Thai Air Base, Kingdom of Thailand. So, instead of ferrying, command directed a tent be erected on the USAID’s (United States Assistance to Laos) on their compound’s tennis court. (Two legal Army advisors were assigned to Maung Soui, we were illegal – covert.) The first evening NVA sapper squad place an explosive on the radio jeep I used to control aircraft at Maung Soui, sprayed the tent with the 56th SOW personnel and entered the house where the legal army advisors resided. Captain Bush was killed, and Sergeant Smoke was severely wounded. Command ceased the overnight stays.
I read a mental health doctors’ opinion of an interview and he stated I was a clerk but ok the dropping of bombs. So sad, one had to be interview with incompetent individuals with no knowledge of the US military. Yes, I wasn’t a rifle carrying army person but prior to going to Laos I had to attend a two week or more (I don’t remember the length) in-country training course at Lackland Air Force Base, TX. There we were instructed in the use of weapons, grenades, patrol through smoke filled fake villages, point person on patrols and patrols through foliage and water areas where explosives were denotated to prepare us for what could be a reality. When I arrived in Laos, in civilian clothing without any military identification, we learned the US Ambassador Sullivan directed that Project 404 personnel could not carry weapons or anything US. Military. We were covert civilians.
In my position as supervisor of the command post, we received and dispatched top secret and other classified documents 24-7 that detailed our war effort in Laos to the point of controlling the number of bombs and bullets expended by the Laotian and Hmong military and, of course, the daily report to the Ambassador of the number of foreign nationals killed or wounded plus destruction of war materials. Unfortunately, there were a large number, in comparison of the number allowed in-country, forward air controllers known as RAVENS (USAF pilots on temporary duty to Laos) killed and wounded. (I recently learned there were a total of less than 800 US personnel killed in Laos between 1961 and 1975. Of course, there h approximately 40,000 or more Thai Army forces, Thai contracted Forward Air Guides, Laotian Army and Air Force, and Hmong mountain people killed in our country’s covert war in the People Democratic Republic of Laos. Oh, we processed three US military personnel released by the North Vietnamese; Frishman, Rumble and Heygdale (misspelled) entailing debriefs, calls to US family members, and the following morning, I travelled to the Ambassador’s residence where I provided the three with money to purchase items for their families on the local economy. Lastly, early one morning, the duty controller, Richard Brisbane, called me on the HT220 radio I carried when out of the command post advising me to come into the command post. I dressed and started my travel to the command post but was stopped by a Laotian Army roadblock, almost directly across from the Pathet Lao Army Recreational Compound, where I explained in broken Thai, Lao and English I was on the way to the Air Attache Compound; I was allowed to proceed. Inside the Command Post, the controller advised the controller at LS-20 A, Long Tieng, had requested immediate air support due to a combined North Vietnamese, Pathet Lao, Chinese advisors, etc., assault on the CIA’s Skyline position and Long Tieng. I contacted the 20A controller however instead of the normal procedure, due to the urgency, of contacting the US Air Force’s Airborne Command & Control aircraft for assistance, I walked to the Air Attache’s Red Phone that connected directly to the duty officer at 7th Air Force Headquarters in Saigon, Republic of South Vietnam. I informed the duty controller of the situation and request immediate gunship and strike aircraft support. I contact 20A and waited until the air resources arrived and returned to my residence for a couple of hours prior to returning to the command post. At my arrival the next day, I learned the site was temporarily secure and at exit from their bunker, there were communist bodies throughout the area. Unfortunately, the Thai Army’s nose was blooded with the loss of thousands of lives to the point they called in artillery strikes on their own locations. The Air Attache, USAID and CIA personnel relocated to Vientiane’s Wattay airport to resume air sorties against the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao Forces. My last direct contact with the war was on December 24, 1972, when a Raven pilot had a mid-air collision with a US A-7 aircraft. The A7 pilot was captured but released during the prisoner release by the North Vietnamese. The Raven’s body has not been recovered.
Digressing at bit. In the rater’s report, he addressed 1969 spray of Agent Orange in Laos unfortunately, the rater was apparently unaware of the availability of Laotian Agent Orange spraying data that identifies the sorties flown not only by the USAF, but Air America and other actions controlled by the Vientiane US Embassy. Moreover, there were more munitions expended on the Kingdom of Laos than the entire European theater during World War II and, of course, one cannot truthfully know the extend of Agent fluids dispersed at the hundred or more Lima (Laotian) sites in the Kingdom of Laos during our covert war. How can anyone with integrity deny compensation for members of the 56th Special Operations Wing, legal US advisors, and special situation Project 404 members with duty in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia however, without a doubt, all members of the USAF teams in Laos were exposed in some shape or form to Agent Orange fluids and, hidden by the Veterans Administration – asbestos.
In January 1973, my son, Dwight David Wilson, born out of wedlock returned to the United States. I was to be stationed at Wurtsmith AFB, Ml. and my son would spend most of his life with an aunt that I paid and attended Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Detroit. I am an atheist, but I wanted my son to have an outstanding education that I didn’t receive in the Laurel County, KY school system. (I went through the Royal Laotian Court System to obtain custody of Dwight and Senator John Sherman Cooper acted on my behalf to allow my son to return to the United States. Several years later, Beth, Senator McConnell’s assistant, obtained the telephone of my son’s mother now residing in the United States. His mother married a US Marine Embassy Guard at the Vientiane Embassy and later he served at the Bangkok embassy prior to returning to the United States. They had several children but are now divorced.
In September 1973, I was reassigned to the Joint Casualty Resolution Center, Nakhon Phan om Royal Thai Air Base, Nakhon Phanom, Kingdom of Thailand located on the Mekong River across from Laos at several locations. Our mission atJCRC was to go into Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam to recovery the remains of US Missing in Action and/resolve their status through the review of the highest classification of documents received from US and international sources. On one occasion I was sent on temporary duty to Laos, after the Communist had taken over the government to recover documents pertaining to our country’s involvement in Southeast Asia and, of course, the MIAs. I recovered a large burlap bag of documents from which we resolved several MIA cases. Also, an Army Sergeant and I travelled deep inside Thailand’s communist controlled areas, across from a highly communist controlled area in southern Laos, to recover classified documents from a former CIA paid Thai Forward Air Guide. For the record, all MIA from the Vietnam era are now classified as Deceased, Body Not Recovered or Decease, Body Not Recoverable.
Now once again for the record: Beginning in 1961, the United States government made an agreement with the Kingdom of Thailand to construct US Military installations and conduct an air war against communist forces in the then Kingdom of Laos. The venture required the defoliation of large areas throughout the kingdom to construct said bases therefore the introduction of the Agent Orange fluids.
In 1966- 1967, I was stationed at Don Muong Royal Thai Air Base, Bangkok, Thailand with first duty in the Bangkok lnternationa1 Airports Contro1 Tower and later, once activated, to the Thai Air Force side of the runway where the USAF Base Operations was located. To this end, what most US citizens and apparently VA raters didn’t read what I provided, the air base was the point of dispatch of all US military logistics to US installations in Thailand and in the Republic of South Vietnam. The US Army had a fleet of cargo aircraft plus US Air Force cargo flew support missions throughout Thailand, Laos, and South Vietnam. (Most of the Laotian air sorties were flown by either Air America, Continental Air Services, or Bird Air.) The fifty gallons of Agent fluids, orange, blue, etc.,) arrived at Don Muong via surface movement from Thailand’s ports. At Don Moung the drums were often stores on the apron near base operations and the USAF’s administrative functions (personnel, finance, medical clinic, etc.) whereas the Agent fluids leaked from the drums into the areas water supply. The air base is below sea level whereas there was always standing water. Also, the Thai laundry service used the canals and base water supply to wash clothing, prepare food, etc. Our transportation to and from Bangkok hotels and/or apartments were via contracted Thai diesel powered buses that spewed black toxic smoke polluting the passengers and the areas transited.
The Kingdom of Thailand and the Kingdoms of Laos were the well-kept secret of the Vietnam era as without Thailand and Laos, US Forces would have been defeated within a short period of time following the first North Vietnamese Tet offensive in South Vietnam. The political power exerted by the Blue Water Navy Campaign (Nehmer) is an insult to every service member that served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War era. Each service member claiming exposure to toxin, agent series, asbestos, radiation should receive a one-on-one complete examination by a qualified physician or medical member to ascertain his or her health ailments, especially those from the Vietnam era, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the upcoming war to provide western financial services to Ukraine.
I would like to be evaluated by real doctors for my hypothyroidism instead of Veterans Administration employees that lost their integrity and their oaths as physicians.
With respect to those with integrity and for those without integrity, I feel sorry for you.
BILLY RAY WILSON
MASTER SERGEANT, USAF- RETIRED
AIR OPERATIONS SUPERINTENDENT
Letter from the Board of Veterans’ Appeals
Billy Ray Wilson VA Letter