If you've been following this story, well, it’s worse than we thought. It turns out that the entire accident was staged; it was a set-up from before the word go. I just got off the phone with my friend, and he says in a combination of disgust, anger and trepidation that he will probably pull out of the Philippines as soon as he recovers. This is from a man who loves this country more than his own. He might change his mind, but what faith he had had in the people here is now shaken to the core.
His buddy, the man who saw the entire thing unfold, evidently put a kink in their evil plans by being there and messing up their scheme. They wondered why the police SUV continued to pass the scene back and forth at least three times without stopping, and its only now that the reason is starting to gel.
At the hospital emergency room one of the supposed investigating officers came up to them with a sketch of the accident scenario. It was an entirely made up thing, in complete defiance of reality. It showed my friend coming out of a side street on his scooter, a street he did NOT come out of, and it showed a nonexistent motorcycle that is supposed to have struck him before veering off and running into some vendors stands. The sketch also showed debris and broken vendors stands.
Upon looking at the faked sketch, my friend’s witness-buddy spoke out loudly in protest, stating that it was nothing like that at all. He stridently proclaimed with complete assuredness that there had been no motorcycle and no one and nothing else was involved in the collision, other than the murderous jeepney and driver and his nearly killed friend on his scooter.
So, two things happened to counter their nefarious plan that they hadn’t counted on: 1) my friend didn’t die in the head-on collision, and 2) the witness wasn’t supposed to be there to see so exactly what really happened.
The witness-buddy immediately went back to the scene in a trike to check on the scooter and confirmed that indeed there was NO debris, and NO wrecked vendor’s stands. In fact, there was no scooter there anymore, since the police had confiscated it.
He also approached the doorman of the bar where the whole thing started from and spoke to him to feel out what he saw. Turns out he too is part of the scheme. He said smiling, “Oh yeah, your friend pulled out in front of the motorcycle.”
Uh oh! We now realize that this is getting ugly and dangerous, because it’s obvious that a policeman or two is involved in this as well as the doorman, and who knows who else. As soon as I heard this news I told him urgently that his life is now in immediate danger. I told him to take precautions and NOW, because the cops involved will not hesitate to kill to protect themselves by covering their tracks. He got quiet when he realized I was right.
So he has now moved to a new hospital in a different town and is there under an assumed name. I asked him not to tell me the name of the hospital. That’s right people; these are the precautions one must take here—it’s a sickening fact.
We also learned that inexplicably there appears to be no blotter on the accident. It seems that the “inconvenience” of a foreigner witness who could not “be got to” or paid off, may well have frightened off the perpetrators of this foulness. I told him that we could look to contact a good cop or politician in as high a position as possible to seek protection, or we can wait and see if the crooked men running this scheme are going to just let it go. I told him the latter might be better than the former. Sometimes it’s better to leave the snake alone after it’s missed with its first strike and let it move on to another quarry.
I was considering no longer writing about this subject, especially now that it seems that its more than just a drunken local who caused a potentially deadly accident, or even more than just some con-men looking for a quick payoff from a foreigner. Nope, it is much worse than that. This is seriously frightening business because of WHO exactly is involved.
I decided to go ahead and write this as a warning to people who are already in Angeles City and who came here as I did in good faith, as well as to people considering moving here. Please listen: This is a very dangerous place. The pitfalls are many. You can try with all your might to avoid them by keeping a low profile and following all the rules, such as they are, but once the local predators get you in their sights there is no escape. It might well take many years of running with the “foreigner herd,” but eventually you WILL get culled out. Once that happens there is very little you can do about it unless you are good friends with the mayor or the police chief.
My friend has either lived here or has been coming here for over 20 years; he LOVED this place. So much so that I was shocked to hear him say today that he thinks its time to go. It could just be the throbbing pain in his shattered leg causing his despondence, but I don’t think so.
As for me, as soon as I finish my GI Bill benefits, I’m out of Angeles City. I really don’t feel like waiting for my turn in the slaughter pen. Its one thing to shear us or milk us, but its an entirely different animal when you learn that people are willing to wantonly kill us for a few bucks.
I’m sure there are other places in this country that a foreigner can live with his family without constantly having to worry about this stuff. It’s time to seriously start looking for a plan B. (see part 4)
Monday, July 09, 2007
Part 2 of "Broken and in Pieces" in Angeles City
This is the second installment about my best friend and how he deals with the aftermath of an accident (see 1st post on it) that was in no way his fault. His only crime: being a foreigner in the Philippines, specifically here in AC.
It’s happening already, and he knew it would when the cops came by the hospital after the accident to confiscate his driver’s license.
My friend’s ace in the hole, his buddy who stood right there and witnessed the entire event, was told by the police at the hospital as they took the license that "he didn’t see anything." Get that? The cops are TELLING the only real witness that he didn’t see a thing! Do you see how it works here?
What the police did directly after the accident was to do a “drive by” in one of their white SUVs. If they did an investigation it was much later after my victim-friend and his witness-buddy were long gone to the hospital. What is happening now is classic for this area. A story is being concocted to show that the entire thing is the foreigner’s fault. Ba-a-a-a-a-a! Moooooo! They look at us as sheep to be sheared and cows to be milked.
Locals are lining up for a pay off even as I write this. My buddy is about to contact a lawyer. Of course, he’ll have to hope that the lawyer he gets doesn’t go into collusion with his opponents; also a very common practice on the continuation of the theme of bilking and conning expatriates living in this country.
So, here’s how it works when you are a foreigner living in the Philippines, especially in Angeles City: Become involved in an accident, even if you are the one victimized in the accident, and you continue to become victimized in the legal aftermath. Sometimes it’s better just not to leave the house.
I have several friends who refuse to drive a car or motorbike or anything because of this nasty local tendency. I have named the phenomena; as I hint above, I call it “shear the foreigner.”
I stopped riding jeepneys because of being pick-pocketed and almost being mugged on them once (my wife saw what was happening and screamed at the driver to let us off, which we did in a rush). The ubiquitous trikes, the other transportation alternative in Angeles City, even if you are a Filipino, climb into one and the price to anywhere starts at 50 pesos. AC may well have the highest trike prices of anywhere in the country. I’ve visited other provinces and the costs were a fraction of this place. Once again, it’s all part of the “shearing process.”
My broken legged buddy did have one bright bit of news. His orthopedic surgeon, who seems to be very competent, helped him find a hospital that will accept him under the old Tri-Care policy, where they are not asking for money down and will work with him payment wise. We’ll see how that works out.
I was pleased just now to speak to him and heard a lot less pain in his voice. It’s been three days since he splintered his lower leg bone and the reconstructive surgery should take place sometime in the next couple of days.
Keep checking in to track how this whole thing plays out medically and legally. In fact here's part 3 and it's far worse than we imagined...
It’s happening already, and he knew it would when the cops came by the hospital after the accident to confiscate his driver’s license.
My friend’s ace in the hole, his buddy who stood right there and witnessed the entire event, was told by the police at the hospital as they took the license that "he didn’t see anything." Get that? The cops are TELLING the only real witness that he didn’t see a thing! Do you see how it works here?
What the police did directly after the accident was to do a “drive by” in one of their white SUVs. If they did an investigation it was much later after my victim-friend and his witness-buddy were long gone to the hospital. What is happening now is classic for this area. A story is being concocted to show that the entire thing is the foreigner’s fault. Ba-a-a-a-a-a! Moooooo! They look at us as sheep to be sheared and cows to be milked.
Locals are lining up for a pay off even as I write this. My buddy is about to contact a lawyer. Of course, he’ll have to hope that the lawyer he gets doesn’t go into collusion with his opponents; also a very common practice on the continuation of the theme of bilking and conning expatriates living in this country.
So, here’s how it works when you are a foreigner living in the Philippines, especially in Angeles City: Become involved in an accident, even if you are the one victimized in the accident, and you continue to become victimized in the legal aftermath. Sometimes it’s better just not to leave the house.
I have several friends who refuse to drive a car or motorbike or anything because of this nasty local tendency. I have named the phenomena; as I hint above, I call it “shear the foreigner.”
I stopped riding jeepneys because of being pick-pocketed and almost being mugged on them once (my wife saw what was happening and screamed at the driver to let us off, which we did in a rush). The ubiquitous trikes, the other transportation alternative in Angeles City, even if you are a Filipino, climb into one and the price to anywhere starts at 50 pesos. AC may well have the highest trike prices of anywhere in the country. I’ve visited other provinces and the costs were a fraction of this place. Once again, it’s all part of the “shearing process.”
My broken legged buddy did have one bright bit of news. His orthopedic surgeon, who seems to be very competent, helped him find a hospital that will accept him under the old Tri-Care policy, where they are not asking for money down and will work with him payment wise. We’ll see how that works out.
I was pleased just now to speak to him and heard a lot less pain in his voice. It’s been three days since he splintered his lower leg bone and the reconstructive surgery should take place sometime in the next couple of days.
Keep checking in to track how this whole thing plays out medically and legally. In fact here's part 3 and it's far worse than we imagined...
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Leg Bones and Tri-Care, Broken and in Pieces
My best friend, my barhopping buddy, called me last night. He was in great pain and the sound of it was in his voice. Through clenched teeth he told me that as he left his last bar of the night at 2 a.m. another guy on a motorbike had struck him. His lower right leg was swollen up twice normal and the puny pain meds they’d given him weren’t working. The x-ray showed both lower bones broken with half his tibia in shards all the way up into his knee.
He was worried because he thought he was in the wrong hospital for payment purposes. He was in the old PIH now called Good Shepherd or Divine Heart or something like that. He knew that if he was in a medical facility not certified by Tri-Care that he’d be stuck with the bill. I wasn’t sure about the Tri-Care situation so I called another retired military buddy, who happens to be my psychologist and a medical doctor. Turns out he had just arrived home from Mount Caramel Hospital located over in San Fernando after surviving a seizure induced heart stoppage. If not for the quick action of his medically qualified wife, he would not be alive to talk about my other friend with the shattered leg.
Sheesh. Two phone calls--two hospitalized friends! Maybe I should turn off my phone before someone gets killed!
So, my heart-attack buddy gives me the scoop on my broken-leg buddy, telling me no morphine for a patient who will probably be in need of surgery; AND, the surgery must wait until the swelling goes down. In the meantime only low-level pain meds are allowed. Okay, I tell him, how about you call my broken legged buddy and give him all this good info so I don't miss anything? He agreed and called me back a few minutes later.
He calls me back with more info that I'm not so thrilled to learn. It seems that the old PIH has long since been blacklisted by Tri-Care, so U.S. retirees should NOT go there for care unless they got all the bucks needed to pay for it themselves. Alas, a further problem for us is that Tri-Care has stopped paying ALL Philippine medical facility applicants, and because of that bit of stinginess, now, AUF (Angeles University Foundation Hospital) has stopped accepting all Tri-Care patients unless they have the money. It seems that we will have to pay up front and hope that Tri-Care will refund our 75% after the yearly deductible has been reached.
I’m not sure if the Mercedes clinic in downtown Angeles is still on the Tri-Care "good list;” as far as I'm aware it was the last known local Tri-Care facility that was still working with American military retirees under the "old" financially friendly system. Somehow I doubt if they have been spared. I'll try to find out this week...
So, it seems that we are just about on our own out here for medical care. My psychologist suggests that if you are married to a Filipina eligible for PhilHealth to go ahead and sign up for it. His heart attack treatment this week cost him about a grand and PhilHealth paid about a quarter of it. Now he’ll have to submit his claim to Tri-Care and fight it out with them when the inevitable bullshit denials come down from the bastards in Wisconsin.
For any military retirees thinking about moving to the Philippines here's something to think about. If you have medical conditions greater than moderately serious consider long and hard before coming. Aside from the Tri-Care difficulties, healthcare in the Philippines is spotty when it comes to quality. For instance, my heart attack pal was in the ICU and they made his wife stay by his side to monitor him for them for two straight days; and that was in one of the better facilities. Can you imagine such a thing? In most ICUs in places like the USA, Europe, Australia, etc., there is supposed to be one nurse per patient. In this case, they didn't even have a cot for his wife to lay on while she did THEIR work, so she took naps with her head on his mattress.
One has to reorder how things are "supposed to be" when living here. Hospital care is an iffy proposition in the Philippines. Consider this, in most hospitals many of the nurses basically work for free to get the experience required so that they can go work abroad. Scary thought isn't it? All the best nurses and many of the best health care providers such as technicians and therapists LEAVE the first chance they get. So, try to pick your hospital and medical team carefully and hope for the best.
For example, one of my friends died late last year in a large local Angeles City hospital, perhaps unnecessarily. He had a bad liver from an old hepatitis infection and when it flared up suddenly he ended up in the hospital trying to recover enough to get back to the States for more extensive treatment. Well, he didn’t recover. We might never know exactly why he died, but it couldn’t have helped that his IV had come out of his arm sending all the IV fluids into his mattress instead of into his body. His wife was the one who discovered the problem, not any of the oblivious nurses. By the time she found it, it was too late. He was gone and his mattress was a sodden mess. I wouldn't be surprised if they charged the family for the ruined mattress.
A couple hours ago my friend with the splintered leg bones called me with an update. After my psychologist buddy had called him he decided to transfer to another hospital. Sometime in the next few days he’ll need an extensive operation to try to rejoin all the disparate tiny pieces of bone in his lower right leg. The doctor told him the bits are too small to use plates and screws, so some other complicated method will be entailed. In our quest to help veterans with their claims we found a good orthopedic surgeon, and we hope he’ll be able to get this leg back into one usable piece. My fingers are crossed and I will walk around in continuous prayer that it all turns out well.
During this latest call of a few minutes ago the description about the accident itself changed drastically since he first described them to me yesterday, mostly because he had been knocked out during the crash and all the events were a jumbled blur. Recall that at first he had told me it was a drunken local man on a motorbike that had plowed into him. Actually, it was a speeding jeepney with no lights on that had pulled out from the wrong side of the street heading back towards the Checkpoint area that had hit my friend head on. Witnesses say that instead of waiting when he saw my friend pull out, the jeepney driver had endeavored to quickly cut in front of him in a vain attempt to get back over to his own side of the street. All he managed to do was to go faster when he struck my friend.
With this new information I remarked to my buddy, still racked with almost unbearable pain, that he was lucky to have survived a head on with a speeding jeepney. It reminded me of an accident that my wife had observed on the same deadly nighttime street where he had almost bought the farm. A Swiss man, a local expatriate, had sped away from a bar, also on a motorbike and was surprised by another lightless jeepney stopped in the middle of the street to drop off a passenger. He veered around it right into the path of another oncoming jeepney. A terrible coincidence is that the driver of the jeepney that killed him was his best friend. He slid under his best friend's jeepney and was horribly disemboweled by the weight of the wheels as it rolled over his body. My wife was sickened by the memory of it for weeks. He died after a few minutes, his head cradled by his weeping best friend and inadvertent killer. Of course the real killer was his unnecessary speed combined with the very common event of a local vehicle operating without lights.
"So," I told my own best friend, "You are lucky that you LIVED through YOUR jeepney collision."
He acknowledged his "good luck" and told me more of what had happened.
The impact had knocked him out for almost 15 minutes. Luckily a fellow American retiree, a drinking buddy of his, had just said so long and was standing on the curb when the whole thing happened right in front of him. Without this man's presence, my hurt pal would probably would have lain in the street for much longer and might well have lost whatever he had in his pockets to "helpers."
In the interest of expediency they loaded the semiconscious body of my broken legged pal into the back of the VERY jeepney that had just struck him down. At the end of the short 5-minute ride to the hospital, the driver, who in my opinion should be in jail for attempted manslaughter or at the very least for reckless endangerment, proceeded to charge 500 pesos! Let the sheering begin!
If you’re a Filipino driving a jeepney in Angeles City the moral of this story is this: strike down as many Americans as you can. Then, drive them to the hospital and charge an exorbitant price to do so. Then, sue for damages. Excuse my bitterness...
For those of you out there like me that count on their two-wheeled vehicles to get around, here’s another small tip. Go slow! Take nothing for granted. In this case, the idiot guy driving the jeepney took off from the wrong side of the street from an unlit dark spot with no lights on and instead of waiting for a break in traffic opted to try “to make it” across to his side of the street hoping he could make it in time. Chances are he was drunk, but drivers here make compulsively bad decisions all the time. If you are one of the good Filipino drivers then you know exactly what I'm talking about... Right Wat?!
The final word is: BE READY for the idiots to do something idiotic, AND, slow DOWN so you'll have enough time to save yourself from them!
As this bit of ugliness proceeds I’ll continue to provide updates. (Go here for part 2)
He was worried because he thought he was in the wrong hospital for payment purposes. He was in the old PIH now called Good Shepherd or Divine Heart or something like that. He knew that if he was in a medical facility not certified by Tri-Care that he’d be stuck with the bill. I wasn’t sure about the Tri-Care situation so I called another retired military buddy, who happens to be my psychologist and a medical doctor. Turns out he had just arrived home from Mount Caramel Hospital located over in San Fernando after surviving a seizure induced heart stoppage. If not for the quick action of his medically qualified wife, he would not be alive to talk about my other friend with the shattered leg.
Sheesh. Two phone calls--two hospitalized friends! Maybe I should turn off my phone before someone gets killed!
So, my heart-attack buddy gives me the scoop on my broken-leg buddy, telling me no morphine for a patient who will probably be in need of surgery; AND, the surgery must wait until the swelling goes down. In the meantime only low-level pain meds are allowed. Okay, I tell him, how about you call my broken legged buddy and give him all this good info so I don't miss anything? He agreed and called me back a few minutes later.
He calls me back with more info that I'm not so thrilled to learn. It seems that the old PIH has long since been blacklisted by Tri-Care, so U.S. retirees should NOT go there for care unless they got all the bucks needed to pay for it themselves. Alas, a further problem for us is that Tri-Care has stopped paying ALL Philippine medical facility applicants, and because of that bit of stinginess, now, AUF (Angeles University Foundation Hospital) has stopped accepting all Tri-Care patients unless they have the money. It seems that we will have to pay up front and hope that Tri-Care will refund our 75% after the yearly deductible has been reached.
I’m not sure if the Mercedes clinic in downtown Angeles is still on the Tri-Care "good list;” as far as I'm aware it was the last known local Tri-Care facility that was still working with American military retirees under the "old" financially friendly system. Somehow I doubt if they have been spared. I'll try to find out this week...
So, it seems that we are just about on our own out here for medical care. My psychologist suggests that if you are married to a Filipina eligible for PhilHealth to go ahead and sign up for it. His heart attack treatment this week cost him about a grand and PhilHealth paid about a quarter of it. Now he’ll have to submit his claim to Tri-Care and fight it out with them when the inevitable bullshit denials come down from the bastards in Wisconsin.
For any military retirees thinking about moving to the Philippines here's something to think about. If you have medical conditions greater than moderately serious consider long and hard before coming. Aside from the Tri-Care difficulties, healthcare in the Philippines is spotty when it comes to quality. For instance, my heart attack pal was in the ICU and they made his wife stay by his side to monitor him for them for two straight days; and that was in one of the better facilities. Can you imagine such a thing? In most ICUs in places like the USA, Europe, Australia, etc., there is supposed to be one nurse per patient. In this case, they didn't even have a cot for his wife to lay on while she did THEIR work, so she took naps with her head on his mattress.
One has to reorder how things are "supposed to be" when living here. Hospital care is an iffy proposition in the Philippines. Consider this, in most hospitals many of the nurses basically work for free to get the experience required so that they can go work abroad. Scary thought isn't it? All the best nurses and many of the best health care providers such as technicians and therapists LEAVE the first chance they get. So, try to pick your hospital and medical team carefully and hope for the best.
For example, one of my friends died late last year in a large local Angeles City hospital, perhaps unnecessarily. He had a bad liver from an old hepatitis infection and when it flared up suddenly he ended up in the hospital trying to recover enough to get back to the States for more extensive treatment. Well, he didn’t recover. We might never know exactly why he died, but it couldn’t have helped that his IV had come out of his arm sending all the IV fluids into his mattress instead of into his body. His wife was the one who discovered the problem, not any of the oblivious nurses. By the time she found it, it was too late. He was gone and his mattress was a sodden mess. I wouldn't be surprised if they charged the family for the ruined mattress.
A couple hours ago my friend with the splintered leg bones called me with an update. After my psychologist buddy had called him he decided to transfer to another hospital. Sometime in the next few days he’ll need an extensive operation to try to rejoin all the disparate tiny pieces of bone in his lower right leg. The doctor told him the bits are too small to use plates and screws, so some other complicated method will be entailed. In our quest to help veterans with their claims we found a good orthopedic surgeon, and we hope he’ll be able to get this leg back into one usable piece. My fingers are crossed and I will walk around in continuous prayer that it all turns out well.
During this latest call of a few minutes ago the description about the accident itself changed drastically since he first described them to me yesterday, mostly because he had been knocked out during the crash and all the events were a jumbled blur. Recall that at first he had told me it was a drunken local man on a motorbike that had plowed into him. Actually, it was a speeding jeepney with no lights on that had pulled out from the wrong side of the street heading back towards the Checkpoint area that had hit my friend head on. Witnesses say that instead of waiting when he saw my friend pull out, the jeepney driver had endeavored to quickly cut in front of him in a vain attempt to get back over to his own side of the street. All he managed to do was to go faster when he struck my friend.
With this new information I remarked to my buddy, still racked with almost unbearable pain, that he was lucky to have survived a head on with a speeding jeepney. It reminded me of an accident that my wife had observed on the same deadly nighttime street where he had almost bought the farm. A Swiss man, a local expatriate, had sped away from a bar, also on a motorbike and was surprised by another lightless jeepney stopped in the middle of the street to drop off a passenger. He veered around it right into the path of another oncoming jeepney. A terrible coincidence is that the driver of the jeepney that killed him was his best friend. He slid under his best friend's jeepney and was horribly disemboweled by the weight of the wheels as it rolled over his body. My wife was sickened by the memory of it for weeks. He died after a few minutes, his head cradled by his weeping best friend and inadvertent killer. Of course the real killer was his unnecessary speed combined with the very common event of a local vehicle operating without lights.
"So," I told my own best friend, "You are lucky that you LIVED through YOUR jeepney collision."
He acknowledged his "good luck" and told me more of what had happened.
The impact had knocked him out for almost 15 minutes. Luckily a fellow American retiree, a drinking buddy of his, had just said so long and was standing on the curb when the whole thing happened right in front of him. Without this man's presence, my hurt pal would probably would have lain in the street for much longer and might well have lost whatever he had in his pockets to "helpers."
In the interest of expediency they loaded the semiconscious body of my broken legged pal into the back of the VERY jeepney that had just struck him down. At the end of the short 5-minute ride to the hospital, the driver, who in my opinion should be in jail for attempted manslaughter or at the very least for reckless endangerment, proceeded to charge 500 pesos! Let the sheering begin!
If you’re a Filipino driving a jeepney in Angeles City the moral of this story is this: strike down as many Americans as you can. Then, drive them to the hospital and charge an exorbitant price to do so. Then, sue for damages. Excuse my bitterness...
For those of you out there like me that count on their two-wheeled vehicles to get around, here’s another small tip. Go slow! Take nothing for granted. In this case, the idiot guy driving the jeepney took off from the wrong side of the street from an unlit dark spot with no lights on and instead of waiting for a break in traffic opted to try “to make it” across to his side of the street hoping he could make it in time. Chances are he was drunk, but drivers here make compulsively bad decisions all the time. If you are one of the good Filipino drivers then you know exactly what I'm talking about... Right Wat?!
The final word is: BE READY for the idiots to do something idiotic, AND, slow DOWN so you'll have enough time to save yourself from them!
As this bit of ugliness proceeds I’ll continue to provide updates. (Go here for part 2)
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?
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