The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for service connection for skin condition and heart condition due to herbicide exposure, as they are unable to determine if he served in the 12 nautical mile territorial sea of Vietnam. Additional development is needed to confirm this.
The deciding factor: The Board cannot make a determination without confirming whether the Veteran was exposed to herbicides while serving aboard ships located within the 12 nautical mile territorial sea of Vietnam.
- Claimed conditions
- porphyria cutanea tarda, ischemic heart disease
- How they argued it
- Presumptive (no nexus needed)
- Exposure basis
- Agent Orange / herbicides
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 9, 2020
- Citation
- 20001808
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,077 · Granted: 25% (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 20001808.
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
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for a heart condition, including ischemic heart disease. The evidence did not support a finding of a current disability related to service.
- Granted
The Veteran's ischemic heart disease is granted as presumptively related to his service in the Gulf War, specifically aboard the USS Chanticleer and USS Mataco.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for diabetes mellitus, prostate cancer, ischemic heart disease, right lower extremity peripheral artery disease, left lower extremity peripheral artery disease, and hypertension as the evidence did not establish an in-service event or exposure to herbicide agents.
- Granted
The Veteran's claim for a heart disability prior to his death is granted as he was entitled to accrued benefits due to the September 1994 claim, which included ischemic heart disease, a covered herbicide disease.
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