RE: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,168739,00.html

You don't have to be "for or against" the specific details of the elimination of the Blue Water Navy earned combat benefits... even if it is highly discriminatory and counter to logic and science. However, you DO need to consider the implication of what will be set as a precedent for the Department of Veterans Affairs to come along, after the fact, and carve out a particular segment of a veteran population and announce that their benefits will be different (less) than the benefits of all other participants of an armed conflict. I personally have no confidence that the VA will refrain from abusing this new power given to them if this historical ruling remains in their favor. If you think you have a beef about some aspect of VA benefits now, just wait until they start picking and choosing how much and to whom they will be providing benefits to in the future. This ruling will be appealed, but the only sure way to eliminate this problem is passage of legislation, such as the Agent Orange Fair Compensation Act which can be found at http://www.bluewaternavy.org/pressclub1.htm and should be sent to every Senator and Representative for immediate introduction to each Congressional floor. The treatment and care of our veterans has been going straight downhill lately, and the VA certainly doesn't need this kind of encouragement to think up new ways to abuse veteran rights.

The VA is doing everything in its power to eliminate the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans from their rights to benefits under the Agent Orange Act. THey have taken the AO ACT and determined that the ACT applies to those who step on ground only-even though the ACT does not state this. This was a decision of the VA. Now they are trying to rewrite their manuel to exclude the BWN. Blue Water Sailors have suffered as much or more from AO effects as other soldiers. IT is hard for those who were on ships to understand why they could drink water made by contaiminated water, work on ships that have stores that may have been contaminated, seen AO spray drift over them and other things to cause exposure and not still not receive benefits. The real answer lies in the amount of money the VA will have to pay these BWN sailors. Even they admit it will cost millions to pay the benefits to BWN vets if they approve benefits. Do they ask the intent of the law when it was written?? NO! The VA just decides on its own what it wants to do and they don't want to pay BWN. They have even gone as far as to include Brown Water Navy in the Haas stay. They say one sailor on a ship gets benefits, but that others on the ship couldn't have been exposed at the same time. Each case is based on its own merit. Yet their own citations are ignored by the VA. It is a sad day for all those BWN Vietnam Vets who did not asked to be exposed to dangerous herbicides and now suffer from dibilitating conditions. They do not receive benefits, they have high medical bills that are not paid for by the VA, their medical situation causes financial hardships and many have died, waiting on the government to pay them the benefits they are owed. IT is time for the Legislature to pass the AGENT ORANGE FAIR COMPENSATION ACT which will provide for the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Vets to receive benefits. Everyone should go to www.bluewaternavy.org/pressclub1.htm and send a copy of this Act to your Congressmember and Senator-asking them to introduce and support this ACT!

KEEP THE VETERANS FIRST!

A Brief History of the Veterans Administration:

In the beginning of the Republic, not surprisingly, the care of war veterans in the states came primarily from their own families, and only here and there from State or Community provided hospitals and retirement homes. From the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, and the Mexican Border period, things remained pretty much the same. This was true mainly because, considering the state of Medical Care at those times, and with the exception of the carnage produced by the Civil War, the number of the survivors was relatively small.

As medical science improved, things began to chance until, just before the end of World War I, Congress established a new system of veterans benefits. America became one of the first nations to begin programs for disability compensation, insurance for servicemen and veterans, and vocational rehabilitation for the wounded and disabled. By the 1920s, the various benefits were administered by three different Federal agencies: the Veterans Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions of the Interior Department, and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. The Veterans Administration was established in 1930, when Congress authorized the consolidation of government activities regarding War Veterans, and those three agencies became 'bureaus' within the VA.

Remember that word, 'bureau', it's gonna come up again shortly.

After WWII, the VA had 16,996 Central Office staff, (read Washington) and 54,689 'Field' staff. (read, Hospital staff, branch office Disability, Compensation, Education, Home Loan, and other staff) Two years later, after General Omar Bradley took over, the Central Office staff rose to 22,008, and the 'Field' staff increased to 96,047. Think about that; after WWII and Korea, more than 22 million veterans, two-and-a-half to three million of whom were wounded or disabled, were cared for by 164,000 odd VA staff.

In 2005, the latest figure I can find, (the VA has gotten a lot more careful about publishing staff numbers) the Dept. of Veterans Affairs has a combined staff of 213,417 positions. That's Table of Organization slots; it's anybody's guess how many are actually filled, but lets take that as read and go with it.

Again, as nearly as I can find, there are about 15 million veterans of war still alive, of which about 1.5 million are wounded or disabled. (Let me be clear: every single current number I could find had an asterisk, a superscript, or a footnote after it. I believe that Live War Veterans number as overstated to very overstated. I'm also taking that Wounded or Disabled figure as understated to very understated. Maybe even Severely Understated.)

So the way I figure here, and I think I'm in the ball park, the current Department of Veterans Affairs has a quarter to a third MORE staff to handle a quarter LESS veterans than existed after War Two and Korea, and about HALF the number of wounded or disabled veterans. And that's not counting the 4 to 6 hundred-thousand APPLICATIONS that are currently waiting to be processed. (with an admitted half-year, and actual 12 to 14 month delay in processing, yet!)

Note: For those of you with a really cynical and twisted sense of humor, check out the DVA's webpage titled: Mission, Vision, Core Values & Goals (I found it while digging around for figures.) Under Mission Statement, it quotes President Lincoln's simple, declarative sentence from his 2nd Inaugural Address; "To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan."

Then, in a perfect example of the current problem with the DVA, the rest of the page goes into 12 paragraphs, bulleted lists, and line items; in graduated fonts in descending order, of the most incredible lawyer-speak, bureaucratese, and hyper-politically-correct verbiage I've ever had the misfortune to try to read. You just know some mid-level VA policy wonk spend a month of his time, and god knows how many man-hours of his (or his staff's) time coming up with this drivel.

We are a reduced, pathetic generation, I fear.

A Brief Discussion on Bureaucracies: (and Quick Lesson on Monkey Wrenches and Reduction Gears)

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: States that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. 

The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Clearly, and particularly since it was raised to a 'Cabinet Level Department' (the only one which has a discretionary budget!), the Department of Veterans Affairs qualifies as a Bureaucracy, or as an 'Institution' as they prefer to be called. As such, has it ever occurred to you to wonder why it is so different from, say, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, or the Department of Defense, or even the Department of Transportation?

It is, you know.

Invariably, each of the other three example departments seeks to increase it's funding and control over it's stated purpose, every single year. Somehow, the DVA under-budgets itself consistently. Somehow, even it's most socialist-leaning management or executive level bureaucrat limits him- or herself to creating new and intricate rules and regulations, but somehow avoids seeking the expansion of their budgetary requirements.

The DVA is, I believe a special case of Dr. Pournelle's Iron Law in the following way.

After WWII and Korea, it was almost unthinkable for an employee of the VA not have served in one or another of the services branches. Hell, you couldn't even get elected dog-catcher unless you were a veteran, much less a Senator, Congressman, or most especially a President of the United States. The Boss of the VA was almost always a retired General or Admiral, or at least a combat veteran. Thus, the VA at that time almost exclusively consisted of the first kind of people mentioned in the Iron Law. They did indeed fashion sometimes arbitrary rules and regulations, but their direct aim was to serve those in President Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural, "him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan."

This situation lasted pretty much up to the beginning of the Vietnam 'Conflict'. At that point, the VA began getting appointments and 'lateral transfers' of non-veteran MBA types under Johnson, Nixon, and that spineless, micro-managing weasel Carter.

Worst. President. EVER! But I digress...

Anyway, this accounts for the beginning of the appearance of the Iron Law's 'second type of people; those who work for the organization itself', and they began the process of gaining control of the VA, and writing the rules under which it began to serve itself and it's masters, Congress and the President. It is here, serving these 'Masters', that the DVA becomes a special case of the Iron Law.

Instead of formulating rules and regulations designed to serve the veteran, his widow and his orphan, this second type of person began writing them to REDUCE the number of those served by the VA. Step by step, incrementally, rules were made to 'carefully screen and qualify them so that each veteran's claim was validated'. Bit by bit, these college-educated MBA bean-counters added hobble after hobble, hoop after hoop for a veteran must jump through to receive the benefits and compensation he justly earned by his service. Thus, unlike ANY OTHER Department in the Executive Branch, the way to get ahead in the DVA is to REDUCE the COST, and therefore the BUDGET of this department.

That's why I call it a 'Special Case' of the Iron Law.

An Aside: Wouldn't it be interesting to check the curriculum vita of the Assistant- and Under-Secretaries, the Councils and the Ratings Board members, the Middle and Upper Management types? Wanna bet how many of them went to college from '68 through the '70's? Ever wonder how many of them would show up as former members of the 'Students for a Democratic Society' or some other Anti-Vietnam War Protest group? With the Internet, and a little digging, who knows what might turn up? Just a 'Monkey Wrench' thought.

While this slowed during Reagan's 1st and 2nd terms, and Bush the elder's, the fall of the Soviet Union and the 'Peace Dividend' during Clinton's 1st and 2nd terms accelerated the process amazingly. The Iron Law's 'second type of person' was riding high, and things were going swimmingly for the 'second type of person' happily ensconced in the bowels of the DVA.

Right up to September 11, 2001.

And now, for the first time in recorded history, an opportunity arises to drop the proverbial Monkey Wrench into the Reduction Gears of the DVA's (and the Executive and Legislative Branch's) Ship of State. The first three dropped wrenches, oddly enough, were provided by the administration itself.

Wrench 1: Abysmal Planning

President George W. Bush, his 'old school' Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and that canny old pol Dick Cheney came out half-stepping and dropped the ball planning for the number of injured and wounded veterans once the War on Terror hit high gear. While the Army and Naval Medical Corps managed to produce new miracles of in-theater treatment of war wounds, saving more lives of the soldiers and sailors actually fighting the war than ever before, the DVA's bloated bureaucracy choked and crashed almost immediately. Surprisingly, the Media jumped on the Walter-Reed Army Hospital Scandal on the veterans side, and stories about the DVA's inability to transition and serve wounded veterans from the Military to VA hospitals and treat them became a drumbeat felt at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Wrench 2: Shoddy Secretarial Appointments to the Department of Veterans Affairs

President Bush appointed two successive 'stellar fund-raiser' Secretary's of Veterans Affairs, both of whom were incompetent to the point of embarrassment. Secretary Nicholson was snatched from his cushy appointment as Ambassador to the Vatican and tossed (screaming, I suspect) into the top slot of a Department that was already coming apart at the seams. He spent a year or two desperately paddling in place—muddying the waters but not much else—while a liberal Media took desultory pot-shots at him as they reflexively tried to make Bush look bad. (For their own purposes, this is beginning to blow-back on the Media, as the Red-State majority constituency begins to pick up on the fact that their heroes, previous and current, are being treated like crap.) 
Wrench 3: Losing Consistently (and Shamefully) in the Courts. 

The DVA is losing it's cases in the Courts. In fact, not only are they losing, they are being shamed in open court. Case in point: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals states that "The performance of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has contributed substantially to our sense of national shame."

Now that's a Hell of a quote. But wait, there's more!

"Three different Congresses in three different decades have enacted legislation signed by three different presidents, designed to ensure the payment of such benefits to veterans afflicted with Agent Orange-related ailments," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the court's opinion. "We would hope that this litigation will now end, that our government will now respect the legal obligations it undertook in the consent decree some 16 years ago, that obstructionist bureaucratic opposition will now cease, and that our veterans will finally receive the benefits to which they are morally and legally entitled," Reinhardt wrote.

Yeah, I know. Not Likely ...

But I just love that quote, right there in front of God and everybody in open Court and written right there in the decision. I do find that satisfying. Does that make me bad?

Wrench 4: Us, the Veterans. ALL the Veterans.

I said we, the veterans; past, present, and future, have an opportunity AND THE OBLIGATION to do something never accomplished in recorded history. I propose to DISASSEMBLE the smoking disaster of a bureaucracy the Department of Veterans Affairs has become, melt it down, and re-build it to work the way it should. We know it is possible, it has been done before by General Bradley. We must DEMAND, with the power of the FRANCHISE, that this Government live up to its responsibilities, declared and implied, to ALL the veterans of ALL wars. 

And now, to torture this wrench metaphor I'm fascinated with beyond all reason:

I stand here with all of us, tossing this 14 inch, tool-steel spanner up and down as I contemplate where and how it can be used do the most good.

A wrench can be used as a weapon, but remember; it is DESIGNED as a TOOL. It is a lever, used to 'persuade' recalcitrant nuts and bolts. It can be used to adjust or disassemble a cranky mechanism, or to build and tune an smooth, effective one. Used carelessly or maliciously, it can be dropped or tossed into the works, and destroy a mechanism. Used correctly and effectively, one can create a dream from it's component parts.

In case I haven't been clear enough, the wrench as I'm using the term here, is the franchise. The Vote. The rock-bottom origin of all power in democratic government. We veterans, whatever the number, are small in relation to the number of citizens of this country, but each of us have fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives, and children. We are a family, and an extended one. If we manage to persuade our loved ones and our friends of the justice and righteousness of this cause, no corporation, no bureaucracy, no GOVERNMENT can withstand us.

(Whew! I maybe got a little carried away there ... Or, maybe NOT!

ExIntrepid

Tom,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the article you wrote in Military. com about the problems we Blue Water Navy Vet's are having concerning us getting compensation and treatment for our Agent Orange exposure. It is a tough fight but with people like you behind us we will win.

This is fight that is not only important to us, but to to every member of the military whether they are active or not. We can see the foreshadow of this coming for everyone when you the hear the head of the VA say that PTSD is being overblown and military personnel that suffer concussions because of explosive devices aren't really hurt that bad.

These statements coming from the head person of the VA and the ex head of the VA Hospital that had all the problems should make all of us be vigilant and on guard and to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Thank you for the article in Military.com. I'm a BWN. I served aboard the USS Constellation WesPac 1964. I now have prostrate cancer. No prostrate but still have the cancer. About a year and a half after they removed the prostrate they radiated me for two months. I still have a small PSA reading. There is no history of Prostrate Cancer in my family on either side. I'm the only member of my family to have served in the US Navy.
As an added insult: The doctor that removed the prostrate told me he got it all. Then he left the VA for private practice. Everytime I went to VA after that they would do a PSA test and I always had a reading. I finally asked a Dr why would I still have a reading if they removed the cause and told me they got it all. I was informed at that time they had left a small amount on my uretha tube. Then and only then did they decide I needed to be nuked. It's been a hell of a ride. Thanks for letting me sound off also.

Well I don't know what I can add after reading Exintrepid's brilliant post except thanks Tom for printing our story.May the wind be always at your back and the seas ahead calm.

This is a scary situation. I could see the VA 20yrs later saying to Gulf War veterans. Their is no such findings of Gulf War syndrome. Then move forward to strip every Gulf War vet from their disability. This would leave thousands if not hundred of thousands of Gulf War vets who depend on their compensation homeless. If this happend to these vets it surely can happen to anyone of us. Let's get are elected officials on the job now supporting this Agent Orange Fair Compensation Act. Let's face it we all can be next.

**** happens! Drinking water from bomb craters and jungle streams is probably why I was diagnosed with prostate cancer just a year ago.

Humping the boonies on recon-in force and search and destroy ops can be hazardous to your health... but we knew that.

God didn't make us to live forever, either!

Forty years thereafter, there is no settlement on the issue, and the problem hangs heavily over our heads. What the VA hopes is that we die and our families and children will forget about what we endured, and then the government will be free of the "burden" that that they so righteously owe the veterans.

It never changes. Send those billions to some other country, go support some pork barrel issue, but don't do the right thing for those suffering as a result of sending your own people to war. Funny how the government can legislate ad nauseum on something they know thay are dead wrong about, yet spend all that money on other projects without a seond thought?

Next they'll be saying there are no war casualties nor disabilities, much as some PTSD sufferers are being told right now. It's just a figment of your imagination and we're not helping one bit.....