LIHU’E — Nearly six months after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said retired Judge Arthur Komori would never get military disability payments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), official word came that federal aid is forthcoming. It took persistence
LIHU’E — Nearly six months after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said retired Judge Arthur Komori would never get military disability payments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), official word came that federal aid is forthcoming.
It took persistence on the part on his wife and friends to get the federal government to change its mind.
Not only does he get 100 percent disability coverage to cover his medical expenses and other needs, but his wife Rosa Komori will receive a lump-sum back payment, monthly payments and full medical and dental coverage for both of them.
“The VA broke all the rules for him,” said Dr. Quentin Belles, who with Jiro Yukimura and others worked with the VA to secure benefits for the Komori family.
Belles feels Komori wouldn’t have gotten the special treatment had it not been for his unique, distinguished military career.
Another exception will probably not be given by VA, Belles said. “Arthur’s service is singularly unusual, and that’s why” he was given the benefits, he added.
“It’s an unusual case. I doubt that it will ever happen again,” Belles said.
Komori is in long-term care at Wilcox Hospital, unable to look after his own affairs. He, Belles and Yukimura all served together in the Military Information Service (MIS) during World War II, with Komori doing undercover, counterintelligence work.
In May of this year, the VA said Komori couldn’t qualify for PTSD disability benefits because his senile dementia and Alzheimer’s conditions couldn’t be linked to his service years, Belles explained.
At that time, the VA also denied a request for payment of services for in-home care in the event Komori ever returned to his Sun Village apartment.
The family now qualifies for that service as well.
Komori served as an undercover counterintelligence agent in the Philippines during World War II, where he infiltrated several high-level Japanese organizations, including the embassy.
The information he and other undercover, counterintelligence agents were able to relay to the U.S. military helped shorten the war by at least two years, his superiors have said.
Belles said Komori told him that during the time he was undercover in the Philippines he completely forgot who his parents and family members were, where he was born and raised (Kaua’i and Maui), where he went to school, and other details of his past.
“I guess what it was was a reaction to the extreme stress of constantly being a person which he wasn’t,” Belles said.
“Of course, this is part of that PTSD business, that extreme stress kind of thing,” Belles said.
“There’s probably not anyone in the U.S.
military who has had the unique experience that Arthur has had. There’s just nobody.” While he was still living at home, Rosa Komori said she would find her husband rifling through a file cabinet in the middle of the night.
When she asked him what he was doing, he replied that he was looking for papers that General Douglas MacArthur told him he needed, she said. He thought he was still serving his country in the war.
During his war years, Komori taught methods of interrogation at a military intelligence school.
Much of what is taught to MIS students about keeping their mouths shut and other matters, was written by Komori, Belles said.
