Denis the Menace
Every once in a while about this time of year, we all become a wee bit maudlin and little acts of kindness well up in our bosoms. We have this insane urge to spread joy and happiness across our fruited plains and draw those we love near to us. Well, most of us anyway. Thus, in order to make all of you feel much more self-assured it isn’t just you getting screwed over, I thought it prudent to share this one with you.
Co. F, 51st Inf. LRP Bien Hoa 1967
After fifteen years of asknod.com, I’m fairly certain ol’ Denis & Company know who I am. What the hey? When a BVA Veterans Law Judge interrupts me in mid-sentence during a face-to-face Board hearing and asks if I work for asknod inc or are familiar with him (it) because my logo sits atop his legal brief he’s holding (and pointing to), it’s obvious my ‘bad company’ reputation has preceded me. In this case, it was VLJ Jon Hagar back in April of this year at the VACO on 425 I Street NW and he’d just granted a SMC R 1 claim for another of my Veterans about six months prior.
Oddly, this wonderful work I do, which is fairly well-known (and recognized) above at the Board, isn’t thought of quite so fondly by the troops in the trenches below at our 57 Fort Fumbles. In fact, those curmudgeons up there in Detroit don’t seem to cotton to my attempts to help my fellow Veterans. I reckon they don’t do Thanksgiving up there judging by what I’m fixing to share.
Let me put this in perspective. It’s dry season 1967 up in I Corps. A twelve-man LURP team has just engaged a NVA company and called for extraction. After all, that’s what they do. Roam around for a week or two out in the bush and find the dinks. When they find ’em, they call in arty and an airstrike. Next, they call in gunships and slicks to extract them RFN. Lather. Rinse Repeat for one year. My boy Bob is the team leader. I represent five others of his team as well.
In their haste to egress the overwhelmingly superior enemy force and the hot LZ, the Peter Pilot pulls a bit too much pitch and wallows off to the port side. Veteran Bob hasn’t managed to get a death grip on a D ring in the floor yet and falls from 40 feet. Fortunately, another gunship swoops in and grabs him but the swan dive really messed up his back permanently as you can imagine. VA knows this, too. It’s all in his STRs. Bob leaves Vietnam after his 375 and a wakeup. He’s sporting a CIB and a BSM.
Fast forward to 1994. Veteran Bob has finally worn out his back. A few fusions and a permanent, imbedded pain pump with Dilaudid later, VA generously grants the maximum schedular rating of 60% for his back with left leg radiculopathy. Fast forward twenty years to 2016. Veteran Bob’s back is so bad, if he sneezes he shits his pants. The dilaudid kinda slows him down a mite bit and he’s eschewed driving by now. Lack of exercise has caused DM II -if the Agent Orange didn’t first. He’s getting OSA from a nasal fracture that didn’t heal well from the fall out of the chopper back in ’67.
Bob puts in for SMC L aid and attendance and they grant. It’s legit, too. He’s having a hard time getting around. VA grants on an extraschedular basis because-well, hey- he’s only 60% screwed up and can’t walk without a walker and being a zombie from the dilaudid. Fast forward seven years and along comes that eeeevil VA Agent Alex Graham and his plans to get Veteran Bob up to SMC R 2.
I file him for PTSD, OSA, DM II and peripheral neuropathy, secondary to the DM II. I really don’t pay much attention to the fact that his claims are run out of Deteroit. I thought that was pretty much over with the new NWQ spreading all claims across the US depending on what they are. Uh-uh. Detroit’s been sharpening the punji sticks and waiting for this shindig to fire up.
It begins innocently enough. He gets the 20 for DM and the 50 for the OSA. No sweat. A few years back in ’15, they’d upped his Bronze Star to one with a V and still awarded him another one (first oak leaf cluster). They don’t hand them out in Cracker Jack boxes. As for the PTSD, they’d called it DC 9433 “Dysthymic Disorder” back in ’93 and ’03 when he reopened it last. It figures. They said I was “passive aggressive with antisocial tendencies” after two years over there. Remember, they didn’t “invent” PTSD until 1981.
Right now, that one and the bilateral peripheral neuropathy are deferred awaiting God only knows what. Seems that BS with the V or the CIB would suffice for the bent brain gig. All his team members are at least 70% and have been for several decades. But you don’t know the VA. Veteran Bob just came down with Stage 3 lung cancer in the right upper lobe. It ain’t responding to the chemo or the radiation. They gave him 100% and a zero chance of remission. Of course, he’ll have to go back in to prove he’s not healed in December of 2024 if he wants to keep it.
Which brings us to today. Put your Holy Shit Batman safety belts on when you hear this one. Don’t even waste your breath on a ‘say it ain’t so, Bro.” This is downright ugly to read. Attached is the initial salvo and the Extraschedular fired off three days after I asked for all the new goodies and the a& a to go with them.
Happy Easter, Bob! We love you and we have a special present in store for you. We don’t even care if you’re 20-year protected under §3.951. We’re gonna fix your wagon. Hear? But that was not the end of the matter….
I haggled with these folks and finally wrangled a terminally ill flash out of them. It still didn’t budge them on the PTSD or the PN of the lower extremities yet. I finally wrote ol’ Beth Murphy, Tom’s wife, who took his old Director of Comp. and Pen. Services job yesterday. I received a polite “We’re on it!” back from her this morning and dang if she wasn’t telling the unvarnished truth…
Boy howdy if that doesn’t just make you proud to work for VA. A Veteran is dying of service connected disease(s). As a government employee, it behooves you to protect the fisc and ensure no slackers slip through who are not entitled. Bravo, gentlemen. Another financial threat has been averted. Promote that man. Actually, it took three signatures. Detroit’s VSCM, the AVSCM and a RVSR all joined hands and sang Kumbaya and averted financial ruin.
Happy Thanksgiving. I have much to be grateful for. I have two new granddaughters-one 2.5 going on 16 and one just 5 months old. The best part is they don’t have cell phones and actually talk to me.
P.S. Of course, you folks know me by now. If I can’t win in Detroit, I go to DC.
asknod
Bethanie Spangenberg
kcraveiro
robinhoodesqvetsatty
Wesley McCauley
Veterans Claims Help 
My understanding is that Allen Dupuy has been married five times. Is that correct?
Okay, just for shits and grins, I’ll bite. Who is Allen Dupuy?
My understanding is that Allen Dupuy has been married five times. Is that correct?
Allen Dupuy from Soap Lake WA?
“…Boy howdy if that doesn’t just make you proud to work for VA. A Veteran is dying of service connected disease(s). As a government employee, it behooves you to protect the fisc and ensure no slackers slip through who are not entitled…”
This crassness reminds me of the satirical book by Christopher Buckley, “The Eat Puppies Don’t They?”
Yes, they do; CCP gives full approval to the dog meat farmers and markets. After all, they’re just dogs.
“They Eat Puppies Don’t They?”
CB is the son of the late William F. Buckley, Jr.
Ya, the Detroit VARO has been considered for decades to be one of the most corrupt outfits in the VA system. I was also wondering how the national work que seems to not work there. If the Veteran is from the area, Detroit has a hold on them and won’t let the Que take over or something. I requested once to prevent them from doing my claims and it sat there in the Que for weeks and no other VARO would pick it up. So, I asked them to process it. Even cute & young female new employees are aggressive and rudely push for more proof of any flashes even though it’s already been granted way above their pay grade. I recall joining the Army at the huge Detroit Army processing center in the 80s for the paperwork & medical testing. All professional folks driving Plymouth Reliant and Dodge Aries (K-series), lots of hot coffee for MI Winters. Forty years later, their VA counterpart is screwing over Michiganders.
Happy Thanksgiving, Alex. I have a real disgust for these type of people. But when you finally beat them, it’s the best feeling in the world to call that veteran up, have him break down on the phone because of how relieved and greatful he is. Dido for the wife who was wondering how she’d make ends meet now that her husband of 50 years is gone.
I don’t have near the years of experience that you do, but I know that the pure joy of making that phone call will always be there no matter how long you’ve been doing this.
I’ll drink to that!
I LOVE this! Thanks for the email Alex! Keeps me in touch. I appreciate it! Respectfully and sincerely from the desk of David and Sumittra Pike “Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to enjoy life to its fullest, skidding in broadside in a cloud of smoke with gravel flying, thoroughly used up, totally scarred and worn out, while loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!” AMEN! Proud Air Force Brat and Veteran USAF 1974-78
Damn “Former Member”! After reading this horseshit I feel like a fucking worm for winning my R-1 so easily. It just breaks my heart when I hear shit like this. In a perfect world there would be no need for VA disability lawyers or Accredited VA claims agents.
One would think that after all these years of Veterans FIGHTING for the Benefits we earned someone, anyone of our elected offucuals might want to champion a better process for reviewing and awarding the benefits we earned thru our blood, sweat, and tears. Not to mention the combat. It is more important than all the other issues our elected officials have disregarded like our US infrastructure. Holly shit, our Interstate Highway system that runs betyween all major cities are still 2 lanes each way with outdated and unsafe bridges. One would think with the numbers of cars on our roads increasing 4 times, yes quadrupled, since the roads were designed and built in the 50’s and 60’s. SO dont count on anything getting better. Once again the VA and all our elected Millionaires (they will be after 1 year un service) let us down. For the life of me I cant figure out why we keep electing the same ol fools. Lets elect more Veterans.
Read and appreciate everything you do Alex! Rock On Dude!