Soldier's VA Woes

    CHAMPAIGN - Garrett Anderson lives with a constant reminder of his time in Iraq. Anderson lost his right arm and suffered several other injuries when an improvised explosive device detonated under his Humvee.
    Still, he says it's service he would gladly repeat. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat," said Anderson.
    "I'd do it one hundred times if they needed me to."
    Now, home with his family, the rehabilitation and surgeries mostly in the past, he just wants to live a modest life. That is something he says is more of a challenge than he ever considered because of the Veterans Administration.
    "It's really a let down when you receive your rating when you feel you've done so much for your country and the all of the sudden they're just like step in line. You're just another number another statistic."
    The VA gives soldiers a rating once discharged. That determines the amount of their benefits. Anderson lost his right arm, had steel plates inserted in his jaw and face, and several other smaller injuries. In all, the VA determined Anderson's injuries got him a 90 percent rating.
    But Anderson says he should qualify for more. In fact, he says he should get the full one hundred percent.
    "What the 90-percent did... all that did is get me up to the amount the army retirement is for me. I guess they thought that would just tide me over and make me happy at that point."
    He has a lawyer and is now in the process of filing an appeal with the VA. He says that could take up to two years to get resolved and even then, there are no guarantees anything will change.
    One point of contention with the VA is a piece of shrapnel Anderson has lodged in his body. The VA says that's not an injury he sustained in Iraq because doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center did not pick it up in their tests and observations. Anderson says that is absurd.
    "I am astonished that someone would even write that in the evaluation, I mean where else would I have gotten that injury, driving around Hessel park, or down Prospect?"
    Anderson says a 100 percent VA rating would give his family insurance and provide education for his wife and daughter. He says the rating system is flawed and it's time something is done.
    "Really this fight is not just for myself. It's for all veterans that are getting out right now with injuries and you just have to draw a line in the sand somewhere and say it's got to stop."
    As his appeal gets underway, Anderson says he hopes for more benefits. But if nothing else, he wants to see some kind of change.
    "One hundred percent I'd be completely happy with, but I would just like to change the fact that other soldiers would not get the same shock value, that everybody would be treated not as a number but as a person."