CAVC–MURPHY V. SHINSEKI-MURPHY’S LAW STILL REIGNS

Posted on April 15, 2014 by asknod

imagesI often wonder if the original Mr. Murphy ever considered his future enshrinement in the Hall of Giants when he began compiling his laws. I wonder if there was one that covered this sorry mess. Some of us struggle to shepherd our claims intact to a sane judge in DC to render judgement.  Encountering stupidity of the following magnitude would be the absolute last thing we would expect. Having the Murphy sobriquet must have been the trigger. Either that or one of the good Veterans Law Judge’s staff attorneys has a macabre sense of humor.

Murphy_12-1700

download (2)George D. Murphy enlisted in the Air Force (wisely ) and pursued a thirty-year career. When he separated, he filed for sinusitis and was issued a 10% rating in 1984. Sixteen years later, he petitioned for an increase and was denied. As do most of us, he failed to appeal and that went down the tubes.  In 2003, he refiled yet again, probably after reading up on the procedures on how this all worked. He was Air Force and they are picky about your being able to read and comprehend. As usual, he got the typical denial and a long wait while they prayed he’d get bored and walk away. This time was different. George wasn’t going to listen to the VSO tuki tuki bird.

Even with no big VA backlog, his claim slowly wended it’s way to the Board of Veterans Appeals for four years. He got his five minutes with the Judge in February 2010. After all that interminable delay, the BVA promptly remanded it for a new C&P exam to find out what had transpired in the intervening seven years while the claim grew dust. Such is the pace of VA justice that when you finally get your day in Court, your claim has to be sent out for a reassessment because you aged so much in the interim. It’s also pretty scarey when nobody, including VA, thinks much of it when Vets have to wait that long.

At the VA, if you have signed a waiver of review in the first instance of any new evidence presented, the Board’s very own private Regional Office called the Appeals Management Center (AMC) is authorized to do all this and make a decision without remanding it all the way back to your own RO for a new decision at the local level. This was supposed to be a time saver when instituted in 2004. It has now devolved into a miasma of remands for all manner of problems and is sometimes no faster that just remanding back to your own RO. Vets have even nicknamed it the Black Hole. I still think they are a step above local ROs. They don’t have Binford 5000 Shredomatics installed desk-side so your evidence actually does make it into the file. The quality of the raters is above par, too. The last thing you want is a Gomer Pyle FNG doing it.

Mr. Murphy’s remand disappeared into the Black Hole but in six short months he got his 30% rating. This was a watershed moment as it now added to his rating total to attain 100% combined and a hefty pay raise. Most Vets don’t know it but VA pay is $1,857.76 per month for 90% with spouse and without rug rats. 100% is $3,017.60 – an almost $1,110.00 + difference monthly. Annually, that’s a pay raise of over $12,000.00. And here is where our Mr. Murphy ran afoul of his namesake’s Laws.

An old decision called AB v. Brown  6 Vet. App. 35 (1993) held that a Veteran who appealed for a higher rating was appealing for the highest rating attainable and not just the one above the current one he was being compensated for. The reason they used the initials AB is that the claimant wished to maintain anonymity- perhaps because the disease or injury was to a private part or the clap. The CAVC is tasked with making the determination as to whether the request is granted. Not all are. Thus Mr. Murphy’s claim was required to be sent back up to the same Veterans Law Judge who remanded it for a determination as to whether the increase from 10% to 30% might not be premature. In fact, Mr. Murphy was entitled to an appellate determination, under the auspices of AB v. Brown, as to whether he might be entitled to 50% (or higher). But under no circumstances could the VLJ lower the rating. Shoot, that’s against the law in all 57 ROs including the Black Hole. 

AB.211

We are protected against this injustice by many statutes and regulations. Once we get a rating, we own it. After five years with no appreciable improvement, VA needs dynamite medical evidence to dislodge it. Under no circumstances, can a VLJ start disassembling it at the BVA level. They’d have to remand yet again to have the RO or the Black Hole execute that dirty deed. Besides, by law, you have to have a medical exam or two to reduce a rating and be given sixty days to respond to this injustice following notification. In fact, the list of judicial faux pas runs into eight pages or more.

Finally, under the due process holding of Cushman v. Shinseki, we have a vested right in our compensation payment. Any decision to rescind or abrogate that must be based on fraud, clear and unmistakable evidence to the contrary and a denial in the first instance down at the Regional Office level such that you could appeal it upwards properly. If the BVA started doing this on a regular basis, you’d be unable to combat it or even rebut it with new and material evidence when it arrived at the Court.

You can see what this looked like when it came through the mailroom at 625 Indian Ave. NW. The chief Law Clerk up there, Gregory Block, is an old Army war horse. As would be expected, everyone around there is sporting a JD after their name- even the janitors. His is from Seton Hall and certainly one held in high regard. It can probably be said that the Gregster was alerted in short order when Mr. Murphy’s NOA crossed the threshold. This was a golden opportunity to make the BVA, and by extension, the whole VA leagal beagle kennel, look like rank amateurs. By allowing this out the door of the BVA without more scrutiny and oversight, they were advertizing the bona fides of their inferior Juris Doctor degrees for all to see. Appearance is everything in this business. If you look like a boob and act like one, you’ll get laughed right out of the court. No one will treat you seriously. Your legal theories will be ridiculed from then on even if  they are sound. Your credibility will be so compromised that you’ll even lose your own kids’ respect. You might as well advertize your membership in the Flat Earth Society.

Let me put it in perspective. Each level of jurisprudence considers itself more erudite, more educated, more highly paid and lastly, mo’ better than the traffic cops beneath it. As your claim rises to each new level of review, it is supposedly vetted for proper judicial procedures to make sure you, the claimant, were not disenfranchised. Translated into DickandJanespeak, VA likes to make sure they screwed you over perfectly legally (in their own mind) before turning it over to the CAVC on appeal.

As the CAVC is not part and parcel of the VA proper, they are not swayed by VA’s desire to cover up their errors and stupidity. Some colossally big ones like Leroy Macklem’s sometimes get out of the Pandora Box at Vermont Ave. NW but VA strives to conceal them via Joint Motions for Remand (JMR) to quietly whisk them under the carpet.

Mr. Murphy’s case gets the front stage, three Judge Panel treatment because his Veterans Law Judge illegally attempted to play Judge, Jury and Executioner over something he had no legal authority to address. However much his distaste for the AMC’s decision to grant George 30% for nose itch, the VLJ cannot summarily reduce it on his own. This is mission creep in CAVC parlance and Greg the Bouncer spotted it for what it was from the getgo. And like a dog with a bone, once apprised of the enormity of the BVA’s lack of legal talent, they weren’t going to let this one go until every VA Law Review magazine had all the juicy details.

110For that reason alone, cases like this get the reversal treatment. The CAVC Judges are not vindictive but when you cross that line from sloppy jurisprudence into judicial mis/malfeasance you can be confident of being brought back down to earth with a rough, caustic verbal tackle. As usual, Meg Bartley got the author honors on this one. Seems she’s been the author or Single Judge decision maker on quite a few reversals in her short tenure at the Court. It’s so refreshing to see someone who set precedence with their mere presence and interpretation of law while in charge of the NSVLP’s Veterans Benefits Manual authorship finally doing so from the bench.

We look forward to more of the same. Every Veteran should hire a soothsayer and tea leaf reader to find the most auspicious time to file their Notice of Appeal in hopes of drawing St. Meghan. If you have a valid claim, your chances of bringing it to fruition skyrocket in her courtroom.

Posted in CAVC ruling, CAVC/COVA Decision | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

WHO SAYS SEXTING AND DUIs REDUCE WORK PRODUCTIVITY?

Posted on April 14, 2014 by asknod

downloadWe always read horror stories about the VA and government in general. Tip of the Spear in Georgia (Bruce) who brought us the initial reports of “irregularities” in a Veterans charity’s wage structure, sends us this equally revolting report on VA’s proclivity to “Fire the Best and Hire the Rest (if they’re related to you). 

 

It completely defies logic to have an agency tasked with such an important task take such a lackadaisical approach to our plight. I don’t like to whine. I like to strike, to take action- in a word-to improve the status quo at lightspeed.  Unfortunately, VA doesn’t have a lightspeed setting. VA hierarchy has no qualms about allowing this system to rot on the vine just as they have no plan to fix their backlog. Some have contacted me and tell me I’m wet and don’t get out much. They probably haven’t spent a year as a guest in a VAMC and witnessed ODing on Heparin, a MRSA infection via their PICC line or a septal infarct that went undetected for six months. I forgot to check but I’m sure the VISN director for the Seattle VAMC received a large bonus while on my watch. According to this article, that’s par for the course and not some aberration.

To really get a feel for this, read the plethora of  follow-on comments from actual VA employees (present and former) who do not seem particularly perturbed by this turn of events. We are handed a rotten deal from the get go. We are pawned off on an overwhelmed system staffed by incompetents who have no loyalty to Vets. We are assured we’ll get quality care “soon”. We are lied to, delayed and ignored by a medical system that insists it is cutting edge. To add insult to injury, they find “satisfied customers” to spout their propaganda on their blogspot Vantage Point. I have railed on and on here about their shortcomings and been told by some of you that I must be one of the most unlucky souls to ever darken the door of a VAMC.  One gentleman implied that my complaining would make life worse for other Vets and I should shut up and sit down. This article in no small measure vindicates what I’ve been trying to get across for years.

VA has proven time and time again that they will only jump when they find themselves between a judicial rock and a hard place. One brief glimpse of the Extraordinary Writs filings at the CAVC would reinforce this thinking. Many are the filings of Vets who simply want some closure to an ages-old claim that is stuck in limbo somewhere. When the Court queries the VA secretary and his minions, suddenly it is resolved. The logjam miraculously dissolves and what was sought is found to have been accomplished while the thirty-day-old complaint was still in the Court’s in-basket. A coincidence you say? I think not.

VA is intransigent. Mark my words now. They have no plans for the “what if” moment on January 01, 2015 when the backlog will still be firmly entrenched and alive and well. I see a plethora of excuses queueing up waiting to be employed though. VA medical procedures and indeed, even their personnel problems, will never subside without a sharp prod from Congress. I don’t see that happening any time soon-if ever. Of course, complaining mightily about it will do no good either.

Unless, and until Congress elects to actually punish individuals who perpetuate this system, there is no force on Earth that can overcome the impasse. The VA is far too busy creating new acronyms and programs to deal with every imaginary threat to their viability at our expense. Each new program takes us further and further away from the core function-the Veteran. As an example, look at gun laws. Every new atrocity spawns a new batch of laws designed to prevent such an event from reoccurring. No one looks back over the laws already promulgated and on the books to notice that many of these eventualities have all been provided for. In what many have touted as a perfectly controlled setting, the impossibility of having an “adverse gun event” on a military installation has been examined in detail and every eventuality accounted for. Yet somehow it still occurs in a designated gun-free zone. VA takes this to the logical end and provides for every contingincy. When something like a mass outbreak of Hepatitis C occurs at the Dayton VAMC due to unsanitary procedures, VA’s Office of the Inspector General descends in force and examines it in minute detail. Their findings often include the phrases ” We wee unable to substantiate that the_____ were incompetent” or “It was not conclusively proven that the individuals in charge were criminally negligent.”  The mea culpas are not far behind in the Recommendations section.

VA has an enormous, magnificent excuse machine built into the system. Were you to read the whitewash about the multimillion dollar HR getaways in Orlando in years past, you would come away with glad heart and the conviction that this egregious behaviour will never, ever happen again.

vaoigEvery month I get the VA news feed from the OIG. Each and every one reads like its predecessor. The recommendations section is mimeographed from prior ones. Every few months a new set of recommendations surfaces based on a large number of complaints of new, previously undiscovered travesties. The years and recommendations tend to blur together because they all boil down to recommendations and not change orders. You can recommend to an alcoholic that he should cut back on his consumption if he wishes to improve his lot in life but absent any intervention it is merely good advice with no teeth.

Notice the similarity of “findings” in each of these. Pressure ulcer prevention (bedsores) seems to be the bugaboo this year so far. Well, that and “community living center resident independence and dignity”. I suppose that means the staff can no longer tell the inpatients to piss off.

http://www.va.gov/oig/publications/report-summary.asp?id=3077

http://www.va.gov/oig/publications/report-summary.asp?id=3076

http://www.va.gov/oig/publications/report-summary.asp?id=3074

http://www.va.gov/oig/publications/report-summary.asp?id=3068

http://www.va.gov/oig/publications/report-summary.asp?id=3068

The term “lather, rinse and repeat” rolls of the VA OIG’s tongue with alacrity and great frequency. How they can just reprint the same litany of excuses and expect our eyes to glaze over with boredom is amazing. I expect they think no one reads these epistles.

Reform at the VA is similarly stymied by lots of recommendations and four-letter programs that seek to focus on the problem-du-jour. Unfortunately, the calamities at the VA are so continual and so grievous, no amount of triage can keep up with the ineptness. As an example, did you know the VBMS system set up to electronically revamp our records is still not operational system -wide in all  VAROs?  After two or three years the excuses wear thin. Not enough servers. Too many RVSRs online simultaneously. Pick any excuse and then parse it for legitimacy.  Someone once opined that excuses are most definitely like assholes. Everyone has one, but for some inexplicable reason. VA medically defies logic and has numerous assholes whose primary job is none other than to obfuscate and apologize. If half the energy expended to manufacture excuses were devoted to claims adjudication, it is highly unlikely we’d be in the predicament we’re in now.

Here’s a sampling of some Extreme Writs I’ve parsed recently from the Court. Each one exhibits the same hubris that the VA was always in the loop and the Vet is simply expecting far too much too soon from the system (which, incidentally, is working just fine).

In his petition, he asks the Court to order the regional office (RO) to produce a copy of his claims file. The petitioner states that he mailed his first request on March 18, 2013, and that the RO has only responded that it received his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request…

Or

The petitioner contends that a prior remand of his claim by this Court in May 2012 for compliance with VA’s duty to assist has resulted in inaction by VA and “interminable delay”  notwithstanding this Court’s directive to act within six months. 

Followed by the revelation from the VA’s OGC excuse squad…

On January 22, 2014, counsel for the Secretary responded that she contacted the Indianapolis, Indiana, VA regional office (RO) and was informed that all documents from the service department were received, including the charge sheet pertaining to the petitioner, and that a Supplemental Statement of the Case (SSOC) was issued on January 15, 2014. 

or…

On December 3, 2013, the petitioner, Claude V. D’Unger, submitted through counsel a petition for extraordinary relief in the nature of a writ of mandamus ordering VA to forward his file
to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) for action on his claim…In April 2009 his rating was increased to 100% with an effective date of March 2009…

According to VA, the petitioner’s claim remains before the regional office (RO) pending adjudication by the RO. The Secretary asserts that the RO cannot adjudicate the claim without
additional development, consisting of a new medical examination. In his response, the Secretary informed the Court that an examination had been requested through the VA medical system on January 23, 2014…

The delay here in completing the Board’s remand does not satisfy these conditions. The Court recognizes that this claim is unresolved at four years and counting, but a writ is not justified
at the present time because VA is taking action to adjudicate the claim. The RO has just now requested an examination. With VA alert to the delays in Mr. D’Unger’s case and taking steps to comply with the Board’s remand, a writ ordering VA action would be unjustified and, hopefully, redundant…

I could go on but the reader can ascertain the essence of the problem. Running from one brush fire to another with a hand-held fire extinguisher is no substitute for a system-wide revamp of the process. VA is disinclined to purchase a bonafide fire truck and prefers to myopically address each calamity on a case-by-case basis.

downloadUntil this myopic, neanderthal thinking process is upgraded to the twenty first century, we will be condemned to more of the same. It’s not getting better in spite of what the talking heads tell Congress. Apparently Speaker of the House Boehner has now been apprised of the disconnect and it will be repaired soon. We expect to see pigs suitably outfitted with wings down at 810 Yellow Brick Rd. NW any day now.

 

Posted in VA BACKLOG, vA news, VAOIG Watchdogs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

WHAT MILITARY BACKLOG?

Posted on April 13, 2014 by asknod
Sgt. Chris Peden

Sgt. Chris Peden

As if the VA didn’t have their own PR problems trying to explain away their backlog, now the military is facing the identical same predicament. What’s more, the military’s medical discharge backlog is now colliding with the VA’s. Déjà vu has never been so glaring as it now is here. The Tacoma News Tribune, my local fishwrap, decided to take an in-depth gander at it and comes away with an imperfect grasp. They failed to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to the Seattle VA. It’s eerily reminiscent of what we encounter in our claims filings-but only after we leave the service.

One thing we observe as we wend our way through the VA House of Mirrors is the inexplicably long, drawn out adjudication procedures. 385 days is nothing any more. I know the VA advertises far less in their jaunts up to Capitol Hill but we know better than to listen to Gen. Allison Hickey sing the Beatles’ “It’s getting better all the time” again and again. After three years, it’s redundant and untrue.

So I was not the least surprised to read the article this morning and observe the military is employing the same pigeon-holing technique as their counterparts at VA to create ever-larger inboxes to accommodate the overflow. What does surprise me is that the Army is recalcitrant about 86’ing all the PTSD deadwood during this latest round of Reduction in Forces (RIF). In fact, Medical Evaluation Boards (MEBs) have always been the first vehicle employed to begin the RIF. The Army hates to pay anyone who sits on their duff unless they’re incarcerated. Well, excluding generals at any rate.

As the article points out, Sgt. Chris Peden is suffering a serious bent brain. Unlike the recently deceased shootist in the morgue down at Fort Hood, Peden’s is a legitimate combat injury incurred in a hostile environment. The Army is fully cognizant of this yet they continue to play with fire and shuffle him to and fro in an endless Monopoly game from  Portland back to Fort Lewis.

It seems the Army has also caught Abbreviation Fever and has begun creating cute-sounding names for dysfunctional entities in which to house all these folks. The Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES) is a case in point. The Army itself states that the IDES process is supposed to take 295 days from the time the Army begins considering a soldier for an early medical retirement to the day that soldier starts receiving VA benefits. Think about that. Two hundred ninety five days. The Air Force inducted me, gave me basic training, advanced training and had me in situ in a theatre of war-all in the record time of two hundred thirty days. Fully clothed. In 1970. At the end upon my return, they invested ninety (90) days divesting themselves of me claiming I had irredeemable personality disorders. How is it these folks can stand proud and be complaisant about a 295-day termination process that often segues into three years as in Sgt. Peden’s circumstances? I doubt he’s alone.

With the advent of computers and satellites, it would seem that record could be exceed by a magnitude of 10. Yet here we read of an endless parade of Medical Evaluation Boards (MEBs) investigation, medical and psychiatric exams, committing Sgt. Peden to a  VA inpatient ward at the Portland VAMC and several other parking places while they cut bait instead of fishing. All this to see if Sgt. Peden is salvageable.

I don’t profess to having any medical training nor do I aspire to. I do have an innate sense of what is right and wrong about others around me. It doesn’t take a degree in psychology to ascertain when someone is a half a bubble off after a combat deployment. Or two. Or three. Throw in some SFWs and a few buddies who are room temperature and you suddenly aren’t going to Be All You Can Be. Why try to salvage this individual or even go through the motions of trying to repair what’s broken? I suppose you could make a case for repair/reinsert were it some critical MOS but Sgt. Peden is irreparably damaged by his own metrics and not a candidate for investing a lot of energy in cross-training to a less-stressful job. In fact, having attempted suicide already, he has voted with his actions. That ought to be pretty damning evidence against any repair order.

Now, as to why any military organization would need three long years to outprocess you and get your VA benefits on line needs investigation. What I strongly believe is that Sgt. Peden could be out on the street with the wife-san and trying to glue his brains and life back together in as little as a month to six weeks. If you could out-process from CONUS and travel to Afstan in that period of time and be boots on the ground shooting, why would it take a timeline like that below to reverse the process?

October 2012– fellow soldiers notice Sgt. Peden isn’t “all there”.  They ship him back to Ft. Lewis. Followed by:

1) temporary posting him to the Warrior Transition Battalion which is the Army’s way of putting you on medical waivers. Then, suddenly…

2) running short of NCOs and assigning him back to his original unit (A Co., 4th Batt., 23rd Inf. Rgmt.) as a “supervisor”.

3) February 2013– shipping him off to the Portland VAMC psyche ward for unstable individuals who are at risk for hurting themselves (or others) for a month.

4) April 2013– reassignment to 23rd Inf. Regiment again (current) and  continued refusal to reassign him to the Warrior Transition Battalion.

And then they wonder why some of us go bug-fucky.

The Army insists the MEB process is necessary to discover if a soldier is recyclable. This overlooks the present circumstances of a major RIF in progress as well as Sgt. Peden’s prognosis. By his own admission, all the King’s men and all the King’s horses are not going to get this Humpty Dumpty back in the saddle. So why the interminable delay with little or no mental/medical intervention? With over 22 soldiers or Veterans sucking on lead lollipops every day across the fruited plain, why delay a day or a week longer than necessary to get him into the hands of the VA and some good help? Granted, I’m being facetious using VA and good help in the same sentence but let’s assume that is the preferred alternative to what he is now experiencing.

downloadThe problem is glaringly obvious. There is no place for Sgt. Peden at VA yet. He has to take a number as they all do. Were the Army, Air Force and the Navy to suddenly divest themselves of all their unwanted, damaged personnel baggage, the VHA would sink under the load. There simply is no room for the Sgt. Pedens’ of the military services yet. It has to be accomplished gradually-often on a triage basis- in order not to tip the boat. We observed something similar after the Vietnam Misunderstanding. Thousands of Vets were cut loose and left to their own devices. They, in turn, became homeless and hopelessly addicted to drugs with the complicit knowledge of the VA and no one did a thing about it for decades. They also started taking their own lives but again,  no one complained. That era is mercifully over and we consider it a dark chapter best left to  dim memory. With the social media sites available now, nothing of this magnitude can escape inspection.

With this sure knowledge that simply opening the front gates and turning all the defective soldiers loose to fend for themselves a la post-Vietnam is not an option, the Army and the other services are forced to babysit them and release them in controlled numbers so as not to create a lump in the VA python. The saddest part of this is that future Veterans like Sgt, Peden could begin the healing process far sooner and more successfully if they were able to put as many miles as possible between them and the base they are artificially incarcerated in.

Sgt. Peden began this odyssey in late 2011. It is now spring of 2014. Most of us would consider this ample time to inspect, detect and reject Peden in the artful words of Arlo Guthrie. Nevertheless, here’s the projected timeline according to the article:

 

Peden is nearing the end of his disability process. This month, he received his final ratings from the VA and the Army. He expects to be able to start taking leave from his unit for good by about June, and he should finish the entire process by November at the latest.

Strikes me that he’s been playing Angry Birds and collecting E-5 pay for over two years and a few months and hopes to have this puppy in the bag by three. Anyone out there see a problem with this picture? Sound like delay, deny, until we die? I see it as a typical punishment for attempting to squirrel out of a commitment to serve. Either that or the babysitting/triage theorem is more on point. Either way, it’s certainly an unceremonious way to treat a warrior whose only desire is to go home and reintegrate with society. Considering the military frowns on those who lollygag and malinger, we would expect them to expedite this process to reduce payroll and preserve every dime possible for other military endeavors. Since Sgt. Peden doesn’t fall into the gold brick category, the insult is all the more egregious.

And we, as Veterans, thought we were getting the run around. Shoo, doggies. At least most of us get a denial in less than sixteen months. Too bad you can’t file a Writ of Mandamus in the Army.

 

 

 

Posted in Military Madness, PTSD, VA BACKLOG, VA Health Care | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

ARMY COMMISSIONS TATTOO POLICE

Posted on April 9, 2014 by asknod

tatI can’t believe the Army promulgated this new regulation. Hasn’t anyone been keeping up with the Navy and Marines for the last 70 years? They invented the tattoo-especially big naked women with big naked boobs. And now the Army has moved to put some strictures on the practice. All I can say is it’s about time. I personally have no druthers on the practice but it sure must be painful to get rid of them after they outlive their usefulness and pertinence to social issues… 

Here’s a link to the big “new” regs. They appear identical to what I grappled with in 1972. Same mustache and sideburn regs. as of old. Is this Army “rebranding”?

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VIETNAM MEMORIAL AT THE ASS END OF NOWHERE IN COLORADO

Posted on April 9, 2014 by asknod

vcL2Here’s a lovely piece of history with a huge question mark after it. Since I served under the Erawan in a round about way via USAID and Air America, I find it extremely interesting from several points of view. Obviously, this was well-thought out. As the commenter below the video theorizes, this was not trucked in. The weight alone precludes that. That someone would go to the great lengths they did to recognize and commemorate our service in the adjacent countries of Cambodia and Laos also speaks volumes to their devotion. 

vcL

vcL3

Yes. For all those eagle eyes, that’s a 60mm mortar on top.

Posted in Vietnam War history | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

OSHA TRAIN FART

Posted on April 9, 2014 by asknod

train fartThis complies completely with OSHA requirements for crossing a road. It fails the brain fart test, however. How and why trains stay on tracks must have never entered into the minutiae of the decision when faced with this dilemma. “Cross road? Protect hose. Roger that, over.” It really begs for a train to pop the balloon. Sent to us by LawBob Squarepants.

It’s also myopic proof of how government (read VA) approaches any conundrum and their “one-size-fits-all” mentality.

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A VA Dental Insurance experience

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Laura

So far so good!  

tooth

Happy mouth!

My spouse decided to give the VA Delta Standard plan a try because he didn’t think he needed much work done this year.  The monthly premium for our region is $9.73 per month.  So far he’s had xrays, an exam and cleaning (free) and had two cavities filled.  This is a very basic plan and only pays 50% of the fillings’ costs.  We paid $68.20 and $77.20 for 2 fillings. He’ll get one more free cleaning/oral exam in 6 months.  The 2014 premiums will total $116.76.  We estimate paying $262.16 for dental care for the entire year including the annual premium. Without this plan we would have paid about $700.00 out-of-pocket for the year so we’re saving some cash. One thing that really surprised me was how fast Delta paid the claims.  The dentist was paid within two-weeks after providing the service!  Delta has a website where you can see the dates but not other details. I think that getting the two yearly oral exams (including cancer screening) is probably the most important health benefit from having dental insurance.  This basic plan is affordable enough to “gift” it to a veteran as well.   Dental care practices were  horrible in the 50s and 60s but it’s pretty good now even for phobics.  Anyone with a history of HCV will likely have had some problems with their mouths/teeth so this is something to consider. Here’s the link: VA Dental Insurance Program.  Have any tips to share? Ed. note: HCV and Interferon treatment are known to cause all manner of dental dilemmas so this is good news for many to look into. Thanks for the heads up. This is also a classic example of  how Vets learn to navigate the VA labyrinth.

Posted in Guest authors | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

ALL MUST GIVE SOME BUT SOME MUST GIVE ALL?

Posted on April 7, 2014 by asknod

securedownloadAn interesting poster from member Tombo of the magnificent Marines. I’m not too het up on politics as most know but I reprint this as it is your forum-not exclusively mine. While I may agree with the sentiments, I am horrified that it implies we must acquiesce to the tenets of socialism. And who, pray tell, is the designated arbiter in charge of slicing the pie into correct portions? 

Posted in All about Veterans | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

POT FOR PTSD?

Posted on April 7, 2014 by asknod

imagesThis was on the front page of my fishwrap this morning. I don’t normally discuss the pros or cons of pot as a medicine. I think adults can come to their own conclusions on the subject with one simple test. What is evident is that those with no medical training or PTSD are at the forefront of a misguided movement saying there is no medical proof that it is beneficial. Some even go so far as to insinuate that it may actually be harmful and increase or magnify the effects of major mental disorders like PTSD. 

Let’s perform the logic test. Feel free to utilize inductive or deductive thought processes for this exercise. Have you ever heard of anyone armoring up and going out to hunt humans after a few bong hits? It’s far more likely they’ll make a frontal assault on the refer after the reefer. I don’t much remember those years after I came home from two tours in SEA. Without getting too specific, perhaps I was ahead of the curve on this by 42 years. I don’t advocate for or against the use. I live in one of the two states where it is now legal and no social approbation will attach to my comments. The VA can go piss up a rope. I’m twenty years protected now.

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FORT HOOD– THE PRAETORIAN GUARD SYNDROME

Posted on April 6, 2014 by asknod

I took several years of Latin in preparation for even more years of French. It was a cakewalk as my mom spoke French better than English. While studying Latin, we also ended up with a heavy dose of Roman History and the comings and goings of Julius Caesar. I’m sure some of you are familiar with the Rubicon River and it’s significance. Quite simply, the resemblance of the Rubicon to the front gate of Fort Hood is phenomenal. 

The bridge over what’s left of the Rubicon river.

Every Roman General when returning to Rome was required to encamp his army outside the city and proceed unarmed to greet the Senate. Some scholars point to this as the beginnings of the Dog and Pony show. Under no circumstances was he to bear arms or his army across the Rubicon River. The Government, on the other hand, was allowed to keep a SEAL Team of sorts called the Praetorian Guard that was the police force and the sole military authority inside the beltway. It was felt that any show of military force by a general could be construed as a potential coup d’etat. Politicians are mousy types and they relish their power. It just wouldn’t do to have some brash, swashbuckling O-8 show up with his wrecking crew.

In the nineties, President Clinton, in a misguided show of attempting to control guns, opted to disarm military troops upon their return to the continental United States (CONUS) from overseas deployment. Imagine that. Troops trained in the art of warfare with cutting-edge M-240 Squad Automatic Weapons were summarily relieved of their ammo and shooting irons upon their return and the same were locked up to prevent bloodshed. M-4s with grenade launchers were now verboten in the barracks. Idle hands were suddenly the devil’s workshop. And much like the Rome of old, only the Praetorian civilian (rentacop) police were now armed with 9 mil popguns. This was the perfect petri dish to examine how real, true gun control could finally become a teaching moment. With no guns, perfect harmony could exist. Folks could disagree but they would be relegated to harsh words, fisticuffs or rocks. Decades from now, progressive politicians could look back with pride and say “See? We told you so. Not only that, we showed you how to do it by restricting possession”.  Military bases are hardly a microcosm of society yet many politicians seems to think differently.

download (1)However, four times in the last five years, we have had a breakdown in the system and now it is in vogue to show up at Headquarters with a perceived complaint and settle it with a 12 gauge or a .45 ACP. This creates a big problem for the poohbahs in charge. What do you do? Paint even larger signs at the front gate re-reminding everyone that it is still unlawful to bring tools of mass destruction on base?  What is the punishment? Double-double secret restriction a la Dean Wormer? The crazy folks aren’t getting the email. What in Sam Hill’s the repair order?

Well, let’s look back on history. Before Slick William instituted his new pogrom, we had zero instances of troops going berserk in large numbers on base. I respectfully submit that the mayhem they indulge in off base has always been a liability but one takes the good with the evil. Actually, there were few reported instances of even a single soldier/airman/sailor going off the reservation and returning with his bow and arrows. Crime on base seemed relegated to spousal abuse and DUIs. Soldier-on-soldier violence was pretty much a knock down, drag out fight behind the barracks or the NCO club. Plenty of guns and ammo and nary a mishap of the Remington or Colt kind. Had anyone so desired, they could retrieve their assigned assault rifle and take out a company or two-or not. The reason was because there were enough deterrents in the form of thousands of others similarly situated with the exact same capability. We used to call this a Mexican standoff before we had to quit the  racial profiling gig.

Once again, our elected whizbangs are looking over the reports and saying “Where did we go wrong? How could we have prevented this?” The short answer is you can’t. Chaos theory does not account for this phenomenon in progressive military circles. The gentleman who recently disobeyed the regulations regarding armament on base was not entirely swayed or intimidated by the consequences of what might transpire if he arrived armed. No base security is so airtight as to prevent a crazy soldier who has sworn an oath to defend the US of A from smuggling a weapon in for some “I’ll show you” justice. I don’t know if the politicians are just incredibly dense or whether they understand that the cops at the front gate are tasked with keeping crazy, armed sand ranchers out-not our troops.

Boiled down to its essence, there simply is no defense against crazy. Witness suicide bombers or blue-on-green shootings over in Iraqistan. I fail to discern a difference. There is no mental litmus test to weed these unstable folks out just as there is no way to prevent one of them from arriving with a .223 chip on his shoulder. The proven repair order in any free fire zone of my youth was to arm everyone to the teeth and allow them carte blanche when anything (or anyone) goes south.

download (2)After the debacle at Fort Hood in 2009, I was almost sure they would review their myopic policy and rescind it. I was mistaken. Hence we now have a new military pastime akin to a video game. How many guys can I take out now that I’m down to one life?

Trust is something you earn. Trusting someone with a WMD like a grenade is a dicey proposition yet we manage to inculcate this ethic in hundreds of thousands of troops every year without the misfires we are coming to see more frequently now. The very act of collecting the weapons upon return to CONUS is an act of immense distrust on the part of our government. The term bitch slap rolls off my thesaurus tongue  Whether they genuinely fear a concerted effort to overthrow the government as Rome did or whether it is an inherent distrust of the individual soldier and his proclivity to go berserk, the decision still communicates one thing- “We don’t trust you.”

We have recently seen the VA innocently trying to harvest information about guns in the homes of PTSD-afflicted Vets and a planned stampede to confiscate them. The similarity here is once again striking. That same distrust that surrounds those of us who have been taught the art of war recently or in decades past grows daily. Each new shooting at a military installation becomes a confirmation of why the policy was instituted and why it should be expanded on. Which brings the pot to a boil. Just how can you make it any more distasteful and undesirable to become socially maladroit with a gun? A lifetime at Ft. Leavenworth making little ones out of big ones with a Big Chicken Dinner at the end just doesn’t seem to have the desired effect. Either the military isn’t communicating or they are not reaching the target audience (no pun intended).

In the sixties, as we armored up and prepared for war, my daddy observed that there were two distinct types of men. This was way before women were allowed to strap on body armor so don’t paint me as sexist. He summed it up thusly. There are those who run to the sound of gunfire and those who run away. The former are almost invariably military or formerly so. The latter are those who are not and harbor no desire to ever investigate the subject. The former are committed to making a difference or to alter an unjust outcome. They are trained and trusted to make life and death decisions. Their bona fides are never in question. The latter are girliemen and lack testicles.

How then to extrapolate that these defenders of democracy potentially pose a danger once they separate or retire? Similarly, why would anyone who chose to enlist or serve America in years past somehow now automatically have the taint of untrustworthiness or the cachet of cuckoo about them?

Political correctness may yet hit a new high. We shall see. Executive privilege is on the rise. I eagerly look forward to a smorgasbord of Burma Shave signs as you approach military installations in the near future that successively reiterate a tale of woe to any who would even contemplate entering armed. Well, boy howdy. That would sure clear the air and end all this foolishness, huh? Well, yes- except we’ve tried that method and it still has a few holes in it (pun intended). The alternative of returning to the Neanderthal arming of everyone 24/7 seems so uncivilized-or does it?

burma shave

That will be my one and only venture into political incorrectness this month. I apologise.

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