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Is There One And Only One Truth?
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Steppenwolf
Yes this is a C&P question, however:
i no longer know what to believe about anything VA related or how or who to ask for the best correct answer.
This much i can tell you just about posting this question/comment: My hands are shaking so much that it is difficult to type. My head is spinning. I feel like throwing up. I don't know how much or how little to say.
What came before the C&P letter?
i think some of the history is important but i am not longer sure if it is or isn't or what part is or isn't relative. The fact that i can't tell you "the truth" to me is an indication that underlying this whole mess the truth is obscured on purpose.
Let me try to give you the sequence of events of what i think i know which i will start at my request for a travel board hearing in 2004 after a DRO review and denial.
The best VSO i have ever met and worked with suggested and helped me file for a travel board hearing after the case that we put together was denied by a DRO at the VARO in St Pete ( or Bay Pines i think it is called ) before i got a reply from the VA concerning the hearing my VSO disappeared. No one including his assistant knew where he was or what happened to him. Long story short he had a nervous break down from the stress of the job and eventually resigned.
My VSO organization DAV in Bay Pines tells me that their best guess is that my hearing will take place in Oct 2008 ( 4 years! ). While in CT where my home was i spoke to a DAV rep there who suggests that i have my records sent to CT and let him help me. He told me that it definettly would not take 4 years for my hearing. My records arrive in CT in March 06 i have a hearing in Jun 06. At the end of the hearing we all got the sense that the hearing went well. VSO said i would hear back quickly. He speculated that i would be rated 60-80%, we would immdiately appeal for 100%, my evidence would support 100%, and about 75days after the hearing i got her decision: REMAND. At this point i am not sure about very much except that the VSO still thought that the case was solid and that it would be rated quickly.
24 months later my records have been sent back to Bay Pines a short time after receiving a notice to submit any new evidence within 60 days. VSO does not beleive me that the records were sent back to FL and my address changed back to my old address and i get a notice for a C&P in FL. Once he finds out he says he felt betrayed by the rateing person at regional who didn't contact him before deciding to send my records away. i have to contact my state rep, he makes me get a letter from my town saying that i am a resident of CT ( the former Mayor of my town ran the congressman campaign, knows me by name, actually spoke to me when i called the his office, but i need to get a letter from the town clerk non-the-less ) the congressman contacts "The VA" ( no idea who, where or how ) and orders my records back to CT in Sept 08. In Dec 08 i call my VSO at Bay Pines to ask about the records but have to wait for the person assigned to my claims number to call me back because no one else will answer any questions but he's on holiday and calls me back 10 days later only to tell me he has to find out why my records are still there. Calls back tells me that yes they got a letter from the congreeman but he can't tell them what to do, they need to review the case before returning it to CT and there were many cases that were "in the hoper" longer than mine, no i can't talk to his suporvisor, i plead with him to understand how this has delayed things and that Bay Pines is no longer my regional, he checks electronic records and wants to know why i still have a FL address ( snowbird ) claims he got thye supervisor to commit to a quick review, early Jan i'm told the records are sent back to CT. For a month no one knows where they are ( not in FL not in CT ) Feb 09 they show up in CT, mid feb i get a letter informing me that a C&P will be scheduled in CT 23 Feb i get a call to scedule a C&P the person tells me she can't tell me when the C&P will be but that there will be 2 on different days, i ask her if i can have a C&P in NC where i'm living in transition planning on being back in CT in mid April, she tells me that i can check to see if the will schedule me, i spend most of the day calling around and it looks like it will be trouble so i call her back to tell her to just schedule the appointment. Leave her a voice mail on the same day 23 Feb ask her to call me back, call her number everyday that week at least twice a day and ask her to call me back and that i want her to schedule the C&P and i will make it work, Friday the 27 i call the CT patient advocate, she call's C&P C&P calls me back but it's a different person and she tells me that my records were sent back and i had to call regional to have my case reopened and a new C&P scheudlued, i call my VSO who said she was wrong i just had to call to rechedule the C&P, forgetting that the 800 number goes to wherever it goes they will not connect me to CT, i call DAV in DC who tells me to call back and demand that i be connected to regional in CT. Once again they refuse BTW Friday the 27th i stayed in my PJ's all day calling everywhere i was either told to call or i thought might help me from 8:30 AM until 4:30 PM. The last call once again to the 800 number gets me a guy who tells me that anyone who answers the 800 number can do whatever i want. He asks, i tell him i want a C&P in CT, he says ok, i can hear him typing away for 5 mins or so, he says: okay, i scheuduled you for an examin in NC. My BP went through the roof and i got sick like i am now trying to type this and figure out what info is important. i told him that the is not what i wanted and he told me it didn't matter what i wanted the last place i got VA meds and service was NC so there is where i needed to get my C&P ( i tell you this and my head is punding just thinking about it again )
Since that time i have made hundreds of calls and been told different things by everyone i speak with...on Monday March 2 i spoke with the head of regional in CT he assured me that my records were there infront of him and would call "those idiots" at the VAMC and order them to schedule a C&P. On March 11th i call him again and tell him i've been told that my records are in NC. He tells me that the same three folders of my who file are right in front of him, he will call them and get back with me by the end of the day. The same day i got to the CT VA where the C&P would happen but can't see or speak with anyone in the dept. The VA guy never calls me back. On Mar 11th before the end of the day i call the congressman who wrote the first letter, he tells me to call him back on Friday, Friday he take my info and tell me to call him on Tuesday, Tuesday i call him from the car on my way back to NC, he tells me to call him back on Friday, Friday before i call him back i call the regional in CT and speak with the person who never returned my call and ask why he never called me back. He tells me because my case was already rated! WHAT??? But he is not in the office so i need to call him on Monday, Monday i call my DAV VSO in CT at 8:30 and tell him what the VA guy told me. He is puzzled to but says maybe that did happen sice he no longer has access to my records, i get the VA regional guy at 11 AM and he tells me he can't find my records.
i can go on like this for hours with calls to CT, DC, NC and everyone i speak with tells me something else. As of right now i'm told that my records have been ordered back to CT that NC doesn't have them, then that they do have them and have sceduled a C&P i am in direct contact with the C&P person in NC who was asked by the director to help me and at this point in time i have no idea who to call what to ask, who's in charge, if all of this will put me at the bottom of the pile, if the date determines anything or when the records get received and until one hadit member PM'd me about veterans service pension i had no idea that such a thng existed and that i clearly qualified for it going back to the day i got out of the service. Even if we don't go back that far it's been 31 months since my travel board hearing and 5 years since my DRO hearing and i haven't earned more than 6800 dollars in any one year and some years i "earned" zero.
Who can i call to get things straight? Who can i call to complain to about the run around?
How do i get a truthful answer about my case and all of these mistakes that many want to blame on me for moving around?
The one last peice of info that i think is important is that my VSO told me to pull out all stops to remain a CT resident until a rating or decision is made. i can't tell you how many VA people ask me: "Why did he tell you that"? Geeez, i think you should ask him but it seems to be clear to me: Don't confuse a bunch of incompetent idots.
HELP!!!!
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