STANDING UP FOR VETERANS IN NEED
Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association a labor of love for 69-yearold Carol Olszanecki
Don’t let Carol Olszanecki’s diminutive stature fool you.
The 69-year-old Kingston woman is a giant among veterans, known both locally and nationally as a fighter who will go the extra mile to help veterans in need.
A founding member of Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association, Olszanecki’s name was submitted by consideration by the Department of Veteran’s Affairs for a seat on the agency’s Veterans’ Family, Caregiver, and Sur-
vivor Advisory Committee.
Although she ultimately wasn’t chosen to sit on the committee, the fact that she was even considered for the post — and had the backing of elected officials including U. S. Rep. John Faso, who was among those who wrote letters of recommendation on her behalf — speaks volumes for the work that she does and the esteem in which she is held.
Olszanecki’s fight for veterans rights began as a very personal one when she found herself fighting the Veteran’s Administration for her husband’s death benefits.
Her husband, John, a Navy veteran who served during the Vietnam War aboard the Bon Homme Richard, died in 2002 when he was 57 years old due to exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange.
A few months before his death, the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Administration changed its rules, determining that “Blue Water Navy” veterans, those who had served on the open seas during the war, would no longer be presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange or other herbicides.
It took her four-and-ahalf years, calls to her congressman, numerous trips to Washington, D.C., and hundreds upon hundreds of hours of research, but in 2006, Olszanecki was finally able to prove her husband had indeed been on Vietnamese soil — albeit briefly — while awaiting transport to his ship and was therefore eligible for his death benefit.
“When I won, I came home from work that day, I went to my computer and sat down and said ‘now what am I going to do?’”
She said she picked up her telephone and reached out to some of the people she had met over the years and together they formed the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association.
The group is a not-forprofit organization dedicated to advocating for veterans’ rights and fighting to for the repeal of the 2002 determination that the federal government would not longer extend to Blue Water Navy veterans the “presumptive exposure” to Agent Orange and other toxins that is given to all other service members who had “boots on the ground” in Vietnam.
Every two years since 2008, the group has pushed a bill in Congress to reinstate the Blue Water Navy benefits that were taken away in 2002, Olszanecki said.
The bill is again pending in Congress, she said.
Currently, there are 299 co- sponsors on the bill in the house. It’s being blocked by congressional leaders over concerns for the cost. Some have estimated the cost of the measure could cost more than $1 billion over the next decade, although Olszanecki said her organization believes that number to be less.
“This is very important because when these guys get sick, they exhaust everything they have ... they lose their homes, their cars, everything, and when he dies,” she said, “his wife is destitute.”
“It’s only because of the branch of the military they served that they are being denied,” she said. “It’s unfair to them, it’s unfair to their families.”
While battling on that front in Washington, closer to home, Olszanecki does what she can to make the lives of the region’s veterans a little easier.
Each month, she said, she helps organize and serves at a monthly luncheon for veterans.
She is also responsible for organizing events known as a “Stand Down,” which are one-day events for veterans where they can get things like personal care items, food, clothing, and get help finding services like housing resources, legal assistance, employment counselling and health care services.
She is also in the process of designing a PTSD pin in recognition of all those who — like her son, Christopher, a Navy veteran who died in 2015 following a long struggle — died as the result of post-traumatic stress disorder.
And, she said, she makes herself available to any veteran who needs help navigating what can often be the difficult and confusing Department of Veterans Affairs.
While she said she doesn’t do case work, she is more than willing to offer guidance and to share with anyone who asks, the knowledge of the system she has gained from her years fighting it.
“It took me a long time to learn the system, she said. “I’ve been there, so I know what they’re doing,” she said. “I know what they’re feeling.”