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.