Courtesy Photo Dale Walker on his Assault Support Patrol Boat in Vietnam. While Riverboat Captain Dale Allen Walker patrolled a river in Vietnam, a mine blew up at a nearby boat. He flew 30 feet in the air, landed on the boat, then rolled into the water.

He was trapped under the vessel, and it was bouncing on top of him. The boat pounded his feet into the thick river mud. Walker was stuck and about to drowned. Then someone in his boat came to his rescue. A helicopter hovered just low enough to board the wounded, and flew Walker to an Army hospital in Vietnam.

"I was in the Navy, and I had to go to an Army hospital," he said, remembering the battle from his home outside of Jacksonville. "I think that is how my records were lost."

This was how he received his second Purple Heart, and how the rest of his life changed. The first time he received a Purple Heart his Assault Support Patrol Boat was pounded by three rocket-propelled grenades.

The Navy later awarded Walker with an Accommodation Medal. On one of his three tours through Vietnam, a boat directly behind him was hit by a rocket. The boat started to sink. While the squad still received small arm fire, Walker reversed course, hooked up a tow line to the sinking boat and beached it.

Walker has experienced what thousands of veterans in the United States have experienced. When it comes to the Department of Veteran Affairs, everything is a slow process.

It's gotten so slow that the Vietnam Veterans of America and the Veterans of Modern Warfare announced that they have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs. The lawsuit seeks to end the delays experienced by veterans when applying for disability benefits. VVA and VMW seek immediate action to prevent further irreparable harm to veterans.

Walker went back to civilian life in 1970, and by 1978 his hip started bothering him. So he went to Veteran Affairs where took almost five years to schedule a surgery.

He would wake up in the morning and crawl to the bathroom because of pain. He would crawl into the shower and fight his way out of the bathtub. In 1983 he got his right hip replaced for the first time.

"His case is a little bit different than what we are suing the VA form" John Rowan, National President of the Vietnam Veterans of America, told the Bullard Banner News.

For the next 30 years he would battle the Veteran Affairs to pay for hip replacements. He can walk, but it hurts while he is leaned over putting all his weight on a walker. He wore his last walker out.

But this last time he could not wait any longer. In July, the rod in his hip just gave out.

He was on the ground and his brothers took him to ETMC. But now he is stuck with a $17,000 bill. And Veterans Affairs are saying the need more information to determine if his injuries were sustained from active duty in Vietnam.

"You have no idea what the bureaucracy is like until you go through the process," Walker's brother Larry said.