YOU ARE NOT IRRELEPHANT

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Mark Humor is unique. It’s a lot like my brand. It has to be on the edge to work. I think these qualify. Only the best .att00014att00018att00005

I’m thinking about going with an elephant after my lab dies. I’ve still got the Parrot from the 1978 divorce decision and it’s not working out quite like I planned. I Love Buddy but hey -43 years is a long time. I think maybe the car would have been a better deal.Mr. Bird

Posted in FACE HUMOR, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

SVR RADIO ON HADIT.COM TOMORROW

14477687041808359252Jerrel Cook and the gang over at Hadit.com have invited me over to their Radio show tomorrow. It’s 0900(L) on the Left Coast and three hours later on the east Coast or 1200 (L) for those of you trapped in St. Pete’s by the cold weather. 

We intend to talk about motivation and the urge to pull that striped handle between your legs and punch out of a claim when you lose. Look for that symbol above over at Hadit.com and be there for a come to Jesus meeting on VA claims.

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Posted in CAVC Knowledge, Earlier Effective dates, Tips and Tricks, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SOVALDI SIDE EFFECTS

8946057_origOne thing’s for sure. We’re going to wait a long time for the VA to get Sovaldi on the shelves. Vets are not worth $120K worth of pills no matter how many medals they have. What is of note is the nature of the side effects noted so far in the Gilead Sofosbuvir early trials. Adding in  the latest trials, there seems to be much ado about nothing for those of us in the Genotype 2 and 3 classes. They aren’t going to hose us with Interferon again at any rate. Here’s the skinny.

The good news is it looks about like all we have to fear is migraines and pruritus. If that’s the major punch list, I’ll deal with it. It sure beats the pants off Thyroid cancer, DM2, blindness, cognitive dysfunction and all those other interesting  illnesses with which to share with your fellow friends on Facebook.

Posted in HCV Health, Medical News, Sofosbuvir | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

RENAL CELL CARCINOMA -2NDARY TO HCV

RUMember 63Sierra from Hadit.com sends me this missive and asked that I post it for all of you. He finally attained SC for his kidney cancer secondary to HCV. While this is nothing to cheer about (the cancer) it is good news for those of you with it who seek to have it service connected. It may be an important stepping stone to Special Monthly Compensation or important simply because you may need the SC as insurance if you die from it before you get ten years of P&T under your belt. Always remember that. No tickee-no laundry. If you are not rated for it and you die from it, it isn’t service connected. Period. 

I know that sounds odd coming from a “nonadversarial” benign, rainbow land of Unicorns Agency, but it’s true. The letter of the law is anal. If you don’t build it, they won’t rate. Contrast that with your local VA service rep. down at the Watering Hole Inn convincing you, as only someone in the know can, that filing a bunch of claims will bring a lot of unwanted attention and denials. I’ve had some guys tell me that their rep. flat out refused to file it for them. Considering that they are the major porthole through which many of us must swim if we use the VSO system, this can be a make/break choice for many.

Fortunately for the internet, fewer and fewer of us are succumbing to the allure of that stupidity after the first trip. I sound trill and alarmist for a good reason. Within reason, in any subset of a beehive (Veterans Service Organization worker bees), there will be bright, intelligent ones and dull, lazy conniving ones. There will be subtle, social climbers wishing to get to the Holy Grail of District Commander and higher to State Level using the service rep. time as a stepping stone. There will be innumerable ones who have too heavy a caseload. Using Murphy’s First Law of Plumbing, we all know where defecation rolls to. Few VSOs have any talent pool of law. Any who do are swamped. Good news travels fast if you get Johnny Vet a retro CUE back to 1950 on an 80% claim/TDIU. All of a sudden you are Golden. There’s no panacea to this other than a law degree. You and your fellow over-35 tag  football team sponsored by Hooters® would no sooner go out and throw down the gauntlet to the Seahawks than should a 400- hour service rep. with the absolute army of VA  Juris Doctors they are preparing to do battle with.

With that said, one of 63 Sierra’s earlier emails reveals:

also yesterday I talked to my retarded DAV service officer, and told him abt it, today a guy called from VES sounding very ,very friendly, scheduling a c&p exam. he seemed WAY too helpful and friendly. So I don’t know if the vso passed the word to someone abt the kidney debacle and they are hopping now because of that.

See? Proof that your service rep. is good for something. They’re faster than UPS, too. The downside is 63 is only going to see any surgery 100%s and what not within the last year of  the day he spoke to the DAV rep. and the “informal claim” became “formal.” The smart money says the DAV rep and the VA Coach both play on the same Sunday morning Golf Club league and are on a first-name basis but that’s just the cynical me talking.

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Bob: “Did you see that case come in yesterday where the VAMC dropped the dime on that guy back in 2003 and forgot to tell him about the cancer? My boss sure would like to get his face on the front page of the National Gazette next month. Can you help me look good on that?”

Tom: “Sure can.  No problem. The Mailroom Coach brought it up last evening. Boss Coach said to get it rolling now and we scheduled a C&P for Monday down at QTC.  He’ll get some rating paper in about sixty days. That’s as fast as we can go with this new VBMS thing. We’re required to send his whole C-file out to be .PDF’d first. That’s the best I can do.”

Posted in HCV Health, HCV Risks (documented), Medical News, Nexus Information | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CAN YOU SPELL “DRAFT”?

download (1)They say you reap what you sew. We experienced this in Vietnam when we discovered we had no more MK 82s lying around left over from WW II.  We ended up buying them back from the German Air Force for 900 times what we sold them for. Then other shortages started popping up-like personnel. LBJ fixed that with the draft and we instantly had an unlimited cadre of unwilling souls led by the inept 90-day wonders that were pulled from ROTC programs. 

Jimmy Carter stripped the military to the bone again following Vietnam to administer all his new pet HUD and conservation programs. Each time, by not paying the piper as they went, the military was forced to cannibalize its resources and triage what was left. Jimmy had unwittingly starved the beast for so long he finally couldn’t even mount a credible hostage rescue in Tehran. There simply weren’t enough rangers/Delta up to speed to handle it.

Reagan entered the picture in the early eighties to find a hollow force that even the Soviet Empire found humorous. Over a decade later ,we again suffered a haircut such that we couldn’t mount a credible rescue in Mogadishu. I’m sure you remember the movie Blackhawk Down.

Here we go again. With absolutely nothing gained from all these lessons, the very souls entrusted with our national security and the ability to project for years to come, have myopically decided to abrogate long held agreements and legislation. While this is no anomaly and has occurred to us so many times as to defy counting, it would seem that these far thinkers and advocates for Veterans would think before they push print.

Imagine our mentor, our saviour of all these years- Sen. Nike Murray, former head of the Senate VA affairs and others like McCain all signed on to yet another disastrous breach of faith and decorum. Contracts signed in blood are being found to dissolve with the proper application of a strong Congressional Spray and Wash. Think free medical for life upon retirement. Then think Tricare for life-free. Then Tricare with a little co-pay. Then Tricare with a little 20% copay and even more for medications. Finally, the cat is out of the bag and we find Congress is also considering a wholesale revocation and conversion to National Medical Care (eventually).  For those of you who have not had to endure the VA model yet, imagine an 8-hour sojourn in a VAMC Emergency Department or calling ahead for an appointment and being told they can get you right in- in six week- for that septic arthritis and here’s some Clindamycin and Ibuprophen  in the interim.

When did it become appropriate and necessary to truncate our military and reduce us to a third world military power- indeed the laughing stock of the sand ranchers- all sacrificed on the altar of necessity for bogus social programs. Is a M-16 in the hands of a Marine somehow less important than an Obamaphone for a welfare queen in Chicago? If one was serious about reining in expenditures, it would seem prudent to give all that Foreign Aid to foreign countries a haircut and then assess the need for reducing Johnny Marine’s meals from three squares to two.

The downside to all this is perfectly illustrated in this article. Remember always President George Washington’s admonition as he retired to Mount Vernon at the end of his storied career.

“The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation.”

Gosh, does that have to be appended to the preface of every bill that eviscerates our Military and Veterans? If so, it would almost be capable of being memorized by now by all the patriotic members of Congress-assuming such animals exist.

Air Force pilots with a lot of experience are departing in droves and cross-training out of F-15s into 737s. It’s sure not because they like driving a milk truck instead of a Ferrari. The choice is merely one of last resort ahead of a squeeze play in the future that will find them superfluous. It’s always advantageous to have a plan than be part of someone else’s plan that doesn’t involve you anymore. The downside is glaring. You can’t draft a fighter pilot. You have to spends millions and invest years teaching him his trade. His intrinsic worth is in the air-not in a classroom saving JP-4.

Here’s the one who taught me all this- my Dad. Yep. He and my Uncle and Grandfather whose name I bear are why I signed up. I can’t say it will continue to run in the family though-especially in light of what we continue to see as “military policy”.

J

Summer 1966 Tan Son Nhut AB. Note the 20mm gun pod in the centerline station. Integral, inline guns were 86’d from the final AF production model by McNamara as being “archaic”. He was more interested in how many bombs it could carry.  
  
 

 

Commander, 4th TFW (1963) in front of another McNamara abortion – the Foxtrot 105C also known as a Thud.
 

The last WR-F P-51 June 1945

The last true fighter plane until
they came out with the F-15

Stay tuned for when they decide to abolish the Department of Veterans Affairs because no one is applying for benefits anymore.

Posted in All about Veterans, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

LIES, DAMNED LIES AND VA STATISTICS

downloadBenjamin Disraeli, the eminent British Prime minister said this in the late nineteenth century long before the VA was beginning to hit its stride at obfuscation and disingenuous, convoluted statistics showing up was left and down was, well, whatever they said it was. Samuel Clemens attributes it to him and no other so I think his lay testimony is admissible. Of course, it might not be if it argues with the VA’s synopsis of the truth.

Whatever the case, you will love this cache of intransigence collected for us by the Washington Examiner. Note that is is not a product of the Washington Post who tends to kowtow to the party line and would do nothing to besmirch the VA’s previously unsullied reputation. Perish the thought. Enjoy the articles. We advocate the consumption of a mind-relaxing drug to assuage what will undoubtedly be an enraged response to what you read. When the VA’s very own OIG is hurling deprecations at you for your questionable mathematics, you know you’re going to have a bit of a credibility issue. Or not. When has it ever bothered them before?

Posted in All about Veterans, Complaints Department, VA BACKLOG, vA news, VAOIG Watchdogs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

DVA–WE HAVE TO PASS IT TO SEE WHAT’S IN IT

download (1)In an old government trick so antique they don’t even have a name for it in DC anymore, the VA tried to trot out this innocuous document in Rodney King format (Can’t we all just get along?) but in the middle of the night over the holiday recess in an effort to have as little discussion on it as possible. Not satisfied with trying to throw banana peels in front of us, they want to cure the problem, once and for all, of the gol’ dang proclivity of the Veteran to say he has disease “A” when he doesn’t. He didn’t ask for disease “B” or we would have proceeded to investigate that. We are not mindreaders down here at the Regional Offices. If the Veteran doesn’t know what he’s filing for, he should be more careful. He or she has ample opportunities to seek out a service organization they feel is qualified to represent them. The forms are simple and straight forward. The average person can fill them out in less than two days so we and the OMB don’t consider them an unnatural or burdensome responsibility of the Veteran. This is a win-win for the claimant as it allows the VA to harvest everything multiple times  for each new claim or for even a simple increase in a SC rating. Here’s the new regulation proposal. 

When someone harvesting personal data asks to remeasure your health metrics each time you file, they are, in essence, able to control the characterization of the disease/injury and give it a name regardless of what you filed for. It used to help Vets. VA is now trying to harness their mechanical bull and put you on it.  You have now become Dr. Vet, M.D. What you say you have is gospel. If you have staying power, you’ll prevail one of these days. This is also an excellent ploy to assault your credibility which is the uppermost asset in your repertoire. If you neglect to recite the story identically each time you are required to resubmit it, your credibility is proven to be unreliable on history and therefore all your testimony in that regard is extremely suspect. Or, put another way, they put it in the circular file. No Benefit of the Doubt. No dice.

Read Harris v Shinseki here. It will give your the baseline from which it all went downhill. The Court merely put their collective foot down and drew a line between what is and what is most definitely not, proper gentlemanly behavior among civilized adults.

Now they seek to revisit it with a new, stealthy, slow mission-creep philosophy and retake the lost ground. Read this NSVLP/Purple Heart handout that cogently synthesizes the current legal posture to get a gist of the rewording and thrust of the proposed reg. change.

Here’s the tom-tom sound we hear going from village to village.

On Wednesday, January 1, 2014 7:16 AM, Lauren Price <mail@change.org> wrote:

The VA is attempting to do an “end-run” around a Circuit Court order (Harris v. Shinseki – Decided Jan. 4, 2013). The Court overturned the VA denial of the veteran’s claims. This case is precedence setting because it goes beyond the BVA and upholds veterans rights to the filing of an “Informal Claim”.

These types of claims have been a cornerstone of claims filings for 80 years. But this is the first time a veteran has been successful in forcing the VA to accept one and approve benefits retroactively.

This court order made the VA VERY unhappy. So much so, that someone in the VA ivory tower decided to try to find a way to stop it from ever happening again.

The VA filed a “proposed change” to the Federal Register on October 31, 2013 with a 30 day comment period. Unheard of in the rule change world. They did this over the holidays, with a short trigger, specifically to avoid public comment and Congressional inquiry.

The change they want? Initially, it appears that they are asking simply for a “standardized claim form” to be added to their many forms. However, after meticulous review by VeteranWarriors and Bergmann & Moore Law Group, it was discovered that the VA was actually trying to bypass this court order and completely remove the “informal claim”. Oh, and also require a very specific form and format (along with specific medical and legal knowledge that most veterans do NOT have) to disagree with any decision handed down by the VA.

In other words, the VA crafted a plan to inhibit claim filings AND thwart disagreements – all completely counter to the VA legal requirement to assist the veteran and that all claims were to be viewed to the veterans’ benefit.

VeteranWarriors and Bergmann and Moore Law Group, along with about 40 others, have filed comments inside the tiny window offered. Both groups are going to be petition the House and Senate Committee’s on Veterans’ Affairs for investigations and hearings on this absolute betrayal of veterans’ by the VA leadership.

Please contact your Senators’ and Congressmen’ today! Tell them to FORCE the VA to cease and desist with these proposed changes as they violate veterans’ rights and the Circuit Court order.

(Link to the proposed change request on the Federal Register: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=VA-2013-VBA-0022-0001)

“One Family, One Fight”

Very respectfully,

YN1 Lauren Price USN, (Ret.)

Public Affairs Representative

VeteranWarriors

727.247.8141

veteranwarriors@yahoo.com

http://veteranwarriors.weebly.com/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/VeteranWarriors1

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P.S. Here’s another take on it from VA Watchdog sent in by attorney Doug Rosinski. This one coalesces the essence of the “mission-creep” philosophy VA employs to  denigrate your claim. Remember, with the Fully Developed Claim (FDC) we were introduced to the demise of Duty to Assist and told to go out and play fetch if we wanted our claims to be adjudicated in less than three years.

On October 31, 2013, VA published a proposed rule which seems to be flying under the radar.  Perhaps that is because the Federal Register notice is entitled “Standard Claims and Appeals Forms” and most people have not paid much attention to it.  Despite its boring title, I can assure you that this is potentially one of the most far-reaching rule changes in a very long while.  We have attached the comments of the Veterans Justice Group LLC which more fully explains our concerns with this VA action.

 In this rulemaking, VA is proposing nothing short of creating a fully adversarial appeals process for denied claims beginning at the Notice of Disagreement (NOD) and a “completeness” requirement for initial claims that sets the effective date of an award as the date VA agrees that a claim is “complete” — not the date a claim is submitted.  Both of these changes turn the VA process on its head by creating new duties for claimants and shifting some current VA duties to claimants.  Ironically, in our view, the disruption caused by these changes — not to mention the direct effect on claimants’ ability to file and appeal claims — is very likely to cause more delays and morewasteful litigation.

 While we believe very strongly that the Secretary does not have the legal authority to implement the radical process changes proposed in this rulemaking, it is stunning to us that he would try to do so under the guise of “standardizing” VA forms.  Actually, we are supportive of standardized forms and VA correspondence, as it is incredibly frustrating to receive 57 (or more) versions of rating decisions, etc., from VA.  It is, however, quite another thing altogether to dismantle the “non-adversarial” VA system in the process.  

Two proposals are particularly stunning.  In the first, VA proposes to eliminate the “substantially” complete and “informal” claim categories.  Instead, there will only be “incomplete” and “complete” claims.  Anything other than a “complete” claim “could not be the basis of an effective date.”  Further, to be “complete” a veteran’s claim application would have to state the “specific medical conditions” for which he or she seeks benefits.  

 Again, we do not believe that the Secretary has the legal authority to implement such a requirement.  But, unless the proposal is changed or withdrawn, it may very shortly be the case that a veteran cannot even submit a claim unless he or she states a specific medical condition – no more “mental condition,” “back problem,” or “trick knee” claims.  And, as we read the proposed rules, if the condition specified is not the exact diagnosis by a VA doc – the claim will be denied (so a claim for PTSD will be denied if diagnosed as depression, even though both are rated from the same criteria).  This will surely “streamline” VA claims processing.  It is, however, little more than a re-packaged “well grounded” claim requirement (which Congress revoked in 2000).  Only this time, VA would be able to block claims from being filed AND later reject other claims for failing to claim the specific medical condition.

 The second change is equally damaging to veterans.  A Notice of Disagreement (NOD) under the proposed rules would not only need to be submitted only on a specific VA form (and “complete”), but would also have to specifically “enumerate the issue or conditions for which appellate review is sought” and “any issues or medical conditions not enumerated would not be considered appealed.”  In other words, VA is trying to get out of its statutory requirement to consider any issues “reasonably raised by the record” by creating a duty for a claimant/appellant to identify all the issues or forever lose the ability to have those claims reviewed.  Some call this a “technical pleading” requirement, which is essentially how every adversarial court operates – if you start an appeal it is your duty to identify the issues and the issues not raised are considered abandoned.  

Once again, we do not believe that the Secretary has the authority to make this change, but if these rules are implemented, EVERY VETERAN RECEIVING A DENIAL BETTER GET AN EXPERIENCED VETERANS LAW ATTORNEY BEFORE SUBMITTING AN NOD because failing to note any factual or legal issue ON THE NOD will be waived and become final without appeal.

As experienced veterans law attorneys, the proposed changes are about as good for business as anything that could be proposed.  We are not rejoicing, however, because we also realize as experienced veterans law attorneys the magnitude of confusion and distress that these proposed changes would bring to essentially every veteran attempting to file a claim or appeal an unfair denial.  The VA system simply cannot be “modernized” by abandoning the fundamental pillars of “non-adversarial” claim adjudication and VA “duty to assist.”  This is especially true when there are so many other, less disruptive actions that remain untried.  

 Indeed, the agency admitted in the Notice of rulemaking that it takes an average of more than 3 weeks (“22.6 days”) for mail received at a VA office to reach the claim adjudicator.  That mail is then put (or scanned) into a file without an index.  As we noted in our comments, it takes just as long to find a standard form in an unindexed 1,000 page file as it does to find any other document.  For the second largest agency in the federal government to fail to address these two problems – something no other entity seeking “efficiency” and “streamlined” processes would ever tolerate – is incredible.  To the contrary, the actual proposed actions emphasize barriers to new claims and appeals, rather than more efficient administrative practices.

In sum, until the Secretary can figure out how to have the mail delivered across a building in the same time that the Post Office takes to send it across the country, we will remain unconvinced that gutting the rights of veterans and their families is the “only” way to improve efficiency.

Doug Rosinski, Esq.

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VAOIG’S LATEST ATTABOY LIST

va oigWe always get a big bang out of the VA’s OIG squandering millions of dollars in pursuit of $10. In construction, we call it 10¢ chasing a dollar. While I admire the verve and devotion to duty that seems endemic in the OIG, I feel they ought to branch out and meet with the little people who make the complaints that spark these boondoggles to faraway VAMCs and VAROs. 

Imagine an inspector actually sitting down with someone who waited in a VA Emergency Room for ten hours. Eliciting a conversation about how the patient felt about his experience  might be more productive than arriving like the Keystone Kops and looking under all the flower pots. The OIG seems to take a hands on approach similar to the O.J. Simpson murder trial. I’m sure you recall the press he got while searching for his wife’s killer on all the major private golf courses in the Southeast. Oddly, he was unsuccessful, or, in the vernacular of the OIG, “it was not substantiated that any suspects were located”.

Imagine if you will, a comprehensive investigation sans whitewash, that actually attempted to determine a timeline, a set of suspects and a putative crime or misfeasance. Surely there is some middle ground that bears closer examination as to why anyone has to wait half a day to be seen by large, new, modern VAMCs equipped with all the latest medical gizmos.

VAOIGYou will have fun reading about all the sons, daughters, wives et al who attempt to continue receiving direct deposit funds for dead Vets. What is that all about? If I do nothing and just keep spending his money, they won’t come? Somebody hasn’t been watching Field of Dreams much. If you spend it, they will come. The VA is hooked into the SSA computer. Hell, if they aren’t, the NSA is. Somehow this is going to get out. It’s a lot more serious when you do it to the government. Consider the OIG to be akin to the local Fire Station. Everyone is there on duty waiting for the Fraud call. They have plenty of personnel, funds and access to Federal Marshalls ad nauseum. They sit and stare at the telephone just waiting to turn on the lights and sirens.

One word of caution. Be careful who and how much you insult. I’d say it can be intimidating to go off on them about shredding your records and other crimes. The OIG has a nasty habit of turning on you like a pit bull and chewing on you instead. Ask Keith Roberts about that one. He’s still sorting out the fallout from his legitimate complaint in 2000 that resulted in an all-expenses vacation at the Fed. Pen for four years for alleged fraud. He is slated to get a new BVA hearing on restoration of his ratings soon. It certainly won’t be soon enough for him and his family.

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P.S. Here’s their monthly update if you need any more serious reading in the library.

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THE SHARPER IMAGE FARMER

downloadVeterans Administration psychiatrists are quick to tell you that Veterans, as a whole, are more prone to mental aberrations like being anally retentive, suffer obsessive compulsive disorder and antisocial, positively icky personalitites. Well, why wouldn’t they? Those are manifestations of personality disorders that, fortunately, do not have to be remunerated by VA. 

Nevertheless, these obsessive compulsive disorders have been known to have all manner of permutations. I take gardening. Some Veterans are anal purists like me and prefer their endeavors have identifiable characteristics. The flavor is radically different when condensed. Here are an example using apples. The bag on the left is exclusively Fuji towards the back of the orchard whereas on the right it is 100% pure, unadulterated Gravenstein applesauce from a tree with a generally good southern exposure in the waning days of summer.

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Or this, perhaps. Several different butternut squash flavors. The one on the left is called the common “Howard’s” . It’s probably from the Lord’s prayer. Remember that? When you were a kid and used to say it when the B40 went whooshing over your head?  Our Father who art in Heaven -Howard be thy name? The one on the right is the Divine- the smaller ones with those little green stripes.  They have so much sugar in them, I always think about building a still as in reduction and refinement into a more complex ethanol atom.

2014-01-02 18.22.37

 

 

Posted in Food for the soul, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

PROJECT SANCTUARY

imagesHere’s a real hands-on charity in Colorado. I read over their 2012 IRS 990  Sanctuary 990 2012 and liked what I see. 

HorseRider_web_hmpgProject Sanctuary conducted ten retreats in 2011, their latest year tabulated above. That took 103 military families-Dads, Moms, and in many cases children as well, on secluded getaways where they could connect with each other, society, nature and re-acclimatize themselves to normalcy. It didn’t cost the Veterans a dime.  One of the founders, and a Registered Nurse in her own right, Heather Ehle, uses the Field of Dreams technique. If we build it, they will come. And come they do.  By word of mouth. Social networks. Veterans networks. This road map is also preparing to spread into Utah and beyond next year. Ms. Ehle isn’t certain how but that is immaterial. Retreats “happen”.

While I cannot speak for a serviceman who has fought in this most recent conflict, I can say with a small degree of memory that coming home to America after a two-year deployment occasionally involving free-fire zones takes some getting used to. You tend to sit in corners facing out. Your peripheral vision is incredible. Loud booms like cars backfiring make you hit the ground pronto. I suppose if it had been invented back in 1972, that I could have called it PTSD. The military, due to budget restraints, characterized it as a personality disorder or two and gently performed their “catch and release” policy. This effectively told me I was on my own. I lived in the Mojave desert and talked to turtles and sidewinders for a year. I went to work for a munitions factory but the occasional exploding ordnance (accidental) was not a positive mental reinforcement. Hell. It was actually more like old home week. I moved until I touched back down. Got married. Had a daughter. Got divorced. Eight years with no one to talk to about it. I was the square peg in the round hole.

Immersing yourself back into a family and the kids must be immeasurably more difficult. Mind you, I was single and didn’t have any attachments. Everyone I knew was a friend of the last six months to a year. No deposit, no return friends. It would be several years before I could even contemplate the hurtle of a commitment. With the miracle of the internet, these troops form very close friendships with their brothers-in-arms and bond for life in many cases. How these young guys and gals do it married is beyond me. Reading through the Guidestar statistics, I noticed the accolade – “Love this organization! They have helped keep families of veterans intact and so far, ZERO suicides!” That pretty much says a mouthful. To put that in perspective, since 2007 they’ve been helping troubled families not only hold their marriages together, which is no small feat in its own right, but somehow have prevented any of their alumni from winning the Lead Lollipop Award. Twenty three Veterans are daily choosing this option nationwide. Somehow, these folks in Colorado are making a major difference with the troops and avoiding this pitfall. That, too, speaks volumes.

I can’t begin to express my gratitude to those who selflessly do this for the warrior class. What’s more, to do it with little or no remuneration year-in and year-out  defies imagination. In the words of my three year old grandson when I make a quarter come out of his ear- “How did do do dat?

 

Heather@projectsanctuary.us

jason@projectsanctuary.us

downloadAfter reading through innumerable 990s and mission statements from several different charities some like the Semper Fi Fund manage to help vets effortlessly like Project Sanctuary. They even offer cash disbursements seven days a week.

Granted we can’t be like Superman and save the world everywhere all the time. We have our own Clark Kent lives and worlds to inhabit. That any of you even find the time to volunteer, to feel the urge to contribute to a disenfranchised minority, the desire to see someone less-well situated worry a little less, amazes me no end. One look in a shopping mall reveals a very new and naive young narcissistic society immersed in their mobile phone worlds.  Let’s hope this is a youthful indiscretion and that it will blow over. It has the potential to drown these kinds of endeavors.  Salute those who choose, for whatever reason, to volunteer  but take your hat is off to the truly selfless. I like charities whose mission is simple, direct and focused on a singular objective-the Veteran- or more appropriately- the endangered or at-risk Veteran.

Posted in Approved Veterans Charities, Future Veterans | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment