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Here are the graves where they sleep – these martyrs in American uniforms who were victims of the cruelest mass atrocities in our country's history.

Here are the crosses, the broken, charred, weather-beaten, rotted patches of pitiful wood – unmarked and unnumbered – that are scattered helter-skelter over the grass-covered mounds where at last, free of misery beyond human endurance, each man shares his final resting place with his comrades.

Here is their Calvary, these grass-grown slopes with the paths which dying men trod up to the graveyard with their lifeless burdens – paths up which soon-to-be-dead-men carried the unlettered crosses that now mark their own graves.

Here are the covered dugouts where, safe from sun and rain, the Japanese sentries thumbed triggers and their machine-guns and laughed at the living skeletons who wearily scooped out the shallow graves in which they were to lie.

Beer bottles are still there – beer bottles from which the Japanese drank while Americans and Filipinos fell to the ground gasping from thirst. Yellowed butts from their cigarettes are still there, and cans from which they ate while their prisoners collapsed from hunger.

It will take some days to determine the final ghastly toll of the dead in this prison camp where the men of Bataan lie.

Today alone, I counted the graves of more than 3,500 Filipinos and several hundred Americans.

There are the names of some of the Bataan heroes who came to the end of the road on these slopes – a few names on crosses and a few on metal identifications attached to broken crosses and thrown carelessly into clumps of grass by Japanese sightseers.

You read American and Filipino names – names that still can't be announced because of the possibility their families have not been notified.

There is the name of a private of the 71st Philippine infantry regiment who died May 19, 1942. There is the name of a Janesville, Wis., tank-man who died in the summer of 1942. There are the names of boys from Hartford, Conn., from New York City, and from Pennsylvania towns.

Camp O'Donnell, formerly an American army installation and afterward the barracks for a Philippines division, stands on the grass-covered, uncultivated western Tarlac plains, a few miles from the Purple Zambales mountain range.

It was here that the Death March from Bataan ended in April of 1942. Prisoners were marched from Bataan to San Fernando with only scraps of food and those who fell by the wayside were bayoneted or shot. The sick, starved, thirsty, wounded men were forced to march northward to this camp. In O'Donnell, the real torment began.

Today the only buildings standing are those formerly occupied by the Japanese commandant and prison guards.

Most of the Filipinos were released, by September, 1942. Later, in a gesture of friendship, the Japanese puppet Republic of the Philippines was inaugurated.

The other buildings on the treeless slope were burned down, most of them apparently some time ago, but one was still smoldering when we arrived. All that remains is ashes and triple strands of barbed wire that surrounded each small weather-beaten gray-black shack where the prisoners were crowded together and slept on the floor.

The camp area was surrounded by double fences of barbed wire while around the Japanese quarters were circular dugouts with fire-ports pointing in all directions and barbed wire with tin cans tied to the strands to give warning if the prisoners attempted to attack.

From the Filipinos who were released, we already have the story of a deliberate program of starving prisoners to death. Crosses marking the graves show that some, already terribly weakened in the battle of Bataan, gave up the fight early while others, already human skeletons with each bone showing through near transparent skin, clung grimly to life for over two years The prisoners had no medicine. Emaciated and suffering from malnutrition, they fell, easy victims to disease.

Much of their working time must have been taken up with digging graves, fifteen feet long, sixteen feet wide and only eighteen inches deep in which five bodies were laid crosswise.

Too weakened to do any unnecessary digging – or perhaps feeling that even in death each man's body should not touch his neighbor – the prisoners left foot-long piles of earth projecting toward the center of the grave from the head and from the foot of each scooped out hole that now shelters an American or Filipino.

The Japanese obviously attempted to conceal evidence of their crimes. In addition to burning buildings which had housed the prisoners, and thus destroying any torture instruments that may have existed, they set fire to grass in the Filipino graveyard and most of the crosses were burned destroying records. They apparently hoped the American graveyard which is across a dirt road from the main camp would go unnoticed and accordingly allowed grass, weeds and tall reeds to grow to heights up to ten feet.

We sighted the American burial ground only when the wind blew back the reeds giving us a glimpse of a white monument. A path leads there from the ashes of the huts.

The site is so overgrown that it is impossible even to tell the size of the cemetery but is appears to be about 100 by 150 yards with the grass covered grave mounds separated from each other by about a foot. It is a mass of tangled graves completely untended and some graves are still unfilled.

The monument is a seven foot cross made of white cement and on the base of it in barely readable letters is inscribed: “In Memory of the American dead - O'Donnell War Personnel Enclosure."

The wooden crosses are made of laths, two feet long by one foot wide and fastened together with two rusted nails. The crosses had apparently been ripped from the graves which they marked and thrown deliberately into the underbrush. A few of them had identification tags attached to the nails and were lying nearby.

These crosses appeared to have been broken off as if torn from the earth. There were other crosses too, fifty newer ones lying awaiting victims near the monument which the Japanese built in memory of the helpless men they deliberately killed.

A large white monument arising from a twenty foot base with a low stone wall around it, attracted us to the Filipino burial ground a quarter of a mile across the fields from the main camp. Here some effort had been made to keep track of the total victims of Japan's “Greater East Asia” program. The graves were in sections numbered in Roman characters. There were thirty sections, each four rows deep and up to fifteen plots wide. The whole covering more than a quarter of a mile in depth.

“The officers' section” with individual graves is in front of the monument on which is written in Filipino: “In deep remembrance of the Filipinos who died in this place. The whole hearted thoughts of their friends and comrades are with them.”

Beyond the monument are row after row of common unmarked graves covered with burnt grass and each holding bodies of five Filipinos.

Several large graves were unfilled and besides one there were the wooden handles of two stretchers which were charred but not destroyed by fire.

It was easy to picture the living ghosts of men staggering out of the barracks with the bodies of their comrades who escaped from this tortured hell in death during the night and stumbling down the long, now, charred duck-board path, past the well kept Jap latrines, through the ten foot high wooden Jap “tori” gate, up past the monument and on across the field to the latest grave where the uncoffined remains were laid and dirt shoveled in the still faces.

In the ashes of a burned building we found three old style fire rusted helmets of the type Americans wore on Bataan. We found one battered American canteen cup, and one piece of leather from a shoe.

Those and the graves and the ashes and the monument which the imperial Jap army built and the one constructed by the Filipino soldiers were all that were left to tell of the terror and the torture and the torment...

Those things and one other. On one cross in the Filipino cemetery – a cross larger than most – was carved: “Men have died so that their country may live and only those who are willing to die...”

The sentence stops there where death stayed the hand of the man who was willing to die so his country might live.

*********************************

I was a Filipino soldier.

A soldier of MacArthur.

My denim pants were short cut

My helmet made from a coconut

And the Japs killed us each day.

D'you think it was that easy

To be a soldier of MacArthur?

The coffee was weak and cold

The rice was moldy and old

and all for five pesos a day.

Annonymous.....

Clark Lee was an AP reporter who was on Bataan, before being evacuated to Australia. Lee was one of the few reporters who visited the front lines. Lee wrote a book titled, "They Call It the Pacific."

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The Pentagon Breaks the Islam Taboo

By Paul Sperry, Front Page Magazine, December 14, 2005

Washington's policy-makers have been careful in the war on terror to distinguish between Islam and the terrorists. The distinction has rankled conservatives who see scarce difference.

A little-noticed speech by President Bush in October gave them some hope. In a major rhetorical shift, he described the enemy as "Islamic radicals" and not just "terrorists," although he still denies that radicalism has anything to do with their religion.

Now for the first time, a key Pentagon intelligence agency involved in homeland security is delving into Islam's holy texts to answer whether Islam is being radicalized by the terrorists or is already radical. Military brass want a better understanding of what's motivating the insurgents in Iraq and the terrorists around the globe, including those inside America who may be preparing to strike domestic military bases. The enemy appears indefatigable, even more active now than before 9/11.

Are the terrorists really driven by self-serving politics and personal demons? Or are they driven by religion? And if it's religion, are they following a manual of war contained in their scripture?

Answers are hard to come by. Four years into the war on terror, U.S. intelligence officials tell me there are no baseline studies of the Muslim prophet Muhammad or his ideological or military doctrine found at either the CIA or Defense Intelligence Agency, or even the war colleges.

But that is slowly starting to change as the Pentagon develops a new strategy to deal with the threat from Islamic terrorists through its little-known intelligence agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity or CIFA, which staffs hundreds of investigators and analysts to help coordinate Pentagon security efforts at home and abroad. CIFA also supports Northern Command in Colorado, which was established after 9/11 to help military forces react to terrorist threats in the continental United
States.

Dealing with the threat on a tactical and operational level through counterstrikes and capture has proven only marginally successful. Now military leaders want to combat it from a strategic standpoint, using informational warfare, among other things. A critical part of that strategy involves studying Islam, including the Quran and the hadiths, or traditions of Muhammad.

"Today we are confronted with a stateless threat that does not have at the strategic level targetable entities: no capitals, no economic base, no military formations or installations," states a new Pentagon briefing paper I've obtained. "Yet political Islam wages an ideological battle against the non-Islamic world at the tactical, operational and strategic level. The West's response is focused at the tactical and operation level, leaving the strategic level -- Islam -- unaddressed."

So far the conclusions of intelligence analysts assigned to the project, who include both private contractors and career military officials, contradict the commonly held notion that Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked or distorted by terrorists. They've found that the terrorists for the most part are following a war-fighting doctrine articulated through Muhammad in the Quran, elaborated on in the hadiths, codified in Islamic or sharia law, and reinforced by recent interpretations or fatwahs.

"Islam is an ideological engine of war (Jihad)," concludes the sensitive Pentagon briefing paper. And "no one is looking for its off switch."

Why? One major reason, the briefing states, is government-wide "indecision [over] whether Islam is radical or being radicalized."

So, which is it? "Strategic themes suggest Islam is radical by nature," according to the briefing, which goes on to cite the 26 chapters of the Quran dealing with violent jihad and the examples of the Muslim prophet, who it says sponsored "terror and slaughter" against unbelievers.

"Muhammad's behaviors today would be defined as radical," the defense document says, and Muslims today are commanded by their "militant" holy book to follow his example. It adds: Western leaders can no longer afford to overlook the "cult characteristics of Islam."

It also ties Muslim charity to war. Zakat, the alms-giving pillar of Islam, is described in the briefing as "an asymmetrical war-fighting funding mechanism." Which in English translates to: combat support under the guise of tithing. Of the eight obligatory categories of disbursement of Muslim charitable donations, it notes that two are for funding jihad, or holy war. Indeed, authorities have traced millions of dollars received by major jihadi terror groups like Hamas and al-Qaida back to Saudi and other foreign Isamic charities and also U.S. Muslim charities, such as the Holy Land Foundation.

According to the Quran, jihad is not something a Muslim can opt out of. It demands able-bodied believers join the fight. Those unable -- women and the elderly -- are not exempt; they must give "asylum and aid" (Surah 8:74) to those who do fight the unbelievers in the cause of Allah.

In analyzing the threat on the domestic front, the Pentagon briefing draws perhaps its most disturbing conclusions. It argues the U.S. has not suffered from scattered insurgent attacks -- as opposed to the concentrated and catastrophic attack by al-Qaida on 9-11 -- in large part because it has a relatively small Muslim population. But that could change as the Muslim minority grows and gains more influence.

The internal document explains that Islam divides offensive jihad into a "three-phase attack strategy" for gaining control of lands for Allah. The first phase is the "Meccan," or weakened, period, whereby a small Muslim minority asserts itself through largely peaceful and political measures involving Islamic NGOs -- such as the Islamic Society of North America, which investigators say has its roots in the militant Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslim pressure groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose leaders are on record expressing their desire to Islamize America.

In the second "preparation" phase, a "reasonably influential" Muslim minority starts to turn more militant. The briefing uses Britain and the Netherlands as examples.

And in the final jihad period, or "Medina Stage," a large minority uses its strength of numbers and power to rise up against the majority, as Muslim youth recently demonstrated in terrorizing France, the Pentagon paper notes.

It also notes that unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam advocates expansion by force. The final command of jihad, as revealed to Muhammad in the Quran, is to conquer the world in the name of Islam. The defense briefing adds that Islam is also unique in classifying unbelievers as "standing enemies against whom it is legitimate to wage war."

Right now political leaders don't understand the true nature of the threat,\ it says, because the intelligence community has yet to educate them. They still think Muslim terrorists, even suicide bombers, are mindless "criminals" motivated by "hatred of our freedoms," rather than religious zealots motivated by their faith. And as a result, we have no real strategic plan for winning a war against jihadists.

Even many intelligence analysts and investigators working in the field with the Joint Terrorism Task Forces have a shallow understanding of Islam.

"I don't like to criticize our intelligence services, because we did win the Cold War," says a Northern Command intelligence official. "However, all of these organizations have made only limited progress adjusting to the current threat or the sharing of information."

Why? "All suffer heavily from political correctness," he explains.

PC still infects the Pentagon, four years after jihadists hit the nation's military headquarters.

"A lot of folks here have a very pedestrian understanding of Islam and the Islamic threat," a Pentagon intelligence analyst working on the project told me. "We're getting Islam 101, and we need Islam 404."

The hardest part of formulating a strategic response to the threat is defining Islam as a political and military enemy. Once that psychological barrier has been crossed, defense sources tell me, the development of countermeasures -- such as educating the public about the militant nature of Islam and exploiting "critical vulnerabilities" or rifts within the Muslim faith and community -- can begin.

"Most Americans don't realize we are in a war of survival -- a war that is going to continue for decades," the Northcom official warns.

It remains to be seen, however, whether our PC-addled political leaders would ever adopt such controversial measures.

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DAV and Their Kangaroo Court System

While both the US Federal government and all of the 50 States have laws protecting "Whistle Blowers" from retaliation, the Disabled American Veterans have found a loop-hole that they use at their own discretion.

The phrase goes; "If you can't say something good about a member..." So any member that complains or disagrees with the higher-ups can have this "Catch-22" charge put on them. But when the higher-ups say bad things about the members... That is legal and binding. Some of the penalties are;

1. Having your membership moved to a State or National "At-Large" Chapter of the DAV.

2. Banned from attending 'any' DAV function including meetings.

3. Having your name removed from any documents or plaques on the wall.

In January 2007, the DAV Department of Florida held a "Hearing" at the mid-winter conference in Altamonte Springs, Florida and had invited former members of DAV Chapter 3, from Sarasota County, by registered mail, to attend a hearing on their behavior of trying to leave the DAV organization.

Of course they were to attend this conference/hearing at their own expense, and if an attorney is needed, they could also bring one, again at their own expense. Of course not one of the former members of DAV Chapter 3 attended the meeting as they no longer associate with the DAV since the DAV tried to take away their meeting building and property through the use of intimidation.

All of the members of the Former DAV Chapter 3 were placed in an "At-Large" DAV Chapter but the paperwork of the state and national DAV still shows all of them as current lifetime members, including the Chapter Auxiliary.

BUT AT NO TIME will your name be removed from the National Membership Roster! And the question arises... Of their newly acclaimed milestone of 1 Million members, just how many are on the list that are no longer allowed or can no longer attend meetings because of Chapter Mergers?

Pinellas County, Florida is basically a peninsular and has a few large cities; Saint Petersburg, Clearwater and Largo. It also has a couple dozen smaller towns like; Saint Pete Beach, Gulfport, Treasure Island, Pinellas Park, Palm Harbor, Tarpon Springs, Clearwater Beach, Dunedin, Boca Ciega and Safety Harbor.

Where once there were 5 DAV Chapters, now only 3. Not because of members that left, but the state and national administrations began merging Chapters to show larger per member Chapters.

Chapters 13 & 9 were merged to the location of Chapter 9, but the merged Chapter number is 13. The members of Chapter 9 felt slighted but could only complain to the people who were doing it.

Chapter 13 was originally on Saint Pete Beach and drew its membership from the surrounding area of, Pasadena, Tierra Verde, Sunset Beach, Boca Ciega, Gulfport, Treasure Island, Madeira Beach, Redington Beach, Seminole and the South end of Saint Petersburg.

Once Chapter 13 merged into Chapter 9's building and took over, many of their members (85%+) did not wish to travel that far to a meeting. Some of the older members do not see well at night so they don't drive after dark.

Since 99% of DAV membership is Life Membership, the Chapter Roster appears to have thousands of members, even if a majority of members don't show up for years.

DAV Chapter 91 has also been merged into Chapter 13 and Chapter 91's members came from the Northeast section of Pinellas County, Pinellas Park, High Point, Largo, Safety Harbor and Clearwater. For the very same reasons, a majority of their members will not be able to attend meetings in the new "Mega-Chapter" 13. However, the DAV still counts all of its members so they can tell the world how many members they have.

The last two remaining DAV Chapters in Pinellas County are #103, which meets in Dunedin at the North end of the county at a local VFW Post and Chapter 11, which meets in Clearwater and appears to be made up of current and former employees of the DAV.

Does the DAV realize or is it done on purpose to make it a hardship for members to attend a Chapter meeting near where they live?

The real question is, what are these lost members of the DAV doing with their time. Well most belong to other Veteran Organizations and become productive in these groups. And while it seems that a Chapter cannot "Quit" the DAV, I wonder if that is the same for its members?

This article is still in progress and more will be added in the coming days and weeks ahead as the former members of Chapter 3 continue on with their battle in the Sarasota County, Florida, Court System.

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Moral Justification of the State to its War Veterans

By Col. (Ret) Frank B. Quesada, USA fbquesada@cox.net

Former Senate Committee Secretary

Veterans and Military Pension Associate, PMA Class '44

The idea of the State taking care and providing for the welfare and rehabilitation of its war Veterans dates back 600 B.C. in Greece under its legal system.

Solon, the immortal said “ Those who have been maimed in war are to be fed, at the expense of the public treasury.”

Pres. A. Lincoln’s Address

In the United States, in Pres A. Lincoln’s second inaugural address in 1861, he said, “With malice towards none; the charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us the to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the have been borne in battle, and for his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

In the Philippines

In the Philippines, at the end of World War II, the nation’s immediate concern was to build the nation anew from the ravages and destruction wrought upon the Filipino people and their institution. As a matter that Filipinos perished in that war was not of their own war, and doing but a war of America against Japan. The conscription of Filipino soldiers into the U .S. Army is a valid contract employing Filipinos which have to be paid like any member of the U.S. Armed Forces

Wretched Pawns

The Filipinos were a wretched pawn in a conflict between two colonial imperialists whose interests exploited Filipinos as an instrument in war. The toll on the Filipinos and the nation was unprecedented; their lives, industries and properties had been laid waste, entire families shattered and displaced moral values deteriorated and law and order was under extreme pressure from those who were fighting for survival.

Comrade Fabros’s Research

My contemporary and fellow Veteran, Arsenio “Ching” Fabros, could not have described this better when we both researched the moral and legal responsibility of any State to its fighting men who laid their lives in the altar of freedom, in other frontlines in the Philippine archipelago during World War II.

The late Fabros, was senior researcher and comrade crusader (was Secretary General of the Veterans Federation of the Philippines (VFP), when I was Vice President of the VFP and later was Senate Committee Secretary on Veterans and Military Pensions. Fabros wrote; to wit -

“And it was against such background of material destruction , of human misery and want, chaos and despair, that the Filipino nation , prostrate as she was, had to do what she could for him during the period of crisis , “and for his widow, and his orphans.

“The sick and the maimed needed not only wooden but financial crutches as well; and for the loss of limbs, and impairment of capability to earn a living, sustenance, vocational training and rehabilitation and reassurance that their faith in democracy and freedom was not misplaced.

Veteran’s Readustment

The able bodied needed assistance too, and readjustment to peacetime widow, and society and pursuits – and that by their example they could continue to inspire their generation and those who would follow after them to the heights of patriotism and love of country and to carry on their traditions, mores and folkways - under their willingness to undergo great sacrifices for the nation’s interest.

But when the guns of war became silent, the Veteran is mistreated.

Ray Moley ‘s Message

Ray Moley, once said, “When war’s declared and danger’s nigh, God and the soldier is the people’s cry. When peace is once more made and all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier is slighted.”

Indignities Against Vets

Ever since, things through the eyes of the widows and orphans of war Veterans of the Philippines - for over sixty years after World War II had to suffer the indignities and mistreatment under the very government that sent them to their death and disability in a war not intrinsically their own.

Echoes From the Wise

Those words of Lincoln, Moley and Fabros quoted above echo the reflections and the thoughts of the Filipino-American war Veterans, who up until now have found a lot more hell to pay a supreme sacrifice in their fight for human right, justice, fairness and for their property rights to a just and equitable compensation for their honorable wartime military services for Uncle Sam.

Pres. F. Roosevelt’s Words

Pres. F. Roosevelt, who conscripted the Filipino soldier to fight America’s war under the U.S. flag in World War II in the Far East said,

“ Members of the armed forces have been made to make greater economic sacrifices, and other kind of sacrifice, than the rest of us, therefore - are entitled to definite action to take care of their special problems.”

Such great and stirring words indeed have been forgotten and set aside by a new breed of less morality and insincere politicians inebriated with power who set aside those words and trashed the promises of Presidents of a State as without force of law. They have a liar of the President of a great country.

Veterans Were Trashed

But as history in the cycle of man and events, those who deride and invidiously discriminate Veterans might find themselves as Veterans of a future war or revolution or parents of the next war’s servicemen who might find a hell of a lot to pay for their politician’s or parent’s indiscretions.

Phil Senator C. Osias

To paraphrase the late Camilo Osias, once a Philippine High Commissioner to the U.S. and a famous educator, said, “True patriotism seeks no reward for services rendered to the State at great sacrifice even at the cost of losing life.”

And while there were brave and intrepid men in the defense of a people’s freedom and honor - there are also a crop of fence-sitters, quislings,. collaborators, sycophants and the unconcerned who betrayed and sold out the Veterans

Quislings in the U.S.

In the U.S. after WW-II, there are a handful of self-appointed and adorned novices kababayans who have advertised themselves as advocates for WW-II Veterans – but in fact are nothing but meddlers. A few of them, so notorious have fleeced and made Veterans as their victims in scams.

Convicted Felon

As a matter of fact, one of these shamans was sentenced by the Court to prison for racketeering, and without legal standing in Veteran’s affairs.

There are also non-eligible self-anointed associations, federations and coalitions whose idea of lobby in Congress for Veterans is by posing with solons and releasing photo opts in the media to pretend as lobbyists, when in fact, have no resources and no legal standing in Veteran’s affairs.

Fleecing of Veterans

Some were reportedly have line their pockets money fleeced from the poor Veterans subsisting under the shameful social security income, denigrated as “public charge” or otherwise un-glorified as mendicant and mercenary SSI (social security supplemental income dependents.

Veterans Affairs

There is only one authorized and competent official lobby for WW-II Veterans created by and headed by the Office of Veterans Affairs ()VA). It is merely a conduit of bona-fide Fil-Am WW-II Veterans under the banner of the Veterans Federation of the Philippines (VFP), a duly chartered by law (Rep.Act. 2640) , as the overall and only voice of Fil-Am WW-II Veterans those both residing in the U.S. and n the Philippines. Its work still has to be evaluated.

Impostors and Shamans

Sad to say, those non-eligible and unauthorized advocates brought more damage to the official lobby – by providing aid and comfort to segregationists in Congress who have attempted to reduced amount of benefits rightful entitled WW-II Veterans.

Infamous SSI Fiasco

An example of this is the SSI health care statute that reduced Veteran’s SSI by 25% if the Veterans opted to return to the Philippines to reside there. And the wife’s SSI was cut, also taking away Medicare – that exposes the Veterans and family to catastrophic risks abroad. It was brokered by a shaman which have inflicted injuries to the lawful rights of Veterans.

Cruel Hoax Perpetrated

Such cruel hoax against Veterans was even applauded by those bum advocates claiming credit for legislative work of solons.. Under a name-calling “coalition” which was exposed in the Philippine News by Rep. B. Filner as headed by a director that has a personal agenda. And his work as “toxic” to the Veterans cause.( See Phil. News report )

Veterans – Fair Game for Scams

On the other-hand, weary Veterans were so gullible and were easily fooled by bum advocates discovered by authorities as shady characters, some with usavory records. Not to leave out real bad credit records.

Fake Colonel

One notorious scam has been headed by a fake colonel exposed by the Adjutant General of the armed Forces of the Philippines as a buck private. He goes around asking to be introduced as a colonel. Albeit, was a counterfeit, declared non-grata by officials and Veterans in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Angry Victims

The end result of this fiasco, Veterans and families are now returning here in the U.S. to reside here again, and claim their previous SSI status. Advocates responsible for their misfortunes are cowering in shame – hiding from Veterans and their wives they have victimized.

The Money Game

There are also those moneyed economic interests who will most likely, and have been known to, begrudge war Veterans, the allocation of resources for his rehabilitation. And the feeble-minded politician facing opposition from his constituents would much prefer to deny the Veteran in favor of ill-conceived public works projects that fleeces the nation

Yankee Shell Game

Legislative bills in Congress for Veterans welfare have seldom been passed without their share of opposition from conflicting interests - and this holds true to this nation that have sent its fighting men to fight for alleged interest of oligopolies, and not for national concern and security.

Promises Made and Trashed

Take the example of hundreds of thousands of U.S. Military retirees and Veterans denied their retirement pensions and disability benefits. It has been same pattern with the Filipino-American WW-II Veterans who have been double-crossed by government form the last 60 years.

Travesty of Justice

These are valuable lessons in Veteranism and from the jingoism of politicians likened to the rust that eats the steel of democracy - for which the Veteran bled for and died for which seemed to politicians as nothing.

Fil-Am WW-II Veterans

The Fil-Am Veteran stands before the bar of justice to claim what is truly theirs, no more, no less. Why can’t government simply give them what is theirs? Their with-held benefits is blood money. There is indeed something wrong here. A nation that cannot care for its Veterans is indeed hopeless.

Moley also said, “ Politics is not something to avoid, or to abolish or destroy. It is a condition like the atmosphere we breathe. It is something we live with , to influence if we wish and to control if we can. We must master its ways or we shall be mastered by those who do so.”

Wake-up Call to America

This is indeed a wake-up call for America. The resounding words of Pres. A. Lincoln – pierces the ears of those who holds borrowed power from the citizens that elected and./or appointed them in their positions, to wit:

“ No American is good enough to govern another one without the other’s consent.”

“No government is big enough to give us everything we deserved, is also big enough to take away `from us what we have earned .” said former Pres. G. Ford.

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How To Lower Gas Prices

The item of not buying gas on any one particular day will not work. Our company with all its vehicles only purchases fuel twice a month. We can switch the day but we would still buy the same amount.

The ONLY thing that would work is to boycott a single brand. We have asked many people to avoid Citgo as they are solely owned by the communist dictator of Venezuela, who has sworn to destroy the United States. And yet, people still buy that gas.

People do not buy gas everyday, at most they buy once a week and if everyone agreed NOT to purchase from certain brands for just one month... that would bring down the price. The gas is constantly flowing and 30 days of no sales would clog down the entire system for that brand.

They have no way to store it as 10% of their product are always in tanker trucks going to market. Those trucks during an 8 hour shift load and unload five or six times a day. If they sat idle for 30 days... Even just one week... Then you would see the results you and the rest of the nation is looking for.

Each truck holds about 5,000 gallons of fuel and if Citgo has 10 trucks (they have more) to cover all of Tampa Bay, and if each truck makes 5 loads during an 8 hour shift, that is a quarter of a million gallons NOT delivered that day.

You might already know that fuel is delivered to service stations 24/7 so you could at least double or even triple the daily delivery, but even at two shifts a day, that comes to a half million gallons not delivered daily.

In one weeks time, that's three and a half million gallons of non-delivered fuel. Just where would you like to store that? It also means no cash flow for the company. They would have no choice but to lower prices to get rid of it.

They cannot hold out for more than a week as shipments are coming in from all over the world. They cannot hold up those massive oil tanker ships at the dock.

This solution is more plausible and could work, if we work together. Now go ahead and pass this on to everyone on your list.

Phillip Meskin
Company Clerk

www.VeteransPostNews.com

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US Atty Biskupic & VA Defied US Law to Convict Wisconsin Veteran

By Michael Leon maleon@charter.net

Madison, Wisconsin—In this Karl Rove/Dick Cheney age of politics when the governmental machinery is so politicized that Richard Nixon seems a progressive reformist by comparison, it’s not surprising to find the United States Department of Justice ravaging a Vietnam-era Veteran diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

But many Veterans charge the peculiar case of US v. Roberts is a disgraceful miscarriage of justice even by the contemporary swift-boating standards of the Bush administration.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
In June of 1999, Airman Keith Roberts (1968-71) was granted a disability rating by the US Veterans Administration (VA) after a 12-year, excruciating benefits claim process to which the honorably discharged American Veteran from the northern town of Gillett, Wisconsin was subjected.

Roberts had been diagnosed with (PTSD) years after he witnessed a fellow airman killed in a gruesome C-54 aircraft crushing death of fellow Airman Gary Holland in 1969 while on “line duty” at a Naval Air Facility in Naples, Italy, and later in the same year was assaulted by the Navy Shore Patrol and forcefully hospitalized.

Roberts believed that negligence caused Holland’s death and that the Navy then covered it up, blaming the dead rookie Holland who could not defend himself.

The Vietnam-era Veteran had no idea while he was gathering evidence seeking an earlier retroactive date for his successful VA claim, per the advice of a Shawano (Wisconsin) Veteran’s Service Officer, and jumping through hoop after hoop, that not only were his existing VA benefits in jeopardy but his very liberty was in danger.

“The process of gathering evidence to prove PTSD disability is extremely time-consuming,” said Sen. Barrack Obama (D-IL) on August 10, 2005 at a time when the VA was set to review 72,000 PTSD cases, but backed down under intense pressure from Veterans and democrats. “It requires the compilation of medical records, military service records, and testimonies from other Veterans who can attest to a person’s combat exposure.”

In fact, the VA claims process is not just time-consuming, but can be so frustrating that many Vets quit the process, or (especially those suffering from PTSD) are thrown into fits of rage directed at the VA itself.

Anger is a euphemism for how Keith Roberts now feels about the VA.
Since March of this year, Roberts has been serving a 48-month sentence (and his family financially shattered) for alleged wire fraud purportedly committed in his benefits application process with the VA in an outlandish VA-benefits-turned-criminal-charges case now before the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Seventh Circuit (appellate brief due June 29) which Roberts vows to take to the US Supreme Court, if necessary.

Among the main charges against Roberts are that he fabricated his role in trying to rescue Holland and lied about his friendship with Holland, both charges demonstrably untrue.

Frustration with the VA
Anger, panic and frustration with the VA drove Keith Roberts to phone the VA Inspector General’s office at Hines, Illinois in November 2003 at which time Roberts spoke with one Special Agent Raymond Vasil.

Roberts accused the VA of “fraud” as the VA was in the process of determining the date from which his retroactive disability pay was to become effective. Adjustments and frequent remanding (sending back for reconsideration) of cases are common VA practice.

It’s not hyperbole to say, many Veterans have died awaiting appeal of their cases.
Vasil (who has no professional law enforcement and VA benefit adjudication experience) disingenuously told Roberts he would look into the fraud accusation against the VA, but Vasil appears to have had no intention of investigating the VA, but rather investigated Roberts who was making waves at the VA amid his angry accusations.

Throughout the VA investigation the Roberts family was subjected to a smirking, mocking demeanor by Vasil, the man whose investigation formed the basis of the later criminal indictment.

Said one hostile Veteran advocate, “A cop Vasil is not, just an idiot with a badge.”

VA Federal Law
Veteran-advocacy groups deride the delivery of health care and disability benefits to our Veterans today as just another example of Bush administration incompetence in administering government services and entitlements to which it is ideologically hostile, a la FEMA and disaster relief.

The VA, a large department of government growing under the strain of war and non-existent administration planning for the consequences of war, is operating under the authority of specific federal statutes—Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 38, “Pensions, Bonuses and Veterans Relief.”

Title 38 specifically defines and delineates the processing and delivery of VA benefits.
In fact, Title 38 (3.901 Fraud) also specifically defines “fraud” (what Roberts is accused of engaging in) as a false or fraudulent act committed in trying to obtain “any claim for benefits under any of the laws administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs … “

But Keith Roberts was never accused of committing VA fraud, per se.
Roberts’ voluminous C-file, or claims file, well documents Roberts “stressors” that led to his being granted disability benefits—rendering accusing Roberts of VA fraud out of the question, so the offended Special Agent Vasil swiftboated the Veteran Roberts.

“Keith Roberts was granted a 100% compensation rate for PTSD from his date of claim. To grant PTSD, we need both a) a current diagnosis and b) a verified in-service stressor. We found not only a stressor, but an in-service diagnosis for Airman Roberts,” said a source at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee who e-mailed the Lee Rayburn radio show in Madison after a broadcast of a show on Roberts.

In other words, to an experienced and objective VA civil servant, Roberts’ claim was an air-tight.

But Roberts was to become a cautionary tale for Vietnam-era Veterans who apply for PTSD disability benefits and carp about the slow and often hostile nature of the VA bureaucracy after Special Agent Vasil’s investigation of Roberts in an as yet unknown manner came to the attention of the US Department of Justice and US Atty Stephen Biskupic (Eastern District of Wisconsin).

Biskupic, not known for his prosecutorial discretion and hungry to augment his win/loss record, took over the case and secured criminal indictments against Roberts in 2005.

Special Agent Raymond Vasil
After Roberts contacted the VA Inspector General’s office and spoke to Vasil, Vasil reportedly became upset with Roberts making the fraud accusations and seized Roberts’ VA claims file from the VA regional office in Milwaukee, according to a document in Roberts’ VA file dated Dec. 12, 2003.

What appears to have transpired is that Roberts hounded the VA to distraction and when he accused the VA of outright fraud, Vasil retaliated against this Vietnam-era Veteran for seeking retroactive PTSD-related disability benefits—occurrences by Vietnam-era Veterans that are also politically unpopular with the American Enterprise Institute and the Bush administration.

It is in this context that Roberts was reportedly argumentative and insulting to the VA, accusing the VA of fraud.

“[T]he only reason Airman Roberts was ever prosecuted was because he was a ‘belligerent ass’ who kept insisting that he get paid back to discharge. He was demanding an appeal in Washington,” said the source at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee who e-mailed the Lee Rayburn radio show in Madison in early June about the Roberts affair. “I'd have to say that you guys are TOTALLY (uppercase in the original) right about Roberts' conviction being bullshit ...”

On August 16, 2004, the VA halted the benefits being paid to Roberts based upon Vasil’s investigation; Roberts appealed the decision on September 14, 2004, and was indicted seven months later.

US Attorney Steven Biskupic
As Roberts’ appeal was being adjudicated in the VA, US Attorney Steven Biskupic stepped in and subsequently secured an indictment on mail fraud on April 26, 2005 under Title 18 United States Code 1341 (mail fraud).

But the indictment on mail fraud involved no investigation from the Postal Inspector’s office, as is usual in mail fraud cases.

“Biskupic really pissed in someone’s pool when he indicted on mail fraud with no investigation from the Postal Inspector,” said a source close to the Roberts’ defense network.

Without explanation from Biskupic’s office, the mail fraud indictment was superseded some four months later in September 2005 when Biskupic secured an indictment on wire fraud under Title 18 USC 1343; this time with no input from the FBI or US Treasury Department, as is usual in wire fraud indictments.

The only law enforcement agency used in the investigation was the VA Inspector General’s office, not a professional law enforcement agency, but an office that operated vindictively in the person of Special Agent Vasil and was run at the executive level by Secretary Jim Nicholson, a former Republican National Committee chairman with no Veteran advocacy experience, in an administration taking its cues from the Veterans’ benefits-hostile American Enterprise Institute scholar, Dr. Sally Satel.

Title 38 Code of Federal Regulations, Section 3.905 (a) Jurisdiction)
The VA insulates and protects Veterans by establishing a layer of procedure before a Veteran can be denied VA benefits, much less criminally prosecuted for fraud in seeking benefits.

The Title 38 Code of Federal Regulations, section 3.905 (a) Jurisdiction) statute reads: “At the regional office level … the Regional Counsel is authorized to determine whether the evidence warrants formal consideration as to forfeiture.”

Robert Walsh, the appellate attorney for Roberts and a former VA staff attorney, blasted the criminal prosecution as well as the VA denial of benefits for its lack of review by VA counsel, per Title 38.

"The local VA Inspector General going directly to the U.S. Attorney without any review by VA attorneys appears to be unprecedented and is a violation of (Title) 38 Code of Federal Regulations, section 3.905.

“The U.S. Attorney prosecuting a case such as this without a proper investigation by the F.B.I. or U.S. Treasury is outrageous. It is contrary to the Department of Justice guidelines for such cases. Failure to follow those well-thought out procedures is unwise. So we arrive at this bizarre outcome.

“When Congress passed the Veterans Judicial Review Act which became law in 1988 they created a special court to review disputes over Veterans’ benefits, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC). No other court was given jurisdiction over these claims, and that court has not yet ruled on the reduction of benefits suffered by Mr. Roberts. If the CAVC rules in favor of Mr. Roberts he will be in prison convicted of fraud for accepting benefits payments that he is fully and legally entitled to."

Biskupic has not spoken publicly on why his office had not awaited the adjudication of the benefits process before seeking indictments for alleged fraudulent statements made by Roberts in his claims, and why Biskupic avoided Veteran Fraud, and indicted on mail fraud and then wire fraud.

Title 38 Code of Federal Regulations, Section 3.905 (b) Fraud
The VA is also required, by federal statute, to notify a Veteran if he or she is declared to be fraudulently presenting information to the VA.

The Fraud statute reads:
(b) Fraud or treasonable acts. Forfeiture of benefits under §3.901 or §3.902 will not be declared until the person has been notified by the Regional Counsel … of the right to present a defense. Such notice shall consist of a written statement sent to the person's latest address of record setting forth the following:
(1) The specific charges against the person;
(2) A detailed statement of the evidence supporting the charges, subject to regulatory limitations on disclosure of information;
(3) Citation and discussion of the applicable statute …

Roberts was never notified by the Regional Counsel that he was suspected or accused of engaging in fraud.

Said a source close to the defense network: “The VA statute requires the criminal justice system to stay out of the matter until a FINAL administrative agency decision is in place. That will not happen at the VA until Roberts is done at the Supreme Court. The VA reduction of benefits is under appeal, and will be for some time. So, if they believe in the fraud, why the rush for Biskupic to jump in? Keith is not a killer posing a danger to the public; he is a Veteran who simply will not be getting his benefits that he deserves.”

Roberts was caught in a situation where he angered the VA Inspector General’s office which knew that Roberts could never be convicted of VA fraud, so they summarily denied his benefits, and then somehow communicated the case circumstances to US Atty Biskupic who charged Roberts with postal fraud and then with wire fraud using the denial of benefits (under appeal per federal statute) as evidence of criminal fraud.

So before and after Special Agent Vasil was scheming to charge Roberts with fraudulently presenting his VA claim, and Roberts’ liberty became endangered, the VA never notified Roberts through the Regional Counsel or otherwise that his forfeiture was asserted by the VA Inspector General to be based upon fraud.

US Atty Biskupic never addressed the statutory imperative that Roberts should have been so notified by the VA Regional Counsel during the investigation, the indictment and prosecution.

This would appear to raise serious due process considerations that may result in the overturning of Roberts’ conviction by the Seventh Circuit, known for its intellectual heft, though leaning to the right, aside from the fact that Roberts is innocent of not being at the scene of his friend Holland’s death.

Criminal Trial
The criminal proceedings included the misrepresentation of the laws and regulations governing Veterans’ disability benefits claims procedures and the military service of Roberts to the jury.

The defense claims that the government withheld hundreds of photographs and documents in their possession from the defense which would have proven that Mr. Roberts did not commit fraud.

Roberts was forced to defend himself in federal court by proving that he was present at his duty station on the flight line in Naples, Italy on February 4, 1969 when Airman Gary Holland was killed while performing maintenance on a C-54 aircraft.

The prosecution produced no witness who testified that Mr. Roberts was not present for duty on that day.

The prosecution produced no witness or document which refuted that the aircraft hanger where Holland was killed was Roberts’ duty station.

Several witnesses testified that general quarters was sounded, as Roberts claimed. The prosecution produced no evidence that Roberts failed to respond to general quarters.

In fact, Roberts received a “Special Enlisted Personnel Performance Evaluation” (the military equivalent of a pat on the back for the then-young airman) two days after the death of airman Holland.

The position of the VA and the US Atty Biskupic is that Mr. Roberts was not present, and therefore his VA disability claim is based on fraud.

“Where were you on February 4, 1969? Can you prove it?” asks Delores Roberts, Roberts’ wife.

Questions for US Atty Biskupic
It is clear that the VA violated its own statuary mandates, but questions remain for the US Atty’s office that prosecuted Roberts.

Did the Secretary of the Veteran's Administration give US Atty Biskupic authorization by delegation of authority to prosecute Keith Roberts before the exhaustion of his administrative remedies under Title 38 CFR?

Did US Atty Biskupic know that the Board of Veteran's Appeals had determined in prior decisions that Roberts' statements could not be used, as a matter of law, to verify a stressor in order to grant service connection for PTSD?

Did US Atty Biskupic know that the VA claim process is supposed to be non-adversarial?

Where in Title 38 does it state that the DOJ can take jurisdiction away from the Veterans' Administration before the VA has completed its review of the Veteran's benefits, including the review in the Court of Appeals for Veteran's Claims?

With whom at the DoJ and the VA did Biskupic communicate before arriving at his decision to seek indictments?

Roberts and his family await answers and justice.

Cases to be adjudicated:
· U.S. v. Roberts, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Docket 05-CR-118
· U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims docket 05-2425

Legal questions and legal comments can be e-mailed to Robert Walsh at: rpwalsh@sbcglobal.net.

Update: A reader's e-mail reads that the District Court stated from the the bench at sentencing that he did not believe that the senseless and negligent death of Naval Airman Gary D. Holland "was a stressor that induced some horrible posttraumatic stress disorder ...

Right, seeing a friend crushed to death is no big deal.

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Hypocrite Bathroom Seducer Sen. Larry Craig Also Likes to Shaft Veterans

By Michael Leon maleon64@yahoo.com

Sen. Larry Craig is not your ordinary gay Republican looking for love in the toilet.
As the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in 2005, Craig also helped engineer a secret end-run assisting the Bush administration's efforts to shaft Veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after their service.

“So the brave men and women who have served in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq are honest enough to put themselves in danger in the defense of the United States, yet their sworn personal hearing testimony concerning the stressors they experienced in Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq" is not sufficient to take on its face, editorializes the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

But the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) Dr. Sally Satel’s ethos that ridicules Veterans diagnosed with PTSD (and seeking benefits) has permeated the Dept of Veterans Affairs, and Satel and the VA found a willing partner in Sen. Larry Craig. [The Post: "Psychiatrist Sally Satel, who is affiliated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said an underground network advises Veterans where to go for the best chance of being declared disabled. The institute organized a recent meeting to discuss PTSD among Veterans."]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600792.html

In August 2005, the VA announced plans to review 72,000 PTSD cases with a 100 percent disability rating. But a torrent of criticism by Veterans’ groups and Democrats forced the administration to back down.

The politics of the VA going after 72,000 Veterans became too hot to handle. On Nov. 10, 2005, the VA announced that there would be “no across-the-board review of PTSD cases.”

        Just days later, Cheryl Reed of the Chicago Sun Times, broke a story detailing how the VA planned to implement a PTSD restructuring anyway, despite its announcement six days earlier.
        The new PTSD-examination plan was released in a low, low-profile manner in a press release through Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), then Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
        No VA press conference, just a quiet, low-key way to furtively implement the AEI’s views on PTSD, while denying that this is what is happening.

        If Craig wants to have sex with men, I'll fight for his right to do so. He has nothing to be ashamed of [though Larry should try bars, not bathrooms].
        But Craig's real sin about which he should have been driven from office is screwing over our Veterans who serve our country.

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File VA Claims Applications On-Line 07/16/08

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today that on-line applications are now accepted from veterans, survivors and other claimants filing initial applications for disability compensation, pension, education, and vocational rehabilitation and employment benefits without the additional requirement to submit a signed paper copy of the application.

Effective immediately, VA will now process applications received through its on-line application website (VONAPP) without the claimant's signature. The electronic application will be sufficient authentication of the claimant’s application for benefits. Normal development procedures and rules of evidence will still apply to all VONAPP applications.

VONAPP (www.va.gov/onlineapps.htm) is a Web-based system that benefits both internal and external users. Veterans, survivors and other claimants seeking compensation, pension, education, or vocational rehabilitation benefits can apply electronically without the constraints of location, postage cost, and time delays in mail delivery.

VONAPP reduces the number of incomplete applications received by VA, decreasing the need for additional development by VA claims processors. The on-line application also provides a link to apply for VA health care benefits and much more.

Over 3.7 million veterans and beneficiaries receive compensation and pension benefits from VA and approximately 523,000 students receive education benefits. Approximately 90,000 disabled veterans participate in VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program.

For more information about VA benefits, go to VA’s website at www.va.gov or call our toll-free number at 1-800-827-1000.

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Report: 8,763 Vets Died Waiting for Benefits 07/16/08

By William H. McMichael - Army Times

The title of the House committee report sums up what happened: “Die or Give Up Trying: How Poor Contractor Performance, Government Mismanagement and the Erosion of Quality Controls Denied Thousands of Disabled Veterans Timely and Accurate Retroactive Retired Pay Awards.”

The report by the majority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform domestic policy panel, released Tuesday, concluded that at least 28,283 disabled retirees were denied retroactive pay awards because rushed efforts to clear a huge backlog of claims led program administrators to stop doing quality assurance checks on the claims decisions.

And of the original 133,057 potentially eligible veterans, 8,763 died before their cases could be reviewed for retroactive payments, according to the report.

At issue are the Concurrent Retirement and Disability Payments and Combat-Related Special Compensation programs, approved by Congress in 2003 and 2004 to allow large numbers of disabled retirees to receive full concurrent military retirement pay and veteran’s disability compensation.

For more than a century before those programs were enacted, disabled retirees were forced to forfeit a dollar of military retirement pay for every dollar they received in veterans’ disability payments.

About 223,180 disabled veterans receive monthly CRDP payments, while another 60,155 disabled veterans receive monthly payments under CRSC.

Under the programs, many disabled veterans also became eligible for a single retroactive payment due to changes in their disability status.

As of September 2006, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service determined that 133,057 veterans potentially were eligible for these so-called “VA Retro” payments. Over time, another 84,237 newly retired and other veterans were added to the list.

Yet as of March 1, more than 60,000 eligible veterans were still waiting for reviews of their cases under the two programs.

The claims processing shortfall was raised during a February defense budget hearing; Pentagon Comptroller Tina Jonas told the Senate Budget Committee that she had recently asked Zack Gaddy, the director of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, to triple the number of people working on the backlog.

In February, the backlog was said to be “more than 39,000” cases. Jonas said she had been assured that the backlog would be cleared by April.

That did not happen, according to the subcommittee report, because Lockheed Martin, the contractor hired in July 2006 to compute the complex retroactive pay awards, had difficulty making the computations fast enough to eliminate the backlog quickly. The complexity of the computations also hindered Lockheed Martin’s ability to develop software to automate the process.

Two other factors played a role: The required databases did not exist, and the Department of Veterans Affairs and the military services “were slow to put the data in the necessary form for automation.”

As a result, Lockheed Martin was forced to compute the cases manually. It did so, and with just under half the number of workers the government had previously used for the work — a relic of the original contract proposal, according to the report.

Lockheed Martin missed its original November 2007 deadline and every succeeding one, the report stated. The committee said Gaddy personally monitored the program and “frequently complained to Lockheed about low productivity and the high number of errors DFAS quality control auditors were detecting.”

Gaddy also expressed concern that the delays were damaging the reputation of DFAS.

To ease congressional concerns and speed up the review process, DFAS chose several “questionable approaches” — assigning federal workers to duties covered by the contract with Lockheed Martin, and suspending independent quality checks on Lockheed’s calculations.

After those measures went into effect on March 1, up to 60,051 payments were made to eligible veterans. But the subcommittee concluded that “serious questions” remain about the accuracy of these payments.

“While the subcommittee majority staff does not know how many erred payments were sent, we do not believe that DFAS knows either,” the report said.

Under Lockheed’s operating procedures, its quality assurance team also did not verify the accuracy of any “No Pay Due” determinations, which are sent directly to veterans without verification, the report added.

“Neither DFAS nor Lockheed knows how many ‘No Pay Due’ letters could be in error,” the report states. Such letters were sent to at least 28,283 veterans.

DFAS and Lockheed Martin announced that the VA Retro backlog was finally eliminated by the end of June, seven months after the original deadline.

Lockheed Martin was paid $18.74 million for its work on the backlog.

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Agent Orange Update 07/28/08

Gerson H. Smoger, J.D., Ph.D.

As you know, in 2003, I argued in the United States Supreme Court that Vietnam veterans should be permitted to sue the manufacturers of Agent Orange if they became sick after the original settlement's 1994 deadline (since they had no opportunity to be compensated by the original settlement). The remainder of this email will set out what has transpired since the U.S. Supreme Court permitted us to proceed.

After we were successful, the Supreme Court returned all Agent Orange cases back to Judge Jack Weinstein, the same judge who had originally dismissed the cases and caused us to go to the Supreme Court in the first place. The herbicide manufacturers then asked Judge Weinstein to dismiss all of the cases on a different basis -- basically, a "government made us do it defense."

In order to explain that basis, legally described as the government contractor defense, you need to know that in 1988, in a case not involving Agent Orange, the Supreme Court held that when a company contracts with the U.S. Government, it is immune from suit if: 1) the terms of the contracts were precise; 2) the company followed those terms; and 3) the company made the government aware of all of the dangers of a product that were known to the company but not the government.

In order to demonstrate that the herbicide manufacturers did not deserve the immunity accorded by the defense, we submitted hundreds of pages of briefing, thousands of documents, and extensive reports from experts. In this material, we are quite confident that we showed the following things to be true:

1) the chemical that has caused most of the health problems from the herbicides sprayed in Vietnam was "dioxin";

2) not a single contract between the herbicide manufacturers and the government even mentions the word "dioxin" (so the contracts could not be precise as to "dioxin");

3) the herbicide manufacturers produced their herbicides at extremely high temperatures in order to produce them more quickly and thereby make more money;

4) the problem with producing these herbicides at high temperatures is that the higher the temperature used, the more "dioxin" that is created;

5) the herbicide manufacturers knew that manufacturing herbicides at higher temperatures created more dioxin, but they hid this fact from the government;

6) in fact, the manufacturers secretly tested their products for the amount of "dioxin" the products contained while knowing that the government didn't even own the equipment necessary to test for "dioxin";

7) the herbicide manufacturers deliberately hid the medical dangers they knew about from the government, including numerous references in their own documents that "dioxin" was the most toxic chemical they had ever tested;

8) once secret internal documents demonstrate that the herbicide manufacturers hid all of this information, because they were afraid of regulation and the loss of their lucrative contracts.

Unfortunately, Judge Weinstein wrote his decision without reading any of our briefing, without reviewing any of the documents we submitted, and without reviewing our expert reports. We know this because we were given a deadline of late Friday night to submit our original papers, reports and exhibits, and his lengthy written decision was issued at 8:00 a.m. the following Monday without any mention whatsoever of any of the papers, reports, or expert witness affidavits we filed.

Subsequently, we appealed to the Second Circuit, the federal appellate court above Judge Weinstein. Again we presented almost 300 pages of briefing and thousands of documents. Significantly, the Second Circuit AGREED WITH US that we had sufficient evidence regarding the above facts to allow us to have a jury trial! AT THIS POINT WE SHOULD HAVE WON!!

However, the Second Circuit then held that even though we had evidence to support all of the issues listed above, none of that mattered. Instead, the Second Circuit held that regardless of anything the manufacturers did or all that they had hidden, in their opinion the government would still have used the same herbicides in Vietnam. In coming to this decision on an issue we were never asked to brief, the Second Circuit actually admitted that they were not using the Supreme Court's test at all – instead, they were substituting a test of their own. Furthermore, how the Second Circuit could reach this conclusion is difficult for us to comprehend. Many government witnesses did testify that it was not their intent to use any chemicals that were known to be harmful to humans (Of note, the manufacturers told the government that none of their workers were affected during production, even though we have documentation that shows that literally hundreds of workers became sick during the manufacturing process.)

If you wish to review our briefing describing the problems in the Second Circuit's decisions, please go to:

http://www.agentorangelaw.net/Petition_to_Second_Circuit.htm.

Our only alternative now is to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case. Unfortunately, if the Supreme Court does not accept review, we will be at the end of our road. At the original request of Admiral Zumwalt I have been working on this matter for fifteen years. I appreciate your patience and understanding.

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