I think I have finally figured out the VA disability claims process: apparently the standard for determining whether something happened while you were in the Army is not your military medical records, the dates of treatment, or the fact that the Army itself documented the injury. Apparently the standard is simply whether the VA feels like admitting it happened.

Documented, and Also Somehow Not

Take my shoulder. I dislocated it while serving in the United States Army, on active duty, and the injury is documented in my military medical records. Yet the VA denial letter literally says:

“Service connection for shoulder dislocation, right is denied since this condition neither occurred in nor was caused by service. (38 CFR 3.303, 38 CFR 3.304)”

YES, THE FUCK, IT DID.

I didn’t dislocate my shoulder while vacationing in Cancun. I didn’t do it ten years after I got out. I did it while serving in the Army, and the United States Army documented the fact that it happened.

Then there’s my left thumb. I broke that while I was in the Army too, and once again it’s documented in my military medical records. The VA’s conclusion is essentially identical: the condition “neither occurred in nor was caused by service.”

Again, what the fuck are we even arguing about here? It literally happened while I was in the service and it’s documented in my medical records. At this point I’m beginning to wonder whether “service connection” requires being physically struck by a Humvee while holding a DD-214, saluting the flag, and having three commissioned officers standing nearby to notarize the collision.

The Ankle: Yes, It Happened. Zero Percent.

But the one that really pisses me off is my ankle, because this isn’t just something buried in an old medical record that I forgot about 30 years ago. My ankle still hurts. It has bothered me ever since the injury happened, and it bothers me today.

I broke it during Basic Training in 1992. In fact, breaking my ankle was basically my introduction to the Army. It happened so early in my service that the Army actually offered to let me out because of it. I could have gone home, but I said no. I had started something and believed I needed to finish it, so I stayed, finished Basic Training, and completed my service.

That ankle has never really stopped bothering me. More than three decades later, it still hurts, and this is the claim I actually care about the most because it’s the one that genuinely affects me on a regular basis. It was the impetus behind why I finally followed through with filing in the first place.

And amazingly, on this one the VA actually agrees with me. They agree the injury happened. They agree it happened during military service. They officially granted service connection.

Then they rated it 0%.

So translated from federal bureaucracy into ordinary English, the answer is basically:

“Yes, the Army caused this injury. Yes, we acknowledge that it’s service connected. Compensation? Fuck you.”

Two Weeks Versus Thirty-Four Years

And here’s where the whole thing becomes absolutely surreal.

I personally know someone who, as I understand it, is receiving a 100% VA disability rating after spending roughly two weeks in the military. He didn’t even make it through Basic Training. He went in, Basic Training was apparently too much, the drill sergeants were “really, really mean to him,” the whole experience went badly, and he was sent home.

From where I’m standing, the contrast is fucking breathtaking. He barely made it through the front door of the Army and somehow came out the other side at 100%.

Meanwhile, I broke my ankle in Basic Training, was offered a chance to leave, chose to stay, completed my training, completed my service, lived with the injury for thirty-four years, still have pain from it today, and the VA says 0%. I dislocated my shoulder while serving and it’s documented: denied. I broke my thumb while serving and it’s documented: denied.

So apparently if Basic Training causes your mew-mew to get sore and hurts your feewings badly enough, there’s a path to 100%, but if you get physically injured, decide not to quit, finish what you started, serve your time, and live with the consequences for the next three decades, you might get a very official letter acknowledging that the Army caused the injury followed by a giant bureaucratic:

Fuck off. Zero percent.

They Couldn’t Even Get My Job Right

And then we get to tinnitus, where apparently the VA couldn’t even be bothered to get my fucking MOS right before deciding what kind of noise I was exposed to.

The medical opinion used to deny the claim says:

“The veteran’s MOS of Signals Intelligence Analyst (35N) holds a low probability of hazardous noise exposure…”

There’s just one little problem with that analysis:

MY MOS WASN’T 35N.

My MOS was 98CKP.

That isn’t some tiny irrelevant typo buried in the footer of the document. They specifically used my supposed MOS as part of the medical reasoning for deciding that I wasn’t exposed to enough noise to cause tinnitus, and they didn’t even identify the MOS I actually held while I was serving.

Better yet, let’s talk about what I actually did.

I was a Signals Intelligence Analyst. Part of my job was literally sitting for extended periods with a headset strapped to my head listening to foreign radio communications through loud radio static. Hours upon hours of signals, noise, static, transmissions, and audio fed directly into my skull because that was the fucking job.

Yet the conclusion is that there was no “objectively verifiable noise injury” and therefore no basis to connect my tinnitus to military noise exposure.

Seriously?

You don’t think spending months with headphones blasting radio traffic and static directly into my ears might possibly be relevant to a condition characterized by ringing in my ears?

And again, I understand that the VA has standards. I understand that simply being exposed to noise doesn’t automatically prove that every case of tinnitus was caused by military service. Fine. Make the medical argument. Look at the evidence. Ask the questions.

But perhaps, before issuing the medical opinion, start by getting the veteran’s fucking job right.

Because when your conclusion says essentially, “His MOS had a low probability of hazardous noise exposure,” and you have the wrong MOS written in the sentence, my confidence in the careful forensic analysis that follows drops pretty fucking rapidly.

What Exactly Do You Need?

It also perfectly illustrates what is driving me insane about this entire process. With the shoulder and thumb, I’m staring at a government letter telling me documented events didn’t happen. With the ankle, they’re admitting the Army caused the injury but assigning it zero percent. And with tinnitus, they’re denying the connection while citing an MOS I didn’t have and seemingly ignoring the actual working conditions of the MOS I did have.

And that’s the part that makes this whole thing so absurd. I’m not claiming I was blown up by an IED. I’m not claiming I’m completely disabled. I’m not inventing some mysterious injury that appeared twenty years after I got out. I submitted claims for things that actually happened to me while I was serving, some of which are sitting right there in my military medical records.

And it isn’t as though the VA simply had to take my word for any of this. I went through their process. I submitted the records. I showed up for their examinations. I allowed doctors hired through the VA process to examine, measure, question, evaluate, and document these conditions firsthand. They had access to the historical records, they had access to me, and they had the opportunity to investigate every condition I claimed.

So what more information exactly do you fucking need?

Should I have taken a Polaroid of myself lying on the ground in 1992?

Should 1992 Jason have written a notarized statement saying, “Dear Future Department of Veterans Affairs: I would like to formally certify that the ankle I just broke while serving in the United States Army currently fucking hurts, and I expect it may continue doing so”?

The Tally

Then we can add it all up.

Tinnitus: denied, using the wrong MOS.

Sleep apnea: denied.

Shoulder: denied, despite the active-duty record.

Thumb: denied, despite the active-duty record.

Ankle: “Okay, fine, that one happened. Zero percent.”

And people wonder why veterans eventually throw their hands up and ask, why bother?

Why Bother

That’s what infuriates me about this process. The government spends enormous amounts of time and money telling veterans to apply for benefits, telling them they earned those benefits and shouldn’t feel guilty about filing a claim. Which I did. I struggled for years about filing this claim at all. But eventually you swallow your pride, dig through medical records that are more than thirty years old, explain injuries you haven’t talked about in decades, go through examinations, answer their questions, and submit everything they ask for.

Then a federal agency sends you a letter saying an injury documented in your own active-duty medical record “neither occurred in nor was caused by service.” Another part of the same process acknowledges a different injury as service connected but rates it at zero. And another medical opinion confidently explains why your military occupation supposedly wasn’t associated with much noise exposure while listing the wrong fucking MOS.

What exactly am I supposed to do with any of that?

Because at that point we aren’t even arguing about whether the disability is severe enough to justify 10%, 20%, or 50%. We aren’t merely arguing about conflicting medical opinions or some complicated question of causation. We are apparently arguing about whether documented history happened, what fucking job I had, and whether the evidence sitting in front of them counts as evidence.

And that’s fucking insane.

I served. I got hurt. I kept going. In the case of my ankle, the Army gave me an opportunity to walk away almost immediately, and I chose to stay because I believed that if I started something, I should finish it.

Thirty-four years later, that ankle still hurts.

The United States government agrees that the injury happened in the Army and agrees that it is service connected.

Their answer?

0%.

So yeah, my current review of the Department of Veterans Affairs disability process is pretty straightforward:

VA disability claims: where your military medical records say it happened, the VA examines you to confirm what’s wrong, they occasionally can’t even figure out what your job was, and then they send you a letter explaining that apparently none of it counts.

What a fucking joke.