Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I hope this finds you and your significant other in good health. Or if you live in lower Utah, ditto to your significant others. Since we don’t ostracize anyone for their religious/political beliefs or pronouns, we have managed to evade a lot of flak from those who take umbrage with us. Other Veterans help sites use the forum model and open themselves up to all manner of participants. And  no, I’m not schizophrenic and think there are more than one of me. We is Cupcake, Pickles and the horses. But now we’ve grown. We took on a few kitties to avoid them going to the gas chamber. Meet Coconut. Rainbow is a recluse..

Pickles and Coconut

I’ve even found a way to make peace with our resident Karen down in Melbourne Florida. She means well but obviously her upbringing was decidedly liberal. As Winston Churchill once said “They serve also who only stand and wait.” I’d add to that and say “for someone to say something that offends them.”  The world is populated with those who do… or do not do. To try is to fail. Trying implies ultimate defeat. Which is the subject of my diatribe today.

Going to work for VA in a GS-level position rather than an SES-level is immaterial. You’d think that Batchelor’s Degree you got in Haircombing 403 from Harvey Wallbanger University would be just the ticket to success. It probably will be if you’re willing to sell your independence to the VA for 20 years.

Let’s look at VBA “examiners”. This is a misnomer. A  VA claim, when it becomes “secondary ready for decision”, is assigned to a Coach. A Coach is a 10-year, delay and deny specialist. He makes the call as to grant or deny. If it’s “clean”, he sends it out to the Quality Control Freak. They/she/he send it through a computer program to search for a defect which might result in a too-high rating like SMC M instead of an L ½. Then, after 4 Quality control inspections, it goes back to a 14-year RVSR who probably will never make Coach for yet another gander. Finally, after incorporating six mistakes into the proposed rating, they hand it off to a 75 IQ VSR to write up. He uses the M 21 Adobe fill-in-the-blanks program and writes the decision. This is why the decisions read like Dick or Jane authored it. And guess what? The effective date will almost always be wrong and never in your favor either. Shut the front door.

This is what concerns me. Most Veterans, and their VSO representatives, are so overjoyed to get the dang thing done- and any rating- lowball or otherwise- that they don’t pay much attention to the date the VA assigns. VA is guaranteed to screw you out of a lot of money on this. The VSO dude will say “Don’t make waves by poking the Bear.” Funny. That’s what Combat Louie always used to say. It’s also what Ron Peterson, my DAV VSO rep said in 1992 when the Seattle RO handed me my 0% for tinnitus.

VA knows most of you are timid and not ones to confront authority. They hand you poor service, delayed medical care and interminably  long waits to grant your claims. An incorrect effective date is part of their criminal pattern. Their mantra is if the Vet don’t bitch, it’s the correct date. Right?

Let me give you an example. I represent Chris who filed in ’72 for getting hit by a jeep out on the PSP at An Khe one afternoon during a hot refuel of their Huey gunship. VA gave him a pair of Zeros and he got the standard ‘leave the bear alone” speech. Finally, in 2015 after he was still 0%, he figured it out and began filing. We finally got VA to go get his records down at Ft. Hood at the Wm. Beaumont Hospital in 2018. They granted each and every thing I filed Chris for but repeatedly granted on the date filed. They just ignored my §3.156(c) requests as if they didn’t exist.

The first admission of 1972 finally took place in DC and VLJ Evan Deichert agreed wholeheartedly. We got the grants for the disputed items (bad back with radiculopathy into the lower extremities) and Fort Whacko Texas immediately gave him the 2015 original reopening date even though the VLJ had granted 1972.

Back to the BVA for the 1972 date. I wasn’t going to waste time on a HLR. On remand, Fort Whacko yet again showed their prowess in ratings capabilities and lowballed him using the 2023 Diagnostic codes- not the 1972 codes in use at the time he filed. Yep. Back to the BVA. We didn’t get Deichert but we did get a high-IQ VLJ who agreed with my diagnostic codes. Back to Ft. Whacko. But Honey chile we’re not done yet. Oh, hell no.

One of the things we argued in front of Deichert for was a compensable rating for the hole in the roof of Chris’ mouth from the cheekbone falling out a few years after the shoddy 1968 surgeon’s work down in the heart of Texas. The other was for a&a- not Housebound but specifically for §3.350(b)(3). SMC L, babycakes. During each one of those above BVA expeditions, we kept doing the old granny thing in the drive thru at Burger King with “where’s the a&a beef?”. The VA raters would look up at the ceiling and mumble “oh. Yeah. That SMC. So it was no surprise when they finally handed out the shiny new SMC at the S rate. Yep. Back to the BVA.

Most Vets would have gone to the water closet room to shit or go blind permanently by the second trip. Not me. This turned into a pissing contest and each time I went back to the BVA, they’d AOD me and crank out another killer decision each time.  No remands for a duty to assist. Hell, one of the VLJ gals even went into capital letters to bold it just in case the Rocket Boys in Waco were suffering the illness for which there is no sympathy (hangovers) and needed more guidance. And then what?

Yeppers. Fort Whacko welcomed us back with- “Here’s your a&a dickweed and the effective date is July 25th, 2025- the date we got the remand back from the VLJ. Now get lost, bubba”. Roger that. File a new 995 and ask for the real date. This time, Ft. Whacko gave us a resounding Oh Hell no– a giant big step up from the traditional ‘no’ we’d been getting. Back to the BVA again for the correct date. I’d pointed out November 2018 as the date the Psychologist said he went plumb bugfucky and the TBI examiner suggested to his wife Robin that she might consider outfitting him with one of those dog shock collars when they went out in public.

Once again, as expected, our friends at the BVA were happy to see us to grant anything I put in front of them. By now, this must have provoked some betting on how soon his next appeal would arrive. We’re on #7 now, I think. Last but not least, we asked for that rating for a hole in his mouth. They sent him out for umpteen c&p exams and the actual oral surgeon who did the dental exam said “Whoa, dude. That’s waaaaaay past dental shit. We fill holes in teeth-not holes into the sinus cavity.” The experts at Fort Whacko took this to mean Chris wasn’t entitled to anything more than that 1972 rating at Zero percent for his broken jaw because… well because the jaw bone is all healed up and I guess they think he should have filed for a hole in the roof of his mouth back in ’72. You know VA ratings. They simply say “you don’t quite qualify” but don’t explain the secret handshake to win.

Back to the BVA. But this time we got a decision that agreed with the Puzzle Palace in Texas. Nope. The jaw was healed. Zero is the number and counting of the rating shall be Zero. Neither shall thy count NSC nor shall thy count 10%. Well shit. Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters? No sir. You go to the CAVC and ask them why a hole in the roof of your mouth is noncompensable and better yet- why they don’t use a different diagnostic code if broken jaw ratings don’t take roof holes into account.

You don’t have to be member of Mensa to figure out what was, and still is, going on here. Effective dates are just the tip of the iceberg. VA tried like the devil to bury the 1972 §3.156(c) date and hoped we were just a couple of country bumpkins who couldn’t light a fart. Each time we prevailed, they figured they could still roll us like a drunken sailor at 2 AM on the effective date. Then the diagnostic code scam. I’d guess they’re plumb shitting bricks trying to figure out how much a hole in your mouth back to 1972 is going to set them back. But that is not the end of the matter. Ol’ Chris  (through me) hasn’t even begun to discuss his Barry bumps yet. We’re waiting for them to crank out the 2018 SMC L a&a rating and close out the claim first.

Another thing is the downstream effects of these retro claims. VA has now awarded Chris over 30% back to 1972. Actually, it’s 50%. We scalped them for that already but what about Wife No. 1, 2 and 3 and all the dependent children who grew up eating nothing but bread crusts and water? Right. We filed for that back in January of this year. VA put it into cold storage and doesn’t quite know where to start… or whether they want to.

So, the score after ten years is pretty impressive. Chris hasn’t yet gone out and bought an Electric Hummer for a buck and a half yet… but he could without even cutting into his 401K. He was a CPA. Chances are they’re still driving a 2001 Kia with the smaller 4-cylinder engine. I’m guessing it has about 205 K on the odometer and bald tires, too.  But for them this isn’t just a Happy 2025 Thanksgiving. It’s been a happy year and we’re still throwing rocks at the front window of the David Koresh Memorial Regional Office. Sometimes life hands you lemons. I know. I got 28 years of them- a veritable shit ton. The repair order is simple- you just need to find a good VA representative with bartender skills to mix in vodka, a soupçon of Cointreau and make Lemon Screwdrivers out of them.

 As an aside, John and Ray have asked me to join them this Wednesday next- the day before we give thanks for all our blessings, for a video Zoom show on Exposed Veterans. The time is the same as on Thursdays- 1900 hrs east and 1600 hrs out here on the wild and whacky west coast. If I didn’t know any better, with all the crazy shenanigans afoot these days, I’d swear old Dr. Timothy Leary was out here spiking our public water supplies with LSD. Good thing I have a well, huh?

https://riverside.fm/studio/exposed-vet-productions?token=5fd0e978d400ad0429f2f297687213271459bdc9

And lastly, I wish to thank all those who have, or will, put their trust in me and let me spank the VA for their sins. I can’t begin to tell you how blessed I feel to be allowed to do this. As John Belushi observed, “We’re on a mission from God”.

P.S. the LRRP sends us the usual humor fresh from Oregon (where else?).