Winning Your VA Disability Claim

 “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan” 

President Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s proclamation is the original VA mission statement. If you are a Veteran applying for “war-comp,” there are a few things to know and understand when traveling this road. The following are a few pro-tips for winning your VA disability claim.

1. Find the right representation for your claim. You can surely file it yourself, however, there are county veteran officers (VSO) and non-profit organization available to help you with the paperwork and understanding the “federal-ese” of Federal Code 38 that the VA must follow. These Veteran organizations can be a good guide to navigating this bureaucratic and medical landscapes.
2. There is usually one Veteran Service Officer (VSO) in each county in America. If not, there are also Veteran organizations that can help you. Some of the more well known names include the Wounded Warrior Project, the VFW, and the American Legion.
3. You do not need to pay a lawyer or other entity to receive help, but you surely can find outside-help if you hate all things government or non-profit. Just make sure you hire lawyers that are fluent in this area.
4. Make sure to sign all your paperwork. It is a common reason why paperwork won’t be processed on time.
5. The main form you will need for your claim is the VA form 21-526EZ. Use the latest form or it will be returned to be resubmitted. Currently, the latest update was November 2022. https://www.vba.va.gov/pubs/forms/vba-21-526ez-are.pdf
6. List on the 526EZ form all that ails you. Past or present. They need to be “chronic” issues. Chronic issues and symptoms are typically issues lasting longer than 6-months…or, that reappear over the years. For example, if you haven’t had a normal shit in over 6-months or your nose has been running for 10-years, you should probably mention that.
7. File when you are younger when you identify chronic health problems. Age is only going to make your health worse. Get to the doctors office early before things like dementia and arthritis make the trip to the doctor an epic journey for you and your family members.
8. You can file as many issues as you want. There are soldiers that have filed over 70-issues with their 526EZ claim. You might need to add extra paper to attached to the form. Also, a Veteran’s statement of their issues is considered objective evidence.
9. Mental health conditions, tinnitus, musculoskeletal injuries, and presumptive disorders are some of the most frequently approved VA disability claims.
10. Your MOS and deploying to certain countries during certain periods, such as Afghanistan (OEF) and Iraq (OIF), can be used to help substantiate your claim. For example, if you were an 11-series with a combat infantry badge from a deployment in Afghanistan, the VA recognizes there is a good chance you have tinnitus (from exposer to weapon fire and other loud noises) and that you may have PTSD if you were involved in combat situations.
11. If you jumped out of airplanes (in training or not) and hiked mountains, there is sound reason to believe you might have a service connected musculoskeletal issue.
12. As of August 10, 2022, the PACT Act was initiated. This Act was intended to expand benefits to times/places soldiers served that had environmental consequences. This Act expanded benefits to a far greater amount of Veterans including more Vietnam Veterans (Agent Orange) and Veterans that were exposed to toxins, burn pits, and particulate matter (harmful dust) in OEF and OIF.
13. The PACT Act law made certain conditions and places “presumptive” in terms of what can happen. This means that the VA presumes (assumes) that the disability originated from a time and place a Veteran was in combat.
14. The VA is not going to argue that your post-military, shitty American food, and environment could have been the cause of things like cancers, asthma, chronic arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), or obstructive pulmonary disease (OPD). The VA seems to be willing to give the benefit of the doubt that you may have picked up your disability from the a hell hole of toxins of combat.
15. The PACT Act is expected to expire in December 2026, so talk to your representative and get your claims and exams in now if you have a condition or symptoms described by this law. https://www.va.gov/resources/the-pact-act-and-your-va-benefits/
16. Take note that law updates happen quite frequently especially with the PACT Act. For the most part, the VA seeks to expand health care and benefits to Veterans through laws set by Congress. Some claims denied in the past may now have a different avenue to be granted.
17. The law and rating of disabilities changes over time. Don’t worry however, if the law changes bring your rating down. There is somewhat of a “grandfather clause” to prevent getting a reduction in benefits.
18. If you are thinking about filing claim within the next year, the first form you should file, even before the 526EZ is an “Intent to file” form (VA Form 21-0966) https://www.va.gov/supporting-forms-for-claims/intent-to-file-form-21-0966/introduction
19. The reason you want to file an Intent to File (ITF) form is that when the VA grants your disability benefit, they will use the date on this form to back-pay benefits (up to a yea)r. It may take you a few months to attend exams and get paperwork filled out. You might as well get paid for those months you were sorting out your issues. It is a pretty basic form, so it won’t take that long to complete. Again, make sure to sign the Intent to File form.
20. Hopefully, your Service Treatment Record (STR) from the military tells the tale of your woes. More likely than not, if you weren’t a sick-call ranger, you probably just soldiered up and showed up everyday for your team and country regardless of your health. As a result, you probably did not get your war-man’s comp injury/disease recorded by a medical person. Meanwhile the sick call rangers easily got their benefits the day after leaving the service because their conditions were well documented. No worries.
21. The VA recognizes that not everyone went to sick call to get their receipts. As such, there may be other hoops you have to jump through to get a service connection for your war-comp.
22. Your own statements are considered as objective evidence as long as they match up with the right time and place. “Layman statements” have some weight from former squad leaders and battle buddies that knew about your situation. If someone knew about your struggles in the military, but you don’t have the sick call ranger receipts of a medical staff, you might want to reach out to your former coworkers. A letter from a former battle buddy or supervisor can be important to your claim.
23. The last VA form I would like to talk about is the Disability Benefit Questionnaire (DBQ). There are multiple versions of the form covering all sorts of maladies that the VA exam doctor needs to fill out in order to properly put into a computer system for a rating..
24. The VA may order an exam for your claim to have the doctor confirm your disability with a DBQ form. This form will be manually input into the VA computer system in order to rate the claim. You can find out more about these forms, the language, and what your doctor will ask you in your VA exam for the VA to rate your situation: https://www.benefits.va.gov/compensation/dbq_publicdbqs.asp
25. Lastly, if you want to go down the VA rabbit-hole to understand how the VA operates and communicates, check out the guiding “Bibles” of the VA: the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 38 “Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans’ Relief”:
26. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-38/chapter-I/part-4
27. VA Bible #2: M21-4 Manual. These two documents guide the raters in following American law and making rating decisions at the VA:

https://www.knowva.ebenefits.va.gov/system/templates/selfservice/va_ssnew/help/customer/locale/en-US/portal/554400000001018/topic/554400000004196/M21-4-Manual

Hopefully this helps.

If your war-comp claim gets denied, there are other recourses and challenges/evidence you may have to submit.

*Make sure to attend all exams no matter what condition you are in.

Since the VA is a large government organization, a claim can take as short as 30-days or up to 3-years+….or for some Vietnam Veterans it has been decades.

Be patient. Learn to speak the VA language that guides you and your fellow Veterans disability rating. There are other purposes after the military such as your widow and orphan.

Also, remember to drink water.

Clean water.