Stop what you’re doing now and read this article from the War Horse. It’s a report on our fellow Veterans Lt. Colonels Scott Greenblatt and Bill Taylor.https://thewarhorse.org/va-benefits-claims-lobbying-congress/ Boy howdy wouldn’t you want to set a spell, have a brewski or two and a Fireball backer and shoot the shit with these ol’ boys? Why, shucks. I’d take a flying  gymnastic maneuvre at a rolling donut that these fellers would even offer to buy the drinks considering they’re probably knocking off about a half a mil just while sitting there having the drink with you. That would be you paying… their fellow Veteran(s).

Now, with a suitable preamble warning you that these fellers  are probably gotomeetin’ Sunday regulars at St. Stephen’s Episcopal and purely Salt of the Earth souls who donate to the proper causes, don’t get the idea I’m denigrating them. I’ll just conjecture here. No law says I can’t paint a possible ‘what if?’ scenario. Some of you might remember my last fiasco in 2015 with the Wounded Wallet Krewe©. Those two got the impression I was personally slandering them and the horses they rode in on, too. (No pun intended). That’s rearview mirror shit.

Mind you, I’m not saying these guys are doing anything untoward. I’m just conjecturing that because they are both O-5s (retired), they’re probably 20-year, wannabe field grade failures. If you don’t get to full-bird Colonel by twenty, the writing’s on the wall. Time to hang up the IBM Selectric, piss on the fire and call in the dogs. In other  words, it’s time to either go on a weight loss program and do Only Fans™ or… wait for it… use those Star Spangled Eyes they were born with and find some way to make tons of money. Shoot. Why not Veterans? Since men (or Veterans) don’t pay money to look at naked old guys with hairy beer bellies in bikinis, you gotta up your game. Right?

Now, without singling out any particular miscreant(s), I read the War Horse article and was appalled to find out the identity of these jokers. I figured it was… no, I’m not going to joke about that. I swore that chapter of asknod was over and done with. So, you read the article about Veterans Guardian and you’re feeling a wee bit queasy in the gut. These folks have been, and continue to, brazenly flout the law we all abide by and now suggest they be allowed to continue- without any of the accreditation hoops we all have to jump through to in order to represent Veterans. What the hey? I didn’t make the rules. Congress did. But I have no problems obeying them. You’ll notice I’m in the OGC acceditation search site.

Shortly after the War of Northern Aggression back in 1865, Congress declared a VA rep couldn’t charge more than $10 dollars to help a Vet get his pension. I say ‘his’ because we didn’t have female Eleven Bravo Tens back then. No offense intended to Karen in Florida. That ten dollar fee held for over a hundred forty one years. Somehow, nobody jumped in and started charging five months worth of the value of the win back then. If they had, they’d go to jail and wouldn’t pass ‘Go!’ and collect their $200 for a few years.

That worked out fine until 2006 and a lot of altruistic law dogs helped innumerable Vets for this token $10… or just for free. EAJA is chump change. In ’06, Congress saw the need for waaaaay more advocates and relaxed the $10 dollar fee gig because inflation had pretty much made it obsolete. But they forgot to reinsert the clause that said “Don’t be greedy or we’ll spank you.”

This didn’t sink in to all them washed up former field grade officers across our Fruited Plains until a few in the ligation world finally grasped the enormity of Hickson and Shedden precedence and the medical opinion factories began helping us out. Et Voilà. Veterans Guardian was born. To give you an idea how voracious these folks are, take a gander at this. Any one of you can do this in a second. My website began in 2008 and has been in existence in its current iteration since 2011 at WordPress®.

So, you’d expect that if you go to your web browser and type in asknod, you’d get a link to my site. Since asknod is a queer-ass kind of name, you wouldn’t expect to arrive at a Pizza Parlor website named Asknod Pizza in East Bumfork, Idaho. But what does come up first?

REE Medical www.reemedical.com

Veterans Benefit Group  VBG.com

PTSDlawyers.com

And a few other Veteran outfits, even  a VA.gov site… and Veterans Guardian. I had to fix that. I was number 3 in my own name game category. Which begs the question as to what in Sam Hill is on their website that would lead you to them when you inquire as to my site? All these queshuns.

Fortunately, I’m not hurting for clients. Quite the opposite. I had to hire an attorney to help me with the overload and am contemplating hiring yet another. But it really begs the question of just how desperate some of these folks are to spend tons of money on computer tricks to divert traffic to themselves. Worse, in the case of unaccredited outfits, to divert shit tons of money from Veterans’ wallets into their own and claim the high ground…all the while baldly breaking the laws of the United States in the process sucks in my book. I’m not saying all Vet claims helpers are illegitimate. They’re not.

The War Horse article should make you shiver. But what I propose is, as usual, about as subtle as napalm. Since all these “contracts” with Veterans to force them to cough up all this dough is premised on an illegality, the simplest expedient is the most logical-don’t pay them. Ghost the suckers. How can you legally owe these guys a dime if they wrote an unenforceable, illegitimate contract that is void ab initio from the day you signed it?

I’ve personally had three Veterans come to me and win. They hadn’t prevailed below for aid and attendance at the SMC L rate in spite of all the hard work of their Claims Sharks they hired. They gave up and came to me. As most know, I play Jedi mind tricks on the Veterans Law Judges and they grant my every SMC wish. Well, at least they have so far  because I’m still batting .1000. But, post win, guess who came knocking on the door? Yeppers. Mr. and Mrs. Claim Shark demanding their due from the Veterans for my hard work.

I explained to all three that these outfits had no legal leg to stand on and couldn’t very well wreck your credit score because they’re illegal. Sure enough, after a lot of bad words and hurt feelings, the Sharks wandered off in search of other Veteran fish to fry. The War  Horse article shines a light on a horrible flaw in law that could be repaired in a blink of the eye. How could any Congressman or woman not get behind this regardless of their political stripe? Well, now. Maybe you should ask your representative(s) who is getting all that lobbying money from these asshats. If they are, they are not your friend.

In fact, in my world, any Vet who is screwing over another Vet is a rapscallion of the worst stripe. That is not to say that certain retired O 5s are evil. I’m just asking you to put on your independent thinking caps and put two and two together. In my world, we spend an inordinate amount of time and money to become proficient in our profession. We join the premiere legal outfit that defends Veterans (who have asked me not to use their logo) because I use nasty, politically incorrect words to describe the folks who tried to kill me for two years. Funny how no one was ostricized for using Krauts or Japs/Nips in World War  Two. Ditto gooks to describe the Chicoms and North Korean hordes. Or dinks, Capt. Charles, slopes, etc. in “my” war. I didn’t invent the sobriquets. I merely recite them as contemporaneous to the era. I think the term “in context” would be à propos.

I stand unapologetic before you. Vietnam was my “lived experience” as the Gen Z folks like to tout. I can’t change my stripes or learn a whole new vocabulary to please everyone. I focus my whole existence on helping Vets as quickly and as cheaply as I can for them-and many for free. The idea of dinking a Vet for 75% of his winnings for some questionable help on an assembly line basis is anathema to almost anyone-Veteran or civilian-or should be. If the objectionable party then tries desperately to salvage their illegal operation by spreading lobbying money around like salting Vermont roads in winter, then Congressmen should all look in their collective mirrors and question who they represent.

So, if Vets Guardian and their ilk feel they shouldn’t have to become accredited to do this and we can all just “get along” by limiting it to a flat rate of no more than $12,500 per unlucky Vet per claim, does that mean we who are accredited shouldn’t just jump on this money wagon and quit being accredited? Do they suggest “two lanes”- those accredited and those who choose not to be but we all get equal status? Shucks, I’d love to dump that $8,000 to $10,000 per year I spend on Continuing Legal Education (CLE) requirements and spend it on top dog single malt scotch. But I don’t. I’m just as much a Veteran as I am a litigator. Besides, I married a rich girl so I don’t really need the money anyway.

I object to the two lanes model. If I work for ten years on one claim, I don’t ask for 40-50% like civilian ambulance chasers. Nor do I ask for 30%. My contract has always been “free” if the VA grants without a fight and 20% of anything I can get on a one-off basis. After that we’re done. I don’t pop up like a bad habit ten years later asking for more. I don’t drag out some bogus argument that there aren’t enough litigators and we’re being unfair by forcing Vets to use us. And I sure don’t insist I earned the 5 months at full freight of your money. Granted, VSOs, who are free, are not the brightest lights on the Christmas tree but they at least prepare you for the appeal by getting you over the first hump of a denial. So there’s that.

I don’t expect everyone to think like me. I was born in khaki diapers so I have a Veteran-centric mindset. Either we all hang together or we all hang separately. Claims sharks ask us to make a Faustian bargain- an allowance if you will- to allow them to get far richer by cheating because there aren’t enough of us to go around. My response is simple. What prevents these money-rich jackwads from not seeking accreditation to represent Veterans exactly the way we do? In those immortal words of Rodney King- “Can’t we all just get along?”  Or, in the current vernacular- “No one is above the law.” Right. Make it so, Numbah One. Lock ’em up.

P.S. As a postscript to this article and my subjective thoughts expressed above, I must add that the thoughts expressed are pure humor. No one should feel compelled to consider my philosophy as legal dictum to be followed. My column (blog?) is pure, non-legal conjecture about what I see and hear out there in Vetworld. As a nonattorney practitioner with no legal training, what I offer in the way of advice is worthless. In fact, realistically, any who read my drivel have to compare it to something analogous like the Babylon Bee®. It’s great entertainment but has little more than entertainment value.