I’ve written a few articles over the years about Chris the Door Gunner, my now good friend in addition to my client. We’ve almost “gotterdone” after seven years. But not quite. VA screwed him for so long and so hard that he (and I) both now heartily subscribe to the Veterans Shakespearian Diet Plan on how to serve revenge. How ’bout I serve about four of ’em?

This all began with a VA Form 9 back in December of ’20. We’d found new §3.156(c)  records stashed at The famous William G. Beaumont Hospital in Texas since ’68 where he’d been air-medivac’d there from An Khe. We had an IMO from Hell and VA refused to look at it. I had to take the whole thing up to the Board on a hearing with the new evidence + IMO to get the win back to October 1972.

So, we fly to DC. Say hi to Dad. Go visit the Wall and go to a face-to-face Board hearing down on I Street.  A month later they call and say they screwed up the tape and it didn’t record. Six months later, we got another hearing and fly back again.  The Judge split it into two separate appeals. The §3.156(c) case was open and shut thanks to the Mednick IMO.  I asked the Veterans Law Judge we drew (Diechert) if he would try to be the adjudicator. As most know, with the passage of the AMA, they snuck in that codicil that the Hearing Judge might not be the one who wrote your decision… but it’s still legal. Personally, I think that sucks. If I conduct a hearing for my client, that Judge can see the earnestness and responses commensurate with a real person – a Vet-not a legal word salad describing him or her. She or he should be the one who decides. I always throw that into my hearing testimony at the end for what it’s worth. I don’t see any reason they can’t start doing that. They shouldn’t be allowed to make the hard decision and just hand it off to a FNG to write up. There’s a reason they’re called the “Trier of Fact”.

redact BVA ED =10.30.1972

In spite of VLJ Deichert’s grant of the earlier effective date of 1972, the Gomers at Fort Whacko granted it back to the day Chris began his fight to go back to 1972- that would be in September ’15. So, back to the BVA with hat in hand to ask the Judge politely to “re-give” Chris that which they had already given him several months before. God bless the Board. Somebody there finally blew an ass gasket and put the dee-dee mao on it.And in no time they granted this in no uncertain terms so it couldn’t be misread. Or they thought they did.

Part One of the revenge comes with the dependency and three kids from 1972 through 2013- something VA  has constructive possession of in part. Somehow, they just disremembered to reconsider that part of §3.156(c)(4).

Part Two, served on a separate dish, is the not-so-small matter of the diagnostic code. Back in 1972, they were a mite bit more generous with intervertebral disc disease. Chris’ code sheet seems to say VA is trying to rate him on DC 5242-5237 straight through from ’72 to the present. But…DC 5237 didn’t even exist back then and neither did 5242 for that matter. I suspect somebody named Coach suggested the VSR write it up using the 5237 which would result in a 20% versus 5293 (1972) which would permit 40%. I’m sure it’s just a little mistake and logically, VA would never purposefully deprive Chris of what was rightfully owed him. We’ll get it straightened out one of these years. The Presumption of Regularity says they’re right on people, dude.

redact CS 10.31.2024

Part three of this seven course meal is the small matter of VA trying to a) assign a date for SMC S of March 25, 2024 when the code sheet shows TDIU plus 60 from September 2015. That’s some serious folding money where I come from VA seems to consider it a harmless rounding error.  But at the hearing, we argued for b) SMC at the L rate under §3.350(b)(3) back to 2018 and the psychologist and the neurologist concur Chris is one hot mess. Nowhere in the rating decision is there even a mention of aid and attendance.

Part four is Chris has a hole in the roof of his mouth into the nasal passage due to that jeep trying to put him on the VietNam Wall at 35 MPH. A quarter ton of M 151 can do that to a feller. VA finally sent him to a dentist for his c&p. She threw up her hands and said hold the phone Ramone. I’m a dentist, not an orthopedic surgeon. It’s waaaaay above my paygrade. Not it! VA took that for a hard no = asymptomatic= 0%- mandibular fracture but again, in 2024 0% ratings criteria instead of 1972.

Just when the VSC DROs and Coaches down at the David NMI Koresh Memorial Regional Office are patting each other on the back, fist-bumping  and high fivin’ over getting rid of Chris, more reality (Part One) is going to arrive soon on their doorstep. The BVA docketed another pair of these culinary contentions on December 26th and both have already been distributed to the Judge. If this was a Hollywood TV show, they’d be cueing up the Badge 714 theme music about now.

 The recurrent theme synonymous with all these cases is that VA could have settled up with Chris in ’72 at a paltry 20 or 30% and they’d probably never have seen hide nor hair of him ever after. But by being a total dick and denying him for all these injuries, instead they just set a demon loose on the earth. When Chris saw what took me 28 years to do, it inspired him to seek justice again, too. Can you imagine how much money was spent litigating this fustercluck all these years?  Surely as much or more as was spent on them fighting me to the Court. And any number of others I’ve drawn some serious blood on. Fact is, if they ever straighten up and fly right legally, we’re all out of a job.

 To me, the OGC seems to be an employment tool to soak up extra juris doctorates who need work. The work created is 76% anti-Veteran judicially. With an error rate that high, it creates even more work. AOJs will stay bustling- even more so if there’s a depression or recession in progress. The new AMA encourages 10182 NODs to the Board as evidenced by the record numbers and the backlog. The CAVC has even had to hire more judges and use the senior ones to fill the gap.

Nothing like a few 20-year long wars to create a a shit ton of  disabled Veterans, huh?

P.S. The real reason I decided to write something today was I went out to the garage to get some plumbing tools for Cupcake’s Sunday Honey Do list. Deb keeps the horse food out there to keep mice out of the barn. And if she ever keeps the garage door shut, we probably won’t have mice in there either. Of course, if I point that out to her, I’m being a dick. Heads she wins. Tails I lose. I get that.

Anyway, as the overhead door goes up, a cartoon character mouse waddled away from the feed bags across the floor in slow motion in front of me. I could swear he glanced up at me nervously as he went by. The poor guy looked like he’d swallowed a ping pong ball.  He was making about 3 knots on a 090 heading across my bow at 100% military rated thrust but his landing gear was down and his flaps were still extended. Pickles immediately went over and gave him a sniff and he didn’t even kick it into afterburner. It must have thrown her into a quandary as to why he wasn’t at Mach II yet.  She let him go. Must be because it’s Sunday.

Amen.