Disability

The Department of Veterans Affairs just opened a formal public comment period and announced its annual PACT Act listening session under 38 U.S.C. § 1172. This is the regulatory machinery that decides whether future veterans get presumptive service connection—or spend the rest of their lives fighting denials.

It is a hard truth that veterans of the Global War on Terror, those who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and related operations, experience a shortened lifespan compared with the general U.S. population and with less severely affected veteran cohorts. War takes its obvious toll downrange, but the deeper toll often shows up years later, through the slow math of stress physiology, chronic injury, isolation, and preventable deaths that never make the evening news.

A 0% rating means the VA agrees that your injury or illness was caused or aggravated by your service, even if it does not yet meet the threshold for monthly compensation (VA.gov). It is not symbolic. It is legal recognition, and it forms the foundation for nearly every veteran benefit system in existence.

Dr. Daniel M. Gade calls upon the U.S. Senate to reduce VA disability compensation.

Ask ten agencies to define a “combat veteran,” and you’ll get twelve answers. Ask ten combat veterans, and you’ll get one feeling: that nobody ever asked them to define it themselves. For all the medals, speeches, and programs built around military service, the phrase “combat veteran” remains legally undefined. It appears on license plates, nonprofit banners, and campaign ads, but not in any section of Title 38 of the U.S. Code.

When policymakers say benefits “keep up with inflation,” they mean inflation as measured by a population that does not represent veterans. That gap compounds each year, producing an illusion of fairness while purchasing power quietly deteriorates.

Veterans’ Disability Appeals Survive Government Shutdown after Appeals Court Denies VA Motion

For much of the 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S. military issued mefloquine (Lariam) as a standard prophylactic against malaria for deployed service members. It was cheap, required only weekly dosing, and seemed convenient for large-scale use. But the true cost became clear later. Instead of simply preventing disease, mefloquine left thousands of veterans with lasting psychiatric and neurological injuries.