You probably won’t see any benefits from it in the next several months or even this year, but the Department of Veterans Affairs is going to take another look at the disability claims of veterans who served in the Gulf War.

Additionally -- and this is big -- the VA is going to train staff not to tell veterans that the illnesses are all in their head, that they’re imagining it.

This comes on the heels of the VA adding three more conditions to the list of illnesses presumed to be caused by exposure to Agent Orange: B-cell leukemia, Parkinson’s disease and ischemic heart disease.

Behind this change is retired U.S. Army Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Last fall, a task force took a hard look at the Gulf War benefits issue. Shinseki’s choice to lead the task force: a retired Army colonel who was in the Gulf in 1991. And Shinseki read the Gulf illness study done by the Institute of Medicine, believed it, and made the decision to reopen claims. His top priority, he’s said, is taking care of the backlog.

So, who is this Shinseki guy anyway?

Shinseki is the real deal. Started at West Point, first stop Vietnam. Was a forward observer when he was wounded the first time. Three years later, he was back in Vietnam, a squadron commander in the 5th Cav when he was wounded a second time (land mine). Lots of medals and oak-leaf clusters. Came back and started climbing the ladder, with commands all over the world -- including the Gulf. His final post was Army chief of staff.

We’ll need to keep an eye out, but so far he’s aiming the VA in the right direction.

Agent Orange

It recently came to light in a news piece that there was yet another site in the world where U.S. soldiers could have been exposed to Agent Orange. In this case, exposure occurred while training in New Brunswick, Canada, at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown.

Gagetown is listed as an Agent Orange site by the Department of Veterans Affairs. However, the VA’s Agent Orange Web site says the exposure was only from December 1966 to October 1967, and work was carried out by Fort Detrick’s Plant Science Lab personnel.

Then in another place the dates were June 21-24, 1967.

There’s a problem here when it comes to filing claims. If you have illnesses that are likely caused by Agent Orange exposure, you need to prove you were in a place that had been sprayed. While Agent Orange-caused illnesses are presumptive if you served in Vietnam, you still have to prove certain facts to get compensation, such as where you were and when, especially if you weren’t in Vietnam. And the dates above comprise a very narrow window of possible exposure at Gagetown.

The truth: Agent Orange was used from 1956 to 1984 at Gagetown. The base was apparently saturated with the stuff (as well as Agents Purple, Blue and White) for 28 years -- even contaminating crops nearby and making people ill -- before and after the times that U.S. service members were there.