Vietnam veteran files federal lawsuit against Louisiana VA office director

A veteran in Lake Charles filed a federal lawsuit against the Louisiana Veterans Affairs regional office director.

George Jackson, 76, lives in Lake Charles with his wife, Helene. On Thursday, she and a veterans advocate went to the U.S. District Court Western District of Louisiana to file the lawsuit against Mark Bologna.

Jackson, the plaintiff, stayed at their home.

"I'm here because my husband, George Jackson, can't be here," she told media Friday.

Jackson is considered tetraplegic, having lost the use of his limbs. He can still move them slightly but he has no strength. He splits his time between a hospital bed in his home and his electric wheelchair.

The Lake Charles native served 30 years in the U.S. Navy, climbing ladders, crouching, lifting heavy things and performing other jobs on ships. He was aboard wooden ships used to sweep rivers for mines during two tours in Vietnam.

"Most of my job was on ships ... 30 years of going up and down ladders," he said.

But he doesn't regret joining the Navy, he said. It was always his dream.

"That's the only thing I really wanted to do," Jackson said. "I watched Navy movies on TV. In first grade, I looked out the window, and I always wanted to be a sailor."

So he joined once he was old enough "and I put 31 years in the military."

When he was 49, he went before a Navy medical board because his back and leg pain was getting so bad. An exam and X-rays found degenerative disc disease changes at multiple vertebrae.

They ordered he be placed on "light duty" and go to physical therapy. A year later, he was back before a medical board again, and they found the same thing — severe degenerative disc disease and abnormal narrowing of the spine.

Both boards declared Jackson was handicapped and unable to perform the duties of his rate, or job in the military. They recommended he go before a physical evaluation board for final judgment.

But rather than a medical or disability discharge, Jackson was given an honorable discharge and started retirement in 1993.

He still gets nearly $3,000 a month for his military retirement, but he has gotten no disability payments to help with the costs of his care until this month. It was a check for an additional $130 a month.

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Jackson left the Navy and its ships still able to walk. The board had recommended a surgery — an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion — but he decided against it when the doctor couldn't guarantee he would be able to walk afterward.

After retiring at 50, Jackson worked more than a decade as a Calcasieu Parish sheriff's deputy.

On Veterans Day in 2004, Jackson walked outside to hang his American flag, as he did every year. The 6-foot-3 man needed no ladder or step to reach the post.

As he reached upward, the vertebrae that had been degenerating and narrowing since before he left he Navy broke and damaged his spinal cord. He had surgery in Lafayette the next day.

He did physical therapy for about three years after his surgery but their family couldn't afford to continue it. 

They mortgaged the house to get a loan to add on the room Jackson now lives in and purchase a handicap van, Helene said.

Helene, 60, retired three years earlier than she had planned because of the stress of full-time care for her husband and a full-time job as a custodian with the school district. It was too much.

'It was either put him in a home or retire," she said.

Last year, the VA ordered her some help. It pays for home health aids to come to the house 14 hours a week.

But the lawsuit is not a claim for federal benefits, advocate Paul Labbe said. It is a claim stating Bologna violated Jackson's constitutional and statutory rights.

The VA benefits office in New Orleans is closed on Fridays and could not be reached for comment.

The suit demands a jury trial and asks for monetary damages for violation of Jackson's rights under the Federal Freedom of Information Act and another federal code.

But Jackson and his wife say this isn't about money, but about principle and preventing this from happening to more veterans.

"Maybe my suit'll make it better for somebody else," Jackson said. "... If we can stop them from doing it to me, we can stop them from doing it to other folks. ... If they see they can be held accountable maybe they'll stop doing it."

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The defendant named in the suit, Bologna, has been director of the Veterans Affairs Regional Office in New Orleans since 2011.

The suit claims he is "the sole person responsible for the violation" of Jackson's rights.

The suit asks the court order Bologna to pay Jackson $50,000 in monetary damages and $100,000 in a punitive award.

"The purpose of this suit is to have some accountability for directors (for VA offices) for every state for violating veterans' rights," Labbe said.

The suit alleges that Bologna and the VA violated Jackson's rights by delaying the process and eventually denying the veteran's request for disability pay, despite his service in combat and medical records.

A law states "any veteran who engaged in combat... the Secretary shall accept as sufficient proof of service-connection of any disease or injury alleged to have incurred in or aggravated by such service satisfactory lay or other evidence of ... shall resolve every reasonable doubt in favor of the veteran."

"Director Bologna violated this right, which mandates award even if there were no service medical records to support my claim," the suit reads. "He deliberately violated this right despite" having VA and service forms and medical records.

Jackson's request was denied at first and later awarded at 10 percent — the additional $130 a month he's getting now.

The suit also alleges the VA violated Jackson's constitutional rights by directing its sub-contractors to not release veterans medical records to them.