Okay, but you can receive disability from the military and also from the VA. So does that count as double dipping?
The reference was about vets retiring from service, opting for disability payment for service related injuries ,
during the retirement process at the time of their retirement.
Something that only retired vets, or current vets might know, or have a need to know.
It seems to me this would have been an added plan for example Social Security Disability = Social Security + Disability. If you are not at retirement age you just get Disability. When you are at retirement age Social Security + Disability would kick in.
This always helps. "suffering alone" is never a good path. People should always know your pain. This doesn't mean that you have to tell the world, but someone should know.
The one thing I hate the most about business is a stupid policy. It's time for me to be more involved with elected leaders. Thanks for this information.
You can be medically retired from the military and receive VA disability if that's what you mean. The US military does not have a disability system.
I'm a bit unclear on how it works these days. In my day, it was 20 years for 50% pay, 30 years for 3/4 pay. That was it. Get out at 19 years, get nothing. However, it did mean that you could enlist at 18, retire with 30 years at 48, go to work for the Post Office, retired at 65, and enjoy a military retirement, Post Office retirement, and Social Security. I knew at least one person who claimed that's what he did. The man operated a book store outside of the base at Twentynine Palms, CA. I was only in for six years, I got bupkis. Worse, I served during the years between GI Bills. I was too late for the Vietnam era GI Bill and too soon for the Mongomery GI Bill, which only applied to new enlistees. Those of us who served between 77 and 84 got nothing.
I may have mispoken. It looks more complicated than it was in my day.
This doesn't surprise me. It's the one branch of government that naturally creates disability.
That's literally the entire purpose of the VA. They operate several divisions. One is military cemeteries. Another is benefits, from VA Home Loans to disability pay to pensions for certain wartime veterans who are disabled due to NON military reasons, but who served at least one day of their honorable enlistment in a combat zone and have no or little income. And the third division is health care. Not all veterans are eligible for health care, and there are a lot of rules about who gets it and how much they get.
They don't...
Ok that made my brain hurt. I'm going to go to the website and see what Ai translates it. I hate when companies do this. The purposely do things so that it's complicated to discourage people from successfully getting what they seek. They don't seek to increase enrollment they seek to reduce it.
This part of the thread has been a mind-blowing experience for me as someone who hasn't served in the military. I can't help to think that this is like family abuse. Where the father beats the kids but it's a secret and no one outside of the family knows about it.
Yeah. Exactly what I was saying.
A lot of different ways one might do it. Federal service and military service are good together. Regardless of how long you served, you can buy back your military time for peanuts and have it count toward your retirement. It’s a FERS calculation based on your actual taxable earnings while serving.
I has nothing to do with facts and science when a person starts out with the wrong assertion from jump. You completely misread me and your (fully unsolicited) choice to diagnose me was Very wrong. So you got on the defensive. And now you are trying to crawfish out of your blunder. Yeah, on the defensive sounds about right.
What you are saying here makes no sense. You made a claim about mental illness (depression). I said it proves you don't understand the topic. You asked for clarification, and I provided the clinical definition, along with where your definition falls on it.
Okay, let's put a pin in the depression argument and agree to disagree. It is getting nowhere as far as the thread is concerned. If I misspoke, so be it. If you misinterpreted, so be it
Thank you for this! I realize it looks a little funny to "love" this post of yours, but I am happy to see you posting, and also think that what you posted is so important. In the USA, suicide rates among veterans is extremely high. Each year, over 6000 veterans commit suicide in the USA, and in 2021, it was the 2nd leading cause of death for vets under 45 years old. The Veterans Administration does a better job identifying it than they used to, and there has been some progress in the USA to de-stigmatize mental illness, though not without setbacks. But it's an uphill battle. I work with homeless vets regularly, and it's a complex issue with no single, magic answer. Many self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol and suffer from a host of mental and physical issues.This was very much the same in the UK military, shades of the old 'lack of moral fibre' from the First World War. Everybody coping with their problems without telling anyone, so that everyone felt they were the only ones with problems. Talking to families was always a big no no, you can't inflict your experiences on them.
I've been in the military then worked with it since I was 18 until I retired 11 years ago at 60. I still live close though. I've known several suicides with all friends, family etc saying asking why because 'they were always happy ' and 'had everything to live for'. In politics here it's a common thing to call for housing ex military over immigrants as if it's just a case of finding bricks and mortar rather than the actual reason veterans are homeless despite the amount of help there is for them.
Asking for help in the military is for many a very difficult thing, they feel they will let their mates down if they admit their mental health isn't good. Of course by not saying anything they don't realise their mates are in the same boat.
The MoD here several years ago launched a campaign to normalise talking about mental health, it's part of basic training now, seniors are taught to look for signs of poor mental health and NOT to minimise it or tell the person to 'suck it up'. The mental health practitioners are a Tri-service team, who are stationed across the UK, Cyprus, Germany, Falklands etc. There were mental health teams in Afghanistan. It's not perfect of course but mental health is 'recognised' now.
Outside the military for those who've left we have a lot of help, charities take the heavy lifting but being run by ex military they are a great help. We have simple things like Breakfast Clubs to Combat Stress who does really good work. While veterans have priority for healthcare here, it doesn't mean a lot so as always we do it ourselves, as always I suppose.
My husband was deployed in N I during the Troubles, did several hours then was in the Falklands War was fine for many years but now in his 70s he seems to deteriorating, he forgets everyday things but the years in the military seem to have come back to haunt him after all this time. I think he's heading to dementia and the last is starting to get more real than now. It's mostly why I can't spend as much time here as I used too plus I now have health issues of my own, as you say the joys of getting older.
I can't offer advice, but can send a virtual hug and my hopes that something will work for you. X
