Beyond the Battlefield: The Long-Term Effects of Camp Lejeune's Toxic Water

Rich Bennett 0:00
All right. So this is something I've been wanting to talk about for oh, my God, a long time. And I have a young lady on. You're going to be hearing from her a lot because we're going to be doing several episodes for veterans. Well, not just for veterans. Even for the family members of veterans, because there's a lot of stuff that you need to know. And one of the thing we're covering today is about that good old French water. The Camp Lejeune water contamination. I'm sure you've seen the commercials on TV. Probably. We've heard them before. 

God, you can't help but see them or hear them. So we're going to be talking to her about that today and learn a lot. So those of you that have had anybody that served at Camp Lejeune or if you yourself has, I think is another base, too, and we'll find out more about that. You definitely need to listen to this. And then and those of you that are listening to that news, somebody make sure you tell them about this episode. So I have Jane Babcock, who is a veterans benefits educator, on How are you doing? 

Jane Babcock 1:13
I'm doing great, Thanks, Rich. 

Rich Bennett 1:15
So before we get into the the flavored water, tell everybody your background so they understand who you know, who it is that's talking about all this stuff with Campbell June. 

Jane Babcock 1:28
Okay. Well, I am six generation out of five generations that served in the US Army. 

Rich Bennett 1:35
And thank you for your service. 

Jane Babcock 1:37
You're welcome. Thank you for your service. You're welcome. I am an honorary gunny. I retired as a sergeant First Class EE seven. Nice. I served in the Army for four and a half years. Went to the reserves, and they tapped me on the shoulder. So I ended up with four duty to four teams. 

So I go home and they say, Hey, do you mind? And I didn't. So I came back and forth, but I was getting ready for my fifth duty to 14 when I was in a really stupid training accident, blew out a disc in my neck, tore up, connected to my shoulder, broke my elbow, 

came back to the reserve unit and said, Hey, they want to cut my throat, which you could barely see it. Now the scar runs from here to here and they put scaffolding in my neck and replace disks with cadavers. Oh. So the reserve unit being typical small detachment in so far away from the headquarters, didn't didn't know what to do with broken soldiers. They said, Oh, you got 21 plus sign here. You're in the retired reserves. And I not knowing better. Went home. 

Rich Bennett 2:52
Retired reserves? 

Jane Babcock 2:54
Yes. When you leave the service is the reservist. You have a choice of going into the retired reserve Standby. Right. I like the IRR. Right. But it takes it at the Congress to call you up. Okay. That's the branch of service. And if you do that, you keep getting retirement points. You get 15 membership points every year. 

Rich Bennett 3:15
Oh, wow. 

Jane Babcock 3:16
Choose not to go with the retired reserves. Your points are locked in for your retirement check. 

Interesting. You don't earn extra points. 

Rich Bennett 3:26
Okay. 

Jane Babcock 3:27
So I did that. What should have happened is because I had over eight and a half years of active duty time, they should have automatically boarded me and I should have been given a medical exam and then determined whether or not I was, quote, unfit for duty. Mm hmm. In which case, I would have been medically boarded. And with over eight and a half years duty time, I would have been eligible for immediate TRICARE and immediate retirement pay. 

Rich Bennett 3:52
Wow. 

Jane Babcock 3:53
But I didn't know. Yeah. And I didn't even know about VA itself because nobody in my unit knew about VA. 

Rich Bennett 4:02
And I think that's a problem. I don't I mean, I know when I was in, you know, you weren't told about that. You know, the VA. 

Jane Babcock 4:11
Even though they they. 

Rich Bennett 4:11
Don't Yeah. 

Jane Babcock 4:13
You know the active duty side of the house has a transition program and it's supposed to start at least six months ahead of departure from service. Right. Per year, I think you're supposed to go to these classes. The classes teach you a little bit about compensation, but they don't teach you about it much about the other benefits other than education and maybe hormones. Right. Wow. But they don't tell you that getting that VA exam at least six months out from service from your ex 

means that if you are unfit for duty, the now you have the evidence for a medical board. So not everything is disqualified. A little bit of hearing loss, not disqualifying, but it might get you 10% on a variety or make it to zero. In other words, we damage to hearing, but it's not enough to impact your life right now. Right. But we know it's going to progress. Later on. You get reevaluated or. But like in my case, with the neck and the nerve damage, I have nerve damage on my arm and my hand and stuff. It's my right hand. It's my dominant hemophilia. Yeah. Handling a weapon would be extremely difficult to be accurate with it. Right. Because of the torn up tendons and stuff in my shoulder. Yeah. I would find it difficult to wear battle rattle because of my neck. I'd find it difficult to wear Kevlar because I get migraines that can literally put me in the emergency room too. So luckily now I get shots of Botox in my neck. So that helps a lot. 

Rich Bennett 5:52
But Botox. 

Jane Babcock 5:53
Yeah, I. I have this. 

Rich Bennett 5:55
Not cortisone shots. 

Jane Babcock 5:57
Nope. I have the smoothest neck in the world, so I tell my husband he's going to have to bury me face down in the casket because I have no wrinkles back. 

Rich Bennett 6:04
But God, I love it so much. 

Jane Babcock 6:11
If I had known this, they would have put me on the temporary disabled retired list. Right. And then after you said okay. And I looked evaluate how long are these conditions going to last? Well, obviously the rest of my life. So they would have found me unfit for duty, unable to use a weapon, unable to wear battle, rattle, Kevlar, all the standard soldier stuff. They would have said, okay, are there other ways we could train this person into so they can continue their service? 

Well, with dexterity, loss of my right hand stuff. I couldn't become a clerk typist. Right. I find it difficult to write. My penmanship is horrendous. Now. So. Oh, they would have probably been able to find much to transfer me into. So then it would have been okay. The reading is high enough. We're just going to go ahead and retire this person. But I didn't know that, and neither did the guy that was my unit administrator. Because why? Well, two years before he'd been a choo choo drivers, but 

in the reserves, especially with a new unit that had just been brought up, 

he had decided to go back. And so he had been in logistics, doing train stuff, loading trains and grabbing trains and stuff. And so he didn't know. Wow. I don't hold it against him. 

Rich Bennett 7:37
Well, he was trained for it. 

Jane Babcock 7:39
Right. Because they sent him to eight weeks of training and say, okay, now you know everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At least you know, all the regulations so that you could read them in your spare time. Got. The people I hold responsible for is the higher command is my paperwork went forward. They should have said, Wait a minute, this person's leaving after 21 and a half years in the middle of a contract, 

maybe. And it's for medical reasons. Maybe we should be asking those questions that they didn't. Yeah. So and with nobody saying VA to me, it was until four years later I saw an ad in the newspaper or three years later I saw an ad in a newspaper and I said, What's a county veteran's service officer? 

I didn't even know what a service officer was, much less that my county had an officer with them. 

Rich Bennett 8:27
I would figure somebody on active duty. That's an officer. 

Jane Babcock 8:32
No. 32 states in the country mandate that there be veterans service officers in every county. Okay. That's. And we also have them for our tribes. 

Rich Bennett 8:43
Oh, officers. I thought you said officer. Okay. 

Jane Babcock 8:47
Yeah, well, as a said, yes. Okay. County officer. 

Rich Bennett 8:50
Okay. Yes, I did hear you right. Okay. Yep. 

Jane Babcock 8:52
Yep. They have to go to training in some states. And in Wisconsin you have to be a veteran to be a county veteran service officer in charge of an office in his deputies. That may or may not be veterans, but they have a strong affinity for us. Right. And so they go through training. They take a test for 4 hours. They get that approved. They apply to organizations like the VFW, the VA, the VA, others, and get approval to file claims in their name 

and then apply to the VA. It's they it's organizations have are willing to sponsor me. Can I have access to the VA's computer system so that when I do my claims and send them in, I can look at the case notes, I can look at the doctor's exam and say, Oh, wait a minute, you can't have it. Ear, nose and throat doctor do a knee exam piece. You know all the things that VA right get wrong. Yeah. And it also helps in cases like one of my Vietnam guys, Blue Water kept insisting he was at a ship inside this old and the VA kept saying no. Finally he came to me on somebodies recommendation. And so I went into his claim file and I was able to look at every single page of his personnel record, his military service treatment records, and all the evidence he'd ever submitted. Mm hmm. And so I looked at it and said, Wait a minute. Here's a second that says you were on this other ship 

for 24 hours of I.V. due to your respiratory infection because, Oh, yeah, I was on that ship for a day and a half, and I said, okay, let's look that ship up. And sure enough, that ship was only like ten nautical miles off the coast. So he was well within the zone. 

Rich Bennett 10:41
Wow. 

Jane Babcock 10:42
So then we were in the back, be a go and clear the air. Excuse me. Clear. Unmistakable error law. You owe him back pay because you had this evidence the first time he filed after Blue Water was awarded. So they had a backdated to the beginning of blue water. Now, under Nemer, which is the only situation in the VA that a denied claim that's left to die can actually be backdated. And that's what Agent Orange. So he actually got award from his first claim, 

not just the blue water date, because he had the evidence that he was within. So 

so and. 

Rich Bennett 11:28
If it wasn't for you, he wouldn't have gotten that. 

Jane Babcock 11:31
Right. 

Well, eventually, I'd like to think that he would have got. 

Rich Bennett 11:35
Well, yeah, you would hope so, but you definitely hope so. 

Jane Babcock 11:39
The largest award and I've heard of much larger awards than any of my VA PDA. Guys, that was a 480,000 MVP. 

Rich Bennett 11:48
Knows not nice because of what happened to him, but still nice. He was able to get that amount. 

Jane Babcock 11:56
Yeah, it's 28. He had its first heart attack. 

Rich Bennett 12:01
Now that was that was from Agent Orange, though. Not the. 

Jane Babcock 12:04
Water. Right. That was a scheme purchased under Agent Orange. But now purple is June is a different animal. Yeah. That is not just the veterans. It's their children. Children conceived there and spouses. 

Rich Bennett 12:21
Civilians that work there as well, too, right? 

Jane Babcock 12:24
Yes. Yes. They're not entitled to compensation, but they are entitled to health care. Okay. Now, people will say, okay, does that mean my spouse gets to go to the VA? No. They provide insurance to the family members. 

Rich Bennett 12:43
For the civilians. 

Jane Babcock 12:44
Right. 

Rich Bennett 12:45
Okay. 

Jane Babcock 12:47
So that can be awarded. And of course, if the veteran falls under capitalism, which odds are 99.9%, then he's going to also be awarded all of his VA benefits and may qualify for VA for the family even if they don't have a care related medical issue. 

Rich Bennett 13:11
All right. So for those people listening that don't have a clue what we're talking about with the camp, with Camp Lejeune, explain to everybody what you know, what I forget what the act is called, the Water Contamination Act or whatever, what it refers to and 

basically the history behind it. 

Jane Babcock 13:32
Okay. Well, basically, the EPA and other organizations knew what the camp was doing was dumping toxic substances, including dry cleaning fluids into the ground, 

and that was going into the water table and then coming right back out of the ground, into the taps on post. And unfortunately, in the surrounding area. But the federal government is only responsible for federal lands right now. It was it just kept a zoo near. There is also a small training facility, I believe it is. Read something. 

Rich Bennett 14:12
I'm drawing a blank now. I want to say New River, but I mean it. 

Jane Babcock 14:15
New River? 

Rich Bennett 14:16
Yes, it's a new river. Yes. Okay. 

Jane Babcock 14:19
Yeah, I for some reason it was the Red River, but that also was part of the camp legend thing. Okay. But unfortunately, there are several other bases that are on the government's research list 

that there was toxic water issues. Wow. Wow. So those cases will take some research to prove that there's a health risk until it gets approved. The whole process to get something approved to the, quote, presumptive list. In other words, VA doesn't argue that they call that the Department of Defense and or your branch of service caused the problem. But they saw that presumptive list is actually probably should be much, much bigger. Okay. You write in that Agent Orange has 38 kids. 

Rich Bennett 15:17
And 38. 

Jane Babcock 15:19
Yes. And the same type of benzene and whatnot that are in Agent Orange that are in the original order. 

So I always tell a veteran, any veteran, peacetime, wartime, anything, if you have a major health issue, go file that claim. It does two things. It puts the VA on notice that you've suffered this. It also gives them the statistical data. Right. That they need for research. 

Rich Bennett 15:51
All right. Repeat that again. 

Jane Babcock 15:54
It gives VA the statistical data. Look at all these guys that were stationed at Fort Richey, Maryland. Right. And they all have this neurological disorder. 

Maybe we should be looking at Fort Ritchie, Maryland. 

So it may be your case that puts that over the statistical count, but says this is one to look at. Yeah, but unfortunately, it takes two years and multiple research studies and data gathering and statistical magic. And then they bring it to the veterans committees and stuff and they say, okay, we want to add this to the list. And it goes back and forth that in and out of committee, an adjustment to the legislation and all that stuff. And so it can take years to get through, which is why Rosie Lopez and her husband Leroy were so amazing with John Stewart in that they pushed that data through it in relatively short amount of time in the eyes of the government. Right. And it got the Patriot Act approved. The Patriot Act approval did not only change burn pit and other things inside the Middle East, but it also added a few things and a few places for Agent Orange. Hmm. 

So never think that what's going on with your health isn't worth reporting. Right. Even if you're a veteran, it's 100% service connected. If you have a potentially terminal illness or a neurological condition or something going on with you, file it with the expectation that it will be denied. But Violet, if you can get any kind of evidence or you can. One of my guys worked on the arresting cables on carriers and he came in and he said he had cancer. And I said, okay, let's look at what you did in service, because I knew he wasn't Agent Orange or Burn pits. He'd been on a ship the whole time. Right. And so I said, okay, what chemicals did you use and service? He used a solvent called PB 680, which is full of benzene and other carcinogens. Mm hmm. So I got the chemical breakdown for it. I got the OSHA reports and other reports out there on the VA, on the Internet that show that these benzene cause these types of cancers. And I submitted it with this claim and said, Logic tells you that this was the exposure that made him sick. And the VA said, yes, we agree. 

Rich Bennett 18:35
Wow. So with Late-June, what's the time frame for that that you had to serve down there? 

Jane Babcock 18:43
53 to 87 that long? Yes. 

Rich Bennett 18:47
So even if you were there because, you know, people like me, even though we were there, we would deployed a lot. Well, it doesn't matter even if you're there for a day, Right? 

Jane Babcock 18:56
If you that you well, you're supposed to show we. 

Rich Bennett 18:59
Were there longer than a day, but. 

Jane Babcock 19:01
Right. Yeah. You're supposed to show 30 days. Okay. And that includes veterans from Reserve and National Guard units in the area that trained there. Were there two weeks in the summertime. 

Wow. Or maybe even done a drill or something. A drill weekend out of the range. 

Those days all add up. 

Rich Bennett 19:22
Okay. Now, was somebody like me because I was there 

80, 80, I want to say 83 to 85, 83, 85. So, I mean, I fall on that timetable. Knock on wood, I'm fine. But somebody told me I should still put in a clean. But if there's nothing wrong, I can't put in a claim, Right? 

Jane Babcock 19:45
Correct. Okay. But I. 

Rich Bennett 19:46
Thought. 

Jane Babcock 19:47
But what you can do is go to the patient, advocate at your facility, your clinic, your mini hospital, whatever you want to go to. That's a. Excuse me. And ask for additions to the toxic exposure registry. They'll put your name in data and your email address and all that kind of stuff onto the list. Okay. They they will send you data when they have new areas that they're looking at. They will also send you for toxic exposure medical exam. They're going to look for all those agent. No, I mean all those things 

because your average physical does not include those kind of tests. Right. So they're going to look specifically for those. After all, if they can catch these things early on. You. Yeah. You're going to have a better survival chance. 

Rich Bennett 20:43
Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, but are they still finding new your veterans are coming up with new things that are going back to that. 

Jane Babcock 20:53
Yes. That's where filing those claims for anything that's not on the list but is still a significant health problem helps the VA say, oh, wow. Or suddenly getting all these guys. There were all these Marines that have this condition and the other branches don't. Let's go back. Okay. Marines, look. Almost all of them were on camp reserves. Right. Wow. Now we need to gather some statistics to put it into the presumptive status. 

Mm hmm. 

Rich Bennett 21:26
For those. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. 

Jane Babcock 21:28
No. So you're going to go get on the registry? Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 21:33
Sure, I for for those listening. And I don't know if you have a list that you can run down, but explained everybody so far. What are some of the 

cancers? Ailment or whatever that people are getting from this? 

Jane Babcock 21:50
Well, a lot of them relate to the oral intake. Okay. And then the travel of the chemical through your digestive track. 

So bladder cancer and things like that. Cancer is not or excuse me. Yeah. Brain cancer is not on that list. What is on the burn pill? This. So tell me, what's the difference between the exposures, chemicals and stuff that they were? Yeah. So it's the same with Agent Orange. 

38 cancers. Not all of them are on the caplets in list, but the benzene is are of the same family of chemicals. 

Rich Bennett 22:28
Okay. So if I'm understanding. Right. So if the with the cable is you water, you had to drink the water not necessarily shower and bathing or whatever, but you had to drink it. 

Jane Babcock 22:41
No. You had to be exposed to it for showering uniforms, washing it, all that kind of stuff. 

Rich Bennett 22:48
And they're saying brain cancer is not one of them. 

Jane Babcock 22:52
Believe me, in my 12 years in semi-rural skirts and I worked with no less than ten guys with three kids. Right. All but one went to Vietnam. 

Brain cancer, not on the Vietnam list, but the last guy I worked, how I was able to assist him in getting his brain cancer service connected and the way we did that is he came in, we expedited the plane because it is a terminal illness. Which means the VA has to put it on the staff, the top of their working stack. Two weeks later, we got our denial expected that sent in the first appeal level, got a denial in two weeks. I turned around and hated him off two amazing VA lawyers out in California. Her name is Katrina Eagle, and she has been doing this for a couple of decades, fighting for veterans. Mm hmm. She had a genetic oncologist that actually took my guy's blood samples, broke it down to the genome level, showed that he had no hereditary factors and no risk factors in his DNA or his genomes that would of would have caused this cancer. They said he has no cancer plagues, so it had to come from an outside influence. What's his outside influence, exposure to all of these benzene and whatnot there in the Agent Orange? Mm hmm. And so he wrote a 25 page opinion. Five pages of it were just research studies being done outside the U.S., them outside the U.S. of the relationship between glioblastoma and Agent Orange. And so the VA took that and they looked at what? Yep, you're right. And he actually received his award prior to his death. Two months later, we were writing his wife's claim, 

which is dependent indemnity compensation. And that's what the surviving family is entitled to. Immediate dependents are entitled to that compensation 

with. 

Rich Bennett 25:08
Okay. And this is the thing that baffles me. We see the ads on TV all the time. You're going up the American Legion magazine, you see an ad there, but it's all from lawyers. So should a veteran, if he's diagnosed, whether it be bladder cancer, Parkinson's or whatever, should he go write to a lawyer or should he file a claim with the VA first? 

Jane Babcock 25:37
Well, if he's never filed it well, but if he has filed and been receiving compensation and health care from the VA for ten years for his cancer with cancer, Parkinson's, initially, when you are an active status of a terminal illness, you are considered 100% service connected, even if you're still going to work and doing a job. Right. Friend of mine went through cancer and had a backpack on his hip that his chemo was in. And so you're considered actively terminal. They put you at 100%. Okay. Now, for a married veteran, that's over $4,000 a month. 

Wow. Tax free. And depending on how you're doing, if it's making you really sick and you become housebound or if really, really sick or you're end stage and you need help with dressing and bathing and remembering to take your medicines and things like this daily tasks of living. Mm hmm. That's called aid and attendance. That's an additional benefit that goes on top of the rating. Just like housebound is. Okay, So they do that, and that might be another $300 a month that get out of your plane. 

And if your spouse is doing the caregiving or family member or even if you're paying someone, there's a caregiver stipend. When you meet the criteria of needing help with your daily tasks of living. And if you have to go to a nursing home, the baby's going to pay for that nursing home. There are contract nursing homes in most counties in the state. Okay. Okay. So like ours is just outside of town. It's that one doesn't have any beds available. The VA will pay for another one. 

So they want your family to be able to come and visit you and encourage you to cope with your passing or to get better so they're willing to work with you. The VA, you know who. Yes, you know who to ask and how to approach them and not to try to bully them into things because bullying them into things is going to help. The person that's doing your paperwork isn't the one making the decisions. And yelling at them doesn't do you any good. 

Rich Bennett 28:06
So. All right. So if you're able to do all that through the V.A., why does somebody need to contact a lawyer? See, that's where I get confused, because, you know, the lawyer thinks. 

Jane Babcock 28:19
Yeah, a lawyer is not for the VA. The lawyer is because you're suing the federal government. 

Rich Bennett 28:25
Because of the cause of the confusion. Water. 

Jane Babcock 28:28
Right. 

Rich Bennett 28:29
Okay. 

Jane Babcock 28:30
That is a lawsuit against the government itself. 

Rich Bennett 28:34
Okay. Gotcha. 

Jane Babcock 28:35
Which is totally separate from VA, which is why the lawyers will tell you all this doesn't interfere with your VA benefits. True. 

Rich Bennett 28:44
But there's always a but. 

Jane Babcock 28:47
Yes. If you've received a lot of money from the VA, years of, you know, thousands of dollars a month potentially. Right. And that amounts to the same amount as your 

claim has got you. 

Rich Bennett 29:04
Or the government, whatever. Yeah. 

Jane Babcock 29:06
The lawsuit is going to give you. 

Then it's a loss 

because you've already received government funds. Right. Now, going forward, if the veteran just got his diagnosis and he goes in, he files his lawsuit, he files this VA claim, he has received very little from the VA, about ten lawsuits. Right. Relatively little. Okay. So they're just going to balance the book. 

Rich Bennett 29:35
Okay. 

Jane Babcock 29:37
So if the veteran already passed, there is no VA claim except for the widow to receive. I see. So she could still get that larger benefit from the lawsuit. But remember, my caution to you is if you have been receiving VA benefits for these conditions, then you might be a whole bunch conditions. Only one of them is the people who think you're only going to look at that. Funds are not going to look at all the stuff. Okay. Just can't you. Right. Going to add it up and say, okay, you've received $50,000 resume. You would receive 250 from the lawsuit. We're going to give you the two. But you have to pay the lawyer out of that. 

Rich Bennett 30:22
Right. 

Jane Babcock 30:23
Okay. And most lawyers have contracted with the VA so that there's a bottom attic thing. Well, I'm sure they've done the same thing with the government. So the government says, okay, this lawyer charges 15%. We're going to give him his 15, and then we're going to give you your money. Or this lawyer charges 20% or by 25. So, again, you have to be cautious. Yes, that's right. Because it is an automatic lawsuit type thing. They are not going to have to do a lot of work. It's not it's fairly easy to prove that you were on base. Right. Or stationed there for 30 days or more. 

Rich Bennett 31:07
So with your experience and just just dealing with the people from Camp Lejeune, what's the biggest problem that are the biggest ailment, I guess you could say that you've been seeing with the ones you've been working with? 

Jane Babcock 31:27
That's hard to say. There's a lot of Parkinson's. Parkinson's being a neurological condition. Yeah, is a big one. And of course, several different kinds of cancers, including the bladder cancer and other things like that. 

Rich Bennett 31:38
Prostate, too, right? 

Jane Babcock 31:40
Yes. Okay. And the best thing about prostate cancers caused by toxic chemicals is unfortunately, especially like with our big dumb guys, they get the prostate out. And of course, now they have side effects. Right. Dysfunction, bladder leakage, all the things that may go wrong. They nick a nerve down there and all of a sudden you can't control your bladder. So those secondaries can be added to your plane. Mm hmm. On both sides of the house. But 510 years down the road, you know, your PSA has been running 0.0005, and all of a sudden it starts climbing up, 

and it's progressive enough that they go, okay, we would normally say you are a prostate cancer victim if you had prostate. Right. 

But what the VA has found is that just one of those little cells may have gotten out. Yeah. And maybe now you have it in your lungs and they'll biopsy it. And it's prostate cancer, 

which is why 

veterans need to be aware that you can't just fly the plane and say, I have kids. You have to tell them what kind of kids see. I have pain in my knee related to I jumping off a deuce and a half and spraining my knee. So you have to show that it's not a cyst in your knee, that it's not other things. So you have to have a clear diagnosis. 

Rich Bennett 33:12
And it and that diagnosis has to be from a V.A. doctor, right? 

Jane Babcock 33:16
No. Oh, no. Okay. You're civilian, doctor. You just have to give them the medical record to show it. 

Rich Bennett 33:21
Oh, okay. 

Jane Babcock 33:23
Okay. So you don't have to be in the V.A.. Goodbye. You never have to go to the V.A. if you don't want to. Right. Personally, I'm glad that I finally got into the VA. After I got my rating, I went to the AA, and they listen to my lungs and they said, you know, I said, well, I have exercises. And according to civilians. And he said, I don't think so. 

I've been using inhalers for almost ten years. And at this point I was on two inhalers and a daily medication, because I don't think you have asthma, certainly. And for heart tests, they did find an electrical issue and they said, okay, we're going to go round and look inside your heart, see if we can see a burn spot where your electrical issue is. Is it okay? And they said, oh, well, we're in here. We'll do the dye test. I had eight blockages in my heart. Why don't. Yeah. The first two were about 70 and 72. 

Rich Bennett 34:22
So that time on inhalers and you didn't need them. 

Jane Babcock 34:26
Right? Not only that, but that they put me on a cocktail of medicine. Because this medical system is part of the education system and research systems of numerous hospitals and studies and stuff. Right. So they said, okay, with your permission, since it's not that 75 or greater, they automatically stadia. He said, We would like you to try this cocktail of medicines. And they had go in every month and take a blood test. So they put me on that cocktail of medicines and within 30 days I was breathing easier. 

Rich Bennett 35:03
Wow. 

Jane Babcock 35:04
Yeah. And from the week that they put me on it, I didn't use an inhaler ever again. 

Rich Bennett 35:12
That. 

Jane Babcock 35:15
So a year later, they said, Oh, well, six out of the eight improved, but not the two worst ones. And lucky for me, they were on the same blood vessel. So they just put one long stint in and opened up that blood vessel. I mean, it was such a world of difference for me. Oh, I bet so. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 35:33
So in other words, you're saying you're saying, Rich, get off your ass and go to the V.A.? 

Jane Babcock 35:38
Yes. Because they know what our our bodies have been through. 

Rich Bennett 35:43
Right. And they know what to look for. 

Jane Babcock 35:46
Right after all you're having. You know, when you go out for long runs or walks or you're in the garden for too many hours a day, you get heavy chested and hard breathing. And so, oh, that's got to be exercise, asthma. 

Rich Bennett 36:02
God, I do. So that that I know what I have. Well, I got I have another meeting after this, so I know what I'm going to do after my other meeting. Yeah, well, actually, let me ask you about that, because here it I mean, I meant just before we started recording, but I'm I'm attacking. I've designed websites, I've built computers. You know, I do Internet marketing. But whenever I go on to the VA website to, you know, try to enroll anything or follow whatever, it's like I'm lost. What am I missing? Or what are they missing? 

Jane Babcock 36:48
Well, they are getting better. Okay. VA has spent. 

Rich Bennett 36:53
There's that. But again. Yeah. 

Jane Babcock 36:55
Billions of dollars over decades. Right. Of trying to get these networks to talk. Remember, originally it was standalone computers. Then you had your local area networks. Then they had regional networks, and then they had the wide area network. And then they had the Internet. Yeah. And the World Wide Web. So the programming that happened in those smaller local area networks may have put the data. Okay. Your last name is going to be in line seven of the code, but in Boston, it's in line 24. 

And so it's kind of like talking Mandarin Chinese and who not Chinese. Not everything lines up. Right. So they've been trying to force these networks to talk to each other in different languages, different code lines and everything else. And they still haven't got it right. I'm a Wisconsin veteran. If I go to Florida and walk into a VA emergency room, will probably do walk. But anyways, yeah, they will say, Oh yeah, we see your retired ID card, we see your ID card, but we don't have any record of you in the computer system. 

Rich Bennett 38:06
Wow. 

Jane Babcock 38:08
So they would have to get a hold of Milwaukee and download it so that they would have my medical records. 

Rich Bennett 38:15
Well, that explains a lot of the delays with different Vas then. 

Jane Babcock 38:20
Oh, yeah. And you know, people rant and rave about how bad VA health care is. Well, you know, if you look in the medical research and stuff like that on the Internet, you're going to find that the hospital in Chicago put the wrong foot off the guy just like it happens in the VA. You're going to also find that here in semi-rural Wisconsin, my husband asked to go and see the neurosurgeon for his back issues and they said six weeks. 

But yes, okay. You're going to keep eating Vicodin and walking around stoned for the next six weeks. 

But in the VA, they said, okay, it's three weeks for me to get in. 

So depending on where you live, your services in the VA may happen faster. Yeah. And in my case, when I walked into the VA, the mega clinic up in Green Bay, the first time there was one of my neighbors and two of my veterans that I had help with their VA benefits. So I was like they were working there. So are my neighbors that work in my clinic. 

Rich Bennett 39:34
And then you came and say, Look, I can throw my inhalers away now. 

Jane Babcock 39:39
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So it has a lot to do with where your services are provided as to the quality and immediacy of those cares. But you have the right that if your care is going to be great in 30 days, if your care is going to be more than you know you're going to, you're not going to do dialysis at a VA clinic that's 100 miles away three times a week, because if it's service related, they're going to pay you gas mileage for that. But it's not service related. They won't. But that veteran is going to spend his entire week driving back and forth. Right. Extremely tired after those procedures. So the VA will say, no, where's the nearest one to your home? 

And they will authorize. They get. 

Rich Bennett 40:31
Wow. Okay. I didn't realize all that. 

Jane Babcock 40:35
Yep. Now I can get by Botox shots. Just 20 minutes from here. Yeah, but I don't mind driving down to my Milwaukee pain center or my Milwaukee hospital because they are the ones that first came up with the solution to my twice a month. Visits to the emergency room and multiple migraines that I was having. And they came up with the Oh no, you have a blockages in your heart. So I like my medical teams down there. So I'm willing to drive down there every six months and get my. 

Rich Bennett 41:08
Check in my hey, hey, they got it right for you the first time. So. 

Jane Babcock 41:12
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 41:12
Unlike your regular doctor. Go ahead. 

Jane Babcock 41:16
No. So, you know, you can make those choices, but you also have the right to go down to the patient advocate and say, look, they're telling me six or eight weeks to get out of pain in my knee. 

Mm hmm. So you have the right to ask for better. 

Rich Bennett 41:36
Yeah. Six, eight, six, eight weeks. It's hard to say what can happen within that time to. 

Jane Babcock 41:41
You know. 

Rich Bennett 41:42
I mean, it's. Mm hmm. 

Jane Babcock 41:44
Yeah. And you have to know what the rules are. Yeah. So, look, go to the Vega search Community care, find out the rules and stuff like that, or you can do 38 CFR 38 Code of Federal Regulation, community care or knee, or any those things like that. And you can find that information. The regulation, the rules, the laws do not let that tell you. Well, that's not how we do it here. Okay. Here where I'm at is the same VA where you're at. 

Rich Bennett 42:19
It's all run by the federal government. 

Jane Babcock 42:21
Right. So the rules are to say, okay, I have literally had to call up the VA eligibility in Dallas, Texas, and say, okay, break out your 38 CFR, We're going to read this together. 

And the woman still said, well, that's not how we do it in Texas. 

And I said, Ma'am, I'll be happy to call Washington and talk to the secretary's aide who happens to be a good acquaintance of mine. We haven't met personally, but he knows me well. 

So get that corrected. 2 hours later, she called my veteran and said, okay, when was your appointment? 

Rich Bennett 43:03
2 hours later. Not two weeks later, No. 

Jane Babcock 43:08
After my guy in Washington called her and said, That's not how it works with one VA. The rules are the rules and this is what she'll do. 

Rich Bennett 43:17
All right. With somebody like me who's never been to the VA except when we used to take my grandmother there. Would it be best for me to see if there's a VSO in my county and then contact them first? 

Jane Babcock 43:32
Yes. You're always either going to be a county paid a person or a state paid a person or paid by the organization like the VFW and the V.A. or anything. They have to go through all that training process. They've been training every year to keep their accreditation. And they are free because they are paid employees. 

Rich Bennett 43:54
Other volunteers. 

Jane Babcock 43:56
No, they're paid by their county. They're paid by the VFW or whoever. Okay. So they literally sign an ethics agreement with the VA saying, I will not charge for my services. 

Rich Bennett 44:12
Now, how do you find one of them? 

Jane Babcock 44:15
One of the links I sent you on LinkedIn. So if you're on LinkedIn, get connected with me. One of the links in the VA, 1 to 1 library that I used to teach with. Mm hmm. Is to find your local accredited VSO. Okay. Then you can go by like your county seat. Or if you're in a big city, you can look at the city itself. Right. And you could find the rep claims agents can charge you and lawyers can and will charge you. But those might be necessary. The lawyers might be necessary later. Right. When you are in the Board of Appeals, where you need somebody to stand in front of a judge in the VA, or you need somebody that can find a genetic oncologist. Mm hmm. But a VSO like myself, when I was the president, I could go into the Board of Veterans Appeals decisions and look for those cases related to a certain illness or a chemical or something, and find the ones that had been favorable decisions and then look at the type of evidence they submitted. Okay. Oh. PD 680. I need both studies and this, that and the next thing. Send that in with the clean bowl. I get granite. 

Could either write those decisions off and highlight the parts that I was copying and put that in my clean packet. Right. If it was a new rater. Hey, look, they've already awarded this based on this evidence half a dozen times before. 

Now that reader goes, okay, it's not precedent setting because these are not court lawyers. Mm hmm. These are VA board laws. So having sent in a PD 680, that doesn't put it on the presumptive list. 

That has to go through that whole B.S. process that I discussed earlier. 

Rich Bennett 46:16
Right. 

Jane Babcock 46:18
So being able to look at that kind of evidence, read that kind of evidence and interpret it properly is important. And that's what a VSO can do. That's part of their training. 

And it also gave me a huge network the first year I was picking up the phone and call in the BSL two counties away going, Hey, I got a guy coming in and this is what I'm gleaning off of his duty to 14. He was in Vietnam or he was in this country or this was a military occupation. What questions do they ask? Hmm. So having that network of thousands. One of the cases I actually got a death certificate that was ten years old changed. So it included his Agent Orange stuff that had just come out on the list. 

Rich Bennett 47:08
Oh, okay. 

Jane Babcock 47:10
And they hadn't accounted for. He died in a nursing home and he drowned of pneumonia so that the doctor put pneumonia. Well, the reason he had pneumonia is because he had the ration from his uncontrolled diabetes so bad that he couldn't get out of bed and walk. He couldn't exercise. He couldn't participate in his own health care. 

Why it uncontrolled diabetes. And having had two prior Agent Orange cancers and the chemo and radiation that went along with him, he had a compromised immune system. So when I presented that medical evidence to the coroner, he said, Well, yeah, I've been able to, you know, get up and participate in his own health care. And if he hadn't had a compromised immune system, he might have had a chance of survival. Right. So he agreed. He got the paperwork together and wrote up the petition to the court to amend the death certificate. 

I sent that amendment paperwork in to the VA and they went okay. 

And they gave her her DSC. 

Rich Bennett 48:19
The widow? 

Jane Babcock 48:20
Yep. 

Rich Bennett 48:21
Wow. So with 

that, I got a lot of work to do. 

Wow. 

With Back to the cable is used for a minute. It is. This is something that scares me. And everybody should be scared about it. 

Scammers, because you see it all the time with everything a and I'm sure even with the Campbells, you stuff, they're scammers out there, aren't there? 

Jane Babcock 48:57
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 48:58
So what should we be looking out for then? 

Jane Babcock 49:01
First and foremost, never submit anything to the VA without a accredited vessel. Or if you've gone through the denial process before and you are at the level where you need a lawyer. Mm hmm. Get them off that list I gave you. 

Rich Bennett 49:21
Okay. 

Jane Babcock 49:22
Those people are accredited. Yes. Claims agents can be accredited, and they are on that list. But if they're not on that list, they're not accredited. 

Rich Bennett 49:31
And it's okay to include those in the show notes. Oh, yes. Okay, Mark. 

Jane Babcock 49:35
Yeah. Yeah. You know, share that link because most people are going to find that there's an accredited BSOD. Right? Right. I being a BSL, it's a national accreditation. So If I had a veteran stay in a nursing home and he was running out of money or assisted living, running out of money, and maybe he didn't coordinate his own financials anymore because of memory issues, I could. As long as the veterans signed an authorization, I could communicate with the son who wrote the checks out each month. 

Oh. And I could say, okay, he's out in Colorado, but he does his bankbook for dad. Mm hmm. So he has all the information that's going to qualify my guy for VA pension 

so I could get that. And the veteran has to sign to make you their representative. Right. That also means that if I screw up the case, I don't meet the deadlines to get documents in or things like that. I can lose that. I could lose my accreditation. 

Rich Bennett 50:45
We don't want that to happen. 

Jane Babcock 50:46
Which would take away my job. Yeah. But these claims sharks that are out there, they're not actually file in your claim. They don't have accreditation. They can't get access to the VA's computer system to look at the case going on. They can't pick up the phone and say, Hey, Marty, by liaison, I need you to go up and slap this clerk in the back of the head because he's taking too long from this stage to this stage or. Marty, I'm scanning you down the documents right now. The guy just got a diagnosis of fails. Mm hmm. Okay. That's a terminal disease. It's a presumptive. It's going to go to the top of the stack. And literally within 30 days, that veteran will have that decision printed out in his hands. And even if what they have to do is just write the AOS to get him 100% right, then. Right. And then they go back and finish the rest of the claim. 

So and financial hardship 

Senior, I want to say the age is 72, but maybe it's 77. I think it's 72. And medical needs. You can expedite and of course, terminal illness. But if they have a pass to a utility bill or anything like that or they're you know, they've gotten a warning that they may be set for foreclosure or anything like that, you can expedite claims, but you have to know how to do it and who to do it with. Right. 

Rich Bennett 52:17
Okay. With that, because you said it correct me if I'm wrong with the VSOs. It's only, what, 32 states. 

Jane Babcock 52:25
32 states mandate county level. 

Rich Bennett 52:28
County level. Okay. 

Jane Babcock 52:29
Every state has a State Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Rich Bennett 52:33
Okay. Okay. 

Jane Babcock 52:34
And then those people maybe at the county level, but they may be at a regional level or they cover two or three counties, depending on population and stuff. 

Rich Bennett 52:42
But either way, there somebody in your state to contact. 

Jane Babcock 52:45
Yes. Okay. And of course, if you happen to be a member of the VA VFW or the VA, they know who their accredited reps are. Right. They know where their county office is. I used to work with those guys all the time. Hey, guys, I got a 82 year old veteran that doesn't drive anymore, and he needs to go for his annual physical. A lot of those guys are volunteer. Hey, I'll drive them up there. So there's a working relationship between most VSOs and the local folks. 

Rich Bennett 53:14
Okay. And I'm sure it's probably more than just VFW and all that, too. Probably even the Legion's Marine Corps Leagues. Well, hell, maybe even some some of the police departments, because you got a lot of veterans serving in there. You never know without me. I've got not the actual police department. You have a lot of your police departments have like a fraternal Order of Police or whatever. 

Jane Babcock 53:39
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 53:39
And you never know unless you check. 

Jane Babcock 53:42
Yes. So I every other year I went down to my coroner's office and I gave classes on the latest and greatest presumptions and things like that. Because when I first started, I had a family come in to order the headstone for a veteran. And when I asked what he passed from it, I looked at it 30 to 40. And I'm like, Well, you should have been here finally D.C. last month. And they were like, What's that? So I went, okay, who's the one person they would have been arrested with immediately? That would have been the coroner. So I went down to top corner. Then after a while, I went out to the funeral homes and the assisted living and the nursing house, and I said, These are the benefits that can help a veteran pay for your services. I had a young man that was Gulf War. He had been in a motorcycle accident after service and was paralyzed from the armpits down. He was in a nursing home on Medicaid and he didn't know. If you're on Medicaid, you only get $45 in spending one 

job. So I went and by teaching the administrator at the assisted living or nursing home, the they went, oh, well, with this guy qualified for anything. He qualified for another $90 through the war pension because it wasn't service related. Right. So I got him another $90 to go with the 45 he had. So then he was like, Well, how do I spend $135 a month? 

Well, I said, Well, for one thing, you're going to get a telephone in your room as well, as well as your cable TV, and you're going to get a haircut every month and you're going to we're going to write out a list of all people in your family that are getting married, graduating, you know, having significant events in their life that you want to send them a Hallmark card. Oh, and each month you're going about six cards. And, you know, so that's how we kept him under his $32,000 cap so he could stay on Medicaid. Well, if you imagine the difference it made. Oh, cause I have a phone and cable TV. 

Rich Bennett 55:55
Medicaid stars are, what, 65? 

Jane Babcock 55:58
No, Medicaid. Medicare. Medicaid. 

Rich Bennett 56:01
Medicare. Medicare. Would you have to pay for? 

Jane Babcock 56:04
Yes. Unless you can prove that you cannot financially support it and that you can get your state to pay for it. But what's another? That's another whole show. 

Medicaid is when you're no longer able to work and you can't afford to go to the doctor. 

Rich Bennett 56:23
Then you're dropping more surprises. I mean. 

Jane Babcock 56:26
Well, yeah. The youngest man I put on the war veterans pension for the actual full amount of the pension was 22 years old. 

Rich Bennett 56:34
Whoa. 

Jane Babcock 56:35
He had come home from the sandbox fairly unscathed. We sent in his claim, got him rated at 20%. And then he said, Well, I'm not going to bother going to the V.A. I've got good insurance through my job. And then my boss turned the insurance right back on. And I said, But what's the future hold for you? Then, you know, your civilian doctor's not going to look for what the V.A. looks for. So we enrolled him in VA health care. Nine months later, his family called me from the emergency room and said a guy pulled out of a driveway and hit my guy on his motorcycle. 

Rich Bennett 57:11
Oh, God. 

Jane Babcock 57:13
And he had a helmet on. But the helmet had actually split in half. And he had a severe brain injury and compression injury to his entire spine. 

And they said he just started a new job. So he doesn't have insurance. But because we had enrolled him and he was within his 18 month window. Every time you go to the VA, it resets your window, so long as you go at least every 18 months before you come in. Well, for your annual physical. Right. But if you go at least every 18 months, you remain an active participant in VA. Oh, okay. If you go look at that, they figure, oh, well, he the moved away where he no longer needs the V.A. so we're going to drop that person to enroll somebody new into that clinic, 

huh? So that's how they keep their numbers rotating so that they make sure that they're treating as many as possible. 

So that young man I call down to Milwaukee and I said, this is the information, This is where he is. This is when he applied for VA health care. I scanned down a copy of the application so they could see what went to Atlanta, and they called the hospital and said, send the bills to us. He's obviously never going to return to work, or at least not for the next year. So he went and all the bills went down there. He was over two months in the ICU up here, and he never saw any of bills. 

Rich Bennett 58:43
Wow. 

Jane Babcock 58:45
Because he had no income. Right. And the VA bases eligibility for non service connected based on income. It used to look at assets which stopped a lot of guys from getting it, but they don't look at assets anymore. Right. Income minus your out-of-pocket medical. 

Rich Bennett 59:06
Oh, wow. 

Jane Babcock 59:07
You're paying for Medicare. That's an expense. You get to reduce your income. If your income gets low enough, you don't pay co-pays. 

So whenever there's a major financial change in your life, get it done. Go to be a report it say, hey, look, I just retired. My income just got cut in half and now I'm paying for Medicare or I'm paying COBRA. So, okay, you're going to get in the VA and you're not going to pay for the specialist co-pay and you're not going to pay for the doctor co-pay, but you're going to pay that 8 to $11 a month, I guess is 14 now $80 a month for medicines. 

Rich Bennett 59:48
Wow. 

Jane Babcock 59:49
But that hundred $27 inhaler is to cost you $11. 

Rich Bennett 59:55
Or if you're lucky, like Jean can just throw them in. 

Jane Babcock 59:59
Yes, you are. But the that young man came out of there and being as young as he was, he did not qualify for Social Security disability. Oh, you have to have 40 quarters or ten years of income. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:16
Oh, wow. 

Jane Babcock 1:00:18
So because he didn't qualify for Social Security disability qualified for the lesser program, SSI which most people think of as the program for those disabled prior to their 18th birthday. Right. But again, if you don't qualify for Social Security disability, you're going to qualify for SSI, which at that time was $850 a month. 

So his parents, you know, after he was at our hospital for over two months, then they sent an ambulance from the VA and they took him down to the VA where we're lucky to have a really good spinal center. And the physical therapy room has all the harnesses from ceiling and all the stuff. So he learned how to walk again. He learned how to feed himself again. Nice. But is it brain injury? Was such that he's a young teenager. Rest on his good days. So he has to have someone to assist him with his life. Yeah. His parents found a part of a house that he could rent just down the street. And they take a little doctor's appointments because he can't drive. And they monitor whether or not he picks his medicines and things like that. So they do a lot of daily task assistance for him. So he qualified for the pension based on the $850 being well below poverty. And he had no medical expenses because the VA was covering everything. And then we went ahead and filed for the pension from the pension program because of aid and attendance and add on benefit, he got $950 from the V.A.. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:00
Wow. 

Jane Babcock 1:02:02
So this was more than ten years ago. That was sufficient for him to live in our small little town. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:09
With that, something like that. It goes like you mentioned ten years ago, and we know how inflation and everything is now. Will that increase over time or does he have to go? Really. 

Jane Babcock 1:02:21
It's the same benefit if the same increases as Social Security every year. So it doesn't keep up with inflation. Right. But it's it's there and there's you know, if he were to suddenly have any out of out of pocket medical expenses because his a pension everything in the VA's free right. But if he wanted to file for a medical expense report every year, even just the $50 for toothpaste and Band-Aids. Yeah. Then they would increase his pension. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:52
Wow. Wow. Then, Jane, thank you. I am learning so much here. I can't wait for for the next one. What are we going to talk about when the next one was in Agent Orange or abouts or maybe spouse and family benefits? 

Jane Babcock 1:03:07
Yeah. Let's talk about spousal family benefits. Three quarters, 75% of the eligible spouses and or dependent children are not receiving the benefits they're entitled to. Why? Because nobody tells. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:21
So those of you listening, if you have any questions that you want me to ask Jane, on the next episode of this contact me. Let me know and I'll have them ready for her. And if there's anything that you want to talk about or want us to talk about that you may not know about, like those of you listening here, then know about the Camp Lejeune water determination. Let me know and we'll go ahead and talk about that as well. Jane, anything you would like to add? 

Jane Babcock 1:03:50
Yes. If you are on LinkedIn, please look for me. Jane Babcock, I will tell our founder. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:59
Where did you find me? 

Jane Babcock 1:04:01
Well, I think I reached out to you. Yes. I have a tendency if I recognize somebody as being a veteran on their profile, I go ahead and I send about it. Okay. I'd like to share my tools with you. So they're very happy to send you the tools to do one on one phone calls. If you happen to be a radio podcast, livestream or whatever. I'm happy to do a show. If you have an in with anybody on national TV or radio, 

please push them to do veterans information. And if you would, I'll be happy to talk with them if they don't want me as a guest, but they want the information and happy to share it. VA is not advertising. VA isn't even putting their federal benefits books in the lobbies of our facilities, which is why 75% of our widows and half of our veterans entitled to benefits fully qualified are not getting the benefits. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:00
Mm hmm. Yeah. And we definitely need, as we know, as veterans and families, we need to know about all this stuff. 

Without a doubt. Jane, thank so much. It's been an honor and a true pleasure. And thank you for teaching me so much. I can't wait till the next one to learn even more. 

Jane Babcock 1:05:23
Thanks, Butch. Well.