Something catastrophic happened here to one of my “new” family members that completely put me off my blogging even as I was already losing steam with it. It was something so horrendous that it just seemed to collapse me from the inside; took the heart right out of me. Maybe I’ll speak of it soon; I don’t know. If I write about it there’s a possibility that it could affect me in a very negative (dangerous) way, so I’ll have to consider carefully if and how I do it. As usual, there’s more to this place than meets the eye. One has to be very careful. The locals KNOW this instinctively; foreigners have to learn it, usually the hard way.
On a different note, as of the end of last year I am no longer a certified service officer for the VFW. I still assist and advise my successor on a small scale basis, but I can no longer sign forms for claimants, or make decisions for them, nor can I go into the embassy and review their case files or represent them during Board of Veterans Appeals hearings. After 7 years it’s a huge relief to have all of that behind me—again (I had “quit” once before for about a year). The responsibility was more than I wanted to continue to bear. I’m not sure how much longer my very capable replacement will be able to hang in there, but my loyalty to him and my deep respect for his integrity and altruistic devotion to duty keeps me hanging in there as his little helper bee.
Anyway, now that I’m free at last I want to enjoy being retired while I'm still able. Life is short, a phrase that I've used for years, but its taken on REAL meaning as I realize that I ONLY have a couple of decades left (if I'm lucky). For any younger people who happen to read this, believe me, old age sneaks up on your ass.
Aside from looking in the mirror and seeing the deepening lines, the thinning hair, and the bulging waist, it's been my experience with helping other “old veterans” (guys only a little more advanced than myself) that has shown me that health can be an iffy thing. From them I've seen that you never know when the body will just decide to crap out on you. It seems we are all filled with ticking time bombs; whether it be cancer, a heart attack, or some deadly or lingeringly pernicious disease. Or, getting back to the first paragraph of this post, the end could come from just being shot down in the street like a dog.
Anyway, Vietnam War veteran Buck comes to mind for instance. I played golf with him (or pretended to) for the first year or so after leaving the service. I did so weekly with this air force retiree, a happy go lucky fellow in his late 50s; a gregarious man some dozen or so years older than me. He played 3 or more times a week, something I could never do with my set of restrictive afflictions; so seemingly, he was stronger and in better shape than me. Alas, we had a falling out, more of a clash of personalities you could say, and we stopped playing together. A few years later I learned that this robustly active man had a massive stroke and was suddenly confined to his bedroom, unable to walk and hardly able to speak or feed himself. Within a year a subsequent series of “cerebral vascular accidents” took him further down and finally killed him. There wasn't much left of the original golf playing Buck by that time anyway. At the end he no longer resembled the vibrantly stalwart wise-cracking fellow that I had first met not long before.
Sigh. He never saw it coming. It could happen to you and it can certainly happen to me. It’s a crap shoot. And he's just ONE of many I've seen come and go since my arrival in this place. The lucky ones are those that go out like my friend, army veteran George. He died practically on his feet by way of a massive heart attack or aneurism. Bang. Gone. Feeling queasy, he leaned over to splash water on his face in the sink. He closed his eyes to do so and never opened them again. Geez, I have many more examples but I think the point is made. I'm already depressed enough as it is.
So, with that bit of morose observation presented let’s just say that I want to experience some of the good things that this life has to offer before it’s my turn to go down. Pursuant to that ambition we headed south for almost a week for one of my favorite places in the world—Puerto Galera. I'll write that post next. Pictures too! Including bikinis. Don't worry; I'm not the one wearing them. See you then....
Showing posts with label veterans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label veterans. Show all posts
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Fixing Healthcare, Just Like Fixing Airplanes?
With all the talk lately of American healthcare troubles it got me thinking on the subject of problem solving. That IS the goal I think; but it seems that ver
y few if any of the myriad techniques available are being applied, other than the amateurish principle of “trial and error,” which may well be the worst method there is. I’ve heard people in the administration actually say things like, “The problem is SO catastrophic that we NEED to do something, ANYTHING; we can always “tweak” it as we go later.”
Similarly, back in “the stupid old days,” the US military routinely used the “field and forget” method to employ new weapons systems,” a fiasco of a way of doing things that usually ended up as “field and fix.” The annals of our military history abound with horror stories of hastily-employed weapons; the extent of their failings discovered at the worst possible time, that is, “when the weapon met the war.”
The “fog of war” is murky enough without making it worse with untested equipment, yet until relatively recently we routinely did this foolishness. Usually it happened because of politics (sound familiar?), or where some high placed officials thought THEY knew better than the REAL experts, the experts of course being the enlisted folks and officers who have to actually use the stuff.
During my time “in” I was around quite a bit of problem solving, which started with my time as a technician and technical supervisor. But all that turned out to be preparation for what I got into during the last half of my career, when I graduated from repairing individual planes to resolving issues involving entire fleets of aircraft. If I’m completely honest though, rarely was I the actual “solver,” but always I was certainly part of “the problem solving process,” a process that invariably involved input from a team of “solvers.”
I got onto the whole “big picture” problem solving ride by accident. It started as I entered into the last 13 years of service, the half way point of my time in the military. From there my career path meandered to the extraordinary, at least compared to a lot of other airmen’s careers.
My job path took off on this “merry tangent” in 1989 when I left the position of shift leader for a new job in the Quality Assurance Office after being recruited into it by the master sergeant I eventually replaced. (I caught his attention one morning as he observed the no-nonsense way I handled my troops during the weekly “FOD walk”). During my next 6 years in the Quality Office I also took on the ancillary responsibility of overseeing a contract field team of around 25 or so civilian technicians whose job it was to strip out most of the original 30-year-old electronics in our vaunted C-130 “Hercules” cargo plane, and installing modern systems in their place.
What I found the most interesting about that 6 year QA gig was constantly running into new problems, some big, some small. There were about 80 airplanes on our flightline (including the Air Guard’s)—a lot of C-130s. With so many “birds” it took several years to modify all of them; so for quite some time we had a mix of newly modified aircraft, along with “birds” still creaking along with 30 and 40 year old technology.
As lead base for C-130s, often times we were first to get the newest systems, on a trial basis so to speak. In effect, we were the guinea pigs for the rest of the fleet; as such, I was confronted with glitches and gremlins almost on a daily basis. My job was to research these malfunctions, in the short term find out the “whys,” and finally, to come up with answers and even resolutions.
It was during this time of continuous problem solving that I began to simultaneously submit my “fixes” by way of the Air Force Suggestion Program, as well as to the primary approving agency being the Air Logistics Center at Warner Robins AFB in Georgia.
I remember the first time I had a suggestion approved just a few months before I joined the QA team. It was to modify an incorrect troubleshooting tree for engine oil pressure transmitters. It wasn’t all that complicated, but months later, seeing the pages amended in the technical orders to reflect MY changes was quite heady. In a small way I had affected the entire fleet of several hundred C130s. I felt pretty good about that, and about the little award check I got out of it as well.
The stars lined up perfectly when I joined the QA shop and found myself responsible for the proper installation of a host of new aircraft electronic systems. As part of these responsibilities I worked with the Lockheed “mod team” to write the installation workbook requiring that I saw and or touched every new wire bundle, screw and rivet that went into the plane. As part of that workbook I made it mandatory that I personally sign off the okay to reinstall every panel to make sure there was no debris left behind it before they were allowed to button it back up. There was a good chance that I would be the last person to inspect those areas for years to come; and believe me, I felt the pressure of knowing that. When it comes to aircraft work there is no such thing as being too critical; it either meets spec or it doesn’t. My very last signature was the one I made on the acceptance sheet which brought each airplane out of depot status back into operation with the Air Force.
Earlier I spoke of how the military has made a science of properly fielding new weapons systems (in fact, the army has a university devoted to perfecting and teaching acquisition at Ft Lee, VA); BUT, when installing so many new systems onto a 30 year old platform like our C-130s were, while still keeping much of the deteriorating original wiring and archaic electrical power, in the aftermath of that we were bound to have to do some major “tweaking.”
Indeed, MY CFT guys put a LOT of new gear into those old planes: Let’s see, one of the most complicated installations was a brand-new redundant Self-Contained Nav System that also provided attitude information to the flight directors; the team also put in a host of flat panel and digital instruments to replace the old spinning dial analog indicators, a new autopilot, GCAS (ground collision avoidance), a partial upgrade to aircraft power, a much improved radar altimeter and Doppler radar, as well as several new radios and associated antennas and secure voice kits. Toward the end of my tenure we also started to put in GPS, TCAS (aircraft collision avoidance) and electronic countermeasures to include the chaff and flare dispensers. After almost 15 years since my involvement I’ve forgotten some of the systems MY team installed, but per aircraft all that work took hundreds of man-hours, thousands of feet of wire, countless hundreds of wire pins and terminals, and scores of connectors; and it all had to be done perfectly and on schedule, aircraft after aircraft. All those long overdue upgrades were bound to lead to a host of problems, and boy, did it ever!
From 90 to 91 I took a short break from “my path” by going to war; during the two years it took those 7 months to pass I became a regular maintainer again. After the war I returned to Little Rock to find shocking changes in my absence; the Air Force had gone through a major organizational and philosophical shakeup—maintenance had become completely decentralized; there was no longer a single colonel in charge of maintaining all 64 aircraft. Overnight each of the four squadron commander’s took over complete responsibility for their own birds’ upkeep.
Not only that, but a new concept called TQM, or Total Quality Management (a term now long out of vogue), had become the latest management fad. Under it, all of us once scary QA boogiemen lost our scariness and instead we became nerdy “quality facilitators.” Lucky for us though, our Logistics Group commander was shrewd enough not to dismantle us the way other C-130 bases had done immediately to their QA shops once the reign of TQM had begun. The fact that our QA pretty much remained intact paid off big as far as I’m concerned.
I must admit though that I wasn’t sorry to see the days of inspection quotas ended; I never liked doing all those tedious exams anyway. Instead of inspecting individuals’ work (making them extremely nervous!) and checking out test equipment, we began concentrating on “process improvement.” And ho hum, I guess we did some of that, but what really excited me was getting all that new electronics correctly installed, and just as important, finding and fixing all the associated glitches and bugs.
And HERE is why our commanders were so brilliant in keeping us QA boys around—we became the corporate knowledge bank, the go-to-guys for oddball problems, and the overseers of high interest taskings from the command.
There is a very scary truism about airplanes: You don’t know what’s screwed up if you don’t know what’s screwed up. This strange axiom became obvious when our wing became the only one still conducting so-called acceptance inspections of those C-130s returning from the depot facility at Ogden, Utah. We had just way too many airplanes to let our contract field team do all the modifications, so Ogden and Warner Robins did them as well. The problem is that the colonel in charge at Ogden became upset with us because we were the only ones complaining about their work. I would go out to an airplane just arrived from Utah and fill page after page of squawks on a legal pad, and many of them were grounding write ups (I once found over 100 writeups). The Ogden colonel was so irked at us that he paid for me and my right hand man, a brilliant avionics troop by the name of Shawn Dougherty, to come to his facility so he could show US how wonderful HIS installers were. As it turned out, we were not the least bit impressed and in fact showed them the many errors of their ways. At first their resentment was disconcerting, but eventually I think we won them over with our earnestness.
The point is that WE KNEW what to look for because we were were intimately familiar with every disturbed and new wire bundle and connector, so we immediately recognized the improprieties, but we were the only inspectors left at the wing level who continued to do these post-depot inspections. A chilling thought—what about the OTHER aircraft never looked at with the same knowledgeable eyes? As far as all the other users the installation was A-okay. The only actual acceptance inspection done at the depot was done by an aircrew that had no clue about what was physically done to the aircraft and whose only worry was to accomplish the checkflight. As far as they were concerned, if the systems worked on that flight, then it was good to go. In other words, “Ignorance is NOT bliss.” …shudder…
And NOW, to finish up this LONG post—my counterpart, Shawn Dougherty, and I, began to LOOK for problems or just ways to make maintenance actions less cumbersome and more efficient. Here’s what we learned: if you stay your ass in the office, you will NEVER learn a thing. You GOT to find out what you DON’T know. A common fault of problem solvers is that they THINK they KNOW; they DON’T. Following that premise we made our rounds to the flightline, to the squadrons, to the shops, to the contractors, all with the goal of talking to “the experts.”
Hardly a day went by where some sergeant or senior airman didn’t come up to me to complain about some new glitch or malfunction. It got to the point that troops seeing me drive by would jog over and flag me down, something they NEVER used to do when I wore my white boogieman QA hat. They loved that I always had a sympathetic ear and asked lots of questions. Complaints, moans, and groans—I LOVED it. If they had a problem I WANTED to hear about it. Their squawks became my bread and butter.
To finish blowing my own horn, we began to establish a reputation, especially once all the approved suggestion awards began to roll in along with the award checks. Every month during commander’s call Shawn and I would receive not one or two checks, but usually 5 or 6. This went on month after month, for almost three years; and once the word got out that WE were the people to see to get things fixed, even more folks approached us with their tales of woe. I’m pretty sure our success inspired others to do the same thing. I loved it, being able to make a difference.
As I said, seldom if ever was I the one that came up with the fixes. Most of those ideas came from the same folks who came forward with the problems in the first place. Ask someone for a problem and chances are they can also tell you how to solve it.
But my REAL secret weapon in tackling especially big problems was my contract field team. Those fellows were incredibly brilliant at finding the best solutions. Most were retired military with decades of experience working on aircraft long before they started modifying planes as civilians. Whenever I approached them with a problem, I’d make my pitch, usually at the break table, and then I’d leave them to mull it over. Without exception, within a few days they’d have a workable solution, usually complete with diagrams and written procedures. They always told me that they wanted nothing in return since by contract everything they came up with officially belonged to Lockheed. It was a joke to them; they said they’d rather I have credit than Lockheed. Absolutely remarkable men!
In 1992 or 93 the base commander even chose me to be his Suggestor of the Year, or at least some one in the suggestion office did, not that I was even aware that such an award existed. It was nice but it could easily have gone to Shawn, since we collaborated on most of our projects. I always say that THE best idea I ever had was hiring him to work with me in QA.
I learned during those exciting times that my strong suit was seeing the brilliance in others and tapping into that brilliance as a primary resource; and I found that the best answers invariably come from the same folks who come forward with the problems in the first place. If the solution is the drink then I was the humble vessel. I did my job best by completely defining the problems and their scope, usually after that, what had to be done became obvious. I’m sure the answers to our healthcare dilemma can be found in exactly the same way; and not by a bunch of self-serving politicians and lobbyists who THINK they know the answers; THEY don’t.
y few if any of the myriad techniques available are being applied, other than the amateurish principle of “trial and error,” which may well be the worst method there is. I’ve heard people in the administration actually say things like, “The problem is SO catastrophic that we NEED to do something, ANYTHING; we can always “tweak” it as we go later.”Similarly, back in “the stupid old days,” the US military routinely used the “field and forget” method to employ new weapons systems,” a fiasco of a way of doing things that usually ended up as “field and fix.” The annals of our military history abound with horror stories of hastily-employed weapons; the extent of their failings discovered at the worst possible time, that is, “when the weapon met the war.”
The “fog of war” is murky enough without making it worse with untested equipment, yet until relatively recently we routinely did this foolishness. Usually it happened because of politics (sound familiar?), or where some high placed officials thought THEY knew better than the REAL experts, the experts of course being the enlisted folks and officers who have to actually use the stuff.
During my time “in” I was around quite a bit of problem solving, which started with my time as a technician and technical supervisor. But all that turned out to be preparation for what I got into during the last half of my career, when I graduated from repairing individual planes to resolving issues involving entire fleets of aircraft. If I’m completely honest though, rarely was I the actual “solver,” but always I was certainly part of “the problem solving process,” a process that invariably involved input from a team of “solvers.”
I got onto the whole “big picture” problem solving ride by accident. It started as I entered into the last 13 years of service, the half way point of my time in the military. From there my career path meandered to the extraordinary, at least compared to a lot of other airmen’s careers.
My job path took off on this “merry tangent” in 1989 when I left the position of shift leader for a new job in the Quality Assurance Office after being recruited into it by the master sergeant I eventually replaced. (I caught his attention one morning as he observed the no-nonsense way I handled my troops during the weekly “FOD walk”). During my next 6 years in the Quality Office I also took on the ancillary responsibility of overseeing a contract field team of around 25 or so civilian technicians whose job it was to strip out most of the original 30-year-old electronics in our vaunted C-130 “Hercules” cargo plane, and installing modern systems in their place.
What I found the most interesting about that 6 year QA gig was constantly running into new problems, some big, some small. There were about 80 airplanes on our flightline (including the Air Guard’s)—a lot of C-130s. With so many “birds” it took several years to modify all of them; so for quite some time we had a mix of newly modified aircraft, along with “birds” still creaking along with 30 and 40 year old technology.
As lead base for C-130s, often times we were first to get the newest systems, on a trial basis so to speak. In effect, we were the guinea pigs for the rest of the fleet; as such, I was confronted with glitches and gremlins almost on a daily basis. My job was to research these malfunctions, in the short term find out the “whys,” and finally, to come up with answers and even resolutions.
It was during this time of continuous problem solving that I began to simultaneously submit my “fixes” by way of the Air Force Suggestion Program, as well as to the primary approving agency being the Air Logistics Center at Warner Robins AFB in Georgia.
I remember the first time I had a suggestion approved just a few months before I joined the QA team. It was to modify an incorrect troubleshooting tree for engine oil pressure transmitters. It wasn’t all that complicated, but months later, seeing the pages amended in the technical orders to reflect MY changes was quite heady. In a small way I had affected the entire fleet of several hundred C130s. I felt pretty good about that, and about the little award check I got out of it as well.
The stars lined up perfectly when I joined the QA shop and found myself responsible for the proper installation of a host of new aircraft electronic systems. As part of these responsibilities I worked with the Lockheed “mod team” to write the installation workbook requiring that I saw and or touched every new wire bundle, screw and rivet that went into the plane. As part of that workbook I made it mandatory that I personally sign off the okay to reinstall every panel to make sure there was no debris left behind it before they were allowed to button it back up. There was a good chance that I would be the last person to inspect those areas for years to come; and believe me, I felt the pressure of knowing that. When it comes to aircraft work there is no such thing as being too critical; it either meets spec or it doesn’t. My very last signature was the one I made on the acceptance sheet which brought each airplane out of depot status back into operation with the Air Force.
Earlier I spoke of how the military has made a science of properly fielding new weapons systems (in fact, the army has a university devoted to perfecting and teaching acquisition at Ft Lee, VA); BUT, when installing so many new systems onto a 30 year old platform like our C-130s were, while still keeping much of the deteriorating original wiring and archaic electrical power, in the aftermath of that we were bound to have to do some major “tweaking.”
Indeed, MY CFT guys put a LOT of new gear into those old planes: Let’s see, one of the most complicated installations was a brand-new redundant Self-Contained Nav System that also provided attitude information to the flight directors; the team also put in a host of flat panel and digital instruments to replace the old spinning dial analog indicators, a new autopilot, GCAS (ground collision avoidance), a partial upgrade to aircraft power, a much improved radar altimeter and Doppler radar, as well as several new radios and associated antennas and secure voice kits. Toward the end of my tenure we also started to put in GPS, TCAS (aircraft collision avoidance) and electronic countermeasures to include the chaff and flare dispensers. After almost 15 years since my involvement I’ve forgotten some of the systems MY team installed, but per aircraft all that work took hundreds of man-hours, thousands of feet of wire, countless hundreds of wire pins and terminals, and scores of connectors; and it all had to be done perfectly and on schedule, aircraft after aircraft. All those long overdue upgrades were bound to lead to a host of problems, and boy, did it ever!
From 90 to 91 I took a short break from “my path” by going to war; during the two years it took those 7 months to pass I became a regular maintainer again. After the war I returned to Little Rock to find shocking changes in my absence; the Air Force had gone through a major organizational and philosophical shakeup—maintenance had become completely decentralized; there was no longer a single colonel in charge of maintaining all 64 aircraft. Overnight each of the four squadron commander’s took over complete responsibility for their own birds’ upkeep.
Not only that, but a new concept called TQM, or Total Quality Management (a term now long out of vogue), had become the latest management fad. Under it, all of us once scary QA boogiemen lost our scariness and instead we became nerdy “quality facilitators.” Lucky for us though, our Logistics Group commander was shrewd enough not to dismantle us the way other C-130 bases had done immediately to their QA shops once the reign of TQM had begun. The fact that our QA pretty much remained intact paid off big as far as I’m concerned.
I must admit though that I wasn’t sorry to see the days of inspection quotas ended; I never liked doing all those tedious exams anyway. Instead of inspecting individuals’ work (making them extremely nervous!) and checking out test equipment, we began concentrating on “process improvement.” And ho hum, I guess we did some of that, but what really excited me was getting all that new electronics correctly installed, and just as important, finding and fixing all the associated glitches and bugs.
And HERE is why our commanders were so brilliant in keeping us QA boys around—we became the corporate knowledge bank, the go-to-guys for oddball problems, and the overseers of high interest taskings from the command.
There is a very scary truism about airplanes: You don’t know what’s screwed up if you don’t know what’s screwed up. This strange axiom became obvious when our wing became the only one still conducting so-called acceptance inspections of those C-130s returning from the depot facility at Ogden, Utah. We had just way too many airplanes to let our contract field team do all the modifications, so Ogden and Warner Robins did them as well. The problem is that the colonel in charge at Ogden became upset with us because we were the only ones complaining about their work. I would go out to an airplane just arrived from Utah and fill page after page of squawks on a legal pad, and many of them were grounding write ups (I once found over 100 writeups). The Ogden colonel was so irked at us that he paid for me and my right hand man, a brilliant avionics troop by the name of Shawn Dougherty, to come to his facility so he could show US how wonderful HIS installers were. As it turned out, we were not the least bit impressed and in fact showed them the many errors of their ways. At first their resentment was disconcerting, but eventually I think we won them over with our earnestness.
The point is that WE KNEW what to look for because we were were intimately familiar with every disturbed and new wire bundle and connector, so we immediately recognized the improprieties, but we were the only inspectors left at the wing level who continued to do these post-depot inspections. A chilling thought—what about the OTHER aircraft never looked at with the same knowledgeable eyes? As far as all the other users the installation was A-okay. The only actual acceptance inspection done at the depot was done by an aircrew that had no clue about what was physically done to the aircraft and whose only worry was to accomplish the checkflight. As far as they were concerned, if the systems worked on that flight, then it was good to go. In other words, “Ignorance is NOT bliss.” …shudder…
And NOW, to finish up this LONG post—my counterpart, Shawn Dougherty, and I, began to LOOK for problems or just ways to make maintenance actions less cumbersome and more efficient. Here’s what we learned: if you stay your ass in the office, you will NEVER learn a thing. You GOT to find out what you DON’T know. A common fault of problem solvers is that they THINK they KNOW; they DON’T. Following that premise we made our rounds to the flightline, to the squadrons, to the shops, to the contractors, all with the goal of talking to “the experts.”
Hardly a day went by where some sergeant or senior airman didn’t come up to me to complain about some new glitch or malfunction. It got to the point that troops seeing me drive by would jog over and flag me down, something they NEVER used to do when I wore my white boogieman QA hat. They loved that I always had a sympathetic ear and asked lots of questions. Complaints, moans, and groans—I LOVED it. If they had a problem I WANTED to hear about it. Their squawks became my bread and butter.
To finish blowing my own horn, we began to establish a reputation, especially once all the approved suggestion awards began to roll in along with the award checks. Every month during commander’s call Shawn and I would receive not one or two checks, but usually 5 or 6. This went on month after month, for almost three years; and once the word got out that WE were the people to see to get things fixed, even more folks approached us with their tales of woe. I’m pretty sure our success inspired others to do the same thing. I loved it, being able to make a difference.
As I said, seldom if ever was I the one that came up with the fixes. Most of those ideas came from the same folks who came forward with the problems in the first place. Ask someone for a problem and chances are they can also tell you how to solve it.
But my REAL secret weapon in tackling especially big problems was my contract field team. Those fellows were incredibly brilliant at finding the best solutions. Most were retired military with decades of experience working on aircraft long before they started modifying planes as civilians. Whenever I approached them with a problem, I’d make my pitch, usually at the break table, and then I’d leave them to mull it over. Without exception, within a few days they’d have a workable solution, usually complete with diagrams and written procedures. They always told me that they wanted nothing in return since by contract everything they came up with officially belonged to Lockheed. It was a joke to them; they said they’d rather I have credit than Lockheed. Absolutely remarkable men!
In 1992 or 93 the base commander even chose me to be his Suggestor of the Year, or at least some one in the suggestion office did, not that I was even aware that such an award existed. It was nice but it could easily have gone to Shawn, since we collaborated on most of our projects. I always say that THE best idea I ever had was hiring him to work with me in QA.
I learned during those exciting times that my strong suit was seeing the brilliance in others and tapping into that brilliance as a primary resource; and I found that the best answers invariably come from the same folks who come forward with the problems in the first place. If the solution is the drink then I was the humble vessel. I did my job best by completely defining the problems and their scope, usually after that, what had to be done became obvious. I’m sure the answers to our healthcare dilemma can be found in exactly the same way; and not by a bunch of self-serving politicians and lobbyists who THINK they know the answers; THEY don’t.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Back in the Saddle
I must be crazy. Why else would I purposely subject myself to having to get up in the morning again, to take a shower by the ungodly hour of 8 a.m., so I can get my creaky aching bones to the office by 9? Oh yeah; I’m most definitely certifiable.
Or maybe I’m just an idiot. Why else would I start in again with helping veterans try to deal with the seeming indifference of the local VA office and its officious band of raters, examiners, adjudicators, reviewers, and managers? Epiphany! I’m crazy AND an idiot!
You know what’s amazing? The copious verbiage that seems to spout from the embassy’s third VA floor as if from a busted fire hydrant. The scary thing is that I am able to understand much of what they spurt.
“My veterans,” many almost mad with anxiety, with these infuriating letters in hand, some crumpled up earlier in a fit of rage before being smoothed back into a semi-readable form, line up, hoping that I’ll be the one to bring some sense to the maddening words and turn their panic to some semblance of peace of mind.
When it’s their turn they’ll sit next to me at our little round conference table, usually with a deep sighing groan, hand over their well-worn letters, and gaze anxiously at me with a hint of desperation as I push my reading glasses up my nose and start to read. Usually, before I can finish even a single sentence, they’ll start to squawk and carry on. I give them a “I know, I know. They’re evil, but let me read this so I can figure out what to do next, okay?”
Much of what I do is interpret. Sometimes my guys will look at me expectantly like I’m some kind of archeologist reading ancient cuneiform tablets or Egyptian hieroglyphics, just waiting for me to jump up and scream “Yes! It’s all making sense!” I have to admit that it makes me feel somewhat superior that I am able to decipher what they, simple vets straight “off the street,” without my years of training and experience, are clueless to understand, at least as far as knowing “what to do next.”
It’s not that the stuff is written in something other than English; no, it’s nothing like that. The irony is that basically the VA, in trying to fulfill a mandate to keep claimants “informed,” tends to drown them in too much information.
So here’s some of what’s happening. The VA is SUPPOSED to inform each veteran on EXACTLY what they’ll need to fulfill the requirements of “reasonable doubt” proof that would cause VA adjudicators to approve their claim. Instead, they simply tell veterans to provide nebulous “medical evidence” that “shows the condition was treated from the end of their military service to the present.”
My answer to that: Hey VA, THAT is a crock! Most folks that suffer from service related conditions simply do what they mostly did while they were on active duty—they suck it up and keep on trucking, and most often, out of necessity, they self-medicate. Now, if you leave it to the VA, that’s as far as most claims would go—straight into the VA denial waste bin, because almost no one would be able to provide that sort of continuum of medical treatment evidence. It’s unreasonable to expect otherwise.
What they don’t mention is that a medical opinion by the veteran’s physician simply stating that, “based on assessment of service medical records, the veteran’s present condition “more likely than not” began in service” is all that SHOULD be needed to provide connection proof to service. Sounds simple enough right? Yet, do you think that simple instructive statement ever finds its way into a “duty to assist and inform” template paragraph in any VA letter to a veteran claimant? That’s a rhetorical question by the way.
The mistake a lot of veterans make, at least from what I’ve seen at the “local version” of the VA, is to provide to the VA feasible “starter evidence” that results in the claimant being sent to VA physician examiners. These “impartial” (Yeah RIGHT!) VA doctors are then instructed to “examine by worksheet” the claimant, after which the rating side of the VA house asks these same doctors to provide a medical opinion as to whether or not the veteran’s condition is related to service.
Here’s a typical “open-minded” VA medical proclamation resulting from one of these inquiries: “It is less likely than it is that the veteran’s condition is service connected.”
Let me interpret that for you: “The chances that the veteran’s condition is connected to service is just less than 50-50.”
Keep this in mind; if they’d nudged it up ever so slightly to a shade just better than 50-50, then the VA would HAVE to grant service connection. So, to counter this VA mealy-mouthed tendency to “err on the side of denial” I’ve found it best to advise “my people” to go to their OWN private physician for a “better than 50-50” opinion, one that is EVER so close to the VA’s almost inevitable “less than 50-50” one. By getting this precious piece of paper from their own doctor it makes the VA's anti-opinion moot since the two disagreeing opinions cause "equipoise," and the beauty of the system is that "the tie goes to the runner," to use baseball terminology.
Is this stuff making your head spin? Hell, by now, most anyone trying to read this stuff has probably already given up; and I wouldn’t blame them one bit. Am I sounding cynical? Hey, call me a cynic.
However, I AM hopeful that change is in the wind. Today was my third day back in the saddle, but during the weekend I read over about 50 or so VA letters to “my veterans.” Mind you, the VA sends us copies of all correspondence sent to claimants, so long as they signed up with us to represent them.
So what has me hopeful is that many of the decisions actually seemed fair. Also, even more encouraging, is that several recent decisions seemed to result from some “intelligent oversight,” because the decisions made by these “beings” were actually overturned old denial decisions. When I saw these award letters I could not believe my eyes, since in my previous tour of duty, which comprised almost 4 years, I don’t remember even one such reversal in favor of a veteran.
So, something is definitely happening over there. I just hope it continues, because it bodes well for my people. Geez, I sound like freaking Moses!
Or maybe I’m just an idiot. Why else would I start in again with helping veterans try to deal with the seeming indifference of the local VA office and its officious band of raters, examiners, adjudicators, reviewers, and managers? Epiphany! I’m crazy AND an idiot!
You know what’s amazing? The copious verbiage that seems to spout from the embassy’s third VA floor as if from a busted fire hydrant. The scary thing is that I am able to understand much of what they spurt.
“My veterans,” many almost mad with anxiety, with these infuriating letters in hand, some crumpled up earlier in a fit of rage before being smoothed back into a semi-readable form, line up, hoping that I’ll be the one to bring some sense to the maddening words and turn their panic to some semblance of peace of mind.
When it’s their turn they’ll sit next to me at our little round conference table, usually with a deep sighing groan, hand over their well-worn letters, and gaze anxiously at me with a hint of desperation as I push my reading glasses up my nose and start to read. Usually, before I can finish even a single sentence, they’ll start to squawk and carry on. I give them a “I know, I know. They’re evil, but let me read this so I can figure out what to do next, okay?”
Much of what I do is interpret. Sometimes my guys will look at me expectantly like I’m some kind of archeologist reading ancient cuneiform tablets or Egyptian hieroglyphics, just waiting for me to jump up and scream “Yes! It’s all making sense!” I have to admit that it makes me feel somewhat superior that I am able to decipher what they, simple vets straight “off the street,” without my years of training and experience, are clueless to understand, at least as far as knowing “what to do next.”
It’s not that the stuff is written in something other than English; no, it’s nothing like that. The irony is that basically the VA, in trying to fulfill a mandate to keep claimants “informed,” tends to drown them in too much information.
So here’s some of what’s happening. The VA is SUPPOSED to inform each veteran on EXACTLY what they’ll need to fulfill the requirements of “reasonable doubt” proof that would cause VA adjudicators to approve their claim. Instead, they simply tell veterans to provide nebulous “medical evidence” that “shows the condition was treated from the end of their military service to the present.”
My answer to that: Hey VA, THAT is a crock! Most folks that suffer from service related conditions simply do what they mostly did while they were on active duty—they suck it up and keep on trucking, and most often, out of necessity, they self-medicate. Now, if you leave it to the VA, that’s as far as most claims would go—straight into the VA denial waste bin, because almost no one would be able to provide that sort of continuum of medical treatment evidence. It’s unreasonable to expect otherwise.
What they don’t mention is that a medical opinion by the veteran’s physician simply stating that, “based on assessment of service medical records, the veteran’s present condition “more likely than not” began in service” is all that SHOULD be needed to provide connection proof to service. Sounds simple enough right? Yet, do you think that simple instructive statement ever finds its way into a “duty to assist and inform” template paragraph in any VA letter to a veteran claimant? That’s a rhetorical question by the way.
The mistake a lot of veterans make, at least from what I’ve seen at the “local version” of the VA, is to provide to the VA feasible “starter evidence” that results in the claimant being sent to VA physician examiners. These “impartial” (Yeah RIGHT!) VA doctors are then instructed to “examine by worksheet” the claimant, after which the rating side of the VA house asks these same doctors to provide a medical opinion as to whether or not the veteran’s condition is related to service.
Here’s a typical “open-minded” VA medical proclamation resulting from one of these inquiries: “It is less likely than it is that the veteran’s condition is service connected.”
Let me interpret that for you: “The chances that the veteran’s condition is connected to service is just less than 50-50.”
Keep this in mind; if they’d nudged it up ever so slightly to a shade just better than 50-50, then the VA would HAVE to grant service connection. So, to counter this VA mealy-mouthed tendency to “err on the side of denial” I’ve found it best to advise “my people” to go to their OWN private physician for a “better than 50-50” opinion, one that is EVER so close to the VA’s almost inevitable “less than 50-50” one. By getting this precious piece of paper from their own doctor it makes the VA's anti-opinion moot since the two disagreeing opinions cause "equipoise," and the beauty of the system is that "the tie goes to the runner," to use baseball terminology.
Is this stuff making your head spin? Hell, by now, most anyone trying to read this stuff has probably already given up; and I wouldn’t blame them one bit. Am I sounding cynical? Hey, call me a cynic.
However, I AM hopeful that change is in the wind. Today was my third day back in the saddle, but during the weekend I read over about 50 or so VA letters to “my veterans.” Mind you, the VA sends us copies of all correspondence sent to claimants, so long as they signed up with us to represent them.
So what has me hopeful is that many of the decisions actually seemed fair. Also, even more encouraging, is that several recent decisions seemed to result from some “intelligent oversight,” because the decisions made by these “beings” were actually overturned old denial decisions. When I saw these award letters I could not believe my eyes, since in my previous tour of duty, which comprised almost 4 years, I don’t remember even one such reversal in favor of a veteran.
So, something is definitely happening over there. I just hope it continues, because it bodes well for my people. Geez, I sound like freaking Moses!
Monday, February 04, 2008
The Rift
I don’t know how widespread it is or how deep and broad, but from my 
own casual observations I sense a definite rift between the military and the citizens we serve. I was reminded of it yet again the other day during one of my “gym conversations” with an American civilian who has never “served.”
The things he said, the resentful unsympathetic feelings he espoused towards veterans remind me of some of the conversations my dad brought home with him from his fellow GM factory workers after he retired from the Air Force in 1971.
My dad got out after 20 years, returning to his home state of Michigan. After a lot of sweat, tears and more than a little bit of self-exaggeration, he managed to wrangle a position as a journeyman electrician in Saginaw Steering Gear. Back then that giant factory still fell under General Motors.
You would think that a bunch of blue-collar red-blooded American factory workers would have respected my dad’s years in the armed forces after having done his part to keep America safe while they paid off their homes, bought cottages “up north,” put money in the bank, and accrued lots of toys like snowmobiles and speed boats. But no, it wasn’t like that all.
Instead, he continually had to listen to many of them disparage him for “double-dipping;” accusing him of having sat on his ass and drinking coffee for 20 years while still being able to collect that GM paycheck too. They actually resented him his small military pension and free “medical benefits.” Once they had him fired up, he’d get up in their smirking faces and tell them the crap he had to put up with during those “easy” 20 years—the asshole bosses, the tense working conditions, the low pay, the nonstop yearly moves from base to base, to name a few. Few of them could figure out why he was so angry. They'd shrug uncomfortably, wondering why he took so seriously what they saw as simple good-natured kidding; and now that I've been through it after my own long military career, I too know EXACTLY why he took their jibes so personal.
As for me, I’ve tended to avoid civilians over the years. Generally, I tend to seek out friends among my fellow vets. This is because I don’t understand nor can I relate well to my fellow non-military citizenry. They seem wrapped up with petty unimportant things. They haven’t been “anywhere,” haven’t “seen what I’ve seen,” and for the most part aren’t interested in “the big picture.” What’s more, many refuse to acknowledge the evil in the world waiting to rise up and destroy all they hold dear. Yet some, too many, are willing to belittle what we do, demean our sacrifice, and begrudge us the pay and benefits we’ve earned.
As I said up top, I got into this exact subject with a fellow gym rat the other day. He wasn’t even talking to me but I couldn’t help but to overhear his snide comments. With great derision he vocalized his “problem” with vets, saying they draw disability pay even as he KNOWS: “Many of them are in better shape than I am!”
I looked over to see if it was really worth my time and effort to confront him. Normally, we get along famously, so I was a bit surprised at the profundity of his umbrage. Although not directed at me personally, his ire was palpable and when he continued on in the same cantankerous tone I decided, ‘Okay, that’s enough!’
I spoke up, “Hey, Jake; what’s your problem Man? I don’t get you. Can you explain this bitterness you have for me and people like me? Why exactly do you think we don’t deserve our pensions and disability compensation?”
He came over and stood a few feet from me, which suited me just fine.
“I just don’t see why my tax dollars should go to paying all these guys all this money. I don’t get paid anything for MY physical problems. I worked too and got hurt. It ain’t right!”
“Jake, you CHOSE not to enlist. It seems to me that you really don’t know what you’re talking about, because you didn’t do what we had to do. Do you think military service is easy? If it was all cake, why aren’t people signing up in droves to do it? I’m not saying my 27 years was all hard time, but a lot of it wasn’t easy; and it CERTAINLY wasn’t easy on my family. Just the same, it’s all I ever wanted to do since I was four years old.”
He hemmed and hawed a little. “Well, I know this guy. He brags about being 100% disabled and makes all this VA money, yet he’s a scratch golfer! He’s a big fraud man. There ain’t nothing wrong with that asshole. Why should my taxes go to paying him when he’s just fine?”
I’d heard that one before and knew exactly what to say: “I have no idea what this guy’s conditions might be. Not everyone’s disabilities are even physical. Still, if you think he’s a fraud, turn his ass into the VA or to Social Security. Hell, I’ll do it. They’ll investigate him if they deem it a possible fraud case. I hate guys like that too, IF they are frauds. They give all of us a bad name. In fact, what’s his name? I’ll do it myself!”
More hemming and hawing: “Well, I haven’t seen him for a while. But still!”
He went on, “If I’d have known about all these great benefits and all this money you guys make after only 20 or so years, I’d have signed up too!” he laughed uneasily.
I chided him. “I wouldn’t have wanted your sorry ass in the suck with me anyway Jake. Do you think when I was 17 years old I said to myself, ‘Man, I can’t WAIT to join the Marines, do my 30, and THEN, get all that free medical and that FAT pension!’ That’s the kind of thinking you get from the damned officers Man! If I really cared a crap about money and my long term future I would have gone to college and became a lawyer or a damned dentist; or hell, I would have become an officer for all that BIG zero pay.”
I was cleaning his clock, so he changed tack: “It’s not just the pension and the money Man. I’m tired of all this hero stuff. No one makes anybody serve in the military, so why all the hero talk? It’s the same for cops and firemen; no one tells them they HAVE to do that work.”
“Exactly! Maybe you don’t realize it, but the REAL heroes, like the guys awarded Silver Stars and Purple Hearts; THEY don’t refer to themselves as heroes. So don’t get mad at them for being labeled AS such by OTHER people.”
I had him on the ropes; he was relenting and I heard “surrender” in his voice as he continued: “I’m not saying that everyone doesn’t deserve the pension and such, but some of them don’t. I probably worked as hard as some of these guys and I don’t get squat.”
“So, let me get this straight. You’re mad because you didn’t know any better? And if you HAD known, you would have enlisted too? My God man! Who are you REALLY mad at, veterans like me who did 27 years doing a job that most Americans DON’T want to do or are UNWILLING to do; or are you mad at yourself, for not putting yourself through the same hell that I went through so you could be where I am today?” I cuffed him on the shoulder and grinned.
He just laughed.
I ended his tirade with my own finishing clincher: “You know what Jake? Basically, I think YOU are full of bovine kaka!”
own casual observations I sense a definite rift between the military and the citizens we serve. I was reminded of it yet again the other day during one of my “gym conversations” with an American civilian who has never “served.”The things he said, the resentful unsympathetic feelings he espoused towards veterans remind me of some of the conversations my dad brought home with him from his fellow GM factory workers after he retired from the Air Force in 1971.
My dad got out after 20 years, returning to his home state of Michigan. After a lot of sweat, tears and more than a little bit of self-exaggeration, he managed to wrangle a position as a journeyman electrician in Saginaw Steering Gear. Back then that giant factory still fell under General Motors.
You would think that a bunch of blue-collar red-blooded American factory workers would have respected my dad’s years in the armed forces after having done his part to keep America safe while they paid off their homes, bought cottages “up north,” put money in the bank, and accrued lots of toys like snowmobiles and speed boats. But no, it wasn’t like that all.
Instead, he continually had to listen to many of them disparage him for “double-dipping;” accusing him of having sat on his ass and drinking coffee for 20 years while still being able to collect that GM paycheck too. They actually resented him his small military pension and free “medical benefits.” Once they had him fired up, he’d get up in their smirking faces and tell them the crap he had to put up with during those “easy” 20 years—the asshole bosses, the tense working conditions, the low pay, the nonstop yearly moves from base to base, to name a few. Few of them could figure out why he was so angry. They'd shrug uncomfortably, wondering why he took so seriously what they saw as simple good-natured kidding; and now that I've been through it after my own long military career, I too know EXACTLY why he took their jibes so personal.
As for me, I’ve tended to avoid civilians over the years. Generally, I tend to seek out friends among my fellow vets. This is because I don’t understand nor can I relate well to my fellow non-military citizenry. They seem wrapped up with petty unimportant things. They haven’t been “anywhere,” haven’t “seen what I’ve seen,” and for the most part aren’t interested in “the big picture.” What’s more, many refuse to acknowledge the evil in the world waiting to rise up and destroy all they hold dear. Yet some, too many, are willing to belittle what we do, demean our sacrifice, and begrudge us the pay and benefits we’ve earned.
As I said up top, I got into this exact subject with a fellow gym rat the other day. He wasn’t even talking to me but I couldn’t help but to overhear his snide comments. With great derision he vocalized his “problem” with vets, saying they draw disability pay even as he KNOWS: “Many of them are in better shape than I am!”
I looked over to see if it was really worth my time and effort to confront him. Normally, we get along famously, so I was a bit surprised at the profundity of his umbrage. Although not directed at me personally, his ire was palpable and when he continued on in the same cantankerous tone I decided, ‘Okay, that’s enough!’
I spoke up, “Hey, Jake; what’s your problem Man? I don’t get you. Can you explain this bitterness you have for me and people like me? Why exactly do you think we don’t deserve our pensions and disability compensation?”
He came over and stood a few feet from me, which suited me just fine.
“I just don’t see why my tax dollars should go to paying all these guys all this money. I don’t get paid anything for MY physical problems. I worked too and got hurt. It ain’t right!”
“Jake, you CHOSE not to enlist. It seems to me that you really don’t know what you’re talking about, because you didn’t do what we had to do. Do you think military service is easy? If it was all cake, why aren’t people signing up in droves to do it? I’m not saying my 27 years was all hard time, but a lot of it wasn’t easy; and it CERTAINLY wasn’t easy on my family. Just the same, it’s all I ever wanted to do since I was four years old.”
He hemmed and hawed a little. “Well, I know this guy. He brags about being 100% disabled and makes all this VA money, yet he’s a scratch golfer! He’s a big fraud man. There ain’t nothing wrong with that asshole. Why should my taxes go to paying him when he’s just fine?”
I’d heard that one before and knew exactly what to say: “I have no idea what this guy’s conditions might be. Not everyone’s disabilities are even physical. Still, if you think he’s a fraud, turn his ass into the VA or to Social Security. Hell, I’ll do it. They’ll investigate him if they deem it a possible fraud case. I hate guys like that too, IF they are frauds. They give all of us a bad name. In fact, what’s his name? I’ll do it myself!”
More hemming and hawing: “Well, I haven’t seen him for a while. But still!”
He went on, “If I’d have known about all these great benefits and all this money you guys make after only 20 or so years, I’d have signed up too!” he laughed uneasily.
I chided him. “I wouldn’t have wanted your sorry ass in the suck with me anyway Jake. Do you think when I was 17 years old I said to myself, ‘Man, I can’t WAIT to join the Marines, do my 30, and THEN, get all that free medical and that FAT pension!’ That’s the kind of thinking you get from the damned officers Man! If I really cared a crap about money and my long term future I would have gone to college and became a lawyer or a damned dentist; or hell, I would have become an officer for all that BIG zero pay.”
I was cleaning his clock, so he changed tack: “It’s not just the pension and the money Man. I’m tired of all this hero stuff. No one makes anybody serve in the military, so why all the hero talk? It’s the same for cops and firemen; no one tells them they HAVE to do that work.”
“Exactly! Maybe you don’t realize it, but the REAL heroes, like the guys awarded Silver Stars and Purple Hearts; THEY don’t refer to themselves as heroes. So don’t get mad at them for being labeled AS such by OTHER people.”
I had him on the ropes; he was relenting and I heard “surrender” in his voice as he continued: “I’m not saying that everyone doesn’t deserve the pension and such, but some of them don’t. I probably worked as hard as some of these guys and I don’t get squat.”
“So, let me get this straight. You’re mad because you didn’t know any better? And if you HAD known, you would have enlisted too? My God man! Who are you REALLY mad at, veterans like me who did 27 years doing a job that most Americans DON’T want to do or are UNWILLING to do; or are you mad at yourself, for not putting yourself through the same hell that I went through so you could be where I am today?” I cuffed him on the shoulder and grinned.
He just laughed.
I ended his tirade with my own finishing clincher: “You know what Jake? Basically, I think YOU are full of bovine kaka!”
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Mr Stinky
Ever had a day that was completely ruined by something that you knew in your heart should have been relegated to the "insignificant file;" yet you just could not make yourself let it become unimportant to you? I’m sorry to say that it was like that for me today. I hate that.
I let something that should have been nothing rule over my entire Friday. I’m home now hours later and STILL I can’t let it go. Every person I’ve spoken to, I’ve told them about what happened today. I even emailed people about it. To myself, I say, 'Stop! Stop I say!'
Once every three or four months I have to make it to a scheduled VA checkup at the outpatient clinic in Pasay, Manila. To do this I catch the free van that leaves from outside the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Angeles City office at 5:30 am. I pulled up to the scooter parking area just a few minutes before departure time and checked in with the van driver. He stood out behind the van checking out our appointment letters and logging us in. I was the last one to sign in out of the four veterans going. Grudgingly, I offered a grumpy good morning to him and about then a hint of the most god awful stench assailed my olfactory system.
Immediately, I knew it was going to be “one of those days.” As Forrest Gump might say if he too had to occasionally ride the daily van to the VA clinic, “riding it is like a box of chocolates, ‘coz you never know what you’re going to get.” Unfortunately, today, what I got was a big old ugly box of BO—disgusting, nauseating, sickening, armpit and ass odor. Ugh!
I would never write this if I was still a veterans service officer, it just wouldn’t be appropriate; but now that I’m a “private citizen,” volunteering my time and experience to help folks on a personal basis, I feel like I can comment on just about any and everything I see, hear and SMELL!
I don’t know what the guy’s name is; I’m afraid I let my prejudice against smelly people “foul” my ability to engage him in much conversation. I did pick up a few things about him however. From his apparent age, long hair and unkempt beard, I knew him to be a Vietnam vet. For some reason many of the “flower children” of the ‘60s, especially the good fellows who survived “The Nam,” have never gotten over yearning for the passé style of long locks and facial hair. On that note, if you see a man with a graying ponytail, chances are he’s from the “Woodstock Generation.”
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with long hair on a dude UNLESS that dude hasn’t taken a bath in a month of Sundays. So, here’s my standard: Clean = Good! Armpit smell = Bad! Today, in that little van, seemingly the littlest van I’ve ever ridden in, it was very very BAD!
I hoped that once we got to moving that one of two things would happen: 1) Somehow his nasty anti-perfume would quiet down some and/or 2) eventually I’d get as used to his foulness as he apparently was so that I too would be as seemingly unaware of it as he was. Alas, none of the above came to pass. Once we pulled out on to the North Luzon Expressway we were forced to close our windows. The aircon then sucked up his rankness, cooled it down to a pleasant temperature, and then pumped it full force into our recoiling faces.
‘Oh my God! Help me!’ I prayed.
I looked at the other passengers around me, my fellow “victims,” and I noticed that they too struggled to control their impulses to “cry foul,” but I was a little ashamed to see that it seemed that I was the only one being so over-powered. I took out my small sweat towel and held it obviously over my nose, desperately trying to breathe as lightly as possible so as to keep from drawing in the tainted air too deeply.
I thought to myself, ‘Okay, you’re overreacting. Just ignore it.’ But I couldn’t!
And now there was another problem with this guy. He was as vocally obnoxious as he was malodorous. He stretched his long scabby legs out in front of him on his row of seats and proceeded to talk at the top of voice to the fellow behind him who happened be sitting directly in front of me. They spoke of traveling the world, comparing notes on flight and billeting methods, which sounds innocuous enough, but nearly every other word from Mr. Smelly’s mouth was f*ck. All I heard was, “That f*cking motherf*cker, so I told that f*cking motherf*cker to go f*ck himself, the stupid f*ck! (ad nauseum, ad infinitum).
My thoughts were random and frantic: ‘Please Lord. I’m in hell. Somebody shoot me and put me out of my misery! I’ll be good. I’ll join the priesthood, hell, I'll join a convent. Anything, just end this agony!’
At one point when he got tired of saying f*ck or the other guy pretended to be asleep, whatever the case, Smelly Pants drew his legs up to his chest, examined the variously sized scabs on his calves and ankles and then spent several minutes finding loose ones that he could deftly pick off. Oops. That one wasn’t ready. It’s a bleeder.
I screamed in my head, ‘Someone please gouge out my eyes!’
Straight up at 0800 we arrived at the clinic and slowly pried our achy old bones out of the sewery smelling vehicle. I sucked in huge lungfuls of the comparatively “pristine” Manila air and savored the sweet smell of combusted diesel fresh off of the very busy Roxas Boulevard only a few meters away. I never thought I’d say this about Manila city air, but it was wonderful!
For the next several hours I mostly managed to steer clear of him, but I was curious to watch others’ reactions as he “invaded their personal space.” I was surprised to see that most folks politely made gargantuan efforts to ignore his obviously rank presence, and he definitely had at least two presences: his physical one and his miasmic one. His fetid pall seemed to reach out a good 7 or 8 feet, a very respectable stink range at that.
From as far away as I could manage it, I could see that his orangish-brown nylon basketball style shorts and raggedy T-shirt, which he had roughly cut with a pair of scissors into a V-neck, were both full of holes and both not covered with stains so much as permeated with them. I’m convinced that he’d been wearing the same clothes for days, probably weeks. I didn’t want to, but in spite of myself I could see through the ratty holes in the seat of his shorts that he wasn’t wearing underwear. The amazing thing is that he’d been bragging on the van that he was clearing a full 4 grand a month from his military disability payments. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t use some of that money to take a shower, shit-can his clothes, buy some new fresh ones, and invest in some roll-on deodorant; but I didn’t.
I was happy to see that he was a smoker and spent much of his time outside in the smoking area. As he walked back and forth between there and around the inside of the clinic I began to notice something. People who weren’t sick with cough or sneezes were suddenly wearing the free masks offered for that purpose by the clinic.
‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ I thought.
I asked the front desk attendant for a mask and he gave me three without pause. He knew exactly why I wanted one. I tied mine on about an hour before we were due to head back so it wouldn’t seem too obvious. Funny thing is I noticed that the driver was already wearing his, as was one of the other passengers. As clever as I like to think I am sometimes, it seems that I was the last one to think of that brilliant solution.
Now for the final “gag,” pun intended. As I got into the van, “smelly boy” was already onboard and he too WAS WEARING A MASK!
‘Oh man, you have GOT to be kidding me!’ I chuckled into my hand at the irony.
I listened in as he spoke glowingly of what a great idea it was for us all to wear those free masks because of all the nasty diesel jeepney fumes in town. Incredible! This guy was so obtuse that he could not figure out that people were nearly retching all around him due to his nasty odor. There he was right there in the van along with the rest of us happily sporting his own mask.
I was thinking that perhaps he was tired of smelling himself. But no, I’m sure that wasn’t the case. Another fellow on the van with us, an incredibly nice guy, who somehow found it in himself to continue to chat all day with the insufferable “maggot-gagger,” also came to the conclusion that this guy was totally oblivious to his own putridity. In fact, it got so strong, even with the masks, that I continually swabbed the outside of my mask with deodorant but with only minimal effect.
Short of the DAV office the poor stanky fellow asked to be dropped off on Fields Avenue. At his departure the rest of us wrenched off our surgical masks with great relief. We shook our heads in wonder thinking—how can any human be like that? Shouldn’t someone tell him? As for me, I figured he wasn’t my problem after today, and he wasn’t going to be able to shower anytime before we got back, so to heck with it.
I’ve seen lots of vets with eccentric ways and strange mental quirkisms. I wonder if this guy isn’t suffering from some kind of weird antisocial pathological fear of showering and the wearing of clean decent clothing. Who knows? I just know that I NEVER want to be around Mr. Stinky ever again…
I let something that should have been nothing rule over my entire Friday. I’m home now hours later and STILL I can’t let it go. Every person I’ve spoken to, I’ve told them about what happened today. I even emailed people about it. To myself, I say, 'Stop! Stop I say!'
Once every three or four months I have to make it to a scheduled VA checkup at the outpatient clinic in Pasay, Manila. To do this I catch the free van that leaves from outside the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Angeles City office at 5:30 am. I pulled up to the scooter parking area just a few minutes before departure time and checked in with the van driver. He stood out behind the van checking out our appointment letters and logging us in. I was the last one to sign in out of the four veterans going. Grudgingly, I offered a grumpy good morning to him and about then a hint of the most god awful stench assailed my olfactory system.
Immediately, I knew it was going to be “one of those days.” As Forrest Gump might say if he too had to occasionally ride the daily van to the VA clinic, “riding it is like a box of chocolates, ‘coz you never know what you’re going to get.” Unfortunately, today, what I got was a big old ugly box of BO—disgusting, nauseating, sickening, armpit and ass odor. Ugh!
I would never write this if I was still a veterans service officer, it just wouldn’t be appropriate; but now that I’m a “private citizen,” volunteering my time and experience to help folks on a personal basis, I feel like I can comment on just about any and everything I see, hear and SMELL!
I don’t know what the guy’s name is; I’m afraid I let my prejudice against smelly people “foul” my ability to engage him in much conversation. I did pick up a few things about him however. From his apparent age, long hair and unkempt beard, I knew him to be a Vietnam vet. For some reason many of the “flower children” of the ‘60s, especially the good fellows who survived “The Nam,” have never gotten over yearning for the passé style of long locks and facial hair. On that note, if you see a man with a graying ponytail, chances are he’s from the “Woodstock Generation.”
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with long hair on a dude UNLESS that dude hasn’t taken a bath in a month of Sundays. So, here’s my standard: Clean = Good! Armpit smell = Bad! Today, in that little van, seemingly the littlest van I’ve ever ridden in, it was very very BAD!
I hoped that once we got to moving that one of two things would happen: 1) Somehow his nasty anti-perfume would quiet down some and/or 2) eventually I’d get as used to his foulness as he apparently was so that I too would be as seemingly unaware of it as he was. Alas, none of the above came to pass. Once we pulled out on to the North Luzon Expressway we were forced to close our windows. The aircon then sucked up his rankness, cooled it down to a pleasant temperature, and then pumped it full force into our recoiling faces.
‘Oh my God! Help me!’ I prayed.
I looked at the other passengers around me, my fellow “victims,” and I noticed that they too struggled to control their impulses to “cry foul,” but I was a little ashamed to see that it seemed that I was the only one being so over-powered. I took out my small sweat towel and held it obviously over my nose, desperately trying to breathe as lightly as possible so as to keep from drawing in the tainted air too deeply.
I thought to myself, ‘Okay, you’re overreacting. Just ignore it.’ But I couldn’t!
And now there was another problem with this guy. He was as vocally obnoxious as he was malodorous. He stretched his long scabby legs out in front of him on his row of seats and proceeded to talk at the top of voice to the fellow behind him who happened be sitting directly in front of me. They spoke of traveling the world, comparing notes on flight and billeting methods, which sounds innocuous enough, but nearly every other word from Mr. Smelly’s mouth was f*ck. All I heard was, “That f*cking motherf*cker, so I told that f*cking motherf*cker to go f*ck himself, the stupid f*ck! (ad nauseum, ad infinitum).
My thoughts were random and frantic: ‘Please Lord. I’m in hell. Somebody shoot me and put me out of my misery! I’ll be good. I’ll join the priesthood, hell, I'll join a convent. Anything, just end this agony!’
At one point when he got tired of saying f*ck or the other guy pretended to be asleep, whatever the case, Smelly Pants drew his legs up to his chest, examined the variously sized scabs on his calves and ankles and then spent several minutes finding loose ones that he could deftly pick off. Oops. That one wasn’t ready. It’s a bleeder.
I screamed in my head, ‘Someone please gouge out my eyes!’
Straight up at 0800 we arrived at the clinic and slowly pried our achy old bones out of the sewery smelling vehicle. I sucked in huge lungfuls of the comparatively “pristine” Manila air and savored the sweet smell of combusted diesel fresh off of the very busy Roxas Boulevard only a few meters away. I never thought I’d say this about Manila city air, but it was wonderful!
For the next several hours I mostly managed to steer clear of him, but I was curious to watch others’ reactions as he “invaded their personal space.” I was surprised to see that most folks politely made gargantuan efforts to ignore his obviously rank presence, and he definitely had at least two presences: his physical one and his miasmic one. His fetid pall seemed to reach out a good 7 or 8 feet, a very respectable stink range at that.
From as far away as I could manage it, I could see that his orangish-brown nylon basketball style shorts and raggedy T-shirt, which he had roughly cut with a pair of scissors into a V-neck, were both full of holes and both not covered with stains so much as permeated with them. I’m convinced that he’d been wearing the same clothes for days, probably weeks. I didn’t want to, but in spite of myself I could see through the ratty holes in the seat of his shorts that he wasn’t wearing underwear. The amazing thing is that he’d been bragging on the van that he was clearing a full 4 grand a month from his military disability payments. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t use some of that money to take a shower, shit-can his clothes, buy some new fresh ones, and invest in some roll-on deodorant; but I didn’t.
I was happy to see that he was a smoker and spent much of his time outside in the smoking area. As he walked back and forth between there and around the inside of the clinic I began to notice something. People who weren’t sick with cough or sneezes were suddenly wearing the free masks offered for that purpose by the clinic.
‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ I thought.
I asked the front desk attendant for a mask and he gave me three without pause. He knew exactly why I wanted one. I tied mine on about an hour before we were due to head back so it wouldn’t seem too obvious. Funny thing is I noticed that the driver was already wearing his, as was one of the other passengers. As clever as I like to think I am sometimes, it seems that I was the last one to think of that brilliant solution.
Now for the final “gag,” pun intended. As I got into the van, “smelly boy” was already onboard and he too WAS WEARING A MASK!
‘Oh man, you have GOT to be kidding me!’ I chuckled into my hand at the irony.
I listened in as he spoke glowingly of what a great idea it was for us all to wear those free masks because of all the nasty diesel jeepney fumes in town. Incredible! This guy was so obtuse that he could not figure out that people were nearly retching all around him due to his nasty odor. There he was right there in the van along with the rest of us happily sporting his own mask.
I was thinking that perhaps he was tired of smelling himself. But no, I’m sure that wasn’t the case. Another fellow on the van with us, an incredibly nice guy, who somehow found it in himself to continue to chat all day with the insufferable “maggot-gagger,” also came to the conclusion that this guy was totally oblivious to his own putridity. In fact, it got so strong, even with the masks, that I continually swabbed the outside of my mask with deodorant but with only minimal effect.
Short of the DAV office the poor stanky fellow asked to be dropped off on Fields Avenue. At his departure the rest of us wrenched off our surgical masks with great relief. We shook our heads in wonder thinking—how can any human be like that? Shouldn’t someone tell him? As for me, I figured he wasn’t my problem after today, and he wasn’t going to be able to shower anytime before we got back, so to heck with it.
I’ve seen lots of vets with eccentric ways and strange mental quirkisms. I wonder if this guy isn’t suffering from some kind of weird antisocial pathological fear of showering and the wearing of clean decent clothing. Who knows? I just know that I NEVER want to be around Mr. Stinky ever again…
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Literally Worried to Death by the VA
Not long after I got here I decided to try to help other veterans while I learned to help myself in dealing with the VA and Social Security Administrations. I was 45 back then and freshly ejected from a long and fairly rewarding military career. Continuing to serve on some level seemed like a good thing, but I think if I knew then what I know now, I probably would have passed on the "big boat" thing. Sure, it can be rewarding, and it mostly is I guess, but days like today come along and wreck me for weeks at a time. It’s heart breaking.
I just received an email from a veteran’s wife telling me that her husband had just died. She didn’t know what to do. All he told her was to contact me. On a side note, some of these guys are woefully prepared for their death, no matter how sick they are. You'd think they'd know better, but they seem to go into a state of denial. Just the same, this particular veteran and I had been working together for the past year trying to get the Veterans Administration to grant him compensation and medical care for the hypertension and cardiovascular disease that had befallen his body. He was a very sick man. Indeed, its what killed him. He died this morning of a heart attack.
Years ago he had already been granted service connection for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a condition resulting from his experiences in combat. A common physical manifestation of PTSD, which is basically a mental condition characterized by almost continuous anxiety, is hypertension that commonly leads to cardiovascular disease. That’s exactly what happened to this gentleman, and that’s exactly what he was, a very fine gentleman.
I helped him put together a strong case for service connection for his cardiovascular condition as secondary to his PTSD. Keep in mind that to win a favorable decision for VA disability all a veteran is supposed to have to do is prove to the reasonable doubt level. In his case, I had helped him to acquire two strong medical opinions from his physicians stating that his heart disease had been either caused by or exacerbated by the stress of his PTSD. On top of that I had him submit as evidence a VA case precedent wherein a Board of Veterans Appeals judge had granted hypertensive heart disease to another PTSD veteran, a fellow whose condition exactly mirrored my man’s.
So here’s the maddening thing. The VA still denied his claim. The raters who make these kinds of whimsical decisions do so seemingly as if they simply throw a dice with yes’s and no’s on all the facets instead of numbers. Whichever comes up is the one they go with, but lately it seems that there are more no’s than yes’s on their dice. Do I really believe this? In the capricious nature of their decision-making, yes I do, and fervently so. It’s caused me to think of the people who work in that building with great enmity and spite. In fact, I feel the bile rise and my teeth grit even as I write this.
For veterans with mental conditions like PTSD or other serious emotional issues, the predictably adversarial nature of the VA responses causes even more anxiety and angst. I’ve seen some of these gents become extremely sick; some even worry so much over their "fight" with the "evil" VA to the point of having actual anxiety and heart attacks.
That exact thing happened to one of my vets just two months ago. His ever-increasing anxiety put him in the hospital where he went into de-fib. To bring him back required two shocks of the paddles before his heart returned to a normal beating rhythm. If a buddy hadn’t taken him to the hospital while there was still time he would have died in bed. And guess what it was that caused that particular anxiety attack—that’s right, he was in the middle of a "fight" with "our friend" that nefarious entity we all call the VA.
The maddening thing is that sometimes it doesn’t matter how strong the evidence, how right the veteran is or how wrong the raters are, the VA system digs in its bureaucratic heels and fights it out to the bitter end.
Its awful, because these vets with these crippling mental conditions are not equipped to fight against the VA monsters. As I said, the responses these fellows read in these decision letters by the VA are convoluted and to a mentally impaired person they also come across as mean. I’ve had some of these guys call me at home either screaming their frustrations out at me, or so dejected that they were very near crying. Most of their over-reactions are simply due to the anxiety and depression of their conditions, but there are times when it seems as if the VA knowingly writes to provoke these kinds of responses. What else am I to think?
And if a veteran dies midway through the appeals process the VA simply throws out the case, as if it never existed in the first place. That means the possibility exists that the wife and children will get no follow on benefit, even if the decision would have eventually gone in favor of the appellant. It only makes vicious sense, since the malicious VA is the organization that writes these heartless rules. Like I tell my guys, "their money—their rules."
Pretty much all of the above happened to my now deceased veteran buddy; now freshly passed on, I’m absolutely sure due to the stress of his PTSD and PTSD-caused heart condition. Over the months he’s called and emailed me over some new frightening VA letter that he had no idea how to respond to. I had to calm him down and explain "the VA ways" to him—that the idiocy he was reading was normal and nothing to worry about. And sure enough, he could not survive the appeals process--the stress of it likely helped kill him. And now that he's gone, everything we've been through is as if it never happened.
I always fret about that, because these fellows tend to worry themselves sick to the point of fatality over this stuff, no matter how much I try to reassure them. It makes me wonder how many good men the VA has literally worried to death.
When I lose one, like I did today, it fairly well takes the stuffings out of me. I get so sad that I can’t hate. But once I’m through being sad, the hate will come back, even stronger than before. Do you blame me?
Friday, June 29, 2007
Three Men, Two Points of View
Every other Sunday or so, I have one of two visitors over. Over coffee and tea we speak of “things.” Sundays, especially those Sundays, have become my most favorite day of the week.
One of my two Sunday visitors, “E-Man,” matches up almost perfectly with me and my worldviews; the other, “Tommy Gun,” likes to argue about nearly everything. So, Tommy-G is “Mr. Contrary,” while E-Man is “my choir” (and conversely, I am his). I enjoy conversing with both of these fellows, but there is a marked difference on how I feel during and after our lengthy discussions, depending on which of them it is that comes over that day.
E-Man, my intellectual “bird of a feather” is just plain fun to talk to. Our “speak easies” start at noon and end only when the sun’s light has faded. Sometimes it seems we come to our senses when it starts to get dark out, having lost all track of time. Without his own transport, he doesn’t like to be on this side of town trying to catch jeepnies home in the dark. I don’t blame him; this part of the Philippines can be dicey even in the day.
Now Tommy-G, well, he challenges me on almost every subject. As far as the two of us goes, no two people could possibly be so seemingly opposed in viewpoint; therefore, I’m sure he purposely “goes adversarial” on me mostly because it’s his nature. That’s why I call him Mr. Contrary. The time goes by pretty quickly with him as well, but I’m tired and mentally used up when its time for him to jump astride his motorcycle and roar off into the evening.
Both men are a study in where they come from. E-man is from the Northern Midwest; he’s exceedingly polite, diffident and self-effacing. Tommy is from the Northeast; he’s brusque, impatient, and strident. If you had to characterize the people of those two stateside regions, both men’s personalities would match up as expected with the average profile of the region where each comes from. In other words, to put it succinctly, Midwesterners are nice and Northeasterners are ornery! I wonder what it says about me that I’m also from the Midwest like E-man, but my personality more mirrors Tommy’s aggressive persona than it does E-man’s more serene one.
These days, Tommy and I have an unspoken agreement to NOT discuss Middle-Eastern politics, including and especially Iraq and Afghanistan. However, on his way out the door last Sunday Tommy-Gun snuck in a couple jabs at me stating snottily, “9 more of our brothers died the other day—did you see that?”
What Tommy-Gun believes is quite simple: The Middle East is a screwed up place filled with mean spirited people that have been slaughtering each other for millennia and not one of them is worth even one American GI’s life.
Tommy is a military veteran just like E-man and myself; so all three of us have that in common. Tom’s dad was a marine in the early 50s and his pop is vociferously against us being in that part of the world even more than his son is. For Tom, perhaps it’s a case of “sometimes we are who raised us.” Now, that is somewhat true with me too; my parents are very traditional and I absorbed many of their worldviews, but my views ALSO come from my own world travels and travails.
In the case of E-man, who is a fellow from one of the most liberal States in the union, HE (like me) is definitely a man who has BECOME decidedly conservative BECAUSE of what he has seen in the world, and he has lived in and seen a lot of it. When college professors told us how we SHOULD feel about things, neither of us made our minds up based on the lectures of these mostly half-baked theoreticians who had never been anywhere or done anything. Both of us have spent years (hell, decades!) in college classrooms, but because we have very pragmatic backgrounds, unlike most of our easily impressed and inexperienced younger classmates, we did NOT simply swallow every professorial opinion we were subjected to.
So, with Tommy-Gun I find myself mostly debating, defending and arguing. He’s a very smart guy (just ask him!) and I rarely feel like I’ve ever made much, if any, headway on convincing him of anything. Of course even if I did manage such a thing he’s so headstrong that he’d never admit it. The good thing is that in going through my points in my arguments with him—by being forced to give voice to them—in the light of day they either make sense or they don’t. So, once spoken, there are times that my line of reasoning doesn’t seem quite as vigorous as I thought. It is then that I find myself “evolving” and even rethinking my positions. This is especially true when Tommy finds “holes” in them. (Call me a flip-flopper if you must; I call it being thoughtful and open-minded).
History and culture are E-man’s forte; in fact, he has a degree in history. I love history; and I can’t get enough of being around others who love it as much as I do, especially since fellow lay historians are so few and far between. With most folks, once I start into my “lectures” on some historical aspect, I can practically see the glaze come over their eyes. When E-man and I start “swapping knowledge,” as I call it, before we know it, six hours has flown by. If you can imagine sitting in the same chair through 3 extra long movies and not even noticing their length, THAT is how a Sunday afternoon passes into evening when E and I have our discussions.
The funny thing about E-man is that even though he comes from such a socially and politically liberal place, he has been taught by his experiences of living in the 3rd World that most tenants of progressive liberalism are faulty and untenable. Based on E’s viewpoint, Katana, one of my fellow bloggers and a very nice person, would undoubtedly label him a “neo-con,” which, by the way, is liberal-speak for “moron.” These days, anyone with a strongly traditional or conservative belief system is called the “n word,” which seems to be a tag with negative connotations made up by “progressive” academia for anyone with whom they disagree. (The left loves to label people negatively and then dismiss them outright as being contemptible and stupid).
A final point on my “Sunday conversations” with both E-man and Tommy-G are our blatant and persistent lack of observance of political correctness. We trust each other implicitly, thus, we are totally comfortable with using any words and expressions we desire, no matter how racist, sexist or otherwise inappropriate they would be in any other setting. Generally, we don't say too much that would be considered anti-social, but if one of us "slips," we don't jump down the other's throat over it. I have to admit; being free to say anything, no matter what, is cathartic; I recommend it to anyone every so often.
After all, there’s a time and a place for everything… For me, its Sundays.
One of my two Sunday visitors, “E-Man,” matches up almost perfectly with me and my worldviews; the other, “Tommy Gun,” likes to argue about nearly everything. So, Tommy-G is “Mr. Contrary,” while E-Man is “my choir” (and conversely, I am his). I enjoy conversing with both of these fellows, but there is a marked difference on how I feel during and after our lengthy discussions, depending on which of them it is that comes over that day.
E-Man, my intellectual “bird of a feather” is just plain fun to talk to. Our “speak easies” start at noon and end only when the sun’s light has faded. Sometimes it seems we come to our senses when it starts to get dark out, having lost all track of time. Without his own transport, he doesn’t like to be on this side of town trying to catch jeepnies home in the dark. I don’t blame him; this part of the Philippines can be dicey even in the day.
Now Tommy-G, well, he challenges me on almost every subject. As far as the two of us goes, no two people could possibly be so seemingly opposed in viewpoint; therefore, I’m sure he purposely “goes adversarial” on me mostly because it’s his nature. That’s why I call him Mr. Contrary. The time goes by pretty quickly with him as well, but I’m tired and mentally used up when its time for him to jump astride his motorcycle and roar off into the evening.
Both men are a study in where they come from. E-man is from the Northern Midwest; he’s exceedingly polite, diffident and self-effacing. Tommy is from the Northeast; he’s brusque, impatient, and strident. If you had to characterize the people of those two stateside regions, both men’s personalities would match up as expected with the average profile of the region where each comes from. In other words, to put it succinctly, Midwesterners are nice and Northeasterners are ornery! I wonder what it says about me that I’m also from the Midwest like E-man, but my personality more mirrors Tommy’s aggressive persona than it does E-man’s more serene one.
These days, Tommy and I have an unspoken agreement to NOT discuss Middle-Eastern politics, including and especially Iraq and Afghanistan. However, on his way out the door last Sunday Tommy-Gun snuck in a couple jabs at me stating snottily, “9 more of our brothers died the other day—did you see that?”
What Tommy-Gun believes is quite simple: The Middle East is a screwed up place filled with mean spirited people that have been slaughtering each other for millennia and not one of them is worth even one American GI’s life.
Tommy is a military veteran just like E-man and myself; so all three of us have that in common. Tom’s dad was a marine in the early 50s and his pop is vociferously against us being in that part of the world even more than his son is. For Tom, perhaps it’s a case of “sometimes we are who raised us.” Now, that is somewhat true with me too; my parents are very traditional and I absorbed many of their worldviews, but my views ALSO come from my own world travels and travails.
In the case of E-man, who is a fellow from one of the most liberal States in the union, HE (like me) is definitely a man who has BECOME decidedly conservative BECAUSE of what he has seen in the world, and he has lived in and seen a lot of it. When college professors told us how we SHOULD feel about things, neither of us made our minds up based on the lectures of these mostly half-baked theoreticians who had never been anywhere or done anything. Both of us have spent years (hell, decades!) in college classrooms, but because we have very pragmatic backgrounds, unlike most of our easily impressed and inexperienced younger classmates, we did NOT simply swallow every professorial opinion we were subjected to.
So, with Tommy-Gun I find myself mostly debating, defending and arguing. He’s a very smart guy (just ask him!) and I rarely feel like I’ve ever made much, if any, headway on convincing him of anything. Of course even if I did manage such a thing he’s so headstrong that he’d never admit it. The good thing is that in going through my points in my arguments with him—by being forced to give voice to them—in the light of day they either make sense or they don’t. So, once spoken, there are times that my line of reasoning doesn’t seem quite as vigorous as I thought. It is then that I find myself “evolving” and even rethinking my positions. This is especially true when Tommy finds “holes” in them. (Call me a flip-flopper if you must; I call it being thoughtful and open-minded).
History and culture are E-man’s forte; in fact, he has a degree in history. I love history; and I can’t get enough of being around others who love it as much as I do, especially since fellow lay historians are so few and far between. With most folks, once I start into my “lectures” on some historical aspect, I can practically see the glaze come over their eyes. When E-man and I start “swapping knowledge,” as I call it, before we know it, six hours has flown by. If you can imagine sitting in the same chair through 3 extra long movies and not even noticing their length, THAT is how a Sunday afternoon passes into evening when E and I have our discussions.
The funny thing about E-man is that even though he comes from such a socially and politically liberal place, he has been taught by his experiences of living in the 3rd World that most tenants of progressive liberalism are faulty and untenable. Based on E’s viewpoint, Katana, one of my fellow bloggers and a very nice person, would undoubtedly label him a “neo-con,” which, by the way, is liberal-speak for “moron.” These days, anyone with a strongly traditional or conservative belief system is called the “n word,” which seems to be a tag with negative connotations made up by “progressive” academia for anyone with whom they disagree. (The left loves to label people negatively and then dismiss them outright as being contemptible and stupid).
A final point on my “Sunday conversations” with both E-man and Tommy-G are our blatant and persistent lack of observance of political correctness. We trust each other implicitly, thus, we are totally comfortable with using any words and expressions we desire, no matter how racist, sexist or otherwise inappropriate they would be in any other setting. Generally, we don't say too much that would be considered anti-social, but if one of us "slips," we don't jump down the other's throat over it. I have to admit; being free to say anything, no matter what, is cathartic; I recommend it to anyone every so often.
After all, there’s a time and a place for everything… For me, its Sundays.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
What's the difference between the VA and a con artist?
Nearly everyday I meet with veterans to discuss their next moves in their ongoing struggles with the VA. Today was no different. This time I met at a local hotel restaurant with a retired master gunnery sergeant, a marine of course.
Strategically, I chose a table with a direct view of the pool—you never know what you might see, hopefully NOT some fat hairy European in a Speedo. Fortunately, even when there is a “Mr. Speedo” there is also usually a cutey in a bikini to keep him company; so I guess it all evens out.
My friend had an uncharacteristically troubled look on his face as we shook hands and took our seats.
“Up until about ten minutes ago I wasn’t sure I was even going to make it here,” he said, shaking his head while opening his briefcase. “I was in my car stopped in traffic just down from Kokomos, and this chick walks up next to my car. She put one hand on her forehead and then slammed the side of my car with her other hand. Then she fell down on the street and started groaning like I’d hit her.”
“Oh man! She was trying to scam you… It just never ENDS around here,” I complained bitterly. “So what happened?”
“A bunch of people suddenly surrounded me, all of ‘em looking at this woman lying on the ground. I didn’t know what the hell to do. And then a motorcycle cop came up and grabbed the woman by the arm and forced her to her feet. He told me he saw everything and to go ahead and go.”
“Dude! Good on him! He saved you a whole bunch of hassle, if not a whole lot of pesos.”
“Yep. He acted like he had been watching her, like he knew she was going to try something like that. She must have a history of scamming foreigners.”
“I hope he takes her to jail and roughs her up on the way there. I wonder how many tourists and foreigners she has already bilked? I guess its just one more trick we have to watch out for.”
He shrugged resignedly, “Well, at least that policeman helped me out. All’s well that ends well…”
I chuckled, “Well, if it’s not the VA screwing you over, it’s a local con artist. You gotta love it!”
Strategically, I chose a table with a direct view of the pool—you never know what you might see, hopefully NOT some fat hairy European in a Speedo. Fortunately, even when there is a “Mr. Speedo” there is also usually a cutey in a bikini to keep him company; so I guess it all evens out.
My friend had an uncharacteristically troubled look on his face as we shook hands and took our seats.
“Up until about ten minutes ago I wasn’t sure I was even going to make it here,” he said, shaking his head while opening his briefcase. “I was in my car stopped in traffic just down from Kokomos, and this chick walks up next to my car. She put one hand on her forehead and then slammed the side of my car with her other hand. Then she fell down on the street and started groaning like I’d hit her.”
“Oh man! She was trying to scam you… It just never ENDS around here,” I complained bitterly. “So what happened?”
“A bunch of people suddenly surrounded me, all of ‘em looking at this woman lying on the ground. I didn’t know what the hell to do. And then a motorcycle cop came up and grabbed the woman by the arm and forced her to her feet. He told me he saw everything and to go ahead and go.”
“Dude! Good on him! He saved you a whole bunch of hassle, if not a whole lot of pesos.”
“Yep. He acted like he had been watching her, like he knew she was going to try something like that. She must have a history of scamming foreigners.”
“I hope he takes her to jail and roughs her up on the way there. I wonder how many tourists and foreigners she has already bilked? I guess its just one more trick we have to watch out for.”
He shrugged resignedly, “Well, at least that policeman helped me out. All’s well that ends well…”
I chuckled, “Well, if it’s not the VA screwing you over, it’s a local con artist. You gotta love it!”
Monday, June 18, 2007
Part 4: VA Disability Claims Advice
- Do NOT wait to file! Let me stress the importance of NOT waiting years to file for disability by describing what the VA requires to grant service connection for a disability.
· First, for most conditions, you should be able to show that it existed while on active duty, or was diagnosed within one year from the day you got out.
· Second, you must have medical proof that you currently have the condition.
· And finally, you must show nexus, or proof of “connection,” which is best done by medical opinion (See "medical opinion..." below) from your doctor that your claimed condition is indeed the same condition that you suffered with while in service… Since some veterans wait years to file, many can show little or no evidence of treatment for the claimed disability over those years since discharge. By the VA’s rules, they can deny service-connection to that veteran for lack of proof that the current condition began in service. The rationale is that the problem might not be the same one shown in the veteran’s medical records.
· (For instance, you show a knee injury in your service medical records 5 years before discharge and you also checked the “knee problem block” on your last several active duty medical exam questionnaires. Its now 5 years after discharge, and you have little or no post service medical evidence to show that the knee has continued to be a problem. YOU KNOW or believe that it is, because it’s been painful for 10 years. All well and good, BUT, the VA needs medical proof and opinion that states as much. Also, if continuity of treatment evidence is unavailable, personal affidavits from workmates, friends, relatives, etc. ARE acceptable as evidentiary documentation that can be submitted).
- Appeal—and DON’T QUIT! Keep in mind that if your initial VA decision is not to your liking then you should appeal it. My experience with the VA disability claims process is that it is nearly 100% faulty. In other words, if you receive a VA decision letter, chances are they screwed you.
· A common VA decision error is to underrate conditions, but worse than that is their notorious disregard of their “duty to assist” the veteran by explaining exactly WHY a claim is not considered service-connected, and more importantly, to explain WHAT is needed to show that service-connection. Instead, they will only state that no evidence was submitted or that it is insufficient, or that the condition is not shown in the vet’s service medical records. OR, they state that there is no current diagnosis of the claimed condition. HINT: The VA will NOT normally provide it for you, especially here in the Philippines! Usually all that is needed to counter ALL this so called lack of evidence is a medical opinion from YOUR doctor (see "medical opinion..." below).
· The claims process is broken with a huge backlog that is getting bigger. Much of this backlog is due to the VA’s poor decision-making process, which results in errors and subsequent appeals. The VA in Manila brags that it has only a 15% error rate, but that is untrue. Evidently, they ONLY count the errors brought to their attention by complainants, and don’t count what they consider to be “minor” ones. I can tell you without a doubt that nearly every decision turned out by that office contains errors, so that in my opinion they have a near 100% error rate! Personally, I have little confidence in them and can find important problems in virtually every decision letter they send out. No wonder their backlog is so big. Once veterans learn that nearly every decision is suspect, THEY WILL challenge EVERYTHING, which only adds to the backlog.
· As I said though, appeal and DON’T quit. As long as you can survive the lengthy appeal process, as long as you have the evidence and medical opinion, you WILL most certainly prevail.
Reopening Closed Claims. A claim is considered closed 1 year after the VA’s decision unless the veteran has appealed it within that year. Reopening it means providing “new and material” evidence that is pertinent to the VA’s “reason for denial.” Many vets think that they have to find “old” pre-existent evidence from the time of their service, but this is not necessarily true, although it could be. The most common form of new and material evidence consists of your doctor’s medical opinion (see below).
- Medical Opinion is CRUCIAL!
· This opinion should be written by YOUR physician to state that he/she believes based on current diagnoses and treatment, assessment of service medical records and all subsequent medical records that the current condition in question more-likely-than-not IS service-connected or was caused by or made worse by a currently service-connected condition. It sounds kind of complicated, but truly its not.
· A common mistake by veterans is to use the VA doctors’ medical opinion ONLY. This is dangerous, since the vet is now at the whim of the VA. Remember, when it comes to the ratings process, the VA IS THE ENEMY! When you throw yourself at their mercy, keep in mind they HAVE NONE! Costly though it is, GET YOUR OWN MEDICAL OPINION from your OWN doctor. It will certainly be even MORE costly when you leave it up to the VA to provide the opinion. Consider the expense an investment. Do NOT hope that the VA will do right by you, because they almost assuredly will NOT!
- Use the Internet. Knowledge is power! Therefore, go on line to the 38 CFR (US Code of Federal Regulation Sections 0-17 specifically parts 3 and 4) and become familiar with it, specifically with parts 3 and 4. It is the procedural manual the VA uses in adjudicating disability ratings for veterans. It includes all the possible disabilities, the codes assigned to those ratings, the various levels of severity, and a whole host of other valuable information including every part of the claims adjudication process. Use this info to first figure out what level you should be awarded for each disability, and then when you get your initial ratings you can compare what they give you to what they should have given you.
Also, you can print out the ratings descriptions and show them to your doctor to see if he thinks you meet the next higher level of ratings severity.
· It is useful to know that the VA almost always underrates the veteran on his initial application and they actually seem to expect the veteran to challenge them for the higher level. This is best done by having your doctor use the criteria language verbatim from the ratings level charts in part 4 of the the 38 CFR.
· As part of the initial appeals process, an entirely different rater will evaluate your claim, and by regulation, this new rater MUST take your doctor’s evidence to heart and give you, the veteran, the benefit of the doubt. (Well, that's the theory anyway).
- “Perseverance Works in Favor of the Veteran” should be your motto. The VA system rewards those that won’t take “No” for an answer.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Vets with PTSD are in a "Catch 22"
The article after this
post covers a subject
very near and dear to
my heart—veterans
suffering from mental
conditions such as
Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder or PTSD.
Here’s the thing, many
mentally ailing vets
just aren’t getting
the help they need.
They go it alone while they are in
service, and then once they are out,
the Veterans Administration (VA)
starts in with it’s stupid games. I know
of this from the guys who have suffered
through it, having heard it from them as
I try to get them the help they need
post service. The points brought out in
Kathleen Parker’s article below only begin
to touch on the problems.
Since my discharge, from what I’ve seen,
I swear that the armed services and the
VA must be in collusion to deny vets the
help they need to recover and maintain
through the tribulations of their mental
issues. It starts on active duty.
Troops still in service don’t dare report
to Mental Health if they feel they are
having a problem. They know that the
second they do that their careers are
effectively over. This is not a rumor.
It is true. Mental health specialists in
the hospital corps like to advertise that
receiving treatment won’t be career
threatening, but that is utter bunk. In any other venue what happens between
patient and “shrink” is confidential,
however, in the military no such confidentiality
exists, even though they claim otherwise.
The very second a military psychiatrist
or psychologist feels that a patient’s condition
is at odds with a security clearance, or
if suicidal ideations are involved, no matter
how fleeting, the patient’s superiors
are informed. At that point it’s all over,
especially if the patient has any rank at all.
So, they suck you in, lie to you, and then
they spit you out. I have run into several
discharged servicemen who have gone through
this career meat grinder still bitter
over the experience. The word gets out, so
as long as folks have intentions of continuing
in uniform they don’t dare get help. Ms. Parker states that many of today’s combat
vets will end up on the streets and I believe
that’s true,especially now that the VA seems set
on denying veteran’s claims for help outright,
thus forcing ex-servicemen to medically prove
that they have a mental condition and that the
illness was caused by their service. Should
be easy right? Wrong! As I continue to think
about what I’m going to write next I feel anger
building inside my chest and flowing out to my
stiff arthritic fingers trying to type out my
thoughts. Without someone with experience to help them
“navigate” the unnecessarily convoluted VA claims
system, such as a Veterans Service Officer like me,
albeit a volunteer one, most vets with mental a
nd emotional problems do not have a snowball’s
chance in hell to “win” the support they need. It’s
a “Catch 22” situation—an adequate mental capacity
is necessary to negotiate a complicated VA
claim, and most of them are complicated, but
many veterans are just too emotionally fatigued
to fight it out, or can’t wait for the months
and even years it can take for the VA to finally
make the award.For me, it’s maddening! I’ll be honest. I have a hard time dealing
with some of these disturbed veterans myself.
Many of these guys are mad at the world and
most of the people in it, including with me.
Understandably, they are especially angry
at the Veterans Administration. Then again
some are too drugged up to be angry. A huge
percentage of foggy-minded vets go through
life never seeking help because of the very
nature of their condition. I can assure you
that these are the VA’s favorite type of
veterans—those that quietly suffer without
seeking any help from anyone, and they are
the men who end up on the street, homeless
and forgotten. For the VA, it’s all about money. It is a
soulless institution totally consumed with
the “bottom line.” It is for this reason
that I get so angry at the very politicians
responsible for sending veterans into harm’s
way in the first place, who should be going
out of their way to intervene and make VA claims
easier for those suffering veterans. Members
of one particular political party, recently
voted from power, seem very intent on reducing
the costs incurred by the VA to treat and
compensate veterans with disabilities, a fact
that I find very disconcerting since I’ve mostly
voted for that party. And now,the GAO has also
been hounding the VA about cutting costs, which
is not surprising since the GAO hounds everyone
about watching their pennies. That’s what they do,
but the VA gleefully uses every GAO recommendation
as a mandate to screw veterans. From what I’ve
been observing, I have more than enough reason to
detest the whole lot of them! None of those fiscal realities means anything
to veterans with PTSD and chronic depression
lost in the VA claims procedures shuffle.
While the VA struggles to stay within its under
funded budget,partly by strictly enforcing their
eligibility requirements codes, many mentally
challenged vets are too emotionally ruined to
do what’s required of them to “win” their cases.
Even with my four years of experience, I have
had a hard enough time helping my guys manage
their applications to success. Kathleen Parker is absolutely correct that a
nonpartisan effort by Congress needs to happen
to make it easier for vets to get the support
they need. I’ve never been in combat, but from
the men I’ve helped who have, I know that the
experience is ruinous. We owe it to them to do
whatever is necessary to compensate and care
for them. The fact that I have to do what I do
before my guys can “beat” the VA at their silly
games is a national travesty.
Veterans need more than applause By Kathleen Parker http://www.JewishWorldReview.com The next time you pass a homeless man on the street, you might
ask in which war he served. In the next several years, chances
are good that he (and increasingly she) will say Iraq
Afghanistan That grim prediction is based on several facts: One in three
adult homeless males is a veteran and 45 percent of those suffer
from mental illness, according to the National Coalition for
Homeless Veterans. A recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine,
meanwhile, found that one in four veterans of Iraq Afghanistan
were diagnosed with some kind of mental health problem. And those are just the ones who found their way to a VA hospital.
Many don't. Returning veterans are either embarrassed, untrusting
of government, frustrated by bureaucratic gridlock, or simply
incapable of navigating the system. With large numbers of troops likely headed home in the next year,
the U.S. faces a tsunami of psychologically and emotionally
damaged veterans who have no place to go. Those who don't find
the support they need may end up on the streets. Or in prison. In 1998, an estimated 56,500 Vietnam War-era
veterans and 18,500 Persian Gulf War vets were held in state
and federal prisons, according to the 2000 Bureau of Justice
Statistics report, ``Veterans in Prison or Jail.'' Obviously, not all were model citizens who turned to crime
because of their war experiences. One in six of incarcerated
veterans was not honorably discharged from the military. But
the report says veterans are more likely than others to be in
prison for a violent offense. Families of veterans aren't surprised. Men and women trained
to survive in a war zone bring those same skills home and find
themselves unable to function in an alien environment. Readjustment symptoms include hyper-vigilance, insomnia,
irritability, exaggerated startle response, withdrawal, isolation,
depression and anger. An act-first-think-later approach to problem
solving may keep one alive in combat, but it's not helpful to
family harmony. Cynde Collins-Clark — none other than Oklahoma
the Year — has experienced these problems firsthand. Her son,
Joe, left for Iraq
year later 100 percent mentally disabled by post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Unable to work, Joe
lives at home with his mother, a licensed professional counselor,
and his stepfather. Collins-Clark has her son's permission to tell their story in
hopes of helping others. She's especially concerned about those
who will be overwhelmed by a system that even she finds
challenging and maddening. She wonders how a young wife with
small children copes with a sick soldier without any help. The biggest problem is simply not enough qualified counselors
— and not enough government funding to meet current needs.
Those needs have grown exponentially, as the number of vets
seeking treatment for PTSD and other mental health issues
doubled from 4,467 to 9,103 between October 2005 and June
2006, according to a report last month by a House subcommittee.
That's just the beginning of the wave building now. The Senate last year passed a bill to increase funding for
veterans' mental health programs. Specifically, it would have
increased the number of clinical teams dedicated to the
treatment of PTSD and allowed licensed mental health counselors,
as well as marriage and family therapists, to work at the VA.
The House, however, failed to take action. Even without additional funding, the Department of Defense
could help by increasing access to mental health care for
military personnel and their families. Currently, individuals
on TRICARE, the military's health insurance program, can seek
counseling from licensed practitioners only after referral
from a primary physician. This process is often too cumbersome for people suffering
mental problems, says Brian Altman, legislative representative
for the American Counseling Association. Also, physicians
untrained in post-combat symptoms frequently misdiagnose and
fail to send patients to counseling. A veteran's wife testified before a VA committee last year
that her husband, Capt. Michael Jon Pelkey, was treated for
everything from back pain to erectile dysfunction rather than
PTSD. Pelkey finally was diagnosed properly by a civilian
therapist — one week before he killed himself. There can be no more shameful legacy of any war than ignoring
veterans' needs. As Republicans and Democrats vow bipartisan
cooperation, they have no greater priority than to simplify
veterans' access to mental health services. Meanwhile, citizens can help. Russ Clark, a Vietnam Marine
vet and minister who counsels veterans through Point Man
International Ministries of Central Ohio, says he'd like to
see community-based ``Welcome Home'' programs in every
village, town and city in America. Veterans don't necessarily need a parade, he says,
but they do need acknowledgement, affirmation, counseling,
jobs and housing. And a parade wouldn't hurt a bit.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Justice for Filipino WWII Veterans!
After answering Amadeo's comment that the United States has too much on it's plate at present to help certain of our aging Fipino WWII comrades, I decided to add this post to address why my blog buddy is so wrong. Last year, I wrote the following letter trying to find a US senator or congressman to sponsor a bill to at long last correct this terrible injustice. I've had no luck yet, but if anyone else feels as angry as I do about the situation I describe below, by all means contact me with any suggestions.Dear United States legislator,
I have discovered an unjust situation concerning my fellow U.S. veterans—our Filipino WWII comrades. The following is the gist of the problem, and the simple solution that I recently wrote in the form of a resolution, which essentially involves a change to one of the VA's directives/policies. I must stress that the change I am pushing for won’t wait as these folks (the youngest now 80 years old) are dying off even as I write this:
Resolution:
I propose this resolution to amend all appropriate parts of the CFR 38 and M-21 regarding adjudications concerning claims by Filipino veterans of World War II to:
Change current procedure that causes the VARO Manila to deny outright Filipino WWII claimant’s applications for VA benefits based on lack of verification from data archived at National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in spite of contrary documentation* that, if determined valid, shows that they should indeed be eligible for benefits.
Background:
1. Just after WWII, in the late 1940s, the United States War Claims Commission or WCC was set up in the Philippines to address claims of civilian property damage and to gather information concerning Filipino veterans who had participated in the war on the side of the allies.
2. A primary task of the WCC was to canvas the entire expanse of the Philippines to determine who was a valid veteran of the USAFFE and of the recognized guerrillas including their status as POWs (as collected on Red Cross lists) and also information concerning possible collaborator status of Filipino veterans.
3. All data gathered by the WCC is archived at NPRC at St. Louis, Missouri.
4. * In 1947, when Philippine Commonwealth Army Personnel reverted to full control of the newly sovereign Philippines, the United States Army turned over all documentation concerning these men to the newly formed Armed Forces of the Philippines. These voluminous papers have been in archive status in Manila ever since, and include such documents as U.S. army pay records, enlistment and discharge orders, medical records, and other such documents. The VA implausibly considers none of this documentation valid, UNTIL the Filipino veteran’s name is confirmed to be on the WCC listings archived at the NPRC.
The problem:
1. In spite of a supposedly concerted effort by the WCC after the war, not all veterans of the USAFFE and of the authorized guerrillas were contacted by WCC agents, and this resulted in these veterans not being documented.
2. Current procedure is that only WCC information archived at NPRC may be used by VARO Manila or the BVA to make determinations regarding the following:
1. Status of service (as collected by the WCC).
2. POW status (as collected from the Red Cross Lists by the WCC).
3. Collaborator status (as determined by WCC investigation).
4. When a Filipino makes a claim with the VA, and presents apparently valid documentation* showing proof of U.S. service, before the VA processes the claim they query NPRC for “proof” of the claimant’s service and other information based on archived WCC data.
5. If NPRC cannot find the claimant’s name on the WCC service list, the VA denies the claim outright based on lack of proof of authorized U.S. service regardless of any and all documents* presented by the claimant to the contrary.
6. Filipino veterans who became POWs, and then subsequently escaped from the Japanese before the Red Cross recorded their names, are denied authorized POW status by the VA regardless of documentation* to the contrary.
7. Filipino veterans who were determined after the war by the WCC to have collaborated with the Japanese are forever considered collaborators by the VA and denied benefits, even if these men were subsequently legally cleared of these charges and have documentation that shows it.
8. We have found from cruel experience that all data gathered by the WCC, and now stored at NPRC, cannot be added to, corrected, or altered in any way.
9. Because data gathered over 60 years ago by the now defunct WCC is evidently considered infallible by the VA, and therefore information set-in-stone and un-modifiable, Filipino veterans and their widows are routinely denied consideration for benefits by the VA even in the face of overwhelmingly contrary documented evidence. *
The Solution:
1. Amend or append all applicable passages of the 38 CFR and the M-21 to require the VA to adjudicate ALL claims made by Filipino veteran claimants, their widows and dependents regardless of possible faulty and incomplete WCC information stored by NPRC.
2. Before simply denying a claim at the outset based only on unalterable, possibly incorrect and incomplete 60 year-old WCC data, The VA and BVA must fully consider ALL available documentation* when adjudicating claims based on valid U.S. service, as well as claims affected by POW and collaborator status.
(Senator/Congressman-woman), I wish you could see the look of pained confusion on the faces of these old veterans (and at times their widows) as they bring to me convincingly valid documentary evidence* that shows they served and were honorably discharged. Their confusion comes when the VA discounts their documents*, no matter how legitimate, because their names are not on the 60-year-old WCC list archived at NPRC, or when the VA makes denials based on other obsolete WCC info. The documents* some of the folks clutch expectantly in their hands range from U.S. army discharges, U.S. army pay records*, U.S. active duty medical evidence*, photos of themselves in their U.S. army uniform, and so on.
I have been trying to help these folks since I started in this voluntary position as service officer going on three years now. I have not been idly sitting on my hands or wringing them all this time. I have tried every avenue I can think of to get justice for these veterans, but to no avail. The VA has stonewalled these people and me as we have tried to use the appeal process.
I say, "Stonewalled" because the VA’s routine denial letters are misleading if not outright disingenuous. The VA leads us to believe that it might be possible to set the record straight, just not through them. Some of their denial letters tell the veteran that only the U.S. Army can make the changes, or that NPRC has the authority. In fact, the VA knows full well that these claimant veterans have absolutely no recourse or any available method to correct WCC information whatsoever. I learned this fact the hard way when I actually sent several correction packages to NPRC, after one archives technician wrote and told me that they might be able to “rebuild the veteran’s service records.” After sending several packages to NPRC, I finally got a straightforward answer from a more experienced archives technician who stated, “it will literally take an act of congress” to ever get WCC documentation amended or appended.
(Sir/Madam), I am convinced that the VA is aware of this situation. For example, a traveling BVA judge actually stated off-the-record, “I know it’s wrong but there is nothing I can do.” The attitude displayed by this judge and by VARO Manila representatives is the most un-American mind-set I can conceive of. We have a clear wrong in the way we are treating claimants, its been going on for decades, and VARO Manila’s response has been to shrug their collective shoulders and to smugly imply that this is not their problem, that there is nothing they can do. I lose sleep at night because of this and yet it seems none of this seems to bother the people in charge at VARO Manila at all.
The irony is that most of these old Filipino vets won’t qualify for anything more than a U.S. flag at the time of their death, so for the most part it’s not a question of money. The point is that these veterans deserve to be acknowledged as such, and if they are valid vets, then their claims should be processed. To say that only information derived by the long defunct WCC is the ONLY way that a WWII Filipino can be validated as a U.S. veteran is nonsense.
For instance, Ninety-year-old Mr. Santiago came to me three weeks ago with a stack of U.S. Army documents* after the VA told him that as far as the United States was concerned he had never served. During the war he was the only Filipino rated as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces. He has a picture of himself in his US Army Air Corps uniform. I asked him if he remembered the WCC coming to the Philippines after the war. He said he was too busy helping to set up the fledgling Philippine Air Lines, and in flying the president of the Philippines from place to place, to be aware of any such thing. This man had been a POW and escapee of the Japanese twice, first as a USAFFE troop and then again as a guerrilla, and it seems VARO Manila cannot care less.
My plan now is to start finding advocates in the U.S. legislature to help me with getting the VA to stop their outrageous procedure of ONLY using WCC evidence in adjudicating claims of Filipino WWII claimants. The WCC was NOT infallible and they did NOT get it right in many cases, so why should this documentation be considered some kind of sacred bible-like record?
Late last year I approached senior officers of the VFW and got no help and as I already said, this situation cannot wait for another year, so action must start now. I have found a couple other retired servicemen like myself who are just as upset about this as I am, and they are going to help me write senators and congressmen like you in an attempt to find justice. Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated, and I humbly ask your support to finally fulfill the promises we made to these brave veterans. I am confident you are fully aware that we enjoy the freedoms we do today thanks to the selfless contributions of these men and women. In my opinion, they are as American as I am and deserve unquestioned and immediate acknowledgement of their service, and if eligible, care and compensation.
Sincerely,
Phil Spear
pjspear1@yahoo.com
* In 1947, when Philippine Commonwealth Army Personnel reverted to full control of the newly sovereign Philippines, the United States Army turned over all documentation concerning these men to the newly formed Armed Forces of the Philippines. These voluminous papers have been in archive status in Manila ever since, and include such documents as U.S. army pay records, enlistment and discharge orders, medical records, and other such documents. The VA implausibly considers none of this documentation valid, UNTIL the Filipino veteran’s name is confirmed to be on the WCC listings archived at the NPRC.
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