Citation Nr: 21065760 Decision Date: 10/27/21 Archive Date: 10/27/21 DOCKET NO. 21-00 576 DATE: October 27, 2021 ORDER Entitlement to service connection for prostate cancer due to herbicide agent exposure is granted. FINDINGS OF FACT 1. The Veteran has a current prostate cancer diagnosis. 2. The evidence is at least evenly balanced as to whether the Veteran was exposed to herbicide agents in Vietnam. CONCLUSION OF LAW With reasonable doubt resolved in favor of the Veteran, the criteria for service connection for prostate cancer due to herbicide agent exposure have been met. 38 U.S.C. §§ 1110, 1113, 1116, 1154, 5107; 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.102, 3.303, 3.307, 3.309(e). REASONS AND BASES FOR FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION The Veteran served on active duty from September 1966 to September 1968. This case comes before the Board of Veteran Appeals (Board) on appeal from a February 2019 rating decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO), which, in relevant part, denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for prostate cancer. In October 2021, the Veteran testified at a Virtual Board hearing before the undersigned Veterans Law Judge. The hearing transcript has not yet been associated with the record. As the instant decision results in a complete grant of the benefit sought, it is not necessary at this time. Entitlement to service connection for prostate cancer Service connection will be granted if the evidence demonstrates that current disability resulted from an injury suffered or disease contracted in active military, naval, or air service. 38 U.S.C. § 1110; 38 C.F.R. § 3.303(a). Establishing service connection generally requires competent evidence of three things: (1) current disability; (2) in-service injury or disease; and (3) a relationship between the two. Saunders v. Wilkie, 886 F.3d 1356, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2018). Consistent with this framework, service connection is warranted for a disease first diagnosed after service when all the evidence, including that pertinent to service, establishes that the disease was incurred in service. 38 C.F.R. § 3.303(d). A veteran, who served in Vietnam during the period beginning in January 1962 and ending in May 1975, is presumed to have been exposed to herbicide agents. 38 U.S.C. § 1116(f); 38 C.F.R. § 3.307(a)(6)(iii). If a veteran was exposed to herbicide agents during such service, certain diseases, including prostate cancer, are presumptively service connected. 38 C.F.R. § 3.309(e). For the following reasons, the Board finds that service connection for prostate cancer on a presumptive basis is warranted. Private prostate biopsy report from March 2018 confirms that the Veteran was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Thus, a disease presumptively related to herbicide agent exposure is shown. Id. The issue is whether the Veteran had qualifying Vietnam service to meet the service connection criteria for prostate cancer on a presumptive basis. 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.307(a)(6)(iii), 3.309(e). The Veteran's DD Form 214 reflects that he served in the Navy and lists his military occupational specialty (MOS) as a radioman. Personnel records showed that the Veteran was assigned to the USS Hancock from March 1967 until September 1968. December 2018 Center for Unit Record Research (CURR) response showed that the 1967 command history and March to May 1967 deck logs from the USS Hancock were reviewed. They showed that the USS Hancock arrived in the Gulf of Tonkin in February 1967 and returned to the United States in July 1967. No ship aircraft were recorded as landing in Vietnam. The history or deck logs did not document any visit Vietnam. A February 2021 Records Research Response memorandum showed that the Command History for the USS Hancock from October 1966 to September 1968 was reviewed and did not document herbicide agent exposure. In April 2021, H.N. stated that he reviewed his pilot logbook. It showed that he and the Veteran stayed in Da Nang, Vietnam in March 1967 and June 1967. H.N. further stated that the Veteran served as the crew chief at the C1A aircraft while he piloted it. They were both assigned to the USS Hancock at the time. In October 2021, the Veteran submitted a copy of a letter to his parents from June 1967. The Veteran wrote that he had recently visited Da Nang, Vietnam for a second time. The Board finds that the above evidence is at least evenly balanced as to whether the Veteran set foot in Vietnam. Notably, there is no requirement that service in Vietnam be specifically recorded in a Veteran's service records to support a finding that the Veteran has the requisite Vietnam service. The Board must consider the Veteran's statements along with the other evidence of record in determining whether he served in Vietnam. See Parseeya-Picchione v. McDonald, 28 Vet. App. 171, 176 (2016) (the Board must consider lay, historical, and archival evidence, in addition to service records, in determining whether there was service in Vietnam or exposure to herbicide agents elsewhere). The Veteran and H.N.'s reports about 1967 visits to Da Nang, Vietnam are not necessarily inconsistent with the service records and research reports, which confirm service aboard the USS Hancock while it was in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Board finds that the Veteran's reports about two brief in-service visits to Da Nang, Vietnam constitute credible, and, therefore, satisfactory lay evidence of in-country service in Vietnam. See 38 U.S.C. § 1154(a); 38 C.F.R. § 3.303(a) (each disabling condition for which a veteran seeks service connection must be considered based on factors including the basis of places, types, and circumstances of service as shown by service records). (Continued on the next page) As the reasonable doubt created by this relative equipoise in the evidence must be resolved in favor of the Veteran, the Board finds that the Veteran had the requisite Vietnam service during the Vietnam era, and as such, is presumed to have been exposed to herbicide agents. 38 C.F.R. § 3.102 (benefit of the doubt doctrine applies to any point within a claim as well as its ultimate disposition). Given the Veteran's diagnosis and the Veteran's Vietnam service, the requirements for presumptive service connection for prostate cancer based on herbicide agent exposure are met, and service connection for prostate cancer is therefore warranted. Jonathan Hager Veterans Law Judge Board of Veterans' Appeals Attorney for the Board C. D. Simpson, 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.