Post: Insulting, exhausting, traumatic: The death benefits battle between the VA and families of vets who die by suicide

Photo Illustration by Alberto Mier/CNN/Getty Images FOR SUBSCRIBERS

Editor’s Note: This story involves discussion about veteran suicide that some readers may find upsetting. If you feel you are in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 24-hour Suicide Crisis Lifeline. Veterans and their loved ones can dial 988 then Press 1 or text 838255 to reach the Veterans Crisis Line.

(CNN) — During his deployment in Vietnam, James Goulding served as a sergeant in a Marine Corps battalion known as The Walking Dead, which suffered one of the highest casualty rates of the entire war.

Forty years to the day after leaving Vietnam, Goulding himself became another victim of the war when he took his own life, according to his wife, Linda.

“It started on this day,” he wrote in his suicide note. “I’ll end it on this day.”

To Linda Goulding it was an obvious reference to her husband’s time in Vietnam and the years of post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by his combat experiences while there. But convincing the Department of Veterans Affairs of that would be another matter.

Because her husband never sought professional help for his mental health problems and was never officially diagnosed with PTSD, the VA denied Linda’s claim to receive dependent death benefits – a tax-free monthly payment worth thousands of dollars a year.

Goulding battled the VA for nearly a decade before a judge ultimately ruled in her favor.

“You shouldn’t have to fight for it,” she told CNN of the benefits her husband earned. “He fought for you.”Goulding’s experience was hardly an isolated case.A CNN investigation found that even as the VA has invested hundreds of millions of dollars addressing the veteran suicide crisis, agency officials have denied crucial benefits to hundreds of families of veterans who killed themselves after being discharged from active duty. From left to right, Emily Evans, Linda Goulding and Hali Church A widow refusing to give up: ‘I wanted them to acknowledge that he had a family’00:54Strict VA rules require families applying for benefits to submit medical documentation showing their loved ones’ death stemmed from their time in the […]

Insulting, exhausting, traumatic: The death benefits battle between the VA and families of vets who die by suicide