THE CAVC’S ROLE IN THE NEW AMA ERA

Posted on August 23, 2026 by asknod

Once upon a time in a…wait. Wrong story. Actually, I have about ten stories stacked up but I wanted to write this column for a long time. I’m sure I’ll end up stepping on someone’s feelings be they an attorney, an Agent or a VSO. The bare bones truth of the matter regarding the header above will be laid out for you to better aid you in your choices of where to find fertile ground for a VA Claims win. Two things are in play at my law store- the quickest amount of time and the most money for my client.

Funny thing about this is within a week or two, all them fellers on Utube with them beards down to their winkys who know soooooo much more than we who actually perform VA law day in and day out will be bloviating on this very same subject. Shucks, that’s a good thing because then my article will be amplified. Personally, I don’t care if they bogart it. The fact is, I want all Vets to know what kind of repercussions they can expect when they make a bad choice on which AMA path to go down. The new AMA is confusing as it is for most Vets.

But first the asknod late July-early August Winner’s Circle. Welcome to SMC T: Billy T. and Dylan H; SMC R1:  Brandon, Tom, Emanuel and Roger. SMC L-N: Waaaay too many to list. I used to ask them to send in pictures of themselves so I could write an article about their journey from Tinnitis to Parkinson’s and the long hard road to SMC at the top tiers. I’m guessing that’s where all the in-country photos come from now.

Granted, this isn’t the Rolling Stone magazine but everyone likes to get their Andy Warhol  fifteen minutes of fame. I’d like to put names up but most prefer anonymity. Funny how the Vets with the most medals for bravery in combat are also some of the most averse to being drug out to march in a parade or a get a Purple Heart from some Congressman they’ve never heard of or voted for 50 years late.

Now to the main course. To begin with, Congress and a bunch of those guys with campaign hats (VSOs) got together back in ’17 and tried to fix the mess VA Compensation and Pension Service had created over the intervening years after the War of 1812. What they came up with is actually dynamite-they gave us the everlasting Gobstopper claim. As long as you keep appealing, you keep it alive. But, as with dynamite and hand grenades, you have to have some course knowledge before pulling the pin or hitting the clacker three times. I’ll always remember my training instructor pounding it into us: “There is no one thousand three, dummies.”

Let’s begin with the basics. By now, if you’re a seasoned fighter, you’ve probably grasped the three different lanes you can follow after filing and winning/ losing your beginning efforts. From years of experience, choosing the new Higher Level of Review (HLR) path after a loss is a crapshoot. It ain’t like the old days of DRO reviews and the 60-day scramble to answer a SOC/SSOC before the inevitable Form 9 filing. A HLR is VA’s license to go fishing nowadays.

This is where having a knowledgeable VA lawdog or an Agent is essential to analyze what you might end up with behind Door Number 3 if you make the wrong choice. An HLR allows VA to go snooping around the whole file looking for a big-ticket 60% or 70% disability they can figure out how to reduce and then hand you some 10% or 20% trinkets which counterbalance the big ticket reductions. The trick is that they can’t ever leave you worse off than you were before you filed that 996. But think about it. A single 60% or a 70% are both viable for a TDIU. Eight 20% or 30% ratings are not.

So, you got denied and you want to avoid the HLR. In the new AMA, you can jump on the Board of Appeals Express directly but face 10-15 months on the Group W(ait) bench. Or,,, you can rustle up a good IMO from a real doctor and do a supplemental claim. This is my preferred path right now based the last seven years of AMA law. There are several reasons. First, if you did go to the BVA based on the existing record you lost on, your chances of convincing a Judge that those weenies in Waco just didn’t “get” it are pretty slim. VSOs frequently did this in the Legacy period  and their sole argument went something like “We ask for the benefit of the doubt that Johnny Vet’s lung cancer ain’t from them 6 packs of Camel nonfilters a day but that dang AO he was exposed to in Vee-et Nam, your honor.”

I discovered the Caluza/Hickson/Shedden Triangle of winning in 2008 and got my doctor to write the magic letter. Shoot. I even wrote a book about it in 2012. I’m not going to say I’m responsible for all the medical outfits that sprang up after that who’ll write you a nexus letter nowadays for a small 100% cut of your winnings for five months but you do have to say that field has plumb took off like Georgia ragweed in August.

The reason to go the 995 supplemental route is simple. If you do lose, and trust me I’ve seen VA turn pure pissass vindictive on occasion, you’re all teed up to go to the BVA and suffer no remand and have to start over. Face it, VA has two bites of the apple. You file and all they look at is §3.303(a) direct connection in the STRs or §3.303(b) for presumptive for toxic exposure (TERA). I had a Vet whose retinas detatched due to too much Primaquine from a nasty Malaria infection in the Nam. He’s blind. I got a great IMO and headed up to the BVA (in Legacy) and they remanded back to Seattle who got a second shot at denying him again. A year wasted but we won.

Nowadays, if (when) I get that same denial, I obtain the IMO from my trusted doctors at Mednick Associates, file the supplemental claim pronto and let VA fly at it. Sometimes it’s granted but more often than not, it isn’t. So that BVA appeal, when you think about it, is almost inevitable if it’s something uncommon like a brain glioblastoma due to Agent O or burn pit myelomas in the Sand Box. Because if it isn’t on the AO list or the SWA list, it’s a non-starter. There’s only one place to go to win these types of claims. VA’s c&p henchmen  aren’t getting paid to grant these. They’re paid to find a hole in it and deny just in case you hadn’t caught on yet.

BVA wins are not guaranteed even if you have the chicken dinner winner of an IMO. I have a surviving spouse I rep. She and her late husband were fairly good friends. I helped him get his Hepatitis C win back in 2012. Sue contacted me late in the game in 2020 and said he was dying from anal cancer. Because I am compassionate, and mostly because I hate the VA, I went out and bought them the IMO from hell for free covering everything he had wrong with him and was dying of.

VA denied below and we took it to the Board. We’re talking the last three months of his life on hospice as far as money is concerned. My hope was to get him another SMC L for aid and attendance and thus the bump up to O and R1. R2 was a piece of cake as they had oodles of hospice records to show his rapid descent into the afterlife. So what does the Veterans Law Judge do? He granted the Service connection and remanded it back for the rating.

Fort Fumble managed the 100% but disremembered any extra SMC. So it was back to the Board yet again for the extra L for a&a due solely to the cancer. But we drew the wicked witch of the East.  She only gave him his §3.350(f)(4) Barry bump from L to M instead of three months of R2.  I have friends who are former Veterans Law Judges. They all concur this particular gal has the brains God gave a guppy.

But worse, she opens up her fat yap and allows as there’s only one a&a to a customer. I personally have about a hundred or two saying you can have two. Robert Chisholm of CCK may be the first one on the record at the BVA who did this back in ’92 . In law, we have what’s called stare decisis– we follow what came before. If VLJs have been cutting paper since ’92 granting two a&a ratings, then that’s stare decisis– you gotta keep handing them out when we ask. You don’t get to have a case of the heebee jeebees and say ‘nope- I’m putting my foot down. This tom foolery ends right here and now. ‘

redact BVA Dec. 3.4.25

But when some V(apid) L(ame) J(udge) makes this mistake, we have the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) we can resort to for respite. They’ll take the offending Judge to task and explain how she or he must have received their law degree from a mail order outfit in Grenada. Granted, they do it politely but the embarrassment is very real.

 

Which finally brings us to what the Court can and cannot do. First off, if you don’t have a real bitch, your appeal will be affirmed. You lose. Do not pass GO! and collect $200. Assuming you have a great argument, the Court has three other possible fixes. They can vacate and remand it and give the BVA Ch-Ch-Chia Heads another shot at cleaning up their errors and deciding it all over; or, they can set it aside and remand it and do the same. Truth be told, vacate and set aside are both virtually synonymous. Lastly, they can reverse and order the Secretary to give you the money-and be quick about it.

There is one other obvious route at the very beginning which avoids using the Court’s resources. During the preface to “trial”, the VA’s law dogs often realize they don’t have a prayer in hell in winning. The Court’s “pre-arbiter” holds a Rule 33 conference in hopes of the two parties reaching an agreement before trial. This results in a Joint Motion for Remand (JMR) if it only involves one issue or a Joint Motion for Partial Remand (JMPR) if multiple items were appealed and you only end up contesting one or two-but not all.

What you might have picked up on is that with the exception of the appeal being affirmed and losing, all choices basically involve a remand to fix the problem. The Court just kicks the can down the road to the BVA who, in turn, kicks it back to Fort Waco for a repair order. Sometimes, this can be a lather, rinse, repeat exercise until someone gets fed up with the hamster wheel and says “Enough. Grant the claim”. You may also be dead and buried by then but it’s a great moral victory for your surviving spouse.

So the big question is why does the CAVC’s docket look like a pregnant python? They had 10,099 appeals (Trevor G. Penero gets bragging rights) filed last year. I haven’t counted up to where we are so far this year but I’m guessing it’s going to be another gullywasher. This is why the Court is adding judges. But again-why unless it’s a matter of first impression like Barry?

Let’s think this through. Why go to the Court to appeal a BVA decision and sign on for a possible 15 month case only to end up with a remand and a guaranteed do over with 15 more months added for good behavior? Why not a simple uturn back to the supplemental claim route with a new IMO?  The Court should be reserved for cases that are going to affect all Vets in a meaningful way. Take the Barry Bump case or Duran. Or Laska. These are earthshaking events which bitchslaped the chuckleheads below and made them change their evil ways.

It amazes me how many VA attorneys spend all their time chasing some minor error and spending a year getting a vacate and remand for yet another Texas Necktie party. Sure, they make a EAJA fee of $5-15 K but they could squander $2 K on an IMO, win the dang thing in Waco or at the BVA in less time and get a 20% cut of a $200 K retro for the same amount of work. Never forget about the Veteran. Most of them don’t have deep pockets and lots of time to burn.

Time is money in this business but so is work- period. Why do something twice or three times when you can gitterdone and  do three more claims while your astute VA lawyer is up at the CAVC creating more time and work? I’m like Jake and Elwood Blues- I’m on a mission from God. I have much to do and little time in which to accomplish it. But when a BVA judge steps on his necktie and violates the law in his or her decision, I (we) take it up to the Court for a fix. The reason is simple. If it’s against the law, it may get used again against other Vets. If you let everyone go 80 out there on I 95 without some radar supervision, pretty soon everyone is going 80 and someone gets hurt.

By all means do not take this as a “don’t poke the CAVC bear” admonition. There’s a time and a place for everything in life. Hell, I even had a Divorce reception in ’81 complete with invitations, a three-tiered divorce cake and a champagne fountain before it even became fashionable. Of course, being woke, I carefully hacksawed the bride off the groom’s hand so as not to offend brides everywhere.

Here’s a few of my CAVC cases. I use Harry Binder of Rep for Vets for all my CAVC work these days. They have that same ‘go for the throat’ Win or Die mentality you absolutely have to have to do this:

26-2988

25-1196

25-5399

25-3036

24-9255

Today’s show is brought to you by the word ‘No’ and the letters H, L and R.

Posted in Appeals Modernization Act, ASKNOD BOOK, BvA Decisions, Higher Level of Review (HLR), R1/R2, Special Monthly Compensation, Tips and Tricks, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

TOGETHER WE (NEVER) SERVED IN VIET NAM

Posted on August 16, 2026 by asknod

The other day, good friend Wes McCauley, a fellow VA litigator called me up with an interesting quandary. A surviving spouse is fighting for her DIC and asked him for help in accomplishing this. Now, for the record, I won’t go out on a limb and say the widow is attempting to obtain her DIC via fraud. I don’t know how many spouses have asked me over the years to do the same thing as Wes is doing- i.e., why did I lose? So, without further ado, let’s take a gander at this and see what we see, fail to see or find incredible…

214 redacted

Johnny Vet here has already passed . But, if he died from an Agent Orange-related disease like DM II or IHD, his spouse would be entitled to DIC- Dependent’s Indemnity Compensation. This is also available to those who also have been P&T for over 10 years. I’m presuming he had nasty tinnitus from too many pots and pans banging in the mess hall or flat feet from standing in front of a stove for 3 years. What the hey? Maybe carpal tunnel syndrome from peeling potatoes with a butter knife for too many years. He even had some of the medals just in case anyone called him on it.

First off, assuming a Vet has a real DD 214, it should state whether he served overseas and where. Wes’ copy of the 214 shows some very interesting information that pretty much pokes a hole in Johnny Boy’s boots-on-the-ground theory.He threw an extra wrinkle into this and averred he served in RVN with the Snake Eaters during his second enlistment.  That’s a term for Special Forces or more commonly known as the Green Berets. First off, nobody in the Green Berets called themselves Green Berets. Second, Johnny had a real problem because nobody in the Army could find any record of his exploits. But fortunately for him, he disobeyed orders to turn in his SF ID when he DEROS’d and was able to keep it to prove his case. Or… maybe he manufactured it with help from Google. I’m guessing we’ll never know.

If you were going to go into combat in situations where you might get shot down or lost in the woods (or train for the Special Forces), you were sent up to Bien Hoa for the SF’s SERE school for a week- assuming you had not gone through it back in the States at Fort Bragg or Homestead AFB before you arrived. I had to go through it before my departure over the fence to Laos in July 1970. By then, they didn’t send you all the way back to Clark AFB for SERE. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I got the shits from drinking funky water but mostly, a shit ton of mosquito bites because we weren’t given any Deet. I lost 9 pounds for choosing not to eat spiders and python Filet Mignon, too.

So Johnny’s 214 shows the following:

  1. He was a cook. MOS says 94Bravo20 which means he was a journeyman cook = over a year of experience and a certified egg flipper. In box 4. it says QMC = Quartermaster Corps= support service versus combat MOS.
  2. He entered in ’63 before the shit hit the fan and Buddhist monks started turning themselves into candles. So this 214 actually proves no SEA service.
  3. Box 24c. shows foreign service in Europe (USAREUR) of one year 4 months and 14 days. Add 8 weeks to basic training and a couple of months for cook school and you’d come up with almost 2 years where he was most definitely not in Vietnam.
  4. He went AWOL three times for a total of 134 days and received non-judicial punishment for it.(box 29). This would make him a piss poor poor candidate for Snake Eater school.
  5. He, like all of us, had an additional 3-year commitment to serve in the Army Reserve ending on 1 July 1969 just in case the shit hit the fan after discharge (box 18).

What this 214 does not show in any way shape or form is duty in RVN. So now we are supposed to take this with a 5 lb. salt lick and accept that he lost the 214 that showed he served a second three-year tour with service in RVN. But, as proof, he offers lots of goodies. Looks like he visited Google and spotted this article, copied it and pasted it along with two patches as more proof.

 

As a former snake eater, he shows us as incontrovertible proof an ID card identifying him as one of the SOG boys. The problem is there is no stamped serial number on the card. The photos on the top of the sheet of paper with the shoulder patches  (which nobody ever wore) are from Basic training. Noboady took their UFO hat to the ‘Nam. If you were an eater of snakes, the picture would be current with hair on your head and fatigues. If you look closely at the ID card, you can see someone not-so-very carefully trimmed the corners off and rounded them with a pair of scissors. But why…unless you printed it off on a larger sheet of stock paper…? And why sign it when there’s no signature line. And why sign it with your initials? Inquiring minds at VA needed to know. And the only guy who could tell them had already checked out and left his widow holding the bag.

Snake eater ID

Johnny’s Bronze Star Medal Certificate is the proof positive of fraud. A close inspection shows four misspellings (two typed over too; soilder; continious for continuous; and med-evacted) and the “form” isn’t even close to a good facsimile of a real one. Even forgiving that, no signatures from the commanding officer or the Secretary of Defense are anywhere to be found. I enclose a real contemporary  BSM certificate from Google for the reader to compare them as well. File this one under BSM for (Bull Shit Medal).

The ARVN Cross of Gallantry “award” makes no mention of “with Palm” which is part of the award description on any official certificate. The Vietnamese spelled Viet Nam as two words- not one. Any award like this gives complete dates- not just month and year. None I ever saw identified the medal winner as SF.  It was nothing more than an “I was there” medal. Everybody got one like Mardi Gras bead necklaces on Fat Tuesday Night.

RVN Cross of Gallantry with Palm_Redacted

But what actually put the nail in Johnny’s coffin as to that mythic second enlistment in the Nam was a very real DD 256A purporting to show his separation from active service as 30 June 1969. The DD 256A version of this document is only used for reserve duty. That is confirmed at the bottom left corner as well as up on the name line with the USAR (US Army Reserve) which comports with the Reserve information I found on the DD 214.

DD 256A Fraud_Redacted

Here’s the rating decision/notification letter. Note that he had an eight-digit claims number and not a Social Security number. They quit issuing these in 1971 and a 23 prefix, as Johnboy here has, indicates he put in his first claim with VA in 1966-67 -probably right after he was discharged. From what I read,  he was going for a pension this time around rather than compensation.

Fraud 2 RD_Redacted

All in all, this was a really poorly contrived attempt to prove service in Vietnam -or, in the more recent terminology -Stolen Valor. Personally, I think this poor Spouse got bullshitted into believing he was a combat Vet as well as hoodwinked into believing she was going to get DIC. Shoot. I bet they even invited this chowderhead to join the VFW.  Wes also observed that, after I pointed all this out to him was “Dude, where is the Purple Heart Medal for his wound(s) described on the BSM certificate? To that, I can only add what about the ARVN Vietnam Campaign Medal. Or his ARCom. All these queshuns.

 

Fraud 7_Redacted

If you really aspired to pull off a good bullshit job, you sure shouldn’t manufacture fake certificates when the village idiot can figure out it’s a fake. I had one Vet hand me his 214 showing honorable  service in box 13a but in 13b.- the next block over- was the question “Type of Certificate Issued?” , it said DD 258 which is the Big Chicken Dinner or Bad Conduct Discharge. Form DD 259 is one step worse- Undesirable. But the VA had it in his VBMS efolder correctly. This obviously wasn’t his first rodeo at the VA corral. All the medals and patches you can assemble off the internet ain’t gonna put Humpty Dumpty back together again if he was never cracked to begin with.

Another Vet I almost repped must have put his 214 up on the dashboard inside his car to let it “age” the white out he used to paint over several places. He inserted PHM, BSM and AM w/ OLC (Purple Heart Medal, Bronze Star Medal and Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster) in the awards line in hopes of getting a better shake for his disability claims. But, again, if there is no entry saying USARPAC in Foreign or SEA service, then chances are you’re gonna look a little stupid when they try to figure out why you got a Purple Heart at Fort Huachuca in 66. It took me 43 years to get my DD 215 showing even one of my combat medals in 2013. Somehow, Air America neglected to mention them on my original 214.

As for all you TDY guys, I feel your angst. I’ve written a lot of columns on evidence you could provide proving you traveled there from Thailand but with the passing of the PACT Act, that’s a dry hole now for most but if you were stationed in the Philippines and went into RVN on a TDY, chances are you can’t prove it. A new technique is to go to DFAS and see if they gave you a ‘bye’ for taxes that month. None of us paid for stamps or taxes for a month if we even landed there for a forty minute refueling stop.

In my opinion, there’s never any joy in uncovering these things. It’s sad that a Vet had such a low self esteem of himself that he’d have to inflate his medal count. But what he left his wife was inexcusable. Wes has to explain to her somehow that everything she thought she knew about her husband was a lie-including entitlement to DIC. Obviously, she was counting on it as an integral part of her financial security.  That has to hurt both of them.

 

Posted in Stolen Valor, Veterans Law, Vietnam Disease Issues, Vietnam War history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

ANOTHER PENINSULA VALLEY SUNDAY- (FIRES BURNING EVERYWHERE)

Posted on August 9, 2026 by asknod

We live in interesting times. While the Pacific Northwest goes up in flames, we’re in a secluded niche where the prevailing winds blow all the objectionable smoke over the border to the North (Canada). VA SMC wins have been spotty for the majority of summer but the Dog Days of August have resulted in an avalanche of long delayed claims and appeals at the Board. 

Winning SMC at the ‘T’ rate for severe Traumatic Brain Injuries is obviously right up there in terms of difficulty and attaining success as those poor women Veterans who suffered (and file for) undocumented MST. I find I could have all the evidence in the world proving my client is certifiable and VA will go to inordinate lengths to prove he isn’t. A recent example is a Veteran here in Washington near me (138 miles as the crow flies down I-5) who was on the verge of sucking on the lead lollipop when they were able to intervene. He had a rifle and 50 rounds of ammo hidden under his bed and was biding the perfect time when everyone was out of the house.

Even with that, and a genuine rating of 100% for the TBI and 70% for his PTSD (combined by VA of course), a new medical opinion (Number 3) by some gomer hired gun swore on a stack of M 21s that it was due solely to his 40% for his back and the 100% TBI could clearly be differentiated from it thus TBI had nothing to do with his a&a. They disremembered they’d just given him the L for a&a due solely to the PTSD. The upshot of this amazing revelation was “Sorry, Tommysan, no SMC T for you. We were able to segregate all the symptomatology and your need to be institutionalized is due solely to your back pain and your tinnitus. TY4YS (Thank you for your Service).

RD 6.25.2026_Redacted

In spite of that setback, I’ve already received 3 T wins since June 1 and a large number of a&a Ls-some with and some without- their Barry bumps pushing a few Vets up into M 1/2 and N. Now- about this phenomenon of Barry bumps, there has been much discussion as to whether this benefit is retroactive prior to Mr. Barry’s most excellent May 2024 VA bitchslap.

Some of my fellow litigators insist it isn’t- even in spite of my complete success in the endeavor. Some of these same litigators also insist that more than one increase under §3.350(f)(4) granting a second full-step bump is still a matter of first impression and was not litigated- let alone discussed- in the Barry decision. On that, I couldn’t agree more. Barry did not decide it was permissible. The Seattle DROC (Decision Review Operations Center) did. But VA has been giving me double (f)(4) bumps so I’m not complaining…

Here’s one example of the retroactive aspect of Barry. Mind you, I don’t claim a clear and unmistakable error (CUE) occurred. Why should I? That’s like flying from SEATAC to Paris via Peking. You get your rating decision after you get your L for aid and attendance (or loss of use /blindness/bedridden)-usually from the BVA. VA generates a rating decision and you file a 995 objecting to their failure to grant the bump(s). In this one, I attached a 4138 and explained it.

995 filed 5.06.2026_Redacted

Actually, that’s unmitigated torture for a RVSR or a DRO. Think about it. VA raters can never admit error. It has to be someone who did it 14 years ago who retired. Raters are loathe to admit they stepped on their neckties and did a face plant. I help them out by throwing in the 4138 as the required “new and relevant evidence” they demand to docket a supplemental claim. As I expected, they CUE’d themselves (or the idiot who missed it in 2014) and granted most of it. But here, they shortsheeted us and didn’t give us all that I asked for.

What’s a real hoot is that the BVA just granted this as a brand new L in 2020 granting retroactivity to the L for aid and attendance back to 2014 but the Ratings Pros down at St. Pete’s (the other DROC) haven’t learned to dial in on Barry. So it couldn’t have been “forgotten in ’14” because it hadn’t happened yet. Somebody needs to buy VA one of those DeLorean time machines with a 6 gigawatt flux capacitor strapped on the trunk lid. I think the paradox escapes them but let’s not confuse the issue further (or them).

RD 7.14.2026_Redacted

CS 7.14.2026_Redacted

Now, the absolute worst thing you can possibly do is to ask for an HLR 996 to fix this. VA VSRs needs methane detectors just to find their own asses- let alone understand SMC. That’s why they have coaches who tell them how to do it (wrong). If you are foolish enough to go down that road, remember  I warned you right here. My last one led to Saint Pete’s finest turning it into CAVC #25-5399.  So, in order to leave a bread crumb trail for Hansel  the VSR  (or Gretl if it’s a feminine-oriented soul), I now attach this gem to the 995 we are beginning to see in the Veterans’ VBMS folders on remand back to the AOJ.

Barry Memo for 995s

After they screw it up again, I just head back to the BVA to clarify it. You can’t fix stupid.

10182 Filed 7.31.2026_Redacted

But that’s not the end of the teaching moment this afternoon. Our fearless leader Dugout Doug seems to have had a recent attitude talk with the higher-ups at the BVA and the new metric is no more double A&A awards. Read this gem from VLJ Estella Velez to one of my widows I just received. You’ll be able to keep an eye on it soon up at the Court. No way am I going to allow them chowderheads to create new SMC Law after I’ve won well over a hundred of these. Look at pages 9-10 highlighted in yellow. Sorry, folks. That ship has already sailed. There’s no way they can cram Pandora back in her box now.

BVA SMC M 7.29.2026_Redacted

And that’s the way it is… Sunday 8/9/2026 at LZ Grambo.

The immortal Swedish K in 9mm. God’s gift to small cockpits.

 

 

Posted in Aid and Attendance, Barry Bumps in SMC, CUE, VA Agents, VA Medical Mysteries Explained | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

ARTIFICIAL IGNORANCE–BOLDLY GOING NOWHERE INSTANTLY

Posted on July 26, 2026 by asknod

First off this glorious Sunday, (68° and light breeze), I thank the Weather gods we’re not melting. Living here in the Pacific Northwest is, for the most part, a respite from all the global heat waves across our fruited plains. Cukes and beans are plentiful and the broccoli is on its last hurrah. Beets are at the max point before turning into tree roots. The peaches and the Gravenstein apples are just minutes away from picking. But best of all, the greenhouse preparation, after fifteen long years, is now in full swing. The foundation is ready for concrete and the gas/power/H²O is in.

Posted in Aid and Attendance, Artificial Intelligence in claims, Barry Bumps in SMC, BvA Decisions, DRO and BVA Hearings, Duty to Assist, Special Monthly Compensation, VA Agents, VA Motions for Reconsideration, VA special monthly compensation, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

PHOTOGRAGH SUBMISSIONS TO ASKNOD

Posted on July 25, 2026 by asknod

Dear Folks, It has come to my attention via a VA “claims shark”, that one or more of his photo memes about c&p exams was published on my website. His proposed repair order was for me to identify them as his and attribute them properly to his VA Disability Claims Help company at https://www.__________.com. 

As he and his company are a) not accredited, and; b) engaged in an illegal enterprise in violation of 38 CFR §14.629(b)(1) fleecing Veterans, I chose to remove the objectionable material. I refuse to advertise for anyone engaged in illegal enterprises- especially one like this. Ever since the inception of asknod.org (now asknod.com) in 2008, we have had a policy of providing free information on how to win your claims. There are no pay walls or $499.95 Bootcamps for Bucks training aids here.

It took me 28 years and about ten FOIAs to NARA for my Consolidated International Airlines files just to prove to VA I had real red clay between my toes. My aim has always been to help you win-not to get rich off of you. Besides, I married a rich girl so I don’t have to sell shit that has nothing to do with winning claims or making Winky be all he can be.

TDY to LAOS_Redacted

Similarly, there are no advertisements for cheap Viagra at 88¢ a hit or Russian hotties just dying to hear from you old Viet Nam Stud Muffins. It’s not that I want to deprive you of your future bride or prevent you from curing your Erectile Dysfunction. I just don’t believe in dragging my website through the mud like other purported VA help sites such as VBN.

Example of VBN advertising (as if they aren’t already making money off Vets’ donations!)

Here at asknod, I use my real name and don’t hide behind some idiot pseudonym like BroncoVet.  I provide help to my Viet Nam clients and others including their surviving spouses- not ambiguous pseudo-advice that helps no one. Here, you get one (1) opinion to a question asked- not 30 authoritative-sounding answers from Vets  who have only done one (1) claim in their lives (their own). This is what separates my website from other Forum models.

More things VBN feels you cannot live without.

At asknod, I publish all those photos you send in- even the ones that show dead zipperheads. They tell your story as only a photograph can.  I do not ask if you scraped them from another website and sent them to me. I don’t have time to research whether they are yours or someone else’s. In a word, I trust you. Why wouldn’t I?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

 

 

Posted in Complaints Department, Food for thought | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

CAVC–BUILDING THE PERFECT PUNJI PIT

Posted on July 19, 2026 by asknod

I’m probably going to upset some cadre of Veterans over at VBN who are still life members of the SMC Flat Earth Society. By that I mean those who cling to the Combat Craig mentality of “Don’t poke the SMC Bear” or your VA comp check will undergo a massive reduction. Their standard bearer “Cruiser”, an alleged VA rater of 30 years, is one of their original adepts who professes, among other things, that you cannot possibly attain two (2) aid and attendance ratings due to pyramiding under §4,14. This is disturbing for multiple reasons- the biggest one being that I’ve published almost one hundred BVA decision examples I’ve won contradicting just that. But that’s not why I called you here. Oh hell no. This is waaay better.

 

Today I’m going to discuss VA punji pits. How I build them. How you draw the raters into them. How you can end up with a high SMC at the end and more. Building one is no easy task unless you’ve studied and mastered the art of SMC. Obviously, this wasn’t one of  Cruiser’s strong suits during his extended employ at the VBA. With the misinformation he constantly espouses, I suspect he was little more than a janitor at a VARO. Sounds like Stolen Valor but who would ever want to brag about VA employment? The initials (DVA) make it sound like a social disease. But I digress.

A punji pit in Viet Nam, by it’s very nature, was an unsuspecting trap that you fell into because you had a stupid, inexperienced point man or a gung ho 90-day wonder that ordered you to run pell mell through the jungle in pursuit of a sure win against the gooks. A punji pit is a passive attack- one that’s set up and requires no further supervision or monitoring. The more modern version in the Sand Pit -era was the IED.

In the Air Force, we didn’t have punji pits per se. Our favorite upcountry (over the fence) version was the variation of the CBU 24 which held 665 individual mini-hand grenades. The dinks called them “bom-bees” after the word bomb. A certain percentage of them were the BLU 26 B delayed-fuse version. We’d troll along leisurely like rubbernecking tourists for ground fire at 79 knots down Route 7 until some over-eager Pathet Lao newbies couldn’t resist taking a pot shot at us with their AKMs.

We’d promptly call in to Hillsboro (7th ABCCC), our orbiting AC 130 command post for some loitering Sandys out of NKP and sit back to wait for their arrival. My pilot Chuck would light them up with a marker rocket or two and we’d clear in the Sandys hot while we stood off to the side and watched.

The next phase was to fly back over for a Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) to determine if we needed to lather, rinse and repeat. Once that was completed, and we determined the Sandys had done their job, we’d dismiss them and sashay over several valleys and wait for 35 minutes. We’d return to watch as the 45-minute point arrived. The time delayed CBU 26Bs would begin going off about then catching many of the gooks out in the open collecting the bodies, the wounded and their weapons.

Just for shits and grins, if any of the Sandys had liquid sunshine (napalm) on their hardpoints that they hadn’t promised to someone else, and they weren’t otherwise occupied, we’d call them back in for a second pass to light up the survivors out there in the open hunkering down trying to dodge all the flying bombee shrapnel. I can’t begin to tell you how effective this was and how it destroyed their morale. War is hell. Nape is flat-ass something else to behold.

Enough of war, let’s talk about building VBA punji pits. I think most Vets are aware that VA raters have low IQs. If not, then they are paid to purposefully misconstrue what it is we are asking for when we file. Six of one. Half a dozen of the other, right? Heads I win. Tails you lose? In the instant case I’m going to illustrate, we have my client Bob for whom I’ve been building SMC since 2018. It began with Parkinson’s and loss of use of his lower extremities.

Bob gradually lost the safe use of ambulating without falling down. He suffered the comorbidity of both the Parkie’s as well as DM II with peripheral neuropathy of all four extremities-but mostly in his legs. At the same time, his heart began to misbehave as a lot of ours do when you have a diet heavy on herbicide topping. You and I (and most civilian doctors call that CAD- Coronary Artery Disease. Not to be outdone, the VA insists on confusing Vets and calls it Ischemic Heart Disease or IHD. Personally, I think that’s done purposefully to confuse entitled Vets. Face it. We’re not doctors.

 

Our doctors (civilian ones)  attribute this (IHD) to one-too-many missions over McDonald’s if they are unaware we vacationed in sunny Southeast Asia for a year. In 2018, or thereabouts, I filed Bob for the loss of use of his legs/feet and a wonderful gal from QTC agreed saying it was too dangerous for Bob to walk around unassisted. The VA raters were forced to obey the c&p examiner’s findings and handed him a SMC L under §3.350(b)(1). Or so I thought.

Redact Narrative 1-18-2019

At the same time, the heart thing was still on the table and VA could see where I was heading- another L for aid and attendance under §3.350(b)(3). They dug in and fought us hard to prevent it. I ended up winning the 100% IHD at the BVA in 2022 or 2023 and Waco was forced to suck it up and give him the 100% for it. But before I filed for the a&a, I decided to go for the full-step bump up to SMC M based on §3.350(f)(3) times 2. Since I figured the Raters down in Whacko (Waco) were going to continue fighting, I decided to get the M while I was building his entitlement to R1 by having two Ls- or in this case- an L and an M. What the hey? I enjoy torturing these cheese dicks. It’s like playing poker with a three-year old.

As expected, VA told me to go suck an egg on the SMC M. So, just for shits and grins, I filed a HLR saying they need to go back to SMC school and take a refresher course. Right off, after the Informal Conference, they asked for a new c&p on his legs. I emailed the rater and said no way, José. Red Card. This ain’t on the menu. This is an administrative adjudication. He’s had the loss of use for over 5 years and it’s quasi-protected. They’d need to call a CUE and formally take it away as a clear and unmistakable error.

The rater emailed me back and said -not true, Alex. We can take it away as long as we do not reduce his rating in any way, shape or form. They were partially right. §3.2601(j) does say that. And boy howdy, that’s exactly what they did. They converted the loss of use into an aid and attendance but gave him the M I’d asked for. But they did reduce him and didn’t even realize it. Keep reading.

When you get an L for loss of use of the lower extremities, it comes with the ancillary entitlements of Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) and an automobile. Sure, you have to file for them but that’s just a formality. VA always makes it a chore and a bore for anything like that. Think clothing allowances or Barry Bumps. Here. in Bob’s case, they didn’t ask for the home remodel bucks back or attempt to repo his new car. Oh hell no. They were too busy gloating on how they’d showed him (and me) who writes the checks.

I took it up to the BVA and spilled the beans on the SAH and the car and the VLJ didn’t even bat an eye. VLJ Lynn Yasui (pictured below didn’t even mention it either. She said an L is an L and allowed as how she didn’t see what all the bitching was about. Bob got his M and he still had the same paycheck as he did before I started throwing rocks at Waco RO’s picture windows. Thank you for your service Bob. Now be a good boy and piss off.

Redact BVA denial of LOU 5.2.2025

So I called up my good buddy Wes and asked if he’d like to sashay on up to the Court and see what they had to say about it. The Office of General Counsel (OGC) is tasked with defending the Secretary’s decisions- if they so choose. Here, they doubled down and said they’d defend this to the grave because it was legally hunky dory to do the switcheroo. No harm. No foul. Can you imagine the chutzpah of these idiots? They were so full of themselves being infallible, they just figured they had this in the bag. Judge Yasui told them so.

Wesley wrote a beautiful brief and went them one better. He pointed out the fact that when they send you out for a c&p, they always claim they give the c&p clinicians the whole claims file. It even says so on the DBQs. The clinician endorse the box that says he used the VA efolder to make his decision. If you or I submitted an Independent Medical Opinion without the doctor stating he’d reviewed the whole file, VA would deny and say their doctor’s opinion is more probative than ours because he had the whole claims file. So- all these years you Vets have been hornswoggled into believing that FNP chowderhead nurse read it all… but s/he didn’t. It was, and still is, all a well-constructed lie used to deny hundreds of thousands of Veterans for decades. Let that sink in, gentlemen.

Worse, for VA, you can go into VBMS and the Vet’s folder and pull up all his VAF 21-2507 requests for physical examination (in-person) and it lists all the documents the QTC dude is given to look at. This the proof you need to show that the record, as it was known, was not before the examiner. See also §§4.2, 4.6 and 4.10; 20.1403-i.e., the whole recorded history of the claim…

I have some Vets whose claims files runs into the thousands of .pdfs- some containing thousands of pages each- some not. CAPRI records from VAMCs can have 20 years worth of medical notes. On average, VA provides a maximum of 15-20 items for the clinician to review. From that, some new-hire with a GED gets to give it a haircut and remove anything he thinks is not probative. We’re talking a high school graduate with zero medical training who gets to 86 anything he wants to before the nurse even sets eyes on you. But the one thing guaranteed to be left in there will be his POA- the VAF 21 22a. What in Sam Hill does that have to do with the Vet’s exposure to _____________? Well, it tells the clinician we’re one of those money-hungry litigators just trying to screw the VA (and the Vet) out of their compensation money.

At some point this month, after the Rule 33 conference when they said “see ya in court, bro”, the OGC weenies realized Wes’ arguments about these efolder claims files shenanigans were going to be exposed for all to see. Tuesday last, they arrived on his doorstep waving the white flag saying perhaps we spoke too soon, Wes. How about we all sit down and take a gander at this all over again and maybe we can settle this like civilized folks. This is the OGC’s method of chieu hoi.

So that’s where we are right now. On the 28th of this month, and not a day sooner, the OGC weenies are going to propose a mutual agreement we can all live with. Being a VA pessimist of long standing, I’m betting they do the Rodney King “Can’t we all just get along?” shtick and say “Okay, how ’bout we give you back your loss of use and you can keep the M for the IHD. No harm. No foul. You get your EAJA fees Wes, Mr. Bob gets his loss of use back and we promise not to take back the $100K worth of SAH goodies and the Subaru with 12 K on the odometer. Deal?”

Well, not exactly as they say down at Alamo Rent-a-Car™. There’s the intractable problem of a res judicata finding of fact and a conclusion of law. I speak of the finding of fact that the Bobmeister now (currently) has an SMC rating for aid and attendance. He was granted this by operation of law and it wasn’t CUE. They stated it in 12-point font and  Lynn Yasui, Esq. confirmed it in a tribunal at the BVA. So it follows that even if  you were to give him back his loss of use of the feet, he now has two (2) SMC Ls and both were legally awarded and confirmed as being a conclusion of law. Down in Texas, they’d say that ol’ boy plumb lassoed hisself.

Technically, I didn’t dig the punji pit myself. Waco dug this one all by themselves and now have fallen into it with absolutely no help from me. Even worse, from their perspective, is the future problem that hundreds of thousands of Veterans’ rating decisions were denied based on the false premise that VA swore on a stack of M 21 manuals that their examiners had read the Whole claims file when, at best, they may have read less than 10% of it. As Astro the talking dog was fond of saying to George Jetson, “Ruh-oh, Rorge.”

I’ll give you an update shortly on the 29th as to how the OGC proposes to crawl out of their punji pit and whitewash this puppy. This oughtta be a magnificent word salad the likes of which would make even Kammy envious. I can’t make this shit up. Nobody would believe me anyway.

PS. If you want to see Bob’s travails in Viet Nam, here’s a great story complete with a bunch of pictures that Bob took. I wrote this back in January 2015. Cupcake and I had the pleasure of meeting Bob in ’16 on our way to San Antonio for  a NOVA conference.

LZ CORK–BOB LOCKETT’S LP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LZ.

 

Posted in Agent Orange, Aid and Attendance, CAVC ruling, CAVC/COVA Decision, CUE, SMC, Special Monthly Compensation, Tips and Tricks, VA Agents, VA special monthly compensation, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

7/04/2026–BREAKING AMERICA’S PROMISE…ONE DISEASE AT A TIME

Posted on July 4, 2026 by asknod

Yeah. That title tells you right off this sucks. I thought long and hard about writing about the Birth of our Great Nation. Each beginning introduction inevitably led into a discussion about where we have been more so than where we could be heading in our potentially Glorious Future. Obviously, that entails discussions about Republics versus Democracies. Since we don’t do politics here, we are free to wander off the reservation and take a gander at what’s afoot in our world- the world of Disabled Veterans. Let’s let others argue the pros and cons of capitalism versus socialism. We have our plates full of future haircuts coming to a Regional Office near you. Actually, it’s been happening since the War of 1812 but most of us haven’t been around long enough to appreciate the depth nor breadth of the monetary shrinkage we have suffered.

 

If you wanted a brief overview, you could go back to 1945 and begin with the predecessor of the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities. Today, in the world of government acronyms, that’s VASRD or Part IV (4). The changes were inevitable. A good example was Hepatitis C. In 1989, it got its own name. But it wasn’t until 2001- a full 12 years later- that VA opted to create the DC 7354 code for it. It’s strictures notably ignored the fact that it was a 100% guaranteed terminal illness. It didn’t wax and wane. VA’s next give would be to reduce the percentage for that and begin a new diagnostic code for cirrhosis of the liver- DC 7312.

So, the recent announcement that VA was going to 86 tinnitus’ and OSA’s almost automatic 10% (persistent) and 50% (CPAP use) respectively was almost a given. The military was too cheap to issue ear plugs that actually worked. Besides, how could you, as an 11B20, wear ear protection and walk point in I Corps in Vietnam if it suppressed your ability to discern danger and timely respond to it? In the same vein, because they made you work 20 hours a day in the sand box, snoring and low blood oxygen levels were an expected side effect.

If you were of the cannon cocker persuasion at LZ Cork in ’69, how did you pull the lanyard whilst putting a finger in each ear to muffle the 285 db  explosion 14 feet  in front of you? The short answer was you couldn’t. But that did help prevent VA from paying you for tinnitus until 1976 when they changed the rules right after a war-er- conflict- as the VSOs characterized it.

That’s right. The only way you got that 10% was due to an organic brain injury- that’s 1964speak for TBI under DC 8045. Check it out. Page 6737 of the FR DC 6260 Tinnitus (see diagnostic codes 8045 and 8046.)  That means if you got 10% for tinnitus, you had a TBI. That’s still true but VA doesn’t mention that very much. If they did, most all Veterans might be re-examining how they came to have it. (Page 7650 DC 8045 Purely subjective complaints).

1964 VASRD-Ratings

I think perhaps the one thing that jumps out at intelligent Veterans is that the major VSO organizations all kowtow to this injustice. In fact, the American Legion just  put out a mission statement  facetiously named the Taking Care of American’s Veterans Act that they’re perfectly okay with doing away with tinnitus or OSA on a compensable level. They tell their constituency that they must “compromise”. That takes balls.

But this isn’t the first time. Remember back in 2010 when the Wounded Warrior Project convinced President Obama to carve out a special SMC -T- equal to the highest rate (R2) solely for post-2001 Veterans suffering from TBI.  Oddly, we didn’t hear the word “compromise” on the Veterans’ Benefits Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-275). Fortunately, the next president opted to make it available to all Veterans of all time to qualify for this SMC.

Let’s not hear about all this sacrifice and compromise. DAV and VFW were all in on this increase in Vets’ SMC benefits. Strangely, we didn’t hear that there was going to be a bit of quid pro quo and a reduction in benefits for, say, lung cancer or patellofemoral knee problems. Shit. There are three different ratings just for the knee. Who’d notice if they did away with one?  Now, almost to a man, they are invested in the barbershop business of giving us a haircut all under the banner of “compromise”. For what? Our government’s insane fascination with testing out all their new toys in faraway lands like Iraq and Afghanistan that created all the disabled Vets? Vietnam? Grenada ?

I looked up sacrifice in Meriam Webster’s famous VA dictionary. I also looked up compromise just for shits and grins. Under the former, there was a picture of the latest American Legion U.S. Marine Corps National Adjutant Rodney K. Rolland. Mr. Rolland has sacrificed his whole career to help AmLeg. Mr. Rolland is also doing pretty good on his paycheck.

The National Adjutant of the American Legion serves as the chief executive officer of the organization. According to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, compensation for this top leadership position is roughly between $300,000 and $366,000 per year, which includes a base salary, bonuses, and non-taxable benefits.

At AmLeg, I guess the watchwords of compromise and sacrifice are synonymous with one another. Y’all gotta sacrifice so Mr. Rolland can afford caviar and a Corvette. Five bucks says Mr. Rolland is rated for tinnitus at 10%. But that’s okay. He’s safe. This new haircut rule is only effective on all future military members who might qualify for it. That way you know you, the current disabled Vets, aren’t going to get screwed – well, unless you file for OSA next year after it passes.

This whole phenomenon is merrily being copied out of the Congressional model of spending money. It’s called pay-go. In the VA world, apparently if you want to allocate money to pay for Veteran care in the community rather than make everybody drive 100 miles at 41.5¢ per mile (toll bridges excluded) for sketchy medical care, then you have to discontinue paying for tinnitus and OSA.  In the instant case, we are asked to compromise on this minor point in order to make the future more secure for incoming Veterans. So what does that forbode for America’s future Veterans? I’d guess the Draft will be coming back.

The only thing that doesn’t pencil into this formula is the ever-increasing budget they pass for the VA each year and the increasing decrease in services. Who ever heard of having to wait 4 months for a CT scan to see if you have a brain glioblastoma? And then another 3 months to schedule an operation? This is third world Canada-style medicine. Yet we’ve been asked to compromise and sacrifice on this even though your Congressman can vote with his feet and go to any doctor no matter what it costs.

But let’s examine that sacrifice shit some more. Google AI whispers me all kinds of things. How ’bout them hard workers over at DAV? Seems they do good work for Veterans. But they’re all in on this haircut shit, too. According to DAV’s most recent IRS Form 990 tax filings, National Adjutant Barry A. Jesinoski received a base compensation of about $313,000, with additional bonuses, incentives, and retirement benefits bringing his total annual compensation to $572,075.  With that kind of folding money, I reckon ol’ Barry wouldn’t miss that 10% paycheck for tinnitus ($180.42/month). Now Rolland, the crayon eater guy over at AmLeg might feel it at $350 K-ish but you gotta figure that’s why they call it sacrifice.

How about the VFW warriors’ sword bearer? If I were Dan West, I’d be pitching a royal bitch. The salary of  VFW’s Adjutant General is approximately $225,558 per year.  That ol’ boy is flat out getting screwed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sacrifice but it’s apparently enough of a living wage to get him on board with some of that compassion shit for today’s disabled Vets to continue with working there.

So let’s  look at a disabled Vet Vet in our world of VA compensation. Statistically, the majority of America’s carry a 50% rating for PTSD or the equivalent, a bum knee or ankle at 10% and-yep- tinnitus at 10%. VA math says 60%. That’s $1,566.02 per month. 50 + 10 in VA math equals 55. An additional 10% for tinnitus won’t jump him to 70 so we could say it looks like it would be an inconsequential loss financially. But would it in all cases?

Let’s look at the guy who has 10% his ankle, 10% for the knee and 10% for the tinnitus. Take away the tinnitus and he drops from 30% down to 20%. It also makes him ineligible for spouse and dependents allowance. That’s the difference between $617.47 (plus any wall crawlers) and $356.66 and no dependency dollars whatsoever. So does that seem like an equitable trade for that high-priced representation from their Service organization.

In today’s world, everyone begs us to conserve, turn the thermostat down and shut up about the cost of gas and food. Well, certainly everyone who has a cush megabucks job at a VSO. Delving deeper, those same guys who are knocking off six-figure salaries are only paying their service representatives- the very same ones you are provided free of charge to do your claim- one tenth of that. Average Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Service Consultant yearly pay in Washington State is approximately $35,360, which is 56% below the national average. Average Disabled American Veterans Veteran Service Officer yearly pay in the United States is approximately $40,771, which is 29% below the national average.

About now, you’re thinking to yourself why in Sam Hill should I have to cough up that annual dues payment to cover the cost of that Corvette for my National Commander to arrive in style at the National Convention in Hotlanta? They’re such tightwads, they won’t even pay the guys that are supposed to help me (fulltime) a living wage all the while pulling down 90% more. What’s wrong with this picture? VSOs across our Fabled Fruited Plains are hoping you won’t notice their level of sacrifice…or lack thereof.

But now I’m skating mighty close to stepping on someone’s inflated ego of how important he/she/they/ them is.  Disabled Veterans obviously are the inevitable financial casualty of any future reductions in benefits. That’s a given. It just seems somewhat cruel for them fellers making so much they can’t figure out where to invest it to tell the Veterans who they pretend to represent before Congress to suck it up.

I remember reading recently about how all these VSO generals complain loudly that we Agents and Attorneys are making a killing off of Veterans by charging them for our services. Granted, they also complain about the Claims Sharks but look at their success rates. Using a VSO is almost guaranteed to be a loss for a decade until you ask AI how to win it. Using the claims sharks, you stand to lose 60% of your winnings. Using an experienced VA Agent or attorney will make it happen sooner and cheaper with a far higher rate of success. So why the VSO animosity towards us? I’ll get back to you when I find out.

Meanwhile, Happy 4th of July and the 250th celebration of same.  Just remember, the only reason we’re celebrating today is because your fellow Veteran forebears kicked Cornwallis’ ass down at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. If they hadn’t done that, we’d still be having tea and crumpets at 4 and discussing what the Queen was going to wear to the Trooping the Colour.

P.S. Several loyal members of DAV, PVA and VFW have contacted me and disagree with my assessment that their organizations are in favor of “compromising” with VA and relinquishing compensable payments to Veterans for tinnitus and OSA-i.e., sacrificing some benefits to preserve all others in the future.

I would tend to agree with them on paper and hereby do so. What I will never concede is the collusion between all VSO organizations and VA’s hierarchy. The Big Six’s decision to support a carve out for a special rating for  post-911 TBI Veterans in 2010 shows their perfidy in their respect for the inherent holiness of Veterans’ benefits. I stand behind my assessment that VSOs at the National level are no more than greedy entrepreneurs  who viciously defend their turf with no regard for Veterans whatsoever.

Perhaps worse is the constant deprecations hurled at us VA representatives (Attorneys an Agents) claiming we are greedy, money-hungry litigators who take advantage of  Veterans and milk their claims out for years. What they fail to mention is that every one of them, with the exception of PVA, utilize our services once they have destroyed the Veterans’ claims and ask us to pull their bacon out of the fire. Witness DAV uses CCK. AmLeg uses Bergmann and Moore etc. etc.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that…

 

Posted in 4th of July, All about Veterans, VA Agents, VA Attorneys, VSOs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

UP ON CRIPPLE CREEK

Posted on June 27, 2026 by asknod

Great song by the Band in ’69 just before I left for the Jungle. The song’s lyrics resonate with what we do for Veterans. If you get a chance, listen to the song. It has some really good Jew’s Harp work in it- something you just don’t hear anymore.

In this case, my mission was for a surviving spouse of a one-legged dying Vet. Imagine leaving the US to work for Saudi Aramco in the sandbox and being gone for 12 years. You miss out on all the news about the new presumptives for AO. Unfortunately, Steve had also struck out about 5 times trying to get service connection for it before he left so he was of a mind that he was never going to prevail. That tends to happen when you use free VSO help. It’s really not their fault. Nobody will teach them law. Go figure. You’re given a job as a carpenter but they don’t give you a hammer, nails or a saw.

His wife, however, was not one to give up that easily. She came to me- or I guess I should say I came to her. They’d sold their car to make rent that month. Steve had one leg amputated waaaay above the knee for bone cancer- a disability that VA had said was not incurred in service because… well he’d never served in Viet Nam. If he’d lived long enough I’d planned to lasso that one and get it secondary to Agent Orange. But first I had to get them into greener financial pastures.

He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and in order to get the oil job with the Sand Ranchers, he had to report pronto or lose the opportunity. Being a pragmatist, he opted to just have them cut the whole shiteree out thereby avoiding six months of puking in the piss pot from antineoplastic treatment (chemo) or 28 missions under the x ray machine to fry his pecker with radiation. He told me before he passed away that it was the absolute shits to find adult diapers over there. His kids had to send them to him from stateside.

Waterpump area- Udorn RTAFB 1970

His wife went with him to sandland and finally convinced him to throw in the towel when they had to take the leg. I reckon it was a rough life as a refinery mechanical engineer even if he was making killer bucks. Amputating the leg would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. And it did.

They were burning through their life savings at an alarming rate and decided to downsize to a small mobile home near me but even that was too much without something more to cover expenses. I love a challenge so I started digging in the Blue Water files and found he’d been on a flattop (CVA 65 Enterprise) up at Yankee station on the one and only day it crossed inside the 12-mile limit while he was aboard- November 25, 1971. But that’s all it takes to join the Nehmer Class, right? Who ever said them Immunization records weren’t good for winning claims?

redact 4138 filed 12.07.2024

In sort of short order, I got him a quick 60% for the incontinence from the prostate enucleation. VA wasn’t so generous on the PTSD or the Ischemic Heart Disease. And while I was busy fixing that and filing for TDIU, Steve passed away. His wife,- let’s call her Daisy Mae- fell apart at the seams. She didn’t have a pot to piss in and soon wouldn’t have a window to throw it out of. Steve’s SSA wasn’t going to even patch the hole in her finances and worse, she couldn’t find the folder with all the marital information, Steve’s previous divorces (4) or anything else we were going to need to get her DIC.

Seems they’d left all that in a storage area in eastern Washington, ran out of dough and the owners sold the contents at auction like they do in Storage Wars. Worse, the Death Certificate said he died of heart problems I was still working on and Lewy Body dementia (LBD). I’ve had some lousy poker hands in my day but this was worse than a pair of twos in a 5-card stud game. I wasn’t going to be able to bluff my way out of it.

60 Mike Mike HE airmail

But here’s where that steel trap I call my brain comes in handy. About 6 years ago, my VA mentor, Law Bob Squarepants (Bob Walsh) had sent me an article showing the correlation between LBD and Parkinson’s disease. Last Monday, a social worker helping her sent me proof of her divorce prior to her marriage to Steve- the exact link we needed to show her marriage was unencumbered. Hooo doggies. I was finally cooking with Sterno, bubba.

I got the magic paper Thursday morning and got to make that phone call we VA reps absolutely live for in this business. Daisy Mae is not going to be living in some Section 8 shithole and eating cat food for the rest of her life. She’s going to have a decent existence- maybe not a luxurious penthouse suite in Beverly Hills, but who would want to live in LA nowadays anyway?

redact DIC RD 6.25.26

redact CS 6.25.26

Lots of folks think we make wheelbarrows of money doing VA claims- that we’re somehow so rich we sport diamond rings, drive Mercedes Benz’ and have color TVs. To be truthful, you must be thinking about all them claims sharks. This didn’t even cost Daisy Mae  the postage to mail me back the POA. I sent her a prepaid mailer. That’s the way it should be.

For the record, I freely admit I do have a color TV and drive a 2001 Ford F 150 with 208, 560 miles on it. It leaks oil and ain’t long for this world. When you put it in drive, you have to wait a few for it to get enough tranny fluid to kick in. Cupcake got the diamond ring back in ’87 and said she’s good to go with the one she has. Truth be told, an aged bottle of single malt scotch and a medium rare elk steak with spuds and I’m happy as a pig in poop. Pickles absolutely loves the old Ford and sees no reason to upgrade it anyway. Hell, if you think I’m funnin’ you, check this out. Dogs never lie.

And that’s the way it is- Saturday afternoon, June 27, 2026. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

Posted in DIC, Pickles, VA Agents | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

THE COMING VA DILEMMA

Posted on June 14, 2026 by asknod

I know the title above sounds like doom and gloom but I’m going to take you on a journey to the inevitable future-both of VA’s proposed Compensation haircuts as well as America’s too. Much of what I’m going to say here is going to elicit anger and a feeling I do not share the angst of my fellow Veterans in their battle for benefits. Remember, I’m not speaking my mind about how I feel but what I suspect- and have already been witness to- over the last 37 years of playing VA poker.  It’s as inevitable as the the sun coming up tomorrow. Veterans have a better chance of inventing a DeLorean with a 1 gigwatt flux capacitor and a nuclear “kicker” to get it started as they do attempting to alter or stave off the future erosion of Veterans Compensation benefits.

Before I go Back to the Future, I want to illustrate what the past looked like- the past I remember. In 1970, you could smoke yourself into a rip snorting case of lung cancer and it would be service connected. All them Marb Reds, Kools and Winstons were 13¢ a pack at the BX when I got to Udorn in May 1970. They went up to 15¢ a pack just before I went TDY to the country that rhymed with Mouse. All them 15 year old Chesterfield Kings and Lucky Strikes in c rations were free but they didn’t have filters.

Likewise, in 1970, you could hit the Class VI store and load up on booze each month if you were over 21. If you had a Mormon Buddy who didn’t smoke or drink, you could hornswoggle him out of his ration card and double that. I was only 19 when I arrived but no one ever bothered to X out our liquor ration cards. Johnnie Walker Red was $9 a fifth. Johnnie Black was $12. You could take them off base and sell them for $35 and $50 respectively. The only problem was you were stuck with Thai Baht- not greenbacks. But that’s another story involving the Swiss Embassy in Bangkok..

Moving into 1990, VA decided to pull the plug on compensation for alcoholism and drug abuse. See 38 CFR 3.301. VA does, however, have a sense of humor. They outlawed it on Halloween Morning in 1990. Gives trick or treat a whole new meaning.

In keeping with that sentiment, in 1998 VA decided if you had a five-pack a day habit and you came down with a rip snorting good case of lung cancer, it was no longer service connected. Mind you, the Class VI store and BX/PX didn’t quit selling cheap booze and smokes. They didn’t. They just said if you came down with cancer or cirrhosis, it was on your dime.

I could go on and on citing other benefits haircuts over the years too numerous to mention. The fact is, VA’s compensation history is replete with gradual shrinkage-both percentage wise as well as what is, and what isn’t service connected. As an example. I attach here the 1969 Part IV (4) VA Schedule of Rating Disabilities (VASRD) that was in effect when I held up my right hand.

1969 VASRD

When doing VA claims for §3.156(c) claims, it’s imperative you (VA representatives) seek the right VASRD to cite to when they promulgate your RD (rating decision) using 2026 criteria. A 30% rating back to 1972 is all fine and dandy but if you use the 1969 schedule, that could very well be 50%. When they add up the intervening retro to the 2024 §3.156(c) win, that could mean tens of thousands more just waiting to be granted. Don’t leave anything on the table.

I’ve discussed above what used to be then and what it is now as my introduction to the what if? But I’m going to add in a new wrinkle. Back in 1970, you could be a cannon cocker at Fire Base Betty or a Pig Packer in a LRRP outfit up in the Central Highlands in I Corps and sticking used Marb filters in your ears for “hearing protection”. Of course, you could have just been using your index fingers if you didn’t smoke. The Pig haulers lost out. You can’t load and feed a 60 and plug up your ears at the same time with your fingers. When you got out, you filed for hearing loss. Nobody doing the c&p hearing tests bothered to ask you if you had that weird bodacious ring that made it difficult to hear the TV.  Funny thing is VA knew all about Tinnitus and had a Diagnostic Code for it (6260) but plumb forgot to even tell Vets about it.

Gradually, since Vietnam, service members’ experiences have changed. A big one was a group of men (and women) would join and go through Basic, AIT and deploy as a cohesive unit. No more Repo Depots like Bien Hoa in the 60s-70s. Ground pounders, Squids, Crayon Eaters and Air Force Personnel tend to talk in their spare time- especially if they’ve known each other and bunked together for a few years. They trade addresses and now cell phone numbers and stay in touch. Most of the guys I flew with had high value whole life insurance policies for good reason. In the almost three months I lasted up there, we had an average of a 40% casualty rate.

Which leads me to… A lot of my Vets I’ve represented have Buddy letters from their fellow servicemen that attest to long hours being awake leading to insomnia, extensive acoustical trauma due to gunfire and explosions causing hearing issues and (wait for it) snoring which provoked OSA. Virtually all of these folks were service connected for hearing loss at 0%, Tinnitus at 10%, OSA at 50% with use of a CPAP and maybe 30-50% for PTSD. And virtually all of these folks got these rating not with a doctor’s diagnosis but via the Buddy letters and their STRs.

Granted, VA can’t find their ass with a Methane Detector on any given day but they don’t have to now. They have Artificial Intelligence (AI) detectors. They can run the claims history of all of us and come to the conclusion that about 98% of us are getting 10% for ear ringitis. They know a lot of the Iraqistan Vets are getting 50% for their CPAP use. Think back. Remember when the VA put that gizmo on your CPAP that you had to plug in with a USB cable to download to your computer that let them know how much you were using the mask? Ronnie Reagan called that “Trust. But Verify.” They popped a bunch of Vets and dragged them in for a new c&p exam to explain why they had insomnia and 50% but no longer needed the CPAP. Lots of Vets dropped from 50 to 10% over that one alone.

About 6 or 7 years ago, VA began grumbling about the huge amounts of Compensation they were handing out and began to discuss yet another new haircut to benefits. Eliminating TDIU was also discussed but the Big Six (DAV/VFW/AmVets/ WWP/VVA/AmLeg) put the kibosh on that in a hurry. Getting rid of, or reducing, benefits for ear ring or OSA was part of that discussion but it fell by the wayside. Newsflash. It’s back and on page 63 of the Richard Starr Act.

Congress has a new technique- one I tend to agree with Considering the National Debt is approaching $40 Trillion, we have a pay/go system in place. If you want to increase VA benefits for one disability, you have to get out the garden shears and trim another area to pay for it. This is why they’ve 86’d all the trans folks. Face it. Gender Dysphoria is a psychiatric disability. Read your DSM 5. You can’t enlist if you have a known psychiatric condition anymore than you could enlist if you were blind or deaf. I sure don’t have any gripe with trans folks but I can sure see why that will never fly.

As for the pay/go dilemma, an example is Congress’ decision to increase SMC benefits for the higher levels of SMC  R1 and R2/T. They threw in a DIC increase as well. Who got the haircut to pay for all this? Why, you guys who take out VA Mortgage loans is who. This brings to mind George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Some pigs are more equal than other pigs. I guess we didn’t have TBI back in the ‘Nam. They called it Organic Brain Syndrome. They tried to tell us that the two were different until 2015- then caved in and gave it to the WW II/Korea and V Vets. That’s bullshit in my book.

We saw this phenomenon back in 2010 when the WWP jammed SMC T up Congress’ butt strictly for Vets who had served after 9/11/2001. Fortunately, that happened before pay/go or another cohort of Vets would have discovered they were paying for it. But pay/go is now the law of the land. Outside of COLA increase every January nowadays, I doubt we are going to see much more in the way of Congressional largesse.

But let’s get back to AI. I reckon a lot of you have heard of hare-brained schemes to create a $500-$750 per-month check for folks who are unemployed or “paycheck-challenged”. The qualifier is poverty. You could be blowing your welfare checks on cool tattoos and Micky D’s meals but now there’s a movement to just give away free money with no strings attached. What the hey?  You can go out and blow it on Coke if you want. Without sounding racist, a few African American Californians are now proposing a $5 million reparations check for their ancestors being slaves. I hear stock in Ancestry.com is going to go through the roof if it passes. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kiwi™ begins selling shit tons of brown shoe polish, too.

I won’t go into my feelings on it but there has been much talk about how AI is going to make everyone unemployed in 30 years. What then? How do you receive your daily bread if you don’t have any income? What are we going to do with all that spare time if we don’t go to work? Take up Macramé? The Ukraine Army just deployed robots with Ma Deuce .50 cals attached onto the battlefield. What purpose is a war if you don’t decimate the enemy and force them to surrender? Each side could just manufacture and deploy more robots but never achieve a decisive military victory.

I’m not going to say I have the answer to any of the questions I’ve raised. I’m just pointing out why you (Veterans) are beginning to notice VA changes that are going to eventually affect you both financially as well as inevitably impacting your health. In about 1998 when the military did away with jetguns due to the hepatitis C (HCV) epidemic, VA began surreptitiously testing Veterans in their system for the disease. If you came down with it, you died. But VA didn’t bother to volunteer the fact that you had it. Most of us found out by getting a copy of our VA medical records.

Granted, there wasn’t a true cure for it. Interferon cured about 37% even though they claimed a 85% cure rate. That figures. According to them, if you believe it, the accuracy rate on VA claims is 98%, too. Be that as it may, nowadays, with AI, they can run through your records and spot precursors for Agent Orange presumptives, burn pit diseases etc. But again, will they tell you or pretend ignorance and keep mum as they did with the HCV test info?

I suspect AI is going to be both a curse and a blessing. As for Veterans, I suspect the former. AI will be able to diagnose a disease or condition far more accurately than any doctor from a laundry list of possibilities. In the civilian arena, you’d expect your treating physician to recommend a test or two to rule out a possible cancer or disease. Will that be true in the VHA? I fear it will not. I worry that the hierarchy will enact directives that prevent a VA physician from acting on his or her hunches. With AI now at their fingertips, A VA treating physician may take it upon himself to order life-impacting tests and simply be overruled.

It doesn’t require an historian to remind us that one day in 2010, VA Secretary Shinseki- a fellow Veteran like you and me- forbid VA doctors from writing nexus letters for Veterans to help them get service connected for their illnesses. So much for a Veteran friendly process. The Hippocratic Oath  is explicit in my mind- First, do no harm. Does enforced silence with the full knowledge gleaned from AI that a disease is terminal if left untreated fall into the category of harm? I submit it does.

I know it’s a week early but Happy Nongestational Parents Day to all of you XY folks in New York. I reckon the term will be embraced in Illinois and California soon as well.

 

Posted in Agent Orange, Artificial Intelligence in claims, §3.156(c) claims, C&P exams, IMOs/IMEs, Independent Medical Opinions, VA Agents, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

AOJ LA- FIELD OF DREAMS

Posted on May 31, 2026 by asknod

We live in interesting times. As most know, I’ve been making life miserable for countless VA Secretaries over the last several decades. I’ve come to expect a certain amount of pushback and recalcitrance to grant my clients’ rightfully earned benefits. I always prevail eventually but here below, witness the LA Regional Office’s decision to quit torturing my client and just chieu hoi without a long extended appeal back to the Board to sweep up the broken glass. Boy howdy when this happens, I tend to move my wallet to a front pocket and start looking over my shoulder for the inevitable other shoe to drop.

The Fed Circus, back on May 16, 2024, came down with the decision that §3.350(f)(3) could be awarded more than once. In fact, there was no limit to how many times except that you obviously could not exceed the maximum SMC entitlement of O.

 

I had always subscribed to this interpretation- and always lost -when trying to attain multiple awards in addition to full-step increases under §3.350(f)(4). While the Barry decision pointedly declined to specifically address (f)(4), it did point out something we can all take heart in. It stated that 38 USC §1114 and its counterpart 38 CFR §3.350 have remained virtually unchanged since their promulgation in 1946. That’s a subtle way for the Court to say that if the regulation is still the same,  then something stinks down at the corner of Delay Street and Deny Avenue NW.

 

 

That’s an important consideration to just throw out there if you are hoping for retroactive awards under Barry. Think about it. Barry didn’t change the statute or regulation. They merely clarified what the original meaning was-that Congress knew how to remunerate us and didn’t step on its collective tongue when they wrote §1114(p).

Many litigators think the only way to go back and “fix” all these old injustices is to file a CUE claim to reclaim their retro pay for their clients. There is much precedence on the subject of retroactivity as it applies to CUE. Many say it is a fool’s errand. Many sit and dawdle on the sidelines waiting for a definitive answer. Many doesn’t include me. I don’t practice law. I perform it.

When you claim a CUE has occurred, you have to prove one of two things. Did they screw up and misread the regulations then in force? Or did they possibly make the decision based on an incomplete record? After either one of these errors singly has been proven to exist based on the “reasonable minds can only concur” model, the next salient question is “Did it  manifestly change the outcome or was it harmless error?

Some of my compadres in the lawdog profession think that the legal standard is more along the lines of  “did they misconstrue the meaning of the existing regulation and thus err?” But that’s not the legal standard of review. §20.1403 states ” Generally, either the correct facts, as they were known at the time, were not before the Board, or the statutory and regulatory provisions extant at the time were incorrectly applied.

Quite simply, to me, if §3.350(f)(3) says

” In addition to the statutory rates payable under 38 U.S.C. 1114 (l) through (n) and the intermediate or next higher rate provisions outlined above, additional single permanent disability or combinations of permanent disabilities independently ratable at 50 percent or more will afford entitlement to the next higher intermediate rate or if already entitled to an intermediate rate to the next higher statutory rate under 38 U.S.C. 1114, but not above the (o) rate. “

(and it does), then that, to, me, constitutes “regulatory provisions at the time that were incorrectly applied. I fail to see the words “my bad” or “we misunderstood such that we  screwed hundreds of thousands of Veterans since ’46”.

Screenshot

Veterans of all ages will readily concede that when VA screws up, they rarely overpay you thousands of dollars. The reverse is more often true. That’s why many of us have to make the pilgrimage to DC several times to obtain what is legally ours. I don’t remember how many CUEs I’ve won but more often than not, the decision after appeal is “Yep. We screwed up. Here’s your brand new shiny 0% rating for _________. Now, if you want a compensable rating going back to 1972 for your Johnnie Vet, you’re gonna have to saddle up and start over, bubba.”

Where Barry bumps are concerned, you folks on SMC have no idea how many of you got the poopy end of the punji stick. Think how many of you had 100% ratings in the form of TDIUs and additional 60% or more ratings for conditions totally separate for other things back before 2008. Are they saying “Yep, but you can’t file a CUE on that because it was sort of a difference of opinion as to whether to give it to you. ” Uh-uh, it doesn’t work that way. If the regulation said 100% + 60 = SMC S, then you were due that extra $300 Corvette payment in 1956.

In order to avoid the CUE fight, I file for the Barry bumps after the BVA grants the a&a. Encarnacion v. McDonough says we have to file to fix a “ministerial grant of the BVA” after their decision and we have to do that by asking the very idiots who screwed us. That would be the local Fort Fumble- not the Board. We can’t just hang a u turn and go back to the Board and say “Dude, they forgot to Barry bump me at Fort Whacko down in Texas.”

Don’t ever claim CUE. It’s not a “final” decision yet. I  say “gimme the money, honey” at Fort Fumble after BVA grants. VA always says “Go suck an egg”. I’m forced to take it to the BVA to get the money. But here’s where it gets interesting. The BVA  will always grant the claim for the Barry bumps and advance you to the correct alphabetical letter involved but the Fort Fumbles will always assign the  retroactive dates for the Barry bumps. At least they always do that for me.

Think of your BVA Veterans Law Judge like the Roman Emperor down at the Colosseum in 44 B.C.. If he holds up his thumb, you live. If he points it down, you don’t. But he doesn’t come down to the colosseum floor to shake your hand or cut your throat. The Fort Fumbles across our fruited plains have that job. They write the decision and hand out the money.

Now, it could be they (the local yokels) are doing it incorrectly and are supposed to only grant post-2024 bumps… but they don’t. Does that mean they can mount up the posse and come back and jack you for the retro 5 years later? Probably not. It’s their error- not yours. But could it be that the Secretary has now decided to grant retro anyway? After you get your teeth kicked in by the CAFC, could be you don’t much feel like picking another fight with them for a while.

To illustrate this better, I went up to the BVA for two things for my nursing home Vet who’s lived there (the nursing home- not the BVA) for over 3 years. By law, if you go into an institutional home, it’s a given you need a&a. Emanuel kept filing for a&a and they’d send him a QTC notice to report on June ___, 2020 at 1234 Yellow Brick Road in Long Beach. Emanuel has no car and it’s 35 miles away. That’s a nasty trip- even in his electric wheelchair. So he’d call up and say “How do I get there”? QTC would say ‘Not our problem. Call your wife’.  Emanuel is divorced. Lather, rinse and repeat 4 or five times years.

When Emanuel came to me in September of ’25, he said no VA attorney or Agent would take his claim on because he was already TDIU and there was no money in it for them! DAV said “What’s SMC?” I got him a raise from 70 to 100 for his PTSD first, then a&a, then a 100% for his heart and finally an 80 for his Stage 3 kidneys. They denied a second a&a for loss of use so I went around them. I filed for a K because he had a dead winky from his DM II.  They’d denied that back in 2014. That gave him what we needed to go for N 1/2 + K capabilities and a different pathway to R1 via §3.350(h)(2).

While I was waiting for the K, I asked for an earlier effective date for the IHD. As I mentioned a few weeks ago in an earlier blog, The BVA decided to give him a&a going back 4 years earlier than I asked for. I was waiting for the SMC K to launch the R1. But if I’d filed it as a CUE asking for the Barry bumps, they might have only given them to him commencing after Barry went into effect on May 17, 2024.

Here’s my legal brief, the BVA decision, the Rating Decision and the Code sheet. In addition, I attach the temporary SMC Calculator memo VA is using until they incorporate the Fed. Circus Barry Bump  precedence into the M 21. As many of you don’t know, the VAOIG came out with a paper on how the AMA version of the SMC calculator refuses to go above SMC M last year. Funny thing is their old Legacy calculator still works just fine. Quite the coincidence, huh?

Redact BVA 10182 filed 3.24.2026_

Redact Duran win 5.19.26

Redact RD R1 5.28.2026

Redact CS 5.28.2026

Redact SMC R1 Calculator memo

Winning claims at the VA is rapidly becoming an art form. Old techniques are passé. You have to constantly reinvent the wheel to stay ahead of these folks- especially in this new world of AI. The teaching moment, if there is one, is that you should never rush out and start throwing out CUE claims if the decision is less than a year old. I got booted off Hadit.com for telling old Berta that.

But, by the same token, sometimes you can use a regular claim for a higher SMC rating based on a new disability to get a can opener into it ( a final claim older than a year) and get the Barry retro they declare is unattainable before Barry was decided.

In closing, I would like to say thank you to all my readership who send me U- tube links to the ever-increasing numbers of “VA experts” who know so much. I watch and laugh and then pray Veterans are not listening to this tripe. VA has a 26% accuracy rate per the CAVC. Would you really follow the advice of an auto mechanic who had torn down and rebuilt a go-kart engine and is now an avowed expert on 914 Porsches and how to adjust the fuel injection settings?  How about a former VA rater? He’s blindly copied and pasted everything his Coach dictated to him straight out of the M 21 for ten years but suddenly he’s self-employed and an independent thinker capable of correctly interpreting Part 3 of 38 CFR and the latest CAVC/CAFC precedence. Better yet, if you subscribe to his newsletter and sign up for his boot camp for a small, one-time fee of $199.99, you can be at Permanent and Total in no time flat. If only it were that easy. I wonder if they refund your money when you strike out.

VA law is getting more complex each passing day. None of us can outthink AI but we can outmaneuvre them. It’s a stacked deck. If you are still using a VSO or attempting all this pro se with the help of all the Combat Kraigs and CivDiv folks out there, you’re in for some rough sledding if it involves SMC. Tinnitus, hemorrhoids and flat feet are 10% Mardi Gras beads on Fat Tuesday night. SMC is far more complicated- like becoming the King and Queen of the float and riding up front in the Krewe cab.

True knowledge of how to fight VA on SMC can’t be had out there in Utube Internet land. I try to illustrate it for free to a certain extent but I can’t supply anything more than generalized advice. Each claim is unique and requires an attack plan tailored to the Veteran’s individual circumstances.

RIP MLB 1961-2026

Posted in Aid and Attendance, Barry Bumps in SMC, BvA Decisions, CUE, How to Qualify for VA SMC, Special Monthly Compensation, VA Agents, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments