to do so, it violated section 7104(a)’s mandate by failing to base its decision on “applicable provisions of law and regulation.” Section 7104(a) is operative regardless of what the appellant argues or when he argues it; it is indisputably the Board’s obligation to consider all applicable provisions of law and regulation, not the appellant’s obligation to tell the Board which provisions apply. Additionally, and again pursuant to my view of Schroeder, presuming that VA has the obligation to investigate all possible in-service causes of a current disability, if it were possible that a claimant, by affirmative instruction to the Agency, could waive consideration of such development, I would not find that the appellant here has done so. See Janssen v. Principi, 15 Vet.App. 870, 374 (2001) (<HOLDING>). I do not believe that the appellant’s failure
holding that one must voluntarily and intelligently waive the right to counsel holding that an individual can waive any process to which he or she has a right recognizing the right to waive a jury trial holding that the forfeiture of the right to counsel unlike the waiver of such right does not require that the defendant intend to relinquish a right but rather may be the result of the defendants extremely serious misconduct or extremely dilatory conduct holding that in order expressly to waive consideration of a legal provision the appellant must first possess a right he must have knowledge of that right and he must intend voluntarily and freely to relinquish or surrender that right