I love the New Year hooplah and all it promises. A new, clean slate upon which to write. The promise of finally losing weight must be a big one because every year about now, Weightbegone©, and a bunch of other outfits like Marie Osmond’s  Nutriloseit™ show up on TV. Now we’re getting bombarded with prescription weight loss drugs to combat too many missions over McDonald’s. Seems I’d default to the primary cause- failure to keep you mouth closed except for three very short periods every day. Better yet, let’s sue the manufacturers of knives, forks and spoons.  

This morning I went to FacePlace® and marked myself safe on The Wildfires of Southern California page. Yeah. I know. I live west of Seattle but you know how this shit spreads. When the housing down there all finally burns up, you know where the refugees will head next. Interstate 5 leads right up here like the Yellow Brick Road. Don’t get me wrong. I feel compassion for Angelinos but when the voters keep re-electing these Bozos and they cut your fire budget to the bone, don’t be stupified if the fire hydrants run dry. Why would anyone be surprised?

I received a few emails from a poor Aftstan  Vet telling me about his case. He said he has to go up to Seattle for a MRE on his lungs. I’m trying to visualize that… Why would you have to go to Seattle to dine on that? What’s wrong with Tacoma?

While on Face Place this AM, I saw that Kommando Kraig© is now offering Independent Medical Opinions (IMOs or nexus letters) for the low, low price of only $499.00. There’s an asterisk next to it indicating that speshull price applies to those who are paid members who have attended his ‘Boot Camp’. Perhaps one of my gentle readers can enlighten us as to the entry cost of the boot camp so we get an apples- to- apples comparison cost versus all the other claims sharks out there marketing these things. Asking for a friend.

In the VA News Feed, I see VA is touting they are magnanimously extending extra GI education benefits to Veterans as if Congress just got a bad case of remorse and offered us more. Turns out to be nothing of the sort. Way back in the days of Legacy, groundpounder Jimbo Rudisill qualified for both GI Bill benefits in that intercurrent period spanning the end of the Montgomery Bill and the newer, more generous one for Post-9/11 benefits.

Student Veterans Of America who helped win Rudisill.

Denis the Menace’ forebears (Shulkin and Wilkie) denied him over and over. After getting his ass kicked by the AOJ, he marched smartly up to the Board, the Court and the Fed. Circus in succession and got his ass re-kicked. He decided to seek certiorari at the Supreme Court and succeeded. The Supremes not only agreed with him but reversed and remanded his appeal and granted him both benefits.

So, how in anyone’s wildest imagination can the VA misconstrue this as a generous accommodation that was mutually arrived at by all stakeholders? Well, if you’re a stranger to VA litigation,  this might make sense but to us, as longsuffering Veterans, this is par for the course. Interestingly, if you research VA law, you’ll discover the biggest names you see in VA precedence all lost on appeal. Look up Norm Gilbert’s denial in 1990. Ditto Joe Fenderson’s staged rating appeal. Benito Layno’s independent medical opinions. All the big guys lost. What they left us was the valuable blueprint on how not to make the same mistakes in the future.

Rudisill should be filed under the same hubris as the West LA Medical Campus uproar where VA Poohbahs decided to rent out this huge place (388 acres) to Hertz Rentacar, the Brentwood Private School and UCLA (for athletic fields), a few oil pumpjacks and a commercial laundry (not the famed French Laundry). The only problem with this was they were busy putting up concertina wire and trip flares to keep homeless Veterans outside the perimeter of a piece of property donated specifically for the use of America’s Veterans in 1888. In fact, my very own grandfather, old Alex Graham, was a resident of the old folk’s home there during WW II until his passing in 1948.

In spite of a hollow promise to build housing specifically for homeless Veterans, by 2022 they still hadn’t even broken ground and defied the Courts to tell them they had to comply. So, when someone says VA has just come out with some generous program that makes all kinds of wonderful promises of entitlements, I tend to pry that VA gift horse’s mouth open and take a gander for myself. Forgive me if I just trust but verify.

Folks I litigate with over VA claims all ask me why I refuse to even look at the strictures and rules of the M 21 Adjudications Manual. I defy any of you to show me a printed copy of the Manual for one simple reason. VA doesn’t print it because it changes, on average, about 135 times a year. The reason is elementary. Look no further than Rudisill, Laska or Barry. VA seems to have a decidedly defective method of decyphering the meaning of our benefits such that the error invariably goes against us.

You’ll never hear of the OGC deciding arbitrarily (unasked) to change some regulation so as to make it more liberal and grant Veterans benefits long denied due to confusion on how to read the statute. Each and every one of our wins at the Federal level occurred because we had litigators who were willing to fight to obtain benefits that were rightfully ours. Just think how many years VA Secretaries misread §3.350(f)(3) to say you only got one (1) half-step bump under SMC P. Do any of you think that was a one-off? Just a comma in the wrong spot that caused a shit ton of confusion? Oh Hell no.

We inhabit a small, closeted legal system that is more convoluted than any other. Congress enacted statutes that shelter us and grant us untold presumptions- the presumption of soundness when we enter is a big one. When you enter the service, every mole, scar and tattoo is surveyed and recorded. If you have a bum finger, it’s recorded to make sure if it gets worse in service, you won’t get any baksheesh for what you had before you entered. But what happens when the examiners say “NCD”? That stands for Not Considered Disabling. Imagine my surprise when one of the Vets who came to me had a 10% deduction after service in spite of VA saying twelve years earlier that it was NCD? Sound like a Bozo No-No? You betcha. Read these.

redactVA 9 filed 4-26-2020

BVA denial 12.30.2024

Another big one for Veterans is called the combat presumption under 38 USC §1154(b). If you have a PHM, ArCom or a CIB/CAR, it’s presumed you’re telling the truth. Well, presumed in the sense that if it entails a screwup back in 1953 about whether you were in combat, then they blow it off because it will cause them untold financial loss. They’ll turn your file (or what they haven’t shredded up yet) upside down and say you lied about your age to get in early. That makes your testimony tainted. Liar! Liar! What in Sam Hill does combat have to do with it?

VA has lots of presumptions guaranteed by Congress they are supposed to obey. Getting them to obey Congress seems to be the problem. It’s the old game of “Presumptions? we don’t gotta obey no stinkin’ presumptions unless you take it up to the Feds and they specifically tell us to”. That’s how we ended up with all the James Rudisills, the Laskas and the Danny Barrys of the world. We have to fight these fights over and over again.

Never come left on final in front of artillery on a fire mission at a fire base.

The homeless down in West LA, if they haven’t been asphyxiated by the recent turn of events, had to learn this the hard way and fight to get what anyone of sound mind could clearly see was their right. Seems I recall this phenomenon when I was in the military. We were considered guilty until proven innocent- the exact obverse of normal civil law (or criminal). In spite of having it drilled into you about the wonderful nonadversarial world in which we litigate, history speaks volumes as to how the Agency tasked with our wellbeing seems to spend an inordinate amount of time litigating in a ‘develop -to-deny’ posture. Here’s a good example.

Every Veteran knows (or should) the rating for ALS is 100%, right? Look it up. It’s automatic. If you have it, §3.316 says you get service connection for it. Period. Shoot, it even says to consider the need for aid and attendance or loss of use of the extremities. So take a gander at the rocket scientists (or should I say the village idiots) who manufactured this piece of work. They’ve taken each and every extremity and rated it at less than a total loss. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Somebody named “Coach” told the VSR to use the Part IV §4.124a schedule for nerve paralysis and rate on remaining function. It’s called lowballing. They’ve been doing this since the War of 1812.

redact RD ALS 11.25.24

redact CS 11.25.24

I can’t make this stuff up. It actually happens out there in the real world of VA Sports. If this is what the year 2025 portends for us litigators, I can only hope the new VA Agency Poohbahs recognize their employees need some serious remedial training in the basics of ratings.

And that’s the way it is… January 11, 2025. The best news is that three years after shooting that idiot who tried to run over me with my own car, the Prosecuting attorney is returning my S&W Model 19-4 .357 Combat magnum. I carried it up in Laos so I have lots of fond memories attached to it.

PS. After watching the following, I’ve decided to follow suit and cut alcohol for the New Year, too.

P.P.S. As an additional postscript here, I wish to make sure no large unaccredited legal entitles who charge Veterans unheard-off fees for representation before VA get the idea I do not like them. Asknod.com/asknod.org is a news entity akin to the Babylon Bee® and is pure humor. We do not advocate for any particular outcome. Much like Fox News©, We report. You decide. We do not offer functional legal advice simply because we cannot by law. Asknod.com/asknod.org/asknod Inc. do not have any attorneys to do so. So if you, a large company who “consults” with Veterans and offers Independent Medical Opinions in aid of their claims, feels we (asknod) harm your business, all I can say is we’re all village idiots here and merely flapping our lips as the First Amendment permits. It’s not like we’re yelling Fire! in a crowded theater. It’s more like we’re yelling “This theater doesn’t have fire sprinklers!” so Veterans can make their own decisions.