I could write a novel about this. My father was exposed to and handled Agent Orange in Vietnam. An uncle, as well. My uncle passed in 2007, riddled with cancers, fighting the VA every step of the way. That man served nearly 35 years before retiring. Their generation coined the phrase "Delay, deny, and hope that we die." due to their experiences with the VA.

I decided not to be a helpless by-stander when it was my fathers time to contend with the VA. I took nearly 3 years off of my life and moved back home to help him. He was eventually able to successfully obtain a disability rating and was able to get prior/existing health issues linked to his exposure, which secured disability back pay to the 90s. All of this, his experience and the back pay, specifically, is something of an outlier, as we understand it. As we understand it, most folks don't have the resources to navigate the system successfully. It wasn't a massive financial windfall, but it meant that my parents future was financially secure (their finances were in ruins by the mid-00s) and once he was mobile again, with his health issues under control and with an effective management plan in place, I was able to get back on with my own life.

There are also inter-generational effects with Agent Orange, but they're not very well understood (to my knowledge). That frightens me today, especially now that I've had my own children. There's a whole other dynamic there, too, in that I also served, and that I've been exposed to burn pits and a lot of diesel fumes and high RF environments and some solvents and etc... I feel like it's an inevitability in my own life's story that I'll eventually have to contend with the VA, as well.