MEMORIAL DAY 2025-WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?

Posted on May 26, 2025 by asknod

I have been known to listen to different news sources not only to broaden my perspective on how dissimilar minds think but also to attempt to comprehend change. An example would be how (or why) a swath of America has become rabidly anti-Semitic when the aggressors in 2023 that began this latest tit-for tat were Hamas. Fox News, regardless of what one might feel about them, sends out a fellow named Johnny Monday through Friday who asks pointed questions about some of the most elementary of subjects. Who was America’s first president is one. Many are clueless.

This increasing ignorance (or indifference) is destined to eventually destroy our nation in my mind. America’s might-our collective existence- hinges on our greatest asset- Freedom. Freedom of speech. Freedom of travel without restriction. Freedom to own guns. Freedom to choose not to own guns. Freedoms too numerous to list here. It’s not “White entitlement”. It’s American entitlement brought to you by hundreds of years of folks who were afraid it might perish. That’s the essence of Memorial Day and why we celebrate it. Imagine where we’d be if we had never fought for our freedom in 1776. We’d all be talking weird like those people across the pond.

As a Nation, we are a bright shining light in a dark world. The statue gifted us by France in New York’s harbor is a symbol of that belief. Rather than preach about the growing ignorance afoot from sea to shining sea or why thousands of students at some of our most expensive and prestigious colleges support the genocide inflicted on innocent partygoers at a desert rock concert in Israel, I’ll refrain. Nevertheless, I submit something is horribly amiss.

A Google news item this morning iterates my point. The title? Explaining the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Dear God. Have we come so far from the Viet Nam debacle or the ignoble Iraqistan retreat that we are inured to all suffering engendered by war? Are we  literally one news cycle away from forgetting our history and condemned to repeating it all over again? Perish the thought.

Moving along, I read of  my fellow Viet Nam Veteran Phil Robertson’s passing yesterday. We now add him to the pantheon of America’s fallen who served in a thankless job and came home to equally thankless citizens who considered us to be cold, heartless killers. Patriotic Americans, and I certainly consider myself one, can only wonder how we could fight three major wars (WW I, WW II and Korea) and tie yellow ribbons around every available tree at hand but denigrate those of us ( my father and myself included) as baby killers and somehow lower than whale shit.

What does it forebode for the future of our great Nation if this is our inevitable future? Are some wars more morally acceptable than others? I was taught that we learn from our mistakes. How many times in the past have I heard some VA higher-up say ‘Boy howdy. We sure didn’t see this backlog thing coming when we revamped the decision-making  process in 2014’. But then again in 2022, hear yet another REMF  say exactly the same thing about the AMA. Or the Mission Act to allow Vets to go to a doctor near them instead of being forced to travel 90 miles to a VAMC only for the legislation to be ‘revised’ numerous times until it became a mere chimera of its original intent.

For the first time in my 36 years of dealing with VA on a personal note, I feel a change in the air. Say what you want about our current President and his aspirations to revamp VA but a sea change is afoot- or at least I hope so. How many past VASECs have promised us the world and left us in the lurch? President Trump attempted to rid us of the dead wood of VA employees who stole moneys used for Veterans. He got Congress to pass legislation allowing the VA to rid themselves of these vermin only to be blocked by the Courts and the unions.

Every day, I hear numerous Vets bemoan the coming changes to VA. Downsizing is bad. It’ll destroy VA as we know it. It’ll take forever to adjudicate my claims. Hello? Did any of you notice the system has been broken since 1930 and in spite of every new repair order, it just seems to continue to be more convoluted, slower and more complicated with every repair order? Name one President in the last 30 years who “fixed” VA. In spite of the crickets, all I hear is the doom and gloom at the mere prospect of ridding ourselves of all the participants of the orgies down in Tennessee or the malfeasance afoot  in Puerto Rico where they’re selling ratings again as they did in 1988.

I think back to 2010 when Shinseki allowed Congress to create two unequal sets of Veterans- those pre-2001 and those post. The post 911 Vets were granted entitlement to SMC T whereas those of us who experienced ‘organic brain injury’ in WW II, Korea and Vietnam  were somehow less equal than the those who experienced TBI. Granted, Congress righted that wrong later (2019) but it created a seismic shock wave among us that George Orwell’s ‘some pigs are more equal than other pigs’ in Animal Farm had even entered the VA lexicon.

I encountered something similar to this dichotomy when I separated in 1973. Granted, I parted ways with Uncle Sam under less than warm, fuzzy circumstances but it was under honorable conditions. To my horror, when I went down to the VFW and asked for membership information, I was told that Viet Nam wasn’t a “War” but merely a “conflict”. As such, I didn’t qualify for membership but I was free to toodle on down to the American Legion and they’d welcome me with open arms.

Memorial Day takes one day and sets it aside for those who died in uniform- not every Tom, Dick and Harry who ever served. Surprisingly, it’s not a small, cloistered coterie like Medal of Honor winners. Check this out:

To me, and perhaps I’m just old fashioned in this respect, I feel American History should be taught in our schools with the same verve it was in the 1950s.  Obviously, it’s not or you wouldn’t see those ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ expressions on 20-something year olds at Spring Break in Miami when asked who our first President was. Since when did learning about global warming or who invented AI upstage the history of America’s birth and her ascension to the greatest nation on earth?  Worse, why would we teach our youth to be ashamed of our history and our march to equality for all our citizens?

Memorial Day should not be a reason to don sack cloth and anoint our heads with ashes for participating in past wars or permitting slavery to  be introduced to our country. It should be a celebration of our ongoing efforts to rid the world of war and that all men (collectively including women) are created equal. You can’t continue to wallow in the 3/5 of a man logic of the past. That ship sailed 160 years ago and died with the advent of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Memorial Day should be a day to genuflect on our National progression from a dream to a reality of true Freedom and our genuine thanks for those who died choosing to make it so. Sure, throw in a barbeque and brewskis with your BFFs and enjoy the three-day weekend. Each National holiday has a theme. This one is just a wee bit more unique in that it encompasses a thanksgiving for those who made our freedom a reality or an attempt to ensure its continued success. Only the 4th of July rivals it in terms of Patriotism.

Capt. Sean P. Sims Sunrise 1972 Sunset 2004

Revel in the fact that we become better citizens (and Patriots) by remembering our past and taking one day out of our busy lives to commemorate those who raised their right hands and swore to defend this great country but never lived to reap the fruits of their labor; who never came home to parades, marriage, children and living peacefully to a ripe old age. Remembering their sacrifice is what ensures, in small part, keeping our country strong and safe. Neglect it at your peril.

God Bless America.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that…

 

Posted in Food for thought, Memorial Day | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

BVA-SMC L–JUST FIND A PLACE TO MAKE YOUR STAND AND TAKE IT EASY

Posted on May 12, 2025 by asknod

Sometimes you just have to wonder if this VA compensation game is the luck of the draw. I’ve done hundreds of aid and attendance claims and one thing is as predictable as the sunrise-you simply can’t predict the outcome. I mean at the local Fort Fumble level- not the Board of Appeals.  For some reason, that part is the easiest. In all honesty, to me, SMC is like fishing with Dupont Spinners. 

For every SMC claim I’ve won locally, the Veteran was generally only months away from auguring in. VA generally reasons ‘What the hey? It’ll only cost us about an extra 5 Benjamins per month until he kicks and we’ll get some damn good PR from it. Ditto a speedy resolution on the DIC.’

Now to the interesting quirk here. VA insists (wrongly) that you ‘generally’ have to have a 100% rating, a TDIU or a single disease process that has a shit ton of residuals like Diabetes or Parkinson’s. This article is going to illustrate that premise is not the case on appeal. No sireee, bob.

Allow me to show you why. Read 38 USC §1114(l). Congress wrote this- not VA. VA tries to restrict the intent of Congress judging from how §3.350(b) is read. Here’s 1114(l):

L  –if the veteran, as the result of service-connected disability, has suffered the anatomical loss or loss of use of both feet, or of one hand and one foot, or is blind in both eyes, with 5/200 visual acuity or less, or is permanently bedridden or with such significant disabilities as to be in need of regular aid and attendance,

VA would prefer you only have one disability that qualified but even then it still would not avail you. In case you hadn’t noticed, if you file for a&a, VA hands this out about as frequently as winning lotto tickets.  The plural using ‘disabilities’ above blows right through that ‘at least one rating at 100’ theory. But let’s go further.

Donna here has a bunch of shit wrong with her but Lyme Disease was the last straw. VA gave her a full 100% for it for three years. Then the ratings grinch showed up and began the reduction game. True, she was “healed” in the most general sense of the word, but the residuals were the lifetime nightmare. Grand mal and Petite mal seizures. Vertigo, Headaches that felt like the Ax murderer had snuck in and sunk a hatchet in her noggin 25 days of the month. Oh, and don’t forget the fibromyalgia and lottsa arthritic conditions in the extremities. In a nutshell, Donna was one hoooooot mess.

Donna finally came to me just as they were pulling the plug on the 100% that kept her in SMC S. With the reduction, she was headed back to TDIU. Add in she had a two-year old boy and a husband who was nothing but dead weight financially. So she did the South Pacific routine of ‘Wash that man right outta my hair” and moved back to North Carolina…without him. Now she’s singin’ ’bout how all of her exs live in Texas.

My patented attack technique has always been to attack when being attacked. Flank them. Fall back a hundred yards lickety spit, turn right, pop smoke and call in the airstrike. In Donna’s case, her Grand/Petite mal seizures were rated at 20%. Her headaches (HAs) were at 50%. There simply was no time to begin a claim for increase on them. She’d be homeless if it took that long. Besides, 50% for HAs is max. So I began thinking how ’bout an extraschedular for HAs? Never heard of it before. Why not? Since I’ve never been to law school, I didn’t learn the rules. Thus, I can be forgiven for going off the reservation every once and a while.

So, attack it was. What better way than to appeal the denial of a&a that came with the reduction? I’ll let you read the brief I filed. The extraschedular for the HAs fell flatter than a cheese soufflé in a daycare facility. The VLJ wasn’t having any part of that discussion. I reckon I won’t try that one again. Check it out. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along. Grant the A&A.”

BVA 10182 filed USPS 9.24.2024_Redacted

Shucks.  I guess my Jedi mind tricks worked like a charm on the Grand/Petite mal strategy part of it. Reasonable minds can only concur that if the medical evidence of record says you’re having 5-20 of these ‘fall down and do the chicken’ episodes per month, you need a&a. Who in Sam Hill gives a rat’s ass if the raters are lowballing the shit out of the poor girl? As a VLJ, s/he can declare 1114(l) is for application and give her SMC L for her 20% as he sees fit.

BVA a&a grant 4.22.2025

I have a fellow law dog who swears by the M 21 and everything it espouses as God’s Written Truth. I prefer to use a mixture of 38 USC and 38 CFR to accomplish my tasks and supersize it with a heapin’ helpin’ of precedential cites. It’s the old military adage of “If it’s stupid and dumb but it works, then just exactly how stupid and dumb is it? You don’t have to build a Rube Goldberg perpetual motion claim to win what you seek. This is more of a Joe Friday enterprise like Badge 714- “Just the facts, ma’m. Just the facts.” Legal tomes tell you never to write a legal brief that exceeds six pages. Shoo, doggies. I sure have never been able to do that.

Nothing give me greater pleasure than doing this job. May the Force be with all of you as you do your claims. And if you just can’t muster up the Force, shoot me an email and we’ll see what we can rustle up for you. This isn’t rocket science but there most definitely is a science involved in how you attack.

Fifty years ago, we did this with Nape and CBUs. We’re far more civilized now and use keyboards but the same predicate still applies- Always arrive on target with three times more ordnance than you’ll ever hope to need-and don’t be afraid to expend it.

 

Posted in Aid and Attendance, BvA Decisions, How to Qualify for VA SMC, SMC, Special Monthly Compensation, Tips and Tricks, VA special monthly compensation, Veterans Law, Women Vets | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CLAIMS SHARKS.

Posted on April 27, 2025 by asknod

Stop what you’re doing now and read this article from the War Horse. It’s a report on our fellow Veterans Lt. Colonels Scott Greenblatt and Bill Taylor.https://thewarhorse.org/va-benefits-claims-lobbying-congress/ Boy howdy wouldn’t you want to set a spell, have a brewski or two and a Fireball backer and shoot the shit with these ol’ boys? Why, shucks. I’d take a flying  gymnastic maneuvre at a rolling donut that these fellers would even offer to buy the drinks considering they’re probably knocking off about a half a mil just while sitting there having the drink with you. That would be you paying… their fellow Veteran(s).

Now, with a suitable preamble warning you that these fellers  are probably gotomeetin’ Sunday regulars at St. Stephen’s Episcopal and purely Salt of the Earth souls who donate to the proper causes, don’t get the idea I’m denigrating them. I’ll just conjecture here. No law says I can’t paint a possible ‘what if?’ scenario. Some of you might remember my last fiasco in 2015 with the Wounded Wallet Krewe©. Those two got the impression I was personally slandering them and the horses they rode in on, too. (No pun intended). That’s rearview mirror shit.

Mind you, I’m not saying these guys are doing anything untoward. I’m just conjecturing that because they are both O-5s (retired), they’re probably 20-year, wannabe field grade failures. If you don’t get to full-bird Colonel by twenty, the writing’s on the wall. Time to hang up the IBM Selectric, piss on the fire and call in the dogs. In other  words, it’s time to either go on a weight loss program and do Only Fans™ or… wait for it… use those Star Spangled Eyes they were born with and find some way to make tons of money. Shoot. Why not Veterans? Since men (or Veterans) don’t pay money to look at naked old guys with hairy beer bellies in bikinis, you gotta up your game. Right?

Now, without singling out any particular miscreant(s), I read the War Horse article and was appalled to find out the identity of these jokers. I figured it was… no, I’m not going to joke about that. I swore that chapter of asknod was over and done with. So, you read the article about Veterans Guardian and you’re feeling a wee bit queasy in the gut. These folks have been, and continue to, brazenly flout the law we all abide by and now suggest they be allowed to continue- without any of the accreditation hoops we all have to jump through to in order to represent Veterans. What the hey? I didn’t make the rules. Congress did. But I have no problems obeying them. You’ll notice I’m in the OGC acceditation search site.

Shortly after the War of Northern Aggression back in 1865, Congress declared a VA rep couldn’t charge more than $10 dollars to help a Vet get his pension. I say ‘his’ because we didn’t have female Eleven Bravo Tens back then. No offense intended to Karen in Florida. That ten dollar fee held for over a hundred forty one years. Somehow, nobody jumped in and started charging five months worth of the value of the win back then. If they had, they’d go to jail and wouldn’t pass ‘Go!’ and collect their $200 for a few years.

That worked out fine until 2006 and a lot of altruistic law dogs helped innumerable Vets for this token $10… or just for free. EAJA is chump change. In ’06, Congress saw the need for waaaaay more advocates and relaxed the $10 dollar fee gig because inflation had pretty much made it obsolete. But they forgot to reinsert the clause that said “Don’t be greedy or we’ll spank you.”

This didn’t sink in to all them washed up former field grade officers across our Fruited Plains until a few in the ligation world finally grasped the enormity of Hickson and Shedden precedence and the medical opinion factories began helping us out. Et Voilà. Veterans Guardian was born. To give you an idea how voracious these folks are, take a gander at this. Any one of you can do this in a second. My website began in 2008 and has been in existence in its current iteration since 2011 at WordPress®.

So, you’d expect that if you go to your web browser and type in asknod, you’d get a link to my site. Since asknod is a queer-ass kind of name, you wouldn’t expect to arrive at a Pizza Parlor website named Asknod Pizza in East Bumfork, Idaho. But what does come up first?

REE Medical www.reemedical.com

Veterans Benefit Group  VBG.com

PTSDlawyers.com

And a few other Veteran outfits, even  a VA.gov site… and Veterans Guardian. I had to fix that. I was number 3 in my own name game category. Which begs the question as to what in Sam Hill is on their website that would lead you to them when you inquire as to my site? All these queshuns.

Fortunately, I’m not hurting for clients. Quite the opposite. I had to hire an attorney to help me with the overload and am contemplating hiring yet another. But it really begs the question of just how desperate some of these folks are to spend tons of money on computer tricks to divert traffic to themselves. Worse, in the case of unaccredited outfits, to divert shit tons of money from Veterans’ wallets into their own and claim the high ground…all the while baldly breaking the laws of the United States in the process sucks in my book. I’m not saying all Vet claims helpers are illegitimate. They’re not.

The War Horse article should make you shiver. But what I propose is, as usual, about as subtle as napalm. Since all these “contracts” with Veterans to force them to cough up all this dough is premised on an illegality, the simplest expedient is the most logical-don’t pay them. Ghost the suckers. How can you legally owe these guys a dime if they wrote an unenforceable, illegitimate contract that is void ab initio from the day you signed it?

I’ve personally had three Veterans come to me and win. They hadn’t prevailed below for aid and attendance at the SMC L rate in spite of all the hard work of their Claims Sharks they hired. They gave up and came to me. As most know, I play Jedi mind tricks on the Veterans Law Judges and they grant my every SMC wish. Well, at least they have so far  because I’m still batting .1000. But, post win, guess who came knocking on the door? Yeppers. Mr. and Mrs. Claim Shark demanding their due from the Veterans for my hard work.

I explained to all three that these outfits had no legal leg to stand on and couldn’t very well wreck your credit score because they’re illegal. Sure enough, after a lot of bad words and hurt feelings, the Sharks wandered off in search of other Veteran fish to fry. The War  Horse article shines a light on a horrible flaw in law that could be repaired in a blink of the eye. How could any Congressman or woman not get behind this regardless of their political stripe? Well, now. Maybe you should ask your representative(s) who is getting all that lobbying money from these asshats. If they are, they are not your friend.

In fact, in my world, any Vet who is screwing over another Vet is a rapscallion of the worst stripe. That is not to say that certain retired O 5s are evil. I’m just asking you to put on your independent thinking caps and put two and two together. In my world, we spend an inordinate amount of time and money to become proficient in our profession. We join the premiere legal outfit that defends Veterans (who have asked me not to use their logo) because I use nasty, politically incorrect words to describe the folks who tried to kill me for two years. Funny how no one was ostricized for using Krauts or Japs/Nips in World War  Two. Ditto gooks to describe the Chicoms and North Korean hordes. Or dinks, Capt. Charles, slopes, etc. in “my” war. I didn’t invent the sobriquets. I merely recite them as contemporaneous to the era. I think the term “in context” would be à propos.

I stand unapologetic before you. Vietnam was my “lived experience” as the Gen Z folks like to tout. I can’t change my stripes or learn a whole new vocabulary to please everyone. I focus my whole existence on helping Vets as quickly and as cheaply as I can for them-and many for free. The idea of dinking a Vet for 75% of his winnings for some questionable help on an assembly line basis is anathema to almost anyone-Veteran or civilian-or should be. If the objectionable party then tries desperately to salvage their illegal operation by spreading lobbying money around like salting Vermont roads in winter, then Congressmen should all look in their collective mirrors and question who they represent.

So, if Vets Guardian and their ilk feel they shouldn’t have to become accredited to do this and we can all just “get along” by limiting it to a flat rate of no more than $12,500 per unlucky Vet per claim, does that mean we who are accredited shouldn’t just jump on this money wagon and quit being accredited? Do they suggest “two lanes”- those accredited and those who choose not to be but we all get equal status? Shucks, I’d love to dump that $8,000 to $10,000 per year I spend on Continuing Legal Education (CLE) requirements and spend it on top dog single malt scotch. But I don’t. I’m just as much a Veteran as I am a litigator. Besides, I married a rich girl so I don’t really need the money anyway.

I object to the two lanes model. If I work for ten years on one claim, I don’t ask for 40-50% like civilian ambulance chasers. Nor do I ask for 30%. My contract has always been “free” if the VA grants without a fight and 20% of anything I can get on a one-off basis. After that we’re done. I don’t pop up like a bad habit ten years later asking for more. I don’t drag out some bogus argument that there aren’t enough litigators and we’re being unfair by forcing Vets to use us. And I sure don’t insist I earned the 5 months at full freight of your money. Granted, VSOs, who are free, are not the brightest lights on the Christmas tree but they at least prepare you for the appeal by getting you over the first hump of a denial. So there’s that.

I don’t expect everyone to think like me. I was born in khaki diapers so I have a Veteran-centric mindset. Either we all hang together or we all hang separately. Claims sharks ask us to make a Faustian bargain- an allowance if you will- to allow them to get far richer by cheating because there aren’t enough of us to go around. My response is simple. What prevents these money-rich jackwads from not seeking accreditation to represent Veterans exactly the way we do? In those immortal words of Rodney King- “Can’t we all just get along?”  Or, in the current vernacular- “No one is above the law.” Right. Make it so, Numbah One. Lock ’em up.

P.S. As a postscript to this article and my subjective thoughts expressed above, I must add that the thoughts expressed are pure humor. No one should feel compelled to consider my philosophy as legal dictum to be followed. My column (blog?) is pure, non-legal conjecture about what I see and hear out there in Vetworld. As a nonattorney practitioner with no legal training, what I offer in the way of advice is worthless. In fact, realistically, any who read my drivel have to compare it to something analogous like the Babylon Bee®. It’s great entertainment but has little more than entertainment value.

Posted in All about Veterans, Claims sharks, Complaints Department, Food for thought, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

(I’VE HAD) THE TIME OF MY LIFE

Posted on April 19, 2025 by asknod

Some folks say I don’t talk much about my adventures in Southeast Asia. Other say I’m waaaay too verbose on the subject. Seems it hinges on how many adult beverages I’ve had. A fifty-year NDA in 1972 would hush your mouth if you didn’t cotton to an extended staycation at the Fort Leavenworth Graybar hotel for 10 to 20.

N199X

If any of you have looked at what remained of that PC-6 Porter (above)  in my “About the Author” widget, you’d get a bang out of the pre-and post- history of the crash. Perchance, the pre-history…

Captain Jack C. Smith, if for one minute you believed that was his real name, was stationed up at T-11 in northwest Thailand right on the westerly most boundary of Laos. So was I. It appears on maps as Changwat Chiang Mai but fifty years ago it was a tiny burg hopping with all manner of clandestine, Thai and Lao activity. Doi Suthep mountain, to the west of the walled downtown proper, reared up above the town and the King’s summer palace was near the top with the big Wat Doi Suthep temple. It was like a natural antenna mast sticking up. We had all kinds of spook shows afoot scattered on the easterly side of the mountain facing towards Hanoi. Detachment 415, USAF HQ. Command was running Channel 9 TACAN pointed right at downtown Hanoi so errant bombers could “ride it in” on overcast days.

Downtown conveniently had a US Consulate with our own Aerial Port Post Office (APO Seattle 96272). In addition, the US Information Agency had an office around the corner. So did the US Agency for International Development. We called it Usaid as a two-syllable word. They had a ripsnorting busy schedule supplying pigs and M 1 carbines to the Meo Tribesmen right over the border. The Army, in order to keep us in touch with the outside world, had a MRC 98 dual dish Tropospheric shot down to Bangkok via Phitsanolok.

Add to that Detachment B, 7th Radio Relay Field station which had more antennas that a mobile home trailer park,  was about 40 klics out in the wilderness and looked like they’d sprayed more Agent orange there than on the Trail. The place was absolutely nuked-not so much as anything green anywhere. There were also about 20 interlocking machinegun bunkers around the perimeter.

Air America also had a presence there or I wouldn’t be talking about this. Jack Smith had quite the reputation as a dude that could really pack Bourbon away. Flying the next day, even though the standard stricture about not flying within 12 hours of drinking, wasn’t universally obeyed- especially in a backwater operating location nobody could find on a map. Well, unless you had the old French pre-WWII maps.

Jack’s nickname was Jesus F****ing Christ Smith or simply JFC. He was a real air cowboy and often over-estimated the aerial capabilities of his Porter PC- 6. They’re not very forgiving if you screw up. The FAA had forbidden their operation in the lower 48 continental US. So, on the morning of April 20, 1971, I had the misfortune of flying with him and another individual name Captain Clutter to lay about a mile and a quarter of RG 58 antenna cable right over the jungle canopy from the vicinity of Detachment 415 out to their antenna farm. Seems one of the old cables had gone tits up and they needed Channel 9 back on line pronto.

I was sort of preflighting the aircraft at 0745 when Jack poured himself out of his Land Rover. We had already refueled and were pretty much waiting for His Highness. The mission was about 15 minutes away straight off and to the left of the runway. JFC still reeked of Jack Daniels but no one would dare to question if the Pilot In Charge (PIC) was mission capable. Oh Hell no. I just walked over and grabbed the fire extinguisher and waited to pull chocks after he got the engine warmed up. I’d already had a Buddhist monk bless the aircraft for 5 baht just to be safe. That was standard operating procedure any time JFC was the PIC..

We were going to pay the cable out the bottom bay of the Porter and do a shallow 360° circle away from the side of the mountain every time I ran close to the end of each 1/4-mile cable reel. The crew chief and I had them strung up sideways on a steel bar. At least that was the game plan.

At the end of the third reel, Captain Jack turned to port into the side of the mountain instead of starboard to the right away from the mountain. The Porter predictably lost speed and began to fall off on the left wing steeply.  That was JFC’s first “Oh shit!” the second one was right after the A/C stalled and he dumped the nose lower and firewalled the throttle to get out of the stall. We never pulled out of the stall because we ran out of the one commodity we desperately needed and didn’t have-altitude.

In addition, he’d had about 12 degrees of flap hanging out, too because we were cruising about 65-70 knots so I would have plenty of time to change reels. The Porter held true to its reputation of being ornery. We went from 100 kts to 0 in about ten feet in what could only be referred to as an “arborous setting” of small deciduous trees.

And the post-history…

I started seeing a single image again about a minute  later (according to my trusty Seiko™) ten feet to the right of what remained of N199X.  Jack’s centrifugal force seatbelt hadn’t caught and he’d kissed the windshield and was out cold. Captain Clutter crawled out on his hands and knees covered in his own puke. It was obvious his bladder had cut loose, too because his khakis were soaking wet.  I reckon I might of pissed my drawers if I’d been up in front looking out that canopy, too. It all happened so fast, I didn’t get a chance to piss in mine. I personally think it would have been nicer if JFC had shouted “hold on” or “This is going to be a rough landing.” I shook off the fog, lit a Marb Red and went in and cut Jack out of his seatbelt and dragged him and my Car 15 away from the area formerly known as the cockpit. By now the aircraft was on fire. A cigarette wasn’t going to change things at that point.

Clutter and I got Jack up and moving and made our way west to the road that ascended to the mountain palace and finally flagged down a baht bus going down. We passed the Thai Provincial Police racing up the mountain and told them where it was. None of us spoke Thai fluently much beyond “Which way to the best whorehouse?” so you can just imagine how long that took. They wanted us to go back up and lead them to the crash site but Jack had a bodacious head gash above his eye and we all know how they bleed uncontrollably. Besides, all you had to do was follow the smoke. Clutter’s eyeballs were bugged out like a hyperthyroid dude and he was stuttering pretty badly. My back was killing me and I felt like I was about 2 inches shorter. Turns out I was only off by 1 ½ inches.

So, as we all know, when you screw up, blame it on the aircraft. The Jackster got a month’s leave in Bangkok with his pregnant wife.  They probably gave him a raise, too. I got morphine for my back and a PT chit for a week. Captain Clutter got a dry pair of trousers and three blue Valium 10s to bring his diastolic down below 150. Actually, that’s pure conjecture. I never set eyes on “Captain” Clutter again after we got to McCormick Hospital. By then I had the Mother of all headaches brewing that lasted for about 6 months.

Considering I had the pleasure of flying during my years there with Captain Ben Franklin, Captain Steve Canyon and other equally famous folks, I wasn’t surprised to see JFC show back up a month later with his head wound scabbed over and ready for more bourbon/aerial adventures. They even tied a bright red ribbon around his slightly used replacement Porter. Meet the Jackster. That ol’ boy sure loved polyester. You can still see the scab on his forehead above his left eye here.

I found his picture on the Air America Facebook Page about a year or two ago. I remember the new bird showing up in the revetment area that summer but never realized they’d held a ceremony to present it to him. I sometimes wonder how many aircraft he went through during his time there.

Anyway, April 20, 1971, was the day my number of takeoffs became unequal to my number of landings. I always associate it with Easter which was a scant nine days earlier. As we boldly plowed into the jungle, I wondered if I was going to get to rise from the dead, too. This is one of the prime reasons I don’t worry about dying in an aircraft accident. I have better odds of winning the Powerball Lotto than being in two aerial misadventures. But then, being in an aircraft crash has to be the ultimate “Come to Jesus” meeting any of you will probably ever experience.

Happy Easter. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

P.S. Not sure where our commenter Will M. gets his spelling of Chieng Mai. We used the old French maps from WW II and they all show it as Chiang Mai.

Posted in From the footlocker, Humor, VA Agents, VA TBI, Vietnam War history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

EXPOSED VET ZOOM SHOW THURSDAY 1900 HRS (E)

Posted on April 9, 2025 by asknod

Whooo, doggies. John and Ray have finally got this Zoom Room shindig in motion with a heapin’ helpin’ of Beth Spangenberg from what I’m told. This was a long time coming as many know and gives Veterans the most up to date, in-depth look at the VA claims process by us Agents and attorneys down in the trenches. 

 

Not to diminish the work done by VSOs and others who like to get their hands dirty, but I must say a convocation of 300 or so VA Attorneys and Agents at a National Organization meeting is bound to create lots of discussion as to technique and outcomes. We get valuable insight from the folks who enjoy kicking ass up at the CAVC which, in turn, creates more useful precedence we can use to win with below. There are actually many decisions which change the course of human events almost imperceptibly and result in a truly more Veteran friendly amphitheater to do battle in.  Witness Duran, Barry and Laska just in the last year.

I gotta get one of these suckers.

To say Loper Bright will make a difference in the future for Veterans now that the Powers That Be don’t get to construe what they think 38 CFR really says, I feel we can safely say a new dawn is on the horizon. And we’re gonna talk all about that tomorrow evening. I’m sure John and Ray would like to know the latest scuttlebutt on how VA is ever going to drag itself kicking and screaming into the 21st Century with half of America insisting it stay in the Dark Ages…because that’s the way we’ve always done it.

Think back to the days of Allison Hickey, USB. We were going to eradicate the backlog by going into electronic records venue. Pretty soon, they said they’d have to lay off raters left and right because they’d be idle with nothing to rate. And then along came the bean counters and the Big Six VSOs who insisted it (Legacy) was too complicated and just had to be simplified. Can any of you out there look at me with a straight face and say Boy howdy I’m sure glad we have AMA?

I’d also like to show you something that will roll your socks down. A VSR, the lowliest form of rater, just arbitrarily took it upon herself to ’86 a claim I filed for my client. Read §3.2501 closely. This is the new supplement reg that tells you what you can, must, might or should think about when you pull the pin on your new claim hand grenade.

§ 3.2501 Supplemental claims.

Except as otherwise provided, a claimant or his or her authorized representative, if any, who disagrees with a prior VA decision may file a supplemental claim (see § 3.1(p)(2)) by submitting in writing or electronically a complete application (see § 3.160(a)) on a form prescribed by the Secretary any time after the agency of original jurisdiction issues notice of a decision, regardless of whether the claim is pending (see § 3.160(c)) or has become finally adjudicated (see § 3.160(d)). If new and relevant evidence is presented or secured with respect to the supplemental claim, the agency of original jurisdiction will readjudicate the claim taking into consideration all of the evidence of record. If new and relevant evidence is not presented or secured, the agency of original jurisdiction will issue a decision finding that there was insufficient evidence to readjudicate the claim. In determining whether new and relevant evidence is presented or secured, VA will consider any VA treatment records reasonably identified by the claimant and any evidence received by VA after VA issued notice of a decision on the claim and while the evidentiary record was closed (see 3.103(c)).

Now, back in the olden days of dial phones, VA could never just say Piss off, sailor. We ain’t gonna look at your bogus cries for justice. They had to at least deny you even if it involved that alien abduction where they inserted the brain control gizmo in the back of your head. Remember that shit? Bummer, dude.

So I submit a VAF 20-0995 disagreeing with the lowball 20% ratings awarded for lower extremity neuropathy because my boy is sporting AFOs bilaterally and still can’t walk. His doctor says total peroneal nerve damage. I file him for bilateral (b/l) loss of use of the lower extremities because…duh… he can’t walk without kissing the concrete. I threw in the clothing allowance denial because …well, shit because it was denied and that’s what AFOs do to your pants. Duh? I Walz off to Minnesota  (pun intended) for the legal conferences in Minnie-Saint Paul and come home to find… no claim. Gone with the Wind. No matching records…

I look it up in VBMS and what do my wondering eyes behold?  Voila…

Michelle 1

Michelle has “construed” I wanted an increase- period. Well sorry Alex but you gotta do that on a 526, right? As for the LOU and the new pants? All I hear is that whooshing, sucking sound of the VBA301 vacuum cleaner that disappeared it all. Well, you fellers know me by now. Time for some nape on the outboard hard points and full 9 yard loads of .50s in the wings. I thought my message was very restrained. I didn’t mention anything about being raised by wolves or what they were smoking at lunch break.

4138 for RECEST of 995

That was Monday night at COB (close of business) here on the Left Coast. I’m pretty sure Michelle and her compadres had already beat feet for the exits assuming VA Secretary Dugout Doug has rounded them back up and actually makes them come in to work at the Beantown Puzzle Palace. I figured it would make a great conversation topic with her boss Asst. Coach Vanessa and the Asst. VSCM Leroy over Tuesday morning coffee. I was right.

As I sucked coffee yesterday morning before going to meet one of my charges, the incoming Outlook announced “You’ve got mail!”  Michelle (ma belle) thanked me profusely for calling her out on her little faux pas and informed me that the claim was now back in the land of the living in Boston as of 0800 Local. She was telling the truth. And she even cc:’d her supervisors to show them she was on it.

Michelle, ma belle

Now, I know all of you don’t have Nape on your wings and the ability to enjoy a target-rich environment like we do. However, it’s always nice to have an attorney or Agent who does. More importantly, you should have a shield bearer with that utter disregard for the chain of command. VA admonishes us to contact the CMA when we need cheese to go with our whine. That can be daunting if they don’t deign to answer for a week or two. I’m impatient so I just look up these asshat culprit(s) and email them personally. I used to get yelled at for doing so but I discovered a little wrinkle in the M 21 that gives me a bye…

“Per M21-1 Part  I. subpart i. Chapter 2. Section B.(1).(b), “VA policy is to work with representatives of claimants and beneficiaries in an equal partnership to effectively serve Veterans and their dependents and survivors. The policy requires VA employees to assist representatives”.

Shut the Front Door, huh?

Considering Pastor Doug is getting ready to give a haircut to about 80,000 VA Klingons, helping Veterans (and me) has suddenly become more in fashion again. And do you know? I get the nicest letters back now from all them folks saying thank you for bringing that to our attention, Mr. Buckwheat. We’ll get right on it di-rekly. And they do. It just goes to show there’s some really nice folks who work at VA even if they’re harder to find than unicorn shit.

Life is good and then you turn 74. For my birthday present this year, the Pierce County Sherriff finally gave me back my ol’ .357 S&W I carried in Southeast Asia- the one I pegged that dipshit with who stole my car back in ’22.  By operation of law, I had to give the dickweed three years to sue me for shooting him. Time’s up Devon. I guess I should tell him if he comes back, I bought one of those Benelli™ pistol grip shorty 12 gauge pumps. There’s something plumb satisfying about hearing that signature slide sound racking the round into the chamber. The best part is you can still hear yourself think after shooting it.

But why spoil the show? Here’s the Zoom link to the party. Grab some Chablis and cheese and tune in to our whine tomorrow evening.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81093912514?pwd=KzEzkJ4JXae4h9cKv8aCMubAgtcPlb.1

Posted in Exposed Veteran Radio Show, VA Agents, VA AMA appeals knowledge, VA Attorneys, VA Secretaries, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

WHY 3/29/1973 DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE

Posted on March 29, 2025 by asknod

Several years ago, in a misguided attempt to pacify Vietnam Veterans- i.e., those genuine few of us still left- President Trump (in 2017) declared March 29 as the annual day every year to officially celebrate our last day in-country. For the following reasons, many of us Veterans who actually served there find this backasswards. Think about it. In 1986, President Reagan declared May 7th  National Barrier Awareness Day. Eleven years had passed and nobody even thought to propose a day to reflect on the 58,494 of us who received the golden BB?  Yet, as a panacea, they offer us March 29. One hopes our new National Day did not upstage National Butterfly Day or the like.  Gifting us March 29th is about as comparable as stating that June 6, 1944, marked the end of World War II. 

I’m going to walk away from that and talk about other things because it’s insulting on its face. I respect folks in wheelchairs and the trials and tribulations they face, but I believe it would be okay to share May 7th with them. What the hey? I’ve never gotten drunk and maudlin with a wheel chariot Vet  yet. It might be one of those “insightful”  woke moments to reflect on the true meaning of “boldly going where no man has gone before”. Who knows? Perhaps we could all get to know each others’ favorite scotch.

In spite of the bummer of being paraplegic or having lost the use of the lower extremities, it’s not like 58,494 of them ended up there via a Bouncing Betty or died in combat. Remember also, after 2001, all of a sudden everyone had that sinking inner revelation about how just maybe they forgot to welcome us home back in the late 60s-early 70s.  What amazes me is the official statement:

“It was chosen to be observed in perpetuity as March 29, 1973 was the day United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam was disestablished and also the day the last U.S. combat troops departed Vietnam. “

MACV might have been officially disbanded that day but I happen to know the 7th Air Force Tactical Air Combat Control Center (TACC) was still humming right on through until about April 29th ’75, busily providing air cover for the ARVN troops because they couldn’t figure out how to provide timely air cover for their own troops. Their last directive was to provide support for the Hueys being flown out to our ships and thence turned into fish habitat/coral reefs at the bottom of the South China Sea in the Dixie Station area. At $2.5 million a copy for the newer  H models, that sounds like a job the new DOGE could have really sunk their teeth into…

But that’s rearview mirror shit and no longer pertinent to our National Conversation on  the direction America is taking in the New Administration. Let’s talk about the “New” VA under VA Secretary Doug Collins. Hoooo doggies. Seems that ol’ boy can’t win for losing. But let’s put it in context. In 2007, I found myself nigh on to dying from complications of my Hepatitis C. I had too many employees on the payroll. I couldn’t sell any of the houses I had built. We were on the cusp of the new Paradigm of  what we were told was a financial reset. Pour sand into our gas tanks, destroy the engines and buy new cars to help save GM and Ford. But that was complicated by all the foreclosures and short selling. Who in Sam Hill had any dough for a new car?

I laid those guys off and kept my son in law on in order to keep my daughter’s family fed. Secretary Collins is staring down the same gun barrel. His predecessor had to hire 88,000 newbies to create a whole new wing of the VA devoted to DEI and making sure those brand new Veterans who weren’t sure if they were a boy or a girl were not ostracized for their confusion. Sure, that 88,000 also included a large number who were tasked with instituting the new PACT ACT “Zeros for Heroes” Program. But PACT is yesterday’s news unless you count the 5 million that got zero percent ratings for lung cancer and rhinitis. They’re still working on a compensable rating.

And, like poor old Graham Construction, Pastor Doug is faced with having to lay off a lot of deadwood to save our benefits. If you get past all the dire gloom and doom of the layoffs, aren’t you, as concerned Veterans,  far more worried about getting quality medical care and rapid claims resolution more so than what pronouns are used to describe you?  Seriously, if I were a Veteran using VA medical, I’d prefer to get a psych appointment in less than four months- even if it meant having to lay off nonessential VAMC personnel who are not psychologists, Doctors or nurses. This all about Veterans-not Veterans Administration employees. Remember?

To put that in context, how ’bout all those Rosie the Riveters building airplanes and tanks that got laid off after WWII? I don’t reckon anyone heard  a shit ton of them pitch a bitch at getting laid off or complain that by rights they should be kept on to keep building unneeded Sherman tanks and B 29s because it was unfair. Shit happens. Seasons change. We don’t use dial telephones nowadays because technology has progressed.

One might notice that Huey going over the side had USAF markings on it, not VNAF. Note the Pig Pintle mount in the door gunner’s position.

Moving on…Next week we of the NOVA persuasion will make our biannual pilgrimage to our conferences in Minneapolis- Saint Paul and seek enlightenment on how to better skin the VA cat. We will pause in our VA fishing to cut bait. Personally, I find it to be more of  a networking exercise. I found my latest employee Amanda at the one in Salt Lick City last Fall. I do hope this causes immense consternation at DROCs across our fruited plains to think I’ve cloned another asknod.

Due to the overwhelming success of my practice, far too many Veterans with the most dreadful injuries have been bragging about how they finally won their Big Chicken Dinners after coming to me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blowing smoke up my own ass. I wouldn’t be that presumptuous. I don’t have any explanation for my success in this business other than having worn combat boots like all of you. Besides, after 35 years of playing VA poker, there’s not a lot of hand grenades they can throw at me that I haven’t seen already.

The CAR 15 Shorty carbine- the aircrews’ best friend

The asknod website has now been in business for seventeen years. Sure, there are other far older sites out  there that provide advice-some free and some pay-to-play. The fact is there are new websites popping up like weeds in your garden every day. Some employ censorship to squelch those who do not toe the Party Line. Face it, if you don’t kowtow to the Admins’ sacred Exalted members like Cruiser or BroncoVet, you have to be removed to avoid contamination or controversy. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few etc.

That’s the problem inherent in all “forum-model” Veterans sites. Everyone is a self-avowed expert after doing their own claim. Eventually, too many experts spoil the broth and the Admin weenies have to lay off the offenders and take away their tastevin. Or, as George Orwell explained in Animal Farm, some pigs are “more equal” than other pigs. Here at asknod, we subscribe to telling you the truth-no matter how distasteful the news- and allow you to express your feelings on the developments. Where else do you get to tell the head honcho he’s an absolute ignorant dick without losing your access?

Betty Crocker’s New Adventures in combat- the 40 mike-mike squirt gun

We don’t charge admission or have a secret password. We don’t even have a secret handshake. You don’t get better service if you supersize your commitment and buy the Executive Package for $499.95. We don’t have one. I have striven over all these years to find the loopholes and shortcuts to success. Our mission (Pickles and me with a heapin’ helpin’ of Cupcake) is to show Veterans how to win. We honestly love doing this.

And lastly, so as not to bore you to tears with nothing  burgers, I got a call from one of my Veteran’s wives who had previously come to me with horrific problems in ’22. She attended a Veterans Wives’ circle of extremely disabled Vets down in Phoenix and got my number from one of my earliest wins for R2. Donna informed me that based on their success in obtaining R1 for her husband Roger, she had been identified and selected by Mr. Frank Stiller’s committee at Tunnel to Towers™ to receive  a home built and gifted to them. She called to thank me for creating the pathway to the benefit. Best of all, she invited us back for the ribbon cutting ceremony this November at the new development outside of Memphis. How cool is that? I get to meet Roger.

I assure you I am not a parade kind of guy. Actually, I refrained from even mentioning I was a Vietnam Vet for almost 30 years until it became fashionable again after the 2001 tête-à tête down in Iraq. To me, my proudest accomplishment to date was getting sued by the Wounded Wallet crew for exposing their 39% “charity technique”.  For those of you who have taken my SMC Jedi Knight training, refer to Class Number 10 on Roger Ramjet. He’s the lucky recipient of the new house. And boy howdy did he earn it at tremendous medical and mental expense.

So… that’s the way it is… March 29, 2025, which assuredly was not the last day combat troops departed the Republic of South Viet Nam. Have a happy pre-Ollie-Ollie Income Day from Viet Nam. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

And from Ed the LURP, what else? Hand grenade training.

Posted in All about Veterans, PACT ACT, R1/R2, Tunnel to Towers, VA Agents, VA Secretaries, Veterans Charity concerns | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

BVA–CHINESE WATER TORTURE

Posted on March 23, 2025 by asknod

Have you all (pronounced y’all) ever run up against an immovable object? Have you ever decided to become an irresistible force? Welcome to asknod- Home of the Win or Die™ Team of Pickles ‘n me. Pickles, of course is my law dog. She loyally sat (lay) (slept) at my feet for these last six years while my Johnny Vet and I crossed swords with the VA. It was spirited at times and occasionally downright disheartening but we prevailed. Johnny’s into it twenty two years. Me? Shucks, I’m the FNG here. I didn’t get into it ‘officially’ until 2018. Grab a six pak and some pretzels. It’ll take you longer to read all the BVA decisions than it will to read my explanation.

So, here’s the deal in a very large nutshell. Johnny witnesses a nasty MVA  on the autobahn near  Darmstadt, Germany  in ’91. He was unable to save some folks who burned up in their car. Fast forward to 2003. Johnny files for a bunch of stuff in late 2003 and early 2004…and then he went AWOL mentally. It wasn’t his fault. He had some mighty big demons chasing him and it led to some megaheavy duty self-medicating. Try as he might, he couldn’t get this mental monkey off his back.

One day in 2009, in one of his drying out spells, the “cure” took. He met the gal of his dreams and hornswoggled her into getting hitched. Hey, it gets better and yep, they’re still married and madly in love. Roger that. Married with children. The full meal deal. Johnny’d been reading my blog and gave me the history. Read Rios v. Mansfield and you’ll understand exactly what happened. While Johnny was out woolgathering and visiting mental exorcists from 2003-2009, he’d never gotten his denial. VA had mailed it to the wrong address-not once, but twice. So technically his claim had been open since back then. Better yet, it was all there in his c file in three-part harmony.

He called me up and asked me what I’d do in his shoes around 2013 when he finally won service connection for the bent brain. VA knew they’d stepped on their necktie in 2003-04 but said nothing about earlier effective dates. That’s why they threw that 100% P&T at him in hopes he’d get the vapors and never discover the Rios Repair Order.  I spilled the beans and ghosted a legal battle plan for him. I was still fighting my own stuff, emerging from my VA-induced Dilaudid haze after 14 months in a VA hospital and hadn’t gotten my OGC wings yet. And he won.

BVA No. 1 2018 Presumption of regularity of the mail

Six years later, Johnny Vet knocks on the door and says “Mission accomplished”. Thank you and all the other attaboy shit. I took a gander at his code sheet and said …”What if?”. What if we went for the SMC S for all that other stuff he filed for in ’03? He was game so I contacted my wizards at Mednick Associates and asked them to work some of their old time IMO magic. So here’ the opening gambit Code sheet. You can see we had some work cut out for us.

2018 Code sheet

You can grasp where we were headed. Johnny had a 30 for asthma, a 10 for the bum back and a 10 for his left ankle fracture. That’s 43%- a mite shy of 60, so Mednick had to do some heavy lifting. Lift they did right up until the mean folks at the local Fort Fumble decided to piss on our parade. This called for digging a bigger punji pit. Mednick did their best but the folks up in the Big House had figured out where we were headed and began a concerted effort to make sure that didn’t happen.

BVA No. 2 Goin’ for the SMC S

So it was back to the IMO drawing board. Once again, Mednick came through with an addendum to their first opus. I figured, foolishly, that this might be the sword with which to cut the Gordian Knot. Not. All we got was another 10% for Johnny’s ankle. That just brought us up to 49%- about 20% shy of what we needed. I opted for a new IMO and tried all over. Trust VA to do the BVA decision and entirely disremember to look at the new IMO evidence.

BVA No. 3 False Start- where’s the evidence

So, lottsa drawing board work and not much BVA Board work. Worse, the VLJ began poking around in the claims file in search of negative evidence to deny any possible future excursions in search of SMC S. Worse, perhaps, is having to relearn VA law in the new AMA world. In the legacy system, you fought under the auspices of AB vs. Brown- i.e., you sought the highest and best rating and the party wasn’t over until you said so or you hit a 100% schedular for that which you sought. In the new World Order of AMA, once the AOJ granted what you’d filed for at the end of the BVA bayonet, even if it was 10% for PTSD, it was a done deal. If you wanted more, it was back to work and a new supplemental claim to fix it. This is one of the primary reasons I think the AMA system is adversarial to Veterans.

BVA No. 4 back to the AOJ drawing board

As the reader can see, this was becoming a game of inches; a veritable ‘he said-she said’ argument if you will. Again, in the succeeding fight, VA clinicians began to pick apart his earlier c&p findings. As most doctors know, looking for soft tissue knee injuries via an x ray is a fool’s errand. Realistically, if you as a medical professional wish to actually visualize a musculoskeletal knee injury short of cutting it open to take a gander, it requires an MRI or good CT scan. VA won’t have any of that. They’re still in the dark ages, and besides, if they rely solely on x ray evidence, it cuts down on what they have to pay out.  Et voila! A new grant of 10% but not the needed 20% for SMC S success. Thus, we had arrived at 54%- one percent less than the magic 55 to get the 60.

BVA No. 5 Close but no cigar

As you can imagine, this wasn’t going unnoticed at the local Puzzle Palace. My next foray to get that final 10% increase needed to prevail provoked the VA weenies to bring out their Big Guns. They brought in a denial expert named Lucas Bader, M.D.. From talking with other VA litigators, I discovered he has a nasty reputation and a proclivity to streeeeetch the facts to fit the argument. If all else fails, he denigrates your IMO doctors’ opinions and implies they were raised by wolves. All of a sudden, an established favorable finding of fact was called into question. Dr. (and I use that term loosely) Bader insisted a c&p done in 2012 showed the c&p was looking at the right (not service connected ) knee and not the left one. Further,  he swore the evidence showed there was no meniscal tear. The only problem with that is a VLJ and, by extension, the VA Secretary himself,  had already declared he was rated for a meniscal tear in 2021. In VA law, you can’t just  keep rearranging the deck furniture on the S.S. Titanic to keep it dry. A favorable finding of fact is just that. The only way to 86 it would be to declare CUE.

So, off to the CAVC to get this sorted. By now, I was becoming very well acquainted with orthopedic minutiae. Truth be told, I hate it. I like to work SMC claims because it is a field few VA litigators understand and even fewer feel comfortable doing. Think of all the Veterans who have been screwed for lack of a good law dog to fight and win their SMC.  I hired Amy Odom from CCK who is an extraordinary individual- and a great litigator. She came to CCK from the NVLSP years ago. Some may recall she was the one who recently prevailed in the Laska case at the Court correcting  VA’s misinterpretation of SMC T. CAVC Justice Meg Bartley, if you recall, also came from that very same stable of fabled litigators. Amy’s argument at the Rule 33 conference won a Joint Motion for Partial Remand (JMPR) because VA’s rating criteria in 2003 was vastly different from that which they currently use. So…. back to the BVA to hand it back to the AOJ for a fresh horse and a new hangman’s noose. But, this time I went back for IMO number 3.5- the .5 being the addendum that occurred in between IMOs number 1 and 2.

BVA No. 6 coming back down from the CAVC

I attach my legal brief below to try to shine some light on just how perverse, discombobulated and contentious this claim/Appeal had become. VA’s hired gun c&p clinicians were going further and further afield impugning anything and everything ol’ Johnny had ever uttered in his defense and a lot that was warped into making him sound like a malingerer. Trying to convert the meniscal tear onto the right knee was the last straw for me. Hell, I would have spent every nickel I’ve ever made winning this one for my Veteran. In my honest opinion, I’d guess VA has squandered vast judicial resources and untold quantities of baksheesh attempting to defend the indefensible.

Legal Brief for BVA No. 7

What can I say? Those Dos Equis beer commercials come to mind. I don’t always set out to obtain 3.5 IMOs for my clients in a spirited defense of their claims but I damn sure set out to win. Money has never been an object or an impediment. The fact is, I gave my Johnny a bye on reimbursing me for all those opinions. What the hey?  Considering he has a passel of kids, he sure needs the money more than me.  Moreover, when VA trots out some overbearing dick to start casting aspersions on a Veteran who has defended his country, it raises my hackles. I well remember the VA jackwad who baldly stated I’d never served in Vietnam in ’94. Crusaders in the Middle Ages used to shout “God sends the Right” as they charged into battle. I’m not terribly religious but I knew I was right.  Check out this last BVA decision. Revenge is a dish best kept in the refrigerator for seven years.

BVA No. 7 SMC S to 2003

Attached, and suitable for framing, is the code sheet I had hoped to see in 2018. My parting admonition to all Vets is Don’t get mad. Get even. I wish to thank my Johnny Vet for allowing me the great pleasure of bringing this to fruition. While perhaps not the longest-fought claim of mine nor the most lucrative, it’s certainly one of the most gratifying.

AOJ Code Sheet

Posted in Food for the soul, Presumption of Regularity, Proof of Mailing, SMC, Tips and Tricks, VA Agents, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

LET’S GIVE THE MAN A CHANCE FIRST

Posted on March 9, 2025 by asknod

For some unknown reason, a lot of you have been emailing or calling me to ask my opinion on the new paradigm of “government reduction” in regards to the VA. Everyone wants to know how our new VA Secretary, the Honorable Doug Collins, is going to behave and the possibility he will destroy the Department of Veterans Affairs as we know it.

First, and foremost, I’d begin with “Do I look like that cartoon dog called Mr. Know-it-all? Do I emit some aura of prescience around my noggin?” Of course not. What the hey? I graduated 59th in a class of 64 from Vermont Academy in ’69. My biggest claim to fame was my deflection shooting of Officer Rohrbach’s unmarked car with an egg and trying to outrun him and his buddies four days after I graduated. As you can see, that resulted in a change of college plans and an emergency plea for a waiver to enter the USAF before the Hampton, Virginia Draft Board sent me the Lotto news.

To me, this whole VA gig was, and still is, a nonstop, full-blown car wreck (see below) from Day One. Who dreamed up all those suspense dates that went off like a short-fused M 26? Considering the VA was ostensibly a nonadversarial, Veteran friendly outfit plagiarizing Abe Lincoln’s Gettysburg address (For he who hath borne the Battle), I thought it was waaaay overdue for some updates… like electronic records. I had to wait about twenty three years more for that miracle to occur.

I’ve been playing VA poker since the modern inception of the VA in 1989. I’ve litigated my own claims under Secretaries Derwinski, Brown, Nicholson, Peake, General Shinseki, Gibson,  McDonald, Snyder, Shulkin, Wilkie, O’Rourke, Tran and McDonough. Oddly enough, in all that time, none of them have sought me out to seek counsel. What I can say is as many times as I’ve denigrated Secretary McDonough in my blog posts, he’s always responded to my emails and cut the Gordian Knots of the Veterans I represent.

So, from that miniscule viewpoint, I’m a satisfied, happy camper. As for Secretary Collins? I confess. I sent him an email last week over the intractably long period my good friend Calvin has waited patiently (10/31/2023) for some semblance of finality. Eighteen c&p examinations should be sufficient to ferret out anything he doesn’t suffer from related to service. Our new Secretary promptly announced the bozos down at the 317 DROC have until  COB (close of business) 10 March 2025 to resolve this paradox.

Far too many Veterans take this new administration personally and fear for their privacy. Secretary Collins is not going to go snooping in your records in a dumpster dive attempt to reduce you. Actually, nobody at VA does this. They have a computer that looks at your records automatically to determine if your knee got better or your loss of lower extremity below the knee grew back. On the other hand, if you’re TDIU and get a neighborhood paper route, your income gets reported to the SSA and the IRS. Well, duh? And yes, VA gets a feed from SSA and will send you a friendly reminder about that being a Bozo No-No if you want to keep the IU.

Think of VA as an auto insurance outfit. You come to them with a fender bender -or a total- and ask for a settlement. VA is naturally going to low ball you and provide an Earl Scheib $99.95 paint job with lumpy bondo.  Most Veterans have to go back a few times and demand it be fixed properly. One thing is certain. Whatever they do initially is not going to leave you all warm and fuzzy feeling.  Unless your disabilities are so severe it’s undebatable, you’re going to spend some time getting your due. We’re talking third world medicine at VAMCs.

Each and every VA Secretary we- you and I- have litigated under since 1989 seems to feel he has to defend the VA’s purse strings. At least that’s the way it seems. Some feel there aren’t many Appeals that moved the needle since the inception of the Court. I strongly disagree. From just the limited standpoint of SMC, every case a Secretary has argued has been a lost cause. In the course of the last thirty six years, we’ve made tremendous strides in how VA views our  evidence… or doesn’t. The gomers at the OGC are the impediment. They’ll defend an adversarial presumption of soundness decision at the drop of a hat and lose every time.

However, with the advent of VBMS, finding error has never been easier. What’s more, with AI and Optical Scan Resolution (OCR), discovering it is a snap. Codicil Number 1 to that is to know what you’re looking for. Codicil Number 2 is the presumption you’re wise to the ways of VA and have access to VBMS. Otherwise, you might as well be asking your auto mechanic what he thinks you’re chances are on getting 70 for PTSD. “Well, dude. I looked it up in the Chilton’s Guide for ’62 Ramblers and I’d say you gotta shot at it.”

As for Secretary Collins, I firmly believe he wants the best for us all. I’m also aware that he takes orders from on high. He is also limited by what Congress permits. With the demise of Chevron/Auer deference, our odds went astronomically higher. The major impediment now is an outdated How-to-Rate Manual. Face it. The M 21 is woefully deficient either in the way it’s interpreted or how it’s applied. Secretary Collins has the ability to fix that. Innumerable Secretaries who preceded him haven’t even attempted it. In spite of the clear M 21 mandate of “If…, then…, we still see VA make world class bonehead decisions.

The advent of the AMA should, by rights, have cured all this insanity but only made it worse.  Either we used the wrong form to file or we forgot to ask for a Williams Waiver. Filing for anything requires a Sherpa but it was all supposed to be so much easier…. Now we have illogical denials for a&a based on some nebulous denial logic followed by

Favorable Findings:

 You need Aid and Attendance of another for your disabilities.

Your efolder is rife with proof of service in Vietnam but you get denied for SC for Parkie’s because… your service records failed to show service on, or in the territorial waters of the Republic of Vietnam. Two years and some change later, the BVA contradicts that and grants. Your surviving spouse gets the low ball treatment on the accrued claim and it begins anew with another Appeal. Newsflash. This ain’t no way to run a railroad. Yet it’s been that way since the War of 1812.

In conclusion, I see one thing no one else sees. In government, they come up with some new regulation or benefit. Take the PACT Act. When Congress passed that abortion, VA promptly hired about 80,000 more employees-some of them Vets- to speed up the process. The PACT wave has swept through the system and is now manageable.  But did VA say thanks and give them all an attaboy and a pink slip? Oh hell no. They want to keep them all on even if it means paying them $60 K a year + bennies to arrange paperclips all facing the same way and keeping the pencils sharpened. Guess who suffers? Yep. You the Vet because the budget is going to force them to short sheet the Vet to pay the paperclip boys and girls.

Now, let’s carry that over to the VAMCs. Instead of hiring a shit ton of psychiatrists, psychologists, MDs and Nurses of all flavors, they have a top-heavy cadre of bedpan changers, patient advocates and God only knows who else struggling to look busy. The VA cops all attended the Third Reich’s SS Basic Training classes and are totally unsupervised. We’re spending untold sums on FTCA claims to settle that one alone.

VA also has Major Depressive Disorder/PTSD Workshops and pays untold numbers of unskilled Mental Health personnel to supervise Tuesday night Kumbaya circles where you relive your “experiences” and talk it out with your buddies. How cool is that? From personal experience, I can tell you the very last thing any Combat Vet wants to relive is what got him into this predicament. They should be teaching Vets how to suppress these thoughts and pass the Thorazine please. These Vets need psychologists, not bedpan changers cum pseudo psychologists. Don’t get me started on Tennessee VAMC employee Group orgies to explore your sexuality.

Frankly, politics should never be a part of this business. VAMC employees are there to help you. By rights, they should be hired based on their capabilities to do the job. Far  too often, it appears obvious they have “connections” via a relative or friend that ensures hiring. What probably bugged me most during  my own brief four-year experience with VA medical was the holier-than-thou attitude and indifference of many frontline “greeters”. I’ve had them continue to gaze at their cell phones texting for minutes while I stood before them waiting. They knew I was there. They could also see the line behind me but it didn’t faze them one bit.

I’ve listened to hundreds of Vets who are tickled pink just to get VA medical- even if it entails waiting six months for a CT or an MRI. How many times did I schedule an appointment for 0745 due to my incontinence and then sit in the waiting room for several hours for my name to be called. I’m sure somewhere across the VA’s fruited plains there are VAMCs where doctors and nurses are more plentiful than the grass on the lawn out front. I’m sure they all run right on time, too. It’s just that I’ve never seen it.

In closing, I’d ask all of you Veterans to give the FNG some slack while he feels his way into this job. If it took you two hours to get in to see the doctor (or PA-C) before Secretary Collins took the oath, don’t expect it to get better soon. They’ve had decades to fix it and they haven’t. That tells me that no matter how many bodies you hire, the service is not going to improve unless you change the general attitude, the lassitude and the utter indifference to our plight.

Posted in All about Veterans, VA Secretaries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

EXPOSED VET– THE NEW, IMPROVED VERSION-ZOOM.

Posted on February 26, 2025 by asknod

Yeppers. You read that right. John and Ray have taken it up a notch and now offer their famous radio show on Zoom.us. Join with us this Thursday (tomorrow evening) at 1900 Hours East and 1600 West for an hour of discussion on the ins and outs of SMC and other paradoxes. Live and in color. Meet the wild and crazy guys behind the microphones.

Here’s the link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83969411495?pwd=qtl3SkUrikcS6Vkam3mOfpReOLqOGd.1

 

 

Posted in Exposed Veteran Radio Show | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

PONDERING PERPETUAL MOTION IN SO. CAL.

Posted on February 23, 2025 by asknod

Good Afternoon. I guess you are wondering why I called you here today. Just kidding. We’re babysitting my son’s dog for a 4-day stint while they go on a minivacation. As you can see in the video below, Daisy is pure 120 Volt AC. She doesn’t have any off switch as near as I can tell. The house is a wreck but hey. She only pooped inside twice and it’s because she hasn’t developed the ability to hold it in for a while. I reckon my digestive system would be working overtime too if I was running around at 78 RPM. 

I wrote our new VA Secretary this morning after reviewing a client’s file. Calvin won his HCV claim with extras at the Board but they remanded a few things that were ambiguous in their minds. Keep in your mind the idea that Calvin uses a VAMC. They know more about him than he knows. That means the VBA also knows more and is in constructive possession of same. VA also knows it would be a fool’s errand to use 2015 records to finally rate him in ’24 but that’s what they do and that’s what they did. Why? Because then they have to do brand new adjudications and get even more points for more work accomplished.

Redact BVA win 10.31.23

Redact RD 12.15.2023

Here we are sixteen months after the BVA decision waiting on them to grant. Now they want yet another c&p. We even went and got another addendum to our original IMO to include the Diabetes and the thyroid thing. Imagine filing for hyperthyroidism. You get that from using the Bug Juice (Interferon)  to kill the Hep C. Of course, the Interferon kills you, too, but it’s in that skanky fine print on the paper flyer that comes with it. The pharmacist throws that away before they hand it to you. After about 35 years, hyperthyroidism  turns into thyroid cancer. Who woulda thunk it?

 

Calvin had filed for the hyperthyroidism. After the 2018 surgery to remove the thyroid during the pendency of his claim filed in 2015, he now suffered the exact opposite-hypothyroidism. To add to the confusion, he filed for “brain fog”. It’s a fairly common term among those of us who were 35 years or so into advanced Hep C and a side of cirrhosis. It’s due either to a major depressive disorder or equally to hepatic encephalopathy. When the liver isn’t filtering out your blood, you get an ammonia buildup. In the brain, it manifests as -yep- brain fog. Thinking becomes hard work. You’ll find the term ‘hepatic encephalopathy’ under §4.114 DC 7312. That’s a doctor’s way of saying brain fog. But then, hypothyroidism creates cognitive dissonance or…. brain fog in laymen’s terms.

To supersize the confusion, let’s throw in arthritis. There’s three kinds. But, because VA’s Hep C rating is imported from the old Hepatitis B Diagnostic Code (7345), VA uses the antique ‘arthralgias’ which means ‘joint pain’. Since none of us are doctors, we really don’t get to say one way or another what it is. We can’t win because of this Three-card Monte game. If you choose arthritis not otherwise specified, it’s arthralgia. If you picked osteoarthritis, it’s rheumatoid arthritis. It you picked rheumatoid arthritis, then it was psoriatic arthritis. Heads I win. Tails you lose.  Shit. I thought all you Veterans were hip to this game.

Calvin’s now-diagnosed hypothyroidism has been inspected, detected and rejected because…duh.  He didn’t file for hypo. He filed for hyper. The c&p clinicians have been carefully writing it all down in their c&ps but VA’s ICU2 magic scanning computer doesn’t pick up on the difference between hyper and hypo. Hypo doesn’t fit the search parameters. Neither does brain fog or arthralgia for that matter. Calvin’s been up shit creek for sixteen months and eighteen -18-  in-person c&ps, medical opinions and ACE reviews. And each time it comes back, it goes to a different VARO where a different coach looks at it and says ‘what the hell does hypothyroidism got to do with any of this? He’s hyper.  Run it through the TERA/ ILER computer, check his MOS and deny it. Send the Vet a letter and tell him to file a claim for hypo.’

 So, I did what any self-respecting representative would do. I went to the top, apologized for my forwardness and pointed out the Emperor was naked. In 2008, I got three c&p exams. One for the Porphyria, one for the GSW scar through my thigh and one for the residuals of my HCV. If I was filing for all this today, I can only guess it would be a whole bunch more exams and then the “clarification requests” and ACE reviews would begin to trickle in. And then the next battle of low ball ratings taking another 6 years to appeal up to the BVA and win.

And just to be a complete dick, I cc’d the jackwagon Coach who’s been riding herd on this off and on for all this time. Sometimes, you just have to cut the Gordian Knot, shoot the engineers and commence production. As they say in Rome Tempus est pecunia, baby. But hush my mouth. We know them Coaches all have been awarded Arthritic Tortoise Medals with several Oak Leave Clusters for Meritorious Delay Above and Beyond the Call of Duty.

Posted in Complaints Department, Jetgun BvA Decisions, Jetgun Claims evidence, Tips and Tricks, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment