Quo vadis nonadversarial/Veteran friendly? Holy poop scoopers, Batman. In all my years litigating with VA, I had yet to meet an overtly hostile Veterans Law Judge (VLJ). How, then, to deal with a markedly overt VLJ who minced no words when she voraciously attacked me before we even had a chance to sit down and introduce ourselves? In this line of work, the order of business has always been polite, cultured discourse. Opprobrium is simply not part of the lingua franca in a hearing… until now. Read on.

 I like face-to-face hearings. If a picture is worth a thousands words, then an in-person hearing is tantamount to a thousand pictures in my world. A video camera can never capture the earnest look in one’s expressions regarding their claim/appeal. Your face is a window into your soul. Veterans Law Judges generally can discern a fake demeanor.

I’ve done a shit ton of hearings ranging from the old-fashioned DRO hearings in the Legacy era all the way through the newer “informal” verbal piss ass sparring over the telephone at a Higher level of review (HLR). Nothing prepared me for what I walked into July 12th. Nothing. It plumb rolled my socks down.

VLJ Laura Cryan  began her running diatribe, as I mentioned, before I even had time to sit down, unpack and get my brief or notes out. If you read the 76-page hearing transcript below, you will see the discourse between us was filled with interruptions throughout the hearing. I could no more get a word in edgewise than a dead man. Every time I began a sentence, she’d cut me off at the knees. I finally decided to just kept talking right over the top of her after half an hour of this tomfoolery. Shoo doggies. Once she set the tone to be rude, she should have expected I was going to follow suit. Granting her the honorific of ‘Your Honor’ flew out the window about 2 minutes after being sworn in..

REDACT BVA hg,. Txscript

In the world of BVA hearings, one of the prime purposes is collecting information from the Veteran in a civilized manner. That would generally require listening. Personal attacks are verboten-or so I thought. How, then, to do so when every answer is followed with a biased, prejudgmental rejoinder or a subjective conclusion as to case or controversy? Every attempt I made to explain the history of the Independent Living Program and my ILP grant of the greenhouse was met with “You don’t look disabled to me, bubba. Let me see if I have this right. You got on an airplane in Seattle and flew here for this hearing? You walked in here without so much as a wheelchair? You are currently employed as a VA agent? Why on earth should I grant a larger greenhouse? Personally, I don’t think you deserve one at all. In fact, I have the power to rescind the award because you no longer qualify.”

I ran into this exact same scenario back in July 2016 ( after I thought I’d won) when the head honcho of the Seattle VA VR&E program arrived and began a similar diatribe.  David Boyd, former peacetime tank commander in eastern Germany (E-6 20-year lifer) cum VA VR&E officer, started offering his observations on my health shortly after arriving on my property. The guy was morbidly obese- or in the current, woke vernacular, ‘weight-challenged’. If he’d been airborne, he’d of dug a pretty deep crater when he landed.

By way of explanation, I applied for a slot in the ILP waaaay back in March 2011. What the hey? There are 2,700 slots open every year. That’s pretty good odds for a lottery.  I asked for two things. I desired a heavyweight computer for writing my asknod blog and a greenhouse. Why a greenhouse you ask? Simple. I suffer one of those arcane Agent Orange diseases which is hardly run of the mill like prostate cancer or DM II. It’s called porphyria cutanea tarda. I can’t spend too much time in the sun gardening or it burns my skin up. It was one of the very first diseases, along with chloracne, to be associated with herbicide exposure manufacture…back in 1958 at the Monsanto factory up in Columbia, Tennessee. Seems all a large number of the  AO production workers were running around with no protection and had mega-irritated skin and huge, black zits all over the exposed areas of their hands, faces and necks. Well, certainly no more than 83% of them. It wasn’t like it was all of them.

Monsanto’s repair order for this was elbow-length gloves and paper masks. I reckon that would work for everything below the elbows. The masks were just for appearance’ sake like a good photo op for stockholders. I guess if they’d done a long -term study, they’d of found all them Monsanto fellers were also six feet under up at the Columbia cemetery due to a wealth of Parkinson’s, IHD, lung cancer, DM II et cetera. It would take about two more generations of folks (most all of them Vets) to demonstrate dioxin did a wee bit more than just kill plants.

I can remember now, in retrospect, the first spray event I witnessed somewhere in Southeast Asia. Probably east of the Plain des Jarres  near the trail.  The 123s had gone over about an hour before we landed. Our FRAG order had a NOTAM to keep out until 1300 hrs. Everything had a light, oily mist on it with a heavy odor of petroleum. When we landed again the next day, a lot of the local villagers started coming in with lots of fresh wildlife. Monkey ball soup was a rare delicacy. And boy howdy was it everywhere that day-and 10¢ on the dollar to boot (figuratively speaking). The reason for its relative rarity wasn’t that complex- it took a shit ton of monkey cajones to make this delicacy. What was really missing, though, were the mosquitoes. Ants. Snakes.

Fact is, there were a large number of us who considered this somewhat of a miracle with respect to the mosquitoes alone. If you never had a big, fat bead of perspiration laden with Deet™ roll down your cheek and into the corner of your mouth, you’ll never grasp my analogy. As for those little red piss ants, I can’t see how even God would  miss them. Too bad they didn’t tell us that in another 20 to 40 years that shit would begin killing us. I even heard of one guy who brushed his teeth with Deet and swore it came out through his pores and he never got bit. I wouldn’t doubt it.

So, meanwhile back in DC… The Vet who introduced me to the ILP was an old Georgia boy called Bruce Almighty. He was a four-tour Dustoff medic (’68-’72) with a few medals to go with it. If you ever wanted an advocate, Brucifer was your go-to guy. He went five years in the ILP desert before he won his greenhouse. It gave me something to do after 14 months and four operations at the VA. I studied hard and even kicked my Dilaudid jones the VA had graciously given me as an inpatient-all while I learned VA ILP law. My wingman at the hearing was no other than his son Brandon.  I reckon I disremembered to tell Judge Cryan he was also one of my clients but he swore to tell the truth so we were good to go. It’s too bad her honor the good Judge  was so busy yammering or Brandon mighta even got to say something, too.

I gotta tell you I have never had a Judge not let me approach the bench and hand him/her a copy of my brief to use as a roadmap while presenting my argument. Of course, I’ve never suffered an ad hominem attack the likes of this one before any venue at the VA. Having that brief frees the Judge up to listen to you instead of trying furiously to write down all  the regulations you cite to or the CAVC/Fed Circus precedence (that’s presidents to you folks over at Yuku VBN) you’re enunciating.

You can read my legal brief below. It felt like writing the Gutenberg Bible. I’ve never had one run to 26 pages (without exhibits, no less).  But then I’ve never been berated for 76 pages in a hearing so there’s a lot of new shit going on in my life. And I sure have never had anyone who works for VA say ” Here, Buckwheat. Sign here for your brand new 20’X 28′ heated ADA greenhouse with hydroponics.” and then  four months later fun me and  substitute the 15’X20′ one they and I had mutually determined earlier was too small.

This wasn’t even subtle. The first thing they tried to get me to sign was a blank VA Form 28-8872 saying ” here’s what you and I have agreed on.” Yeah right. You don’t see the USS Mayflower  tied up to my front porch and I wasn’t born last night. The second time was two months later when they handed me one all filled out for a 15’X20′. I asked why I didn’t get a seat at the table to discuss it.  The answer was rather blunt-“Shut up and sign or we’ll put it in the circular file and you’ll get nothing. The ghouse didn’t even have a heater or lighting. Water? You don’t need no stinkin’ water, señor. I guess you could say it went downhill from there.

So, the die is cast. We shall see whether I get to lie down in green pastures or I stepped on the dirty end of the VA punji stick. Good thing I’m admitted to the Court. I kinda get a sneakin’ suspicion ol’ Judge Cryan  has her preprinted marching orders on this one. I have 12 years into this and had 19 invested into my original claim. If you look up ‘delay, deny until we die’ in the dictionary, there’s undoubtedly a picture of me. I’m not about to piss on the fire and call in the dogs now. And that’s all I have to say about that.

redact filed BVA brief -exhibits filed 8.19.2023