Fund Raising for C-123 Veterans' Exposure Efforts

John Riley, Joe Curley and  Andy Lown and are the pointy ends of a fantastically disorganized effort to better fund our C-123 advocacy efforts. My thanks. And my wife's thanks. And my thanks for getting my wife off my back!

Our objective is to spread the $$ pain a bit beyond our house in Fort Collins and share the joy with

others. The funds will be accounted for in a memo to those three august gentlemen, but what is not raised I'll continue to cover myself. It will feel nice to have your help.

What does the money cover? Travel is the single largest bill. One foundation paid for one trip to DC, and the Vietnam Veterans of America paid for another special, last-minute trip which was important, and the rest I covered with the generous help of John, Harris, Arch, Legere, Clancy, Butler and other gentlemen...and a sweet lady from the Rickenbacker outfit. This year will have at least four trips: the Society of Toxicology in Phoenix last week, and three to Washington DC.

The DC trips are a big deal for us. Two will be to meet with the Agent Orange Committee of the Institute of Medicine. Although promised us two years ago at another meeting, this IOM project is underway with formal invitations out to the committee, and their work will be finished by the end of September. I meet with them early on in their deliberations, and again at the very end. The third known meeting is one organized by several senators' staffers who want the VA Compensation and Pension in the same room as the scientists who have been telling them we're exposed and should be treated.

And asking VA serious scientific and legal questions they've been dodging for three years!

Our immediate objective is to at least gain VA concession to approve valid claims between now and the release of the IOM report and the Secretary's reaction, probably around November. Too many of our men and women are in need of VA care now, need their VA disability compensation now, and eight more months waiting is eight more months in greater misery than can be permitted. C&P has to be stopped in their tracks for sending out boilerplate denials, dooming perfectly valid claims.

We also spend bucks on postage, printing, lots of ink and paper, small office equipment like label makers and paper binders...if something logical comes up I spend and if there are no group funds, I'm okay covering the gap. Fact of the matter is: I had my family's partnership in time, attention and money but they signed on for a year or two, but it is now a couple months into the fourth year. I want this wrapped up, you want it wrapped up, and the VA wants us to go away.

With a few bucks in the till, the C-123 veterans won't go quietly into the sunset!

BTW...we need a new chair for The C-123 Veterans Association. Maybe somebody from the flight deck or CAM, and maybe an NCO this time!! The officers aren't used to hard work and we really need a strong back and great mind leading us for a change!

El Jefe's Chores include:
1. creativity...how to move Congress and the VA by pretending to be the mouse that roared, even with fifty cents left in our pockets. For instance, gaining pro bono legal representation for last week's FOIA lawsuits against VA & USAF, and continuing my own claim as our poster child, hoping to get more than just Paul Bailey's to cite as awards short of BVA action. Getting a claim worked before the Court of Claims for Veterans Appeals will be foundational and that help has been offered us by a wonderful group of attorneys!
2. budget...pretending there is some money to do something useful
3. writing...maintain a blog and web presence, plus print items as needed such as speeches, white papers. Keep updating our C-123 iPad book
4. alliance building...we have the VVA, VFW and American Legion behind us, with less formal support from The Reserve Officer Association. Those folks have lobbyists, tacticians, attorneys, experience, we need to tap
5. support gathering...throw a net to get federal and state agencies to issue findings and opinions supporting us, as well as experts from universities; work with researchers
8. work with Senate and House staffs as they pressure VA and USAF for us. Big point...we need more veterans to urge more action from their senators as presently only six gentlemen are carrying our battle in the US Senate and they've asked why others aren't helping, especially from NH, CT and MA where most of our vets retired.

We need somebody besides an AME rep to lead us. Think about it...can you trust this project to an MSC officer, somebody who sleeps the entire mission?  Horrors!

Don't you want to lead our motley crew to victory in this exciting guerilla advocacy program? Someday, this will make very exciting reading in the Washington Post, right Josh?

Man up, somebody, and volunteer to take the helm.

VA Ignores Latest C-123 Veterans's Freedom of Information Request

Our guarantee of information, to help keep us free

VA people.

They must feel like very, very special people. Equal, perhaps, but far more so from their perspective. Exempt from the law, even. Able to decide which laws they will cooperate with, and which they benefit more by ignoring. Yes, very special people, dedicated public servants...at least, dedicated to insuring C-123 veterans are kept away from vital Agent Orange medical treatment.

C-123 veterans filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding all VA materials about the C-123 and Agent Orange...VA correspondence, reports, scientific reviews, emails...and meeting notes from the two occasions in which C-123 vets met face-to-face with VA officials.

Initially VA took no objection as to the scope of the request...meaning they did not challenge the FOIA by exercising any of the nine exemptions in the law (privacy, junior persons's names, classified

information, etc)). However, VA tried to keep the FOIA blocked by demanding over $4500 for the requested materials. We appealed, and at their suggestion reduced the scope of the request to bring the cost down.

Surprise, surprise, surprise! Eventually the VA responded, but denied that any materials exist at all, anywhere. Not even the materials obviously on their Internet pages. So now the VA denies our claims and bases their actions on evidence which VA insists doesn't exist. VA copies language to their regional offices to use in denying C-123 claims...language and instructions to regional offices which doesn't exist.

What I find troubling is the signature on the final VA correspondence assuring C-123 veterans no VA materials exist. It is the signature of an attorney, the VA's assistant general counsel.  Over her signature as a government official, we are assured that our government's guarantee (that's the word the FOIA law uses) of access to information has been kept. Over her signature, we are assured that the Freedom of Information, which the President, Supreme court and the Congress all say is an important element of American democracy, has been complied with in response to our request. This makes me so very concerned, because what is going on to lead these VA officials to take such a stance against us?

Next step, United States District Court in Portland Oregon.

USAF Cheats on FOIA Response - then USAF Demands Return of FOIA Response

What a comedy of errors! The C-123 Veterans Association submitted an FOIA in August 2012 for everything associated with the Air Force C-123 Consultative Letter. That letter was a messed-up analysis of the aircraft's contamination and twisted conclusion that veterans somehow were not exposed to Agent Orange.

The request was approved completely – documentation, correspondence, recordings, emails...everything was to be released within the required response time of 20 days. What we got, however, after waiting 347 days, was a CD loaded with a bunch of decades-old records and a single page related to the massive study - and not even a copy of that study! That's not good, because the Freedom of Information Act assures us that citizens have a right to this information, and the FOIA is an important cornerstone of American democracy, according to the Congress, the Supreme Court and the President. Hey, Air Force - its the law!

But apparently not an important enough law to the folks at Wright-Patterson AFB. They feel free to delay as they wish, and to withhold information as they wish, even about this 60-year-old warplane. Apparently, something in the issue embarrasses the Air Force in some way, or there is something which needs being covered up (from their perspective) and that (from their perspective) makes it perfectly okay to sneer at our rights.

But the joke - FOIA officials at Wright-Patterson AFB almost immediately demanded RETURN of their CD. Seems they inadvertently included a full page of civilian employees' Social Security numbers. The same error as I'd pointed out to them two years ago, but this time we'd posted the CD of information before we noticed their problem (and immediately informed the 88th FOIA officials, of course) so it was out for all the world to see, and now AF has to find those employees and do a big mea culpa.