The Board has remanded the veteran's claims for service connection for PTSD, a skin disorder on a direct basis or as secondary to exposure to Agent Orange, and an initial rating in excess of 60 percent for asbestos-related lung disease due to additional evidence needed.
The deciding factor: Additional VA clinical records are required to determine whether a current medical diagnosis of PTSD is warranted. The veteran's service personnel records and deck logs must be evaluated to establish his exposure to Agent Orange, and he should undergo a VA dermatological examination to confirm the current diagnosis of his claimed skin disorder and determine if it is etiologically related to in-service herbicide exposure. A VA respiratory examination is needed to obtain more contemporaneous portrayal of the veteran's asbestos-related lung disease.
- Claimed conditions
- post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), skin disease, asbestos-related lung disease
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 18, 2006
- Citation
- 0639374
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 271 · Granted: 23% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation 0639374.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
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