Thank You, James Breckenridge!

[Philip Rogers]

I, for one, appreciate your input! It's good to know how the VA thinks. I hope we don't chase you away.

pr

Edited January 1, 2010 by Philip Rogers

[Testvet]

I have to add my thanks also, I spent many years "fighting" the system because I didn't understand it, my attorney quickly stopped me from continuing the "fight" and turned it into an understanding of how to work within the system and to guide my "energies" from self destructive into a self help advocacy and now my wife and son are secure if anything happens to me now from my severe cardiac problems that are now SC instead of me turning circles around a rater that was bound and determined to ignore the facts of Edgewood Arsenal, and they were really good at it too rofl many of the veterans used in the classified Cold War programs have had really bad dealings with the VA due to the extent which DOD has maintained over the past 5 decades in releasing the information the veterans need to get their medical problems SC to the experiments.

From the Nuclear vets (my step father was one) to the SHAD vets (which now get cat 6 medical care) the only group that is allowed that designation, to the biological experiments and to the chemical weapons and drug experiments, there is not a good history of the DOD helping these veterans, and I now know it is not the fault of the VA but rather DOD and Congress, but the veterans and their families are the ones still being deprived of benefits they are due.

There are not enough people that take the time to help explain how the system works or even how to deal in it, and you are appreciated even if at times we don't act like we are grateful.

[allan]

I also appreciate your help and guidance into how the VA works James. For your own safety, I don't recommend you or any other employee wanting to provide information on the internet boards to use your real name.

Helping vets doesn't sit well with some people.

[JamesBreckenridge]

Helping vets doesn't sit well with some people.

By commenting here, what I am running the risk of doing is possibly misinforming veterans or confusing them. Even experienced raters can have differences of opinion based on the exact same facts, which is why the VA does "Inter Rater Reliability Studies." I doubt seriously that the VA leadership wants vets to be "lost in the wilderness." However, if I were in their shoes, I wouldn't want some loose cannon out there giving questionable advice. "Well, James Breckenridge told me on hadit.com that my case was a slam dunk grant!" There's what I mean to say, what I should have said, what I actually said, what a potential vet thinks I said, and what the leadership may be afraid I will say in the future. These can all be potentially different. That is why it may be safer to err on the side of caution and just say nothing. After all, VA does have public contact people at every Regional Office who are trained to answer questions.

Also, I don't have all the facts, evidence, etc that are in the claim file, so I have to be pretty general with my advice, and use lots of qualifiers and disclaimers and other weasel words.

I do want to help. For the most part, the advice that goes back and forth here from veteran to veteran is very good advice, and I have nothing to add. If you notice, I usually chime in for topics that have gone unanswered or deal with "procedural" aspects of the claims process (such as the thread about the STAR review, or how we look at submitted evidence and the importance of highlights and tabs). I have to tread carefully.

I appreciate the welcome, especially since in some cases, some of you have gotten poor treatment from the VA. It makes me feel special, and it's nice to feel special. But I'd like to not be famous if it can be helped. Pride goes before a fall and all that. I will continue to check in here and answer questions and provide some perspective based on my own experience and procedural knowledge, but I need to not be "one of the regulars" if that makes any sense.

[Philip Rogers]

Okay, gotcha! Just wanted you to know it's appreciated, when you do. I'm sure you have other ways you could spend your valuable time.

pr

By commenting here, what I am running the risk of doing is possibly misinforming veterans or confusing them. Even experienced raters can have differences of opinion based on the exact same facts, which is why the VA does "Inter Rater Reliability Studies." I doubt seriously that the VA leadership wants vets to be "lost in the wilderness." However, if I were in their shoes, I wouldn't want some loose cannon out there giving questionable advice. "Well, James Breckenridge told me on hadit.com that my case was a slam dunk grant!" There's what I mean to say, what I should have said, what I actually said, what a potential vet thinks I said, and what the leadership may be afraid I will say in the future. These can all be potentially different. That is why it may be safer to err on the side of caution and just say nothing. After all, VA does have public contact people at every Regional Office who are trained to answer questions.

Also, I don't have all the facts, evidence, etc that are in the claim file, so I have to be pretty general with my advice, and use lots of qualifiers and disclaimers and other weasel words.

I do want to help. For the most part, the advice that goes back and forth here from veteran to veteran is very good advice, and I have nothing to add. If you notice, I usually chime in for topics that have gone unanswered or deal with "procedural" aspects of the claims process (such as the thread about the STAR review, or how we look at submitted evidence and the importance of highlights and tabs). I have to tread carefully.

I appreciate the welcome, especially since in some cases, some of you have gotten poor treatment from the VA. It makes me feel special, and it's nice to feel special. But I'd like to not be famous if it can be helped. Pride goes before a fall and all that. I will continue to check in here and answer questions and provide some perspective based on my own experience and procedural knowledge, but I need to not be "one of the regulars" if that makes any sense.

[Berta]

I sure echo all that has been said here and I am very grateful that James is part of hadit.

He is right about not wanting anyone to say he said this and he said that to the VA.

Once in a while we get posts here whereby the veteran appears to be trying to get some of us to definitively agree with them so in some way they could use the statements from us advocates here - to support their claim.

But in other cases I sure hope they copy the advise here and even share it with their vet reps.

We really only get a small picture of many claims situations here and do our best to advise the veteran with what we know.

James said:

"Also, I don't have all the facts, evidence, etc that are in the claim file, so I have to be pretty general with my advice, and use lots of qualifiers and disclaimers and other weasel words."

I hear you on that one too-we all need to be careful.

That is why I repeat myself a lot particularily when answering a AO claim question.

It would be awful to help a vet-say with CLL - an AO presumptive -with their claim which should be a clear cut no brainer award--assuming exposure--

--then find out down the road they have no proof of exposure to AO at all or haven't been able to prove exposure yet.

I had a vet recently try to get a statement from me due to my experience with FTCA- a statement that would support VA malpractice.

I see no basis for FTCA or 1151 claim at all in his records, and no way would I sign anything saying I did.

Besides what value would a statement like that have to the VA?- none whatsoever.

I respect the position James is in here yet still comes to us from time to time to help.I wish other VA employees would do that.

What a difference it could make if we were all on the same side and the same page.

[broncovet]

One of the "other boards" has 2 or 3 retired Raters, a DRO Officer, and maybe even a current rater. Altho much of the information there is valuable, I could see a definite attitude difference there. The attitude there was that the VA system is just fine, but Veterans are negligent in sending in their paperwork correctly, government employees are overworked, underpaid, etc.

I would like to ask James what he thinks of the Professor Linda Blimes method. If you dont already know, a college professor wrote a paper and, I think, testified to congress, That the VA should simply Pay Vetrans claims, within about 60 days, then audit some, kind of like how the IRS does tax refunds. With the IRS you pretty much get your money right away, but they check your return over thoroughly mostly in the "offseason" and if they smell anything fishy you will be called for an audit.

Professor Blimes suggest that most VA claims are eventually awarded..those that are denied go through an appeal process until they get approved..sometimes for decades.

I am not sure, but I seem to remember that Social Security gives you an answer on your claim in 60 days..approved or denied. It takes the VA at least 3 times that long, and on some even more time is required. VA management complains about the large number of Veterans, but does Social Security and IRS not have lots of people to deal with too? In fact, these agencies have a smaller budget than the VA, but handle a larger number of claims faster than the VA. 25 million Veterans vs about 275 million civilians.