Are Veterans Getting too much Disability with Clay Simms | S.O.S. #240

Headlines say the VA system is broken and rife with abuse. Our conversation with Marine veteran Clayton Sims tells a different story—one grounded in lived experience, policy fluency, and a community-first approach to getting claims right without fear or costly consultants.

Clayton shares how a rough transition and a hurried VSO visit pushed him to learn the language of 38 CFR and the evidence behind service connection. We unpack the realities of infantry life—miles in boots under load, daily wear that wrecks feet, ankles, and backs—and why conditions like flat feet and sleep apnea aren’t punchlines, they’re predictable outcomes. We also go deeper than combat. MST, toxic command climates, uneven medical boards, and administrative limbo can all drive mental health injuries that are real and compensable when documented properly.

We cut through the noise about “rampant fraud” with data: far fewer veterans file than most assume, and only a portion reach 100 percent. The bigger problem is confusion. Clayton maps the routes that actually win—direct, secondary, aggravation, presumptive, MUCMI—and the kinds of evidence that matter: deployment health assessments, awards narratives, buddy statements, specialty opinions, and clear medical links. He explains how CivDiv helps veterans self-advocate or meet VSOs prepared, flipping the script on an industry that profits from complexity.

If you’ve felt overwhelmed by forms and jargon, you’ll walk away with a clearer path and a stronger mindset. And beyond claims, Clayton leaves a vital reminder: don’t isolate. Find your circle—online, at a VFW, through church, or with a few trusted friends—because community can save time, money, and lives.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a veteran who needs it, and leave a review with your biggest question about VA claims. Your story might guide our next episode.

The stories and opinions shared on Stories of Service are told in each guest’s own words. They reflect personal experiences, memories, and perspectives. While every effort is made to present these stories respectfully and authentically, Stories of Service does not verify the accuracy or completeness of every statement. The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the host, producers, or

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Guest Introduction
• 1:18 Clayton’s Mission And CivDiv Origin
• 2:35 Teresa’s Show Intro And Background
• 3:27 Clayton’s Early Life And Enlistment
• 6:40 Infantry Life And Deployments
• 10:20 Ship Life And Amphib Tours
• 12:20 Deciding To Leave And Reserve Years
• 15:06 The Rocky Transition And Job Hunt
• 18:05 First VSO Experiences And Early Claims
• 21:10 Learning The System And Helping Friends
• 23:44 From Side Help To YouTube Platform
• 27:10 Contracting To Gov Job To Full‑Time Creator
• 30:05 Reading Policy And Decoding 38 CFR
• 33:22 Public Debate On VA Disability
• 36:15 Stats, Stigma, And Who Actually Files
• 39:10 What Counts As Service Connection
• 42:05 Combat Culture And The “Only Combat Counts” Myth
• 45:20 Flat Feet, Training Wear, And Real Injuries
• 48:30 Mental Health, MST, And Uneven Processes
• 51:10 Fraud Fears, Policy Fixes, And Reality
• 54:00 Final Advice And Building Community
• 56:00 Closing And Upcoming Episode Tease

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:02

So we have been hearing a lot about veterans' disability in the news and people who think that veterans don't deserve all the benefits that they're getting. And then there's other people on the other side who think that we deserve everything that we're getting. And there's many veterans who aren't even getting the benefits that they qualify for. And one person who I have found who is at the forefront of this issue and has been doing so much in the field to help educate service members is Clayton Sims. Clayton, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01: 0:32

I'm pretty good. Pretty good. Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_03: 0:35

Well, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the Stories of Service podcast. I am the host of Stories of Service, Teresa Carpenter, ordinary people who do extraordinary work. And before we get started, as we always do, we'll do an intro from my father, Charlie Pickard.

SPEAKER_00: 0:53

From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents, we are inspiring others. By showing up as a vessel of service, do we not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS Stories of Service. Hosted by Teresa Carpenter, here from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18

And as I said, today we are having Clayton Sims, who did not plan to become the guy who teaches thousands of veterans how to take back control of their VA claims, or to disrupt an entire industry that profits off confusion, fear, and the belief that the benefit system is too complicated for regular people to navigate. The goal started much simpler, understanding his own claim after a VSO led him down the wrong path. And today we're going to talk about how this just one moment of frustration reshaped his entire post-military life. Ten years in the Marine Corps, from infantry to psychological operations, and later in the reserve gave him a sharpened sense for messaging, systems, and power dynamics. None of it, however, prepared him for the bureaucratic maze of his 2019 transition or the horrendous seminars that left him piecing together answers on his own. And that's the origin story that we're going to talk about today with CivDiv, which is a mission built on education instead of exploitation. And he's going to explain how reading, researching, testing, and helping his friends slowly turned into a community of veterans teaching one another how to file stronger and smarter claims. His platform now equips veterans to either submit claims on their own or walk into conversations with a VSO fully armed with knowledge, a direct counter of the claim consultants charging five to six times the value of future benefits. So, Clayton, thank you so much and welcome to SOS Podcast.

SPEAKER_02: 2:36

Yeah, thanks for having me. That's uh one heck of an in of an intro. I don't think I can do my own intro better than that, but I definitely appreciate it. And uh I was totally not prepared to see your dad as the intro. That's that's really cool.

SPEAKER_03: 2:50

Thank you. Thank you. My father uh was a voiceover artist, he started as a DJ from 1960 to 1970 for WNCI Radio out of Columbus, Ohio. And then as I was growing up, he was a self-employed announcer, and I would go to all the advertising agencies with him and see him do all the voiceover stuff. So it's really full circle that I'm now a podcaster. And we did our first episode together, and that was really, really special. And then I asked him to do that intro for me, and he's just been on my show ever since, uh, setting the tone for the show, and really I think goes back to why I decided to do this and start the show to begin with. So, first off, I always ask all my guests who have been in the military, where were you born and raised, and what got you on the path that it you did to join the service that you did and the job that you got in the in the military?

SPEAKER_02: 3:43

Yeah, so it's no heroic origin story. I'm from Louisville, Kentucky. It's where I was born and raised. And then I joined the Marine Corps um mainly because just to be honest with you, there was nothing for me where I was born. Uh, my mom's single mom, she was working fast food. If I would have stayed home, college was definitely not an option. I would have been working fast food probably even today. And so that's just not something I wanted for myself. And I walked into uh, I remember my senior year of high school, they had the college fairs, they had it in our gymnasium, and that wasn't happening. Although I was forced to go there, and I there was a marine recruiter who talked to me first. That pretty much sealed the deal. I was like, you know what? This is I don't know what I'm doing, but this is what I'm going to do. And at the same time, in Dr. Knott's history class, we were reading a book called With the Old Breed. Um, it's still my favorite book today. And it goes, it follows Eugene Sledge and his time in the Marine Corps as an O341, which is the infantry mortarman. And so I knew immediately whenever I decided to join the Marine Corps, I was like, hey, I want to be infantry. That's it. Uh that was fairly easy for me to do. I did have a high ASFAB score, and they kind of did everything in their power to influence me not to be infantry. And being where I'm at now, I understand why they did that. Um, but anyways, I chose the infantry anyways. I was I was pretty uh hard-headed in that. And so I joined the Marine Corps right after high school, two days after I graduated, joined the Marine Corps, and that's how I started out in the infantry and became a mortarman. Now that part was by chance, you don't signed uh in the Marine Corps, the MOS is four numbers, right? So it's 0341. When you sign that 03 contract, it's actually 03XX. And so I could have easily been a rifleman, a machine gunner. That's definitely not the life for me. I could have been an assaultman um or any of the other 03XX fields, but uh just by chance I became a mortar man, which is kind of uh full circle for me for my that one book I read in high school. And that's uh, you know that's awesome. That's that's how it came to be.

SPEAKER_03: 6:04

So well, I I will tell you, I always very much respect the people that go infantry or special forces or EOD or or some of these more, I'd say, warfighting focused jobs. And I think that it what we found anyway is that the people that go into those spaces tend to be some of the our best leaders who serve because I think that they just know the heart and soul or the grit of what it is that we do in the military. And other than being in the Navy and of course Navy SEALs, I always compare that to almost being like the surface warfare Navy because that's the heart and soul of why you are in the Navy is to go on boats and to get deployed and to fight the ship. And so I'm very fortunate myself that I was in the surface warfare community for two years before I became a public affairs officer. And I I learned so much and have so much respect for that community as well. So you were in for how many years?

SPEAKER_02: 7:06

I was in for 10. Eight of those were active duty, and then my last two, um, I was in the reserves, but you have to understand that I joined the reserves and then COVID happened, and so that year got waived, and I was like, this is awesome, I could be a reservist forever. Right. And then uh the second that the our CFTs were due, combat fitness tests in the Marine Corps, I was like, you know what? Maybe reservist isn't for me. So I was a reservist, but I don't like to claim it because I I in the most literal sense did not do anything. Sure. But hey, I do have my two good years as a reservist.

SPEAKER_03: 7:44

So but even at the eight-year mark, you're almost at that edge where you're at almost 10. Did you ever consider making it a career?

SPEAKER_02: 7:56

I did. Um, the I've thought a lot about this of why I got out. Um, a large portion of it was my kids. Um, I had orders to the West Coast at that point to 3-4, which is just another infantry unit out of Camp Horno, and my kids would have stayed in Virginia, and so that was a big, big uh deal breaker for me. And then at the same time, I completely by chance I deployed way more than my peers. Um, and I just kind of got burnt out. I love the deployment life. Don't get me wrong. If I could join now and only deploy and come back and not deal with anything else, I would.

SPEAKER_04: 8:40

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 8:41

Um, but uh I love the deployed life so much, that's why I kept doing it back to back to back. And then, you know, the you can only pay your taxes uh so far into it. And so I was probably 26 years old. I had six, seven deployments at that point. I was just like, uh wow, I think I'm done.

SPEAKER_03: 8:59

So where and then the six, seven times, did you do Iraq and Afghanistan or or both, or did you do back to back?

SPEAKER_02: 9:05

So yeah, so I was in Afghanistan. Um, I was in Syria bouncing back and forth between Iraq and Syria. Um, I did a few uh floats, which were to be honest with you, the worst deployments of them all.

SPEAKER_03: 9:18

The amphibians you didn't you didn't like the amphibife?

SPEAKER_02: 9:22

No, no, ship life is I'm telling you right now, ship life is that is some hardcore stuff.

SPEAKER_03: 9:28

What did you what ship did you deploy on?

SPEAKER_02: 9:30

So I was on a few of them. I was on the baton, okay, I was on the wasp, that was miserable. I was on the Mesa Verde LPD, and then I was on the Green Bay, and then the Iwo Jima.

SPEAKER_03: 9:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 9:45

Oh wow, you were on the IWO was well, I mean, all ships suck, don't get me wrong, but the IWO was the best one out of all those.

SPEAKER_03: 9:54

So I really enjoyed my amphib tour. So if for those of you in the audience that don't know the difference, uh the carrier tour is kind of like the biggest one with the 5,000 sailors, but then your amphib has 3,500. And I can't remember off the top of my head the breakdown. I think it's about 1,500 that are marines and the rest are sailors. But it's a it's a very interesting experience, the marine uh sailor dynamic and just the differences in between the two services and and where people work and and kind of all the LA, all the amphib ops that go on and the well deck and all those all those fun things and missions that they do. So uh that's interesting that that you also had that life. I I'm very grateful for my boxer time. It was probably one of my I I qualified as a Battle Watch captain during that period, and I I really enjoyed working in the jock and and all the experiences that I had on that tour. Uh, I went there as a lieutenant. But um, all right.

SPEAKER_02: 10:51

So you were I I will say this ship life is much different when you're an officer versus an enlisted.

SPEAKER_03: 10:58

That is that is a good point because I'm prior enlisted and I remember in my enlisted days. It is what it is, yeah. You're right. I went on USS Abraham Lincoln as an aviation electrician's mate, and being in a 80 or 100 women birthing and working on the flight deck 24-7 is a completely, or 12 on, 12 off rather, is a completely different lifestyle than being a surface warfare officer on a destroyer or being a public affairs officer on a carrier. So I totally get what you're coming from. And I would see like the guys down in the well deck and how often they would work and and just how taxed they were, and then also how many single times the Marines were constantly getting off the ship and going on training exercises during that deployment. So uh those they work those guys really hard. So I I can see where you're coming from. Absolutely. Um, so you're 26, you are going to get out of the Marine Corps, you you started to do the reserve time, and then you uh let's let's transition to the veteran side and the VA side. So what was what was your transition like? Did you have a smooth transition overall, just except for the VA disability side, or did you how was your transition?

SPEAKER_02: 12:16

It was not smooth at all. I went to transition assistance. Um now there's a key part in my Marine Corps career where I swapped to psychological operations, and that matters for the transition side of the house because that comes with a skill set that I can use in the civilian world uh where the imagery does not, and that's just that's just how it is. And so I had this skill set. I was out of Quantico, all Psyop Marines back then were in Quantico, and so DC is right up the road. I knew somehow, some way I was gonna land a contracting position up at DC. And so I took two months of terminal leave, it was 59 days actually, which was the best time of my life. And um, I'm looking for jobs, I'm looking for jobs, and nothing, nothing is hitting at all. When I took terminal, I didn't have anywhere to stay. Um, I didn't really plan on where I was gonna live at. It was, it's it was kind of weird, a little bit bad planning on my end, and then a little bit like a last minute, hey, I'm gonna get out. I have no plans at all. And so my one of my friends was the barracks manager, and I was and I pretty much just went up and said, Hey, do you mind if I just like stay in the barracks for a little bit? And so I lived in the barracks for three months after I left the Marine Corps, which was really funny because all my friends they would see me and just be like, What's going on? I'm like, listen, don't worry about it, mind your business, let me do my thing, right? So I stayed in the barracks, I was technically homeless. Um, not uh, I would never compare myself to someone who was actually homeless because I stayed in the bricks, and then my last paycheck. So about 50-ish days go by. I still don't have a job, and that's when I start freaking out. Okay. And then um I ended up landing a contracting position teaching psychological operations and information operations. Public affairs is a big part of that as well. And so that's what I did. Um, and then once that happened, I moved into a friend's apartment that was being renovated, which by the way was way miserable. Um, it was being renovated for like six months, and it just it just sucked. That the whole the whole time was just miserable. And then uh at the same time when I was on leave, because I was on Quantico still living in the barracks, I walked over to the veteran service officer of Virginia. Virginia has a county or state VSOs called Department of Veteran Services of Virginia or DVS.

unknown: 14:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 14:53

So I walked into his office. Um, and that's its own that that is what pretty much started me on my hey, I need to learn this process myself if I want to take advantage of these benefits. But yeah, my my transition was pretty bad. And in some ways, at the last second, I just I kind of lucked out there, and I always find it funny that uh I stayed in the barracks for three months and just the looks that I would get from who were once my peers, you know, I was like, Yeah, don't mind your business. I'm doing fine.

SPEAKER_03: 15:27

Right, right. And that is a very unique uh place to be as you're transitioning out because of course in the barracks, you've got everybody who's mostly obviously single and just going in and out of work or going in and out of deployments or trips or TDYs, and so that must have been very interesting uh because you were just on this completely uh different path. And tell me a little bit about your VSO. I had a state VSO myself here in Mississippi, and I had a very good experience, and I have since found out that that's rare, but my VSO was amazing, and he was right across the street from where my last job in the military was, and then later moved over to Keisler, but he was really responsive and and really helped guide me through the process, but I also had a lot of documentation. That's another question. Did you have a lot of documentation of medical issues? I didn't until three years out because I went to a TAPS class three years before, I mean two years before in London. And that's where I learned this whole process. I had no idea that all these years that I'd been covering things up and just wanting to deploy was now gonna bite me in the ass because I had no documentation of anything that had happened to me on active duty.

SPEAKER_02: 16:46

Yeah, so two things there. I'll start with the VSO part. So in my transition assistance class, I had this Vietnam era veteran. I forgot his name, but he was with the DAV on Quantico, and he was also a Marine from 1-9. Uh that part matters because my first unit was 3-9, my second unit was 2-9, those are all entry units, and then 9th Marines are what's known as a bastard battalion. Um, because there is no 9th Marine. So 3-9 is with 8th Marines, 2-9 is with 6th, and then 1 9 is with uh, I think 2nd. Anyways, he was from he was in 1-9 in Vietnam, I was in 3-9 of OEF, and I was like, hey, we have that connection. You know, this guy said, if you need help, come talk to me. My office is over there in Quantico. So I went and talked to him. And when I say old, I'm talking like at least 80s um minimum, but I didn't know what I was doing, and apparently he didn't know what he was doing either. So I walked in his office, he couldn't turn on his computer. There was definitely some technological delays there. And pretty much said, hey, come back whenever I figure out how to get this thing going. And I already didn't want to be there in the first place. Um, I'm going there because all my friends are telling me, hey, you know, you you should absolutely talk to a VSO. I was like, all right, fine. But right next to his office was the DVS office. That guy was there. I walk in his office. Um, that appointment, I wish I would have timed it. I wish I would have known then when I know now, because it was definitely less than 10 minutes. It was probably five or six minutes where I sat down. He was like, Hey, what do you want to claim? And I was like, dude, I have no idea. Um, what do you think I should claim? And I had my records on a disc from uh the quantico medical facility there. Um, and I just pretty much handed it to him. He submitted three claims, and I was in and out of that office in about less than 10 minutes, and that was it. That was the end of it. And then about six months later, I get my rating, and then during that time, the algorithm, okay, is like pushing me.

SPEAKER_04: 19:01

Of course.

SPEAKER_02: 19:02

Um, it was Combat Craig at the time, he has now since passed away. Rest in peace to Combat Craig. But I was getting some Combat Craig videos, and I was like, oh, um, let me figure out what this stuff is. Like, I'm going to this mental health CMP exam. Let me click on this video. And so I watched it, and then that's when I started realizing saying, hey, I should have absolutely submitted more claims that were clear as day in my records. And that gets to your second point is did I have documentation? I didn't have documentation from the sense of uh, you know, I was going to sit call a lot. I actually, well, I went to sit call once and it was for some acne treatment um just to get that prescription, which did help, by the way. But I've never went to sit call out of that. However, in the Marine Corps, the Navy as well, uh, you have pre-deployment and post-deployment health assessments, and you pretty much just answer a questionnaire, yes or no, nothing ever comes out of it. Um, and that's it. Now, in my career, I've had many deployments. Sure. And so I have a ton of pre-post-deployment health assessments. Um, and then I have certain awards and um actions around those awards, like a TBI issue there. There's um so the evidence isn't always medical evidence.

SPEAKER_03: 20:26

That's such a great point, Clay. That people don't know.

SPEAKER_02: 20:29

There's definitely evidence other than medical, but the reason that matters is because after I learn all this stuff, and there's a reason I'm able to, I was able to learn government policy at that point in my life. We'll get to that later. Um, but I'm learning it. I go back to the VSO and I'm like, hey, I'm pretty sure I should be submitting other claims.

SPEAKER_03: 20:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 20:50

He said to my face, he was like, Man, you're 70%. You know, I'm surprised you even got that rating. You should go ahead and take it and uh be grateful. And I was grateful, sure. But at the same time, I was like, uh, that does not, that does not sound right at all. And that's that's really what kick started my personal research into VA disability. And then I submitted my own claims, got my own rating, easy peasy. Uh, about I'd say one and a half, two years into that, I was helping my friends who were getting out, and then um a lot of them were being targeted of paying, you know, 12,000 here, 8,000 here, 15,000 here. And I was like, I'm pretty sure I can do that for you for free, and it's pretty easy. And I did, and then um the YouTube idea got started. That's another story, but yeah, that's that's long story short, that's pretty much how I started where I'm at.

SPEAKER_03: 21:51

Oh, I have so many questions. So, did you uh do your first claim on BDD?

SPEAKER_02: 21:58

No, I wasn't uh I didn't even so I didn't do my taps until I probably say three months out. So BDD wasn't even an option for you.

SPEAKER_03: 22:09

You weren't, yeah, because I really believe that BDD was instrumental in getting me the results that I did as quickly as I did, because I got my disability rating 10 days. I retired on September 1st. I had an answer September 10th. And we had submitted my claim probably back in April, April or May time frame. And I had three CNP exams, one for mental health, one for uh hearing test, and then one head to toe. And and then during the head to toe, they did specs rays. That was it.

SPEAKER_02: 22:43

Well, there's see that that would have been awesome, and that's that brings up another point. And this is really on the DOD side of the house. The reason I didn't go to TAP because I was scheduled to go, was my unit slated me for an exercise on the West Coast in Cali for a month and a half, and so instead of preparing for transition, you have this enlisted kid who has no idea what's happening, right? Not preparing, doing an exercise, and it just I think it goes to show how commanders, which is a total separate issue, but the lack of attention from at the unit battalion level and below, uh, when it comes to members transitioning, right?

SPEAKER_03: 23:26

I agree, and one galarien example on that. Oh, I know, and so can I clay. Like one of the things that I would love to see one day in legislation is for Skillbridge to be mandatory for anybody who asks for it, because I was also able to get Skillbridge for 90 days, and I worked for a local dog trainer and I made reels for a local dog trainer. I used to be a military working dog handler, and he was also instrumental in helping me with my transition because there were so many things that he had been there done that in his transition. And so it was like having this mentor just built in where every day we, you know, every week we would talk dog training and film our reels, but then also he would give me a lot of advice about transition, and that also was really instrumental. And that is not available to everybody who asks for it, and that's also an awesome opportunity while you're working in the civilian community to also work on your VA disability claim and also be more prepared for what it is that you encounter next. But that is, yeah, like you said, that's that's that's kind of outside the scope of our discussion today. But wow, so you really didn't have like the same set of resources available to you. And it's so unequal depending on who you talk to, about who gets what. And it all depends on, like you said, sometimes it's rank driven, sometimes it's location driven, sometimes it's just this workplace is really great about it, and these this workplace isn't. And that should not be the case, it should always be standard across the board. So you started helping your friends, and then are you still working as the contractor doing the psychological operations work during this period?

SPEAKER_02: 25:07

Yeah, so I was a contractor from summer of 19 to about 2022. Okay, and then um I would become a GS13 with the army doing the same job I did. I actually sat in the same desk. I just turned my badge in one day, got our new badge the next, and that's pretty much how I made I found myself into that federal uh employee world. So, which is like from the military view lens, like the I made it is sure military contractor govy. And I did it, and then it I found out it wasn't all cracked up. What is that?

SPEAKER_03: 25:44

What it's uh you know, yeah, wasn't that so so what happened? Did you go from you were doing this and then starting to help your friends, and then it sort of morphed into I'm gonna create a YouTube channel?

SPEAKER_02: 25:57

So while I was helping my friends, one friend uh specifically, his girlfriend at the time um became TikTok famous, right? She's young, she was like 26, 27. Um, and she and when I say I don't mean like she had a a couple big videos, I'm talking like she blew up millions and millions and millions, um, started rolling in. She got huge brand deals with like Capital One, she partnered with Indeed, like she was going wild. And um, he was also a PSYOP Marine, and so there was a lot of background like PSYOP skills that come in clutch there. I'm sure you understand that as a public affairs officer there.

SPEAKER_01: 26:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 26:41

And so um he was we were hanging out one day and he was telling me, you know, about him and his girlfriend, what they're doing, and then he's like, Hey, you should do that for YouTube. And that day, I kid you not, we went to Best Buy. I probably dropped, I dropped like four grand on equipment. I bought this that day. Same thing, I got the same camera. Um, and I just started making videos, and slowly but surely it caught on. And then I had a few videos blow up, and then I realized that this is uh this is a need, like there was a hole that I filled, and then I just kept doing videos as a contractor, and then I became a Govy and I kept doing videos, and then about two and a half years into YouTube, which by the way was miserable. Um, because I was working nine to five as a Govy. I have four kids, I would come home, do dad stuff, right? And then every single night, and I'm not kidding about that. Maybe I took one or two nights off. I was on YouTube stuff for about two and a half years, and it sucked.

SPEAKER_03: 27:51

I was gonna say you're you're relentless, and I can tell that in the way that you do your videos, and that's what it takes to get good and to build a brand and to do what you've done on YouTube. I have one other friend who reminds me of you, uh Nikki MGTV. I don't know if you've heard of him, but he is kind of like the military TMZ, uh, and he's also a YouTuber. But same kind of thing. I've I've had him on a show, and he tells me a very similar story on how he built.

SPEAKER_02: 28:18

It was, I mean, it was miserable. And then eventually, two and a half years into it, I was planning to quit. I was like, okay, I'm gonna resign my government position. It was a clearance position, so there was a I can't just quit that day. So I was making this whole plan. My boss was a good friend of mine. We're talking, and then you know, the the current administration came out with the fork in the road and the deferred resignation program, and I was like, peace, I took that DRP so fast. I I'm willing to bet I was the first federal employee in the nation to take that, and I will put money on that because I got that email immediately.

SPEAKER_03: 28:56

Yes, that was just this past January, right?

SPEAKER_02: 28:59

It was, yeah. So I just I just left the federal government technically on September 30th. Um, and then I've been doing YouTube full time for yeah, about 11 months now, and uh it's been great.

SPEAKER_03: 29:14

Congratulations, that's so awesome, and what a success story because there are a lot of people that say, Oh, I want to be an influencer or I want to be famous on social media, but I don't think they truly understand what it really takes to create quality content, and there's very few people that I see in the military space that create really, really cool content in their niche. There's a few of them. Uh Keegan Dunlap is one, you're one. There, there are a few that I see that I can just tell that they've worked it and they've just constantly been posting and getting better and doing it over and over and over again. And you're definitely one of them in your field, and you've niche into a very Needed and highly uh sought after expertise that so many people don't truly understand. And that had to take a lot of work too. Like, did you start just diving into like the I think they're called the CFR regulations?

SPEAKER_02: 30:15

Yeah, so that gets back to government policy stuff, right? So a part of psychological operations, there's different levels. There's like the tactical level, which is you're you're the cool guy, you have your stupid loudspeakers, whatever. Um you're doing all that, and then there's the operational level where you start planning, and then there's that strategic level. Uh completely by chance, as a sci opera and I was an I.O. planner, I I've served at all three levels, one of them being Seventh Fleet. So I sat next to the N39 up at Seventh Fleet, um, which was I'll just we'll stop it there, but it was an experience, I'll tell you that. Anyways, um yeah, yeah, were you on the Blue Ridge?

SPEAKER_03: 30:58

Were you wait? Seventh Fleet is Blue Ridge, right? I'm trying to remember.

SPEAKER_02: 31:01

Uh I was this was on uh main island in Japan and Yokosuka, Yokosoma, gotcha, Yukasoma. Okay, one of those, yeah. All right, all right, and then there was a Ford uh at a certain time we were in Sasebo, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 31:16

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02: 31:17

Um, but a part of that is understanding an embassy in a country and what does that mean? What does that mean for the DOD? What does that mean for influence? We're working with the Department of State, and so government policy is ingrained at the operational and strategic level. And there was years of my life where I'm just reading government policy, which sucked by the way. Um, and so whenever I get into this VA journey of myself, I start reading government policy, and I'm like, hey, I can read it's like a second language.

SPEAKER_04: 31:49

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 31:49

All right, like I understand 38 CFR, I understand Title 10, Title 22, Title 38, VA, Title 50. I got all this stuff. This is just a different flavor. And so it came natural to me reading it, and I was like, oh, that's what the three elements for service connection means. Oh, there's different theories of service connection, and each theory has evidentiary criteria. If you meet that criteria, your service connected, boom, bang. And at that point, it's pretty simple, and it really is. Um, the issue is it's it's covered and smothered in in government policy and words that really don't mean anything. Um, you know, you you you can read uh two pages of 38 CFR, and there's like three sentences in there that really matter. And so just being able to read it and learn it, that is pretty much how I submitted my own claims and then starting teaching my friends or helping my friends, and then it got to a point where I helped so many people. Um, I've probably seen most, if not all, conditions out of 38 CFR um helping a veteran with them. And so I just understand it like it's second nature, and that's that's pretty much how uh it happened.

SPEAKER_03: 33:07

So right, right. And what is interesting about this issue is that uh we're seeing, and we'll kind of transition to the sort of the more spicier part of the show. We've been seeing so much assault on veteran disability benefits. But what I found fascinating after reading Daniel's gate book, Gade's book, uh Wounding Warriors, was that this is nothing new. This has been going on since the late 1800s that people have been trying to go after veterans disability. This is just the most recent iteration of this uh issue. But it was probably was this has this been since you've been researching this issue the last couple of years, few years, has this been the most concerted attack that you've seen on this issue with the hearings and the VFW and the all these people testifying and then the Washington Post article. Has this been the first time you've seen such an assault?

SPEAKER_02: 34:09

Or have Yeah, so within my bubble, right? So from 2019 to now, yes, the answer to that question is yes, but everything that's happening has happened before. So for instance, Senator Tupperville's um recommendation of a commission to oversee the VBA and the VA SRDs, which there's 15 of them. That's how veterans are compensated, and it's really looking at the percentage, right? So mental health is zero, 10, 30, 50, 70, 100. The commission would evaluate the potential compensation loss, so the percentages given. And that happened during the Obama term, all right. That happened during Bush's second term, I believe. And pretty much during those two times, it was like, hey, we are deep in Iraq and Afghanistan. We're not touching veterans.

SPEAKER_04: 35:01

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 35:02

And so now that we we we've pulled out of Afghan, um, we've pulled pulled out of uh Iraq and Syria and everywhere else. And I'm using air quotes.

SPEAKER_03: 35:12

Yes, yes, because we've got completely pulled out. We've pulled out our now.

SPEAKER_02: 35:15

It's kind of like a uh, you know, I I I I I would equate it to people forgetting about 9-11, right? The war is over, um, and so now it's time to kind of rein back that GWAT fat. We got to cut the fat. And so we saw that with Doge, looking at contracts, cutting NAT fats, and now it's these uh essentially GWAT veterans who are being treated or being talked about being treated to trim the fat. And so that's what I would equate it to. But everything that's happening now has already happened. Um, that what's different about today is we have millennials who know how to use the internet, right? So everything is blown out of proportion, right? Um, everything, even things that I say on my channel, I'll see it. You know, someone made a TikTok somewhere that I've never met talking about something, and I'm just like, what is that guy talking about? Right. And he's he's blowing something up that I said out of context, and it's like, well, that's why it's blowing up, is because we have the internet, and every small issue is like the sky's falling.

SPEAKER_03: 36:27

So well, and I think what's interesting about it is that there is no denying that there are people who know how to take advantage of the system, but those same people that know how to take advantage of the system, they're doing it with SSDI, they're doing it with welfare. There, any any government benefit can be abused, but I struggle to see where there is massive fraud in the system. Even after reading Daniel Gates' book, and I'm sure I'm hoping to have Daniel on the show in a couple weeks, and I'm sure he'll have a different opinion on this. And you had Daniel on, and that was a very spicy conversation. You had him on. What was your colleague's name that you had him on with?

SPEAKER_02: 37:07

His name is Jason from Veteran Than VoTAP.

SPEAKER_03: 37:10

Yeah, so that was really interesting, the two of you, and Jason was really, really uh kind of going at going at it with him, and so were you. And but I thought that the conversation was respectful. I thought that it went really well. How did you feel about having that in real time? That that type of a conversation.

SPEAKER_02: 37:29

Yeah, so I wanted the live format. Um, and to be honest with you, I could have went, I could have gone forever because there were things. The issue about Daniel Gade's situation is that he testified before the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee. He didn't just write an article, right? Like Dakota Meyer wrote an article a couple weeks ago. Yeah, people in the comments keep asking us to comment on Dakota Meyer's article, and we may be getting into that later, but he is he made some statements that are just so so law zoo, it's like there's no meat there. Okay. The thing that brings Daniel Gade um authority in that space is that he testified before the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee, and everyone, except one senator, everyone was like, Yeah, that's right. You know, nine he testified that, and I'm not I'm not throwing shots, but I am with Grace. Um, he testified that nine out of the top 10 disabilities are totally unverifiable. And then he said, or overly exaggerated. And it's like, okay, well, that very next day, I one of my friends is a physician and board certified psychiatrist, and we went through the top 10 to talk about, hey, how would you verify these? Um, and he's he gave his doctor's feel, you know, and it's like, okay, we have an expert who's saying these can be verified, but yet when he's testifying in front of the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee, no one, no one is combating him, not even the VFW, which which totally rugs me rugs me the wrong way. And everyone just kind of took his words for truth, like, yeah, you know, there are veterans exaggerating things, and it's just because of this guy said so. Yeah, that that is what rugged me the wrong way. Um, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 39:22

Well, and I think too, as as as your colleague at the show said, and remind me his name again, the other gentleman that was on. Jason. Jason, yeah, and he has his own YouTube channel as well. And Jason was saying, too, that you can have a study and you can find people to support any preconceived uh opinion or notion that you have on an issue. As many people, CNP examiners that were featured in his book that feel that veterans are abusing the system, I bet you you could find as just as many C and P examiners that don't feel that way. And it's the same thing with the representative case studies that he profiled in the book. He had probably a good five, 10 stories of service members and where they are at in their VA disability journey and and and how they got their benefits. But for every one of those stories, I can't help but think there's probably even more VF uh Vietnam veterans who are not even getting disability. In fact, I meant to have this for the show, and maybe your audience can help me with it or find the statistics and I and I looked it up a while ago. But there's a statistic about the number of people who qualify for VA benefits who actually file. And it's a very low number. Like there still are not a lot of veterans who are even filing for benefits. And then I wanted to see, well, of the people who do file, how many get 100%? Because, you know, that's okay. If there, if we had this overwhelming majority of people getting 100% disability, well, then I'd probably say, okay, the system is is rigged and anybody who wants it, they're just handing it out like candy. Well, it's a very, I think it's like 20% of the people who file for VA benefits actually get 100%. So I that's where I kind of had to say to myself, well, Daniel Gates' book was very compelling. After I read it, I read all 400 pages or whatever, I really kind of walked away going, oh yeah, that this is definitely a system that's getting abused. But then I started looking up the numbers. Oh yeah, CB74 says only 30%, I believe. And then the other question would be of the hundred percent, of the people who file the 30% of veterans who are qualified to get something who file of that 30%, how many are getting 100%? And that just tells you right there that if this system was was was rigged, then there'd be everybody would get it. It would just be candid out, and that's not what we're seeing, is it, Clay?

SPEAKER_02: 42:06

No, so the um I recently did a video on the stats. That's the only reason why I know them. So it's just less than six million veterans are rated, meaning either zero, 10, 20, 30, all the way to 100. There's just under 6 million.

SPEAKER_03: 42:22

And then do we know how many total veterans there are?

SPEAKER_02: 42:24

It's about 18 to 19 million. So nobody knows. Nobody knows, but it's about 18 to 19 million. Okay, and nobody knows because you have the Vietnam era that are dying off, which by the way, how many veterans who have died that will never submit their disability claim? Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 42:40

And had no idea that they were they even qualified. Like my father's a perfect example. He was uh he served during the Vietnam era, and he, you know, he was in for three or four years. He's never touched the VA, never even, I mean, he would at least qualify, I believe, based on income, for VHA benefits, maybe not a veteran's rating, but he would at least get VHA. And I told him that one day, and my parents were just blown away that that was something that they could get. And I and I gave them some paperwork to try to get his DD214, and I haven't heard back yet. But that's a perfect example of just there's a lot of people that just don't know, especially from that era.

SPEAKER_02: 43:17

And then of so it's about a third, it's a little less than a third, actually, of veterans who are rated at all. And then of that third, it's about 24% that are rated at 100%. The rest are 90 or below. And so when you look at how many veterans are rated at um a hundred percent, out of all veterans, it's about a million and a half. So a million and a half veterans are rated at 100%, and then you can even the the the I'm gonna call it census report. That's not what it is. The VA um publishes a report every single year. This year was in April 2025. They cover a report of these veterans who are 100%, how many are Vietnam era, how many are peacetime era, how many are GWAT era? And guess who's the number one hundred percenter? It's the GWAT era. Now, there's a few reasons for that. One, we've been in active conflict right the majority of my life. That's a that that's a hard pull to swallow. And then on top of that, we also have the internet, right? I I would not have submitted my own claims had YouTube not exist. And so we have the internet, we have these platforms, and the word is getting out. Now, the only barrier to submitting the claim is a stigma. There's a huge stigma to submitting your claim. Some of my friends who have done way more than I have in the Marinkor, and and I'm confident enough to say that I've I've done my fair share. These people have done more, they refuse to submit a claim because it's just they're just not going to. Right. They they put it straight, they're just not going to.

SPEAKER_03: 45:00

They're just like, well, well, other people deserve it more than me, so I'm not going to do it, which I think is just so unfortunate that they see it that way. Because I will tell you, I know not all VAs are are created equally, and I know there's been bad things said about certain clinics, but I've received nothing but wonderful care at the Biloxi VA clinic. I had my first PCM appointment uh a few days ago. I've already got some community care referrals for a few of the other specialty issues that I have. And I think that as a veteran, if this is something that is legitimate and you have the documentation, then we need to educate our veteran community that these services exist. And I really love what you're doing. I I didn't know that when I was getting my disability benefits and trying to apply for them, I didn't understand that there's this entire YouTube community of people who are helping and doing this work. Since you've been in doing this full time, what what are some of the I say some of the things that like what would you say are the most common problems that people talk to you about? You I mean, you even do like live Q ⁇ A's and all these things, and I love that. Be so what are tell me what you would say were the most like things that just keep coming up over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_02: 46:28

Yeah, so veterans do not, even fans who have like members of my channel, and members are like they're not just viewers, they're supportive.

SPEAKER_03: 46:38

Right, they're like hardcore people that are dedicated.

SPEAKER_02: 46:40

They've seen a few, and so even those veterans um don't understand the theories of service connection. And the reason that matters, it's kind of like you trying to bake a cake, but you have no ingredients. You know, instead of I don't know how to bake a cake, just for the record, but instead of flour, you're using like a pencil, right? If you if you don't, which is never a pencil's never gonna bake a cake, and I know that sounds like a stupid analogy, but that's exactly what it's like. Whenever you don't understand direct, you don't understand secondary, then there's aggravation, then there's terra, then there's this thing called MUCMIs, that's a bit difficult, and then there's presumptives, those are easy, and you have veterans who are submitting claims and they don't understand the criteria required to be connected. Uh, that's number one for sure. I can tell you the number one disability veterans have questions on is sleep apnea secondary. Um, and I think that gets back to I'm gonna kind I'm I'm gonna rope it back to Daniel Gade's argument here. When it comes to creating an argument against VA disability compensation, um, I think the Washington Post missed the mark completely. I think Daniel Gade missed the mark completely, and Dakota Meyer is not even a player at all. So with his argument.

SPEAKER_03: 48:02

For the audience that don't know, and it it's really a lot of your fans that have joined this call uh live. There's a few of mine that have come on in the comments, but Dakota Meyer, I did read his article. His argument was very similar to Daniel Gaines. I didn't get catch anything differently in what he was saying. And he he'd used a Substack article, if I remember properly. And it was surprising to me because he seems very well connected to the administration. I believe he was doing an event even recently with the vice president. And of course, when he decided to rejoin the Marine Corps, I believe as a reservist, he was on defense.gov or whatever they call it these days. And I thought that that would be wonderful. And I still think that he's a good example of a veteran who has done a lot for his country. Obviously, he's a Medal of Honor recipient, but it sort of made me sad, to be honest, uh, to see that article. It's almost as though they have this attitude, and this is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about that if you weren't in a firefight, if you weren't blown up in a combat situation on the ground doing combat operations, and I don't even mean like on a ship.

SPEAKER_02: 49:28

You mean like direct direct combat direct combat.

SPEAKER_03: 49:31

That's their their line, and that's what I really am excited to talk to Daniel about. If if that is his line, then nothing else will count. So like you said in the in the or one of your very astute viewers said in your conversation with Daniel, that's worth bringing up in this conversation is what if a sexual assault happens off base by a civilian while somebody is on active duty? And Daniel Gade conceded on your podcast. He didn't want to, he didn't want to, he did not want to, and he tried to he tried to dodge the question at first. His first answer was well, people even with MST can get better, and they can, and that wasn't the answer. So your colleague, Jason, oppressed him on the issue, and I was like, Oh, good, Jason, this is really what I want to hear. And then he conceded the point. And when he conceded that point, it negated everything else he said because just because that was MST and it was off duty and it was with a civilian, what about every other injury or every other trauma or every other hurt, every other thing that happens that isn't in a firefight? And so that is the question that we veterans need to be really educated about and talk through. And I would love to ask Dakota Meyer that same question. And I would love to know what his answer would be.

SPEAKER_02: 51:02

Yeah, I can probably tell you what his answer is gonna be. And this is gonna be super um, if you don't know, you don't know type of thing. And so I'm I'm gonna try my best to enlighten everyone in an inventory unit. Okay, um, it is as awesome as it is, it sucks. Okay, it is miserable. Everyone hates each other, you're miserable all the time, you're constantly in and out of the field, you're constantly training, and it's just high deployment tempo all the time. Every infantryman hates their life, and that's that's the truth, okay? And that's just how it is day to day. Um, and within that culture, within the infantry culture, you are either a senior or you're a boot. Those are Marine Corps terms. I think the Army would say cherries. Uh, the airborne community has legs, like there are these certain qualifications um that kind of separate people even more. In the infantry, it is combat and nothing else. That's it. And so the worst thing to do in the infantry is not see combat. It is to go a four-year enlistment, an eight-year, a double enlistment, and not see combat. You are not going to be respected in the infantry. The reason that matters is because that's the sentiment that's that's being pulled into the veteran community. You'll see it in the comments all the time, you know. Um, I served in blah, blah, blah. And then this pogue, admin, whatever, got 100% because they rolled their ankle. One, no, they didn't. All right. That's an that's a stupid statement. But that's the sentiment that's being brought over because that's what it is, even right now.

SPEAKER_04: 52:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 52:47

And so a part of that MST conversation, which by the way, I will give Daniel this. That was a tough spot to be in. And he got, he definitely took a punch there.

SPEAKER_03: 52:59

And but it was it was to me the most important part of his part of that conversation. It was the part that I honed in on as I was listening to this discussion. And I said, Oh, wait a minute. This is where the conversation needs to go. Because this is what the con the senators and all those others that are deciding this need to talk about as well. Because you are absolutely right, Clay. The percentage of people, and this is another thing nobody understands about the military. What is the percentage of people truly that are on the ground in Ramadi or who are in Fallujah getting shot at? Let's uh let's say there's, you know, I don't know, a million people in the military. What percentage of that a million are those people that I just spoke about? I would argue that it was probably about maybe 15%, 10%. So are you going to say that the other 90% or 85% of us that were on a ship in a combat zone or were just happened to only be stateside for their entire career but still raise their right hand uh to serve? Are you going to say that we don't deserve those same benefits if we got injured while on active duty? And and that's not a conversation that anyone wants to have, I feel like. I mean, I don't know how you feel, Clay, but I feel like this is a really important part of this conversation that nobody talks about.

SPEAKER_02: 54:22

It is. And so part of Dano Gade's testimony to the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee, which is what matters most.

SPEAKER_03: 54:30

Right. The fact that he got that kind of an audience.

SPEAKER_02: 54:32

To people that have the power to make change, this is who we talk to. That's the issue. And so he brought up, you know, he said this is paraphrased. Only in the Department of Veteran Affairs is flat feet a disability. That should be cut. Um, paraphrased. Now, the issue with that is whenever you from the from the outside perspective, you're like, flat feet, oh yeah, cut that. That should not be a VA disability until you start understanding where flat feet comes from. And I'll tell you this right now: if you go on Camp Lejeune, all the way back on the river, there's a single road. I don't know the real name of the road, everyone just calls it PT Road because in the morning it's shut down. They have road guards at each new at each street. This road shut down for miles. And Lejeune is parsed out on A Street. So this road runs uh left to right. I'm just gonna be simple. And then you have A, B, C, D going up and down, all the way down. The infantry, at least when I was there, was from A to C. All right. There was a few others down the road. But if you go on PT Road, River Road, that's that's the name that some uh uh viewer has commented. It's called River Road. We call it PT Road. If you go there there for one week, go to A Street, B C Street, C Street, and just hang out on River Road, what you're gonna see is a bunch of 18, 19, 20-year-old kids every single day running with their boots on, with flacks, carrying stretchers, carrying five-gallon water drugs. We had um it was kind of a hazing joke thing, but you would spray paint a hundred-pound chain yellow, and that was your glow belt. And so now your team, I was a mortar, man. So your gun team is carrying around this stupid 100-pound yellow chain as your glow belt with water. Um, oh, by the way, you have your rifle, you have your flak. And if you're in weapons, which I was, that means you have your weapon. And so mortars are gonna have their 81s, which is about 90 pounds when it's assembled. Machine gunners are gonna have their 240s, god forbid they have a 50. And so now you're like, oh, you're telling me you're daily, not even deployed, right? Your daily activity is running around in boots with minimum 50 pounds, and that's that's being easy. Minimum 50 pounds, and you're not just running 100 meters, you're running two, three, five, six miles. That is the life, a day-to-day life of infantrymen. That's why they hate their lives because it sucks. Um, and that's why they have flat feet when they get out. And so, whenever you hear someone say flat feet shouldn't be disability, immediately I'm like, that makes sense if you have no idea what you're talking about.

unknown: 57:25

Right?

SPEAKER_02: 57:25

If you're on the outside, so he was a tanker, if you're on the outside or you're sitting cush in your vehicle or whatever, I understand why you would think flat feet is a stupid disability until you're until you're the one carrying a 35-pound, 81 millimeter tube. You got your flack on with sappies, you're in boots and newts, you're in your uh your your jungle warfare boots or whatever, you know. The a lot of intra dudes will wear rat boots, which are heavier, by the way. Um, and so now you're wearing these boots, you're doing stupid PT. You're getting strong, I tell you that. Um, but yeah, you're gonna have feet problems, you're gonna have ankle problems. And so when you think about that, it's like, oh, right.

unknown: 58:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 58:09

That should be service connected versus combat only. And it it just makes no sense.

SPEAKER_03: 58:13

Well, and and to to the credit of the of the gains of the world and Daniel himself, is that he did say in your show that a training, you know, training and running and and doing things stateside should also qualify. But I think that in my view, you're you're starting to split hairs because now what do you what also are you not going to qualify? Are you going to say that when somebody endures um a toxic work environment and is stuck on uh legal hold, uh, what did I call it? I learned it earlier, there was this thing called legal syndrome, or I mean basically a prolonged fight IG complaint, those things cause PTSD and those things cause a lot of mental health problems as well. And those things are very common in the military because of, in my view, and the view of many of us military justice advocates, there is a lack of due process within the military, especially when it comes to the, well, obviously when it comes to the administration system, but even in the UCMJ system, there are unfortunately undue command influence factors and other factors, you know, not in a unanimous jury, the fact that only certain uh crimes are actually outside of the chain of command. And even when they're outside of the chain of command, they're still very closely tied to the commanding officer. Uh, the special trial counsel has not, from what I've heard, really done the due diligence to be completely separate as they say it is. So there are a lot of things that cause a service member from a mental health standpoint. And oh, by the way, I did an entire show with a psychiatrist who broke down just the most subjective nature of the ways in which who gets a medical board, who doesn't get a medical board, who gets this diagnosis, who doesn't get this diagnosis. And so there's just this very uneven uh fairness when it comes to a lot of these. Issues that also cause stress and mental health. And so don't even like get me started. I won't go too on into any of this, but that's a whole nother factor. And that happens stateside. That happens outside of a combat zone. And so what are we got, what are we doing to account for that? And I'll and I'll close on this. I know we're kind of wrapping up the call, but I also want to ask you I wonder too why the approach with a lot of these issues was to go after the veteran instead of say, okay, if there is fraud in the system, if there is this massive uh gaming, well, then do things to fix the way that the CNP exams work, or do things to fix the veterans' affairs. Why blame us for, I mean, that's just that's just misplaced. And and what what what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:52

Yeah, so this is some people might like this, some people might not. You have to have within the VBA, you have to have a process that is strict enough to only connect disabilities that should be service connectable. And when I mean should be, I mean meets the criteria of the theories of service connection. You have to have it strict enough to where someone who has a back injury that stems from 20 years in construction of their own business can't submit a VA claim to for a back injury and have that. It has to be strict enough for that. It also has to be open enough to understand and realize hey, this veteran submitting a claim. There is evidence indicating and correlating from their service records, from another disability, whatever have you, um, to be service connected. And and I'll I'll tell you this that is that's a hard it is impossible. Okay, so the VA secretary, and I and I kind of make jokes about this, Doug Collins. He looks young, especially last year. I guarantee you, three years from today, he's gonna look, he's gonna look like your dad. Okay. Um, he's he's he's gonna wear it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:08

He's got one of the hardest jobs in the in his cabinet. I mean, him and uh I would also say Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hages, but those three, I mean, it's just they're they're gonna con Doug Collins is gonna constantly be getting beat up. And the thing is, is that I I don't know. I mean, I had a really good VSO, I had a really good experience with the Biloxi VA. I realize that that's not everybody's experience, but I I also think that sometimes we don't say enough good things about some of the services that the VA offers because it just isn't all bad all the time for everyone.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:42

Yeah, and something to realize about the VA is they only implement the law. The VA is not a governing body, they don't they don't have due process, they're not, they're just the hand of Congress. And so when you look at change, it has to come through Congress, it must come through Congress, okay? And so whenever we look at uh testimony like Daniel Gates, you said earlier that on the uh interview that we did with him on YouTube, you know, he kind of backed down and was like, Yeah, things in training, which is great. The issue is that's not what he said in his testimony to Congress, he didn't mention that at all. And so um there's this really weird balance of you want the VA to be strict enough to where fraud isn't rampant, which for the record it's not, as reported by the GAO and VAOIG to people that matter. And so you need a strict process where fraud's not rampant, but you also need an open process where veterans who submit a claim who don't know anything can get properly rated. That's the issue. There, there's no barrier from submitting a claim. So, right now, the the VA secretary has talked about he's months he's talked about simplifying the form 526 EZ, which is for initial claims. Yep, that's not gonna fix anything because submitting for a claim is not the issue. That's not an that's a non-issue whatsoever. Um, the issue is veterans don't know what to submit or how to submit it. That's the issue. And so you're we're chaining a bunch of fluff and a bunch of icing right here, but until the the the middle of the cake is ready, it's just it's it's never gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:36

Right, right. And uh it'll be interesting to see where all this goes and if this was just smoke and mirrors for yet another uh round of things that can make it into the news cycle, and then the media and the public forget about it, never to be heard from again, or if we're gonna continue to hear that these things are happening. But one thing I can tell you is that on the Stories of the Circus Podcast, we'll be following this very, very closely. And with the help of people like yourself, you can help educate our audience about that. And I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show. Before we do close out the call, I also know that you have a website as well as your YouTube channel, correct?

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:18

Um, I do. We don't have the promoter. That's fine if you don't want to.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:21

Okay, all right, no worries. I I I have no problems not doing so. Anything else as we start to wrap up the call that we haven't talked about that I did not touch upon that you would like to say?

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:33

Um, no, it'll just be mainly a message to veterans in in the community. The in the veteran community, um, secluding yourself is super common. And if any veterans watch this right now, I would just urge you to get into community, whether that's a friend, whether that's a church, if that's your cup of tea, whether it's um hanging out at the VFW, if that's your cup of tea. I would just say to all veterans listening, especially the older you get and the more secluded you get, just find yourself in community because it would literally save your life. So that's all I got. That's that's what I want to leave with.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:10

I love it. I love it. And there's wonderful ways to find community through church, through other veterans' organizations locally, through nonprofit work, or just even through these podcasts and connecting with others online who have common interests. So thank you so much, Clay. I'll meet you backstage to say goodbye as I go full screen, but really appreciate you taking the time to come on the Stories of Service podcast.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:33

Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:35

Awesome. All right, guys, that is a wrap. I will have one more show uh this week. So it'll be on this Saturday. I have taken on a wonderful volunteer opportunity for a ruck march in Colorado this June. And I will be talking to the organizer, Robert Sweetman. He is a dear friend of mine, former Navy SEAL, who is putting together this amazing wellness and exercise opportunity. I can't wait to talk more with him about what inspired him to do it. A former Navy SEAL uh who has tragically passed away, Ryan Larkin. It is uh in his honor. And so I will be educating you guys a little bit more about that in the coming days. But as I always do, to end these calls, please take care of yourselves. Please take care of each other and enjoy the rest of your evening. Bye bye now.