If you’re a veteran, I don’t care if you just got out yesterday or if you’ve been out for 40 years, from one veteran to another, I’d like you to do two things, apply for VA healthcare and file a claim for VA disability compensation. Now, if you haven’t done those things yet, and you’re a veteran, you’re probably thinking things like I’ve got healthcare. I’m fine. I don’t want some VA doc touching me, VA benefits are for people who got blown up. I’m just as healthy as the day I went in, I’ve got new issues. I get it. I was wounded in 2005 and I didn’t get out of the army until 2012. When I did get out, I didn’t want to apply for disability benefits. I didn’t feel disabled. I still don’t. I’m not. And I didn’t like the label. Plus I know a lot of brothers and sisters who I served with who have it a whole lot worse than me.
Ultimately I did apply. And what got me through that hurdle was thinking about my family, because I know that eventually all of this stuff that happened is going to catch up to me and maybe I can suffer through it fine and tell myself I deserve it or whatever. But I got to thinking about my wife and, you know, she, she’s the one that’s going to really suffer when I am old broken and just a general grumpy pain in the ass. She’s the one that’s going to have to put up with me. And I thought, you know, I need to apply so that, down the road, I can still help my family because these things might catch up to me and I might lose some of my ability to do that.
Any veteran applying for benefits does not take benefits away from somebody else who may need them more. You applying for VA healthcare does not mean you have to go to the VA for your healthcare. It just gets your name in the system, which has benefits down the road and having a disability from the VA doesn’t mean you’re missing limbs. It’s basically just the VA’s way to describe the extent to which the military broke you. And here’s the deal, being in the military takes its toll on all of us, mentally and physically. And think of it this way. We, we all volunteered to serve our country. VA benefits are one of the ways that our country tries to make it right on the back end. And if the military broke you, I don’t care how major or how minor the VA needs to step in and help out with that.
But the VA is not going to come to your door and find you, you have to take the first step. Now there are tons of organizations that’ll help you. You can do yourself. You can go to va.gov, you can call me. I’m happy to help you anyway, I can. There’s the, the Legion, the VFW, Military Order of the Purple Heart, every state has veteran service officers and its their job to help walk you through this process and get you in the system and get you some help and some benefits, so, take advantage of that and do it. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for your family do for the people in your life that that’s still want to be in your life 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years down the road. Do for them, but just do it.