VA approves death benefit for daughter of Cape Girardeau soldier

More than a year later, the paperwork is beginning to arrive.

Late last week, Cynthia Herath, mother of deceased soldier and longtime Cape Girardeau resident Lucky Sands, received a letter from the VA informing her that after "careful and compassionate consideration a decision has been reached on your claim."

Ceylon, Lucky's 13-year-old daughter, will now receive $488 a month in Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, a death benefit for the loss of her mother.

Cynthia, who is raising her granddaughter in Cape Girardeau, has been seeking the benefit for the better part of the past year. The letter last week, Cynthia said, was the first time she had received VA correspondence about the payment, even as she says she and her granddaughter live without health insurance and with constrained finances.

Lucky's story was featured in a recent Southeast Missourian investigative report. She died Feb. 16, 2010, at a Washington, D.C., VA hospital after suffering for years with health complications she believed were related to her tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Her family claims Lucky was the victim of medical neglect in the VA system, and that she racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debt and lived in poverty while she waited for the VA to approve her benefits.

VA officials say Lucky received the best care available to someone suffering from her serious medical conditions, which included systemic lupus erythematosus.

Glenn Costie, chief executive officer and director of John J. Pershing VA Medical Center in Poplar Bluff, Mo., one of the hospitals where Lucky was treated, said the VA is working to "get through" benefits to Cynthia and Ceylon -- the benefits, he said, that Lucky deserves.

The letter sent to Cynthia says that, by law, the death benefit must begin the first day after Ceylon became entitled to the benefit. Payment was withheld, the VA said, because the agency needed to appoint a fiduciary -- or someone who is responsible for pension benefits -- for the girl, because she is younger than 18.

"While we continue processing Ceylon's award, we will start sending to you a regular monthly benefit check in the mail," the letter says, noting the check should arrive on or around March 1.

"We show that the VA owes Ceylon some retroactive payments," dating back to March 1, 2010, the VA letter says. "These retroactive payments will be released in the future to her fiduciary."

The Veterans Claim Assistance Act of 2000 requires the VA to notify a claimant and a claim representative -- in this case Ceylon and Cynthia -- of any information and any medical evidence necessary to substantiate the claim. The VA also must inform the claimant which evidence the claimant must supply and which evidence the VA will obtain on the claimant's behalf.

The VA "must make reasonable effort to assist a claimant in obtaining evidence necessary to substantiate a claim for a VA benefit," the act says.

Cynthia said none of that occurred until last week.

mkittle@semissourian.com

In 2001, Lucky Sands joined the U.S. Army Reserve 348th Engineer Company in Cape Girardeau to serve her adopted country. Her military career included 15 months in Iraq from 2003-2005 and a humanitarian mission to El Salvador in 2006.

388-3627