What say we blow this popsicle stand and head up to the Vineyard
for some pasture pool? I gotta new Big Bertha I’m dieing to try out.

This just in from Frank. In an amazing redux of Debby does Dallas, President and Mrs. Obama blew into Orlando with much fanfare to address the DAV hierarchy and dole out the political favors to America’s finest that keep them elected. Then it was off to cooler climes in Martha’s Vineyard for a much-needed respite from the harsh, thankless, grueling job of being the Commander-in-Chief.

The DAV Pony Show was only missing Gen. Eric Shinseki and Brig. Gen. Allison “Accenture” Hickey to make the circle complete. We can easily understand why Gen. Shinseki stayed away. He tends to shun the cameras.  Not so Ms. Hickey. Considering Hickey is angling for his job, it would be a natural fit for her to come back after the 2011-2012 VA Human Resources imbroglios and try to make nice with them. She just got a new ‘do for summer, too.

It must have have been horribly distressing for Allison to find out the CEO of DAV makes more than the VASEC-or her, for that matter. I, for one, wasn’t exactly nonplussed. Any nongovernmental organization is usually replete with hidden featherbedding and the Big Three (DAV, VFW and AmLeg) are no strangers to this phenomenon.  It simply came as a rude surprise to find out that politics and money have infested Veterans Service Organizations. The only grief currently is that the cat is out of the bag. Strangely, the drive-by media have allowed this to subside along with the 22 Vet suicides a day.

It used to be said that “If it bleeds, it leads” in newspaper parlance. That doesn’t apply to the military. It was common to see news from the Vietnam battlefront relegated to the middle pages of most big newspapers by the late 60s. Similarly, when it is discovered a childrens’ charity is raking off 88% of the take for salary and allowing the remaining 12 to matriculate down to the needy ones, it makes the back page for a day. Twenty two idiots a day who choose to suck on a lead lollipop is not a failing of Congress nor can it be laid at their front door. Maybe at the VASEC’s down at 810 Vermin Avenue NW-but surely not the Casa Blanca at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In this administration’s eye, Vets, and the military in general, are a scourge  on the US Treasury. Suicide, in their eyes, is merely a Darwinian theory like survival of the fittest.

The President and his wife made a grand showing before taking off for Martha’s Vineyard for their first official “vacation” this summer. I wonder where all the severely disabled American Veterans will be taking theirs this year. Maui? Kennebunkport? Perhaps the gorgeous white sands down in Mississippi on the Gulf Coast that have recently been deoiled? So many choices it just boggles the imagination. The indecision, along with the denials of benefits, must be killing them.

Here’s a pertinent quote from the Explainer-in Chief:

“After years of military service, you shouldn’t have to wait years for the benefits you’ve earned,” Obama said.

For scholars of the English language, “should” is a conditional verb. Perhaps its time to enact legislation putting in something less conditional with more teeth such as “shall”. Then we wouldn’t have to buy so much Jet A gas for Air Force One and the First Family could just fly straight to Boston from Andrews AFB and avoid Orlando entirely.

Speaking strictly for myself, I am now going on twenty years (five times longer than my 4 years in service) awaiting my delayed “benefits I’ve earned”. The upside to all this is that my lawyer pointed out VA will have no time to start whittling away at the ratings because they will be protected by twenty years of entitlement as of April 1, 2014. I guess VA didn’t think 38 CFR § 3.951 through on that one. I expect they’ll have to change that regulation (retroactively, I might add) to thirty years in light of the intractable backlog. We simply can’t squander money on  ratings in this day and age anyway.  Tony Principi said as much recently. Medical science (and QTC) is forging ahead by leaps and bounds. A rumor at VA has it there’s a cure for most Agent Orange diseases just over the horizon as soon as we’re all dead.

I got a bang out of this definition:

“A claim is considered backlogged if it has been in the system for 125 days, or roughly four months”  said White House press secretary Jay Carney.

Gee, Jay. You could get a job over at VA after you’re cashiered for lying. What’s the definition of a claim 7300 days old? Unavoidably delayed? I sent an inquiry in to his (and our illustrious Boss)recently bemoaning the sorry state our Individual Living Program has fallen into. My tagline was “What would you think if your advisors showed up one Monday morning and said “Gee, Mr. President.  This is weird. We have a longstanding food stamp program with 25 million slots open and only 18 million showed up for all that free food.  All we can surmise is that there must not be very many food-deprived individuals out there, huh?” With only 2,700 slots open for the most  severely disabled Veterans of America on the IL program, the VA could only find 2,428 who wished to apply and were not malingering. I guess the rest were just faking those missing arms and legs. Vets are good at trolling for that sympathy thing.

For as long as I can remember since the Vietnam Boundary Dispute, politicians in DC have been beating us to death with their lips. I know Sen. Patty Murray sounded good when she bitched about the sorry state of Vets Affairs but she never followed through. Col./Senator Bernie Sanders has been rather quiescent up there in Vermont but that would be expected as he settles into his new armchair. Representative Filner was another example of more recent fame in the Veterans arena. Maybe Anthony Weiner missed the boat on this one. I think he could be rehabilitated as a Veterans Service Representative and go on to a wonderful career sparking female Iraq/Afstan Vets. He’s tech-savvy as evidenced by his prowess with an I-phone. Marriage surely doesn’t seem to be an impediment.

The dog days of summer are just hitting mid-stride. Expect a plethora of these long-winded speaking engagements from the talking heads at VA to explain away the impending inability to get a handle on the backlog. While the numbers evince a declining claims filing by Veterans, nothing could be further from the truth. The foxes are publishing the henhouse production figures. Claims are increasing as more and more Vets begin the unplanned transition from the military to Vethood. With the Reductions In Force (RIF) being touted as unavoidable by Chuck Hagel, VA claims are set to go off like a good 4th of July fireworks show soon. Taking that many out of the military and putting them on unemployment or trying to stuff them into engorged VR&E programs for retraining is not a repair order. Similarly, taking newly-minted Vets offline and packing them into four year colleges is not viable forever. Like a bobber after a strike, they all surface again later with the same problem-unemployment. With all their briefings on how to apply for VA benefits at separation, I foresee a land office rush to the VAROs. VA is far more optimistic. They always are.

No matter how you slice it, there are just so many jobs. Following this latest redepression, even fewer jobs exist now and with lower wages. With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, fewer employers are comfortable with full time employment for their employees. They prefer a part-time scenario and to let the employees go into health cooperatives financed by the taxpayer. While I commend the President and Congress for their farsightedness in enacting a social/medical contract, the outcome is not having the desired effect. The predicted costs were vastly understated in a headlong rush to pass this. As Vets, we see the underbelly of subsidized medicine when we are fortunate to get in the door of the VAMC. A one hour wait for a scheduled appointment is not untoward. Having to wait six weeks to get in isn’t either. I don’t think Americans know what it is they agreed to. 2014 is going to be a rude awakening just as it was for me when I was awarded “free” medical for life at the VA.

Yo, Bob. Check it out.
There’s nothing in here.

 Veterans benefits are similarly endangered. Witness the apathy once the military wound down after the Southeast Asia Democracy Initiative in the late seventies. We are the last on the list. We are the money grubbers-the Great Unwashed. When we show up at the back door of the VA asking to redeem our promised reward, we discover the fine print of the contract or that we waited too long to act. Politicians will fake umbrage with the injustice and wail and beat their chests with their left fist so as not to spill the martini in their right. Presidents scurry to Orlando to show the false flag of solidarity with Veterans. And the beat goes on.

Promises were made and gifts were exchanged. Redeeming the promises before we die seems to be the bugaboo.