This is kind of a supplemental chat
to add onto the one posted below
under the VSO's Generally Forum.

Following up on my odessey with the
American Legion and a single effort
I made to orchestrate their transition
and takeover of the Fort McClellan
Veterans patient group for the
final phase of VDBC implementation,
I found a handful of screwups and
bungles and got exposed real fast
to the inner workings of American
Legion, and perhaps, the best reasons
of all for the Legion to get completely
out of disability claims altogether.

As indicated in my chat below, I
found most of the Legion, at least
as it pertains here to the Albany
NY offices, to be overrun with old
white men who refuse to go home.
Finding anyone at all who is younger
than 70 years old was a problem.

I was handed off first from one
old guy, to another and so on,
and nobody knew anything or how
to do anything inside the system.
I spent much of my time catching
all of THEM up to speed on the
VDBC and what not, and then advising
THEM on the what was coming up
and not yet announced. There was
nobody with the insiders take
on the national arena, and then
as I got farther into my efforts
with them, it became clearer
why this was so.

Old white men, for your information,
never attends a meeting with a
notebook and pen in hand. They
try to do everything, everything,
and EVERYTHING by verbal communications
and MEMORY which is the
worst possibly way to work in this
national veterans environment.

Consider the fact that when I
go to House and Senate hearings
where there are other Veterans
services professionals in the
room, they DO know enough to
bring the pen and paper because
there are too many small details
that nobody can accurately keep
track of by working from the
tops of their heads. I take
stellar notes myself and work
from those when I return from
a trip.

But coming into the American Legion,
it's like a nursing home with
no pen and paper. Nobody writes
anything down, and yet everybody
talks and talks like they are
a big authority on everything.

The Fort McClellan issue is complex.
I had a 1 hour meeting with them
and then another half hour meeting
with them, and not one person
in the room lifted a pen to write
everything down.

They were given a handout and then
were given several follow up documents
by Email SCAN. They were given my
contact information, and I only
live a 10 minute walk from there
offices.

From November to March, here is
what I got from the Legion.

Starting right off, they publish
a Blue Book Directory of themselves
which I was handed. But over the
meetings we found that nearly
half of all the contact information
listed in this Blue Book was not
even up to date. Email addresses
were NOT kept up, and personnel
changes inside of the Legion
bureacracy were not up to date either.

So even when they gave me a
referral to another office, I had
to sit for nearly 20 minutes
while they called around to different
people to confirm the Blue Book
listing, which was almost always
wrong in the end.

Starting here in Albany where
I live, I was then fingerpointed
to the Washington DC HQ office.
When I got to DC, then they
were all flabbergasted and said,
NO this goes back to the LOCAL
office and they start this issue
from there.

As outlined in my chat below, I
then went on to have a 2 hour
with HQ which was totally unplanned.

When I brought the information
back to Albany that THEY were to
work the situation at Local
and NOT HQ, I was then told
they had an "annual meeting"
coming up and at that time,
a RESOLUTION would be made
to take over the Fort McClellan
group and their final stage
legislative implementation.

I thought at this point, we
were on Firm Footing with the
direction of the transition.
I continued to move in transition
papers to them by Email and
other update papers so they
could compile a file and get
everything packaged the way
they wanted.

Silence went on for the next
few months up until March. Not
one phone call to my house,
not one email in my internet
box, not one letter. Nothing.

The annual meeting came and
went, as it was publicized locally
here in the news media.

I started contacting them again,
"How did it go?" says I.

More silence and more nothing at
all.

Finally I packed my gear and
went in over there. Keeping in
mind here that during the earlier
meetings I had with them, it was
a point of emphasis by me that
we had critically sick Veterans
in our group who could not eat
TIME DELAY which was the very
reason I was coming to them.
I needed EMERGENCY assistance
and this was repeated to them
time and time again. "Yup" they
said so I presumed they all
heard that time was of the
essence.

So here we are now, I walk in
after all these months pass,
and the Receptionist immediately
draws a BLANK. She personally
had handled all of the Legion
RESOLUTIONS and Fort McClellan
was nowhere in the pile. I was
Freaking LIVID!!!

I said: "I thought I made myself
clear here that Veterans were
near death in my group and that
we were in a hurry to get this
done." She continues typing on
her computer like she could care
less and said, well I am quite
sure this was NOT in the Resoultion
pile. I waited 10 minutes for
my contact guy to appear.

He comes out and I confront him
with "what is going on exactly"?

He says "Well I thought somebody
sent an email to you. You have
to take this issue down to Jamestown
NY office. That is where they will
work your issue."

I said: "HUH?? This is NOT what
HQ said, don't you get it here that
there is no time, I have really
really sick Veterans in my group
who are in Critical Care!"

The guy's name is Alton Carpenter
who I am having this little chat
from Hell with.........

He says: "Isn't there some other
organization right down there in
Alabama who can do this? We have
all we can do to handle our own
members who pay dues."

I say: "I already gave to you the
letter response from DAV in your
transition file that they were
incompetent and had refused to
handle the issue PRIOR to us getting
our VDBC ruling. Didn't you read
that file or write anything down
so you can keep track of our
meetings?"

He says: "Look, all I know is we
are not going to be doing anything
here and you will have to take
this whole thing down to Jamestown."

I say: "Yeah Right! Me without a
car and that's at least a 3 hour
drive from here."

Silence as I stand there with my
crutches.

The truth is everybody, had I gone
to Jamestown NY, then I would
have drawn a second set of BLANK
faces like I did in Washington.
He was just sending me on a Rat
Chase to Nowhere, hoping that along
the way somebody else would help
us and NOT the Albany office.

What you are looking at in motion
here here is the royal buffoonish
DISCONNECT[ that goes
on with American Legion all the time.

They have this HUGE bureacracy in
place, all of it is preoccupied
with their very own wheel-spinning
and in the end, entire groups
of Veterans do NOT get
helped.

This is not the very first Odessey
that I have been on with VSO's.
But it may very well be the last.

In the time wasted trying to get
American Legion up OFF it's dumb
and lazy ass to work for this
Fort McClellan group, I can just
continue running back and forth
to Washington DC and work Capitol
Hill and get more out of them
in terms of legislation.

What really frosted my bra in this
one was the mental and psychological
DISMISSAL and refusal to answer
to the need of other Critical Care
Veterans who I represent in this
group. It was exactly like confronting
the VA agency itself.

No communications, just silence. NO
note taking at the meetings, which
is then followed by fingerpointing
and LOST IN SPACE about the details
of the situation.

This speaks volumes about how things
are run internally. If they held
meetings after I left on the issue
itself, then not one of them likely
even spoke on the issue with competence
since nobody bothered to take any
notes. Nor did anyone even bother
to read or print out the SCAN
documents which were later sent
by email.

There is no way for sick Veterans
to WIN inside the American Legion
unless you are a LIFE member and
paying money to them through the
nose. It's all about payments
and bureacracy and holding onto
PROCESS, no matter how murderous
that outcome is to the waiting Veterans.

So I rest my case to all of you
here, that the days of American
Legion doing either claims or
claims legislation, are going to
be numbered if I have anything at
all to say about it at the Justice
Department.


At the American Legion, it's all about THEM !!
Somebody please show to me
where this is Different from the VA agency
itself!!!