Brother John flashed the one and only Bat signal in the sky heralding the desire of John and Jerrel (personal pronouns us, them, they) for my appearance on Exposed Vet to discuss Speshull Monthly Compensation. I look forward to this show as it’s a constant learning experience. Not so much the regulations but the way VA raters attempt to thank you for your service out of one side of their mouths while shutting the proverbial SMC door in your face.
I expect the one thing that really pulls my string is that these ‘technicians’ presume to think they know how to adjudicate SMC. Considering I find errors in every last one, I must disagree. It’s primarily one of the biggest reasons I can’t take on many new clients. I spend all my waking hours trying to repair the incorrect ratings from my existing ones. But that’s not why I called you here.
SMC, in famed NOVA attorney Robert Chisholm’s immortal words, is the ‘art of the possible’. Very little precedence has been established with respect to this higher level of compensation for a reason. VA tends to grant early on- after a suitable pitched battle of course- because the last thing they want is all this SMC R1-R2-T hooey out in the light of day. VSOs have been adamant over the decades denying it even exists. Ask one of them. Really. Go down to your local AmVets and ask Mikey the rep about getting SMC S after you’re already at 100% P&T. They’ll look at you like you’re asking them to join the Flat Earth Society as a life member. And they’ll deny its existence in the next breath.
I’m not kidding you when I say that by using VA’s current regulations and well-constructed nexus letter, I could get more than 50% of you a SMC L for aid and attendance. Shoot. I didn’t write the regulations. I just found a way to exploit the way they are written. It isn’t FM. It’s just how you approach it.
I’d like to start with the basics- when do I qualify? What do I need? How should I prepare? All these questions exist nowhere in How-to VA playbooks. I think I know why. Nobody knows how to do this. That’s certainly not to demean attorneys or my fellow agents. It certainly isn’t meant as idle bragging either. It’s predicated on how many referrals I get from big name attorney outfits. Considering how lucrative a win it is doing this (SMC R1,2 etc.), I can’t conceive of a law group pissing it away to some local yokel in rural Gig Harbor Washington. I have no explanation for why I continue to win. Perseverance? The squeaky wheel syndrome? Whatever the cause, I’m on a SMC roll.
The 81mm surprise package.
Right. Tune in tomorrow night at 1900 East side and 1600 on the left Coast. Get your brewski and chips ahead of time. Mute your mic so we don’t have to listen to the dog bark or the crunch of the Fritos™. I look forward to teaching my brothers and sisters how to break the VA’s compensation bank. If you have a question, feel free to raise your hand by pressing one (1) (nung)(un) and asking it. We’ll get the Four Deuce canon cockers to pop flares on the LZ.
Here’s the map coordinates and heading. Hope to see you all there.
I’m sorry for the delayed posting of this notification. I gave birth to a sizable kidney stone yesterday at 1701 hrs. I was in labor for 17 hours from 0030 Hrs that morning. It felt like a 20 cm. dilation for the entire period. I have the ultimate respect for what a ‘birth person’ goes through now. And no, we haven’t chosen a name for it yet. We’re planning a virtual baptism over the septic tank next week as I inadvertently flushed it. Hell, to give you an idea of the size, I heard it hit the porcelain and I didn’t even have my hearing aids in. How ’bout them apples. Thank God it wasn’t twins, huh?
Greetings to all you CUE nuts. For those of you obsessed with trying to revise your antique denials, here’s a good example of one that just jumps up and bites you on the nose. It did entail doing a 2-minute dumpster dive into the VBMS file but not to worry. VBMS is polite. They arrange it chronologically rather than the CD version you request that resembles a game of 52-card pickup. I offer this example because it’s been sitting in my files for several years. As I was focusing on getting my client SC for his hep c, I didn’t go back to the dawn of his claims existence. Hep C wasn’t ‘invented’ until 1989, so it’s unlikely I’d find anything back in 1969 on the subject.
Anyway, Wayne was here at LZ Grambo going over a filing for 2ndys to his Hep C with me and was discussing a hip/knee filing that was denied in 1983. He said the ‘VA technicians’ couldn’t find his records- meaning his STRs (or SMRs) from service back then so they denied. He reopened it in 2007 with a lot of buddy letters and a ton of doctors’ records showing the interim history from the 1983 denial and finally won. He might as well not have wasted the energy. This time ( the 2007 filing), they found the STRs and the NPRC sent them in to the local puzzle palace. In the leadup to the rating, an astute RVSR named Melisa spotted the STRs and noted in a VAF 21-6789 Deferred Rating Decision that if 1) the QTC clinician handed out a positive nexus to service based on the new service department records, that 2) the Waynester was in for a shit ton of retrobucks -30% back to 5/1983.
Sure enough, the QTC puke came back with a positive connection and the rating decision granting SC stated that he was being awarded an effective date all the way back to his original claim.The problem, as always, is the semantics in VAspeak. To them, his original claim was 2/27/07. Then they inexplicably changed it to May of 2003. Then they CUE’d themselves a year later and gave him another 10% for DeLuca knee pain- but with effective date of 9/2007. Go figure. That took him to 30% and covered the wifesan. Since he was not well-versed in §3.156(c) law, he didn’t ‘see’ the error.
Loved those CAR 15 shorties.
Being quasi-inquisitive, I said hold the phone and gazed into my VBMS crystal ball. Sure as shit, there’s the finding of fact in 1983 times two of no STRs. They didn’t even trot out the old Friday the 13th of July 1973 BBQ of Veterans’ records as the excuse. Granted, that would have fallen flat as a cheese soufflé in a whorehouse because he got out in 1969. But then, I’ve had a few like the one where the Vet served from 79-83 and them back-to-the-future Delorean gomers snuck in and stuck his records into the sixth floor fire. I hate that when that happens. When you query the technicians at the NPRC, they get a bit brusque and tell you they are not up on how that time travel thing works.
Likewise, the 2007-era records say they found the STRs but no one bothered to scan them in until around 2013. Nevertheless, the PIES VAF 21-3101 says in no uncertain terms that they transshipped it all to the Seattle claims experts. Dr. Judas at the local QTC promptly said roger on the 1968 fall from 20 feet up and the full leg cast up to the hip. Bingo- 20% (and 30% a year later on the belated CUE). It was all there-well, all there except for the May 1983 rating for 30%.
So, being a VA ambulance chaser worthy of my name, I’m filing it today. I’ve done a few §3.156(c) claims in my day but never have I seen them give me the ammo to shoot them in the foot so completely. Here’s a copy of the filing. I’d give a Benjamin Franklin just to see the look on their faces when Janesville forwards this one to them.
The VA folks in Seattle have gotten to know me on a first name basis over the last 15 years. In the last six, some of the DROs have even become a little terse with me and implied I’m an ignorant slut. I prefer to think of myself as a knowledgeable slut. My clients certainly do not agree. They’re all satisfied campers and TDIU’d/SMC’d.
The fact is VA law is like fishing with hand grenades. You literally can’t miss. They screw up virtually everything they touch. Granted, not all of it will rise to the level of CUE that you can guarantee a win with but enough does such that it makes VBMS dumpster diving lucrative enough to pursue when things quiet down and you’re bored. Last week, one of my R1 Vet’s files was lying open and it dawned on me that back when he was granted A&A in 2017, he also had a spare 100%. Yeppers. They should have granted him the §3.350(f)(4) bump from L to M but nooooooooooooooo-they just had to lowball him. It’s not much but everyone can use a couple $14 K for some wine and women money. On second thought, he’ll probably need it for gas all too soon. It was $5.39 for regular when I filled up Cupcake’s new Expedition this AM. New because I shot the old one twice in the engine block to prevent its departure from a crime scene. It was declared DOA shortly thereafter.
The fact is, VA uses a “SMC Calculator” that is supposed to automatically infer all the possible SMCs you can get by analyzing your rating sheet. The problem is their SMC technician inputting the data. Somewhere, a village is missing it’s idiot. CUE. It’s what’s for dinner!
So I got the raised planters built and the garden area rototilled for the corn. Time for a scotchski it was. Yessssssss. And right there on the counter was the le chip du jour. Cupcake’s on a gluten-free (read fun-free) healthy tilt so everything is something other than wheat. Rice, almond flour, pecan flour, ad nauseum literally. I’d allow the almond flour crackers are remotely edible as I’m sure papyrus is too if you’re starving. What the hey. Buddy my parrot will eat them. He’s a wise 54- yr. old bird. He was born after Tet ’68 in the fall during monsoon. I trust his instinct. He won’t eat one of them store-bought peeled carrots. Turns out if you hold the bag up to your nose reeeeeal close, you too can smell the reek of Clorox™. Zesty. Brightens your teeth, too. We already went down that road with herbicides and look what it got us.
So, I’m armed and dangerous and coming into the kitchen and the chips bag is on the counter. New flavor. Rice. Well, new rice flavored cracker because I don’t recognize the bag. Bleh.
Hey. No flies on me, right? Occam’s Razor. Obviously that must be the go-to Happy Hour chip. No one in their right mind would think otherwise. They’re open so you know they aren’t past their born-on date and sketchy. Rice. It’s what’s for pre-dinner. So I have the JW Black nestled in the ice and and turn on the evening news and that cracker sure is short on salt… and dang near any other seasoning you’d expect. I took another cracker out and seconded that emotion. The label doesn’t say ‘Danger Will Robinson. May taste like dog shit. So I take a closer gander…
What the hey? These are, hands down, absolutely not even close to Rice Crispy Treats. How could you get away with selling these to folks? I’m guessing even Pickles might not think they were up to her mediocre standards. Well, shut the front door.
Yeah. I know. Cupcake says I never read the instructions but I think this was deliberate sabotage. It’s my considered opinion that they were purchased with the full knowledge that someone would innocently put some out on a tray with some delicious aged, sliced, extra sharp white cheddar fully well expecting a eco-unfriendly rice cracker that was at least edible. But nooooooooooooo. She had to buy the dog treat brand most closely resembling the gluten-free shit.
I can’t wait until April Fool’s Day 2023. Vengeance shall be mine sayeth the nod.
Looking back on the recent “reallocation of available assets” at Kabul Airpatch last fall, those of my generation merely nod their heads in confirmation and concur there never really have been any true Mensa Generals since World War 2. They’re not permitted to think outside the box anymore. Everything is built on the OSHA premise that it takes a village to change a lightbulb. It has to be widely shared on Social Media and the number of views/likes has to be ensconced into the Clouds for eternity.
The vision planted in our brains on 5/7/75 was the Huey hucking contests offshore at Dixie Station. Afghanistan’s ignoble retreat, however, will leave us with that indelible image of C-17s shedding civilians from their landing gear on climb out. That’s some brutal shit for the unwary progressive viewer. Wars always seems to be such an antiseptic, faraway thing until the day the footage gets graphic. Dan Rather and others brought this into our living rooms along about 1967 and war coverage has never been the same since. And keep in mind that was a sanitized version in those days. Reality was often far different but you the American public never saw this. Life magazine didn’t even publish the really ugly stuff.
We nicknamed them Glad Bags reasoning that a body would be glad to be going home. That may sound macabre but gallows humor abounded back then. It warded off depression… temporarily.
When working with the Veterans I represent, I’m always reminded that folks who were trained to fly IBM Selectrics™ often found themselves pressganged into Eleven Bravos. A cook I repped who was stationed at An Khe told me about a couple of times the gooks got inside the wire and ran rampant dang near all night. In October ’68 they mortared the perimeter and did a minor probe for weaknesses. They came back 12 days later in broad daylight and got the POL area- almost 14,000 barrels. He said shit was cooking off in the bomb dump for days. I’ve had Vets tell me of dark nights where they were yelling at each other not to run around so they could figure out which ones were Cowboys and which were the Indians. Sometimes war devolves down into these most basic of tactics.
My service was similar. I thought I had a cut and dried job for a year in country or the neighboring environs only to discover my government had different plans for me. I certainly never considered being fluent in French would increase my risk relative to others’. Project 404 sounded like such an innocuous gig. A little psyops with a side of interesting dining (Monkey Ball soup, raw papaya soumtom), playing dumb and eavesdropping on visiting RLAF officers who thought they were being ohhhh soooooo clever speaking in-guess what- Français. It turned out this was our life in reality.
Granted, there were a lot of dialects and languages afoot in Long Tieng. A lot of the AirAm crew chiefs were Filipino and spoke both Spanish and English. There were combat-seasoned Thai Army Troops available for use as fire extinguishers when the Pathet Lao advanced unexpectedly in winter monsoon. There were Hmong troops who spoke only Hmong. I picked up Pidgin Thai eventually as it was the more common of all. Dee dee mao merely turned into Pai lao lao.
The intriguing aspect of Vietnam and Afghanistan revolves around their similarities. I have vivid memories of watching Walter Cronkite that day on the evening news showing us live footage of the ‘tactical advance in a new direction’. Each one of those Huey submarines would be up to a cool $1.6 million nowadays assuming they had updated avionics. Who’d want one is another story. Rotary wing is delayed suicide. It’s never a question of if a chopper will suddenly have a mechanical misadventure at 2500 ASL but when. Orville and Wilber had it right from the beginning. Imitate the birds. It doesn’t hurt as much when you don’t drop like a rock.
We Veterans lament the tremendous loss of military hardware left on the tarmac and in warehouses in Kabul but that doesn’t even begin to hold a candle to what we left scattered across Vietnam-not to mention all the destroyed materiel. 11,846 choppers were shot down or crashed. That’s not even counting the ones that got the heave ho into the South China Sea on 5/7/75. We ‘donated’ tanks, APCs, .50 cal HMGs, M 60s and gazillions of M 16s on top of gazillions of surplus Korea M1/M2s, G3s, Thompsons and the ammo. We left crated Pilatus Porters on the flightline at Tan Son Nhut. We left a fleet of C 123s and C-7s. This absolutely dwarfs any stupidity in Afstan. We spent more on building schoolhouses in this latest war and it didn’t buy us any Taliban camaraderie whatsoever.
To invoke George Santayana’s name yet again would be pointless. Everyone knows his sentiments and they were once again vindicated last fall. The major media would have you fixate on the 13 troops that ate it trying to supervise the withdrawal at the airpatch. But that would ignore the 2,325 who ate it over the whole deployment or the 3,519 who didn’t make it back vertical from Iraqistan. Why is it we Americans are always the firemen on the world stage? Who dreamed up this game of donating our troops to the jaws of war?
I’m sure Dunkirk would be another spot-on analogy but it wasn’t our war back then…yet. I don’t mean to dwell on the waste in materiel. I speak of the wasted lives. I can never conceive of expending one-let alone 58,434 troops on a losing cause. It’s not that Vietnam wasn’t a worthy cause. It’s the fact that we weren’t allowed to succeed. And most certainly not over the fence in Laos. A phrase carved in stone evokes my sentiments on war- ‘It’s a worthy thing to fight for a man’s freedom; it is another sight finer to fight for another man’s. But what happens when they tie one of your hands behind your back? Who ever heard of having to request permission to return fire or to deploy nape or WP when your troops are getting overrun?
I reckon you have to draw the line somewhere when trying to play whack-a-mole with communism. The problem is you eventually run out of compliant youthful men to do it with. Without casting shade on the opposite sex as infantrywomen, one must understand they don’t have restrooms on battlefields. You can’t just raise your hand and say “Yo. Permission to go to the loo, Sir?” It just doesn’t work that way. In the real world, men don’t need tampon dispensers in the men’s restroom. Regardless of the new pregnant man emoji, men cannot give birth or lactate. Men can’t get out of sorts once a month due to estrus. Frankly, combat is distracting enough already without throwing this added distraction into the mix. No one can argue that women do not provide a valuable augmentation to our military forces but I wish the powers that be would recognize the glaring drawbacks to total integration. And before I get in any deeper on the other 46 genders, I’ll move on.
While I will never throw cold water on brave men (or women) of all nationalities desirous of coming to the aid of the Ukrainians- or any besieged country, I do not think we, as Americans, personally have a dog in this fight. We’ve swept up the broken glass on the European continent twice with the blood of our servicemen. Three times if you count the cold war. France went so far as to 86 NATO and boot our bases out of France. It’s high time Europe shows its backbone and owns their shitshow. This isn’t going to end well any way you look at it. Somebody’s feelings are going to get hurt. We don’t need any more Glad bags arriving at Dover airpatch any time soon. After over 20 years, the mortuary personnel have earned a vacation.
I expect the next hot spot will be Iran or a rematch between the pissed off sand ranchers and Israel but I’m hoping that will happen after my departure. I have grandchildren and corn to grow. And that’s all I’m gonna say about May 7th, 1975. It reminds me of taking third place at the Bejing Olympics.
And, as a parting reminder, never get between a mama bear and her cubs.
This one should be called the ‘Colvin on your collar told a tale on you‘ . This claim/appeal now spans sixty five years and has outlived the Veteran. Still VA tries to squirm out of doing it locally. I get that. This is 4th and long and the Seattle Puzzle Palace ain’t going near it. They’re punting to the BVA. If you drew the VSR GS-9 short straw and had to write this up, or were the unfortunate Coach it came back to like an errant boomerang, or anyone even remotely associated with this stinker, your chances of rising to the hierarchy of the VBA DROC team would be right up there with ice creme in Hell if you were party to cutting the paper handing out a million +.
Why shucks. Folks would be surreptitiously pointing over at you down in the lunch room for years saying ‘See Sherista over there. She’s the one that wrote thet RD on that Korean dude that died last year. I’d hate to be her. I heard she’s trying to transfer to VR&E she’s so bummed out.’
So they pawned off the Texas Necktie party on the VHA neurologist (again) and said ‘You’re it.’ The problem is it’s against the law in 48 states to allow the doctor to spout law or the law dogs to spout medical opinions. That thirty pieces of silver gig for stretching the truth went out with printing press. There’s a chasm between doctors and attorneys/judges that must be observed. Take a gander at the VA’s 42-page version of a Monty Python I’m a neurologist and I’m okay. I work pretty hard and opine all day skit. I don’t reckon this is going to impress the VLJ.
The only problem with all that ‘weight of medical evidence” is none was provided. I’m the little old lady that pulls up to the drive-in window and yells ‘Where’s the beef?”. The HLR booth bitch looked at the ceiling, disremembered my legal points, whistled past the graveyard and cranked out the RD in 30 minutes. I’d have given my eye teeth to have seen her twisting and squirming on Zoom. I could have submitted a 4138 from Jesus Christ swearing “What he said, dude.” and it would still have crashed and burned. This thing has resume-killer writ large all over it. The only guy oblivious to all this is that wild and crazy French VA narcissistic neurologist (the undersigned).
Look up Monzingo, there’s a great quote there that reinforces Colvin precedence. Anyway, this is the first time I’ve ever cranked out 22 pages of legal brief. I actually distilled it down from 28 pages. I didn’t want to appear verbose.
As I pointed out in the brief, this guy found absolutely nothing related to s/p encephalopathy-not so much as a numb lip. VLJ Skaltsounis had this docketed 4 days after it hit his desk. I put “Attention: VLJ MIKE” on the FAX cover sheet. I didn’t even get a chance to ask for AOD but they gave it to us anyway. Remember the old Allison Hickey “Rocket Docket” program back in 2013-14? This one appears to be one.
Thursday’s show will begin at 1900 Hrs on the East coast and thus, because of the phenomenon of global warming, 1600 Hrs out here in God’s promised land. Really. We have no skanky rattlesnakes on this side of the cascades. No black widows, no poisonous nothing except for the Brown Recluse spider and you have to hunt high and low to find one of them. Really. No hurricanes, no tornados-zip. The only problem I see is all those new citizens up here who migrated from down south. Somebody ought to teach them what yield and merge gracefully means.
Good afternoon unhappy Veteran campers. asknod here (it, they). I, of all fellers, can honestly say “I feel your pain” without having to manufacture crocodile tears like a certain 42nd President once did. I did my 28 years in the hole. We’ve hit an interesting streak of VA jurisprudence that began around say… mid-January of 2021. No political aspersions here. Just an observation. Inexplicably, the VA dice went cold. There were more deferrals for a new c&p. There were more ‘claim changed from complete to open in VBMS’ where yesterday it had said ‘Claim decision complete.’ The number and quality of the denials was, and still is, atrocious. It’s as if Homer’s monkey Mojo has been given GS-14 VA examiner privileges and turned loose with a VA Adobe 9.5 M 21-equipped cut and paste program that spews out ‘not at least as likely as not’ drivel with a direct link to Janesville.
Well, fortunately, asknod doesn’t do tinnitus and pes planus gigs so we rarely encounter a lot of that. However, we have been getting more than our usual share of those GTFOOH denials that give you the heebyjeebies and make you wonder why you do VA law. I actually had to begin doing HLRs to fix their ratings errors sooner rather than later.
Were it me, in the setting of a big law office (which I do not have), with a JD (which I never got), I’d ask myself why in Sam Hill I wasn’t chasing real, $1.2 million dollar ambulances instead of rickety old VA meat wagons. Of course, being an actual Veteran answers all those questions as it probably does for those who have a genuine desire to help Veterans. As we all can agree, there ain’t no money in VA law unless you hit a Lotto. There simply aren’t very many of those and if you bite into one, you can guarantee it will be a ten-year time alligator. That’s why I love them. Old CUEs? Show me. A new tranche of §3.156(c) records and a 1970 denial for everything you filed on? Come on over here and set a spell beside me and tell us all about that Bouncing Betty and how VA screwed you. Welcome to the Group W (Waiting) bench, Arlo. What took you so long to get here? Did you take a side trip through all those Veterans Help Forums and chase down a gazillion rabbit holes?
Having been 86’d from not just one but two of the most well-read Veterans Help sites (VBN and Hadit), I pride myself not on my litigation successes but on my dogged belief in telling the truth. Truth can be a many-splendored thing. Truth to Vet A can be a complete recital of how s/he won their claims even though no one will ever encounter the same set of circumstances. Truth to Vet B might be the frustration of asking a question and the recriminations for being a FNG and not being up on all the EED and CUE terminology. Worse, no one wants to bring you up to speed and teach you. They just want to tell you their story about how they got here. Who gives a shit? Remember the Veteran? That’s why we’re here. To help the Veteran. This isn’t about us. It’s about finding their repair order. A Veterans Help website is useless if you suppress a point of view-no matter how far-fetched it is. Worse, it’s counterproductive to hand out advice on VA claims when you have no training. Vets are going to depend on that advice and it better be spot on or you could be condemning them to another year or two in the hole. I’d feel like shit if I caused that But then I’d also probably lose my accreditation, too. A well-meaning Veteran probably never considers that aspect.
When I first set out to create a Veterans help site, my immediate urge was to create a Forum like all the others which were all the rage back in 2008. What first hit me was the “Twitter” effect. If your advice or your experience with VA was adversarial, you were not allowed to spew that observation on VBN. It was quickly erased and you were marginalized or thrown out with the baby’s bathwater if you kept it up.
Personally, I don’t have a lot of friends. Why that is doesn’t concern me. My urge, in the short time I have left around here is to convey knowledge. I don’t have time to argue with some dolt about the semantic nuances of CUE in the setting of a truly final claim. If your claim is over a year old and buried, dang near the only way to fix it is to file a CUE. If it’s less than a year since it died, then it can be resuscitated and you keep the effective date. It might be error but it can be fixed without resorting to the arcane rules of CUE. That’s a biiiiiiiiiiiiig difference semantically and where they put the decimal point after the dollar sign. To get kicked off Hadit, I had to take that indefensible position with their resident CUE guruista. The second time was because I mentioned the unmentionable that certain doctors had skeletons in their closets. I guess it’s time to reconnoiter some new Vets sites to garner more bans.
The beauty of a blog site like this is the teaching moment and then a follow-on comments section where you can ask cogent questions without fear or recriminations. Or, I suppose, if you’re one of those Karens from one of the other sites or a unhappy TWS volunteer, you can come argue the misspelling of serve (sever). Either way, you get to talk uncensored. This ain’t a school board meeting in northern Virginia. We don’t cut off the microphone unless you become obstreperous or resort to expletives. This is a quasi-family site. Nasty words just detract from an otherwise informative experience. Guilt trips don’t fly. I already cornered the market on passive aggressive shit.
The last takeaway on the above subject was a comment from Cupcake. She sat down and read a representative sample of both these website forums and was struck by what appeared to her to be the very low intelligence quotient of the moderators. The ones offering assistance in the intricacies of VA law couldn’t even choose the correct form of there, their or they’re. Thank God it takes eight keystrokes to type out ‘You know’ or we’d have to wade through that too. I don’t profess to be Mensa material but boy howdy do I know VA law. I don’t know it solely from my experiences but by thousands of you who came here with situations no one could imagine in their wildest dreams. It’s simple. VA can’t light a fart with a flame thrower let alone figure out where all that methane gas is coming from. This means your denial is more than likely illegitimate and needs to be fixed. After about 500 cases, the denials all seem to say the same thing. Fixing them just gets easier if they have a skinny play book.
In combat, you don’t want a democratic discourse amongst everyone in your Platoon on how to get your dick out of the dirt or how to flank the enemy and surround them. You want some butter bar with an ounce of situational awareness to order it. Make it so, Numbah One! You want a repair order-not a Kumbaya circle feelgood where everyone who ever suffered explosive diarrhea explains how they managed to successfully change their underwear.
I have the hardest time prying the client’s hands off the steering wheel and explaining why the windshield is far larger than the rear view mirror in the VA context. I don’t much give a rolling donut about how you got here. Seems whatever technique you were using didn’t get airborne or you wouldn’t be talking to me. It’s far easier to fix it than to spend a month reviewing the history. The time for discussing the proper effective date of claim begins when you’ve finally won.
Misty 22 is cleared in hot.
As an example, I offer a bouquet of my recent battles so far this month. As for those trite VA phrases like “This constitutes a complete grant of all claims pending”, you have to wonder who comes up with that unicorn crap. It’s over when the asknod fat lady sings and not a moment before. It appears in this new VA unicorn world, they’ve been indulging in too much of the Devil’s lettuce. This seems to provoke a lot of denials. A new appeal (NOD 10182) arrives at the BVA every seventeen seconds Monday through Friday (except for national holidays). Think about that. The backlog for an appeal at SSA is a year. At VA, the same wait for a judge is five years. Dang good thing they hired ten more VLJs, huh? Farsightedness at the VA is a much sought out trait in the hierarchy.
Here’s a daisy. Jimbo (not his name) really wanted me to take this on after I got him R1 back in January. Looked like it had some mustard on it so I did the dumpster dive into the c file evidence and grabbed a good Independent Medical Opinion. Personally, I never had a doubt it wouldn’t be a chicken dinner winner. The question was more a when than an if. File this one under §3.816(b)(1)(i). It’s also one of those cases where a Vet didn’t take his eyes off the rear view mirror. That’s okay. You just have to win the big banana first before you go on safari and hunt down the one that got away.
Here’s one that I began in 2017. Johnny Vet couldn’t get any traction on his Thailand AO claim. I tore it down and rebuilt it with my cookie recipe and we finally got the booth bitch at the David Koresh Memorial VARO in Whacko Texas to concede he really did get herbicide all over him. It happened while burning the classified mission papers on or near the perimeter fence from their daily 7th ABCCC missions over the Plain of Jars. Funny thing is I was down below him back in that summer of 1970 at about 200 ASL on frequency (118.9) calling in requests to him for air support for troops in contact. In fact, their call sign was well know to us- Cricket.
Johnny died of DM II complications back in April 2020 and I had a new mission to make sure they didn’t shortchange his widow. Well, sure as the sun rises, they did. Screwed him out of SMC S from fall 2016 to his passing in 2020. I couldn’t get the BVA jelly brain to grant what was due so we had to take that one up to the Court. Denis the Menace and the OGC choir folded during the Rule 33 conference and it’s finally back at Whacko Texas for the fat lady’s final act of contrition. I reckon I’ll look into A&A for this widow because she’s getting on in years. It’s only another $286 a month but what the hey? I’d do anything to irritate those pukes in Waco. They’re some kind of speshull stupid in my book. Maybe I ought to buy the DRO a one-year subscription to the The Flat Earth Society Magazine.
Life is good. I tested positive for Corona this morning. What’s amazing is it only felt like a cold all this last week. But then I don’t have IHD, DM II or weigh 458 pounds. I’ll survive. Too bad it isn’t like Chickenpox and you never get it again.
Holy Mackerel. I guess I don’t have to worry about getting sued by all these scam outfits stealing you Veterans’ money. I reckon I don’t have to go down the list and identify every last one of them either. Below is a link to the Military Times article that came in on the NOVA news feed this AM. We’ve been begging the VA to go after them for years. Apparently, someone just noticed. Amazing, huh? Nothing gets by these folks for long. This one happened in slightly less than 2 years. I’m impressed.
About this time every year, an ever-increasingly smaller cohort of my generation think back and reflect on the consequences of war-any war. Was it worth it? Did we win? Did we kill more of them than they did of us? In the end, after it’s all over, does it matter? In most respects, no. Fifty years later, all I miss is the camaraderie of being blood brothers united in agreement we were being led by clueless idiots. Well, that and I miss access to explosives. I miss shaving off Semtex from Claymores with my prized survival knife and heating up my c rats. I miss the music of a Pig chewing up the jungle in front of me. I miss things I can no longer remember… and probably for a good reason. This is how a lot of Vietnam Vets live life now.
86’n the fire extinguisher for more passengers
It’s not a bad life. We have grandkids if we’re lucky. Or, like one of my close friends I’ve met since I returned, you don’t because you went through about six wives in ten years and they never hung around long enough to get knocked up. Smart they were. Yesssssssssss. Be careful. Some of them show up 50 years later and wanna play house again.
I started counting how many of us true Boots on the ground (BOTG) remained using goggle™ back in 2008. The accepted number was 850,000 of us left. I checked in again around 2012. In spite a number of funerals I’d attended, I found out we were either multiplying like rabbits or someone was bullshitting us. As my daddy once said, bullshit is nothing more than chewed grass. Ditto the number in 2016 and 2018. I figured everyone else had some killer Mojo and had managed to stay healthy. I’m batting about 3/10.
I do note, after searching again several minutes ago that the number had sunk to 610,000 in 2019. Seems they use some fancy metrics here. 1954 to 1975 might be a credible time frame but 1/9/1962 to 5/7/1975 is the more preferred yardstick in my book. And it should include all the folks that served over the fence. Using that metric might describe more closely how many true “Vietnam War” Vets with real red clay between their toes (and jungle rot) are still here today. But maybe not. There are those who need valor. They need to belong. Newsflash. By just enlisting, or, for those less fortunate, drafted, you served your country. Who could be disappointed with a NDSM?
Some immediately take offense when I pull out the tape measure. I respect everyone who signed up to serve. I mean that sincerely. Realistically though, a much smaller number can, and should, claim true boots on the ground. And of that number, I suspect far fewer than 610,000 are still vertical. Keep in mind that horde of lifers who command us. They’re gone-and if not, they must live in Chicago. Folks there never die. Again, who really cares at this point? Well, a few. I watched a Vet lay into another one at a VFW NRA gun raffle/dinner back in 2018. Seems he felt being in Germany was equally as dangerous as red boots and entitled him to the moniker of a genuine Vietnam War Vet. I would have inserted “era” right after War to avoid confusion. Are they counting how many times they were ‘wounded’ by VD?
I selected England as my first choice of assignment. Spain and Italy were second and third. I drew Udorn adjacent to Nong Khai and the beautiful Mekong River at first. Then some AF Intel weenie discovered I spoke French. Laos wasn’t a whole lot different than Vietnam. You just rarely ran into guys who spoke English. Or French for that matter. Thai seemed to be the most frequent lingua franca. Imagine blasting (90 kts.) down Route 7 heading east and broadcasting over a microphone to convince Pathet Lao troops to surrender. That was Tuesdays and Thursdays. They called me the Chieu Hoi Boy. Judging by the way the slopes responded with SKS fire, it had to be taken as an emphatic ‘no.’ Fuggem if they couldn’t take a joke. I’d just shoot back. After about a dozen missions, I got pissed. I had the crew chiefs take the side door off and started packing a Thumper. Sometimes you have to enunciate your philosophy of peace with an exclamation point. There’s nothing like 40 mike-mike HE for emphasis.
I’ve laughed long and hard when an ‘era’ Vet wishes he could have been there. Nobody sane would ever wish for that. I remember my pilot discussing a mission off the mike as we returned to Long Tieng one evening. His drift was that no one got medals for strafing elephants-even if you got secondary explosions off the munitions they were packing. He explained it didn’t “play well in Peoria” when we submitted our after-action BDAs to our ‘Controlled American Source’ boss. The preferred term was camouflaged jeeps or, if you must, grey jeeps. Wars are funny. They won’t let you tell the truth. Now, no one can stand to hear the truth.
I remember the Sunday after I snagged a Swedish K for my personal firearm out of the old Jap hanger/warehouse down in Udorn. I went down to a creek nearby with a fifth of Jack Daniels and a couple of our AirAm crew chiefs. We were having a gay old time taking swigs and skipping 9 mils off the water when the ominous sound of Hueys (plural) began. Sensing something was amiss, we decided to get back inside the wire pronto. Believe it or not, the gunships lit up that stretch downstream with rockets and Pigs for five minutes. The body count, which was always the metric of success, was 8 and three POWs. Shut the front door. Were they counting monkeys? I struggle to this day to picture a monkey with his hands held high in surrender. I think that’s when I decided statistics could be fudged but is one of the fonder memories.
My attorney friend and mentor, Bob Walsh sent me this link today. He must share the same feelings I do about this time of year. It was 8 years before I found out he was an Eleven Bravo with a CIB. 173rd Airborne. Go figure. The meek among men roar the loudest when called to.
Yeah, some folks inherit star-spangled eyes
They send you down to war
And when you ask ’em, “How much should we give?”
They only answer, “More, more, more”
I told you several months ago I’d share my proprietary MacGyver information on Bottle Rockets. Remember them? What? No one shared the military art form with you? Okay stay with me. You take off one (1) of the plastique charges located above the fins of a 60mm mortar. Remember, just one-not all three. Three is right out. Set it aside. They looked like 1 ½” by 1 ½” inch chunks of plastique stitched together in packs of 5 very thin sheets. Take a c-rats can (large) and cut a piece about 4″X4″ out of the side wall metal and carefully flatten it out. Pick up a 2-foot chunk of baling wire from a mortar crate.
The one hundred metre freestyle.
Hold the PE down in the middle and fold the c-rats can in half, keeping the PE in one lower quadrant. Insert the bailing wire down the middle and fold in half one last time capturing the baling wire firmly. About dark, sashay over to a campfire and throw it in like a spear with the wire end in first. It usually stuck and held over the flames. Eventually, it would heat up and take off . They weren’t terribly aerodynamic and they were known to cause nasty wounds. What the hey- this was good for a PH. As I say, there are a lot of things I miss.
Bell 205 First In-Last Out… Ditched at Sea 29 April 1975 alongside USS Blue Ridge LCC 19
I reckon I better shut up before I find someone who ended up wearing one of my inventions.
Many veterans struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, better known as PTSD. Sometimes it may seem that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. Fortunately, that’s untrue. Here is some guidance on navigating your PTSD.
Don’t push away your loved ones.
As a veteran, you may have difficulty asking for help — after all, you’re used to others coming to you for help. Still, try your best not to push loved ones away. Lean on them. They may not be able to understand exactly what you’re coping with, and you don’t have to discuss your experiences right away, but try to seek the support you need.
Further, if you suffered an injury in battle and have new obstacles to overcome, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your loved ones might be able to gauge what kind of assistance you need, but as you adapt to home life you may find other challenges. There’s no shame in asking for assistance. In fact, your family and friends will be happy to help.
Expect and be mindful of triggers.
Unfortunately, triggers are an unavoidable part of PTSD. The UK’s Mind.org details that triggers can come in several forms: words, sounds, places, smells, certain kinds of films or books, and specific dates. In the beginning, these triggers will sneak up on you. However, as time goes on, you’ll be able to predict them more easily. Try keeping a journal; after each trigger experience, wait until you’re in a healthier state of mind, and then write down what triggered you, how you responded to any techniques that helped, and ways to avoid it in the future.
If you’re the loved one of someone with PTSD, keep a similar journal. This can help you be aware of what sets them off and how to circumvent these experiences. Be patient when an outburst does happen. Your loved one will have little to no control over their reaction, so the most you can do is be there to listen and offer support and love.
Make home your solace and practice meditation.
If you’re the recipient of a purple heart and come home with severe physical or mental disabilities, your home will need modifications. Not only will this make getting around easier, it can help reduce trigger episodes; if you can reduce the frustrations of your daily life, you may avoid outbursts. There are programs to help you out, some of which even build houses specifically tailored to a single veteran’s needs.
If possible, set aside a specific room dedicated to relaxation and meditation. Arrange it with a comfortable chair and relaxing décor. Eliminate as many electronic distractions as possible. If you’re unable to dedicate an entire room, choose a space as far away from common areas as possible and set up there. When you go in to practice your meditations, let your household know so you won’t be disturbed.
Connect with other veterans.
As Bradley University points out, your local Department of Veterans Affairs, or VA, offers excellent resources for therapy and other treatment. Group therapy with other veterans is a great place to start. The fact is unless they’ve been through war themselves, your loved ones just can’t understand some of the issues you’re dealing with. Speaking and bonding with other vets can be a healing experience.
The VA also offers family therapy. This can strengthen your relationships with loved ones by having a mediator guide the conversation. You don’t have to share right away, nor do you have to discuss anything you’re not ready to talk about. Simply go, listen, and speak when you know the time is right. And don’t worry if you’re scared — chances are that everyone in the room is. It’s unfair that the brave soldiers who defend our country come home with major trauma, be it physical, mental, or both. Still, there’s hope. Keep these tips from Asknod in mind when coping with your PTSD and remember that healing takes time. Your loved ones are here to help, so let them be a part of the process.
I listened to the oral argument of Jack L. Stover vs. VASEC this morning and, as usual, grow increasingly concerned about how to argue a case/appeal in the new AMA World Order. I discussed Andrews in a previous blog a week ago. Andrews has a dual import. The primary takeaway is when do you reach equipoise in this business? Who’s the line judge who blows the whistle and says you finally crossed it? Case law suggests you have to ingest the entire case before you get out the scales and start weighing it. But why can’t the evidence be so overwhelming that there really can never be a cogent denial argument; that the pros so far outweigh the cons that the Veteran’s case should never have been in doubt? Check out the oral.
The second argument, and one I’ve gotten into heated discussions about at BVA hearings, is the admissibility of the M 21 beyond the agency level. Every BVA Veterans Law Judge (VLJ) vociferously cuts me off at the knees should I foolishly cite to M 21. This in spite of its use below for my Vets’ Texas necktie parties. So where is that transition from where a Veterans is judged by the M 21’s yardstick and found wanting and then not being allowed to use the very same yardstick as a measure in a legal discussion? Welcome to the Stover oral argument. Pop a cold one and listen to some good logic. Well, at least logic as you and I would define it. It’s about time someone called bullshit on VA’s definitions of their definitions.
I’m ecstatic to finally see this conundrum discussed openly and watch the VA OGC counsel squirm uncontrollably and baldly say “Affirm as we say, not as we litigate.” to the Court. Mr. Vichich asking for Chevron deference at the Court when the BVA refuses to even discuss it at the Board goes over in Judge Mike Allen’s mind as about as logical as screen doors in submarines. Distilling its essence, it appears the Secretary desires to employ the M 21 at the agency level and then forbid its dissection at bar later on appeal whilst loudly exclaiming stare decisis and immutable law. This ignores the whole ex parte ‘Trier of Fact’ formula of de novo review. The M 21 is an assembly manual and little more. To say it can comprehend every instance of military stupidity and expertly apply the correct legal standard of review is fools gold. You would know that if you had served in the military. Military stupid is a speshull kind of stupid and takes years of service and rank to attain. The best courts in the land routinely have to change precedence to stay on top of new or revised legal epiphanies. The Liquor Prohibition Amendment was, and still is, a classic example. Besides, if the Court remands or reverses 74% of what crosses its desk, then VA’s 98% accuracy and the M 21 are suspect tools for any measurement of claims accuracy.
AO in Thailand
We’ve put the Blue Water contretemps to bed. We’ve watched with yawning awe as Thailand Vets have become the last AO orphans of the Southeast Asian Olympics. I reckon sooner or later Cambodian and Laotian Vets will eventually be knocking as well. Procopio resolved the last of the Navy arguments about where to draw the line. But now we have a new line to ponder-one that’s a dang sight less than 12 miles out. We’re talking feet. Let that sink in. Mere feet. It’s like a macabre comedy horror story out of the TV series Get Smart™. Missed it by thaaaaaat much, Airman 99.
I’ve often thought of the argument for AO exposure in Thailand to be a simple one. One far simpler to argue logically than just on a case by case basis. The presumptive exposure should be even more ironclad than for a true boots-on-the-ground Vietnam Vet. Here’s why. A real Vietnam Vet -one who set foot (not stepped foot) in the Republic of Vietnam often was stationed in places where AO was never sprayed. Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon was a classic example. The one place where so many touched down on a World Airways flight on their way to Bangkok and points north in Thailand, was rarely-if ever- sprayed. Many have tried to use this as their 30-minute refueling presumptive entitlement. Spot applications of weeds growing up through PSP here and there would have been done with a hand sprayer- if ever. The twin exhausts of a taxiing F4 pretty much dissuaded any hope of vegetation. Of course, few in the military ever conceived of a cataclysmic event like the Tet Offensive in January-February ’68.
Saigon USO
Furthermore, in-country troops in the field had a less than 50-50 chance they’d be in an active spray operation over them during an offensive operation. Why? Because it is pointless to spray during an assault. Nothing is accomplished by spraying for at least 5-8 hours that might improve sight lines in a dense jungle setting. It had a far more dramatic effect on the upper layer of a jungle canopy. A good defoliation job would take three applications to effectively percolate down to the jungle floor to kill growth. Most military operations were air assaults into previously sprayed areas- not land operations where active overhead spraying occurred during an assault on an enemy area of operations.
I always get a bang out of desperate Navy Vets claiming they encountered AO-soaked fighter jets upon their return after landing on aircraft carriers. Even Ol’ Mr. Procopio tried that one. Sorry Charlies. Air Force Ranch Hand missions were well-planned in advance and briefed in NOTAMs. If one had even been near your grid coordinates, it would be in the FRAG order and the call sign/ contact freq. listed. It’s not like an A 4J rolled in on a HCM strafing run loaded for bear with nape/CBU and discovered himself engulfed in a mist of AO from a $1.23 who just stumbled upon the air strike out of the blue. Never gonna happen, GI. I’ve been there. I know better- even if VA doesn’t. Spray Days and Spray Locations were about as secret as the 4th of July.
On the contrary, serving on a base in Thailand was much like being in an extremely large swimming pool with all the edges of the pool sprayed and contaminated- including the egress ladder. The wind drift coefficient would also come into play. Imagine your hootch about 40 feet away from the perimeter fence and a 25-foot laterite roadway bisecting it. There was still a dirt strip (formerly vegetation if unsprayed) between the road and the fence. We used it to play catch, throw a frisbee or jog on the edge of the roadway itself. Try defining “on or near the perimeter” in that context. The VA, in Jack Stover’s case, seems to demand he be close enough to physically touch the fence 12 hours a day. I’ve defended Vets for Udorn and Takhli AO exposure and won. My guys merely took smoke breaks while leaning against the fence. Some were forced to do Augmentation Duty and man towers on the perimeter 12 on and 12 off for a month. Hell, the Udorn Enlisted’s Chow Hall backed up to the perimeter fence. You could barely drive a pickup through there. You had to catch the shuttle bus there to get over to the Air America side of the base…twice a day. Doesn’t all this fall into “in the course of their regular duties”? Doesn’t sleeping adjacent to it for a year? Where exactly, is this official demarcation of ‘on or near’? 5 feet? 10 feet? 6 inches?
Thai Vets spent one year virtually encapsulated on a base with a few forays outside the wire to “pai teo” (seek pleasure) when possible in the local towns nearby. Based on manpower and time off, they might be lucky enough to get into town one night a month which would mean crossing over out of the ‘pool’. Wouldn’t that count as an additional exposure? No. The reason is it wouldn’t be in the normal course of your job -ergo- any exposure would not qualify. See how slippery this M 21 logic is? You can swim in this hypothetical pool of herbicides without ever actually coming into contact with it much as if you had donned a magical raincoat impervious to absorption. It couldn’t possibly attach to you unless you physically rubbed against the fabric of the cyclone fence with your flesh-but only if it were in the course of your usual duties. Right. The fact that our hootches had screens for windows/doors is immaterial to whether the wind blows in VA’s mind. I guess magic gnomes came by on breezeless nights when we were absent or sound asleep and carefully sprinkled their AO dust on the perimeter fences, being careful not to spill any outside the magic ‘on or near’ distance. Who woulda thunk it? VA, apparently.
Reading the BVA denial, I get the impression that the thrust of the decision is to head off any future assaults on the “security policeman or dog handler” myth. Remember, this is CCK- the Big Boys- representing Mr. Stover. The Judge said as much when he opined that if the most logical standard of presumptive exposure were to be employed that dang near everyone would qualify. Well, duh. Isn’t that pretty much the metric employed for Procopio out to twelve miles? Brown water Vets? Phan Rang AB Air Force Vets? Vung Tau R&R Beach Vets? I’m guessing VA is shitting their britches at the dismal prospect of hundreds of thousands of us Air Force untermenschen storming the gates before we die and throwing off the beancounters’ estimates of how many they owe Nehmerbucks to. Seems this is as good a place as any to dig in your heels and fight the Vets on this. Check out this logic:
Similarly, the Board finds that the Veteran’s explanations of being near the perimeter due to the placement of his living quarters (hooches), visiting the MARS shortwave radio station once or twice a month, or entering and exiting the base are insufficient to establish that the Veteran was exposed to herbicide agents. If these explanations were true, everyone assigned to these hooches, visiting the MARS shortwave radio station, or entering and exiting the base would have been exposed to herbicide agents, even if they only visited such areas once in a long while. Again, this view would create a slippery slope of line of reasoning that is not supported by VA law. The herbicide agent presumption of service connection has not been extended to all veterans who served at a RTAFB in Thailand. Exposure must be shown by at least an equipoise of the evidence standard. The statements provided by the Veteran do not establish, to an equipoise standard of evidence or greater, that he was exposed to Agent Orange while serving at the RTAFB in Thailand.
Hooo doggies. What if these explanations are true? Holy shit, Batman. Kinda funny how that slippery slope is only found in Thailand and nowhere else on the Indochinese peninsula-including the South China Sea now. It’s also kinda pathetic funny the Secretary should mention this isn’t supported by VA law when he avowedly insists the M 21 is not dicta at the BVA. So, not only do we have a shape-shifting herbicide that has a singular, magical affinity for galvanized, cyclone fence structures but also a set of ‘on or near’ M 21 manual interpretations which purport to be VA law but cannot be used to support a BVA denial in spite of being cited to and used as VA law to deny with. Poor Jack Stover and almost every other Air Force Vet who served over there don’t know whether to shit or go blind. It’s the M 21 ‘on or near’ Catch 22. I’m surprised the M 21 doesn’t also add “in addition, ‘on or near’ only applies to Veterans born at night on a Thursday in odd months.”
One thing few understand and for damn sure the VA does not get is this. We were few in number at these bases. We had to supplement our security forces with extra troops we didn’t have. Thai Army guards slept on the job or smoked dope. The only way to safely defend our bases was to create an augmentation duty requirement of one month each for the FNGs. Unless your AFSC (MOS) was critical, you were headed for one month of service on the perimeter-in the shit- for 12 hours on and 12 off, six days a week for four weeks. You ate, shitted and slept for the 12 hours you were not ‘in or on’ the perimeter. Somehow, this doesn’t equate to being in or on the perimeter in the course of your regular duties because, using the above logic, it was probably “once in a long while”. Somehow, for the next eleven months, you wore your magic invisible raincoats and the nasty herbicide could not attach itself to you successfully. And the best part was you didn’t even need to get vaccinated, wear a mask or stand six feet back from everyone-just that nasty perimeter.
The biggest VA whopper we are expected to swallow is the discussion by our good VLJ that if a body had been exposed to this crap, why, it would logically be in our STRs just like every time we cut ourselves shaving would mean a trip to sick call for a band aid.
Before deployment. No magazine and no jungle boots yet.
I always get a max bang from Judge Mike Allen’s Devil’s Advocate game when he asks the VA OGC victim how he would interpret what the Secretary is trying to have affirmed. Isn’t the M 21 implicated in a discussion if the BVA VLJ draws heavily from its parsing of what constitutes on or near? Is the M 21 off limits for discussion like the VASRD is? Can there be a non-regulation or non-statute that controls but cannot be held up to the light for inspection or determination as to its correct application of a legal standard of review? Pray tell, explain the Law of the Case to us, Secretary.
Stover jurisprudence may well turn out to be an interesting explanation of the “how many faeries can dance on the head of a pin” paradox. Oddly, Mr. Vichich sees no legal ambiguity in being unable to defend (let alone define) what physical distance ‘in or on’ might entail any more than prospective Supreme Court wannabes cannot define what a “woman” is nowadays. Mark my words. Pretty soon we’re gonna be packin’ Miriam Webster dictionaries up to the Big House at 625 Native Americana Ave. NW for our briefs. Seems the proper thing to do would be to just piss on the fire and let the Thailand Vets in to the Nehmer Party. Gez. How many of us can there be? I reckon ol’ Denis the Menace is figuring the Korean DMZers, the Anderson Island boys and just about everyone else aren’t going to be too far behind us. Denis can’t have that, now can he? I heard that EHR Cerner Medical computer fiasco out in Spokane is going to eat up oodles more billions before they give up and go back to VistA. So many Vets to deny. So little time to do it in before they die anyway.
And I believe that’s all I have to say about that.
Brother John flashed the one and only Bat signal in the sky heralding the desire of John and Jerrel (personal pronouns us, them, they) for my appearance on Exposed Vet to discuss Speshull Monthly Compensation. I look forward to this show as it’s a constant learning experience. Not so much the regulations but the way VA raters attempt to thank you for your service out of one side of their mouths while shutting the proverbial SMC door in your face.
asknod
Bethanie Spangenberg
kcraveiro
robinhoodesqvetsatty
Wesley McCauley
Veterans Claims Help 