I received my Brown Envelope today. I am posting this to encourage others that may have filed for Herbicide Exposure while stationed at Takhli. After two years of waiting I was awarded 70 percent disabled for diabetes II, IHD, and neuropathy. We are so, so, so grateful for this answer to our prayers. Something that I was not counting on, they are paying me for the diabetes II back to when I first filed and was rejected in 2002 because I had no proof of boots on the ground. The decision letter they sent me states, “Your exposure to herbicides in Thailand is conceded. VA acknowledges exposure to tactical herbicides, such as Agent Orange, on a direct, occupational, or facts found basis for Veterans with duty on military base perimeters in Thailand during the Vietnam era…..”
I know that some will have a lot of questions about what I did. I was fortune enough to have copies of my orders going to and from Takhli. I also had a performance report that put me in the bomb dump which was on the perimeter. I got a satellite photo of the base off the internet and submitted it along with copies of my various doctor’s reports, prescriptions, lab work, and anything else I could think of. I also was fortune enough, in a sense, to be sent back to the USA as my orders showed an Air Police with that I started cross training on my off time while there.
We hope that this will help some others in their filing for herbicide exposure. Don’t give up and keep up with your filing.

John Pettijohn
355th MMS
October 1967 – October 1968