I’m one of those guys who applied for and received a SS
disability retirement.
And if you saw me on the street, you’d say, wow that guy
looks pretty danged healthy.
I used to get challenged on it. I was in the “old folks”
end of the pool and the lifeguard told me that area was
only for seniors. I was just over 40 at the time.
I was there rehabbing because there was less weight on
my legs when in the water. Just a few days before, I had
been at a hospital whirl-pool, having to be lifted into
the pool by a hoist. It was the only way I could get in.
In two years, I lost the larger veins in my legs. Because
the valves in those veins didn’t work any longer, my blood
would go to my feet and stay there. Lower legs up...
My ankles would swell up at 400% or more. To make it so
I could work longer, I wore panty hose for compression for
about five years.
I continued to work and then I had a job that required a
lot of walking around a warehouse with concrete flooring
with no padding.
It was so painful, when I got laid off under a consolidation
I decided not to go back to work. Pins and needles didn’t
begin to describe it.
I couldn’t stand or sit for a long period of time without
swelling up all day, and then reducing that swelling at
night. The damage that did to my ankles caused quarter
sized sores to develop in the general area of my ankle
bone. Those took four months to heal.
I didn’t know how to handle them, and one time when I
tried to remedy the situation, I created a raw area on
the inside of my foot that was between the size of a
quarter and a half dollar. It looked like hamburger
and felt like someone was driving a steak knife
through my foot.
My wife got upset about the situation convinced I was
sloughing off, despite knowing of and seeing my condition.
Meanwhile anyone seeing me walk by thought that I looked
very very healthy. I wasn’t. All her (and some were mine)
sided with her, because she wanted sympathy.
I went on SS and she split.
There are people like you. And there are fakes. I’m guessing, unlike my former SIL, you don’t go for long hikes or ride motorcycles all day long. His ex and his kids believe there is nothing wrong with him.
I’ve met too many “disabled vets” who have gamed the system. When 3 disabled vets go for a day hunting in the mountains, or have no problem bar hopping, I lose sympathy for their “I can’t work because of the pain” schtick.
And fwiw, all my uncles were in WW2. So was my Dad, but he stayed in and died in Vietnam. I was career military and my kids have all been in the military. My nephew is and my nieces all married military vets. I’m not anti-vet and there ARE vets who have suffered horribly. Not all physically. After he died, my Mom told us my Dad suffered from nightmares his entire life - although he refused to tell her what they were and no one else ever knew about them. But he’d start shaking and sweating in his sleep and he refused to talk about the 3 wars he was in.
But not all disabled vets are disabled. Some are good at lying.