Over the 2 year period of working
the VDBC Commission, there were 2
key areas where I was able to travel
through a real eye-opening experience
as an Activist. One was how the news
media manages to screw up just about
everything it comes in contact with,
and the other was how the VSO's
performed badly overall and even
with that STILL managed to be stuck
at the forefront on recognition
without ever really lifting a finger.

They know this, and perhaps it's
the most telling point of all about
the Veterans Service Organizations
that they don't work and they don't
really do anything for Veterans
specifically because they don't
really have to.

Out of The Big 3, American
Legion was the most missing in action,
followed secondly by Disabled American
Veterans. The most participating
and last in that order was the
Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Navy Veteran Gerry Manar was the face
of VFW, but even he was a Johnny-Come-Lately
of sorts, not really kicking in and
grasping what the Commission authority
was all about until the last and
final months of it's existance.

But Gerry is another Treasure-Trove
of information which is consistent with
all that I've said in past chat blogs
about the blurred lines between
VSO's and the VA itself.

First, let me fairly start with the
fact that Gerry is a college graduate
with a law degree in place. So what
I say next is in the full recognition
and context of the fact that he is
an example of what we have been
advocating for all along, somebody
with a formal legal college background
to head up national claims for Veterans.

But also what goes with this recognition
is that Gerry is the exception and not
the rule. While he is almost always
the public face coming forward at
official procedings as a lawyer and
Veteran, in some ways this is deceptive
because he is but a handful of people
like him who are at the forefront of
VSO representation.

Gerry is just NOW with the VFW. He
retired from the VA agency in 2004.

He was a VA Claims Adjudicator for
12 years, and a "legal consultant"
for the VA Comp and Pen service at
VA Washington DC for 6 years.

Well ...... this pretty much sums
it up, now doesn't it ??

Here he is now spending the past 2 years
with me and the other remaing 50 of
us at the Veterans Disability Commission
hearings only to find out that the
entire system is screwed up, broken
beyond repair, and the worst it has
ever been at this time in history.

And yet THIS is the guy who
the VFW puts at the center of national
TV cameras and microphones to be the
voice for Veterans like you and me.
Yeah RIGHT, I say.

The lines are way way way too much
blurred between the missions of the
VA agency, and the missions of the
Veterans Service Organizations and this
is one more example to prove it.
When you walk into a VSO, ya just
don't know who it is you are dealing
with. There are no consumer laws
protecting Veterans on organizational
disclosures, there are no malpractice
statutes protecting the Veterans
from bungled claims by these guys,
and there is no guarantee that the
guy even knows VA law let alone
anything else and yet we are expected
to blindly walk into these places
and handover our POWER OF ATTORNEY
for all things near and dear to our
own lives just to get a VA disability
claim pushed through.

At what point do Veterans say "We
have had enough on this whole VSO
concept and we want change" ??

The VA for decades over decades, has
been hiring from the bottom of the
barrel for VA Raters, many not even
having a college degree, and now that
there's a crisis in the national claims
backlog, they want to REWARD
these fools by derailing the entire VA
agency mission into a personal university
system just for them alone.

With no college degrees in place, there
is not even any guarantee that beefed
up training would even rescue such a
situation. How do you elevate an idiot
inside of a full blown legal and public
health system? This is a fair question
to know.

Gerry Manar is in some ways, a part of
the deception on VSO's and not really
the ICON of what is true throughout.
So while we hail Gerry's late-coming
revelations in finally coming to the
table of Veterans interests late in
the game, we still want to know why
the Veteran is stuck between the blurred
lines of deception in not knowing
whether they are dealing with a
VA operative or a real activist who
is ready to risk it all in the name
of getting justice for the sick
and injured medical patients.

In this game of Washington activism,
it's only those who dare to cross the
lines who are the winners.

REPLY:

Our experience has been that Vets
are not delivering anything better
inside this system than anyone other
worker. It has become predatory and
self-indulgent. You are talking theory
and hypotheticals, we are talking
"in the know" and how it really is.

A Vet who is bungled and incompetent
with no law or medical background
at all, is the ultimate WORST
that we are getting for results
inside this arena. Survey's have
proven that the most of them
are mental cases themselves, so
what the Hell exactly, are they
doing trying to control the lives
of somebody else ?? Go home I say
and take care of your own limitations.

This crowd at the VSO's are like
old people and drunk people who
think they can drive cars, and
really they can't without killing
everybody else who gets in their
way. This VA / VSO system is the
same exact way. A bunch of self
indulging BlowHards who refuse to
go home and take care of their own
limitations, and then want to
control everybody elses papers
and claims. It all has to stop
so please do see the wisdom in
what we are trying to do.

Today's claims system needs unmedicated,
undisabled, very healthy and agile,
alert, YOUNG, college educated people
who have a sense of charity and a
prideful sense of DUTY. After that, the
system will fix itself.

We can't get caught up in idealist
hypotheticals out here, because
the proof is in the verified nightmares
and the half million Vet cases making
up the bungled up mess of a backlog.

This Blog is not about Gerry Manar
being a Vet. It's about him being
a faker who is the very cause of
why the system is a failure and
then switching sides after his
retirement so he then can bask
in the glory of "pretending" that
he really cares about what happens
to Vets at the hands of his own
bungled policies.

I know Gerry in person, you don't.

Take care.

On this matter I say becareful what you wish for. I do have my degree in Political Science with two minors one is pre-law and the other in HR. The problem I see though is this, would you rather have a college grad with no idea what the miltary is like in there with a degree who has no sympathy for vet, or someone that has military experience and a degree or maybe just formal training. Look if you just ask for a degree what if they give you someone with a degree in basket weaving. I mean havent we learned enough to be more specific about what we request. I agree on most of your points, but have you seen some of the young grads. I mean its a painful truth, but a monkey could get a degree from some colleges. I think a fair request would be a vet with a degree in some type of social science field, or libral arts where they are tought to think. The most important thing being though the vet aspect because without that you just become a number and I for one have had enough of that. I havent noticed in my reading thus far of anyone really gripeing about the rudeness of the people at the call centers. I have been hung on ignored etc. Not to mention that I have dealt with most of the problems as all of you. We all talk on here where its safe, but like another mentioned we all faultor to follow through on our words, and tha my friends is where they get us. We all sit and gripe, but we fail to take actions. I mean yeah sure one or two of us as individuals fight the system, and yeah we win, but then we resume our ususal lives and thats the end. This forum is great, but we should do more. I mean maybe we should form our own agency. Its just the matter of a few tons of paper work, and dedication. I mean it wouldnt cost us anything to start except time. A few web pages. An online newspaper, and a few grants and donoations and boom we have something of our. Then we are the gaurdians of its value and integrity. The time for idle chatter and big words has passed. Maybe its time we stood up and fought for own rights. I know a lot of vets with degrees here in Alabama that have been shafted by the system, and our public, so we have the means the question is do we have the desire to finish what you guys have started here. I'm in I will help anyway I can. If I read something its there forever, so I can be up to speed in however long it takes me to read that U.S.C. Title 38 Code. So lets do it. Lets start something great of our own. We can start where we have people, and start small, and you guys and ladies know vets, word of mouth will take us there. So think about it lets stand up for us all....