Citation Nr: 20038290 Decision Date: 06/04/20 Archive Date: 06/04/20 DOCKET NO. 16-34 722 DATE: June 4, 2020 ORDER Service connection for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is granted. FINDING OF FACT The record includes medical evidence diagnosing PTSD and linking its symptoms to the Veteran’s alleged in-service stressors, and credible supporting evidence that the in-service stressors occurred. CONCLUSION OF LAW The criteria for entitlement to service connection for PTSD have been met. 38 U.S.C. §§ 1110, 1131; 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.303, 3.304. REASONS AND BASES FOR FINDING AND CONCLUSION The Veteran had active service from September 1990 to July 1993. His claim comes before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) on appeal of a May 2013 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) rating decision. The Agency of Original Jurisdiction (AOJ) treated this appeal as originating from a March 2014 rating decision denying the reopening of this claim, submitted in December 2011. However, at the time the AOJ issued that decision, the original claim remained pending. The AOJ denied it in a May 2013 rating decision, but within the period allowed to appeal that decision, the Veteran submitted new and material evidence in support thereof. Pursuant to 38 C.F.R. § 3.156(b), this evidence is therefore considered to have been filed in connection with the December 2011 claim, and there was no need to consider reopening it before addressing it on its merits. The Veteran testified in support of this claim during a hearing held before the undersigned Veterans Law Judge at the AOJ in May 2019. Due to audio malfunctions, however, the AOJ was unable to produce a complete transcript of the hearing. The AOJ thus notified the Veteran of this fact in a March 2020 letter and provided him thirty days to request another hearing. In April 2020, the Veteran responded tha.t he did not wish to appear at another hearing and to consider his case on the evidence at record Entitlement to service connection for PTSD The Veteran seeks a grant of service connection for PTSD based on stressors he experienced during active service in 1991, in support of Operation Just Cause, and in 1992, in support of Operation Garden Plot. Allegedly, during the former operation, which involved Jungle Warfare training in Panama, he and others were riding in an ammunition resupply convoy when they came under hostile small arms fire from Panamanian Defense Forces; they did not have live ammunition to defend their positions. Allegedly, the enemy forces were angry with their presence due to a recent invasion of their county and the arrest of their leader Manuel Noriega. During the latter operation, executed to quell rioting in Los Angeles, the Veteran was again exposed to hostile fire. First, when he was guarding an electrical substation, a carload of assailants reportedly drove by and shot at him, and he did not return fire. Second, while guarding a food distribution warehouse, an individual on a bicycle rode past and shot at him and a cop, the latter of whom returned fire, hitting the bike rider and injuring his pelvis and buttocks. As well, he was threatened and verbally abused and witnessed acts of intimidation, arson, violence, total chaos and destruction by organized crime cells and neighborhood gangs, including the Cripps and the Bloods. The Veteran asserts that other incidents, including the death of a team leader from a detonated ordinance while clearing an enemy airfield during Operation Desert Storm and the Sniper Beltway attacks by Sergeant John Allen Williams, who served with the Veteran in the same Battalion at Fort Order for three years, represent stressors leading to the development of his PTSD. The evidence supports this claim. Service connection may be granted for disability resulting from disease or injury incurred in or aggravated by active military, naval or air service. 38 U.S.C. §§ 1110, 1131; 38 C.F.R. § 3.303(a). To prevail on a claim for service connection for PTSD, the record must include medical evidence diagnosing PTSD, a link, established by medical evidence, between current symptoms and an in-service stressor, and credible supporting evidence that the claimed in-service stressor occurred. 38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f). Here, post-service treatment records dated since 2013, February 2014 and March 2019 Review PTSD Disability Benefits Questionnaires signed by TK, Ph.D., a February 2014 Psychiatric Evaluation Report of GS, D.O., Board Certified in Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatry, a December 2015 letter from OV, M.D., the Veteran’s VA physician, December 2015 and March 2019 letters from Dr. TK, a November 2017 Forensic Evaluation Report from WS, Ph.D., and a May 2019 Review PTSD Disability Benefits Questionnaire and nexus statement signed by Dr. OV include diagnoses of PTSD, satisfying the first criterium of 38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f) noted above. Although a January 2016 opinion of a VA examiner rules out a link between the Veteran’s mental health disability and his in-service stressors, this opinion is inadequate based on an inaccurate premise – that the Veteran does not have PTSD. All other opinions, to include those submitted by Drs. TK, GS, OV and WS, link the Veteran’s PTSD to the stressors he experienced during Operations Just Cause and Garden Plot. These opinions, based on an accurate review of the record and supported by rationale, satisfy the second criterium of 38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f) noted above. The Veteran’s service personnel file, which includes certificates showing that the Veteran served on active duty in support of Operations Just Cause and Garden Plot, and an April 2013 statement from MA, who served with the Veteran during both operations, confirm that the alleged stressors occurred as described. This evidence satisfies the third criterium of 38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f) noted above. Inasmuch as the record includes medical evidence diagnosing PTSD and linking its symptoms to the Veteran’s alleged in-service stressors, and credible supporting evidence that the in-service stressors occurred, criteria for entitlement to service connection for PTSD are met. 38 U.S.C. §§ 1110, 1131; 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.303, 3.304. LESLEY A. REIN Veterans Law Judge Board of Veterans’ Appeals Attorney for the Board L. N., Counsel The Board’s decision in this case is binding only with respect to the instant matter decided. This decision is not precedential and does not establish VA policies or interpretations of general applicability. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1303.