 Welcome to another edition of Hawaii Uniform. I'm your host Calvin and today we're going to be talking of course about military and veterans issues also. I've got Mr. Steve Kelly who's going to be joining me, who's a veterans advocate. And like I say, we have a lot of people out there in the community who are doing a lot of good things. But Mr. Kelly is one of those individuals who went above and beyond the call of duty in a lot of cases and addressing a lot of the issues concerning the veterans and the military on a legal level. I'll let him talk about his background in just a moment. But before we begin, I wanted to make a comment. There's a lot of things that are happening here in this country that we are, many of us are woefully unaware of what's happening. We talk about our service members and men and women who are being sent overseas in the name of freedom. And a lot of people have questions about some of the policies that's going on, which is woefully so. As citizens of this country, we need to be kept aware of what's going on. Unfortunately, what I see and I think what a lot of people believe, we have a lot of laws or regulations that's in place right now that are created by what I call intellectually immoral individuals. And what I mean by that is that there's individuals who they can weave a verb sentence to an eye of a needle. It sounds good, but when it comes out, actually, instead of supporting the democratic process, it subverts it. And I think that's a real danger. We have too many policies right now, especially under the NDAA. We have policies right now, we're going to read something real quick as far as with the veterans concern. This is from the World Net Daily. There's been a, in place, it's called something Operation Vigilant Eagle. And this is a program launched by the Department of Homeland Security in 2009. And under this, it includes the returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. And they're being, in some cases, categorized as being extremists, potential domestic terrorists. And because they seem to be disgruntled or disillusioned. When we start labeling our veterans, like, say, for no reason, we have them put up above Al Qaeda and a few other different extreme groups out there, there's something wrong with that picture there. Why are these people, like, say, classified as this? And, like, say, what is the reason for it? And I think a lot of it has to do with the way that they've been treated in the past, and across the board, like, say, it's not all doom and gloom. But there's too many circumstances where this system has not really been effective in dealing with a lot of different issues concerning the veterans. It is a popular consensus within the military and the veteran community. Because based on what we see as far as some of the programs, the way things have been geared towards the veterans community, is that some faction of the government is waiting for the veterans to die off so they can go ahead and balance the books. Now, this may sound like an extreme statement. But based on a lot of things that's been happening in the past, as far as, like, say, the number of deaths, suicides, and different programs that they talk about having to put into place, but seem to be ineffectual. That is the problem. Too many people nowadays where, again, with the less than 1% of the total population is involved in any form of fashion with the military, you know, you seem to miss certain things along the way. And that's why, as you said in the past, it's really extremely important, like, say, the citizens get out there and find out what's going on. Where in the cases where the military or the veterans cannot speak up for themselves, they need to know that you're there to back them, that you have their back. Because they had yours all this time, you know? And like I say again, it's unfortunate that we have individuals, leaders, so-called leaders in different military and also veterans organizations who I have not stepped up to the plate. Who basically have been Judas Goats, and that's my opinion, all right? So, again, whatever I'm saying right now as far as this commentary is concerned, this is based on information that I have that I believe, but I believe that is shared by a lot of people. Right now, I'm going to introduce Steve Kelly to the program. Steve, thanks for coming on the program. First off, may I call you Steve? Yes. Okay. Just a background, like I said, to make sure we have a lot to cover. And I know that over the years you've done a lot of things. You've made several presentations on a lot of different fronts to a lot of our elected officials about certain rules, regulations, or statutes that have been put in place as far back as World War II and beyond that have been ignored. Okay, first off, if you can give us your background, as far as, like I said, not only militarily, but as far as legally, how, like I said, you came into addressing a lot of these issues on a legal basis? Well, when I was in service, I was an EEO person. And when I found out that not only was I a lawyer, but I'm administrative law judge. So when I got out, I had a problem getting a job. And fortunately, the University of Hawaii then gave me credibility, and so did the state legal system. But I'm a federal officer, and thereby I cannot represent people because I'm still administrative judge. I can then help the individual argue his cases in sense of writing, what it done, and all the research I've done in reference to why are the veterans getting not really what they're supposed to get by the law, and that got me into research. And the research is looking at what the rules and regulations and policy were that were depriving us of benefits for those who come back, and those who didn't come back, which affect the wives, the deceased widows, and their children, not getting proper benefits. And I couldn't understand this. So I took on myself with the grace of God, helping me to find out why it was going on. And I think I've found the reasons for it to be done, like Calvin said. We have people who then have written laws, have written statutes, have written policies that take away our rights. And because when we get out of service, we don't know what rights we're supposed to have. And in that, that's a problem. They send our medical records to a storage facility. They send our personnel records to a storage facility. They don't give them to the individual when he gets out so he can prove his case. He can prove he got hurt in the line of duty. He can't do that. And when you get, you've got to apply for getting copy of your records. You don't know if you're getting all what's there. OK, one of the things that, OK, we have the VA, and we have other VSOs, or People's Schools of Representatives, to help them go ahead and get paperwork together. But sometimes, and I mean, I'm the people who brag about, like I say, the benefits they got. And they weren't even entitled to it, mainly because of people that they knew within the system. And that's been a problem. Well, we do have people who should be entitled to certain benefits and everything else because they don't know what's out there as far as the rules and regulations. And they have not been informed about what's going on. They wind up losing out. And something, as I mentioned on the past program, is that this affects, when you have a family, that the money, the funding has to come out of their pocket to help support a medical condition, that they were legally entitled to receiving. That's a drain, not only on the family, but again, it comes back to the community. I know there's a few things, as far as with your recognition, like I mentioned, that you have been championing this for a longest time, anyhow. You've been to a lot of our elected officials. You even got a letter from President Obama acknowledging some of your efforts. Could you go into a little bit of detail about this letter and the circumstances around it? Well, one of the things that when President Obama campaigned, he said he was going to do something for the veterans. But from the President's point of view, he then, like his staff or like all the executive departments, they're supposed to implement the laws. And although he said he was going to do something in the letter, stipulating to see if I had gotten my combat stress disorder and they were trying to get, I never got it. So in this sense, I don't blame him for saying that he's trying to do so, but there's too many people in the administrative aspects of our legal system who work on a detrimental aspect, which was written in 1958. And a lot of their actions are primed in this statute. And the statute says that those who go to war cannot get the same benefits of those who don't go to war. That don't make sense to me. But this is a law written by Congress. Okay, but again, we get into these legalese and everything else. Well, I'm just, yeah. But I'm just saying, the thing is sometimes, like I said, when you hear this, and like I said, you're very versing all this, that's one thing. And again, I'm really impressed with the, again, the due diligence that you've done over the years, because a lot of people don't know, again, your extensive background as far as what you've given up personally to address these issues anyhow. But again, that didn't mean to cut you off, the thing is when you're talking about the legal statutes and everything else, you know, a lot of people, unless you are an attorney or you're a legal resident, you don't understand. And that's why I say, as far as there are some of our individuals who are supposed to be represented in this, are remiss because they are not adequately conveying what's in that statute into real life terms. And I think I need to quote the statute and the date it was done. And this is a public law, 88, 857, written in September eight, 1958. And it's 31, 38 USC, 1131. I'll repeat that again, 38 USC, 1131, basic entitlements. And it says, for disability rendering from personal injury or suffered or disease contracted in the line of duty or aggravated or preexisting injury, suffered or disease contracted in the line of duty, the active military naval air service during other than a period of war. I will repeat that again, during a period other than a period of war, the United States will pay any veteran, those disabled and who are discharged are released under the conditions other than dishonorable from the period of service in which said injury or disease was incurred. Our preexisting injury disease was aggravated compensation as provided in this sub chapter. But no compensation shall be paid if the disability is a result of the veteran's own willful misconduct on abuse of alcohol or drugs. Okay, to break it down to the lay terms, what exactly does that mean? If you went to war, you don't have any benefits. That's what it says, they're not gonna pay you the same benefits of the person who didn't go to war. You're not getting all the benefits, they cut it out. So what happened in 1968, I have a document which says that the American Psychological Association wrote a DSM which is a diagnostic statistic book that says it categorizes all the disabilities. But they took combat stress or combat disorder out of this medical document so doctors could not evaluate and provide and diagnose combat stress or combat trauma for a person who served in war. Now, in Vietnam, 1969, documentation shows there were 500,000 people, Americans, who were in Vietnam at that time. None of those could be diagnosed for combat stress or combat trauma because it was not in the manual for doctors to do so. So it's not in your medical records. There's nothing's gonna be in your medical records saying that you suffered from that. Even though you go to a doctor, even though you complained about the situation, you come back to the VA and they tell you it's not in your medical records, how's it gonna be in your records if they don't have the right to put it in? Okay, so this was a conscious part when some government entity decided to pull that out so that veterans would not be able to qualify for that. Well, go on, we're gonna qualify for it. Okay, one of the things we talked about on the previous program, I talked to an attorney by the name of Gary Porte because like I said with the DD 214 there's a coding on there. I didn't know how extensive the coding system was. Oh, yes, it is. And what it does, it did in a certain way, it does deny, it can deny your jobs and other benefits. Oh, yeah. What they do not tell you. Most people are familiar with the very basic codes as far as the RE codes, re-enlistment codes, things of that nature. But when you get more heavy into it, and again, there's some of these things that are not being told and are not being shared. Again, it's about having the information source to find out what's going on. So what you're saying, again, a lot of things that you bring to my attention, it surprises me because I know one of the things we'll get into in a little bit later, I guess after we take a break is the fact that certain documentations or certain applications that they say can be filed that the information is again, it's not readily available unless you know somebody within the system who can guide you through the maze. But the system is not set up to provide you rights as an employee of the government. So when you come out of service, your discharge on the DD 214 gives you little or nothing because it does not give you an occupation to be disabled from. Okay, Steve, I don't want to cut you off. I'm going to take a short break because I don't want to interrupt you anymore when you get it, you know, as far as explaining this anyhow. But we're going to take a short break and we'll be back in a few minutes. And again, this is Uniform in Hawaii. Hello, I'm Helen Dora Hayden, the host of Voice of the Veteran. Seen here live every Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. As a fellow veteran and veterans advocate with over 23 years experience serving veterans, active duty and family members, I hope to educate everyone on benefits and accessibility services by inviting professionals in the field to appear on the show. In addition, I hope to plan on inviting guest veterans to talk about their concerns and possibly offer solutions. As we navigate and work together through issues, we can all benefit. Please join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. for the Voice of the Veteran. Aloha. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. But I have a story and I don't know where to start. I feel alone in a crowd. I can't sleep. I feel overwhelmed. I don't even know who I am anymore. I still have nightmares. I can't live like this anymore. I'm really not so good. But are you ready to listen? Okay, you're back to with Hawaii in Uniform. I keep screwing up the name of my own program here anyhow. Anyhow, we're back with Steve Kelly. And Steve, to continue what you were talking about. And again, a lot of things that a lot of people are not aware of as far as, again, some of the rights, thinking that nature. Before we took a break, you mentioned that there's something else you wanted to discuss. Yes, one of the things that outside of them not putting in the DSM to give the diagnosis and treatment, it's not even in your military records. There's a lot of stuff in war that doesn't go in your military records. In the Army, we have a two-dash one. And in the two-dash one, it's supposed to lift all the duties that you perform in your MOS. One of the problems of that is, they give you a MOS, Military Occupational, especially. And when you go to war, you may never work in that. But it's not credited showing that you were working outside of what your primary MOS is. And then when you tell people that, yes, I did this, it's not there to be done, other than you knowing about what you did. It's not in your personnel records. And it's not classified as a duty performed. So here, you're not getting respect for what you may be a cook, but they put you in the infantry out there fighting. So here, you don't get credit for that unless you get a CIV, and what the military personnel do, if you're not in a combat arms, they'll take those off your records. Okay, I know that, well, there's certain jobs that when you, the equivalent to the civilian side, you can get certain predetions or something. Yeah. One of the, I'm gonna read this statute to you. It says, according to Title 61 of the Civil Service Retirement Act, A, who sequentially to May 1st, 1940, shall have entered into active duty on naval service or active duty in the land and naval forces of the United States by voluntary enlistment, and otherwise shall be entitled to receive in addition to their military pay compensation in their civilian position. We don't know that. We don't know that we have two occupations while we go on the one military, one civilian. So they discharge you based on rank and grade, which does not give you an occupation. You don't have a means of a qualification that you can be disabled from. Okay. This being the 50th anniversary of the commemoration of the Vietnam, I know that there's a lot of course, we still have a lot of Vietnam veterans left, but excuse me, over the years, it seems like again, they start recognizing all the different things or the flaws within the system in the past. But unfortunately, with so many veterans dying off or losing them at an alarming rate, it seems that again, it's like waiting after the barn doors closed before they start doing anything. Okay, what do you see in a positive vein that may be happening that is going on like say to accommodate the Vietnam vets and also the current veterans are coming back because they're still dealing with a lot of issues, but at a different time frame. I have created a packet, which is about 30 or 40 pages. It outlines all of these things that you did not get at discharge. When you got separated from service, there are certain statutes that still take away your rights. There's a law that's 38th section 1218. It's saying prior to getting out of service, you got to file with the Department of Veterans Affairs. They're not your employer. Your employer is responsible for all things that happen. That takes away from them having responsibility of giving you benefits, giving make sure at discharge, you're referred as a qualified disabled employee, which you don't have. And because veterans, the court of veterans appeals, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, said veterans do not have constitutional rights because they belong to a right of a group, not an individual. So thereby your individual rights are belonging to as an employee. So when you file with VA, their primary emphasis is unemployability, not employment opportunity. So in that, you have a hard time getting a job and the minimum salary that you're getting, they give you a rating of 10%. How are you going to live off $250 a month? With all the, I know it's with some of the people viewing the program out there right now, what is something tangible that you can provide them right now as far as, they had a couple forms that you showed me as far as application for combat related benefits? Right, and trauma. Could you show the audience that and also? Oh yes. Please explain what these forms are about and where they can obtain them. This form here is a DD form 2860 that was put out in 2003 and it's entitled application for combat related special compensation. Well, we never get this form that you can apply for combat related injuries. But how are you going to prove that if it's not in your medical records? Okay, well this form, where do you get that from? And like I say, if you were- I got it online. Okay, you got it online. Okay, what web source did you get it from? On the disability website, I googled saying that combat injury and it came up with showing that there were different things in this form. Well, that form one more time if you can read the title on also the form number, so people can Google it. It's application for combat related special compensation and it's DD form 2860 that was test on May 2003. And you can go and apply for that and check the boxes, but the information that they're looking at applies to many of the post-911 people and they just happen to have Vietnam on there. But the thing is that your trauma, your wartime disability is a hard time being documented because when you go in and talk to a doctor, for example, militarily the doctor has a given administrative issue to talk to and give all your information to the commander. They won't tell you what's going on, but they'll tell the command was why you came to see him. And it's mandated by policy that the doctor do that. Yeah, okay. I think it's one of the important things that we need to do as veterans is that, again, there's many different sources out there, but as far as connecting the dots sometimes and finding out what is out there is a little bit difficult. Even like say, people will tell you if you go to a wall, how come you didn't apply for this? Well, you didn't tell me about it or whatever. But what I'm encouraging, if there's any veterans out there that have any information that could be pertinent to other vets, certain administrative shortcuts that could be taken or any knowledge that you can pass, contact us here at the station. And like I said, we like to pass that on. Even have you come on to explain certain things anyhow. And Steve, I know you've got another form that you wanted to point out. Yeah, this is a form that was, it's a VA form, 2109-660-C5, and it is a general nervous system, neurological diseases, except traumatic brain injury. Except traumatic brain injury. What do you think you did? What do you think that you're getting when you have a trauma? You have a brain injury, even though you might not have a concussion, but your brain dysfunctions when you have a lot of trauma, when you face death, when you see somebody, one of your buddies gets shot, get killed. That's trauma that's facing that psychologically affecting your whole body. But here you cannot get compensated as a service-connected disability for it. Okay, we're getting on to the wire, but one thing I wanna ask you about real quick as far as the neurological thing, we touched briefly in the past, but we're gonna do a more extensive program in the future about some of the medical and psychological issues that apply to the dependence, because a lot of things that were genetically haven't passed on, that has not been open, we talked about all these different things, yeah. So with the form you're talking about, real briefly, does that include, or is it another? That I don't know. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and do some more checking on that. Yeah, it has to do some more, because I just got this this week off, well, day four yesterday offline. I didn't know they existed. Okay, well, we'll do some more research about that, because we're gonna have, like I say, people who are knowledgeable like yourself and other individuals to come on and explain to the audience some of the things that we may not be aware of, that we shouldn't be aware of anyhow. Like in 20 seconds or less, and I know it didn't wanna time you, but any partying, any thing you'd like to pass on to the audience. Yes, one of the things that I do is that I don't charge a veteran for doing anything. I do, this is not pro bono, this is a veteran assistant of veteran, and your wives, your children, anybody who think they did not get proper compensation, proper rights, call me. My phone number is 808-772-6014. Call me and we can set up a time and any group that wants to issue or deal with this, I'm glad to be there. Steve, I wanna thank you for coming on the program and I wanna thank the viewers for watching the program. Again, like we'll be touching on some other sensitive issues that are essential, but thank you, God bless and until that time.