How to Understand and Request Veterans’ Benefits
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You have just gotten out of the service, or you have been out a while. You have medical problems that you feel may be related to your time in service. You could also be a child or widow of a veteran that needs some help. You would be amazed at what types of benefits are out there. What do you do? What are your options? All you have to do is look and ask.
Steps

  1. Understand your benefits. Depending on your percentage of disability and whether or not you have retired, your benefits will vary. The different types of benefits include:

    • Educational benefits
    • Retirement pension
    • Medical care
    • Psychiatric care
    • Housing benefits
    • Financial assistance benefits
    • Employment Benefits
    • Veterans Business Benefits
  2. Find your state Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) webpage at NASDVA.Net
  3. Know what you have and what you need.
    • Inventory all of the records and official documents that you have. Do you have your military records; most especially, your medical records?
    • You can request them from the military archives at Archives.Gov and Archive.Gov Military Personnel When you request the records, there is a certain procedure that needs to be followed, that can be found here.
  4. Find your service officer at VA.Gov/VSO. Service officers are almost all vets. They are there to help you. Your service officer, state Veterans’ Affairs, and the Federal VA are three separate entities. A service officer has been trained to help you with your disability claims. VA.Gov has a way to find them. Some organizations are the American Legion (AL), Disabled American Vets (DAV), Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). Once you decide which one will suit you best, you can contact the individual office to start your claim.
  5. Get the facts. Have you checked out IRIS (Inquiry Routing & Information System)? This site has information about applying for benefits and general FAQs. Some of the information that you can find here is:
    • Where to find your nearby Veterans’ facility
    • Educational Benefit inquiries
    • The Board of Veterans Appeals
    • Toll free numbers to contact the VA
  6. Learn what your benefits are in your state at State Veteran’s Benefits Directory
  7. Check on the GI Bill/MGIB. Have you checked your schooling options at GIBill.VA.Gov? If you are over a certain percentage of disability, the VA will fund most, if not all, of your schooling to help you retrain so that you can be retrained in another career.

Tips

  • Be patient. This process takes a while and aggravating the officers that are working on your behalf will not help anything.
  • There is nothing wrong with requesting your benefits or an increase to your benefits.
  • Veterans without representation receive fewer benefits than those with representation. This information was found at Navigating VA Claims.
  • Be patient. This can’t be stated enough.

Warnings

  • Make copies of everything. Never send original documents. You will want to keep those for yourself.
  • Don’t expect anything to happen overnight.
  • Just because your claim is denied, doesn’t mean that you won’t get it. You will have to request an appeal. You have to do this within a year of your denial, in order to get the retro-active pay from the date of your original claim. Otherwise, the date will be when you file again.

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