Paul,

If this had been written up and presented as an award, your claim for PTSD would have been completed within 30 days. Awards do count, they have meaning to the "Know Nothings" in the VA Regional Office who adjudicate the disability requests. It is looked at as proof of action.

We all know that if we were written up every time that we were thanked for our actions and told that we would be written up for an award, we would all be walking with a list to the left from all of the numbers on the little ribbons. That would be just due to the weight of the ribbons and the attachments. We were lucky to get anything from the 119th, the Warrant who was the awards and decorations officer didn't process anything unless it was for the unit commander or the XO. That was evidenced by the DFC the commander received for the day that he flew with me. I spent the whole day recovering from his inability to fly and he got a DFC that he wrote up for himself based on being shot at that day, he got it. Rex killed the gunman who shot at us and I recovered the aircraft after the commander turned loose of the controls and grabbed the sliding armor plate on his seat. BUT, he got the DFC for that. Some hero. He wrote himself up!

Huey