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In April 2007, twenty-three year old First Lieutenant Ray Fleig was deployed to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Ray was a motivated volunteer who joined the Army through the Reserve Officer Training Program (ROTC) at the University of Mississippi. Ray was a top student with a BA in political science and was a successful college wrestler. When he deployed to Iraq, Ray and his wife, Tiffany, were expecting their first child.

 

The base where Ray was stationed was attacked on July 11, 2007. A mortar round landed just fifteen feet away from Ray, and as a result this young Army officer suffered severe injuries. Among the injuries were: traumatic brain injury, fluid in the brain; loss of his right eye; damage to his left eye; shrapnel wounds to his face and torso; post traumatic stress disorder; seizures; shrapnel wounds to his left leg; tinnitus; hearing loss; and residuals of shrapnel wounds to his back and stomach. One month after Ray's injuries, his daughter, Alexandra, was born.

 

Mr. Fleig, now a Captain, through his wife, asked NVLSP's Lawyers Serving Warriors program for help in approaching the Army Physical Evaluation Board and for eventual help with his VA benefits claim in November 2008. The NVLSP Lawyers Serving Warriors Program pairs volunteer attorneys from major law firms with NVLSP attorneys. This allows NVLSP attorneys to leverage their knowledge of veterans and military law to help as many veterans and service members as possible. Ray was discharged from the Army on March 27, 2009. NVLSP partnered with attorneys Samir Jain, Perry Lange and Keith Murphy from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP to help Mr. Fleig to be discharged with the maximum amount of military disability benefits.

 

In April 2009 the VA regional office in Baltimore awarded Ray VA service-connected compensation benefits at $3,863 per month. Many veterans would have been satisfied with that amount but NVLSP experts reviewed the VA decisional documents and encouraged the veteran through Wilmer Hale to appeal the VA regional office decision.

 

Based on NVLSP’S analysis, the WilmerHale attorneys argued that the veteran should be paid at the highest rate possible. To support their argument the WilmerHale attorneys submitted medical evidence from the ophthalmology department at the University of Wisconsin that supported the conclusion that the veteran was legally blind in his left eye.

 

In April 2010 the VA regional office determined that the veteran was entitled to VA benefits at the highest level and retroactively awarded the veteran monthly compensation benefits at $7,909 per month from April 1, 2009.

 

For a veteran with a spouse and dependent child this is the highest monthly benefit the VA can pay. The VA also awarded the right to an automobile and special adaptive equipment for the automobile.

 

This is a huge win. The VA pays monthly monetary benefits to about three million veterans. Less than 3,000 veterans receive the highest monthly benefit amount. Over the next twenty years Captain Fleig will receive over two million dollars in VA monthly benefits. We can think of no one more deserving of the maximum amount of VA benefits than Captain Fleig and his family.