Reporting for Roll Call :15:45Hrs - 5-8-13
Hi LT:
LTs+Brains= Oxymoron? Hah!
Well, as our Laotian friends used to say. MaiPenLie(it makes no nevermind).
Have gone over your comment Re: Getting Started. To summarize:
a)
Before anything else, get one of those VA cards...but preferrably
through the VA's web site, rather than in person at the nearest
facility because the reception desk for that is manned by "volunteers",
mostly older vets/relics from WWII, Korea, and/or Nam...who are not
always ready with a "smiley face" to greet an incoming cherry-troop.
As you put it this is one of the "booby traps" the VA installs to
block the entrances to its facilities.
Frankly,
given the choice of having to armwrestle with the VA web site, or
facing down an old war horse in person, I'm more inclined to go for
the latter. At least, it's another human...even if he/she might not be
the most welcoming. Personal choice, I suppose. In any case, no
matter how treated at this receiving point, the thing to do is to follow
Rule #1.
b)Okay, Re:
DDForm214. isn't that a veteran's discharge paper? He should have
gotten that from the Service he was in, and, hopefully, made lots of
copies of it, to have at hand, as needed.
So, now, our cherry/troop has gotten a VA Card, and has his DDForm214...one way or the other. What happens next? What's the next step for filing his disability claim?
Moving
on to a sidebar subject : A Veteran's difficulty accessing his own
medical file. You commented that it is not uncommon for the VA to be
difficult about that. Why should that be? Unless, of course, it
relates to a disability claim situation which the VA, for whatever
reason, believes the medical info therein, might support such a claim.
Hmmm...sounds like this can lead to a very iffy swamp patch full of not
so friendly alligators. Let's leave it aside for the moment.
Well, so much for today.
Centurion
