Did you wait till you were out to get your disability rating? If so, how long before you made your first claim?

I don’t know if you understand the process that has been going on for the last 5 years, or so, but if you’re retiring it’s very wise to start the claiming process 6 months before you retire and have it submitted 90 days before you are officially retired. It’s part of the Benefits Delivery and Discharge (BDD) process and it’s great. If you don’t complete this, then you have a one year window, after retirement.

When did you get out (year) and under what condition- ETS, med retirement, regular retirement, or discharge of some kind.

If recent and retirement, I might be able to give you some useful info.

It's best to do start your claim prior to discharge through a BDD (Benefits Delivery at Discharge Program). It'll make it a lot easier on you to get supporting evidence.

35 years after my EOS. I don't know what an exit physical is, does it actually exist? When I left it was pretty much "there's the gate, don't hit the sentry on the way out" ...

I filed during my last month on AD.

Never did

I waited just over 19 years to file. I had tinnitus and vertigo. I had been visited by vertigo off and on for many years before filing and filed because at that time it was pretty bad. I thought it might be Meniere's which I am actually glad that it wasn't because of the eventual outcome. I only have 20% but then again, I was in the peacetime Navy from 74 to 80. The hearing problems were the result of working in the engine room of my ship.
It took me 36 months for the first rating on the tinnitus and after the appeal it took 72 months for the vertigo. Six years total.

Waited about 18 years and had low expectations but thanks to the Columbia MO VA I have the rating.

Here is the published metric of how long the average claim takes. This is updated monthly. https://www.va.gov/disability/after-you-file-claim/

I waited until I was out. I knew nothing and nobody told me anything about how to go about it. When I was 17 I was in an accident (I had nothing to do with it) That landed me in the hospital for more than 5 weeks with a broken neck which was dislocated for 5 days and compressed fractures T11 &T12. I spent most of my senior year in High school with a brace on my neck. I applied in 1972 for aggravated neck and back. Well 40 years later I got 10% for back and a little later 10% for tendinitis and then 20% for an eye condition that I medicate several times a day. After being denied 5 times for the neck I said the hell with it even though the showed me having been in the hospital for 5 days - that is how long my neck was out of place with 18#'s pulling. It appears now that at 75 that I have been suffering from effects of agent orange. I expect to be denied again.
The good thing is I get to go to the VA for care.