It’s funny how certain things rear their ugly heads right smack dab in the middle of nasty articles about all us lyin’ stinkin’ Vets just looking for a handout. A week after that article came out, I was doing a chronological review of  a Vet I agreed to represent. I began the research last Saturday and completed it late Monday. What I found was conclusive evidence of what can only be described as blatant fraud. 

Up to now, I’ve had a few questionable cases where the evidence, or the Veteran, exhibited a fact pattern that was simply too unbelievable or incredulous. Not all of these are simple DD 214s with erasures of the OTH and a whiteout job to insert “under honorable conditions”. Some folks arrive looking genuine but with egregious inexplicable errors.

I don’t just inspect the claim. I investigate the Veteran. If you claim you were in the Nam but your 214 shows you didn’t even enlist until 1976, it’s an easy bullshit call. And then there are the guys who claim their shit was so secret they couldn’t even be awarded medals for fear of spilling top secret secrets. I like the Brown Water Navy guy who was on a destroyer that sailed up the Mighty Mea Kong (Mekong) River in search of the Bad Guys. Couldn’t remember the name of the destroyer nor which fork of the 48 possible routes they took up the river.

The best one by far was the babe who came to me seeking help. Her 80 yr.-old hubby was in the Ghostwalker Krewe. You know, the 400 guys who squeezed into an old C 54 prop job back in 1959 and flew from McChord AFB to Osan Korea non-stop. That bird would have been lucky to have hit Bingo near where Amelia Earhart augered in. 400(did I mention there were 400 of these stalwart souls) deplaned, boarded Zodiacs (before they were even invented) and trekked in from the westerly Coast near Inchon at 12 midnight. They made it all the way inland twelve miles to a Nukular Power Plant to take pictures. She stated they posted one soldier every 100 yards all the way there. That left 190 11Cook10s to assault the power plant.  Seems the technicians were out for lunch (at 12 midnight) and nobody was there. They all made it out alive and never got medal one for it. Too secret. Check it out- https://asknod.org/2018/01/27/khe-sanh-50-years-later/

So, here comes Johnny Vet with a brand new shiny SMC L and says ‘Dude, I’ve hit the wall on getting to SMC T. American Legion just don’t get this SMC gig. Help me, hoss.’ Now, I’d allow as it sounded legitimate but it took me about 3 weeks to dig down through the pile of new POAs to get to him. By then the Washington Post article was out and everyone was talking about us filthy rich Veteran Welfare Queens.

This feller (Johnny Vet) was in for 6 years in the USAF (99-05). He made it to E 3 by 2001 but then started going backwards. It might have had something to do with that ’01 hit-and-run MVA at 2330 at Misawa AB. He separated as an E2 in ’05 because he couldn’t reach a legal BMI before promotion. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. He got the usual 30-40% for a handful of musculoskeletal things when he separated… and then the trail went cold… until 2021. All of a sudden this ol’ boy was filing something every 3 weeks nonstop. He suddenly had more things wrong with him than he did right.

Now, it would seem if you worked in the motor pool at Bagram Air Base in 2003 that you’d see a few vehicles come in with blood on the seats. That’s a bummer but if it was going to give you bent brain syndrome, it stands to reason that this would infest your dreams from that day forward. For me, them kind of movies are like permanent reruns on Tubi and begin about 2200 most nights. After 55 years, they lose their intensity. But it didn’t even get to him until almost 20 years later in 2021. And boy howdy did it suddenly begin eating him alive. He shot all the way up to 100% in short order with not so much as one confirmed stressor. Seems he had nightmares nonstop and had been for years but plumb forgot to file for it. And then the TBI showed up out of the blue on top of all that right after. STRs showing LOC and reporting to the field hospital with headaches, vertigo and temporary loss of hearing? Nada. Nothing. No record of anything more serious than the flu. And then rhinitis and sinusitis began acting up. I’m at a loss as to how many months you have to snort pepper to get that bodacious a sinus infection before you drive down to VES to the c&p. I mean, we’re talking a real daisy here.

The bummer on the rhinitis goldmine hit home when Johnny Vet found out VA kinda tops out on that PACT crap at 30%. As for getting his double 100% for TBI with PTSD, he must never have heard that was VA Rating Trick Number 1. They always just roll it over into the 100 for the PTSD. That’s so predictable. Suddenly, his claims game was getting increasingly more complicated. By spring of this year he had about 6 pages of Code Sheet with 16 10%s for knees(bilateral of course), ankles (ditto), funny bones, painful scars, hemorrhoids etc. In other words, he’d hit the wall and that hoped-for SMC T was still waaaaay out of reach. Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters?

His wife had been cranking out buddy letters all along saying he was mega- hors d’ combat and was relegated pretty much to Fort Livingroom and his M1A1 recliner. His headaches were almost constant… except on those miraculous occasions when they relented… when he had to attend a c&p exam or the VAMC for a new ailment or checkup…alone….unaccompanied. He even cranked out a “Headache Log Diary” recording every last one for 2024. He struck out on three where he was out and about or at the VAMC during one of them. The VA doctors also noted he always arrived by himself unaccompanied and fully ambulatory. Always…Boy howdy that sure didn’t fit the significant other’s narrative of having the ambulance on speed dial.

And then he called me. He needed that final push to T and knew I had the Magic Wand. And the funny thing is I almost bought it until I spotted one last VA Form 21-4138 Buddy letter from someone who claimed to be a 30-year retired Squid. Said purported squid claimed he just happened to be in the neighborhood and willingly offered to shepherd my Johnny through the claims process. He then certified under oath by signing his name on page two in Block #9 that the statements on that 4138 were true and correct to the best of his knowledge and belief. The 4138 went on as to what a hot mess my Johnny Vet was and that he was credible and the Squid’s BFF. Why, after just a year of sitting around and shooting the shit with him (in those brief interludes between all those headaches), he could tell John Boy’s credibility was right up there with Jesus, Mary and Joseph (and the donkeys they rode in on) and he deserved to be granted that T.

The gentleman’s name was Thomas Barr. So being an inquisitive guy, I googled him. Turns out him and his wife are located right there in Johnny’s home town of Manila PI. Shucks, this ol’ boy was too good to be true. He was so motivated that him and his wife had devoted themselves to helping poor Vets who were getting screwed over by VA.  He had “The Plan” to fix your problems… just like all the rest of them claims sherpas. Life Changing Veterans Benefits LLC (or Inc.) was the name and VA claims is their game. For a paltry sum (available on request) they’ll fix your problems licketyspit. https://www.lcveteranbenefits.com/about/

Cathy Barr of LC Veterans Benefits LLC

I couldn’t look away. Check out this picture. Ensign (O-1) and a Maverick? Three medals and a shiny new PHM below them wings? And a crooked nametag? What’s wrong with this picture? Wait a minute. If this VA Claims Engineer is so red hot, why in the Sam Hill am I being asked to be the Sherpa of last resort? In fact, I don’t even see a NDSM on his chest. That screams 1976 to 1990. So how do you get a PHM during a time of peace? This smelled worse than a three day-old fish under the back seat.

ENS Thomas Barr 

Turns out Johnny Vet insists the Tomeister left him in the lurch this January right on the cusp of getting his SMC T. He went submarine silent and did his best Halloween ghost imitation. Now why is that? We, the “Consortium” of SMC Jedi Knights, talk to each other almost every day. If one of us gets a call for our services for high SMC ratings, we tend to make sure we’re not getting smoke blown up our patooties. And we tend to ask one another about FNGs. At one point, we had a twofer- two claims sharks from Blue Cord Patriots trying to get SMC T and they were basically asking us to rep them to learn how to do a SMC T claim/appeal. When I refused, they just called up Wes and asked him next. Shoot. That’s about as subtle as a fart in church on Sunday morning.

Now, it could be my Johnny Vet is genuine- but then it could be he is just a shill for Mr. Barr to learn how to summit Mount TBI and get the big bucks.  I learned the hard way back in ’15 in my dustup with the Wounded Wallet Krewe to make sure I couch any of my suspicions of nefarious behavior as mere musings of what it appears to look like. That’s a far cry from accusing someone of actually being guilty of something. Could be Mr. and Mrs. Barr are pure as the driven snow and God’s gift to Veterans. I reckon I’ll never know-just like I reckon the real story on them 400 Ghostwalkers will remain under wraps. But it would make a great Hollywood movie.

My daddy explained to me once that the best conspiracy is a conspiracy of one. If there are two, one of them is going to discuss it with his girlfriend. If you involve 400, that conspiracy is going to have more holes in it than a screen door. So how did dey do dat? Where are the other 399 cooks and military po-licemen who embarked on that dangerous mission? How do you sail a destroyer up the Mekong where it’s about 12 feet deep? All these queshuns and no answers.

Happy Halloween. File this one under Trick or Treat. Or how to screw up your SMC Claims…