What If The Real Fight Isn’t Left Vs Right But Us Vs Division | S.O.S. #256

What happens when a new VA rule could reshape how disability is rated, and the loudest voices online push us toward outrage instead of answers? We dig into the Federal Register proposal that factors medication into disability evaluations, explain why some veterans fear lower ratings, and share how to navigate the public comment process without getting lost in the noise. Our goal is clarity over clamor—grounding the debate in sources, not slogans.

We also open up about a change in our own approach. After years of watching the incentives that reward division, we’re doubling down on unity without soft-pedaling the truth. That means hosting tough conversations about the “veteran fraud” narrative with empathy for combat-injured vets and those with non-combat service injuries, while refusing to let anyone use our community as a wedge. It also means producing fewer, deeper episodes so the research, context, and follow-through match the stakes.

Looking ahead, we preview a conversation with a host from the Anti-Hero podcast who faced a massive defamation suit after reporting on a high-profile special operations story. We’ll get practical about legal risk for indie creators: verifying claims, separating allegation from assertion, extending right of reply, and documenting sources to protect both speech and subjects. We also spotlight “We Are the Bad Guys,” a deeply sourced book that challenges comfortable narratives about U.S. actions overseas and pushed us to re-examine our own assumptions.

Finally, we track a developing case that cuts to the core of medical ethics: a father says his active-duty son did not consent to organ donation after a fatal accident. We outline the policy, consent, and next-of-kin questions this raises—and why careful, humane reporting matters when timelines are tight and consequences are permanent. If you care about veteran benefits, truthful storytelling, and staying human in a polarized media landscape, this one matters.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review—then tell us where you stand on the VA proposal and how creators should handle high-risk stories. Your voice shapes what we cover next.

Transcript

Welcome Back & Show Direction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello everyone. And great to be back on the podcast and be back with you guys all again. I was off for a couple weeks enjoying some much needed time away and relaxing and spending time with my husband. But it's wonderful to be back at it again. And tonight we I was going to bring you uh Jane Babcock, and we were going to talk about veteran disability and fraud and some other issues, but I believe she got tied up. So I thought I would just go come on real quick here and talk about a few things that I have been posting about and some other things that I have coming up. And also I wanted to put out the direction of the Stories of Service podcast. There are some things that I'm going to be doing to change. But before I do that, as I always do, welcome to the Stories of Service podcast. Ordinary people who do extraordinary work. And I am the host of Stories of Service, Teresa Carpenter. And I won't do the intro from my dad. This is going to be a lot more of a quicker podcast. But before I get started, I wanted to go ahead and share a link with you. I saw earlier, uh, it was, I'd say, uh, oops, got to move that out of the way. I saw that the Federal Register, I don't know if you guys have been following this. I did put out an article about it, and I will go ahead and uh share my screen here. But they did finally make this into a Stars and Stripes article, and it's just on the veterans advocacy groups who've been sharing this. So it's the new Federal Register, and it's a rule from the Department of Veterans Affairs that determines disability compensation. And a lot of people predict it's going to lower payments for service-related illnesses and injuries. So I do have an information sheet on my social media pages that was very well prepared that I do believe explains this. There is a public comment, period. Uh basically, what they're going to be doing is evaluating your condition based on medication, where they were not doing that before. And there's a lot of people who are very concerned that this might lower disability ratings. This is all speculative. We don't know what the actual outcome of this is going to be. But I thought it was interesting that all weekend we didn't see anything from the VA. We didn't see anything from any media outlets. But then today I did see that Stripes uh put out an article about this. The Disabled American Veterans is quoted in here. And then a podcaster, uh, Marine Corps veteran Jason Cameron is also quoted. So did think this was a really great article. Uh I do recommend you check it out and uh let me know your thoughts uh in the comments below. Uh if you think this is going to erode our benefits, if this is an erosion, or if this is just uh a standard practice and that it isn't going to change anything. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I know uh Jane has been also posting about it, so I'll keep you guys posted on what I hear. Uh one of the other things that we've been seeing a lot in the news, too, that I wanted to point out is this veteran fraud narrative. And I have interviewed people on both sides of this. Uh, you might remember that I had Daniel Gade on. He is a combat injured veteran who does believe that disability uh fraud is rampant within the system. Uh, there's a lot of us that don't see that and don't feel that way, but I understand also where he's coming from. And I believe that we do need to hear people out on both sides because I think the one thing that the media and a lot of people try to do is they try to divide us. And I have really taken a round turn on that uh when it comes to even my own personal beliefs on the outrage and the divisiveness that we see across the internet and not feeding into that. And I think there was even some divide going on between combat injured veterans and then people who've had other injuries that while they may not be combat related, they did happen uh in the course of our service and they did happen incident to service. And so I believe that uh we just need to hear each other out and we need to have these conversations. And you guys you guys always know I'm not afraid uh to have those hard conversations. And to piggyback on that or to add to that, I wanted to also take this opportunity, uh, since I don't have a guest on to talk about some of the shows that I have planned for you guys and also where I'm hoping to take these stories of service podcasts. As I said, I'm really taking a hard turn on not being divisive, not feeding into outrage. Uh, I have realized that in the past, I allowed myself to get very emotional or outraged on either side, whether it be something that was a more of a left of center belief or a right of center belief, whatever it was, uh I was feeding into that. And one of the things that I want to be more uh going forward is a uniter because I believe all that stuff is intentional and it's there to divide us. And if we can fight to overcome that and come together, no matter what our beliefs are, I just think we're better off as humans. So that is that is my pledge to you guys going forward, and I hope that that resonates uh with you as well. And to that, I'm also going to next week be having on the one of the hosts from the anti-hero podcast, Tyler. He's gonna come on. It is a very popular veterans podcast on YouTube. And the reason I'm gonna have him on is because he was recently sued, I believe, for$25 million for talking about a former SEAL who was the one who uh supposedly killed bin Laden and others dispute that. And we'll get more, we'll get into the story of that. But the bigger issue that I want to talk to him about is how we as storytellers, how we as podcasters, how do we get these stories out to you guys and not face litigation? How are we able to get out the a person's story as they know it to be true and not face uh lawsuits and lawfare? Because a lot of us are doing this for a public service. We're not necessarily in the business of podcasting, and we don't have a team of or an army of lawyers who are ready to defend us with any type of uh litigation issue. And so, how do we protect ourselves? So we'll be talking about that. I really can't wait to talk to him. Him and his uh co-hosts, they are, I believe, retired police officers, and they have seen, seen it, done it, and uh they take on some pretty spicy topics. They take on a lot of risks with their shows. I admire the uh what they're doing out there in the creator space, and so I really can't wait to have them on. You might have also seen that I was gonna have on Michael Lester. Unfortunately, he had to postpone. So I do recommend that everyone check out his book, We Are the Bad Guys. It's a sobering look at some of the things that the United States uh does do overseas. Uh, it's it's very highly sourced, it's very thorough in some of the details and in some of the countries that we go into. And I learned a lot reading it. I really adjusted my focus uh not only based on his book, but his book came along right at the time that I was starting to question a lot of the things that I see in the news media and the narratives that we're seeing online. And as a person who watches the media and watches uh the narratives that are out there pretty closely, uh I noticed that there was something going on where either side was trying to divide us and trying to pull us apart. And I just didn't want to be a part of that anymore. And then Michael came along, I read his book, and it it just put me over the edge that this is the right uh decision and the way to go. So, with that said, I'm trying my best also to slow down and slow my role on podcasts. Uh, you may remember a couple weeks ago, I was doing up to two to three shows a week. That is not sustainable. Not when I do four reels afterwards, I do a uh a blog after, I do all the the pre-show promo and the research on on the guest and on the subject. So I knew there was no real way to be able to do that. And so, because of that, unfortunately, I just wasn't able to keep that up. And so now I'm taking a step back. I'm trying to be more slower, more intentional about the shows that I do have on. And so you're seeing a lot of that in in the content that I'm putting out there is just I'm trying to slow it down. I do have a narrative that came in just recently with organ donation. And so I've been digging into that issue. You'll be seeing a few more posts on that. A lot of people are like, What's the big deal? The gift of life. Well, I think that there is something out there that might be need a little more investigation and a little bit more. Uh I I don't even know what to say. I I have a a gentleman who unfortunately lost his son due to a tragic motorcycle accident. He was active duty in the army, and the father was also, he's also an army retiree, and did not, in his uh view or in in his words, uh, his son did not consent to having his organs extracted. But unfortunately, he lost that battle. And uh, I'm following that case very closely, and I will be continuing to update you on what I find out about that as I go for further. But uh thank you. Uh a couple people were saying, God bless the USA, the greatest country of all time. And we are. We are the greatest country. We we the people are the greatest country. Now, I don't know if I can say that for the all the elites and all the people in power and the people who are kind of pit us against one another, but I do believe in the American people, and I believe we're smarter than all this. And that's really really where all this comes from, is that I believe that we're smarter than this divisiveness and the ways that the media and the way that they're trying to censor our voices online. I mean, we're seeing it all the time. And we saw it on the left when COVID happened, and now we're seeing it on the right uh with certain narratives that are being censored online. I mean, I see it with certain shows I do. It's very clear that that the the algorithms are are doing things to to censor us, and so we the people just have to stand up and be stronger than that. So thank you all for um your support. If I get Jane back on uh tonight, I might be able to open this stream up again and get her on for a show. I'm not sure what happened. So I did get a phone call while I was putting out this clip. So I might I'll give her a call back after this and see if I can get her back on, and then we'll just come back up. Well, I'll just come back to you guys and we'll do the show. But this gave me an opportunity to say a little personal words about this project. You guys know I make no money from this, uh, I do not take any sponsors because I don't want to be owned by anybody. This is clearly just something I love doing as a way to give back and be of service and to help the community. And so as I grow and evolve and and and push forward the new and better person that I'm always trying to be and that I always hope you guys are trying to be, I take you along for the ride, as I always say. So, with that, I might be coming back uh here in a few minutes if I can get the stream back up and I can re-restart it. If not, uh thanks so much for sticking with me for the short little clip here. I'll be back at it uh next week. And uh just stay tuned, stay informed, love your neighbor, hug your friends, hug your family. Don't think in terms of left and right, there's no such thing. There really isn't. It's all a scam. We we we know this now, we see it, and just just rise above it and come together. That's all I gotta say, guys, and I'll talk to y'all later. Bye bye now.