There are many voices in America and the world. The SPCA, PAWS, The Sierra Club, Greenpeace and more. I could go on forever. There are specialized groups who advocate for Dolphins, Sea Turtles, HIV and people with six fingers.

Until 2004, there was no specific group who advocated for Vets with HCV. We have Patricia Lupole and her husband to thank for that. Similarly, we had no voice after an adverse decision at the BVA until 1989. Strangely, having been given a voice, we still find one foot on our necks preventing us from standing up. That is the prohibition that we are not entitled to professional legal help at the VA until we have effectively been shut out. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, decided that was somehow apropos for you and me.

With all the freedom in America to litigate, the ultimate defenders who have protected the right to litigate are precluded from access to same. How strange is that? Which breeds my plaint “Who speaks for the Tuna?” Remember the early Greenpeace protesters who blockaded and harassed tuna fishermen until they eventually produced Dolphin-friendly nets? Why did they stop there with just dolphins? What about the other denizens trapped in the nets? Are dolphins cuter because we became acclimated to Flipper?  I wager to say someone could take a young up and coming Albacore or Ahi to Hollywood and train him to be adorable. That’s beside the point.

The problem is us Veterans-that pesky 8% of society. Somehow we Tuna were disconnected from the legal system and left to fend for ourselves. Having a VSO is like taking your sister to the prom. It’s just not the same. She’s a loyal fan and would defend your good name, but is basically powerless in an argument. Her knowledge of you and your circumstances is ephemeral. Her verve for your cause is unwavering, but she has no legal skills that might aid you in your plight. In short, your VSO is valuable for little more than holding your coat and hat while you and VA engage in fisticuffs. Until you lose, you are caught in this VSO/Pro Se net. You have no advocate with measurable skills. It’s either you with what skills you can bring to the claim pro se, or you (again) with a glorified mailman who will file your motions, suggest other motions, and generally babysit you for the next 6 years. They have nothing else to do but fill in 4138s and 4142s, file F-9s and occasionally peek in and see if the claim is done. Some will have you believe that you cannot possibly hope to navigate this maze without them. They universally have a much higher opinion of themselves and the VA than we do.

What prompts this tirade today is our supreme leader in the Free World. Senator Sneakers from my home state, has suddenly become enamoured of the disparity in justice accorded PTSD and personality-challenged Veterans. Patty has been on the Vets Affairs Committee for years so she isn’t a flash in the pan. I find it incongruous that she should get het up about the PTSD imbroglio but yet take no umbrage with the high error rate producing the phenomenal backlogs. If you as a Senator were facing an angry electorate and wanted to cement a new term, what  better way to lock in an important voting bloc like us? It seems like such a valuable tool to leave unused in the shed.  I’d be banging the drums and threatening to sub it all out to contractors if they didn’t get it together. She’s already thrown money and more personnel at it to no avail. And like the proverbial junkie, VA promises to reform but just needs one more fix before going on the wagon.

Absent a voice in that forum, we turn to the higher tribunals. With the possible exception of the CAVC and the Fed. Circuit, we see some weird decisions like the Schoenweiss one escape notice for decades. When they finally reach the Courts, they are unraveled in what seems to be mundane fact finding and rudimentary accounting methods. We have the occasional aberration such as the Roberts miscarriage, but our ability to make our voices heard substantially seems to take an inordinately long time. and is only successful in the higher venues.

We have witnessed, and continue to, the practice of testing us surreptitiously for HIV/HCV and purposefully not apprising us or the County Health Department of  positive results. Why are they exempt from this reporting requirement or are they? What is to be gained from silence other than the suppression of one more statistic with bad PR? I won’t recite the mantra “Big Brother is watching” but I reserve the right to say it at some time in the future.

We are unique in that we have a cabinet level outfit to ourselves that looks out for our best interests and supposedly was inaugurated to protect us from the voracious appetites of the rest of Congress’ pork barrel proclivities. All good ideas are not well thought out. As with any political animal, it must be fed. They all start out small and then consume an ever larger amount of samoles. Did you know that in 1994, with a stroke of the pen, the twenty Board panels were freed to adjudicate as single VLJs? Wouldn’t you thing that would increase decisional output at the Board by 66 2/3%? That was the idea from what I gather. Data shows there was a minor improvement in the decision rate versus time for a while. In the interim, more Acting VLJs (about 30-36) are allowed to dabble in the art for up to 90 days at a stretch thus enlarging the pool to 90ish. Nevertheless, the timeline has increased and the backlog grows.

Due to the recalcitrance of an overworked system to upgrade to an efficient electronic database, an archaic and barbaric legal system depriving us of rudimentary rights accorded our civilian counterparts and a legislative branch steeped in indifference, we and future Vets who haven’t even arrived yet are put on hold for a decade or more in a futile attempt to attain what we were promised. We really have no advocate other than ourselves until we have lost the most important battle in our own back yards. Who pray tell, decided that was a good idea for 8% of America and no others? More importantly, why hasn’t Patty noticed this 85% error rate discrepancy and pitched one of her famous bitches  about it? Occasionally Pro-Veteran but full time anti-military?

Twenty three years ago Congress promised us a New Deal. It looked good and sounded fair. It still does and if we ever experience it as it was conceived, we’ll be in high cotton. I look forward to the day when we  Tuna  gain a voice, too.