Citation Nr: 21064357 Decision Date: 10/19/21 Archive Date: 10/19/21 DOCKET NO. 17-47 476 DATE: October 19, 2021 ORDER Service connection for prostate cancer is granted. FINDING OF FACT Prostate cancer is presumed related to in-service exposure to herbicide agents. CONCLUSION OF LAW Prostate cancer is presumed to have been incurred in service. 38 U.S.C. §§ 1110, 1116, 5107; 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.303, 3.307, 3.309. REASONS AND BASES FOR FINDING AND CONCLUSION The Veteran served on active duty in the United States Air Force from October 1964 to August 1968, including foreign service in Japan. He requested the opportunity to testify at a videoconference hearing on his September 2017 VA Form 9. A hearing scheduled for May 2021 was postponed, and the Veteran did not appear for a hearing scheduled in August 2021. At that time, the Veteran's representative indicated that they had been unable to reach him at his known telephone number. The Veteran has not subsequently requested that the hearing be rescheduled, or provided good cause for his failure to appear. Thus, the hearing request is considered withdrawn. See 38 C.F.R. § 20.704(d). Service Connection The Veteran is currently pursuing service connection for prostate cancer. The record clearly shows that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2007, with ongoing residuals including erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence. See, e.g., VA examinations dated March 2015 and January 2017; private treatment records. Thus, the prevailing inquiry for the Board is whether the Veteran was exposed to herbicide agents during service. On this point, the Veteran's personnel records document foreign service in Japan only, from March 1966 to August 1968. See AF Form 7. However, the Veteran contends that he was assigned to temporary duty (TDY) in Vietnam from approximately April to July 1968. During this time, he served on a safety team investigating damage to the Headquarters 315th Air Division's C-130 aircraft. There is conflicting evidence on this point. Weighing against the claim is an April 2013 Personnel Information Exchange System (PIES) response which concludes that there is no evidence to substantiate the Veteran's service in Vietnam or related exposure to herbicides. A June 2013 VA memorandum reports that there was insufficient evidence to allow for more meaningful research on this matter, to include by the Joint Services Records Research Center (JSRRC). The above evidence is of little probative value in this case, as the April 2013 PIES response is based solely upon review of the Veteran's personnel records; however, TDY assignments are not as reliably documented in service records as long-term station assignments. Moreover, the June 2013 VA memorandum does not speak to the likelihood of the reported service in Vietnam, but rather the likelihood that additional research would yield a meaningful response based upon the existing evidence of record. Importantly, further verification requests were not conducted following the Veteran's provision of additional details regarding the purported assignment. See 38 C.F.R. § 3.159. In contrast, the Veteran has offered competent and credible testimony regarding his TDY assignment in Vietnam, via repeated and consistent lay statements spanning the period on appeal. Layno v. Brown, 6 Vet. App. 465, 469 (1994); Miller v. Wilkie, 32 Vet. App. 249 (2020); see, e.g., lay statements dated August 2014, March 2015, and October 2017. His testimony is directly corroborated by an August 2014 buddy statement from a fellow servicemember who confirms the Veteran's TDY assignment in Vietnam, as supported by an additional July 2013 buddy statement confirming that it "was not unusual for the 315th Air Division Safety Office to recruit support personnel from organizational resources [to] outlying military locations, even to Vietnam." The latter also notes that this unit was scheduled for deactivation in 1968, such that maintaining TDY records might reasonably not have been a priority at that time. The claims file also contains an article provided by the Veteran in March 2017 which details the history of the 315th Air Division, including its C-130 Hercules deployed to Vietnam during the Veteran's period of service. When read together, the Veteran's statements, the statements from his fellow airmen, and the article submitted by the Veteran all place the question of whether the Veteran had service in the Republic of Vietnam in a state of relative equipoise. Accordingly, reasonable doubt must be resolved in favor of the Veteran. Doing so here leads the Board to conclude that the Veteran did have temporary duty assignments in the Republic of Vietnam, and that he was therefore presumed to have been exposed to herbicide agents as a result of his service. Resolving this question in favor of the Veteran compels the result here. This appeal is thus granted on a presumptive basis, as prostate cancer is one of the conditions warranting presumptive service connection due to in-service herbicide exposure under 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.307, 3.309. The appeal is hereby granted. Evan M. Deichert Veterans Law Judge Board of Veterans' Appeals Attorney for the Board K. Kovarovic, Counsel The Board's decision in this case is binding only with respect to the instant matter decided. This decision is not precedential and does not establish VA policies or interpretations of general applicability. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1303.