The Glade 4.0

I'm a little unclear exactly what the deal with this guy is. He injured himself playing football and is claiming it was a result of military service?

In any case, the nature of the veteran's disability system makes it easy to abuse, and invites it. Disability payment is the only way you'll get paid after leaving the service without retiring after 20 years. Therefore, there's a strong incentive to get a disability rating if one has a significant amount of service under 20 years, as otherwise you get no benefit at all, other than possibly "buying back" those years in another job (and that costs money as well). There are lots of benefits and preferences that "disabled veterans" get that non-disabled vets are completely shut out of, from stronger hiring preferences to free license plates and hunting licenses (in Texas, for example). There is very much a message that if you got injured in some way, your service is automatically more worthy than someone who didn't. This is unrelated to combat or to the source of injury, so a disabled veteran who tore their ACL running at PT and never went to combat is considered a "disabled vet" but one who went to 3 tours in Afghanistan and has no injuries (or who just has never claimed them) is not.. and gets far fewer benefits. Most benefits are unrelated to the degree of disability too; while the amount of disability payment ranges from 10% to 100% (AFAIK it goes in 10% increments) most other benefits you either have or don't.

The entire Veteran's disability system is set up for abuse, and actively encourages it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Singling out this guy isn't going to fix a broken system.

Just like any other social payout system, it's vulnerable to abuse. Calling the abusers out won't change a damned thing.

Reason # 4,832 that social systems run by the government will always fail.

Edit:
Military Veterans do not get to arbitrarily pick their disability rating out of a hat. There is an evaluation process you go through. Once that evaluation is complete, it's reviewed by the blue coats at the VA.

If this guy is getting 40% disability for a sprained ankle, like the nice lady implied, it's because that's how the system is set up.

Why isn't she railing on the people who manage the broken system instead of the people who are taking advantage of it?

He went to a military prep school before college where he injured his ankle playing football. After prep school he played football in college. He never actually served in the military. He claims preferential status in the awarding of contracts based on this one injury.


After all this brouhaha that this board raises about people abusing food stamps, housing programs, welfare, unemployment, etc we get scads of complaints and recriminations against 'that class' of people or how liberals 'just want other people's money' or some other nonsense.

This fellow is potentially bilking the government for millions of dollars and what I hear is "The system is too easy to take advantage of" But he's obviously a well off individual (prep school, ring, watch, suit) we he's just being clever taking advantage of a system.

edit: The contracts in question were worth half a billion dollars, and Mr. Castillo is the President & CEO of Strong Castle Inc.

I have no idea why you think this guy is any exception to anything. My opinion of those that take what they haven't earned doesn't discriminate.

Take the lot of them, revoke their citizenship and ship them to Somalia. You want this guy there? Fine, works for me.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Absolutely true. However, I would say that it's very important to provide this guy (or someone like him; he just happened to be the one present at the time) as an example, so that the public can see that it is not just a matter of veterans getting abused by the system, but of some of them abusing the system as well. The fact that the system invites and encourages fraud does not excuse people that are committing it.



Maybe it has something to do with who she is. Leiutenat Colonel Duckworth has some pretty severe service-connected disability herself, and from causes unquestionably of a legitimate nature. Some of her ire no doubt is personal anger at someone who games the system standing right before her. Part of changing the system is calling people like this out, so that when the system IS changed, those people cannot go to the press and scream "ZOMG THE GOVERNMENT IS DENYING DISABLED VETS THEIR BENEFITS!!" You know the sort pof people I'm talking about, too. People feel entitled to disability money, and they will fight tooth and nail to keep it if the system is reformed. In any case, I can definitely forgive her for a little personal anger, based on what she's suffered. If it were you ranting at the guy, I'd cut you some slack too.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't think that anyone here would disagree that food stamps, welfare, housing programs, and unemployment programs are also far too easy to take advantage of, and for the same reason. They award people benefits far too easily, with no mechanism to call bullshit on a claim, and with press, special interests, and public outrage waiting in the wings for any story of deprivation, with nary an inquiry into the actual facts. Rep/LTC Duckworth can question without press and public outrage because of who she is. There's no hypocrisy here. I know I've talked (briefly) about people gaming the VA before.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yeah, if anyone can be irate, its her. Without question.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Yeah it needs to change, but if you think this kind of thing is limited to VA disability, you are sorely mistaken. This case obviously doesn't pass the common sense test, but he's only a drop in the proverbial bucket. Preferential awarding of contracts at least was money that was going to spent by the governmental with someone else.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"