Please, ladies and gentlemen. Think twice when you don your undergarments in the morning. Only you can prevent this visual hari-kiri. I have Trish Valleyly to thank for this on my socially mediated site. I could not bring myself to hide it. It’s not for the weak of heart, either.
Arkhick50, one of our fellow members (and fellow Vietnam Veteran) claims another win. Having mastered the art of “Win or Die”, it seems he has the Little Rock VARO teetering back on their heels. If you recall, he finally hit the jackpot back in September of 2012 at his RO without the dreaded appeal to DC. Following up on that with a carefully orchestrated attack, he was able to convert on Point After Touchdown and turn his 90% into a TDIU for 100%. This will be retroactive to his filing in March of 2011. All according to plan.
The VA has turned him down for his HCV claim which simply sets the stage for a later fight. A well-written letter by Dr. Cecil should be all that is necessary to produce a win in that column as well. Mr. Arkhick has two excellent risk factors of STD documented in service as well as a more than probable transfusion in the very last days of his enlistment following a severe automobile accident. Between the two, his chances are somewhere between good and great.
As with most Vets, that ingrained feeling of the retribution so many Vets hear about the VA still lingers in his mind. To go for the HCV or to leave well enough alone? I suggested two things. If he dies of HCV unrated within the next ten years it’s sayonara DIC to his significant other. I do not see the danger. His claim is legitimate and without fraud. I believe he should pursue it for any number of reasons-SMC being the big second one. Mostly, I counsel him to pursue it because it is his due. He earned it and he shouldn’t have to beg and grovel for it. More appropriately, he shouldn’t have to quail at the idea of losing one claim for having the intestinal fortitude to pursue another.
Few realize Ark has been at this far longer than most. He spent a lot of time researching it before he pushed print at my old site. He was computer ignorant when he started and was armed with little more than a typewriter. His knowledge of the process has blossomed like an algae bloom in a lake and is suffocating the VA. With his TDIU in the bag, he got the Permanent and Total rating up front. VA is not disputing he’s eligible. Usually this would entail a two year wait and a follow-on C&P to make sure he wasn’t faking it. His preparation was total and his reasoning so flawless they put up no resistance. This is the essence of the theme of the asknod book. This is his take on it in his own words:
The value to them of seeing another success story, even if it isn’t a Hep victory, should give hope to many guys like me who see that 85% turndown stat you often remark about, and perhaps receive a jolt of inspiration and say to themselves-“if this guy can do it by himself and if he says he learned practically everything he needed from AskNod, I can do it too”-then when month after month stacks up with no response from the VARO, he sees this and looks over his claim again, goes back out to your site with a new commitment to research every posting again to see if he’s missed anything, because that’s what I did and I taught myself the medical terminology necessary to prosecute my claim to the finish (still some left to do). They really need to “Believe” that the hours spent night after night researching are well-spent in order to develop the attitude necessary to be successful. Those were agonizing days going up the long lane to the mailbox everyday at my buddy’s place, only to find it empty or filled with stuff for Larry. There has to be hope to keep doing this in the dark days and that’s why I think a story about a guy going from 0% to permanent and total TDIU in 25 months, might reach a few veterans who are on the precipice of giving up, who have put their claims in an envelope and put in on the top shelf of the closet and haven’t thought about it since.
Without you arkhick50 would still exist and it would never have been necessary to unveil kanhick50, so with each of these victories you should take an internal bow and do an “aw shucks, I was just doing what came natural to me”.
Trust me, kandohick50. I take an internal bow and congratulate all of you for your steely resolve. I might inspire you and others but you carry the water. The victory is wholly yours.
Seems like something is afoot in the backlog department. Perhaps this is the new VA where everyone’s a winner. Of course if you believe that, I’d like to invite you to join my local chapter of the Flat Earth Society. We meet monthly right on the edge of the known Earth down near Chehalis, Washington. The view is stupendous. You can see China if you hold a mirror under the edge. Now, without further ado, meet March Madness- Arkhick Kanhick for all the marbles:
I know a lot of you by now are beginning to think this is disgustingly easy. I assure you it is not. Every one of the ladies and gentlemen who grace these pages has prepared long and hard. Ploughshares were abandoned. Spears and swords were sharpened. Long letters were written. Many hours were spent searching for the Holy Grail of winning claims. Here at asknod, it seems, more have found success than failure. Why that is becomes a study in perseverance. Every last one of you had the fire in your belly and none lost the zest for pursuing that which was your due. I’d call it anally compulsive disorder. My electric and phone bills bear the scars as well. Between them and the book, it seems like money well-spent.
Nothing gives me more joy than getting these letters. Well, nothing other than the flush of victory that comes with the defeat of a common foe. Remember Janis Joplin’s famous Me and Bobbie McGee written by Kris Kristofferson? Part of my inspiration for Win or Die comes from the seminal lyric “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” It neatly sums up the situation we face with a VA claim. With little or nothing left to lose, we, too, have only one option. Sadly 53 of our fraternity pass away every day before they attain it. 22 take their own lives daily in frustration-in no small measure due to the interminable delay they face waiting for meaningful help. None of this sways the hierarchy at the VA. Were I the VASEC, I would be mortified to be calling cadence on this march to the charnel house.
Arkhick50 represents the 36th in a line of padewans who have graduated to become Jedi Knights. I pray I live to see a hundred more prevail. I secretly hope I kill this bug and live to teach a thousand. I would hope that some of you will hear the calling and pay it forward for others less fortunate. Trust me when I say it is food for the soul the likes of which there is no other.
Some day, after the cure for HCV has quelled the spread and healed us all, this facet of the battle will cease. Unfortunately the injustice will still fester like gangrene until a sea change occurs in the thinking down in DC. Vets will get justice when our system reaches parity with the SSI model-and not before.
P.S. Small error here. I miscounted. Randy was #35, Robert #36 and Arkhick #37. Brainfog is a terrible thing to comprehend. I apologize. Too many wins in to short a period of time. I’m not accustomed to it.
Do you have what it takes?
Member Shawn emailed me this one. Priceless. How do you fix an intractable backlog that refuses to be tamed? Universal approval now with an audit later? No way, Jose. Mo’ money for them suckers. About $27 billion more to be more precise. Man, if that don’t bring in 125-day, 98% on target by 2015, nothing will. What’s that? We said that in 09? Well, we’re doubling down. We mean business.
For years we Vietnam Vets have been spanked on different cancers that were not on the list of approved Agent Orange diseases [38 CFR § 3.309(e)]. You could come down with it but somehow it always wasn’t on the magic list. Here, Gerald D. Green has come down with cancers of the upper throat and tonsil region. If you were inhaling AO into your lungs, this would be the first mucus lining to be struck. Next, the esophagus , the lungs ad nauseum. Apparently, according to VA, it only lodges in the lungs (if you were a non-smoker).
VA has “the List” and if you aren’t on it, you don’t get a seat in this restaurant. Period. Vets have fought this presumption for years with mixed success. Depending on which way the wind was blowing, you might win- but only on appeal with a dynamite nexus or two. No one has ever won where there was a clear finding that the National Academy of Sciences has stated there is a “negative correlation” meaning, of course that clinical data (measured) had found no relationship. This is a medical “finding” and one that would be nigh on to impossible to overcome with just a simple nexus letter. Likewise, failing a favorable nod from the Institutes of Medicine that agrees with the disease as being listed, you claim is doomed.
I try to impress on you, as Vets, what a “holding” or “finding” is legally with the VA. It is a determination, pro or con, on any given piece of evidence and the conclusion arrived at by taking all the assembled evidence and recreating it like a plane crash. You’ve seen the TV shows about Pan Am’s Flight 800 where they reconstructed it, piece by piece in the empty hanger? Imagine your claim from Vietnam being built like this. If you don’t have enough pieces of airplane, you aren’t going to get the answer. Apparently, this happens to about 85% of you unlucky Vets. Once a finding or holding is arrived at, nothing short of another legal expedition proving it is clearly and unmistakably erroneous will dislodge it. Nothing. Ever. Period. Forever. This is why you have to be so anally perfect in how you construct a claim. There can’t be any “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll come back and fix it up later if they call me on it.” Bingo. You’re done.
As with any decision by the VARO or the BVA, you have to take the component pieces and view them independently as the Court did here. If the rear aileron is mounted on the wing and it is painfully obvious it doesn’t belong there, VA will nevertheless take the position that you are unqualified to make that assessment or “it cannot be said that it does or does not belong there. Any conjecture would be speculative”. What the Court discovered on close inspection was what Mr, Green’s new mouthpiece was now parroting for the Jerrymeister. The NAS study the BVA cited to rebut and refute four nexuses by two doctors (treating) did not come to the conclusion they insisted it did.
Appellant’s brief by Bryan Anderson. You have to love the ascerbic, dripping humor of “misplaced adverbs”.
Judge Davis‘ brief- the one that counts. Now, I want you all to read the next sentence below. It sums up the essence of VA OGC jurisprudence. This is what purports to pass for cogent, reasoned thinking followed by putting the legal mouth in gear and letting out the clutch in one smooth move like Exlax®:
Appellee’s brief
Out of the mouths of babes. As this happened at the Court and not down at Vermin Avenue NW, one has to wonder if someone forgot to proofread it. Perhaps Adobe 1.5 wasn’t up to the task. Allow me to paraphrase the above in case it’s meaning is camouflaged to any of you. I’ll write it in OGCspeak.
Ronen Morris (appellee attorney for the OGC holding this bag)
Yep. That pretty much sums it up. I had a long talk this morning with our Maple syrup-swilling member Frank. He is utterly taken aback at the idea that VA would induce him into not filing in 2005 saying he was ineligible. He belatedly found out at a VA Anonymous meeting . You know. The one where each Vet stands up and says “Hi. I’m _____. I’ve been filing and losing now for 19 years (sober) with the DAV.” He was even more consumed with the perfidy of one of his physicians who actually opined for all of posterity to read that he (the doctor) was alarmed that old Frank might file against VA for wrongdoing and that he wasn’t going to say nuthin’ to nobody. Open mouth. Shoot foot. And it’s in writing in his VISTA records, no less.
Gerald got a good shake from Judge Davis here. He reversed rather than remanded because once again the VA couldn’t play fair. If they were so dead set against giving Mr. Greenski any boulevard bucks they should have found someone for thirty pieces of silver. Surely there was some down-on-his-luck proctologist willing to become an instant otolaryngologist with a minor in toxicology? Considering they had spent untold quantities of taxpayer dollars defending the VA’s good name up to this point, it was a given they were going to need a fallback position if things went south. It did and they didn’t. The rest will be history.
Let this be a lesson every time they tout their 86% accuracy rating in claims. This wasn’t just a “misplaced adverb” as Jerry’s rainmaker Bryan Anderson put it. This was some serious misconstruing. I see with interest that Judge Davis chose Caluza to enunciate the Golden Triangle rather than Shedden or Hickson. Good form.
Because this is a new decision, you can reach it now by going here. Click on the last little blue doomoflotchie at the bottom where it says Memorandum decision. Great reading.
In the future, after this is archived, you will only be able to reach it by going to search for decisions and enter 11-2053. It will be Green (Gerald D.)v. Shinseki 2011
Da Judge.
Reversals are so much fun to read and you know the ending without having to watch the movie.
Gina Kolata’s 1993 article in the NYT, Mysterious Epidemic Of Furtive Liver Virus, reports on work by Dr. Leonard Seeff, a VA (DC) doctor at that time. That led me to a 1999 article http://www.hepatitis-central.com/hcv/vets/1948.html Pubmed Abstract. Full free article: http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=713225 45-Year Follow-up of Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Healthy Young Adults
We found that 0.2% of the 8568 participants were confirmed by RIBA 3.0 as being positive for HCV.
To our knowledge, we describe the earliest confirmed detection of HCV infection in the United States. Because the recruits were obviously not interviewed for potential risk factors, the sources of infection cannot be determined. Our results suggest that a low rate of HCV infection has been present in the United States for the past five decades, especially in military populations. Presumably, the rate in the general population began to increase in the 1960s along with parenteral drug abuse; this may account for the higher prevalence of HCV infection found in NHANES III. It is unknown why more African-American Air Force trainees than white Air Force trainees in our study were positive for HCV; however, this trend has also been seen in the recent NHANES III study. Also of note, all but 1 of the 11 persons in whom HCV RNA was detected were characterized as having genotype 1b; the remaining person could not be genotyped. This frequency of genotype 1b is higher than that currently found in the United States and other western countries (34). Although the reason for this prevalence is unknown, presumably genotype 1b was the predominant genotype when the original studies were conducted.
Gina Kolata followed up with Dr. Seeff (now at NIH) in a 2000 NYT article about the Wyoming HCV AF survivors. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/11/science/old-blood-samples-offer-new-clues-to-a-medical-mystery.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
From what I’ve been reading, HCV probably entered the Caribbean and US during the slave trade but it was transmitted inefficiently.
Ewwww. It makes you want to go wash your hands. I’m sorry, folks. Janebo is never going to float my boat unless I launch it in a urinal. Considering the stellar reputation her father enjoyed, how or why she would choose communism and being a traitor over good deeds and an illustrious career in Hollywood is unfathomable. So much talent wasted on self-indulgence and narcissistic pursuit of the camera lens. Too bad it was in downtown Hanoi, Janebo. You missed your calling. I guess I will “get a life” by foregoing The Butler.
This is one of those stories I have been itching to write. I have been waiting exactly six thousand nine hundred and thirty nine days. Due to the backlog in 1994, somehow this one got overlooked. I am fond of the Shakespearean verse from Richard III where he shouts “A horse! A horse!. My kingdom for a horse!” and the verse it spawned (or vice versa)
The modern day appendage to this is my 1994 claim for what I thought was Porphyria Cutanea Tarda (PCT), secondary to Hepatitis in service or from Agent Orange. For lack of a lawyer, the claim was lost. VA can’t leave these things alone and immediately turned it into a claim for hepatitis and a claim for porphyria due strictly to AO. In relatively short order (seven months and seven days), they denied because there were no records in my SMRs of hepatitis and that I was never in Vietnam. At some point they had mailed me a C&P for a tinnitus exam and I missed it.
I dutifully filed my NOD and sent them evidence to rebut both the above. They received it and also issued a Statement Of the Case (SOC) January 9th, 1995 admitting as much. I was chastised for missing my last C&P for tinnitus and rescheduled for February 8th. I attended that and sat back to wait. I became ill and gradually forgot about it. These matters take time. My AMVET told me so. Apparently there was a backlog in 1995- or not.
When I became far too ill to work any more in 2006, I refiled for the same three claims. My shiny new Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH) SO chose to use exactly what the VA had used so it would be a “reopening” of the 1994 claim. Thank You Bruce. Within three months VA had approved me for tinnitus but paid me back to 1994. Being stupid, I thought that was perfectly normal. That’s when they screwed up. If they’d just given me my new date of 2007, I’d be dumb and happy and wouldn’t be typing this.
When I prevailed on the hepatitis in 2008, I found it odd that I had won on the exact same 1994 evidence I resubmitted in the reopening. VA had not acknowledged I was in Vietnam until April of 2007 even though I sent them those very same records on December 2nd, 1994. I decided to fight. If they paid the tinnitus back to 1994, something was going on.
Just because you hold the winning cards and no one can dispute it, you still don’t own the gambling hall where you’re playing. The VA dealer can say “Sorry, bud. That’s a losing hand. You didn’t file your Form 9.” In order to verify it’s a losing hand, you have to know what the dealer is holding. You can’t just take his word for it. I requested my C-file to see who was funning whom. There, in black and white was the new and horribly material evidence I submitted that they admitted receiving and dated stamped December 7th, 1994- a day that will live in infamy. It was also the evidence they were now denying existed until 2007.
VA has no operations plan to describe what happened in 1994-95. The evidence in the file, called the EOR (evidence of record), is a record of what transpired-not what was supposed to have transpired. However, VA attempted to reconstruct the 1994 decision based on what should have happened if it had been done according to Hoyle. They looked at the SOC as having a cutoff date sixty days from the receipt of the SOC or, in the alternative, within one year of the initial denial. VA looked through the file and saw no further correspondence or activity after my tinnitus C&P in February and simply forgot about it. Case closed. Claimant forgot to perfect appeal. This was explanation number one. If you ignore the evidence prior to the SOC, you can come to this conclusion. Since VA said the decision was based on all the EOR, something was amiss.
When I was finally granted my PCT claim five months later, VA short sheeted me once again and refused to revisit 1994. This time the Decision Review Officer (DRO) freely admitted (and contradicted the denial rationale of the hepatitis claim) they had indeed received the new evidence of duty in Vietnam. No mention of any hepatitis records submitted, mind you. That was another subject. Stay with us, Mr. Nod. This is very confusing. This evidence did not prove I had PCT according to them. It merely proved I was there. Explanation #2 was to say that if… IF…I had sent in my Form 9 in time, they would have mailed me a Supplemental SOC continuing the denial even though my service in Vietnam (and presumptive exposure)was conceded. This lovely explanation failed to take into account that they never acknowledged I was there (in Vietnam) until April 2007.
Last but not least, a third explanation was proffered. Yes we paid you back to 1994 for tinnitus because your claim was still open and there was some “disagreement” about the terms. However, do not confuse the Tinnitus claim with the Hepatitis or PCT claim because Tinnitus was a separate claim and had nothing to do with the other two. This explanation, too, fell flat because it doesn’t explain why they didn’t pay me the $85/month for another thirteen years. When you lie, you have to have a perfect timeline. You need to have the same rater doing the claim so his excuse or lie is going to dovetail in with the prior tale he was weaving. Here, you have three different authors with three different stories as to how 1994 went down. The dichotomy is so glaring that the proper procedure is to bring out the bowl and wash your hands of the whole affair like Pontius Pilate.
The die was cast. VA refused to budge. Since they controlled the RO and the wallet, there was no more argument. I went the extra mile on a DRO review to boot on all three claims thinking this was the ticket to a rational, intelligent individual who could sort it out. Wrong. No one could see or admit the presence of the submitted evidence in 1994. Or, if they did, it was to say it was not probative. What was never discussed was that by the act of submitting the evidence, a new decision was required as mentioned in the 1995 SOC. If you anally pursue the lack of a Form 9, you can divert attention to the want of that horseshoe nail. Eventually someone has to acknowledge that the shoe was never nailed on in the first place.
Fully confident in my verbal abilities, I had a Board hearing face-to-face for an hour and forty minutes and felt I had finally removed the cobwebs and resolved the confusion. The Veterans Law Judge merely rubber-stamped the RO decision and carefully avoided the tarbaby of the Pearl Harbor Day evidence. How long they thought they could skirt this issue and refuse to discuss it and the pertinence to 38 CFR §3.156(b) and/or (c) was predicated on their assumption that I would abandon it. VA counts on this. VA depends on this. This is why you have to keep that Win or Die mentality about you. Hold your cards and don’t fold. Call the pit boss over to look at your hand again. Have him tell you the dealer is right. Get it on paper.
VA is loathe to pay out old, large settlements. How much is a large one? Probably over $25,000 dollars these days. Ever since they were forced by the MOPH to rescind the Exorbitant Awards Program in 2008, VA has been communicating these on back channels to avoid appearances of impropriety. My settlement, based on medical evidence well-documented, is on the order of 20% for Hepatitis under the older, more permissible Diagnostic Code 7345, 40% for Porphyria and 10% for tinnitus. I have a CUE claim in for PCT scarring (10%) which VA rescinded to 0% after issuing the 40% Porphyria grant. 40%+20%+10%+10% in VA math is 60%. Multiply that for 237 months and VA gets green around the gills. This, then is the crux of the problem. It was what prevented them from striking a bargain earlier. Had I folded, this crossroads would never have been reached.
VA was not even inclined to even meet my attorney halfway in October. They ignored our appellant’s brief and opposed a motion for oral briefing. Suddenly, four years into my appeal, they had a change of heart. After a month of trying to find a politically correct way of telling the VLJ he made an error, we have progressed to this.
So, after six years from filing, the hamster wheel is still spinning merrily along. I estimate several months to get any response out of the VLJ. After that, another six month delay in finding suitable mailing arrangements to get the eight-volume C- file back to Seattle. Then we begin the much anticipated Fenderson rating where VA will attempt to claim they have no records whatsoever of my health in 1994 and give me the 0% ice creme cone with no ice creme in, on, or near it. After a suitable number of years , we’ll probably be back at the BVA or the Court to argue the correct percentages all over again.
I know many of you do not have Tiger blood in you. The HCV saps it out of you. That’s why I took point on this one. VA kindled a fire in me that cannot be quenched. They gave me the Tim Poe/Dr. Phil treatment. They said I was never there. They said I was a liar.
You do not know how hurtful those words are. You cannot know that I had to curb my words over my 1989 filing because I had signed non-disclosure agreements after my service in Laos. I kept my pledge in 1994 as well by only filing the records needed to substantiate my claim. VA chose not to recognize it or ignored it. They did finally acknowledge it in 2007 but abruptly changed their story yet again in 2009. Perhaps you can see some of my anger when I write of someone who engages in stolen valour. I can’t even get my legitimate service acknowledged and here are bozos running around with upside down medals getting free meals at Mickey D’s. I don’t want fame. I don’t want medals. I want compensation I filed for.
Now, with not the least hesitation, VA has reversed course. No “We regret we made a mistake in 1994, sir.” is forthcoming. No “The miscreants at the RO will be drawn and quartered and fed to the dogs at first light.” will ever pass their lips. There is no rhyme or reason for this on its face. It’s akin to that old Neil Young song The Last Trip to Tulsa during his LSD days:
And that, inevitably, is what will happen here. The question is how much longer will they continue and will they tire of this game? Given the statistics, I’m liable to be dead before this is completed.
That pencils out to slightly more than two Veterans per hour. If more Americans were aware of this horrible statistic, it would create an uproar. Or would it?
WE DAWDLEIn an attempt to speed up the backlog, Veterans Service Center Managers have been instructed to install drive thru windows at all VA Regional Offices as quickly as possible.
Citing the need for improved claims processing, Fully Developed Claims (FDCs)can now be dropped off without a long trip to the VSO at the mall. Yes, you be stylin’ in the hood when you pull up in your ride completely prepared with a FDC CD with your claim safely burned in.
When queried about how much time it was purported to save in Oakland , the VSCM Ulrike Willamon was noncommittal. She toyed with the idea of about .003 days and maybe slightly more but pointed out the confidence it would induce in claimants: “Doing someting is better dan doing nutting.”
New Waco drive thru with David Koresh “frown”
New Oakland Drive Thru. Two lanes, no backlog
This just in from Frank the Maple man.
When a “progressive” newspaper like the Washington Post speaks out, or permits others to use their fishwrap, against the ruling Administration and one of his cabinet hirelings, you just know the King’s new invisible finery is going to be put to the test.
Rep. D.D. Hunter and Pete Hegseth, his wordsmith, today vocalized for all to hear what many have been nodding their heads and saying privately for weeks. Ever since Allison in Wonderland went up on the Hill and wove her tale of a rabbit hole of claims and a cat with a timepiece to fix it, Congress in both houses has been rather aloof and cool to both generals.
You get to do the “Wolf! Yo! I say Wolf-yonder! Bring the guns!” on several occasions before the novelty wears off. Chicken Little didn’t get the email and was forced to repeat the blunder fifty years or more later. Doesn’t anyone read George Santayana anymore?
Well, here we are. Someone has discovered that the books have been cooked and things are actually worse than the bean counters said they were. It actually takes way more than 273 days, on average, to get your claim adjudicated. Try 600 days at some of the bigger VAROs they’ve outfitted with the drive-thru windows for the fully developed claims. Why they put in bulletproof glass is still unexplained.
In all fairness, let’s be realistic. Would I want that job? Would you? I’m sure we’d be well-intentioned just as Gen. Shinseki most undoubtedly is. I may give him a lot of grief here but his little people are killing him. They’re completely caught up in a culture that died around World War Vietnam. Deny. Deny. If they don’t appeal, there’s more bonuses for us. These untermenschen are the reason we suffer as we do. Instead of a culture modeled on Greece’s where warriors were considered just below Gods, our Veterans Administration obfuscates, nitpicks and delays settling with Vets until they are between the proverbial rock and hard place. Having a complaisant VSO willing to settle for tinnitus and withdrawing the TBI claim doesn’t help much either. Or the one I heard today about the C&P where the Doctor did a TBI exam but managed to overlook the amputation of one of his limbs. Good to go, bro!
A new paradigm is in the offing. The President is going to discover this hot potato is not going to go down well with the majority of Americans. They vote. When they see their next door neighbor, who was a used car salesman, come back from playing Nasty Guard for a year instead of a weekend missing major bits and pieces, they commiserate with the fellow’s plight. This is something that “resonates” as they say on CNN. Our supervisors in Southeast Asia were fond of calling this collateral damage regardless of who got clobbered. The newsies have a field day with it. The same phenomenon is now unfolding in public. By the time I reached draft age in 1969, there were starting to be a lot of Vets in wheel chairs missing legs. This is that odd side effect of stepping on mines. But they were visible by then. They became even more commonplace over the years following the war and had finally started to abate as many died or became unable to get out in public.
We now are starting to see a new “bloom” of these battle injuries and many are far worse due to the improvements of medical science. They tug at heartstrings. They evoke sympathy. And they bring the inevitable questions out about why these poor souls are disenfranchised from their promised benefits. Backlogs don’t cut it. Old VA AO claims are not working in the blame game. Horribly damaged Vets making “questionable” PTSD claims can no longer be made the scapegoat. In this day and age of instant communications, Vets can find others similarly situated and focus their frustration. VSOs can no longer keep these Vets in control like mushrooms in the dark. Outfits like the IAVA are beginning to get the ear of the boys up on the hill , too.
Eric the Last will soon be announcing his sudden interest in Fly fishing and more time with Mrs. S in a less stressful environment. This will in no way be mistaken as an abdication but rather a long planned career move. Allison in Wonderland likewise will sense the impending Kristallnacht. She will soon have an epiphany and take GE up on the board membership she’s been hoping for over a year. That and a side of Professor over at the AF Academy for a while will fill her lifelong dreams of giving something back to the country and women who choose to serve.
I wish them well. They are caught up in a maelstrom not of their making but nevertheless unraveling on their shift. We call this one of those “defecation contacting the rotary wing” moments and there are no chairs left at the end of this musical score to sit down in and say “Not it!” Were they to stay another year or two, they would be there to proclaim a light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately they find themselves similarly situated like many who have begun with high hopes at the VA. The problem hasn’t changed. The old boy network is so suffused throughout the system with a superiority complex that no one knows what a box is- let alone how to think outside of it.
We now have the task of teaching these aborigines how to use Iphones. The way to accomplish this is to remodel the personnel. The staid thinking has to go. If it requires a Presidential directive to permit flushing the backlog out with a universal grant and audit the results over the next several years, so be it. The important thing is to keep the ball rolling. Trying to switch over into a lower gear to get up the hill is best done before you hit the slope. Failing that, strap on a JATO bottle. The object is the summit. Failure is not an option here. Inaction isn’t either.
Attempting to create a new, parallel production system side by side with an existing one without doubling the personnel is a fool’s errand. Anyone with a background in production can tell you that. Thinking it is going to keep up with the existing method or surpass it is a pipedream. IT guys are a dime a dozen in this economy. They can be had for pennies on the dollar. We could have given them a hard set of parameters to encompass, a realistic timeline and the assets to accomplish this. Instead we are blessed with VA’s finest myopic, IT in-house gurus changing parameters faster than they can be typed up. Look at the DoD med records computer fiasco. VA could have made their new computers compatible with DoD’s if they had wanted to. This has now become one of those bar games where you see who blinks first.
Happy Trails to you is warming up in the background. It’s as inevitable as an ingrown toenail from tight cowboy boots. The enigma is who has the cojones to lasso this mess? Whoever gets the job is mostly going to preside over an inevitable status quo process if they simply take the reins from Eric. That’s why this is the perfect time to clean house and make some long overdue changes. The nice thing about a Kristallnacht is you only have to sweep up the glass once instead of this drip, drip, drip of slow water torture Vets currently endure. Without a major overhaul, the VA is destined for mediocrity for years to come. Will the President squander this watershed moment?
As some of you know, I used (and still am) Bob Walsh as my mouthpiece to scale the CAVC mountain. I think it will be money well spent and keep him out of bars. With a new wife, he can ill afford to be kiting all over town after hours.
More to the point, he is a former VA attorney and realized their shenanigans early on. This inadvertently gave us a valuable asset who is familiar with all their wiles and ploys. Had he not become disgruntled, we’d be facing his legal acumen today. Even better, he’s a Vietnam Vet. It’s like a double scoop of ice creme for the price of one.
Today we did a program on the backlog and a lot of other information Vets need to be successful in pursuing evidence for their claims. Bob brings a cutting-edge, no-nonsense approach to litigation. I’d say he isn’t as overt as my “Win or Die” advocacy but he sure is a close second. Being an attorney, he and his ilk always caution against extremes or going overboard. I, on the other hand, have a “take no prisoners” approach as many know. I don’t cheat or advocate others do, mind you. I simply feel you need to prosecute it (the claim) with passion. It’s a tortoise vs. the hare thing.
The SVR tape can be accessed soon by visiting the SVR site and listening to it. It’s being edited and archived as I write. I wish to thank all the folks over at Hadit.com including Mike, Jerrell, Bertha, Stretch and any I neglected to mention for inviting me. I have another show scheduled for next Wednesday with them about the Independent Living Program. I’m sure it will go sideways and discuss other topics as well. I enjoy the unstructured format.
Contrary to what you may read on some Veteran’s sites, attorneys schooled in the VA discipline are are not out to “milk” you like a cow for all the Equal Access to Justice Funds (EAJA) they can. They find chasing ambulances to be beneath them and uncouth. If they wanted to get rich, I’m sure they would pursue more lucrative venues like representing OJ Simpson or starting their own companies like Legalzoom.com. Face it. Repping Veterans is not the path to fame and riches. Quite the opposite. In spite of our stellar reputation defending the Country against all boarders, Veterans have a spotty record when it comes to remunerating their rainmakers. This is sad because they only charge 20% as mandated by law. As most know, you can’t get an avaricious lawyer to speak to you without signing a 40% pledge. The difference is night and day.
Bob is probably more biased in favor of Vets than even me. I take all claims I inveigh on with a grain of salt until I get a feel for the Vet. Some actually come to me with the most inconsequential, mundane requests for perceived injustices and ask me to sort them out. I honestly have a hard time trying to keep my composure. My claim to fame (if ever I get that lofty) will be for helping Vets dying of HCV who come to me as a last resort. Believe it or not, we here at HCVets and asknod are not that well known. We do not have flashy,wiggly widgets and a high-priced web site with all the whistles. We have the free version of the Earl Schieb $99.95 blog site. WordPress is wonderful platform for this and I can’t thank them enough for the forum.
Bob came to me to right an injustice to one of his clients in 2009. I complied and in the process we became acquaintances. It was a natural fit for him to be my mouthpiece when it came time to visit the CAVC. In spite of his pleadings to be given a bye and suggestions of getting a law dog closer to home, I insisted. As most who know me, this is one of my character flaws. I’m sure Cupcake could illuminate a litany of others but let’s not ask her. Bob is not someone you would want to have as an enemy unless you enjoy sleeping with one eye open at all times. He’s subtle but thorough. His able assistant Shawn is another I wouldn’t relish upsetting. She is calm and personable but that merely hides a fierce defense of Vet’s rights. She was a fast learner and never ceases to amaze me with her grasp of Vets concerns and problems.
I would recommend Bob to any of you who need his services. About five minutes after I put this up, he’ll probably call and threaten to disown me if I don’t take it down. He says he wants to retire, but we know better than that. Old law dogs don’t retire. They just adjudicate away. Besides, why would he come on the show if he didn’t need or want the exposure? He sure isn’t a glory hound. There’s no such thing in this VA law business.
asknod
Bethanie Spangenberg
kcraveiro
robinhoodesqvetsatty
Wesley McCauley
