Reporting for Roll Call - 15:15Hrs 7-10-13
Hi LT:
Back again. Took short break to take care of other matters.
Re: Your Post No. 1
Since I've never had to deal with the disability claims process, directly, I'll defer to your experience with it.
From what you say in your post, our Cherry Troop faces a VA which has an institutional bias against any veteran's claim for any kind of disability related to invisible wounds such as PTSD and/or toxin wounds of one kind or another. If its "motto" about that is...Lie and Deny Till You Die!...that means the VA is deliberately doing everything it can to obstruct the processing of such disability claims, and, has made that a matter of general policy. In short, if that is the case, the VA considers and treats such claims as coming from liars and frauds, who are only trying to "game" the system. My only reaction to such a situation is: WHAT IN THE HELL DID ANYONE SERVE FOR THEN? Worse than that, if that is the sub rosa policy, then every Sec. of the VA, every senior official of the VA...every shrink(as the one you mentioned),every administrative bureaucrat involved in the process are all liars and hypocrites (and we haven't even mentioned all our "honorable" elected officials such as the Pres. Senators, Congressmen).Talk about "conspiracy theories"! If that's the reality involved with such a process, then it's a doozy.
Sorry, but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around such a thing. Is it really that calculated, that contemptuous of all those who've honorably served, that, should they make a claim for those invisible wounds incurred, they are considered and treated as frauds? I really hate to think so. Or is it simply a matter of a massive organizational incompetence, and sheer slipshod, lazy, bureaucratic inertia? Having said that, sounds like one is as bad as the other.
So, if it's is a matter of figuring out how to play the VA's game (something akin to Chess, maybe?),what are some of the opening moves our Cherry Troop needs to make? For instance...can you explain how a claim is initiated? And how is it put together?
CENTURION
