VA Secretary Bob McDonald Meeting With Future VA Secretary John Wells 12/14/16

Cmdr John Wells IS OUR ONLY ACCEPTABLE CHOICE FOR VA SECRETARY... https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/call-your-senators-monday-tell-president-trump-only-one-len-swanson?published=t …

As promised at the bottom of this article is Cmdr Wells' report on his 12/14/16 meeting with Secretary Bob McDonald...Cmdr Wells was to polite in his review as made he should be since hopefully he is "Bob's" replacement ...me on the other hand not so much as Secretary McDonald has proven his inept abilities since being confirmed a little over 2 years ago and our VA system is no better to date...

Which is why I fought his nomination as man with no backbone nor fortitude to do what is right and need it for all our Veterans....Sec McDonald had and still has the opportunity to step and enact certain measures like all the Agent / Toxic Substance Exposure issues that Cmdr Wells has been lobbying for and at this point in time without fear of reprisal from that gutless President Obama but will he "Hell No"....

I told Cmdr Wells he won't it is just not in his DNA hell look at his sorry excuse of a Army career of only 5 years in which he took advantage of West Point education and placement as a stepping stone into Industry which tells you a lot right there....Hence to our readers the seriousness and necessity of having a highly respected decorated Veteran like Cmdr John Wells who understands all the inner workings of the VA to be confirmed as our next VA Secretary which my previous articles further elaborate upon....Enough is truly Enough!!!!

In his meeting with VA Sec Bob McDonald today Cmdr Wells tried to convince the Secretary to do the right thing to support Veterans with Toxic Exposures especially now that Secretary McDonald could no longer fear Obama firing him for being too pro-Veteran.... Results of this meeting to be published soon....General Flynn General Meese President Trump please take notice of Cmdr Wells who is not only acting like our next VA Secretary Cmdr Wells but is ceasing upon an opportunity to convince "Bob" to do the right thing for our Veterans NOW!!!

The following was posted tonight by Cmdr Wells on the Blue Water Navy Awareness Facebook page(unfortunately not the results sought):

"Military-Veterans Advocacy report on the meeting with Secretary McDonald concerning the Blue Water Navy. Please like our Facebook page.

I was accompanied by Mike Little the Legislative Director of the Association of the United States Navy and Chris Slawinski from the Fleet Reserve Association. Both provided great support and supplemented my briefing. They are fine allies in this epic fight.

The Secretary gave us a full hour which surprised me. I expected 15-20 minutes. He was accompanied by Brad Flohr from the Veterans Benefits Administration, a representative of the Veterans Health Administration, David Barrins from the General Counsel’s Office and Eric Bruskin from the Department of Justice who is the lead attorney on our pending federal case.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Military-Veterans Advocacy’s request for rule making to include Da Nang Harbor and Nha Trang Harbor in the presumption of exposure. Nha Trang has documented Agent Orange dioxin infiltration and Da Nang has strong circumstantial evidence of infiltration. Additionally, the self-propelled water barges in use by Naval Support Activity Da Nang took water from a contaminated source and distributed it to the ships

To put our rule making request in perspective and in the proper context, we discussed the whole Blue Water Navy issue and not just those two harbors. Since DOJ was present I felt comfortable touching on the entire issue concerning service in all of the harbors and even the territorial seas. I pointed out that they had no one with Navy experience considering the problem. (Mr. Flohr is an Air Force veteran). I also noted that the VA had not referred the problem to a hydrologist to study ocean currents and the “mixing bowl” effect in the harbors. Nor did they seek the services of a mechanical engineer with thermodynamic experience to consider the effect of the evaporator distillation process. We presented affidavits from qualified experts to support our position.

Initially, I also suggested that even though the science supports out position, the issue is not scientific but one of equity. We are asking for a restoration of benefits and not new benefits. Additionally, we are asking to b put on a par with out brothers and sisters who served ashore and on the rivers. We discussed the fact that the only two studies in existence show a higher cancer incidence among Blue Water Navy veterans than those who are covered by the existing interpretation. I also highlighted the excerpts from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports that showed there is no more or less evidence for support exposure for the Blue Water Navy than the ground forces or those who served in the rivers. I further informed the Secretary that we were granted the benefits out to the Vietnam Service Medal line until 2002.

The Secretary was polite and attentive and asked a few questions. One of the more interesting facts that came out of the meeting was that he was not aware that his Department had pressured the Congressional Budget Office to score H Con Res 161 and S Con Res 51. The CBO decision to score, of course, killed those resolutions for the 114th Congress. We intend to reintroduce the resolutions in the 115th Congress and will work with the House leadership to ascertain whether or not a non binding sense of Congress resolution should receive a cost score. Our position is that it should not.

The Secretary also indicated that he does not have the final say on the matter because it requires a review by the Office of Management and Budget, He refused to confirm our suspicions that it was the OMB and the White House who prevented the inclusion of the bays and harbors last year after the Gray v. McDonald decision. He did not deny it when I asked him outright whether our suspicions were true.

On the positive side we provided he Secretary with information that I believe he was hearing for the first time. He was very receptive and promised to read the wealth of information I provided him. I have been told that when he says that - he does it.

Bottom line, do I expect a change in policy? Regretfully, probably not, at least right away. I have a feeling that if the Secretary recommends approval of benefits for the Blue Water Navy, even just the two harbors that are the subject of the rule making request, that we are going to run afoul of the bean counters at OMB. While I am disappointed that the Secretary is seemingly unable to make determination within his own Department without the bean counters getting involved, we must deal with that reality. Accordingly, I do not expect to see any action during the remainder of the Administration. We will, of course, approach the new Administration at the earliest opportunity.

But we are not giving up!

This meeting was only a part of a very interesting trip. I will have more information for you all on the meeting with Senator Leahy and other Congressional and Senatorial staffs in the near future".