Citation Nr: 21075113 Decision Date: 12/17/21 Archive Date: 12/17/21 DOCKET NO. 20-03 933 DATE: December 17, 2021 ORDER Entitlement to service connection for Parkinson's disease is denied. FINDING OF FACT The Veteran is not shown to have been exposed to herbicides during service and his current Parkinson's disease is not shown to be related to service. CONCLUSION OF LAW The criteria for service connection for Parkinson's disease have not been met. 38 U.S.C. §§ 1110, 1116, 5103A, 5107; 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.102, 3.303, 3.304, 3.307, 3.309. REASONS AND BASES FOR FINDING AND CONCLUSION The Veteran served on active duty from October 1964 to October 1968. This matter comes before the Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board) on appeal from a December 2018 rating decision of a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO). The Veteran testified at a hearing before the undersigned in September 2021. The transcript is of record. Entitlement to service connection for Parkinson's disease. The Veteran contends that he was exposed to herbicides, including Agent Orange, during the course of his service at Udorn and Ubon Air Force Bases where his duties placed him near or at the base perimeter, mainly at the Udorn Royal Thai Airforce Base (RTAFB). A review of the military personnel records confirms his service at the Udorn RTAB in Thailand from October 1966 to October 1967 and at the Ubon RTAB for approximately seven days in February 1967. See September 2021 Military Personnel Record. His DD214 reflects his military occupation was an aircraft radio repairman. Service connection may be established for a disability resulting from disease or injury incurred in or aggravated by active service. 38 U.S.C. § 1110; 38 C.F.R. § 3.303. Service connection may be granted for any disease diagnosed after discharge, when all the evidence, including that pertinent to service, establishes that the disability was incurred in service. 38 C.F.R. § 3.303(d). Establishing entitlement to direct service connection generally requires: (1) competent and credible evidence confirming the appellant has the claimed disability or, at the very least, showing he has at some point since the filing of his claim; (2) competent and credible evidence of in-service incurrence or aggravation of a relevant disease or an injury; and (3) competent and credible evidence of a relationship or correlation between the disease or injury in service and the currently claimed disability - which is the so-called "nexus" requirement. Shedden v. Principi, 381 F.3d 1163, 1167 (Fed. Cir. 2004). The law provides a presumption of service connection for certain diseases, to include Parkinson's disease, that are associated with exposure to herbicide agents, and that become manifest within a specified time period, even if there is no record of evidence of such disease during the period of service. Veterans who, during active military, naval, or air service, served in the Republic of Vietnam during the period beginning on January 9, 1962, and ending on May 7, 1975 are presumed to have been exposed to herbicide agents. See 38 U.S.C. § 1116; 38 C.F.R. § 3.307(a)(6). The Veteran does not contend, and the evidence does not show, that he served in Vietnam. VA regulations also provide that veterans who served in the Air Force and regularly and repeatedly operated, maintained, or served onboard C-123 aircraft known to have been used to spray an herbicide agent during the Vietnam era will be presumed to have been exposed during such service to an herbicide agent. 38 C.F.R. § 3.307(a)(6)(v). The phrase "regularly and repeatedly operated, maintained, or served onboard C-123 aircraft" means the veteran was assigned to a squadron that had been permanently assigned one of the affected aircraft and the veteran had an Air Force Specialty Code indicating duties as a flight, ground maintenance, or medical crew member on such aircraft. Id. The regulations contain no express provisions concerning exposure to herbicide agents in Thailand or its RTAFBs. However, VA's Compensation Service has determined that a special consideration of herbicide exposure on a factual basis should be extended to Air Force veterans whose duties placed them on or near the perimeters of certain RTAFBs, to include U-Tapao, Ubon, Nakhon Phanom, Udorn, Takhli, Korat, and Don Muang. Herbicide exposure may be conceded on a facts-found basis if a veteran served on one of the listed RTAFBs during the Vietnam Era if the veteran served as a security policeman, security dog handler, member of the security police squadron, or otherwise served near the air base perimeter as shown by evidence of daily work duties, performance evaluation reports, or other credible evidence. Pertinent to this special consideration, VA's Compensation and Pension Service reviewed a declassified Vietnam era Department of Defense document titled Project CHECO Southwest Asia Report: Base Defense in Thailand, which indicated herbicides were used for vegetation control on the fenced in perimeters of military bases in Thailand to eliminate vegetation and ground cover for base security purposes. The basis for the Veterans Benefits Administration loosening the standards and finding herbicide exposure in these cases is that veterans who regularly had contact with certain base perimeters had a greater likelihood of exposure to certain commercial pesticides, including herbicides, according to the CHECO report. Notably, if regular contact with the perimeter created a greater likelihood of exposure then the opposite is also true, meaning that little or infrequent contact decreased the likelihood of exposure. The simple fact that a veteran served at a RTAFB where herbicides were used does not entitle him or her to a finding that he or she was exposed to herbicides. In providing for service connection based on herbicide exposure in Thailand, VA specifically did not extend any presumption of exposure to all service members who served there (e.g., traveled through the gates to enter the base, or worked in view of the perimeter), but instead found that exposure could be conceded on a facts found basis. Although the term "near" is not defined, the Board finds that it is meant to convey duties which would require regular, routine, extensive, frequent, or prolonged presence on the edge of the base where spraying was used to control vegetation, as suggested by the "evidence of daily work duties." This meaning is also consistent with the examples of the MOS's provided by the VA Compensation Service (security policeman, security dog handler, member of the security police squadron), whose job duties all involved regular, prolonged periods of patrolling the perimeter, and, consequently near areas where commercial herbicides may have been used. Notwithstanding the presumption for certain enumerated herbicide-related diseases, service connection for a disability claimed as due to exposure to herbicides may be established by showing that a disorder resulting in disability or death was in fact causally linked to such exposure. See Combee v. Brown, 34 F.3d 1039, 1044 (Fed. Cir. 1994), citing 38 U.S.C. § 1113(b) and 1116 and 38 C.F.R. § 3.303. The Veteran contends that his Parkinson's disease is the result of herbicide exposure. A review of the record shows that the Veteran's diagnosis of Parkinson's disease was confirmed in a September 2018 VA examination. See September 2018 C&P Exam. As alluded to above, service connection is available for Parkinson's disease if it is shown that the Veteran was exposed to herbicides during service. The Veteran asserts that he spent significant time at the perimeter of the base. In the September 2021 Board hearing, he testified that his job requirement was to work in the base area for repairing radio equipment, which required he go out to the flight line, the taxiway, and the trim pad to repair radios that were in an emergency situation. See September 2021 Hearing Transcript. He explained that the runway was part of the perimeter of the base and that the trim pads were also near the perimeter of the base. He also noted that his barracks were within 500 yards of the fence that is considered the perimeter and that his mess hall was there as well. He indicated that walking in and out of the main gate, he walked by the perimeter that was being sprayed and saw the brown foliage inside and outside the fence. The Veteran also testified that he had to stand guard duty on the perimeter for two days in 1966. In support of the claim, he submitted an arial photograph of the Udorn air base, identifying the structures he frequented that were near the perimeter. He also included pictures showing his barracks with the fence and perimeter in the background, highlighting that there was no grass on the ground anywhere. See September 2021 Photographs. In the present case, except for two days, the Veteran was not a security policeman, security dog handler, or member of a security police squadron whose duties involved service near a base perimeter. Two days is insufficient to be considered regular, routine, extensive, frequent, or prolonged presence on the base perimeter. Rather, the Veteran's military personnel record shows that he was an aircraft radio repairman. Here, the Veteran is not shown to have regularly and repeatedly operated, maintained, or served onboard C-123 aircraft. In this regard, as noted above, the phrase "regularly and repeatedly operated, maintained, or served onboard C-123 aircraft" means the Veteran needed to be assigned to a squadron that had been permanently assigned to one of the affected aircraft and needed to have an Air Force Specialty Code indicating duties as a flight, ground maintenance, or medical crew member on such aircraft. Although the Veteran referenced working on radio systems for aircrafts, he did not specify his work was on one of the affected aircrafts. Ultimately, the Veteran has not alleged that he operated, maintained, or served onboard C-123 aircraft. The Board has also considered the Veteran's report that he may have been exposed to herbicide agents, to include Agent Orange, while traveling between his workstation, barracks, the health clinic, and the Airmen's Club. In this regard, the Veteran reported that he had to travel along the base perimeter daily and indicated that his barracks were directly adjacent to the base perimeter. In this regard, the Board has considered the lay evidence submitted by the Veteran, to include a map of Udorn RTAFB and photographs that show a fence adjacent to the Veteran's barracks; however, the Board finds that the evidence of record does not substantiate exposure to herbicides. The Board finds that the evidence does not show that the Veteran's duties as an aircraft radio repairment, to include transportation to and from his workstations on the flight line, the taxiway, and the trim pad, and the location of his barracks, required regular, routine, extensive, frequent, or prolonged presence on the edge of the base as suggested by "evidence of daily work duties." Moreover, while the Veteran may have been on the perimeter road and may have lived adjacent to the perimeter fence, the Board does not consider this equivalent to duties on or near the perimeter. On a road and in his barracks, the Veteran would not be exposed to any vegetation or herbicides, as a road and barracks would have replaced the vegetation. The Veteran also reported the absence of vegetation in these areas and brown foliage. Nevertheless, he specifically indicated that did not witness the spraying and did not provide any information identifying the chemical entity that was used. See September 2021 Hearing Transcript. The Veteran also asserted that he read that within 500 yards of the fence is considered the perimeter. See September 2021 Hearing Transcript. However, the Veteran did not provide any literature in support of this contention. Furthermore, the Board notes that although the 1971 U.S. Army Manual 3-3 advised that a 500 meter buffer zone needed to be maintained when spraying herbicides to avoid damage caused by drifts and that the area where veterans lived, worked, and engaged in recreational activities near the perimeter of the base was well within such a 500-meter drift zone, the manual simply refers to a distance that should be maintained while herbicide is being sprayed to avoid damage to desirable vegetation. See Manual 3-3, Tactical Employment of Herbicides, found at https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/speccoll/items/show/1240. There is no indication or allegation in the record that the Veteran was ever present during any application of herbicides to the perimeter of the base through spraying, nor is there any indication that herbicides applied to the perimeter of the base ended up drifting in any significant quantity to the interior of the base while the Veteran was stationed there. Accordingly, the manual notation that drift could occur with such spraying does provide a basis for finding that the Veteran was exposed to herbicides. (Continued on the next page) In sum, as the Veteran is not shown to have been exposed to herbicides during service, including from his duty in Udorn and Ubon RTAFBs, he is not eligible for service connection for Parkinson's disease. The Board must still consider whether the Veteran's current Parkinson's disease is otherwise related to service. However, such a relationship is neither shown nor alleged, and there is no medical evidence of record which even suggests that the current Parkinson's disease is otherwise related to service. It is also neither shown nor alleged that there was any manifestation of Parkinson's disease during service. Additionally, given the lack of any probative evidence suggesting a nexus between any current Parkinson's disease and military service, a VA examination is not necessary in this case. 38 C.F.R. § 3.159(c)(4); see also Waters v. Shinseki, 601 F.3d 1274, 1278 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (indicating that a bare assertion concerning a nexus to service, standing alone, does not suffice to trigger VA's duty to obtain an examination and opinion). Accordingly, the preponderance of the evidence is against the claim for service connection for Parkinson's disease and it must be denied. S. HENEKS Veterans Law Judge Board of Veterans' Appeals Attorney for the Board J. Cheng, 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.