Veteran’s Disability is a really bad way to phrase this. It should be Veteran’s Injury.
A guy is in the Army and volunteers for jump school. Goes to jump school. Graduates. And then does periodic training. And gets hurt during a jump. Goes to the base hospital. Gets seen, diagnosed and treated.
He walks out, slight limp.
The limp does NOT worsen. He leaves the Army and is informed one day that he can get compensation for that injury. He’s not **disabled**. He walks around and leads a normal life. But he hurts when bending in some direction.
This is a long term, probably for life, injury that occurred on active duty.
He is informed he can apply for compensation for that lifetime injury. The VA sends him to an exam. Surveys his military medical records. Then based on all the evidence, they decide that yes, he is hurt, it will continue forever, and it is connected to his service.
He’ll get rated XX% disabled. WRONG WORD. But that’s the label. And he’ll be paid about $190/month per 10% of rating. So 20% would be $380, etc. Not exact numbers, but this is the general concept. A minor to moderate lifetime back injury will be about 20%, and that’s a guess, not even informed.
Then someone in his course of life is told that he’s on VA disability and exclaims “I just saw him walking to his car!!! What a fraud!!”
Just an FYI to folks.
The scale for dollars paid for a given percentage of disability isn’t linear. From 90 to 100 percent disability means a lot more $$$ than a jump from 70-80%.