Member Randy sends in this redundancy. If VA isn’t doing their job by adjudicating our claims in an expeditious manner as mandated by Congress, why would announcing that they are returning to “normal” fill us with joy and gratitude? 

While some may find humor in Uncle Ric’s latest regurgitation on normalcy, most of us would find the remark far off the target. In 1989, just before the buildup to the war(s) beginning in Southwest Asia, it took about 3 months for us to receive a decision-usually a denial out of hand based on little or no research or honest investigation. By 1994, the delay had stretched out to almost six months-again with the same slipshod methodology towards honesty and true investigation.

In 2007, the delay had grown to over sixteen months, on average, with the same token effort towards finding out the truth. By now, any excuse for denial was deemed justified and Adobe Acrobat programs were modified to accommodate this. They have yet to program in something to correct tense, dangling participles and other annoying grammatical errors, but by using Adobe, they condemn themselves to mediocrity. Besides, we need humor when getting the bitchslap to avoid resultant depression.

Getting anything done at the VA now requires a Writ of Mandamus from the Court of Appeals for Veterans claims. I have recommended it several times and even resorted to it myself once. Imagine requesting a copy of your c-file not once but repeatedly- and being ignored. Not so much as a letter with the standard innocuous “Rog on the c-file. We’ll get back to you on that soon.” Utter silence for years in lieu of the file. This creates hostility and animosity between VA and the Veteran which they can ill afford. Or can they?

My observation is that you can rail at the top of your lungs figuratively nigh on to laryngitis and receive nothing until it behooves them to answer. Currently, a decision on a new claim the old fashioned way is running about a year but they aren’t developed. They are simply a boilerplate denial and an opportunity to gain more time while you appeal for two years. As for Fully Developed Claims (FDC), rots of ruck on objectivity. This is nothing more than decisions at 78 rpm. One small wrinkle, one inadvertent glitch, one improperly uploaded document and it goes into the bone pile. Yes, you can rescue it but it is now in the “regular adjudications” in-basket and condemned to the 33 1/3 rpm Alex Trebeck music score.

Look forward to an incredible increase in the backlog as they struggle to gin up their engines and reinstitute overtime. Look forward to a new excuse letter blaming the TEA party for your protracted delay. I foresee they will murder untold trees in an effort to create a paper blizzard of more explanations for the interminable delay. You have my word on it. Watch for a new round of bonuses, too.