WASHINGTON – For Carol
Olszanecki of Kingston, the House of Representatives’ passage Monday
night of the Blue Water Navy bill is a major victory.
Her husband, John, was stationed on a ship off-shore during the Vietnam
War, later contracted cancer and died 16 years ago at age 57. She has
been fighting for years in an effort to secure her husband’s death
benefits. “The VA told me I wouldn’t get anything in benefits,
so after that I committed to making sure that wouldn’t happen to
anyone else,” she said.
The measure, if approved by the Senate and signed by the president, would
extend existing disability and death benefits to Vietnam-era Navy veterans
who were stationed on ships off the coast in Southeast Asia, but were
affected by Agent Orange. Currently, only military personnel who served
on land or inland waterways qualify for treatment benefits for Agent Orange-related
health problems, even though thousands of Navy veterans were affected
by the herbicides that washed into the area’s waterways.
The measure was initially introduced by former Rep. Christopher Gibson.
The bill, which passed by a vote of 382 to 0, had among its cosponsors
Congressman John Faso (R, NY-19) and Sean Patrick Maloney (D, NY-18).
