I have a wonderful schedule I follow by rote every year where harvests are concerned. I plan my life around it to have enough time to accomplish each facet before being overwhelmed by the next. Imagine my surprise to discover Mother Nature has it’s own April Fool’s joke in store for me. I’ve never seen a hint of a pink strawberry before the last week of May…
Now hiring for June: Strawberry pickers.
Starting wage: All you can eat.
For two years running, members Leigh and Paul, long-suffering claimants of the VA, have sent me corn to plant. As I’m a sucker for new flavors, I tried to gin up about six last year with disastrous results. It seems you can’t just combine pollen from all those different flavors and get any appreciable action. Being a novitiate to corn science, I failed to read that part of the book. This year will be all Silver Queen and next year I will choose a new one.
My favorites in the past have been Bodacious, Peaches and Creme and Golden Jubilee. Send me ideas for the 2015 season. Remember we have an abbreviated growing season here in Washington-or at least we did before Global Heating. It may be we can get some of that new VA corn that is reputed to only take 125 days and has a 98% chance of germinating correctly. They promise it will be ready for the 2015 season. It’s rumored that the new name for it is “Triple D” perhaps for their signature “delay, deny and then you die”.
As I promised Paul, wheels up and airborne was accomplished last night for a June 1 planting. Cupcake takes exception to me killing crows from the deck with a .22 when they start pulling up the starts. In order to please her, I start them in what limited space I have in the ‘greenhouse’.
The BVA has just released their second batch of decisions for 2014. There are very interesting reads in the Hepatitis C decisions. Please review them if you have pending claims as they will give you great insight into the latest denial tactics. One thing that disturbs me is that they reflect a large number of VSOs are still unacquainted with the Caluza vs. Brown decision of 1994. That was the seminal decision that finally clued us all in on the need for a nexus letter. Many decisions you will read are devoid of this crucial document needed to win your case.
Additionally, I see a Vet has won SC for Dupuytren’s contracture. This is the first case I’ve seen so it is a valuable tool for us.
I hear many Vets and attorneys alike opine that BVA decisions are not precedential or binding. VA often states as much. The truth is that if you submit it, it becomes evidence and has to be considered in a general context. VA is not free to ignore their own laws. You can insert these and VA is required to “take notice” of them judicially and give them a once-over. It’s one more tool in the box to utilize so keep that in mind. It may pay out dividends at the CAVC if you end up there.
Long ago, on the 16th of May 1972, I returned from the land of the PACEX catalogue. After a short sojourn on leave in Alexandria, Virginia to visit my mother, I reported to Edwards AFB for my new assignment. I also got out the black book and started calling old friends I’d gone through technical training with who lived in Southern California. Dude, it was party time. I had made it home alive!
Steve W. was easy to find. He still lived with his parents in North Hollywood. He was a weekend warrior and his active duty service ended after our AIT. He opted to take a construction job and had become quite handy with 60% Dupont in my two year absence. Naturally, this called for a celebration of guns, liquor and dynamite. After all, they complement each other like wine, cheese and crackers. Fortunately for us, the 4th of July was nigh and he had ample access to the fireworks cabinet at his job site.
We set sail for the Mojave desert for the weekend and brought along a 50 lb. case of Atlas Blasting Company’s finest. Near the Kern River we found the perfect cliff to toss our “firecrackers” over. In addition, being 60% strength, it was easy to ignite with a .357 magnum. By Sunday night we were both quite deaf, deliriously happy and hung over. The box was empty but it was a lovely souvenir of the trip so I kept it.
Yesterday, I sold my van to my kids for their construction business. I retrieved the last of my belongings and one was the box which has sat between the two front seats of my last five vans I’ve owned over the course of my own forty-year construction career. Apparently, they really knew how to construct wooden boxes in the seventies as this one has withstood the test of time. I did have one small mishap in the eighties but it imparts character in my mind. It also shows the lovely dovetail joints at the corners. These pictures have a gazillion pixels in them so feel free to click on them to magnify.
I can’t imagine doing it in this day and age. We never saw another human in the three days we were there in spite of arranging numerous meetings between God and the sidewinder rattlesnake population thereabouts. I suspect a certain number of desert tortoises may have been harmed in the process as well. For that I apologize.
We have come a long way from bathing Buckwheat Junior in the kitchen sink to this day. I apologize for not writing for the longest period since I began this blog but the exigencies of both graduating him and getting the garden ready for Opening Day were a higher priority. Today we will set things aright.
Graduations are a joyous occasion. We get to burn the credit cards and transfer him off the auto insurance. He becomes a ward of the state for all intents and purposes. Our bank account may soon actually float upwards instead of the incessant black hole of bills we’ve suffered for seven years.
Matt has exceeded our wildest dreams and attained four degrees. I admire his nose to the grindstone technique and dogged perseverance to attain this exalted accomplishment. I also wish I could figure out where he got the gene. I’m sure it wasn’t from me.
Cupcake and I can only wish him the best now that he is “done” and preparing to set sail in his new life. It oddly feels almost like yesterday that I was counting his fingers and toes and taking inventory an hour after his birth in 1988. Men do that. They want to make sure all the parts and pieces are properly constructed and the future trigger finger is anatomically perfect.
I would also like to thank the Veterans Administration for the Chapter 35 Dependents Education Assistance which defrayed the costs of educating him. It will be sweet music to hear when he takes cases pro bono for Veterans at some time in the future.
Juris Doctor cum laude Saturday morning
Masters in Accounting degree Saturday Afternoon
Thanks to Chapter 35 Dependent’s Education Assistance and Uncle Ric, my son is graduating from Gonzaga Law School this weekend. Due to this, I may not be able to transmit from Spokane. However, I intend to take the magic picture box and a laptop. If I get the chance, I’ll push send from there. My deepest thanks also to former Governor Christine Gregoire for the free tuition to the University of Washington for his CPA degree. Being 100% P&T has it’s perks for the kids.
VA uses this day, May 7th, 1975, as the delineator of the last day any of us who participated in the Southeast Asia War Games were exposed to Dow and Monsantos’ revolutionary new herbicides. That meant you had one year to file for sub-acute peripheral neuropathy, chloracne or what I suffer from- Porphyria Cutanea Tarda (PCT). Unfortunately for us, Beverly Nehmer had not arrived on scene yet and would not for a decade or more. This did not absolve us of our obligation to file if we desired remuneration, however.
Over the intervening thirty nine years, we have accumulated evidence of what the chemical was capable of. Nevertheless, the National Institutes of Health, ably guided by the VA, has determined that 2016 will be the cutoff date for any new research on additional diseases associated with it.
Having lived in it, breathed it, absorbed it and ingested it for two years, one thing I can say was the modes of ingress into the body were many. You inhaled it into your lungs when it was still a mist in the air or later after it dried and was stirred up in the dry, red clay when aircraft or choppers took off and landed. You rubbed up against it and subsequently absorbed it transdermally when you touched anything. Absent any sanitary measures, it was on your c-ration cans and you in all likelihood ate it as well. Three everyday routes of ingestion and yet we often lose these claims for lack of documentation-documentation I might add that was unknown medically at the time-.i.e. why would you try to accrue medical evidence for something you and the government swears they were unaware of?
With multiple paths to ingestion, it seems curious VA would spend so much time poking a hole in any meaningful research and downplaying it’s role in later disease processes. Monsanto employees were complaining of PCT as well as chloracne as early as 1958 during early production runs of Agent Pink. Considering I didn’t even know the blackheads that developed on the inside of my arms and the sebaceous cysts behind my ears were related to this, I never sought medical attention in that crucial window of a year following my last exposure to it. Many of you did not either. Who would have thought to?
It has mystified me as to why the VA would have a press conference in 1991 declaring culpability for this and immediately start assigning time limits for certain of the diseases such that most, if not all, expired before you could even file for them. Take for example, the sub-acute peripheral neuropathy requirement. You had to have medical evidence of it within a narrow one year window of your last exposure to it. VA also would not offer compensation three years subsequent to that last exposure date:
38 CFR § 3.309(e) (note 2)
If that were the end of it, we might simply shake our heads and comprehend this was another meaningless regulation enacted to cover VA’s ass and relieve them of any obligation to pay us for AO and it’s band of brother chemicals. It wasn’t. In 1991, the insidious effects of Agent Orange and the other, nastier ones like Pink and Green, were not well researched by the government or, if they were , were not widely advertised. Nevertheless, in 1991 38 CFR 3.307(a) (6) went on to narrow the rules for remuneration and in the process, eviscerated any meaningful compensation for all but a handful of us.
This little codicil eliminated many claims in one fell swoop. Keeping in mind that Parkinson’s disease, Hairy, B-cell carcinomas, IHD and the like were added in 2010, scanning the list of permissible (read compensable) diseases in 1991 reveals it was mighty skinny. DM2, prostate cancer and some of the others weren’t added until 2001. The long and the short of this is that it is an ongoing scientific affair that VA feels has played out. They honestly believe any further research into it would be throwing good money after dubious money. Considering VA belatedly came to the conclusion Parkinson’s et al were somehow connected only three short years ago, we have to wonder who’s in charge of the investigation. Why the bum’s rush out the door and a concomitant desire to shut down the inquiry?
The key word is remuneration. Remember, VA has a requirement that you file a claim if you desire service connection. Absent that, you get the TY4YS speech. Unless, or until you file, VA gives you zip. If you happened to be a far thinker in 1991 and had applied for DM2, prostate cancer or any of the host of diseases that were added in 2010, you’re in high cotton. VA would have to go back and pay you for all of them. But if you didn’t file, you lose out. And if you were really not on the ball and forgot to file for that pesky skin disease that manifested while you were in sunny Southeast Asia back in the sixties, again, tough luck.
How asinine is it to pass a law that purports to help and remunerate Vets and proffer it with the right hand all the while with the firm intention of retracting any hope of compensation with the left? Or, why offer something that no one could possibly qualify for? This same insidious method is now being refurbished and sold as the Camp LeJeune water contamination remuneration fund. The only problem is they are doing a carbon copy take off of the early AO program. The list of diseases is remarkably small in number and encompasses only what they feel is demonstrably linked to it. I suppose by 2028, when they quit looking for other diseases to list that a majority of those who are ostensibly entitled will have dwindled to more manageable numbers that won’t deplete the coffers of money set aside.
May 7th, 1975. Thirty nine years since we bugged out a few minutes ahead of the DRV’s PT-76s coming down Thong Nhut Boulevard. Seems almost like yesterday. If not for the horror of all the herbicide damage to the land and souls, it might have a more endearing meaning. For those of us who served in that era, be it in-country or in adjacent countries like Okinawa, Japan or Korea, the date is one that for us will live in infamy.We were all tarred and feathered with the same brush regardless of our proximity to the action.
Every war we engaged in prior to the Vietnam debacle had a modicum of success. Parades and welcome, joyous homecomings were the norm. A celebration of America’s greatness was implied but subtly downplayed. Until Vietnam, that is. This was the first war where we came home and snuck in the back door to avoid the angry crowds. A “conflict”, in the words of the VFW, that did not allow us entry into Veterans Service Organizations because our service was not during a “true war”. Approbation mixed with a desire to reassimilate and try to put nightmares behind us. In a word, we sought anonymity to avoid controversy. Merely admitting to being there was akin to being abnormal or suffering from mental aberration.
At a cocktail party in Medina, Washington in 1982, I found myself cheek and jowl with some very progressive folks who were well-heeled and opinionated. I had probably had more than my fair share of adult beverages when I overheard my hostess say “Yes. Alex over there was in Vietnam but I know he doesn’t speak of it much”. Less than thirty seconds later I was wiping the alcohol-laced spittle off my face as “Marcie” proceeded to ask how I could explain killing all those women and children. Apparently, the wrong answer was ” Well, Marcie. It was much easier than most think. Since they don’t run as fast, you didn’t have to lead them as much. The 5.56mm X 45mm projectile we employed in our M-16s also has a very high muzzle velocity which is helpful, too.” I guess I don’t need to tell you that will remove you from the “A” list at all the good cocktail parties. In spite of my charming wit and expert rejoinders on current events, I never was able to get back on that circuit.
Thus I find it difficult to respond to the “Hail, fellow well met” I get when someone says “Welcome back” 42 years later. A famous author said “You can never go home” and they were right. Well-meaning Americans can no more go back and make amends for what we failed to do in 1975 after that conflict than they can bring Kennedy back to life. We can never hold a parade a few years late and engender the same essential element of pride in our troops. Time marches on and with it, our live and our emotions. Not a day goes by that a sound of a chopper overhead, the sound of a gunshot in the distance or a reference to an iconic part of that war such as a base or a valley does not bring back a flood of emotions best left buried and forgotten. Would that we could ignore them.
Thus to me, May 7th, 1975 will always be my Band of Brothers Day. It symbolizes a cutoff from an era of war to one of peace. It denotes a stark “before and after” where one group was damned and despised and the follow-on cohort was innocent and unsullied by the prior conflict. A new beginning, perhaps. Too bad we didn’t get the Ego Te Absolvo… or perhaps that’s for the best. I think it separated the ribbon clerks from the real poker players back then. It’s certainly the only war where we came in third.
I cannot express the pride I feel today to be one of these “great unwashed” from the Vietnam War. I’m no longer ashamed to count myself as an unreconstructed war criminal of that boundary dispute. Our numbers dwindle daily due to old age and disease. We, as a cohort, will probably disappear before some who served in Korea if the statistics continue to prove true. The miracle is that we got a Memorial before we disappeared-unlike many who served valiantly in World War II. One day they’ll create an annex next to it for all who served contemporaneously, and just as bravely, I might add, in the adjacent countries of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. To many, the conflict lay within the confines of the Republic of South Vietnam. To those of us who were there, it encompassed the whole Indochinese peninsula all the way from Burma in the West to Communist China.
To those of you with “Welcome Back” on the tips of your tongues who gregariously like to glad hand Vietnam Veterans-a word of warning. Not all of us cotton to being thanked for our service forty years after our names were taken in vain. Some would like to forget that time. Others revel in the praise and the tardy parades. Each carries a different mental anchor. Be wary how/if you show your appreciation.
And lastly, I see depictions or mockups of barrels that AO used to arrive in. None looked like this. Seems it would be more historically accurate to depict them as they appeared so long ago rather than a cheap Hollywood knockoff.
For decades now, the VA’s Office of Inspector Gadget has stumbled around unsure of their powers or whether they have a mandate, let alone the legal authority, to do half of what they do. Remember, these guys are the Katzenjammer Kiddy Kops who went after Keith Roberts back in 2000. Turns out they were waaaaaay off the reservation with that stunt. Just how far hasn’t been ascertained. They’re still in the back room castin’ dem bones trying to adduce a way out of a megalawsuit. Seems you can’t just throw Vets in jail on a trumped up jaywalking charge for four years.
What is of concern is more pressing. I’ve got the live wire feed from the VAOIG. Every time one of their envoys lands and files a report, I get it. I wrote of this earlier but the humor has evaporated. Inspector Griffin Gadget has been sitting on the Phoenix debacle since December-and probably earlier. Just before that, in late November, CNN spilled the beans on the Columbia, South Carolina VAMC doing the identical same thing. Everyone’s in high dudgeon swearing they’ve never ever heard of anything so nefarious as to deny Veterans their medical care in Phoenix. Sharon Hellman is ecstatic. This means a promotion to Washington to bury her somewhere in a corner office overlooking Lafayette Square. The head bone counter is slotted in for Harrison, Montana to cool his heels for a few years and then he’ll be back in the saddle as Head of the Houston VAMC in 2016 after this contretemps blows over.
What we overlook is the common thread. The VA OIG is ostensibly a house unto itself. Obviously, nobody can tinker with them to garner favor. By rights, they have to remain impartial but has anyone ever attributed the adjective to VA without it being couched in derision? Have you ever known any legal action undertaken by the Gadget crew to put the fear of God into any future potential miscreants? All I see are new instances of crime and ripping off VA left and right. I figure they’re popping about every eighth guy cheating and stealing. After prosecution costs, dealer prep and destination fees, it works out to a Vet who stole $142 in unwarranted travel funds getting his wrist slapped. Cost to OIG? About $680,000. The deterrence aspect needs to be worked on-maybe a little bit more advertizing at the ROs and VAMCs.
The next important facet, which is what the Phoenix imbroglio/coverup represents, is the VA OIG’s random inspections of every pill mill VA operates from the lowliest Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) in Bremerton , Washington to the mighty VAMCs such as Phoenix. Dr. Sam Foote, the former VA doctor who went to CNN with this, wasn’t the first. Apparently Dr. Katherine Mitchell risked her job and went to them earlier last year. VA dumped her and she regained her job on the whistleblower clause. She’ll still get gigged for performance bonuses for life. She has now testified that one of the employees called her and told her to beat feet down to the hospital to stop the shredding free for all. VAOIG’s take on this? We were unable to substantiate that anyone called Dr. Mitchell.
The problem with any organization of this type is that it has been entrenched for so long that it’s akin to a union. You know what I mean. “Hey, put down that shovel, kid. You’re makin’ us all look bad. If we finish it in a day then they’ll expect us to do that every day.” Laziness becomes endemic and cronyism abounds. To think this goldbrick mentality stops outside the OIG’s door is wishful thinking. What’s worse, they go out on these medical boondoggles every week. Each State or VISN is constantly being surveyed, photographed, written up and its all wired back to DC like AP or UPI stringers for a newspaper. And much like a Mobius loop, each report is a virtual carbon copy of the one before it. Cut and Paste takes on ginormous parameters. Only the zip codes change. Oddly, each of these VA-operated wonders of medicine suffer identical maladies of not washing operating rooms after use, failure to have anyone counting instruments after said operations due to staff shortages, pressure wound management techniques, pain medication management safeguards, extended staycations in Emergency Room waiting areas for eight hours, and so on. Each one is virtually mimicked from one end of the VA’s fruited plain to the other. One would think they might have a hotline or a newsletter that popped up every day at VA medical centers saying “Yo. OIG alert here! We just checked out the Dayton Dental Clinic. One of the dentists there has a raging case of Hep C and he hasn’t been wearing gloves for a few months. As a consequence, we have 18 Vets with diagnosed HCV in the community now. Make sure you tell everyone to reaaaaally be careful on hygiene and especially if they have HIV/HCV.” One would be dismally disappointed to find out that the chances of one VAMC finding out what was going on in another VAMC are between Lotto-winning slim and none.
So it comes as no surprise to find out Inspecteur Gadget has a wee problem. It’s May. Using the analog computer on your left hand J-F-M-A-M means five months ago Doctors started explaining the medical mystery of why it takes two years to get an appointment if they just scheduled you for it last week. Or, if you involve the right hand analog hard drive, you find that Columbia VAMC, the actual tip of this iceberg, bobbed to the surface seven months ago. Nevertheless, everyone is looking up and doing the Chicken Little imitation. Senators from Arizona are beating their chests and donning sackcloth. Wherefore art thou, Sen. Graham? Who speaks for the dead in South Carolina who also stood and waited?
How can we have an independent OIG who merely makes polite suggestions? Who comes to inspect but carefully avoids running their finger over the lintel to check for dust? Who is consumed with being unable to substantiate that Johnny Vet sat in a VAMC waiting room for hours on end with a butthead orderly rudely telling him to sky down. I know. I’ve been there for hours in that predicament.
Our OIG on paper is probably an altruistic force for the good. When individuals with inflated authority enter into the equation with no guidance, gestapo tactics and pepper spray come out. I know. I’ve seen that too. I am not surprised that the OIG cannot find a secret list. If you don’t look for it, you can’t find it. If you are told to stare up at the sky instead and make chickens sounds about things falling, that’s what you do. VA cannot sustain another major hit. They have to nip this in the bud. It calls for a Watergate-quality coverup but Haldeman and Erlichman have retired. That kind of talent is gone forever. They don’t teach it at Harvard anymore.
Yes. Mr. Vet? The appointment you made in 2012 is now available in two weeks. Do you still need that?
The situation in Phoenix is nothing more than an elaborate smokescreen erected while a viable excuse is manufactured. Rest assured someone is going to hang for this but it will be the janitors or the switchboard operators. “OIG was able to substantiate that important callback schedules were illegally removed from desks and destroyed by the night help-unbeknownst to scheduling technicians. The technicians and call back specialists were thus deprived of the information needed to complete the mission. Supervisors have been briefed and retrained in the proper protocols of office cleaning to prevent future breakdowns in communications between VA contact personnel and Veterans Stakeholders. VA OIG also was unable to substantiate that VA director, Sharon Helman, had ever been apprised of this scheduling defect. As for the insinuation of a secret list of Veterans “on call” this was never substantiated. We investigated so thoroughly and for so long Bob Rekus actually got his handicap down to a 6.”
Really. That’s how ludicrous this is becoming. Sharon Helman could have gone out, bought a .380 MP-11 and taken out those 40 Veterans personally and OIG was never going to be able to substantiate it. That’s why they are circling the wagons down at 810 Vermin Ave. NW and pulling all nighters brainstorming a good excuse. Whoever told Sharon to go out and do the dumbe blonde imitation after her Federal rentacops ran off the drive-by media should be shot. The head of VA health care should have put the concrete galoshes on her and gone sightseeing out in the Pacific Ocean-faaaaar out- where it’s deeeep. When Benghazi -type moments arise, you take the microphone back to DC and speak from a press pulpit. You bring out Uncle Ric to offer his calm, Walter Cronkite-like sage advice. You sure don’t let the idiots out of the rubber room and give them a microphone.
When this is all over, I’m sure VA will have a new Federal Emergency Management Plan in place to deal with these contingencies. This is what the Big Guys at VA OIG call a “teaching moment”. I’m on pins and needles waiting for the explanation. Any bets they mention alien abduction? I’m going with the janitor in the library with the candlestick.
VAOIG “Acting” Head Honcho Richard Griffin ordered all VA facilities, both VHA as well as VBA Regional Offices, to install new Binford 5000 Copymatic shredders. These automatically record the documents shredded and keep a facsimile of the destroyed documents in their memory for a week. An additional upgrade to preserve the memory indefinitely was discounted as being unnecessary and cost prohibitive.
Acting Inspector General Griffin also stated that the Presumption of Regularity attaches to all things VA does and employees would never shred pertinent documents in the middle of an investigation. With the full knowledge that the OIG is en route, a week’s recordings are considered adequate for preservation of evidence. When queried as to the normal time necessary to saddle up the posse and head out to Phoenix, Griffin said the usual turn around is several months. How this squares with a week’s preservation of the documents was not addressed. Mr. Griffin also abruptly changed the subject and ignored entreaties to elaborate.
With the continuing revelations of impropriety and midnight shredding parties, Griffin was quick to point out that no evidence of secret lists have surfaced in prior visits but acknowledged that if they were hidden -i.e. secreted or electronically inaccessible, that it was possible for VAMC officials to circumvent the hard work of the VAOIG’s investigators. However, in light of VAMC personnel deeply devoted to Veterans Health, this scenario was about as likely as flying pigs in his estimation.
“We try hard to get to the bottom of allegations when they arise but Veterans are a paranoid bunch of folks and see a conspiracy around every corner. Eventually it becomes a classic case of the boy crying “Wolf” and our inspectors become inured to the complaints’. Griffin said.
Griffin went on to say in a prepared press release “Rest assured that if evidence of malfeasance is present on site, we’ll find it. Nothing gets by us. As for Dr. Katherine Mitchell coming forth to substantiate Dr. Foote’s allegation of secret lists, VAOIG is investigating credible reports they were having an ongoing affair at the Phoenix VAMC during business hours. We have substantiated that much so far thus her testimony is not deemed credible. As for Dr. Mitchell’s allegations of personally intervening yesterday to prevent further destruction of the alleged secret lists, we have been unable to substantiate her presence on site at the VAMC. These are merely rumors and innuendo. We will have a complete report out by 2016 that will carefully debunk anything about secret lists and ask the Senators and Congressmen to hold their water until the fix er, facts are in. Thank you”.
From my Face page. I get wonderful ideas from all of you. Thanks.
Just like VA backlog.
asknod
Bethanie Spangenberg
kcraveiro
robinhoodesqvetsatty
Wesley McCauley
