Boy howdy I gotta tell you my body is screaming at me I’m getting old. When I sit down, it’s like a crash-landing. When I move to stand up, it’s like looking out the side window passing V 2 on the runway at 120 knots and knowing I’m screwed because I need 140 to get airborne. It’s not scary. I don’t regret a minute of how I got here. My only concern is losing my vision or my mind. If I lose either of those assets, my days of helping Veterans will be gone. 

Some folks fear death. I don’t anymore. Maybe 5o years ago but not now. I’ve had more fun and done more crazy things than I can remember. I don’t think like a cat that’s burned up eight lives. I’m still stuck in that 73 going on 17 conundrum. When will I start thinking and acting like an adult? Never, I hope.

During the last two months, with the exception of a week in DC,  I’ve spent every Friday morning teaching VA attorneys and Agents like myself the ins and outs of VA’s Special Monthly Compensation. Most people can read and absorb the pertinent regulations, statutes and CAVC precedential rulings on the subject. But they never see it done in real time. I chose ten of my cases as examples of SMC warfare and am using them to illustrate how to play SMC poker.

When push comes to shove, the level of ignorance about SMC is stupendous. You have to forget everything you think you know about SMC and begin over.  I’ve had attorneys who do nothing but VA law insist what I do is voodoo and impossible; that I’m just some chowderhead VA wannabe attorney with the incredible good fortune for drawing liberal Veterans Law Judges who grant my every wish every time. Nobody’s that lucky.

Last Fall, a groundswell of interest in SMC finally reached a crescendo such that our National Organization who helps Veterans, decided to bring in a Service Officer (retired military) from a major Veterans Service Organization (VSO). who presented himself as a Jedi Master of the SMC persuasion. Right out of the gate,  he asked his “class” to  stand up, first grab their ankles, then their knees and lastly their upper thighs-all while shouting “L! M! N!” As you might have guessed, he was of the Oo-rah! persuasion. All gung ho and about room temperature IQ. I’m sure he meant well.

As mentioned above, I hadn’t quite reached V 1, let alone V 2 yet, so I was waaaaay tardy on my wheels up and getting vertical with the other class members. But why I bring this up is simple. Our “expert”, while teaching us these finer points of SMC, neglected to even mention that SMC N- wherein you grab your upper thighs at the juncture they join your torso whilst shouting N!- requires the physical amputation of both legs at the trunk, not just loss of use as is a prerequisite for the L or M ratings below. I think that’s a pretty serious upgrade requirement that bears mentioning.

Most, if not all, moderators over at Doneit.com™ are convinced SMC “S” is SMC L “light”. Their belief is simple. VA employs the VA Form 21-2680 as a fact-finding form to award S or L. So, using this convoluted logic, if you only qualified for S (100%/TDIU plus an additional 60% of separate and distinctly different disability(ies)), you were just awarded aid and attendance at the lower tier one rate- SMC L, of course, being tier two.

I’ve read on other Veterans Help Sites that you are not entitled to double dip and collect PCAFC caregiver benefits if you are also collecting SMC L for aid and attendance. Some even insist that PCAFC is SMC L a&a.  This level of ignorance was the tipping point- and what led me to decide to teach a new generation of VA representatives this art form. It’s one thing to be strong in the Force and quite another to being trained to be a Jedi Knight. Just because you can drive a car doesn’t mean you’re ready for the Indy 500.

When my Padawans graduate from the “Academy” after ten classes, they should be able to spot a potential SMC R1/R2 or a T by just having a fifteen minute telephone conversation with the fellow or gal. You cannot absorb this determination based on a simple twenty-question intake form created by your law office. That little chatbot down in the lower right asking if you wish to speak to a VA claims expert is a nothing burger. Trust me, what the phone bank folks know about VA law could fit in a Crackerjack™ box. They’re just there to sign you up.

Sometimes, entitlement to SMC isn’t blatant. It’s under-developed or the VBA gomers artfully took away your 15-year TDIU and combined all 23 of your ratings into a 100% combined. Bye bye SMC S honey child. And worse, you didn’t even see it or realize you just got screwed. You probably hugged your VSO officer, marched him down to the VFW bar and bought him a couple double Jacky D and co-colas.

As an aside, I’ll share this nightmare. Johnny Vet comes to me with an old L for aid and attendance for his diabetes with nasty peripheral neuropathy. As usual, the Raters avoided the loss of use and rolled it all up like a Tekkamaki sushi roll and called it aid and attendance. No biggie yet. Fast forward about 15 years to 2024. Johnny, who incidentally has a megabig shot, name brand attorney who’s been his swordbearer all these years, has incoming Parkinson’s and gets rated for loss of use of a hand and a foot. For the anally retentive, that’s a 100% rating under §4.71a DC 5111 and now 2 (two, deux, song) SMC Ls.

VA bumps him up from L to M based on SMC P or §3.350(f)(4). His attorney informs him it’s all hunky dory. But Johnny Vet has been a bad boy. He’s been reading my site and calls me to ask why I’m a walkin’ talkin’ lying sack of shit about SMC. I gave him the briefing on the hows and the whys of my Ju-Ju voodoo and explained how you cast dem bones. You don’t need a Top Secret/Crypto clearance to be read in on this. Read §3.350(e)(1)(ii). Read Breniser vs. Shinseki. Read. Research. Don’t listen to others.

Johnny Vet goes back to his bigwig attorney down in Deland Florida (who actually is a 1/2 owner and even has top billing) and tells him he (Johnny Vet) should be getting R1 according to that SMC Oracle up in Delphi, Washington. His attorney (let’s call him Jim) tells him ol’ Alex has been smoking too much of the Devil’s lettuce. What’s more, he isn’t even an attorney. And since Jimbo’s been doing this for 35 years, ol’ Johnny would be better off relying on someone who’s actually trained in the art of law. And lastly, he informed Johnboy  he would not be filing Johnboy’s HLR for the R1 error. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Johnny came back and begged me to take it. Not wanting to upset the National Organization’s apple cart, I declined to do the POA but wrote him a ghost legal brief to use to argue with. Long story short, about three or four months later, Johnny’s sporting a shiny new R1 and ol’ Jimbo allows as he’s entitled to 20% of that sizable retro Johnny Vet’s fixin’ to collect. I reckon all that lawyer schoolin’ paid off smartly. Let your Veterans litigate it and swoop in to collect. Totally new concept.

SMC is more difficult that trying to skipper a paddlewheel up the Mississippi dead in the middle of the night under a new moon. It’s not difficult to learn but it’s difficult to master because there are so many “Thursday” rules. Just when you think you have it in the bag, you discover a new wrinkle. For the confused, we joke that to win SMC at the higher levels, you have to be born on a Thursday… but if by some chance you were, then the subsection codicil is for application-AM or PM? If it was AM, you’re SOL. Obviously, that makes for a shit ton of AM Veterans who are plumb shit out of luck. Funny how that works, huh?

I teach the classes in hopes that these new acolytes will master the art and then go out and find these poor confused Veterans who have no chance of winning a high SMC- even if they’re represented by law dog chuckleheads who insist they are versed in the art. Back before I was accredited, I’d refer those who came to my website to attorneys I honestly felt would be able to maximize their entitlements and tidy up all the CUE errors that had deprived them of some major baksheesh in decades past. My experience, sadly, was that some of the attorneys only picked the easy, low-hanging fruit and said thank you for your service. They should have added to that by saying thank you for servicing my mortgage. Turns out I was wrong. The attorneys just don’t understand it and give out bogus advice to mask their ignorance.

As Robert Chisholm once said over an adult beverage in San Antonio, “SMC is the Art of the Possible.” No truer words were ever spoken. In VA land, far too many of us Veterans focus myopically on the rearview mirrors of our claims. How many of you at some Vet Center Kumbaya circle on a Tuesday night listened to the trials and tribulations of how some Vet got screwed out of thousands back in ’84 and how they’re just shopping for that killer DAV dude who’s going to open up a can of whoopass and get him/her justice? Meanwhile, they’re stuck at 60% and not even making an effort to obtain their rightful 100% or TDIU?

This error is what I call the Windshield versus Rearview mirror paradox. If you have a flat tire, you stop and fix it. You do not continue driving on the flat, looking in the rearview mirror imagining on how it got flat. You don’t seek vengeance on the mechanic who sold you this retread and warned you it was unreliable. Well, hey. Maybe some of you do think that way. My job-and I feel it is any lawyer’s or VA Agent’s job- is to get you what you need RFN to survive and then to start focusing on the old errors which deserve to be fixed. In other words, I aim to make sure all of you were born on a Thursday afternoon. Every journey begins with the first step.

One hallmark of a longtime Veteran who has been chasing the SMC dream for years (and losing) is a code rating sheet that runs to eight pages. The first five pages consist of a few 100%ers, three or four 30-50%ers and about twenty zero to 20%ers. Pages 6 through eight list all the denied claims and are listed as NSC (nonservice connected).

I don’t mean to be nasty about this but if you keep stubbing your toe when you kick a rock, maybe it’s time to put on steel-toed boots. Ditto winning a SMC claim. The number of people who can do this for you are few. CCK is one. I could name others but I don’t need to. Soon, I’ll be referring those who come to me to these new Jedi Knights. VA has no idea of the shit storm I’m stirring up across our fruited plains.

Don’t ever think that these Veterans are somehow cheating to get higher SMC ratings. Rather, it’s that VA is equally as ignorant as them aforementioned law dogs down in Florida in thinking they know how to do it. If they did, I’d be out of business in a New York minute. Relying on a mechanical construct like the M 21 to spit out the answer is a fool’s errand. A true SMC calculator should reside in that grey matter between your two ears and be error-free… 100% of the time…without the need for any AI.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.