Two Miles Decided Whether Two Vietnam Veterans Got The Same Claim Approved

Two Vietnam-era Navy veterans, same war, same diagnosis, same coronary artery disease. One got approved for Agent Orange compensation on his first decision. The other got denied. The entire difference came down to two nautical miles on a ship's logbook.

Under the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019, veterans who served on Navy or Coast Guard vessels within 12 nautical miles of the Vietnam or Cambodia coastline between January 9, 1962, and May 7, 1975, are presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange. You don't have to prove you personally handled or breathed the herbicide. You just need service in that zone and a current diagnosis of one of the recognized conditions, which now covers somewhere around 17 to 18 illnesses depending on how the cancer subcategories are counted, including ischemic heart disease, type 2 diabetes, prostate cancer, and Parkinson's disease.

That 12-mile line is exactly why identical cases can end so differently. If your ship's position placed you inside the zone, the presumption applies automatically. Sit even slightly outside it, and the VA can deny the exact same diagnosis, because the presumption itself no longer reaches you.

This is where the actual work of a Blue Water Navy claim happens, and it's not medical. It's proving where your ship actually was. Deck logs, muster rolls, and ship movement records can be pulled through the National Archives, and they're often more decisive than anything in your medical file.

If you were denied years ago because Blue Water Navy service wasn't recognized at the time, that denial doesn't have to be the final word. You're specifically entitled to file a new claim now, and if approved, back pay can potentially reach back to your original filing date, not just to 2019 when the law changed.

The bottom line is this: if you served offshore Vietnam and have one of these conditions, don't assume "I wasn't in-country" ends the claim. Pull your ship's actual position before you assume anything about which side of that line you were on.

Did you serve on a Blue Water Navy vessel, or know someone who did and never filed?