Here’s the perfect story for a Fourth of July. I mentioned it somewhere in one of my posts. I believe Randy sent it to me. Lawbob Squarepants, our esteemed rainmaker extraordinaire, sent me the post game wrap this morning. His observation is spot on:

Like the similar Project Salute case in Texas a few years ago, this was happenstance.  VA was getting ready to grant the benefits. Right.  Ask the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.   They know it is true.

 Bob

One thing in the article you will read is abominable. Kash Alvaro was awarded a 50% rating. You read that right. 50%. The ultimate bitchslap. The one thing you won’t find here is that Kash would still be doing the chicken under an overpass somewhere with no medical help had not a courageous newspaper reporter named Dave Philipps decided to do a writeup on this. VA hates bad PR. To think that they would have been motivated to act without a prime incentive such as an  expose in a small time fishwrap is ludicrous. They moved swiftly in order to prevent this from going viral.

Another anomaly. Absent an upgrade on his discharge to “under honorable conditions” (which he lacked ) due to his misbehavior after playing too close to IEDs, he could not get VA medical benefits. This also disenfranchised him from any VA compensation. So now we have to ask ourselves how the Army managed to ram through an upgrade to “under honorable” in such a short time. I asked to up my General Discharge to Honorable six months ago. I got something back last month saying “Yo. We have some medals here you forgot to pick up before we gave you the bum’s rush out the front gate in 73.” But nothing on the subject of an upgrade. Funny how that works.

Living proof that News and Film at 6 is mightier than the 21-4138 or the pen.

On behalf of myself and the rest of the AskNod Krewe, I wish all of you a happy 4th of July. Since this inherently involves gunpowder and other things like cordite, I won’t be redundant and suggest a safe one. If it’s too loud, you’re too old or lack the patriot’s gene for saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur.

And as a PS, even though we are not responsible for his win, I wish to welcome Bill Acebes to the new ranks of the 100% P&T crowd. It’s good to see him finally inside the wire. Thank you for passing it on to us, Bruce.  Clear Left.

Nod sends