Vietnam vet loses suit against VA to get benefits in Cuba

[unhappycamper]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2016/02/17/vietnam-vet-loses-suit-against-get-benefits-cuba/2zSgdNcM5JzSoEnlu2XcGO/story.html

Vietnam vet loses suit against VA to get benefits in Cuba
By Michael Weissenstein
February 17, 2016

HAVANA — A Cuban-American veteran of the Vietnam War lost his lawsuit Wednesday seeking to force the US government to restore the pension that was cut off when he moved back to Cuba.

Otto Macias was 19 when he left Cuba, enlisted in the US Army, and served as a machine-gunner in Vietnam. As he stayed with family in Havana in 1980, he required hospitalization for a mental breakdown and never returned to the United States.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs then ended his pension. Lawyer Jason Flores-Williams said that was because of the Unite States’ trade embargo on Cuba.

On Wednesday, a US Court of Appeals judge denied Macias’s suit seeking the restoration of the pension. The ruling said Macias failed to show he had pursued his case with the secretary of veterans affairs before asking the courts to intervene.

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Denial of earned benefits is a shitty way to take care of veterans.