SPEAKER_03: 0:02

Another edition of Jay Bassers Exposed Beth Productions on this beautiful thirteenth day of November 2025. We are just two weeks away today from eating turkey. I don't know about you, but I like turkeys. And turkeys like me too. So it makes me like to take a nap afterwards. But today we've got our co-host, Mr. Ray Cobb out of Tennessee. How are you doing, Ray?

SPEAKER_02: 0:30

I'm doing great. How are you today? Beautiful day here, temperature of 70 degrees, partly cloudy skies. I stayed outside most of the day.

SPEAKER_03: 0:39

I'm glad you did. I have I was had planned on doing some outside today, but I did go outside. I went outside, come back in, had a video conference with VA for an hour and a half. And then I came back in, went to the uh autonomic specialist for most of the afternoon. And I got home and tinkered a little bit and said, Well, let's have us a radio show or a or video show. And let's introduce the world to let's introduce the world to Miss Mandy Crips Clemens. Now you guys know the second name there's Crips, so you gotta know she's kin to James. This is James's daughter, and she lives down in uh Ashton City, Tennessee. Is that where you're at, Mandy?

SPEAKER_01: 1:18

Uh yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20

Okay. And being the daughter of an agent expo agent or exposed vet can have some issues. And the first one to go off and uh want to say, Mandy, I said uh we want to thank you for coming on. And uh, you know, we're uh last time we saw you was at the funeral, which would be dad's funeral. And uh that's kind of a sad day, and uh of course she brought a little bit of uh comedic uh comedic value to the to to to to the events there that uh basically shows he didn't really want to go, did he?

SPEAKER_00: 1:56

Exactly. He did not. Um he definitely let us know that he was, you know, there with us in spirit that day. And you know, he was a jokester and prankster and you know liked to laugh. And so everything that happened that day that made us laugh, and that was that was dad. Clear as day, that was dad.

SPEAKER_03: 2:17

Well, that's me, you know, it was kind of a rough day, but you know, I hate to say it, I do try to say a lot of folks. I mean, I've lost a lot of people here over the you know, over the past myself, you know, mother and father and sisters. And uh it's not gonna get any better, you know. Anybody that loses one like that doesn't get any better. Time makes it easier to deal with, but it's gonna take time, a lot of time, you know, especially if uh, you know, I remember being a young child when I lost my first grandparents. And uh, you know, so you kind of uh you know, you you you kind of remember and remember and remember, but now it's been 60 some years, so you know it takes a long time. And uh and I don't know, I don't know what he's doing because uh, you know, there I don't think they've got a VA and cleans issue up uh up where he's at. I think uh he's gotta be either fishing or hunting or doing something.

SPEAKER_00: 3:14

I guarantee you he's doing one or the other. Um he hunted I he taught me to fish at such a young age that I don't remember not knowing how to fish. Um course I had to be a little older to start shooting guns and going hunting, but even then I think I I shot my first gun at four and um started hunting as soon as I was able. And you know, that's just that's what we did when we were growing up. We hunted, we fished, we you know, rode four-wheelers or dirt bikes or you know, whatever, whatever we had around. And um, you know, those were two great loves of dad's life. So yeah, I don't think they have a claims backlog or claims issue up there, but um, he's probably hunting or fishing or sitting around the table telling jokes with you know his buddies that you know preceded him, and he's um he's having a good old time now.

SPEAKER_03: 4:08

He probably is, and we hope he is anyways, you know. But uh when he broke your dad, well excuse me, when they when they made your dad, they broke the mole because uh your dad had a when he something became in his sights and something he said that he that basically he he deserved, especially the VA benefits. Um he turned into an auger, he went straight through him and got it. You know, you can go around people, you can tap dance, you can beat around a bush. James didn't. James bulldozed his way through and he got what he needed and he had to find it himself. It was all him. And once he did succeed at what he did, he turned that he he paid it forward to other people and helped them too.

SPEAKER_00: 4:50

He did.

SPEAKER_03: 4:51

You know.

SPEAKER_00: 4:51

And he was to me, he was larger than life. You know, you hear lots of of kids say, My dad's Superman, or you know, my dad really was like he could fix anything, he could do anything. And I have said for many, many years, my dad was the epitome of you could do anything you put your mind to. Um, you know, he started working when he was like 11 or 12 years old to, you know, support himself and support the family. And, you know, he had for many years he had a successful um business where he made custom furniture and was the best at what he did. And nobody taught that to him. He taught himself. He read books. Um, you know, some of it was trial and error, and some of it was just raw talent. And um, you know, when him and mom bought this property and decided to make a home on it, dad didn't know how to build a house, but he learned and he taught himself and he built the house. And, you know, when I was little, I can remember he decided he wanted to be an instructor to teach people how to ride motorcycles and do the state courses on teaching people to ride safely. And I can picture him sitting at the table for, you know, weeks and weeks studying and taking tests, and he did it and he liked it and he loved it, and he did that for a while. And then, you know, at one point he had some lake property and he had a guy that lived next door to him who was the surveyor that surveyed all the lots down there, and the guy tried to steal part of dad's property, and dad learned survey law to take the guy to court to keep him from taking his property, and he won. Um, and then came the VA. And again, dad just decided that he was gonna do what was right, no matter who was standing in his way or what was standing in his way, and um, and he did it. He learned the laws, he won his claim, he went on to help other people win their claims, and that was that was just dad. When he set his sights on something, he was gonna do it. And it didn't matter what he had to learn, what he had to do, he was gonna make it happen. And if you were on, he was always on what he on the side that was right that he felt was right and just, and if you were on the opposite side of that, he didn't care how up how high up the chain you were, he was gonna go over you, around you, under you, through you, whatever it was he had to do to help the veteran, that's what he was gonna do.

SPEAKER_02: 7:15

You know, Mandy, I would uh think one thing that happened just not many years ago, just a few years ago. Your dad was the only guy I know that could try change out the transmission in a car with one arm. You know, he had broken his arm, he was bound and determined to fix that car up and that transmission. And he said, Well, I would have been able to do it in a day or two, it took me three weeks. But he got it done and it ran fine, you know. I mean, he had that type of a determination on everything that he took on and everything he challenged. Uh when he took my case on, you know, I'm the second Agent Orange Exposure case ever won. And I would not have won it w without your dad. I I can still remember him sitting behind me in the hearing. And every time a supposedly trained service officer would open his mouth, it was the wrong thing, and your dad would kick his chair. And finally he kicked his chair so hard the judge looked at the guy and says, Is this a direct exposure? And your dad spoke up. He didn't even give the guy a chance to say it. He said, Yes, it is. Well, the thing was, your dad wasn't supposed to say a word in that hearing. But he was afraid what the other cat would say. And the other guy said, Well, well, yeah, I guess it is. And I looked at the judge and I said, Sure it was. I can tell you when, where, why, and how I got straight. And the judge took the sheet of paper, whited it up, threw it, went right beside the guy's head, bounced on two walls, and fell right beside your dad's chair. And I looked around, he was just down there looking at it. And the judge said, We're gonna start over, opened a drawer, pulled out a blue form instead of yellow, and started filling it out. You know, um those those are memories that I will never forget. Um, 10 days before that hearing, and I said, James, do you think I have everything I need? He said, No. He said, What? He said, Well, you haven't got any doctor's direct letter or anything that says your diabetes was as likely as not caused from your time in duty. He said, You need to go back and and see Dr. Dewey Dunn at Vanderbilt. So I called doctor trying to make an appointment and he said he's too busy. He said, What do you need? And I told him. He says, uh, okay, let me get the information. What years did he serve? Was this in Fort McKellum, Alabama? And I told him what it needed to have in the letter. You know, he didn't write a letter. All he did was write three sentences and said exactly what your dad said needed to be said, and I won my case. So, you know, your dad had the ability to look at the evidence and deter predetermine how it was gonna go and what it would take. Not like a lot of guys I run into who say, Well, I think we got it right. Yeah, the judge should do this. Your dad could look and know if the judge was gonna do it or not do it. And if they didn't do it, he knew what needed to be done to make them do it. And that was his legacy.

SPEAKER_00: 10:45

He sure did, and he was he was always confident about it. Now, if he didn't know something, he'd tell you he didn't know. But nine times out of ten, he knew, and not only did he know, he was confident. Um, and he just had that ability to to tell it how it is and to let the doctors know, you know, this is this is what it takes, you know, and if this is how you feel, uh that's what I need you to put in the letter. Um, and you know, he prided himself on being able to give that guidance to other veterans um to help them get the evidence that they needed. Um and like I said, it was just an ability that a lot of people don't have, but dad absolutely had it. Um very few times in my life have I seen him, you know, unsure. Um, but once he once he knew what he knew, he didn't forget it. Um like I said, he just always had that confidence of this is this is how it's gonna go, this is what you need, this is how you do it. And if you follow this path, they may, you know, deny it and you may have to appeal or go through several rounds, but it'll work. Um, and we've seen it work over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_02: 12:01

I think your dad had a photographic memory. I could call and and talk to him and I'd say, hey, look, I got this veteran. He has this, this, and this, and and I've got him going to get this, this, and this. What do you think? He said, Well, look at 38 CFR codes, such and such, such and such. Go down about halfway down through it or go to the bottom of it, or whatever. I called him one time and I said, What's the easiest way to look up 38 CFR codes? He said, Well, you could do like I do for five or six years, sit on the King throne and read the 38 CFR code book, or you could go in and do a Google search, and when uh uh Harvard University or Princeton University came up, go ahead and click into that and do your search from that. I've used that a thousand times since he gave me that advice. Uh matter of fact, in the one he said, go down to the third one. That's the Princeton. I like it the best. And that's what I do.

SPEAKER_03: 13:04

He didn't heat the heat. Basically, he also said that back in the day, Princeton, they would actually have their law schools. And uh still do it or not, because things have changed totally in his education system just in the past three or four years. Princeton used to get in and they would uh take a veteran's claim on and they took that they would represent him. And they would go through as a team and do the you know the work. And and some of these kids, you know, they you miss a lot of stuff. I knew what they were doing. And I've seen them help a lot of that's out, but you know, I think it changed a lot since you know, since then. So I don't know you know what they're doing now, but it I guess they're too busy doing other things now. But that's the Ivy League for you, you know. And uh pressing grass make big money, you know what I mean, right? Yeah. Okay, dude. It's kind of like a place called Vanderbilt.

SPEAKER_01: 13:56

I know where that's at.

SPEAKER_03: 14:01

Um so Randy, let's talk about you for a minute. Um as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, we have a lot of uh children of Agent Orange exposed veterans. I'm not gonna say Vietnam, of course, Vietnam's included, but you don't have to be in Vietnam to be exposed to Agent Orange. You know, you guys approved that, you know, Fort McClellan, Fort Jackson. Uh very places they use it, he used it at Fort Knox. Uh course they probably still say we didn't use Agent Orange in the continental United States. So yeah, and I didn't drink beer here either, did we? But uh anyhow. The only disability that I understand the VA recognizes for a child of an agent exposed Agent Orange exposed veteran is spina dip spina bipida, is that right?

SPEAKER_01: 14:52

As far as I know, yes it is.

SPEAKER_03: 14:53

Okay, that's the only recognizable. Okay. That's not to say there are other issues out there that could be attributed to Agent Orange. And uh, but as far as the book says, you know, on the way Congress wrote it, um that's the issue. And then it has to be a certain level of agent orange. It can't be like uh I forget to spawn a bit of a cult of two or whatever, you know. I mean, it has to be a certain stage or whatever. That's what I understand. I know one Agent Ortic Speath's son had it, and they denied it because it was the wrong one. Yeah, so but tell us about your issue. I mean, there's some certain disorders out there, and uh kind of give us a uh tell us what it is and kind of tell us basically how you know when it started and things like that, and what's this effect has been on you because this hit you too it's hit you more than one time, right?

SPEAKER_00: 15:49

It has, it's hit me twice. Uh so what I have is a a blood disorder, it's called thrombotic thrombocytopenic papira, um, or TTP is what they shorten it to. Um, and it's rare enough that a lot of doctors have never heard of it. Um, I've even met hematologists that have never heard of it, and it's a blood disorder. Um, and so I was 23 at the time. This was back in 2004. Um, I had recently graduated college and moved to Memphis to take a job in Memphis, um, had also recently gotten married, and um I just I came down sick one day. Um the first thing I noticed was um what I thought were rashes on my skin, on my feet, my legs, my stomach. Um, it looked like somebody had taken a Sharpie marker, a red marker, and just made hundreds and hundreds of red knots on my skin. Um, I would later find out that's called patehium, and it means you're bleeding under the skin. And I also had massive bruises on my legs. Um, I thought, well, I'm just a klutz, I'm you know, running into machines at the gym and you know, things like that, bruising myself. And um, so I kept going. And then a couple of days later, I was so tired, I can't begin to explain how tired I was. Um, I knew I I got up one morning and I thought I need to call into work and let them know I'm not coming. And to think about moving off the bed and walking three feet to the phone was too much work, made me too tired. I couldn't do it. It literally took me two hours to work up the energy to get to the phone and call work and let them know why I wasn't coming in. So I went to the doctor and he thought that I was having an allergic reaction to something. I did too. I thought it was a rash. And two days later, I wasn't any better, and the medication that he gave me to clear up the so-called rash wasn't working. I went back and he said, I need to run some blood work. And I had never had a problem getting my blood drawn or, you know, anything like that. And in the middle of them drawing blood, I pass out. And they got me too. And he came back in the room and he said, I have to admit you, he said, if I allow you to drive home and you're in an accident, you don't have enough platelets to keep yourself alive. You can't clot, you don't have enough platelets. Um, and so if you're in an accident of any kind, you know, we're gonna lose you, and I can't chance you driving home. Um, so to make a very long story short, the hospital in Memphis couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. Um, they thought I might have iron deficiency anemia at first, and you know, they couldn't diagnose that. They did a uh bone marrow test on me and you know, tested that, and they just couldn't figure out what was going on, and I was just getting worse and worse. And so sure enough, dad came in and saved the day, and he realized that, you know, they weren't taking the care of me that they needed, and he got me to a hospital here in Nashville. And I'm lucky in the fact that I don't know if you know the difference between a disease and a disorder. And a disease is something that they can do a test and it says, yes, you have it or no, you don't. A disorder, you basically have to rule everything else out to see if you have the disorder. And TTP is a disorder. So I'm lucky, it's very rare. And again, there's a lot of doctors that have never seen it, they don't know what it is. And it just so happens that the ER doctor that was on call that night and saw me, he immediately recognized it for what it was. And I was unconscious at this point. Um, so I'm 23, I'm otherwise very healthy. And in the matter of three or four days, I went from perfectly fine to within hours of dying. And so he immediately told my parents, you know, this is, you know, TTP. We've got to immediately get her some uh blood transfusions going, put the paperwork in front of dad, decide. And of course, you know, you hear somebody needs blood and you hesitate. You know, is there anything in the blood? Have they tested it for everything? And he said the doctor saw him hesitate and he said, I know what you're thinking, but I'm telling you, if you don't sign that paperwork, she's gone in a couple hours, and we don't have that time. So TTP, there's three major things that happen with TTP. The first thing is you don't have enough platelets in your bloodstream to clot to keep you alive. Um, and so you bleed internally. Um the platelets don't leave your body, but they leave your bloodstream and they could they form massive clots around your major organs like your brain, your kidneys, your liver, um, things like that. Um, so it can damage those things. So they have to keep an eye on are your kidneys functioning, are your cognitive abilities there? You know, they did CT scans on me. They would ask me the questions do you know who the president is? Do you know what day it is? Do you know where you are? Um so by the time, as a TTP person, by the time you realize and you see the symptoms, you see the bruising, you see the petiki eye, you feel the tiredness, you feel the headache, by the time you see those in yourself, they tell you it's already, you're already so close to critical levels of platelets that it's it's not even funny. So there's no cure for it. Um, they basically keep you alive, giving you donor plasma until your body starts working correctly again and kind of corrects itself and stops, you know, your platelets from forming those clots. Um, so over the course of two and a half months back in 2004, I received um 30 plasmapuresis um procedures, which is what it's called when they give you donor plasma. Um, with each one, it took 20 to 25 units of plasma. So I had more than 600, 650 units of plasma back in 2004. That's a lot to save one person. I never thought it would take that much to save one person. Um, they start by doing a plasmapheresis treatment every day. And when your levels come back up to normal, and that's your platelet count. When your platelet count comes up to normal, then they space it out and they do every other day. And if you can remain at normal levels, then they space you out to every two days and they keep spacing it out until they feel like you're stable enough to stop having plasmaphoresis treatments. Um, they tell you there's no cure for it, and there's not. Um there's always a chance that it can come back. There's no medication you can take to prevent it. There's no diet or exercise to prevent it. Um, the best they can tell you to do is not to get sick because any kind of infection can trigger that relapse. So I got better, I got out of the hospital, I came home, I went on with my life. Um, and I was in remission for 19 and a half years. And I guess I had it in my head that if I could hit 20 years in remission, I'd be one of those people that never relapsed. Um, because there are some people that have TTP that relapse every five years. There's some people that relapse every 18 months. You know, it's it's different for every person. And last year, 2024, I went on a cruise with my family. I ended up getting some kind of virus while I was on the cruise. And um, my husband got it, my brother got it, my sister-in-law got it. We got home, everybody got better but me. And I'm sitting in the line at school picking up one of my daughters, and I messaged my husband and I said, This isn't good. I've got red spots on my wrist. I said, You're gonna have to take me to the hospital when we get home. So, sure enough, went to the hospital, did blood work, my platelet count was almost to critical levels. So they put me back in. They started plasmapharesis again. I ended up having 16 plasmapheesis treatments this past year. Um, they have new medications that can assist with things over the last 20 years they didn't have back in 2004. So there's an immunotherapy drug called Rituxin. Um, so they gave me several plasmaphores treatments first, and my platelets came up, but then they started falling again. So then my doctor had to get on the phone with my entrance company and get this immunotherapy drug Rituxin approved. I had uh four rounds of Rituxin immunotherapy, um, which works similar to chemo, where it kills a certain part of your immune system. Um, so I had to stay, you know, out of the public, wear a mask, you know, not be around anybody that was sick for, you know, um six or eight months. Um so I did that. Um, and I've been a month, I've been a year and a half now back in remission for the second time. Um, I hope I get another 19, 20 years out of this one. Um, and if it never happened again, I'd be okay with that. Um but the funny, not the funny thing, but the um interesting thing is dad, dad didn't have TTP, but dad had thrombocytopenia, which is low platelets. And it really became a problem for him in the last three or four years. But going back through his medical records, they told him last year, you've had thrombocytopenia for more than 20 years. We don't know why nobody ever told you that, but you have. Um, and so, you know, when I was first diagnosed in 2004, we didn't know dad had been exposed to Agent Orange. It was classified at that time. Um, and dad's one of the ones that, you know, fought so hard to get it declassified and you know, get the government to admit they used it in the continental US. And um, when he won his claim, he came back to me and he said, you know, I think this is what's caused your blood disorder. You know, we know it can affect children and grandchildren. Um, and I, you know, I think you need to take the documentation from my claim to your doctor and see what he says. So I did. I took it to my hematologist, and um, this was back in 2015 or 16. And um my doctor, you know, I said I gave him the paperwork, gave him copies, and I said, you know, take your time with it, you know, review it, look into it, let me know what you think. And he called me back in and had me come in for a follow-up appointment. And he was like, I looked at everything, and he's like, you know, yeah, that's absolutely a possibility that your dad's aging orange exposure caused your TTP. And he said, if you need me to put that in a letter, I'll do it. So um, not long after that, he retired, and um he showed the paperwork to the doctor that you know took over as my hematologist, and um she said the same thing. I agree, you know, with his findings, and I'll sign a letter too. And she did. And he had a longtime nurse practitioner um that had worked under him that had seen me for all those years, and um, same thing, she said, I agree. So I have two hematologists, doctor, uh, nexus letters and a nurse practitioner hematology nexus letter um to go with my claim. And dad said, you know, it's not connected, it may never be connected, but if it ever is, and we file a claim now, then the VA has to go back and recognize that from the day of your intent to file. So we submitted in 2016, January 27th, 2016. We put it in an intent to file. Dad, you know, helped me to gather all the paperwork. Some of it was evidence from his claim showing direct exposure and you know his you know letter of approval to from the VA stating that they recognized it. Got all that submitted, and of course, the VA is in no hurry, especially with a a claim from a child. Um, we knew it would get denied, but we couldn't even get them to give me a decision or acknowledge it for four years. Um, and finally, the um the TV station in Augusta reached out to dad and said, you know, we'd like to do an interview on you and your daughter. You know, we understand that, you know, she's been affected by this too. And once we did that interview, um, I had a congressman and a senator reach out from Georgia and say, we'd like to help. Can we contact the VA on your behalf? Do you give us permission to do that? So, you know, I signed, you know, permission forms for them to reach out. Once they started making phone calls, the VA was very quick to reach out to me. Oh, we're sorry, you know, we overlooked it. We'll take a look at it. So it was pretty quick after that I got the first denial. And in typical VA fashion, the list of evidence that they gave for why they denied it was inaccurate and full of errors. Um, they told me, you know, it was a presumptive, you know, dad's was presumptive and dad's exposure was not. Dad's was direct. Um, they gave me uh they cited his dates of service and they were completely wrong. I don't know whose dates of service they pulled, but they weren't my dad's. Um and so dad told me at the time, he said, you know, they're not gonna prove it no matter what you do, you know. But you got two choices. You can sit back and do nothing because you've at least filed it and they denied it, or you can appeal it and make sure that they're at least citing the correct evidence so that when they ever do connect it, you're a step ahead of the game because you got them at least looking at the right documentation. And he said, Whatever you decide, I'm on board and I'll help you do that. And I said, Well, I know what you would do if it was you, you'd fight it. You'd go back and you'd appeal it and you'd make sure that they were citing the correct documentation. And I said, I see no reason not to follow in your footsteps and do that exact same thing. So that's what we did. He helped me to work on my appeal and cite the correct documents and point out their errors. And uh once I resubmitted it, I guess it probably took about nine or ten months for them to deny it again. And he said, Okay, you've gone as far as you can go now. Now we have to get Congress, we have to get the House, we have to get the Senate, we have to get them talking, you know. And he said, There's been a little bit of uptick and discussion, and they're talking about they need to do studies and they need to see, you know, really how it affected the children and the grandchildren. And we were making a little bit of progress, and then COVID hit, and the world just fell apart. So any discussions of any government studies or anything just completely, you know, went out the window. Um, one thing I found funny though, when they denied it the second time, they specifically cited that there was no, there was not enough evidence, there was not enough studies being done to show the effects in children and grandchildren. And they told me personally that I should reach out to a research institution such as the University of Tennessee, because they do studies. Now, I don't realize I don't think the general public realizes how many millions of dollars go into research studies, but I'm pretty sure the general public knows that if they picked up the phone call as an individual and said, Hey, University of Tennessee, I want you to study the effects of Agent Orange in the children and grandchildren of exposed veterans, they'd get laughed at because the studies, the University of Tennessee is not going to do that for me. They're gonna do that for you. Now, if the federal government called and said, Hey, we need these studies to be done, and the federal government funded it, that'd be a different story. But that's what the VA told me. I needed to reach out to somebody like the University of Tennessee and have studies done to show the effects in the children and the grandchildren. Um, so that was um that was interesting to me. Um, but yeah, that's you know my story. That's how I got, you know, acclaim with the VA, even though I've never served a day in my life. Um I would encourage any any exposed veterans that have children or grandchildren that have medical conditions that they feel may possibly be related, file an intent, get it on the record, and then spend a year working on Nexus letters and gathering documents and information because again, it may never get connected. The government may never recognize us, and it will literally take an act of Congress to change the law to get us recognized. But if they ever do, they have to go back to the date that you filed your intent. Um, and I've had you know newscasters ask me, what are you looking for? Are you looking for a good a big payout for the government? Nope, that's not at all what I'm looking for. I am looking for medical coverage because even with insurance, the amount, the cost of everything I went through, the three to four weeks in the hospital, the you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of units of donor plasma, the machines it took to change, take my plasma out, put the donor plasma in, um that costs a lot of money. And you know, I don't feel like I should have to be the one to cover that cost for that medical coverage if it's due to Agent Orange. And if it was something really common, you could convince me that it was not connected. But this is what I found, and I feel like I'm you know, this is this is where I got part of dad in me. When I was first diagnosed in 2004, my hematologist told me that it was rare enough that it affected one in three million people. That's pretty rare. Back in 2020, um, or I guess it was 2019, we did another interview here in Nashville, and I thought, I wonder nowadays with Facebook and you know, all the social media, I wonder how many I could find. So I went into a TTP forum on Facebook. There's a group on Facebook, and there were two TTP forums that I was a member of, and then I was also a member of a group for children and grandchildren of exposed vets with medical issues. And I went into all three groups and I said, Can you let me know if you are a child or a grandchild of an exposed veteran and you have something called TTP, thrombotic thrombocyta penic papura? Um, I'd like to know if there are others like me. Within 20 minutes, I found seven more people over the next two days. I found two more people. So that's 10 of us. And it affects one in three million people. That's too many to be coincidence for me. Um, I personally have met two other children of exposed vets that didn't have TTP, but they had either ITP or another blood disorder that is very similar to TTP and has a lot of the same symptoms like low platelets and you know the bleeding and clotting issues. And so again, that's just me finding those people. That's you know, that's 12 of us all together. And again, the statistics on that, if it really affects one in three million people, and that's just me finding a handful of people that quickly, like I said, that's that's too much of a coincidence for me. Um and then you back it up with people that study the blood, and that's what they do. They're doctors that have you know been in the field for years and years and years, and they can look in the research behind Agent Orange and what it does to the body, what it does to the veterans, and then you start seeing these conditions in the children and the grandchildren, and they say, Yeah, that's absolutely a possibility. That's all it takes for me. So dad was convinced that's what caused it. I'm convinced that that's what caused it.

SPEAKER_02: 36:55

Well, I'd have to agree with you, Bendy, and uh, I think John and I've talked about this a couple of different times. I have a grandson um that is uh he's 18 years old now. When he was born, he had nine of the 12 major birth defects. Uh on December the 5th of this year at Vanderbilt, he will have uh his 32nd surgery. He was born with no immune system. Every three weeks he has to have a complete blood transfer. He is ever since he was two or three months old, uh he has to have a feeding tube. Back then they had to feed him every day with insurance or some other type of a liquid. Now he's down to where he only has to have it at night because his body and his blood in circulation burns up so many calories that he has to basically be fed every two hours. And there's not an ounce of fat on it. Okay. But uh he can eat regular food now, he couldn't when he was uh a taller, but he can now. And uh all of this is back. There's a your dad was in a book that was written by a doctor at Vanderbilt that talks about uh children who were of of child of uh veterans that served in Southeast Asia and in Vietnam. And her dad, and I guess your case was mentioned in that book. Am I right?

SPEAKER_00: 38:43

Um it was it was dad. Dad was mentioned in the book as being the first veteran to win acclaim for Agent Orange exposure in the continental US. But yes, her research, um, she came to one of the uh the US VA meetings and presented her research. And so she actually studies fertility issues, but in studying fertility issues, she kind of zeroed in on the effects that the fertility issues that Agent Orange can cause. Um and then she just continued to research and continue to research. And so she has a lot of data, a lot of information on, you know, how much it can affect the children and the grandchildren and generations out. And, you know, I don't want to I don't want to misinterpret her data and her findings, but I was glued to the presentation. And so many things made sense to me after I, you know, heard her present the information on, you know, what Agent Orange does, you know, as far as you know, bringing things to the forefront like TTP, you know. And and things like that. And like I said, it, you know, they already know it causes some conditions in children and grandchildren. They just refuse to do the research and find out how big it is because they don't want to fund it. They don't want to fund the cer the studies. And they sure don't want to give us medical coverage for things that could be connected. And so, you know, again, I don't want to, you know, misinterpret her data, but it was it was mind-blowing for me when she presented those facts and that information after studying it for years and years and years on exactly what it does and what it's shown. And, you know, I I was just, I wasn't surprised if that makes sense, but I was shocked by the extent of what she could see in her studies, um, if that makes sense. Um, and she studies in mice, um, because obviously, you know, you can't just, you know, in research, you know, give somebody agent orange and see what happens. Um, but um again, it was it was shocking how much. Well, that's true. That is true. You're not supposed to.

SPEAKER_03: 41:20

At least they um at least they didn't tell the Vietnam veterans that they were spraying agent orange on them. They just, you know, they were looking for defoliants now. As far as the Project 112 shad bits up in Alaska and other places when he was doing the testing back in the 60s, they actually sprayed them with the stuff. They did a bunch of other jokes too. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 41:42

Um so they're not supposed to, especially nowadays, you're really not supposed to, but you know, again, federal government's federal government. Um, but you know, in her research, she can't just expose people. Um, but yeah, it's um it's pretty interesting. It's pretty interesting. And, you know, again, if we could get professors like her to do more research or expand and study, you know, additional things that are tied to that research, or, you know, have the University of Tennessee come at it with a different study. I mean, the information's there. Um, I know there are people um in PhD programs um that are looking at it. I know this because, again, I'm a member of TTP forums and you know, Vietnam Exposed Forum, you know, children of of exposed veteran forums on TTP on uh Facebook and stuff like that. And we've had uh people in the group say, I'm a PhD student, I'm working on my thesis, and this is the you know, the topic of my thesis. Would you be willing to tell me your story? What medical conditions do you have? You know, where was your dad exposed? When was he exposed? Um, things of that nature. So there are people interested in doing it. We just have to get the government to pay attention to it. And if more, if they need more data to support connecting our medical conditions, then they need to help support the funding for those studies. Because like I said, I don't have millions of dollars to have the state of the University of Tennessee do a study for me or Vanderbilt University or Princeton University or, you know, and if I pick up the phone call, they're gonna laugh me off the phone if I ask them to do a study like this. But if the federal the federal government comes in and says, hey, we need to take a look at this, people are gonna pay attention. So, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 43:38

That's hard. It's hard to tackle studies too, because once they get done, once the grant money's up and they're done, that uh they'll send their findings off to a clearinghouse or whatever. The clearinghouse will take the information and they'll decide whether to publish or not. It's kind of a weird way to work.

SPEAKER_00: 43:55

And it takes a long time. When you decide to start doing a study, it's not immediate. Um, you know, it takes time to find, you know, the locations that are willing to do it. Do they have the staff with the proper training? Um, you have to go through institutional review boards, um, you have to write consent forms. You know, there's a whole lot that goes into research studies, which is one reason that it takes, you know, massive amounts of money to conduct them. Um, and again, I can't do that on my own.

SPEAKER_04: 44:28

So unless you're in a college program and you want to go back and uh, you know, do something like smart scholar or something, work for the government and do it.

SPEAKER_00: 44:38

Well, what's funny is, you know, I actually work in research. Um, I work in clinical research. So um when um, you know, there's new drug trials, I'm one of the ones that helps write those consent forms for the drug trials and you know, get things submitted to the institutional review boards. So that's how I know how long it takes to get things, you know, started and going. Um but again, you know, I don't have the I don't have the funds to get a study started on my own. You know, I can't hire the University of Tennessee or, you know, anything like that. Um, and then again, it's gotta be paid for by somebody. You gotta have the right staff, you gotta have, you know, the right supplies, the right knowledge on how to, you know, build a protocol to follow to say, okay, if we're gonna look for, if we're gonna look and and try to say, yes, agent orange exposure causes TTP or causes a certain amount of blood blood disorders, you know, you're gonna need someone with a scientific background or a medical background to say, okay, we would look for these markers in the blood, or we would look for these types of lab results, or, you know, that's the kind of I don't have that kind of medical knowledge. Um, so you've got to have, you know, those scientific and medical minds to come together and say, this is how you study it. It can be studied, but this is how you go about it. Um, so it would take a lot, you know, a lot of funding, a lot of people, a lot of, you know, good minds, but the government could put that together if they so choose.

SPEAKER_05: 46:21

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03: 46:23

You know, I mean it takes a pretty smart person to just put it together anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 46:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 46:29

And and you gotta make your recommendations and things like that. And but in your case, it's probably gonna take more than one. You know.

SPEAKER_01: 46:37

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_03: 46:37

And then most of the agent most of the agent orange stuff that I know of, um the elaborate United States uh with all the Agent Orange fiasco and hoop law that came out with all the exposure issues and things like that. You know, they were all gig for not doing good enough research. But other countries did do research. I'll start you with one of them. And uh maybe something you check into because they do a lot of research on things long. Australia is pretty pretty tough. They might already have the information you need.

SPEAKER_00: 47:13

I'll definitely look into it. Um, definitely something I need to look up. Um, I know there's a there's a registry being kept here um that specifically looks at the the percentages. Is it significantly higher percentages of children of exposed vets that have migraine headaches or blood disorders or autoimmune disorders or cancers or things like that? Um, and so um I forget exactly who keeps that, um, but it is a reputable, you know, company that keeps that registry. And again, you go on there and you look and you see, and again, I these are not exact numbers. This is an example. You might go on there and see that autoimmune disorders are seven times more likely in exposed, you know, children and grandchildren than the basic population, the general population. Or you might see migraine headaches are, you know, 20% more, you know, common in, you know, and again, those are not actual numbers. That's me throwing out examples, but that's the kind of information that's on that registry. And it has cancer, it has um autoimmune disorders, migraine headaches, um, other birth defects. You know, it's it's got a ton of information on there. Um, and again, you just read through it and it's just mind-boggling that something like that can exist, and the government still say, we don't need to look into that.

SPEAKER_03: 48:45

No, it's called CYA.

SPEAKER_01: 48:49

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 48:50

Like I said, they don't want to open that box. They don't want to open it. Same reason they didn't want to open the box for exposure inside the continental US. You know, I can't tell you the amount of of work that dad put into proving that. And you know, we were not the veterans, we weren't there, we didn't spray it, we weren't sprayed by it, we weren't, you know, in the areas where it were used, where it was used. We came after the fact. So we've got a harder uphill battle to prove that our conditions are connected.

SPEAKER_03: 49:27

Your collateral damage. Yes, exactly. I was not I was not exposed to Agent Orange. My big issue was asbestos because I actually removed it in the Navy. And uh when asbestos first showed its ugly head they had uh mines in Africa and they were mining asbestos. So these poor guys would go and they would mine asbestos. They'd get off work and they'd dust themselves off and they'd go home. The little babies would cross on their lap and the wife would come over and hug them and walk them home, and they'd take their shoes and shirts off. They'd eat dinner and go to bed and get the next day and do it again. All of a sudden, after just a very short time, these miners started falling over dead. Everybody in that factory died. Or the mine died. Then the family started dying. Okay, so the families were last to go because their exposure was as much as the guys inside the mine. Right. Because vests is uh basically the more exposure that you're exposed to, the shorter the more it's gonna get you. Because uh those fibers they get in your lungs and it's basically gonna be over with pretty quick. So collateral damage is the same way. I mean, some things that like you know, it might take you might be exposed a little bit, still have you know, you still might get cancer in your lungs and asbestos, but it might take 50 years to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 50:54

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 50:56

You know, so basically the situation.

SPEAKER_00: 50:58

I'll be honest with you, I feel like I got a double dose. And the reason I say that is studies have shown that Agent Orange, it is absorbed in like fish. And dad was a game warden, and him and mom would go fishing at the end of the day and catch dinner, go home and eat the fish. You know, my mom was exposed too in that manner. Um, you know, she didn't strap it on her back and have the tank leak all over her every day while she was at work like dad did, but she still ate the fish out of the lakes and was in the areas that were contaminated where he sprayed it, and you know, so I feel like I got a double dose, you know. And my parents were married 11 years before they had kids. They'd given up hope. They thought they couldn't have kids. Goes back to those fertility issues. The half-life is like eight years, I believe. And so they were married 11 years before mom got pregnant, and like I said, they'd given up hope. They didn't think they could have kids.

SPEAKER_01: 52:05

That's what it was.

SPEAKER_00: 52:06

It was the Agent Orange.

SPEAKER_03: 52:11

I say it probably was. I mean, it's uh um it's bad stuff. I mean, there's nothing good about Agent Orange, the only good thing about it is it does kill weeds, right? It kills foliage. But it kills the people sprayed the foliage too.

SPEAKER_01: 52:25

Exactly. It sure does.

SPEAKER_03: 52:27

Yeah, you know, and uh whoever made it, whoever patented it, and whoever approved it should have all paid the price for it. Which they did most of them are probably dead by now, but still, you know. And the same thing with you know, you don't spray people with stuff. You test it first to make sure that it's safe. If it's not safe, don't use it. They still use this crap every day.

SPEAKER_00: 52:50

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 52:51

You know, they just change a name and go on to something else.

SPEAKER_00: 52:53

They change the name of it.

SPEAKER_03: 52:55

Yep, they sure do.

SPEAKER_02: 52:56

Uh Mandy, your dad and I talked uh several occasions about his job um down there at Fort Gordon and in Georgia. Um one thing that we both understood from being exposed in the United States where I was exposed was a nice uh an area called Little Tiger Land. And it was a little Vietnamese mock village that uh soldiers went through AIT training. Well, when when I was going on about that uh and looking into it, I realized suddenly that 97 or 98 percent of the individuals that were in the same area that I was in within six weeks were in Vietnam. So they if they did come down with it, the government was saying, just like they did in your dad's case, well, we didn't spray it here, they got it in Vietnam. Because in Fort Gordon, Georgia, and in Fort McKellum, Alabama, the majority of the individuals that were sprayed, uh, you know, 97%, I believe, is what was what the Corps of Engineers told me when they cleaned it up, they anticipated that 97% of the individuals that came in contact with Agent Orange would end up in Vietnam in six to eight weeks. Now, with that being said, the other thing that they had at Fort McKellum, they that was a chemical training center. So they had Agent Orange, Agent White, Agent Blue, NERV Gas, Mustard Gas, they had all of that there. So, you know, it was really it it should have been a no-brainer. But instead, when they when the government looks, oh that couldn't, it didn't happen there because they got in Vietnam. So they always had that excuse. They got in Vietnam, they got in Vietnam. And um like I was the first case from Fort McCallum. There's only been three others. So, you know, even though there is a toxic exposure, Fort McCallum, Alabama, for individuals that were there during the 60s and up to the uh, I think the late 70s. Um then they shut the base and supposedly cleaned it up. Uh, not sure how that worked, because uh your dad was telling Mays where I got the information that he had found research that showed that it stayed in the ground for a hundred years.

SPEAKER_00: 55:31

Something like that, yeah. I remember it being a very long time. And you know, that's something that helped him win his claim. He went back to Fort Gordon and he found, you know, groves of trees that he had been ordered to spray and kill. They're still dead. The ground is still dead. There's, you know, nothing that can live right there, you know. Um, and he went back and he took pictures and, you know, he was he was always the hardest on himself. You couldn't convince him that it wasn't his fault. He didn't know, you know, what it was. He knew he didn't know what it was, but he still felt responsible. I sprayed it. I'm the one that pulled the trigger and you know, sprayed the trees and sprayed the ground. And um he just took all of that on himself, um, even though it wasn't his fault. But he could tell them, you know, he was trying to win the claim. And, you know, there was a guy that was the Fort Gordon was a um a game warden there years and years later than dad. And um he asked dad at one point, and he said, you know, you said you had a storage building, you know, where would that storage building have been have have been located on the base? And what would I find if I opened the if because dad said I left it locked. And the guy said, if I went in there, what would I have found? And dad was able to say what kind of lock it had on it, how big the building was, what it looked like, where it was. And if you walked in and he started on, you know, the left-hand side, he could tell the guy all the way around the inside of the building what was in there, from fishing poles to, you know, the fib the you know, big barrels with the stripes on them. And, you know, and the guy said, You're right. I found that building and I cut the lock off on it, and I went in there, and I think this was like the 80s that the guy went in there and he said, You're right. And everything that you told me was in there was in there, and everywhere you said it was plumbed down to where the fishing poles were stacked. That's exactly what I found. Not many people could do, not many people could do that, could remember that level of information and everything that was in that building, and you know, and that's when the guy knew that dad was telling the truth. He was like, You're right, I found everything you just said, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 57:56

That type of memory is a uh it can be a gift, but it can also be a burden because that is like a um it's kind of like more or less it can be like a PTSD response because it can fluctuate. Like, for example, when you find like his like I did the same thing he did. When you get immersed in your cling, you throw yourself into it. You know, you ignore everything around you, and your focus is that clean. And you take go as long as it takes a hard day, and you take the information, you read, you learn everything, you know, you learn it all. That's how that's how you become your dad became so good at what he did. Because you know, I mean he did talk to people and he did get advice. We talked a lot over the years, but it's better to show him because he would go straight to the source, he would read the title 38, part three, and part four, and then he would go back and read it, and then he would go back again and read it. You know, that's what your dad did. You know, your dad was just uh relentless on his stuff, and there's no quitting. I kind of feel sorry for your mom because he wanted something. I'm pretty sure he I'm pretty sure he got it.

SPEAKER_00: 59:03

He did. He absolutely did, he did, but he always he always said he won his claim because he didn't sleep. The VA did. And I can tell you there were times three, four, or five o'clock in the morning, dad hadn't slept. He was sitting there on the computer researching and looking and reading, and you know, that's what it took, and that's what he did. And you know, it was hard to watch him go through it. Yeah, you know, I can remember typing things up for him because you know, dad was a hunt and peck typer. Um, you know, we as a family, we supported him. We did anything, you know, you want us to type something up for you, we'll do it. Um, you want us to proofread something, we'll do it. But 98% of the work was on dad. Um I know what but we sure celebrated with him when he won it.

unknown: 59:59

Um

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:00

He said, you know, I wondered, did my family think that I was lying? Did they think I was telling the truth? Because even the government looked at me and told me I was lying. And I said, Dad, we never doubted you. Never doubted you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:13

Same questions about myself, you know. So that's good. Well, listen, we are totally out of time. But I want you to do us a favor. Next time you see your mom, give her a big hug from me, the missus.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:24

I will do it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:25

We're thinking about it constantly. Tell her to get us some cognitive now and then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:32

I will do it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:33

Well, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:36

We'll do this again one of these days. We appreciate you for coming on. Ray, thanks for coming on again as usual to be in the co-host there. Uh uh, maybe we can kind of slow down a little bit now. The holidays is coming up because we've been pretty busy the last few weeks.

unknown: 1:00:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:52

With Veterans Day and flags and live broadcast. And uh, but listen, we want to thank everybody for listening, tuning in tonight. We'll see you again next Thursday. We'll have another guest on and we'll discuss another VA-related issue. We'll keep pouring it to them. Maybe they'll give in one of these days and start deciding these claims quickly. I doubt it, you know. We can always ask and pray, right? So in that case, this will be John on behalf of Mr. Ray Cobb and Mandy Cripp Queens. We'll be shutting down for now. Good evening, everyone. Good night.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:27

Good night.