Brian Tally: The Tally Bill for Veterans

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

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Hey. What's going on, guys? So today, I have an informative interview for you today. It's with a guy named mister Brian Tally, and Brian served as the United States Marine during the nineties. And like many veterans, he opted into the VA system.

And with that, a few years later, he ended up getting sick. He had extreme pain in his back, and he went to the VA emergency room. He goes to the same VA that I do over here in Loma Linda, California, and the emergency room kind of wrote him off. They sent him home and then he ended up getting far worse pain. It got to the point where he couldn't move, and then eventually he came in, they did surgery on him, and they found that his spine had a staph infection.

Now there was a lot of neglect, lot of malpractice going on in that emergency room, and Brian was definitely due some damages from that. But there was a loophole because one of the physicians that worked on him was a contractor and not a VA hired physician. There is a law that states that the VA is not due any liabilities, not able to or is not able to be held liable, from contractor malpractice. So it's a huge loophole and now Brian is on a quest to close that loophole because that loophole puts a lot of veterans in danger, big time. So I'll let him tell you more about it.

This is something that everybody needs to listen to. If you know a veteran who's in the VA system, you need to share this over to them. If you are a veteran who's in the VA system, you need to be listening to this. Pay attention here, guys, because this is extraordinarily important. Let's get into the interview.

Brian Tally, welcome to the show, man.

Brian Tally 00:06:43 (link to this point)

Thank you for having me, Chris. I appreciate you.

Chris Albert 00:06:46 (link to this point)

I got to meet you at our good friend Scott Huesing's fiftieth birthday party over there in Temecula a few days ago, actually. And he introduced me to you, and I got to talk to you and learn a bit about your story. But for our audience at home, can we just get a little bit of a background on you? Let's start with your service, and then let's talk about what happened after that.

Brian Tally 00:07:11 (link to this point)

Yeah. Sure. I'm a former marine. I enlisted in 1994 at the Denver MEPS, and I was active duty from '95 to '99. Served with first, second, and third FSSG.

I was a Red Patcher. So, you know, I was an 0481 and a 3112. I was a logistics marine and, you know, I had a good time in service. I got to see the world and, you know, had a, you know, really overall great experience in the marine corps.

Chris Albert 00:07:40 (link to this point)

Where where did you travel over your career?

Brian Tally 00:07:43 (link to this point)

I was in Korea, Thailand, Okinawa, Cuba, Puerto Rico, you know, of course, Lejeune, Pendleton, and a bunch of little other little islands, you know, off the coast of, you know, Okinawa and Mainland Japan. So, you know, I did

Chris Albert 00:08:00 (link to this point)

The nineties were great years for that. I went in in '99 and just a great great it was a there wasn't a lot of combat going on, but there's there it was a great time to be in the marine corps just because of the the kinds of training we got, that kind of stuff.

Brian Tally 00:08:14 (link to this point)

Yeah. We did a lot of humanitarian type missions and, you know, a lot of training, you know. So, you know, it was a good time.

Chris Albert 00:08:22 (link to this point)

Awesome. Awesome. And then so you got out and then you had this situation where you you got sick, right?

Brian Tally 00:08:32 (link to this point)

Yes. So back in January 2016, I literally couldn't get out of bed, one morning. It was so bad. The pain was so bad. I found myself just on the bathroom floor just trying to, get relief from the cold tiles on the floor.

And, that just led to just days of just agony. I mean, just pain that you can't describe. And my wife took me to the ER, the VA, Loma Linda, and they gave me some injections of Dilaudid and methocarbamol and Kenalog and told me that I was okay. I had a little back sprain, and they sent me home with a bag of pills, which was weird to us. We didn't have any trauma.

I I didn't fall down. I I didn't hurt myself. So we came back. We started on the pills. And a few days later, we found ourselves right back at the front doorstep with the VA in Loma Linda.

This time, I couldn't even walk. I was in a wheelchair, had a panic attack in the ER floor. My wife started to cry. She got consoled by other veterans. They came out, inject me again with more Dilaudid, with more Kenalog and methocarbamol, gave us another bag of pills, yelled at my wife, said that we should have been following up with my primary care, but we couldn't get ahold of her.

Long story short, they denied me access to see a doctor in a very critical and very urgent emergency type scenario when I was in the ER. I wasn't in there for a cough or a runny nose. I was in there because I was in grave condition and there was something wrong. My wife asked for a blood test, that was denied. My wife asked for an MRI and that too was denied.

So, we went home the second time, injections, pills, and finally, a few days after that, we did see my primary care. She was too busy to see us in a regular one on one, so we caught her in passing in a hallway and she just very quickly agreed with the two ER reports from two ER charge nurses, the triage nurses, said that they were correct with their diagnosis, that there is no problems with me. And she agreed. She didn't do any diagnostics. She didn't do a blood test or anything like that to to check their work.

So it was all just, how how do you look from the outside? Oh, you look pretty bad. You're sweating. You're you know, I had every single red flag that you can think of, you know, we had that should have been the green light to at least at least see a doctor, to at least see a doctor. So that went on for quite for quite some time. My wife finally said enough's enough. She paid out of the pocket for her own MRI.

Chris Albert 00:11:47 (link to this point)

Mhmm.

Brian Tally 00:11:47 (link to this point)

And that MRI came back with a ton of structural damage in my back. Again, why? We had no idea what was going on inside my spine. I didn't hurt myself. So she sent that information off to the VA.

That got us to see an orthopedic surgeon. And even again at this time, we bring a report from an outside provider and they still didn't double check it. They didn't do an MRI of their own. They didn't do a blood test of their own. Everything that happened in my case that could have gone against me, went against me.

So we fell through the cracks. They finally scheduled surgery, but it wouldn't be for another nine months. At this time, I've been in this crazy pain now for for for over two months. I've taken anywhere between forty to forty five pills a day, and my life as I had known, you know, as I had known it was slipping away, and I was living this very dark life of pain, defeat, anxiety, depression, just trying to figure out what what the hell even hit me here. And I was just laying in my chair.

I I that's where I spent all all my days. And so finally, my wife begged and pleaded with them and said, my husband needs to be cut on a lot sooner than nine months. So another month went by, and she begged and pleaded for the outside provider, the Veterans Choice enrollment, and that was finally granted. So at the four month mark, the four month mark, they finally opened me up at Scripps Hospital, and they and to the surgeon's surprise, while cut up on the Operating table, he looks at my spine and he has concern because it looks moth eaten. And those are his words of my spine looked like it had been moth eaten.

And, he called it infectious disease. They came in. They they ran every other test under the moon on me, and, they came to a conclusion that I had suffered a bone eating staph infection that was eating me alive for four months. It should have been fatal. Glad it wasn't.

I have a beautiful family, four kids and a wife of twenty one years, that that was a very scary and, you know, a very, you know, hard time in my life to go through to find out what was going on and how this all happened and how everything went south just so fast.

Chris Albert 00:14:48 (link to this point)

Let me let me stop you there for a second because I just wanna see this because I'm I'm a patient at VA Loma Linda as well. And, you know, I don't want to denigrate the fine people who work there and who serve the veteran community. But at the same time, we have this concept of an emergency room, right? And if you actually look at a lot of the VA emergency rooms, particularly the one at Loma Linda, I know they're building it up right now, but most of these aren't really emergency rooms. They're actually like they're like walk in clinics, I guess you could say or what's the word? Urgent care. Yeah, They're not capable of actually handling emergencies and the doctors they have there are often on the verge of retirement or have been retired for a while and they come in and do things. So when you go to one of these emergency rooms with an emergency, a lot of times you're waiting there for a while until they can find a specialist to check you out And then most of the time they can't find one, so they send you home with some medication and things like that.

I think that's a big reason why we've gotten into a lot of the problems that we have because of the ways that these emergency rooms are set up, right?

Brian Tally 00:16:05 (link to this point)

Yeah. It's you know, I think the problem is that there's so many veterans that can't get in to see their primary care physicians because they're so backlogged that they go to the ER. And when you put a mass amount of folks on the system that don't have emergencies, they're they're clogging up this, you know, the ER, and and when folks are critical and needing to see a doctor in in a very in in an emergency sit situation, a lot of the times, they end up slipping through the cracks because of the, you know, of the system overload, if you will. And, you know, there's only so many doctors in the VA, you know. And and another thing that I have, you know, said from the very, very, very I'm not anti VA.

The VA does a lot of good things. Mhmm. The VA also has a lot of room for improvement. And during my wild story here of gross neglect and malpractice and the legal malpractice at the end that they threw her away, know, you know, everything that could happen wrong in that in my case did, but I still understand. Look, everybody makes mistakes.

Medical malpractice can and will happen anywhere. VA hospitals or civilian hospitals. Look, it's gonna happen. But it's what happens afterwards Right. On the accountability measures, you know, it's what I'm fighting for right now for veterans rights and such.

Chris Albert 00:17:49 (link to this point)

Right. No. Exactly. And I think, you know, this is gonna speak to some larger issues in a second when we talk a bit about what happened there. But I think one thing that everybody needs to keep in mind is we have this concept right now politically of either going more privatization or going toward an NIH type scenario like they have in England or Canada. And the thing is the VA is set up very much like the NIH and this idea of socialized medicine, I think that if we get into that, you're going to see a lot more of these types of things happening. And that's just my own philosophical understanding of the situation. It's something I think we all need to keep in mind.

Is we're going into, so they open you up, they find that your spine has been infected and that's what's causing this immense pain, that's what's causing all the sickness, what happens from there? What course did they take and what kind of recourse did you have as a patient who'd been failed by the system?

Brian Tally 00:19:00 (link to this point)

Well, after they opened me up, they put me on IV antibiotics for four months. Had a thick line in my arm. My wife had to disturb me. Three very large cold vials of antibiotics three times a day, very cold gel that was killing the infection. It was so bad that, like I said, we had to go four months with this.

And then I think when we need to and we even finished it off another thirty days with pills. So, you know, you're talking, you know, almost a half a year of just IV antibiotics and pills just for the infection part of it. They they they did the surgery, and then I and then I went home. It had done a host of damage inside my body. It did severe nerve damage, all all three levels of my spine, inside my belly, my bladder, my sexual organ, part of my kidney, all these areas inside my belly have been affected, greatly affected, and and it's all permanent because they cut those lines, cut the nerves, they had to scrape off some tissue disc, the infected bone, put in their hardware, so on and so forth.

And, I came home and I just sat in my chair. I I was being beat up by continued physical pain, and now the emotional and mental pain was setting in. Like I said, my life is I had once known it was was over and I was trying to reel myself in and try to figure out again, what the hell has even happened here, you know? Now we're at month five, now we're at month six, month seven. I'm still in my chair.

I I can't use the bathroom. I'm I'm peeing in a bucket, you know, barely just dripping into it. Know, I don't leave my chair. My wife comes up there before six hours to give me handfuls of pills. I'm living life in a chair.

And, procedure after procedure after procedure after procedure, Every procedure you can think of, discostomies, myelograms, you know, spinal injections. I mean there's I've had probably close to over twenty-twenty five serious procedures since then to help work on the what was damaged in my neck and my spine and my lower legs, you know, all the really long words that end with p h y, all the, you know, all the, you know, the really long, you know, medical term words I can't even pronounce. You know, I've got all the all that stuff diagnosed in me now from the, from the infection, so on and so forth. So leading to all this gross neglect and malpractice, we filed a tort claim. I owned a small business and I hadn't worked in a a very long time and I was beginning to lose things.

And, you know, like I said, I got four four kids. I've always been the provider of my family. My wife is a stay at home mom. And in this time, I didn't I didn't even realize that my wife had to start getting credit cards just to stay afloat. And, you know, we lost our family car in that transition, I lost my business, and we filed a tort claim.

Six months into the tort claims process, the VA called me and they said repeatedly, that the VA failed to meet the standard of care and there was a breach in liability and that we're gonna be settling your claim and we're sorry. They're very very sincere and very apologetic, and this continued on for month seven, month eight, month nine, month 10, all the way up until under one year. Again, dozens of calls from the VA. We failed to meet the standard of care, there's a breach in liability, We're gonna settle your claim. At the one year mark, they dropped a bombshell, and they sent a letter, and they they denied my claim in all culpability based on a 1946 law in the federal tort claims act that states that independent contractors are not held responsible if they are found to be guilty of medical malpractice or gross neglect in a in a hospital.

So what they did is they found one one clinician that they tied in my care out of the many clinicians I saw. They tied one clinician into my care that was independent contractor. Now mind you, these independent contractors are working within the halls and the walls of the VA. VA IDs, VA badges, VA doctor's notes, VA business cards seeing VA patients just like you and I spitting out VA reports. They have keys to the building. They are using the copy machines, the printers. Those are not classified where I come from as independent contractors. Those are classified as employees.

However, this is the loophole that the VA has done really well over the the the last seventy three years. They figure out that we don't even need to report medical malpractice as even really happening if it's independent contractors. So we're gonna deny miss Tally's tort claim on a technicality after we have stripped him of his livelihood, taken years off his life for permanent injury and damn near death, Damn near lost his home, lost his business, lost his family car. His family has been put through hell, and now I'm on my knees. Then I have a letter that's sent to me where they completely do did an about face that left me and my family holding it back.

And it's criminal. It's wrong. It's fraudulent. To to even go further is I have a a report from a whistleblower that was sent to me that states that there were several several clinicians that were VA employees that all failed the standard of care as well in my in in my case. But they found the one independent contractor, one and that is the way that they see their way out of these claims.

But then, to add insult to veritable injury, the day I got that letter when they denied everything based on unemployment status and a technicality, they said I had to sue her now in state court. Well, guess who sent the letter to me the day that my state statute of limitations had expired? Yep. VA's office of general counsel. I got the letter.

We were three days past the California state statute of limitations. It was, like, three or four days past. I immediately picked up the phone, called the attorney. He says, wow. Looks like somebody was watching the clock when they sent you that letter.

So how can you strip a man of his livelihood? I was a guy that's doing everything right. I had a successful business, hardworking American, great family, good kids, smart, fun, loving, athletic. Loved.

Chris Albert 00:27:00 (link to this point)

We did it. We're doing everything the right way, paying our taxes. There we go. Oh, go ahead, Jack again.

Brian Tally 00:27:06 (link to this point)

You know, contributing to society. And then all of a sudden, a man finds himself in a down world spiral with everything crashing in and saying, man, I don't know if I'm gonna make it through this, you know? And that's where I spent the next three years in my chair, Just pain and suffering and trying to figure out what we were gonna do, trying everything I can to get up because I'm a strong man. I I've always been an entrepreneurial driven man, but this was enough to just put it it was the kill shot, you know. You go through all all all the gross neglect and malpractice and that that's enough to to damn near kill you, and then you survive that and and then you try to do everything you can to just at least recover.

This isn't a get a get rich quick scheme. This is something you're to just recover, you know, for, you know, my lost income and my revenue to just get that family car back to at least make it to where I won't lose my home, you know. I'm not asking for a lock here. I'm just asking to get back out of my feet.

Chris Albert 00:28:14 (link to this point)

Right.

Brian Tally 00:28:15 (link to this point)

Never sued anybody before. You know, it you know, like I said, everything I've I've always done, I've always earned it and I've always worked hard for it and I've always led by example with my family and I've always taken care of my men and my customers. Like I said, an entrepreneurial spirit man. And now I found myself slipping away, man. And and it it was tough.

And once they hit me with this law, I was sitting in my chair and I started to reach out to folks that could help. I called my congressman.

Chris Albert 00:28:46 (link to this point)

Well, let me let me stop you there for a second just because I wanna I wanna get this through everybody's brains. Right? The the law is basically a get out of jail free card for the VA that says if there's any independent contractor amongst all the teams of physicians that are working on you, then then under federal law, they they they can't be held liable. Right? That's basically what's going on.

Hey, guys. I hope you're getting a lot out of this interview. You know, the Warrior Soul podcast is built with the mission to empower its listeners to live absolutely epic lives. And that's why we recently created a group called the Warrior's Obituary Society. This group is built to empower its members to live epic lives worthy of epic obituaries.

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Brian Tally 00:32:57 (link to this point)

Yeah. So, yeah, if you're an independent contractor working within the within the VA, you have no liability at all, you know. The way that it's supposed to be is that if they screw up, when you do a tort claim, they let you know the employment status of that doctor. But they don't. They don't do that until the time is up.

So what they do is they lead you down this garden path. They tell you everything's gonna be okay. Meanwhile, credit card debt stack through the roof. You're like, oh, we're we're gonna pay that off soon once that the claim for compensation comes in for injury. Then once that clock hit strikes twelve, they pull their rug right up from underneath you, deny it all based on the tech technicality, and now it never even happened in the VA because now they've kinda brushed it off to the independent contractors.

Chris Albert 00:33:57 (link to this point)

Right.

Brian Tally 00:33:57 (link to this point)

But then, again, they take it a step further. They wait. So now, they don't even need to report the medical malpractice to the national practitioner database because the state statutes have completely expired, and it it it never happened. So you wanna talk about watered down numbers

Chris Albert 00:34:16 (link to this point)

Right.

Brian Tally 00:34:16 (link to this point)

For VA medical malpractice, and it's frightening. It's frightening. And this does not, whether I'm doing, take away from the good doctors and clinicians that are at the VA. The doctors and the clinicians at the VA, they made a mistake, and they are human. I have completely I have acknowledged that, and I have, you know, I and I let it go, You know?

But

Chris Albert 00:34:43 (link to this point)

Do you have estimates as far as how many veterans have have gone through this or anything like that? And do you have estimates as to what percentage of the VA is actually independent contractors?

Brian Tally 00:34:56 (link to this point)

I've done a FOIA, and I haven't gotten any response back to try to find out how many independent contractors are actually working within the VA. And I can tell you right now that I don't have an answer for that, but I can tell you there's a lot. There's probably more independent contractors working within the VA, inside VA hospitals than actual VA employees, because that's how they see their way out of all this liability.

And, when I was in discussions with chief counsel, at the time, I was completely incapacitated. I couldn't even talk. I was on so many pills, so my brother was, pretty much on the phone with me. And he asked, does this happen a lot? And and the chief counsel said, yeah.

It happens all the time. And unfortunately, we don't have a fix in place for this. And that's when my brother said, well, we're gonna fix it. And and we're gonna call it the Tally Bill, because what happened to my brother and his family can never happen again. And if I didn't have the the strong support system of my friends and family, I don't think I'd be here today.

So that's when I picked up the phone and I called congressman, you know, my my congressman down here in San Diego. He couldn't help. He sent a couple of empty letters. He, you know, you know, he was battling some trouble of his own. And, you know, you know, unfortunately, you know, as a constituent, couldn't get the the help I needed.

It was another was another wall. It was another door that was just right in front of me that was giving me another way out to quit. And so I just went to my chair and I just served I mean, I just bawled in, you know, just trying to figure out what what the hell is going on here. And I put it on God's teams. I said, I'm gonna I'm gonna change this law.

And so I just started to look at law books, and I put a pen to paper and created my own online legislative team, and we drafted the Tally Bill and to protect all veterans, to to have accountability, to have transparency in the VA after veterans have already been through a traumatic time in their life going through medical malpractice, enough to nearly kill them. They've already been put on their knees once, and then like I said, these legal malpractice kill kill shots are enough to leave the the the injured veteran and their family just with no hope, feeling helpless and hopeless and just with nothing left. And you wanna talk about veteran suicide? You know, that's something that, you know you know, that can easily be attached to cases like mine, because they are are not fun. But but anyways, I put it on myself to be accountable, to say I've got to do something about this.

I pray to God for courage and for for commitment and dedication that I would overturn this seventy three year VA legal loophole that has destroyed the lives of veterans and their families for generations. And that's exactly what I did. I formed this team. We put all of our ideas on paper. We had a bill.

I hand delivered it to the halls of congress. I walked the halls with pain pills and anxiety meds and went door to door urging lawmakers to change this outdated law back in October 2018. Within thirty days, we had HR seventy one zero five introduced by congressman Dave Brat. He was not reelected, So and and the hundred sixteenth congress, we had to start all over again in January. You know, this is a tough job. This is constant this is being in front of congress constantly, sending very nice emails and, you know, sending the phone calls, and doing my social media, you know, from my chair when I sit in my chair box, have lot of spinal pressure, and doing everything I can because I can't move on with the rest of my life knowing that this egregious law is still in place and every veteran who uses the VA is at risk. So to me, it's one, it's near and dear.

Two, I've taken responsibility and accountability to fix it because I lived it and it could never happen again because I I I I know what it does to families. Right. It's ruining lives, and it doesn't need to be this way. What what I have proposed, it it doesn't cost any money. What what it is I'm proposing is to have the office of general counsel operate in good faith.

Mhmm. What we're asking here for is to operate in good faith. If something goes wrong and if somebody files a tort claim and it's not your employee, it's somebody else, okay. We'll give them the employment status. What's the big deal here?

Don't hold on to crucial information to completely completely ruin this veteran's life. He's already been through hell. He's he's trying to recover. He's trying this is survivability. You are gonna you are gonna increase his survivability rate or her survivability rate by just offering information that should be rightfully the veterans to have.

Chris Albert 00:40:41 (link to this point)

Right.

Brian Tally 00:40:42 (link to this point)

But when they lead you down this guarded path and then they feed you false hope, You know, that's I mean, it's it's tough, man. I mean, it's, you know, it's tough. So

Chris Albert 00:40:55 (link to this point)

What what's the status of so where's the Tally Bill at right now and and what is going on with it legislatively?

Brian Tally 00:41:04 (link to this point)

So back in June, congressman Mark Meadows saw my story, and he championed the second version of the Tally bill, which is h r thirty eight thirteen. And that's the Brian Tally VA Medical Care and Liability Improvement Act. That's a very good bill. It's about an eight page bill that is full of accountability and transparency measures within the VA after veterans have fallen victim to VA medical malpractice to essentially protect all veterans after they have fallen victim to medical malpractice. That is doing really well in the house right now.

And then a month and a half later, we had another congressman, congressman Mike Levin, who saw the story and wanted to help. He drafted his own bill and his own version of the Tally bill, which is now h r forty five twenty six, which is the Brian Tally Employment and Transparency Act, which will give injured veterans the employment status and which direction they need to go on their tort claim or their state their state lawsuit. So it'll give you some direction on what to do, you know, as well as seek legal counsel. But a lot of the times, even when you seek legal counsel, no one wants to take your case because it's the VA. And the first thing that the attorney say is, oh, you know, the red tape, your bureaucratic nightmare of the VA and going through this process and, you know, and this and that.

So one, it's hard to even find an attorney. So a lot of times, these veterans have gotta pieces you know, piecemeal this stuff together on their own. So, you know, and and and that's very hard to do. It's not, you know, it's not easy. But HR thirty eight thirteen and HR forty five twenty six are both in the VA committee right now, and they have both been well, they're both in in the VA committee right now.

We're waiting on a committee markups. And what the markups are is they go through the bills, and mark them up. They say, this is good. This is good. That's you know, let's add this.

Let's take this out. And then they try to compromise between the, you know, the Democrats and the Republicans. You know, unfortunately, my bills have become political, and Mhmm. I I didn't want that, because veterans

Chris Albert 00:43:31 (link to this point)

How so?

Brian Tally 00:43:32 (link to this point)

Should know.

Well, so h r thirty eight thirteen is what they call the republican bill, and h r forty five twenty six is the democrat bill. Mhmm. And that's not true because both of them are bipartisan. However, some Democrats aren't signing on to thirty eight thirteen because it's Meadows. And Meadows is a, you know, a right wing Republican, you know, in the house who a lot of Democrats don't like, you know, and and vice versa.

Know? Levin is a Democrat, and he's, you know, on the VA committee, and, you know, he works with a lot of Republicans as well. But a lot of the other Republicans, you know, that you may have more of a pact with, you know it's a mess. And, you know, there's a time and a place for politics, and Right. This is not one of them.

To protect the estimated twenty point two million American veterans in this country who are at risk. What and the estimated, what, six and a half million that are actually in VA care as we speak who are enrolled in VA. So what we need is we need the Democrats and the Republicans to come together as one and work in the house to get this bill and to get this law passed to protect the rights of all veterans after they have fallen victim to VA medical malpractice because it is it is frightening, and you you will never know that you actually end this until you're in it. It you know, typical medical malpractice isn't like just opening you up and then leaving a scalp. I mean, medical malpractice takes place for months and months, sometimes years.

I mean, before you really understand the neglect and everything that went wrong in your case went wrong. And the whole people out here, you know, you don't wanna sign on to this bill because it's republican or or it's a democrat. Man, that's nonsense because every veteran I know, it comes from every fabric of this country.

Chris Albert 00:45:42 (link to this point)

Right.

Brian Tally 00:45:42 (link to this point)

And veterans aren't just Republicans or Democrats or black or white or brown. Look. It doesn't matter. Veteran rights and veteran protections doesn't it should not come with a political preference. It shouldn't come with any other thing other than to protect those who have honorably and courageously served our great nation.

So why do you need to have the cards constantly stacked against some of the most honorable people in this country? The same ones that are the some of the most at risk population in our country. So I am urging your listeners to please pick up the phone. Please send an email to your congressman, to your senator, and have them please cosponsor or do a senate companion bill for HR thirty eight thirteen and HR forty five twenty six because it's gonna save lives. Mhmm.

And you never know. One day, you or a loved one may have this same exact scenario. And like and like I said, the scenario is enough for that most folks wouldn't make it through it. Right. But like I said, I've dedicated my life, my last eighteen months, I've dedicated my life to this.

I work this fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hours a day, sometimes more. I can't sleep. Town halls. I've been to DC three times. I've been to Nevada on, some other town halls, telephone town halls.

I've got almost ten thousand hours in on this, 3,000 emails, phone calls, because I believe in this, and I know how egregious the that these tactics are. And, you know, like I said, I I I've been called to serve and that's exactly what I'm going to do. And I'm in this fight until we have law. And, yes, I'm getting tired, but I can't move on with my life to have the the the necessary closure I need to effectively move on with my life until this assignment's a law. When I know I can go to bed at night knowing that what happened to me and my family will never happen again, ever ever ever.

Chris Albert 00:48:03 (link to this point)

Right.

Brian Tally 00:48:04 (link to this point)

And, you know, I've found purpose again, and I found my purpose through pain. Know, living with pain and chronic pain is not it's not easy. Gotta battle through it, you know. So you gotta, you know, change change your diet, change your change your life.

Chris Albert 00:48:19 (link to this point)

Right? Right. Exactly.

Brian Tally 00:48:21 (link to this point)

So, you you know, anyways, so, you know, long story short, what we're trying to do is we're just trying to hold the Office of General Counsel accountable because the way the law stands right now, they can cherry pick the the clinicians they want. You know, they can deflect all the liability they want based on a technicality and employment status and hold on to crucial information to to keep denying these veterans a rightful compensation. And like I said, it's wrong. It's unconstitutional. It's un American.

It's frightening, and it's gonna end. And we're gonna have law to protect all veterans. And, I just happen to be the the guy that was the last hopefully, I'll be the last, but I think there's a lot more that are probably going through the same scenarios that that I've been through. So I'm just trying to do the bet, the bet the best I can with the cards that were dealt to me. And, like I said, hopefully, this is over soon, because it's it's a very tiring demanding job.

It does it's one that doesn't even come with a paycheck, but, you know, I've learned that, you know, over the last four years that some of the some of the best jobs out there don't come with a paycheck, and and I'm okay with that.

Chris Albert 00:49:42 (link to this point)

What are you gonna do once this is once this is through? What what's your plans?

Brian Tally 00:49:50 (link to this point)

Well, you know, I, you know, I don't know. I a hobby I've picked up since I've gotten hurt is announcing. Sat in my chair for so many years, and I would just start to mimic TV commercials, you know, so I kinda like doing, you know, announcing, you know, stuff like that, but I've never pursued anything. But I wanna help veterans, and I never thought that, you know, if you would have told me four years ago that I would be this veteran advocate and, you know, would be working with congress, you know, with three bills that have been introduced, and it's just my life has changed in ways that I could have never seen coming or ever imagined. But I think I've been called to serve to help fellow veterans.

And I I don't know what type of capacity I'll I'll be able to serve in, but once this is all said and done, I would love to just be a shoulder, for these veterans, a an ear. Because when I was going through all this, man, you you completely self isolate, and you just don't have a voice. And you're like, how how is this even happening in America? Like, you don't have a voice. You don't have so I've had to work so hard to give the voiceless a voice.

And if that's something that that makes me very proud and and and and keeps me going and and waking up every morning with that purpose driven life now that I'm now living, I would want to help other veterans. And I've done so over the last eighteen months. I've had a lot of veterans reach out to me, I mean, thousands. E emails and Facebook and, you know, social media, all this stuff, and just tell me their story. And listen.

Not giving any legal advice at all, but just to listen to these veterans and their stories to let them know that they are not alone and that we are working hard right now on a solution. You know, I could have easily sat back and taken this, but I didn't. My case has been denied. Two denied tort claims, and my case is done. It's closed.

But I can prevent others from going through what I what I went through. And so that's what keep keeps me going is just to keep these veterans, you know, just with hope and knowing that, you know, we're just doing everything we can, you know, to to try to oh oh, yeah. Sorry. Sometimes I have brain farts. Okay.

But, you know, you had asked, you know, what I wanna do afterwards too, and oh, heck. I don't know. I forgot what else I'm gonna say.

Chris Albert 00:52:52 (link to this point)

The big thing here is, man, you know, it's it's about finding meaning in your life. Right? And a lot of times, you face struggles. And the thing about struggle is this, it can either break you or it can help you to grow. And I guess you could say the good side effect of what's happened to you is that you've been able to find some meaning.

And through this bill and through advocating for veterans and by doing this work, you've been able to turn a situation into a positive. And that's a lesson for anybody out there. We're coming up on time. I wanna just get it out there. How can people find you?

How can people sort to what social media do you have out there that people can go to to learn more about the bill? And then is is there a particular link where people can go to find out who their their representative is in congress?

Brian Tally 00:53:49 (link to this point)

Yeah. I have the website that has all that kinda built into it. The website is tallyteam.net, tally,team.net. And we have a Facebook page where I hold myself accountable every day. I kinda share, you know, what we're doing, you know, if you will, the the the minutes that we put out there in our contacts and, you know, what's going on with the bills and that's rallying around Tally on Facebook.

And I think we're on Twitter and Instagram too, but I have folks that help that I have on my national legislative team that kinda help. Yeah. I haven't done all this on my own. It's a lot of hard work. And like I said, I've got great support from across the country and I, you know, I welcome your your viewers and your listeners to, to to join the Tally team, to help change this egregious seventy three year VA legal loophole that's just dishonored veterans for generations and it's time that we put an end to it.

Just know that, you know, as American citizens, you know, we have an you know, you know, we have a duty to honor and protect all who have served, you know, especially we all deserve to be treated with, you know, fair and and and, you know, and and right ways. And, you know, you guys can all help by just picking up the phone and and calling your congressman, calling your congresswoman, calling your state senators, or your US senators. But one more thing I had a brain fart last segment there. And what I was saying is that, you know, when when all this stuff went down, I could have easily just stayed in my chair and just forgotten all about this and just moved on with my life. But knowing how dangerous and how disegregious it was, and instead of just taking it and just living the rest of my life with just sadness and and, you know, I I wanted to bring a solution to the table like you said, you know. I I didn't just wanna sit back and complain. I wanted to get off the sidelines into the game, bring a solution to the table and say, here here this is how you can fix it. No. A lot of the times, the best ways that you could fix things, especially within the VA, is not gonna be by some bureaucrats who don't even understand the VA.

It could be guys like VA and like veterans.

Chris Albert 00:56:14 (link to this point)

Right.

Brian Tally 00:56:16 (link to this point)

Can bring solutions to the table to help fix some of the things to make the VA a better place for everybody. So I appreciate your your time and you for you inviting me on this. Mhmm. It means the world to me. I sincerely appreciate it.

And I hope that we can continue to to drive this positive awareness that that is needed to to put an end to my story. And so I can begin my next chapter on something, you know, on something different here, hopefully, the near future. So

Chris Albert 00:56:54 (link to this point)

Well, I want to acknowledge you because I know what you're doing is not easy. I know that you've been through a whole hell of a lot, man. And I got to meet you in person. I see the kind of pain you're in. And I deal with pain a lot just based off of having autoimmunity.

And I know that it is a mind wrenching experience when you were an active man who was out there and doing everything he can to make it, but then your body turns on you. And that in and of itself is a hellish experience. And to add to that, the insult to injury that's been given to you by this loophole and that's probably affecting so many thousands of veterans out there, You know, it's it's it's a horrible situation. So thank you for doing everything that you're doing to try to close this loophole and to help so many veterans out there who are in danger of going through the same thing that you did.

Brian Tally 00:57:53 (link to this point)

Thank you. I I appreciate your kind words sincerely. It it means a lot to me. Like I said, it's given me purpose, you know, and just it's made me a better person. Very very humbling experience, you know, to say the least.

But appreciate your platform and and for and for helping this this extremely important cause that you never know could save your life one day, you know, so.

Chris Albert 00:58:22 (link to this point)

One more time, your your Facebook page is Rally Around Tally. Right?

Brian Tally 00:58:27 (link to this point)

Yes. My Facebook page is Rally Around Tally, and my website is tallyteam.net.

Chris Albert 00:58:37 (link to this point)

Mhmm. And Instagram is is what?

Brian Tally 00:58:40 (link to this point)

I don't I don't do that one or Twitter. Think it's like hashtag tally bill or something.

Chris Albert 00:58:46 (link to this point)

Get yourself on Twitter, man. Get yourself on Twitter.

Brian Tally 00:58:48 (link to this point)

I'm a Facebook I'm I'm just a Facebook guy. Think Yeah. It's at Tally Bill maybe or at the Tally Bill. I don't know. My friend my great friend, John down in Texas does that Twitter and Instagram. So I like I said, I'm the Facebook guy.

Chris Albert 00:59:05 (link to this point)

Yeah. Yeah. Twitter Twitter is great because it it gets you an opportunity to constantly just put stuff out there as far as as, you know, links, trying to motivate people, and there's a lot of communities out there that would support you too. So just a Oh, very little bit of experience from me from the business side. Nice.

Know, to everybody out there, again, go give your congressman a call. Get this thing get get this thing noticed. And really, I mean, you can listen to this, you can learn about it, but unless you're taking action on it, there's not much that's gonna be done, right? We all have a duty here make that phone call, to try to get the word out, and to make people aware of this situation. So this is a big call to action, all of you out there in the audience, to to to do something.

It's as simple as a phone call. It doesn't cost you anything. It'll take about three to five minutes of your time. So try to do it. And we'll have all the links to Brian's stuff up on the show notes for this episode.

And beyond that guys, you know, never give up. Never give up. Search for meaning in your life and do everything you can to turn these negatives into positives. And that only comes through action, guys. So with that, get out there and live your best lives while you can.

And this is Chris and Brian, and we are out. Alright, guys. There you have it. That is our interview with Brian Tally. And I have to say that that is a very scary situation that a lot of veterans could find themselves in.

You don't want to not take action on this one. Make sure you're calling your congressperson. Make sure that you are letting them know about these bills that are being put out there so that they can vote the proper way and support the veteran community. This is not a joke. Any single one of us could find ourselves in that position.

So please take some action there. In addition to that, if you love the Warrior Soul podcast and you wanna help veterans out, here's a big thing you can do, and it's absolutely free. All you gotta do is you gotta head over to iTunes. You gotta just write us a review. Let us know how this show is impacting you.

Let us know how we're doing, and let the world know. That way, we get this information into the ears of more veterans. Our mission is to empower The US military veteran community to live their absolute best lives, to show up as their absolute best versions of themselves in the civilian world. And we do that by delivering tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas from myself and people who are a lot smarter and a lot more accomplished than me. People like Robert Greene, people like Bas Rutten, people like Grant Cardone.

And the way I get those guests is because they wanna come here and they wanna help you. But in order for me to get other guests, other amazing people on the show, I need to show them the impact that we're having here. So please do that for me. If you want to support the podcast in other ways, you can head over to our Patreon. Up at www.patreon.com/warriorsoulpodcast.

We give some great tier prizes away for that. And if you want to buy a shirt, you can head over to warriorsoul.shop. We got great gear over there. And then in addition to that, if you wanna support yourself, you can join the Warrior's Obituary Society. And to do that, you head over to www.warriorobituarysociety.com.

I'm always happy to take suggestions from you guys if you have ideas for guests, if you have ideas for content you want out there on the Warrior Soul podcast, just let me know. The best way of getting in touch with me is either DMing me on our Instagram at Warrior Soul Agoge or you join our private Facebook group, the Warrior Soul Agoge empowerment and resilience private Facebook group. It's completely free again, and you guys can let me know there. With that, again, I hope that you are enjoying yourselves. I wish you a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season.

We got Christmas coming up here, and, I wish you a Merry Christmas. And that's not politically correct, but Merry Christmas no matter what. No matter what. No matter what religion you are, no matter what kind of person you are. When I say Merry Christmas, that means goodwill to all.

Right? It's not a it's not a hate thing. It's not anything like that. Alright? It means goodwill to all or peace on earth, all that stuff.

And with that, thank you guys for listening. I'm rambling now, and we'll be back at you later on this week with some more awesome content on the Warrior Soul podcast. This is Chris Albert, and I am out.