As most of you know, I am not one to detract from other Veterans outfits-or Veterans themselves, for that matter- unless they become rude, crude, socially unattractive (or boorish) and embarrass the collective Veteran community. I have always been consoled by the belief that we are a close-knit cohort of 3% of the population and disturbed we face an inordinately uphill battle for our benefits. I have been variously castigated for any number of perceived slights to my fellow Veterans, and indeed charities or VSOs, when I call attention to their excesses.
You will find many links to other websites in this article. The reason is simple. I am no longer allowed to mention (or even discuss) many of the subjects therein.
https://asknod.org/2015/06/09/retraction-and-apology-to-wounded-warriors-project/
As I am not allowed to disparage certain groups under threat of revocation of my ” legal agreement” (above), I will list a few news organizations below who documented my, and others’ bad behaviour. Following that, I will illuminate the reason for this blog. Every picture tells a story, don’t it?
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/military/article26253748.html
A trickle of lawsuits turned into a positive deluge of the same. All of a sudden, their legal beagles were suing anyone who even appeared to be cutting into their pie. As most of you who are Veterans know, this simply is not done. Bad form and all. While we all may disagree on our charity du jour, we should respect their purported desire to better the plight of Veterans. My site, asknod.org, has been engaged in that endeavour for almost ten years now. Obviously, the perfect charity would be one that returns every dime collected to those it hopes to better. Apparently, that is not attainable anywhere but here. And while I am not a true 501(c)(3), or any other version, for that matter, some contribute to my causes. I merely forward the funds on to legitimate charities in their entirety. No dealer prep and destination fees with fuel surcharges here, folks.
I was rudely reminded of what was permitted and what was verboten in 2015 when I had my chain jerked for my sarcastic wit regarding a certain charity. I deserved it. Humor and sarcasm have their boundaries and I broached them. I have learned my lesson and no longer harass anyone in that regard as the objects of my ire were eventually replaced by more responsible fiscal stewards of the charity’s funds (and I had to sign an agreement to refrain from same). Hey, I wasn’t the one who called CBS. A Veteran employee of the Broadmoor Resort who might have had Hepatitis C and reads my blog might have, however.
2016 dawned with a renewed push to sue even their very own ex-employees that barked at the charity…
https://military.id.me/community-news/wounded-warrior-project-sues-two-disabled-vets/
As we know from the same news sources, what goes round comes around. The truth finally came out on CBS. Face it. You can’t go around pissing money away on things without someone taking notice. What’s sad, to me, is Mr. Kolfage didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to even write me back and apologize for the errors in his article. I would have-had the shoe been on the other foot.
https://asknod.org/2016/03/11/wwp-revenge-is-a-dish-best-left-unserved/
The reason for this article is simple. At the time I was disparaging a certain charity, I was attacked by the severely wounded Veteran and my fellow Air Force alumni. He wrote from the perspective of one intimately well-versed in the financial aspects of the charity I insulted. Be that as it may, the crux of my current ire is simple. I was accused of writing articles for Veterans Today– a marginal, right wing website who believes in underwater UFO airports, chemtrails, the Illuminati and the Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. For that, I sincerely apologize. In retrospect, I should have read some of the articles which were being published on their website. Had I performed that due diligence, I would never have published my articles there. When I discovered Veterans Today had about as much to do with Veterans as fishing has to do with sewing, I erased everything and ceased my relationship. In short, I saw the error of my ways and amended who I shared my blogs with. For the last three years, I have been circumspect to assure I don’t pull that stunt again.
About Senior Airman Kolfage
The Veteran who attacked me in 2015 was Senior Airman Brian Kolfage, a well-known Veteran in the community. The tenor of his attack and his analysis appear to reflect he had a great deal of help writing the article. The reason I say this is we- all of us- take the AFQT test to determine what we will become when we enlist. The folks who score the lowest become cooks. The next higher tier of low scoring aspirants become Military Security Policemen- military cops. Yes. In spite of several articles stating S.A. Kolfage was SF ( an abbreviation for Special Forces), in reality, Kolfage was a security policeman. I don’t mean to denigrate his IQ, Mensa potential or patriotic verve for serving America. There certainly is nothing wrong with being a cop in any of the branches of the military. Somebody has to do it. I merely wish to put it in perspective from an intelligence standpoint. Could be the NBC writers meant Security Forces and not Special Forces. Could be I’m also plumb disinformed and wet all over. I merely convey the content of the articles I read.
VETERANS TODAY
Nevertheless, the body of the article discussed in great length my “association” with Veterans Today (VT). Gordon Duff, the chief cook and bottlewasher at VT is a former Marine who claims he was a Vietnam combat Veteran. His MOS reveals he, too, was somewhat less than he purports- it would appear he flew a desk. How he managed to snag a CAR in ten days in Vietnam is beyond me. Well, that’s what his DD 214 and other military records state. Google him. The site This Ain’t Hell (but you can see it from here) has done some amazing footwork excavating his misadventures over the years.
I really had no beef with Mr. Kolfage and even sent him an email asking him to discuss my charity findings. I was concerned that he might not have the back story. I received nothing in reply. Check this out… The below are quotes from Mr. Kolfage’ ruminations about my “attacking” a certain charity:
The first is a blog called Veterans Today, and a simple search revealed they are riddled with crazy conspiracy theorist articles and anti-Semitic content. The Southern Poverty Law Center stated Veterans Today is “a website that purports to be a ‘military veterans and foreign affairs journal’ but is really a locus of the far right, is now squarely in neo-Nazi territory.” [emphasis mine]
No argument from me there, Brian.
“After reviewing all the documents, audits and endorsements from outside agencies. I can say without a doubt the Wounded Warrior Project is not a “legal scam” and is not “cooking the books” as Graham claimed on Veterans Today.”
I’d merely question whether Brian has a CPA degree.
Not only has [sic] my family and I participated in many of their programs, witnessed thousands of other veterans participate with their families in the programs, but the Wounded Warrior Project has easily spent around $40,000 on my family over the past few years. That’s a first-hand account of direct support to a wounded warrior. Now multiple [sic] that by tens of thousands.
I guess I don’t need to point out that it is conceivable to buy allegiance to any cause. Which is not to imply Senior Airman Kolfage was the least bit influenced by some charity’s $40,000 “donation” to him or letting Lt. Dan buy him some most excellent digs down in Florida. Perish the thought. I read he paid Facebook over $300,000 in folding money for ads up until Monsieur Zuckerburg 86’d him. Let that sink in. You have $300 K in disposable income for FacePlace® advertisements and folks are buying you a house? I’m going to have to put a “donations” widget on asknod. I am soooo missing out on this gig.
Several days ago, I noticed a major uptick in hits on an article I wrote in 2014 regarding VA’s treatment of my fellow airman Brian. This was a year prior to his diatribe about eeeeevil me.
https://asknod.org/2014/11/03/va-office-of-debt-management-busts-another-cheating-vet/
Imagine my surprise as to why I might get 750 hits on that antique article in less than 5 hours. Seems there are a lot of folks suddenly interested in this gentleman. Apparently, he set up a GoFundMe™ page to collect funding for a border wall down south. I speak of the endeavour President Trump is causing the Democrats so much heartburn over. Hey, I’m all in for a wall. It works like a champ for the Israelis trying to keep the bomb-throwing sand ranchers out of their country. Seems it did an excellent job of keeping the East Germans out of West Berlin, too. China’s endeavour in the 17th century? Not so much-but then they lacked 30,000 volts of electricity and AK 47s. With drugs, Al Quaida and God only knows what else trying to get in to the US, I don’t have a problem with it (sans the electricity and guns). If they build it, maybe the bad guys won’t try to come here. Nothing else seems to have worked so what the hey?
Kolfage Konspiracies
I was honestly ready to let bygones be bygones and pick up the check book to cut ol’ Brian some money for this. But then, another paragraph caught my eye…
https://www.thedailybeast.com/report-man-behind-border-wall-gofundme-ran-fake-news-websites
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/21/brian-kolfage-creator-mexican-border-wall-fundrais/
Ruh-oh, Rorge. Brian’s a chemtrail sniffer? Maybe he’s just been smoking some powerful Mantanuska Thunderf**k . Of course, this is pure conjecture and not an accusation that he smokes pot. Perish that thought, too.
Interestingly, a web page called “The Independent” had this to say:
The sites [Kolfage’s] relied on using outrage and click-bait headlines—often false, racist and provocative—to increase viewership and shares. Some of the headlines include “Obnoxious Black People Lose Their Minds When Victoria Secret Models Say This 1 Word On Live Video” and “Trump Just Released Embarrassing Vids Of Obama’s Muslim Friends That He Never Wanted Seen.”
Say it ain’t so, Bro.The irony is absolutely delicious. Here’s some horribly disabled Veteran (like myself), apparently aspiring to be an author, writing articles for his numerous far-right websites discussing how Hillary had a terminal illness during her Presidential run and a bunch of other blogs with similar dire tales of Kolfage Konspiracies™ about Lord knows what. And he had the balls to go after me for mistakenly publishing an article in a far right rag (which was later inadvertently verified by a major news media outfit). I submit that is the epitome of the pot calling the kettle black.
Hey. I have no problems with disabled Veterans who write articles about Veterans. I encourage it and freely offer an editorship here any time someone desires to pull up a soapbox. That’s what I do as a sideline in addition to legally representing them before the Veterans Administration and the Court of Veterans Appeals in their claims for compensation. I just have a few qualms when some also admit to inhaling chemtrails. I have the utmost respect for my President but I do take him with a grain of salt. Remember, I respect the Office of the Presidency but certainly do not agree with all the present occupant espouses. I doubt anyone can be “all in” with some of his ideas but that’s the beauty of America. We get to think and say what we feel- well, unless we’re in Berkeley, California, it involves former members of the Confederacy or anyone who ever owned slaves. Boy howdy is that ever going to bite Presidents Jefferson and Washington on the ass some day. Can you imagine the hue and cry when the “Recently Enlightened”demand the Jefferson Memorial be removed and Mount Vernon razed to the ground?
In this business, what you write in the past can come back to haunt you many years later. We discover that every day. So, if you can ferret out old articles from Right Wing News, Fight4FreeSpeech (which accepts “donations” ), VeteranAF and Freedom Daily, you may find our Mr. Kolfage is not all he’s cracked up to be. Again, this is puuuuuure conjecture because I understand ownership of these sites is vague. But then, that’s what the gentleman implied when he dropped the hammer on me. I forthrightly admit mea culpas were in order in my case, though (re a certain charity). I had my well-deserved “Come to Jesus” moment in 2015. Que sera sera.
P.S. With all due respect for that certain charity I am precluded from discussing above, I am ecstatically happy to see it appears they have reformed their earlier financial peccadilloes and are now somewhat more transparent. But then I would not know about that because I do not follow their day-to-day work for Veterans and am not a Certified Public Accountant.
And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
A warm Merry Christmas to you all. Bury your prejudices and abstain from addressing recriminations from far right nut jobs. Fund the wall personally if you see fit. Just be sure there isn’t a siphon hose attached to that GoFundMe Build the Wall site. I’m certainly not implying there is but sometimes history repeats itself.
asknod
brewerkelli
cspencer02
jamesaurora
kcraveiro
Laura
Veterans Claims Help 
How do these con artists sleep at night? To lie, steal, and take moneys from veterans is the lowest life form next to pond scum! Conjecture my ass! FACT….
Sounds like Kolfage is a con man equal to Trump !
Roger that.
WWF was created by gents migrating from another nonprofit in NY under investigation for fraud. They grabbed the gent doing good work and blew it up. The minute they found out I was a forensic CPA they refused to speak with me. WWP never should have been allowed that name legally as it’s too close to an official government group. They had issues with CPA audits and their 990’s did not make sense. They were suing vets for using the name wounded warrior. I told them to kiss my ass and they backed off. I cohosted events with them and will never do it again. Pre management change they were sleazy – even firing the vet who legitimately started it. A llot of other bad actions. They mislead the public suggesting they are the ones helping vets, which is nonsense. How many new seriously injured vets are there that are ignored by military hospitals? I know what my guess is. They have been disingenuous throughout their history. When challenged they say their mission is to make issues known. Also a lot of West Pointers got involved. Enough said.
Well said. Take notice folks.
Keystone Warriors in Penn., a good group, also victims.
In addition to cyberscamers from abroad, as we read, native born scam artists are everywhere in America today. But, it’s Christmas Day, I haven’t logged in for over a month, so I’m not going to think about the baddies.