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john999

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Everything posted by john999

  1. john999
    45 years ago I did not file a NOD because I did not know I could do that when I got my first low ball rating from the VA. Even though the VA ignored vital medical information in my claim that failure to file the NOD cost me thousands of bucks. Appeal everything! The VA has a million tricks to blow you out of the water when you ask for retro if you did not file that simple NOD.
  2. john999
    Hey Navy I am deeply sorry you were raped in service. However, you completely misunderstood my points. Honesty is not the best policy when dealing with the VA. Knowledge is best policy. People come here to be coached a little as to know what to expect from C&P exam. I wish I had known back in 1972 when I left out part about overdose and cutting my writs on leave from Vietnam. I was a good soldier and just sucked it up. My reward was VA and Military foot so far up my ass they kicked my teeth out. The VA and Army used every word out of my mouth against me. I would be long dead if I depended on VA. I got help from private psychologist who knew something about Vietnam vets. When I got complete exam from private doctor about my mental state the VA just ignored it. I did not even get a C&P exam. Some 90 year old VA doctor from WW1 said I was just a lazy sod and crybaby ,but SC'ed me anyway. I have been to many C&P exams since that time. I have been called a faker, liar, anti-social, and many other dirty names via VA C&P system. However, since I finally found out what it really takes to win claims that was all blown away by multiple reports from private retired VA doctor and other private doctors who were not afraid to tell the truth. You don't even know me or my history and you criticize me and accuse me of things. Sounds like the VA talking to me.
  3. john999

     Ham

     

                                 I have been reading pros and cons of revolver vs semi-automatic pistols like Glock.  The usual con is that you just have six shots and if you are involved in home invasion you might have multiple shooters and need many rounds in your weapon.  These are same guys who believe you should have AK-47 knock off or AR-15 handy just in case.  Over penetration is a big worry in my dense neighborhood.  If I was in shoot out with home invaders and was shooting many rounds I would probably kill a few neighbors .  How do you come down on this Con.?  Is six shots enough for home defense?  Revolvers don't jam and they are simple which I like.  Glock is pretty simple as well.  I know it has more moving parts which I don't like.  Having gun jam at moment of truth would be worst outcome.  Plus which is most fun to shoot and is cleaning and maintenance a pain with semi-auto.  I have no experience with hand guns just rifles (M-14 and M-16) and shotguns.   I was a good shot in army but that is very different than close range pistol shoot out I know.  How often do you practice with  your weapons at the range.  Imagine night time shooting at home.   Where does it all go wrong for homeowner who is scared shitless, half asleep and  with gun in hand.   I do know the effect of extreme fear on human beings.  All openings do close up except bladder perhaps. I do know guys who pissed their pants during chopper crash in Nam.  I am not tough guy and never was.  Now I am just pretty broken down guy who fears for safety of his wife and self to an extent.

     

                                   John                

  4. john999
    Tbird I am getting the hang of it. I guess general frustration over many issues has made me crabby. I have been working to try and get justice and recognition for my father and grandfather who were both vets whose VA and military records were either lost or burned. I found source for vets who served prior to WWI. VA said no such source existed when they denied my grandmother's request for A&A since she was in a nursing home on medicade and had been pauperized by medicade system in order to live in nursing home. The VA also denied A&A for my mother since they said all my father's WWII records were destroyed in 1973 fire. He was a disabled vet when he died so they were lying to me once again. In my mind VA is criminal organization much like the Mafia. New methods to file claims but it is same old VA Mafia as far as I am concerned. Heads at the VA should roll. Neither political party's gives a crap bout us vets. All this talk and no action to raise compensation and DIC rates. You provide best website on the internet and you don't even get paid.
  5. john999
    I would keep my eye on bank account. Often the money hits the bank before the actual rating. I bet you will have a decision within 6 weeks. I am guessing but usually after C&P they work pretty fast. This really depends of the results of your eventual ratings. If you get all you dared hope for then I stick with 6 weeks. If you don't get it then 18 months to two years to get DRO Hearing or a couple of years to go to BVA traveling board. Like I say if you get 100% rating and your rating is not p&t and/or they have not given written consideration to "S" I would appeal it . I did when denied Chapter 35. By the time they get around to looking at your appeal a year will have passed and if you are not working or tap dancing you should get P&T rating which is important benefit.
  6. john999
    I had an operation for my OSA. The Inspire device was implanted in my chest and throat. I turn it on via hand control and it sends electric stimulation to my throat and tongue to open throat and move tongue forward so it does not block you airway. It cost $100,000 but insurance paid all. Before I had this and oxygen at night my oxygen saturation levels fell into 70% level. My pulmonologist said I was going to die. I could not tolerate the CPAP. I was the first person in Florida to get this operation on commercial basis. I still wake up feeling pretty awful and must take Provigil to stay awake. I did not have OSA before I got DMII due to AO. VA says I also have a heart condition 60%. I want to file a claim for OSA . My OSA was described as "profound". The guy at Veterans law blog says he knows how to connect the OSA. Is he full of it or not? How many RVN vets have OSA? I mean the 1/3 that are not dead already.
  7. john999
  8. john999
    I filed a CUE with advice from a lawyer. We went all the way from VARO to Federal Court and lost after about 8 years with multiple trips to BVA, COVA and Federal Court. It is not like filing a normal claim where you have benefit of doubt. It is like fighting against Microsoft over some computer software. They have hoards of experience lawyers at the Court of Veteran Appeals who would cut your throat for a dime. I would never do it again. I thought I had a great claim and so did my lawyer. We did not count on VA's 1 million and one escape mechanisms. Before 1990 the VA did not even have to show they considered your evidence when they made a decision. If you did not immediately appeal your decision in 1972 via NOD you were a dead duck almost no matter what evidence your file may have contained. Some vets do win really old CUE claims but the odds are against it because the VA makes the odds and has thumb on scale of justice. Justice is a 7 letter, four letter word, IMO. It is a fantasy. All you get is what you should have gotten minus interest.
  9. john999

    I hope you get 100% and if you do they should consider you for SMC  "S" which is housebound status.  More money!  I am old fart Vietnam vet living in Tampa.  I have been P&T for 15 years.   The VA is better than it was because in my day if you did not have direct combat with enemy no PTSD claim.  Only guys with PH or CIB or other combat medals or badges got PTSD and this was not until the 1980's.  Only since 9/11 have they diagnosed PTSD in realistic way, and it is still a game with right answers and wrong answers.

  10. john999
    I did not answer your question but if you have had all your C&P exams if should not be too long. They should rate secondary conditions but you usually have to claim them and show medical evidence to make the connection. I have many secondary conditions to agent orange DMII. I had to prove every one of them with medical evidence. Are you able to work? This will determine your PTSD rating. Did you break down and cry at your PTSD exam. If you did that is good. The worse off you appear the better off you are to the VA. In summer I advise dirty hair, flip flops, look like coming off 5 day drunk and maybe drink 10 cups of coffee before you get to exam. I had so many exams over the years for mental health issues I know when they are trying to lead me down the garden path. You don't talk about your childhood, teenage years or anything before the military. I am Vietnam vet so they tried to tell me I had personality disorder when I first had an exam in 1972. I got my P&T but it took 30 years. If they ask leading questions watch out! They want to blame your current problems on events either before or after military service. The VA are the biggest whores in the world because they have screwed millions of veterans. You can tell I am not a happy camper. My generation really got hammered.
  11. john999
    Yes, I have been dealing with St. Pete VARO for many years. Never trust them! They are one of the worst VARO's in the nation. All are bad, but they are truly awful because of huge vet population here in Florida. I have seen those bastards make a woman vet in a wheelchair break down and cry. When you ask for your claim file they will give you about half of it in a jumbled mess. I asked them for my father's VA records 6 months ago. Now they say I am filing a claim and they are treating my request for my father's VA records as a claim of some sort. If there is a way to screw you out of a dime they will do it. Never give them anything original and always hand deliver stuff to them and get it date stamped because they will lose it. I am sorry you have to deal with those assholes but if you live close you can deal with them face to face. Then you have to be nice. You can curse them to hell in your mind but keep smiling. The only people worse to me is BCMR. They are prime bastards and sons of bitches.
  12. john999
    Thank you Tbird and Berta. This is the best vet site online and always has been. Tbird, I have difficulty online due to injuries so the longer I am on the more I suffer. I will think about one on one lessons. Thanks for reaching out to beat up, old vet who does not deal so well with change. Berta: Where is Pete53 these days? I am thinking about sleep apnea claim. I went to veteraslaw blog. Is this guy full of it or not? I have both DMII and now heart condition and sleep apnea. The DMII, Heart and PN are all service connected. He seems to be saying AO related disease is a avenue to getting OSA connected. It must be more complicated I think. I have not been on Hadit so much due to chronic pain and dealing with family matters. Trying to train wife to deal with VA but she resists. She just goes along trusting I will be here to take care of it all. I tell her DIC and ChampVA are not gifts and it will all work out if you just do nothing when SNAFU occurs. She does not get it until emergency happens. So, Berta, what are you the super spouse doing these days? Do you think $1400 a month DIC is enough for spouse of dead 100% vet? I asked VA how much they would provide if my wife had to go to a nursing home while I was still alive and how would I pay for her. They told me in that case I should check into the same nursing home. They told me A&A for spouse was about $200 a month. Nursing home costs $5000. Must we both leave this world naked as we came into it?
  13. john999
    Hadit's format has become incomprehensible to me. I have no idea where I am going half the time. Keep it simple for us old vets please.
  14. john999
    ArNG You are so right about getting secondary conditions service connected. You really must get a doctor to write up a report that justifies how and explains the connection between a primary SC disability and secondary. The VA knows exactly what is needed and used to have template their in-house doctors could use for this purpose. Back about 8 years ago my then current VA PCP did help me get my CAD connected as secondary to my SC'ed DMII. She took the template right off her computer and just put my facts in the blank spaces. The VA stopped that practice because too many vets were getting SC'ed for secondary conditions.
  15. john999
    Buck I am glad you posted the BVA interpretation of Housebound. Almost nobody meets the requirement if that is the true meaning of Housebound. I get the statutory "S". If I had to qualify for the actual "S" I don't know how I could do it unless I was in a nursing home or some sort of facility. I have to leave the house to buy food and just attend normal functions of a adult human being in the USA. My wife can do a lot of things for me now, but what if she were not around or if she becomes more disable herself? How would a single veteran every meet the requirements for housebound unless he can afford to hire someone to do his shopping for him and all chores that require him to leave home. 100% compensation does not pay near enough to provide for a caretaker other than a spouse. If you or a loved one has to go to assisted living or nursing home then you are entitled to get A&A and so is your spouse if she/he ends up in a home. What the VA does is to stall on the A&A award until the person in the home dies. Cased closed or keep estate open until the VA gets around to paying retro A&A if they even do that for estates of dead people. My mother died while we waited for the A&A award I had filed. My father was a disabled WWII vet and by that standard my mother was entitled to A&A. I also filed on behalf of my grandmother and VA said no records. I later found military records of both my father and grandfather with little effort. It has been years and I am not sure I want to reopen closed probated estates to get a few bucks for entire family. When you see the amount of A&A the VA will pay for vets or spouses of vets in nursing care it is shockingly low. I think it amounts to a few hundred dollars a month when private nursing homes cost about $6000 a month.
  16. john999
    AskNod says that even if your many individual disabilities add up to 100% you are not considered 100% scheduler. I am stuck at 90% unless I get another rating of at least 50% because I think I am at 93% rounded down to 90%. I have 3-4 more years of sending in Employment questionnaire because when I hit 70 or therebouts no more paperwork for IU. In five years I will have 20 years of being IU. I would like to be rated as 100% before then if possible. I had the Inspire device implanted in my chest and throat instead of using the C-Pap. I think it works OK plus I get oxygen every night. My OSA was pretty horrible and life threatening. I have been playing with the VA for 45 years just to get what I got. What a long strange trip it has been. For Vietnam vets agent orange related disease will probably get us all in the end. I went to a psychologist at the VA to treat my insomnia. He asked if I had been DX'ed with PTSD. Of course, but I am already rated for it. My question is this: What conditions cause OSA? Is it related to being obese or some other set of conditions? The conditions I have are all so intertwined with VA disabilities it is hard to separate them out as to being VA or non-VA.
  17. john999
    I was TDIU for a mental health disorder since 2001. Around 2008 I got SC'ed for DMII. I have filed for a couple of things as secondary to the DMII. I filed for CAD secondary to DMII in 2009 I think. I was eventually awarded 60% just for the CAD. I still had not reached a scheduler 100% and probably never will , but I was able to get "S" based on the TDIU plus the 60% for CAD. I did file a CUE claim to get it. The VA should have awarded me the "S" as soon as I got the 60% due to Bradly vs Peake. I did get the backpay for the statutory "S". Any TDIU vet can get it, but the VA is trying to avoid paying it all this jive. The 60% must be separate from the original TDIU rating. This is the main key. You cannot have TDIU and 100% at the same time. I bet the VA is cracking down on S.A. claims because they see a tidal wave of claims coming at them. I have S.A. and I am surprised to see someone get it SC'ed secondary to CAD. Gastone: Which doctor wrote you an IME connecting your SA to your CAD? I want to possibly meet this doctor. I am 60% CAD and after this DX I was DX'ed with OSA about four years ago. I have so many SC conditions but I never am able to get to actual 100% and I don't care anymore, but I would take it I could get it. I think the VA will keep refining the requirements for "S" until nobody qualifies.
  18. john999
    The VA just refused to act on my lawyer's request for a separate copy of my C-File. When we got to the BVA hearing the judge had a stack about two feet high and we had about 7 inches of junk in random order that the lawyer finally got from the VA. The game is so rigged in favor of denying a vet's claim it makes me want to cry. You die the death of 1000 delays. We now make up a small fraction of us citizens being vets. I vote for bringing back the draft so all can enjoy the duty of serving their country in a war zone because the USA has almost be constantly at war since Korea. They just don't call it war.
  19. john999
    Evidence is what wins claims and you can generate your own evidence using IME/IMO. In PTSD claims the VA requires that they make the initial DX of PTSD. This is an outrageous abuse of power. They are telling us that only the VA can diagnose PTSD? This is just a ploy to discourage vets from going outside the system to get decent care. As much as I hate the way the VA operates you have to use the tools available to you. You must use the VA's rules against them to win your case.
  20. john999
    Sunny Don't blame yourself in any way because it took me years to wise up to understand exactly what I needed to win a major claim. Maybe .001 percent of vets are at fault when dealing with the VA. The VA should be reaching out to disabled vets or vets with health problems. They should also be reaching out to survivors. I see none of this happening. I see the same old adversarial institution that would rather abuse and misuse veterans than help them. When you file a claim for disability the VA is supposed to help you. When have they ever done that? Not only do they not help they hinder claims. This is not an individual problem but an institutional problem that flows directly from congress. When I tried to get A&A for my grandmother the VA denied there were any such records of my grandfather's service. We easily found records of his service. I filed for A&A for my mother. The VA my father's records burned up in the 1970's fire. I sent them a copy of his original discharge papers. They stalled until my mother died. This is just the way the VA works. Deny until they die! Perhaps if you could get a VA lawyer to take your case it might be easier for you. It is a steep learning curve and every mistake involvers years to get it fixed. The VA is immortal while we humans die. They can wait you out if you make mistakes that they can string out for years. IMO the best fix for the VA claims system involves lots of big trucks, backhoes and wrecking balls. Same for the VAMC's. This is an institution that is rotten to the core and getting worse because there are only about 9% of the population that has had any military service. They just don't see the problem in the same terms we do. John
  21. john999
    These people never change at the VA. I think they would spend a million dollars to screw a vet out of ten cents. It makes me sick and disappointed that everyone says how concerned they are with taking care of veterans and then you see the official hand of the US government in action. If every vet dropped dead on Friday they would consider it a big favor. It is just an never ending fight with them to get what you deserve. AskNod is still working to get his greenhouse I think after 8 years with phony quality of life program. I know he is winning but so slowly they just want to see him and all of us dead first. Our real enemies are here and not in Iraq or some place in the middle east.
  22. john999
    If your husband gets a discharge upgrade and is awarded some kind of medical discharge with a pension that is your proof that his VA claim should be back dated to a day after discharge. Now there may be some issue since usually a soldier either gets military pension or VA disability unless he served 20 years. There are not many vets who get discharge upgrades which include medical discharge with compensation. This is a big win. I lost such an appeal myself. I did get an upgrade but no pension.
  23. john999
    Do you have a copy of your DD214 and/or your discharge? If you have those documents you can at least prove you served. Your military records exist either at the VA or in St. Louis. If you do any business with the VA use certified mail/return receipt. Make copies of everything and never trust the VA for anything. The VA "lost or disregarded" vital evidence in my original claim and it cost me a lot of compensation. You cannot trust these dogs one millimeter. You need to get hold of your Military medical records and your personnel file. Do what Berta has said and do not just leave it up to a VSO or anyone else to advance your claims. You must remain involved all the way. These people would screw their own grandmothers to save a buck for Uncle Sam.
  24. john999
    You should not have been examined by the same C&P doctor in 2013 and in 2015. If your SSDI is solely for your SC disabilities then you should at least be rated TDIU if not 100%. This is just common sense. If your lawyer did not pick up on this you should fire him. He is dumber than the DAV or VFW. I went from 30% to 70% and TDIU. This was based on my SSDI and on my doctor's reports. If you have based all your evidence just on your C&P, of course you will be low balled. That is SOP. You lawyer should not only be fired he should have his/her ass kicked. We have talked about getting IME/IMO's on this forum for years. This just about the only way to get a fair deal from the VA. I had three IME's to get P&T. It took about two years from the time I started trying for it from 30% to getting P&T. What I had was good advice and good doctors working for me.
  25. john999
    I have DDD and I feel it most in the morning and when I bend forward like for washing dishes. I doubt I will even bother to try and get it SC'ed. I just notice that since I have arthritis in my knees, ankles, hips and lower back it really keeps me from getting around that much. However, I do know that "bed rest" would be the worst thing possible. I would be so stiff and a day or so in bed I would need help getting out of bed. Sometimes I bend down and need help to get back up. I started exercising by doing deep knee bends and that seems to help believe it or not. My back still is sore and stiff but my knees are better.
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