11/11/2025
Some stories about veterans that I worked with to get veterans disability claims approved. I spent a bit of time as a Veterans Service Officer, and VSO trainer in Reno.
Oftentimes, there would be a veteran who'd be reluctant to see a veterans service officer about a disability claim and some family member of the veteran would be the one who dragged them into my office.
For one WWII Marine who'd fought against the Japanese forcces, it was his son that dragged him in. Sure enough, basically as soon as this old marine was in my office he was telling me he didn't need a claim for anything and he'd "never even" been hurt in service, despite having been in combat multiple times.
Not less than ten minutes later, as he's telling me about his war stories, he literally described some conflict where he's charging into battle on some island and an explosion happens not far from him, with shrapnel from the explosion lodging into his forearm. Then, he tells me that his Colonel came riding up to him on a freaking horse, yanks the piece of shrapnel out of his arm and tells him to get back in the fight, which, of course he does.
When I point out to him that he had just told me before, that he was never injured in his service, he brushed it off with, "Yeah, but it wasn't more than surface stuff, no big deal..."
Another vet, this one a cold war vet dragged in by his wife of decades, used to defuse bombs, including underwater mines for the Navy. He also kept meticulous records of foreign dispatches, news paper clippings, of different places he went overseas in both classified and non-classifies acts of service....including when he secretly prevented what would have otherwise been a catastrophic nuclear incident in a small country in the European theater, along with evidence that he still had. To this day, THAT incident still isn't in public record or history books.
He would later go on to write a "fictional" account of a character very similar to himself, getting roped into cold war nuclear programs and included very similar incidents in the book to things he had evidence of in his foreign clippings. I have an autographed copy of it to this day.
He would be approved for a 70% disability rating for PTSD that was service connected, and which he had just been managing on his own, for decades since service, with only his wife bearing witness to it. He had gone on to become a college professor after the war.
Lastly, a sad one. Another veteran dragged in by his wife. This one, with a cane to help him walk. He'd been at 10% disability for his knees for years, all while his ability to walk slowly got worse, and he never got re-evaluated. He was clearly in need of a reevaluation, because his disability was clearly greater than 10%, or should have been.
Once evaluated, it turned out he had MS, a disease so closely linked to military service (much more common in veterans than the general public) that it has an automatic service connection link with certain conditions. That's a big deal. Things got on the right track as his rating and evaluation were corrected, but sadly, even in the time I was serving vets, he would die within months, as his MS progression got far worse, incredibly quickly. I would later, put in a widow's claim for his wife, in that same office, as his service connected disability was linked to his death, and she was now the one qualified for benefits due to the service taking her husband.
Lest we forget...and don't be afraid to drag a reluctant veteran into a VSO office to file a claim. It really does help.
