The Defense Base Act Compensation Blog

Welcome to the Defense Base Act

Our Fallen Contractors Memorial

An Arlington National Cemetery caisson carries the body of retired Air Force Col. Michael W. Butler, who was killed while working as a private contractor in Iraq

We are the Best Kept Secret of the Wars

$$$$$

At Least 49 Civilian Contractor Deaths filed on in First Quarter of 2012

At Least 418 Civilian Contractor Deaths in 2011

Defense Base Act Class Action

After Injury, The Battle Begins House Oversight Committee

This Year, Contractor Deaths Exceed Military Ones in Iraq and Afghanistan

At least Eighty Contractor Deaths in First Quarter of 2011

At Least 132 Contractor Deaths in Second Quarter of 2011

At Least 119 Contactor Deaths in Third Quarter of 2011

At Least 87 Contractor Deaths in Fourth Quarter of 2011

War Hazards Act pays Insurance Companies

more for expenses

than to Claimants for compensation

Class Action Tax Misclassification filed against Xe, Formerly Blackwater

CNA May Finally Face Criminal Charges

Eysslinck Vs Ronco Consulting Injustice Prevails

The Fallen Contractor Memorial

CNA’s Double Agent in South Africa

CIVILIAN CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

OVERSEAS CIVILIAN CONTRACTORS

MSSPARKY

Contact us at dbacasualty@yahoo.com

All comments made here are solely the opinion of the person commenting and not necessarily the opinion of this blog.

The Defense of Freedom Medal Held Hostage by The Defense Base Act

WHY HAVE I NOT RECEIVED THE DEFENSE OF FREEDOM MEDAL?

The Defense of Freedom Medal is an award held to be the equivalent of the Purple Heart and is awarded to Civilian Contractors injured in the war zones. 

One question we get here repeatedly is why have I not received the Defense of Freedom Medal?   The question comes from severely disabled Civilian Contractors wounded in horrific explosions and insurgent attacks.

WHO IS HOLDING YOUR MEDAL HOSTAGE?

The company you work for is responsible for requesting  that you receive the medal and providing the documentation that you have indeed suffered a qualifying injury.

As all Injured War Zone Contractors know the minute you must file a Defense Base Act Claim you are automatically placed in an adversarial relationship with your employer.   Your Employer and the Defense Base Act Insurance Company are considered equal entities in the battle you have entered for your medical care and indemnity.

Your Employer is required to assist the insurance company in denying your claim.  Under the War Hazards Act the Employer/Carrier must prove to the WHA Tribunal that they have diligently tried to deny your claim.

It appears that your Defense of Freedom Medals could be held hostage by your Employers due to the adversarial relationship the Defense Base Act has created.

When KBR, DynCorp, Blackwater, Xe, et al, provide documentation of your injuries to the DoD they have just admitted that you are indeed injured and to what extent.

Specific information regarding injury/death: Description of the situation causing the injury/death in detail to include the date, time, place, and scene of the incident, and official medical documentation of the employee’s injuries and treatment. The description must be well documented, including the names of witnesses and point of contact (POC) for additional medical information, if needed.

These admissions sure would make it hard for Administrative Law Judges like Paul C Johnson to name them as alleged.   ALJ Paul C Johnson has yet to award benefits to a DBA Claimant in a decision based on a hearing.

KBR who can never seem to find their injured employees medical records holds the key to the Defense of Freedom Medal.

Certainly there are other lawsuits outside of the DBA that the withholding of this information is vital too.

For those of you who still give a damn after being abused by so badly simply because you were injured-

The Defense of Freedom Medal may find you many years down the road once an Administrative Law Judge says you were injured.

We recommend that you contact your Congressional Representative or Senator and have them request this Medal if you qualify for it and would like to have it.

If you are still litigating your claim it SHOULD serve to legitimize your alleged injuries.

The Unnamed Military Veteran Civilian Contractor War Casualties

They too are the

BEST KEPT SECRET OF THE WARS

The Majority of ExPat Civilian Contractor Casualties first served their country in the military.  

Many of them gave twenty and more years of service before deploying in a civilian capacity.

Many of them were buried with full military honors.

Yet we are not supposed to know their names or even that they died in our wars.

Defense Base Act War Profiteers are encouraged to abuse the families they leave behind

You can see some of these nameless hero’s at

Our Fallen Contractors Memorial

Please keep them and their families in your thoughts today and everyday

The Price of Sacrifice

The government decided that contractors are eligible for public honor as civilians, through awards such as the Defense of Freedom Medal. This is described as the “civilian equivalent” of a Purple Heart, as both require the recipient to have been injured or killed. But the contractor is honored as victim; not hero.

David Isenberg at Huffington Post  May 24, 2012

Please see David’s blog  The Isenberg Institute of Strategic Satire

How should one recognize an act on the battlefield that gets you wounded? If you are a soldier, marine, sailor or airman the answer is easy; you get a Purple Heart. That medal, originally created by General George Washington, is awarded to U.S. soldiers wounded by the enemy in combat. It was ordered by the Continental Congress to stop giving commissions or promotions, since the Congress could not afford the extra pay these entailed, so Washington drew up orders for a Badge of Military Merit made of purple cloth. In 1782 he directed that “whenever any singularly meritorious action is performed, the author of it shall be permitted to wear on his facings, over his left breast, the figure of a heart in purple cloth or silk edged with narrow lace or binding.”

In short, Washington gave cloth because he could not give money. But if you are a private contractor and you get wounded you don’t get a Purple Heart.

You, hopefully, will get medical care and benefits which your employer is required, at least theoretically, to provide under the Defense Base Act.

To Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, a professor at the State University of New York, Buffalo Law School this raises the question as to whether they are forms of value which can be substituted one for the other.

In an essay he wrote, “Value of Valor: Money, Medals and Military Labor,” published earlier this year he explores the divide between money and medals. This raises interesting questions about motivation.

Please read the entire post here

Judge Denies Blackwater’s Motion for Arbitration

Law Offices of Scott J Bloch  May 23, 2012

WASHINGTON, DC (May 23, 2012) – Blackwater Industries, which changed its name to Xe Services, and now has changed it yet again to Academi LLC, lost its initial bid to have the $240 million suit for employee misclassification sent to arbitration and dismissed from federal court in Washington, D.C.

Scott Bloch filed an amended complaint (see link above) in the class action lawsuit on behalf of four former security specialists, who were injured while working for Blackwater, in order to recover their payment of social security, unemployment insurance, and unpaid benefits and state and local withholding and unemployment insurance, and other unspecified damages. The action seeks $240,000,000 in damages for lost benefits, overtime, treble damages and punitive damages, as well as additional amounts as proved for the class of specialists.

The court has rejected that motion filed by Blackwater and required it to file another motion to determine if the same Plaintiffs agreed to have an arbitrator determine if the agreements were unconscionable, procured by duress, fraud and undue influence.

“Blackwater acted illegally and unconscionably toward these brave individuals,” said Bloch. ”Through their fraud as pointed out in the Amended Complaint, they avoided overtime for security workers who worked sometimes 12-16 hours a day 6 days a week. They were forced to sign agreements they never read and were not given time to read and not given copies, which took away valuable rights and were unlawful in their terms. Now the court has rejected their initial motion and required Blackwater to seek the same relief if they can prove that the Plaintiffs who never were allowed to read the original agreements agreed to have an arbitrator determine whether they properly agreed to anything. We continue to assert the illegality of the agreements and the actions of Blackwater.”

Read Xe’s Arbitration Bid Denied in Misclassification Suit here.

Ronco Consulting Corporation named in Lawsuit for EEOC Violations

Ronco Consulting was named in the Defense Base Act Class Action Lawsuit against Defense Base Act Insurance Companies and some Overseas Civilian Contractor Companies.

The EEOC granted a former Ronco Consulting Employee and American Injured War Zone Contractor the Right to Sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act after investigating the complaint.

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities.

Even those who were disabled due to the negligence of the company in question.

Leaked Memo: Afghan ‘Burn Pit’ Could Wreck Troops’ Hearts, Lungs

Spencer Ackerman at Wired’s Danger Room

For years, U.S. government agencies have told the public, veterans and Congress that they couldn’t draw any connections between the so-called “burn pits” disposing of trash at the military’s biggest bases and veterans’ respiratory or cardiopulmonary problems. But a 2011 Army memo obtained by Danger Room flat-out stated that the burn pit at one of Afghanistan’s largest bases poses “long-term adverse health conditions” to troops breathing the air there.

The unclassified memo (.jpg), dated April 15, 2011, stated that high concentrations of dust and burned waste present at Bagram Airfield for most of the war are likely to impact veterans’ health for the rest of their lives. “The long term health risk” from breathing in Bagram’s particulate-rich air include “reduced lung function or exacerbated chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, atherosclerosis, or other cardiopulmonary diseases.” Service members may not necessarily “acquire adverse long term pulmonary or heart conditions,” but “the risk for such is increased.”

The cause of the health hazards are given the anodyne names Particulate Matter 10 and Particulate Matter 2.5, a reference to the size in micrometers of the particles’ diameter. Service personnel deployed to Bagram know them by more colloquial names: dust, trash and even feces — all of which are incinerated in “a burn pit” on the base, the memo says, as has been standard practice in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade.

Accordingly, the health risks were not limited to troops serving at Bagram in 2011, the memo states. The health hazards are an assessment of “air samples taken over approximately the last eight years” at the base.

Please see the original and read the entire article here

Al Qaeda attack on US convoy in Yemen hit civilian contractors

AFP at New York Post  May 21, 2012

HUDAIDA, Yemen — Al Qaeda militants claimed Monday that they attacked a convoy carrying four US military advisers in Yemen, but American officials said the targets were civilian contractors.

The terror group said in a statement that jihadists opened fire Sunday on two cars carrying four American military advisers who were in Hudaida on a training mission with the Yemeni Coast Guard.

The militants “opened fire on them as they left their hotel on their way to work,” the group said, adding that the attackers were able to flee despite efforts by Yemeni security forces to cordon off the city

But US officials said the four were not Department of Defense personnel and were civilian contractors training Yemen’s coast guard.

A local security official confirmed the attack took place. One of the contractors was slightly injured.

An email from the US embassy in Sanaa said,”Reports of US military trainers in Hudaida are false.”

Please see the original and read more here

Rooked by Insurance Fine Print, Veterans Say

Courthouse News  May 16, 2012

NEWARK (CN) – A federal class of defense contractors claim that Prudential Insurance teamed up with their employers to sell them worthless policies encumbered by wartime exclusions.

Lead plaintiffs Alexander Menkes and Stephen Wolfe say they began working for Westar Aerospace & Defense Group at the U.S. airbase stationed out of Kirkuk, Iraq, after finishing their stints with the military.

Westar, as an agent for defense contractor QinetiQ, offered both veterans a basic package of benefits upon their hiring.

In addition to the basics, Menkes and Wolfe also had the opportunity to purchase additional Prudential policies: Buy-Up Long Term Disability, Supplemental Term Life Insurance and Supplemental Accidental Death & Dismemberment Insurance.

Although these policies cost a premium every month, Menkes and Wolfe say Prudential, Westar and QinetiQ assured them that the policies “would provide … coverage and protection while plaintiffs and members of the class performed their job duties in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.”

In reality, however, the additional Prudential policies all contained “exclusions from coverage based upon ‘disability due to war, declared or undeclared, or any act of war,” the 50-page complaint states.
Menkes seeks to represent a subclass for clients whose claims Prudential denied.

He claims that he filed a claim with Prudential for disability benefits after suffering “a lumbar back injury, a positive test for exposure to tuberculosis that required long-term antibiotic therapy, and post-traumatic stress disorder manifesting in symptoms, including but not limited to, insomnia, stress and nightmares he suffered as a result of exposure to rocket attacks, mortars and gunfire from January 2009 through July 2009.”

Prudential refused to distribute benefits from any of the three additional policies it had sold Menkes, telling him the injuries he sustained were due to an “occupational sickness,” which was a “contractual provision of the war exclusion,” according to the complaint.

Prudential and QinetiQ reaped “excessive profits” by selling insurance policies that had “diminished or no value” for the defense contractors they targeted, according to the suit.

While raking in premiums for “worthless” coverage, clients could not receive “disability coverage for their lost income and/or benefits suffered due to injuries, death and/or dismemberment occurring in the ‘wartime’ conditions and/or as a result ‘acts of war’ in Iraq and/or Afghanistan where they were performing job duties know, intended and expected to be performed by the defendants,” the complaint states.

The class seeks punitive damages for consumer fraud, breach of contract, misrepresentation, and violations of the Truth Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act.

It is represented by Andrew Bell with Locks Law Firm, of Cherry Hill.

Please see the original and read more here

See also

Veterans Agency Made Secret Deal Over Benefits

War Profiteering: Dead Soldiers’ Parents Sue Insurers Over Military Benefits

Fallen Soldiers’ Families Denied Cash as Insurers Profit

Defense Base Act: The Weaponization of the Defense Medical Examination

The Defense Base Act Insurance Company is entitled to have Defense Base Act Claimants see a physician that they choose to provide them with a second opinion regards the injuries that you have filed a claim for.  These examinations are in no way Independent Medical Examinations as the Insurance Company and their Attorneys deceptively refer to them as.

These Insurance Company Second Opinions, or Defense Medical Examinations, come at a heavy price to the US Taxpayer.  The Insurance Companies pay much higher amounts to hire doctors that will give them a report unfavorable to your claim and also be willingly to back up these statements in Depositions or straight to a Judges face at hearing.  You are entitled to reimbursement for the expenses you incur attending these.  The DME can be a very expensive undertaking.

Very few DBA Claimants exercise their rights to have these doctors researched by a professional, not travel outside of their geographic area, take an advocate with them (preferably your attorney or a nurse), have the scope and purpose of the Examination clearly defined, or most importantly to video the examination. 

It must be you who pursues these protections because your DBA Attorney is not likely to suggest or pay for them despite your entitlement to them.  Your attorneys failure to assert your rights only enables the insurance companies and their bloodthirsty attorneys and claims adjusters.

You are required to “cooperate” not play dead.

One very prudent restriction on these DME’s used to be that the Insurance Company could not make you attend one more than every three years.  At some point that we cannot ascertain this restriction was removed. 

So  began the Weaponization of the DBA Defense Medical Examination.

Currently the DME is being utilized as a weapon to intimidate DBA Claimants to accept negligent settlements.

Even though you have an order in place you are told if you do not immediately attend a DME your payments will cease immediately.

Even though your claim is currently under the jurisdiction of an ALJ awaiting a decision you are told to fly across country for several days of DME’s.   Just prepping you for the settlement offer.

Your attorney presents to you a ridiculous offer for settlement along with the threat that if you do not accept it the Insurance Companies Attorney promises you DME’s every year and surveillance by their private dicks $$$ for the rest of your life.

We cannot always be certain who is manning the weapon.  As of late there is a barrage of Friendly Fire.

No doubt that the casualties are always the DBA Claimant and the US Taxpayer.

It has never been more true that After Injury the Battle Begins

Or more clear that this program is lacking oversight of any kind

Overseas Civilian Contractor Count 2nd Quarter FY 2012

Thanks to Danger Zone Jobs for posting this, please visit their site

This update reports DoD contractor personnel numbers in theater and outlines DoD efforts to improve management of contractors accompanying U.S. forces. It covers DoD contractor personnel deployed in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Iraq, and the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR).

In 2nd quarter FY 2012, USCENTCOM reported approximately 153,000 contractor personnel working for the DoD in the USCENTCOM AOR. This was approximately a .6% increase from the previous quarter. The number of contractors outside of Afghanistan and Iraq make up about 16% of the total contractor population in the USCENTCOM AOR.

A breakdown of DoD contractor personnel is provided below:

DoD Contractor Personnel in the USCENTCOM AOR

	Total Contractors	U.S. Citizens	Third Country Nationals	Local & Host Country Nationals
Afghanistan Only	117,227	34,765	37,898	44,564
Iraq Only*	10,967	3,260	5,539	2,168
Other USCENTCOM Locations	24,765	11,126	12,796	843
USCENTCOM AOR	152,959	49,151	56,233	47,575

*Includes DoD contractors supporting U.S. Mission Iraq and/or Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq

Afghanistan Summary

The distribution of contractors in Afghanistan by contracting activity are:

Theater Support – Afghanistan:	20,226	(17%)
LOGCAP:	32,653	(28%)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:	15,222	(13%)
Other:*	49,126	(42%)
Total:	117,227
*Includes Defense Logistics Agency, Army Materiel Command, Air Force External and Systems Support contracts, Special Operations Command and INSCOM.

OEF Contractor Posture Highlights:

There are currently approximately 117.2K DoD contractors in Afghanistan. The overall contractor footprint has increased 3.2% from the 1st quarter FY12.

The contractor to military ratio in Afghanistan is 1.18 to 1 (based on 99.2K military).

Local Nationals make up 38% of the DoD contracted workforce in Afghanistan.

Iraq Summary

Contractor Posture Highlights:

There was a 54% decrease in the number of DoD contractors as compared to the 1st quarter 2012 due to the end of Operation New Dawn and the transition of authority to the Chief of Mission.

The Department of Defense and Department of State continue to refine the requirements for contract support. We project that by the end of FY 2012, the USG contractor population in Iraq will be approximately 14K. Roughly half of these contractors are employed under Department of State contracts. Although the remainder are employed under DoD contracts, only approximately 4,000 will be directly supporting DOD mission areas. The remaining contractor personnel employed under DoD contracts are supporting State Department and other civilian activities under the Chief of Mission, Iraq. These DOD contractors are provided on a reimbursable basis.

General Data on DoD Private Security Contractor Personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan

	Total*	U.S. Citizens	Third Country National	Local & Host Country National
DoD PSCs in Afghanistan	26,612	519	782	25,311
DoD PSCs in Iraq	3,577	288	2,991	298

*These numbers include most subcontractors and service contractors hired by prime contractors under DoD contracts. They include both armed and unarmed contractors. They do not include PSCs working under DoS and USAID contracts.