Printer Friendly Version - George Ambel: Helping Disabled Veterans

George Ambel never leaves home without donning one of the 16 military hats he owns. He served in the U.S. Air Force for 25 years before his honorable discharge. Today, George helps fellow veterans in all branches of the service obtain the maximum disability compensation allowed by law. Photo courtesy of George Ambel

George Ambel, 83 years young, may live in North Haven but his desire to help U.S. military veterans reaches across the shoreline, including East Haven. Today, George likes to remember only the good things related to his career in the U.S. Air Force and his time serving his country during the Vietnam War.

With boundless positive energy, George helps fellow military veterans obtain all the federal help they deserve, but often don’t know they are entitled to receive.

“I don’t go the V.A. or anything like that looking for people,” George says of the nine veterans he’s helped to obtain compensation for their service-related disabilities.

“When I see people walking around BJ’s [and other places] who are wearing Air Force or other military hats, I talk to them,” George says.

The discussion eventually leads to questions about their military benefits, which further leads to the discovery that many veterans are not getting all the disability compensation due to them by law.

In his playfulness when getting to know new people, George will also ask questions about the vehicles they drive.

“I’ve got about 17 questions about different cars,” George says. “For example, I’ll go up a person and say, ‘You’re driving a BMW, do you know what it stands for?’ It stands for Bavarian Motor Works [in English], and they won’t know that, but they’re driving it.”

The same lack of knowledge, George says, is what causes many veterans to accept just 20 or 30 percent disability compensation and not explore if they are entitled to more, which in many cases they are.

George provides this assistance out of both a sense of brotherhood to his fellow vets and having learned how to navigate the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs benefits system himself after suffering a heart attack in 1982, while still on active service.

At the time, when George did his own research into the types of compensation he could receive for his service-related injuries, he successfully lobbied for a full compensation package that provided not only full health care coverage but special compensation payments on top of social security.

A veteran’s compensation package is based on a set of criteria published on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) in a program called individual unemployability (I.U.), George explains. The program allows the V.A. to pay a qualifying veteran compensation at the 100 percent rate, even when the V.A. has not rated a veteran’s service-connected disabilities at the full 100-percent level.

And of these special benefits, George notes, “The V.A. check every month and the military retirement check are tax-free because they fit under a category of combat-related retirement pay.”

“God Bless America,” George says, regarding how well the U.S. government has treated him in his years of need after his quarter-century of serving his country overseas as well as the other veterans George has helped.

One such veteran, East Haven’s Vincent Massaro, became a best friend. George was 13 years younger than Vincent and he lost his friend in 2014 at the age of 88.

“Vinny died at the West Haven V.A. Hospital,” George laments. “I stay in touch with this son, Steven Massaro, who is also a good friend.”

A man George is currently helping was only awarded a 40-percent disability compensation rating.

“He has Parkinson’s, and he did not know that there is what’s known as a ‘presumptive list’ of 16 diseases associated [with exposure to] things like Agent Orange and other herbicides that he can look up, so we’re trying to help that guy,” George explains.

“Nobody thinks that folks in the U.S. Navy can get compensation for diseases on the presumptive list, but the rule is called ‘Blue Water.’ If you were 12 miles or less from the Vietnam or Thailand shores [during the Vietnam War], they say you have a good chance of getting one of the 16 diseases,” says George. “So, one of my buddies that I first met at BJ’s, I told him what to do [about compensation for his illness] and he got 40 percent [coverage] and then he got it upped to 100 percent.”

Fitting of George’s jubilant personality, his choice to join the Air Force in 1961 came about because of the color of a uniform.

“A buddy was in the Air Force and came home one day and he was wearing a very nice blue uniform, and I said, ‘Gee, that’s nice,’” George recalls with a laugh. “It happened at the time I got laid off from Rockbestos Company [a former wire products manufacturer] at age 22 after starting there at age 18. So, I joined the Air Force and stayed there 25 years.”

Of the many assignments George was given while in the Air Force, the longest was his 12 years as a master sergeant in the administrative supply department as a money controller during his years at the Hellenikon Air Base in Athens, Greece.

“I had the greatest assignments in the world,” George says, “I cannot get over what I went through.”

When not helping fellow military veterans obtain all the recompense they are due for service-connected disabilities, George leaves his Summerdale condo to receive treatments for his own ongoing ailments.

Despite his current battle with his fifth cancer, George Ambel, a Cleveland, Ohio, native, is not one to wallow in woe.

“I’m doing pretty well so far,” he says. “I just got my second steroid pill, so I’m going to see if the pills work in lieu of the [corticoid steroid] injections I’m getting.”

In 2018, George lost his first wife, Maria, whom he met and married while stationed in Athens. There, they raised two sons together, both of whom, now ages 44 and 48, still live in Greece.

“I have eight grandchildren,” George says proudly, “and I talk to them every day.”

Even among his friends, George spreads happiness by telling riddles, joking around, and offering up a ready laugh.

“I don’t want to get into the negative part of life right now, I don’t need it,” he admits.

And he enjoys the love of his second wife, Lanfang Zhang, who hails from Shanghai, China.

Reflecting on his entire life, George says he’s very pleased will all the blessings his military career and family have provided. Now, looking back, he can also appreciate everything his parents taught him.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t think my mother and father knew too much,” he says with an easy laugh while thinking about the world today. “Now I realize how much they knew.”