Published on Monday, June 16, 2008
Woman helps Agent Orange vets fight back
By April Johnston
Staff writer
The government told her no.
No, your father’s ailments were not the result of exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange. And, no, your widowed mother is not eligible to collect federal benefits.
But Debrarose Gratten wasn’t going to let the government say no. She fought the Department of Veteran Affairs for five years in Massachusetts, through seven hearings, until it agreed her father’s diabetes, liver cancer and hepatitis were linked to his service in Vietnam.
She got what she wanted: lifelong monetary and health benefits for her mother.
But she got something else, too: the celebrity that comes with fighting Goliath and winning.
Soon, veterans and their families were calling her and begging for her help or at least her advice. She always obliged. It fulfilled her, and it exhausted her.
So five years ago, when marriage and the military brought Gratten to Fayetteville, where no one knew about her battle, she could have quit. No one would have known, and no one could have blamed her.
But she didn’t.
When she saw a man in line at Lowe’s with chloracne — the skin’s telltale eruption of blisters and cysts common with Agent Orange exposure — on his arms, she had to ask, “Did you serve in Vietnam?”
He did.
When the VA told another man the hospital didn’t have the Agent Orange registry exam — a screening necessary to claim benefits — she drove him back and demanded he be seen.
He was.
“I push and I push,” she says. “Because I know it’s such a long and frustrating trail.”
Two years ago, she pushed her co-worker Woodard Danford. He did two tours of Vietnam in the boiler room of a Navy destroyer and thought about fighting for what he was entitled.
But the VA told him: Navy vets aren’t eligible.
Gratten said: Yes, they are.
She handed Danford a copy of the law and ordered him back to the VA. This time, they agreed to give him the exam and found diabetes, high blood pressure and a tumor under his collar bone.
The surgery to remove the tumor is behind him, but a fight still looms. Whether the government will call any of his ailments service-related is still unclear. It’s a process filled with hundreds of questions and dozens of appointments.
“But Woody’s not going to give up,” Gratten says, looking at him sternly.
Danford nods.
“There’s nothing else to do,” he agrees.
Staff writer April Johnston can be reached at johnstona@fayobserver.com or 323-4848, ext. 384