Falsely claiming PTSD for VA benefits?

When I first got married the State of Ohio awarded a payment of around $170.00 to every serviceman and woman who served during the Viet Nam War. I never made it to Viet Nam but served in Korea and the Dominican Revolution... I made the mistake of mentioning it to my Dad during a trip to visit my family in Michigan.. Never thought twice that he would have the reaction he had? I don't think I ever saw him so mad.. He believed that I had accepted money from the government under false pretenses... and had no right to that money...
He had served in the Construction Battalions of the U.S. Navy during WW II. The SeaBees were absorbed into the U.S. Navy later in the war but he was a Civilian serving the Navy building runways in the Marianna Islands... I never even knew he was a SeaBee and he NEVER talked about it... Never.
My Dad would never have ever taken any money from the VA unless he lost his leg in service and I believe it would have had to be BOTH legs... Most honorable man I have ever knew...
He worked for Otis Elevator for most of his life and was know to pick a job clean of scrap wire at clean up time. I never knew why until after he died.... Every weekend we would build a fire and toss all the insulated copper wire into the fire to burn the rubber off and then hit the pile with ball bats to separate the copper out.... then is would disappear. Never knew what he did with it until his funeral.. Ten percent of the church was filled with Nuns from a Detroit convent. He took the copper and sold it to a scrapyard and gave the money to the nuns... He did that for decades...
They told the story his generosity and effort at the church.. He was the best self-made engineer and mechanic I ever met.... I never he knew the stories of him because he never bragged about his service time... he was self made and self reliant....
Any one who falsely claims damages for fabricated injuries should be hit in the head with a hammer.
Rat bastards is what they are....
Leave the money for the soldiers that need and deserve it... isn't a day goes by that I don't think of him.

In the case presented here, I would recommend a reduction to whatever is in the original decision from VA, and restitution for everything else, the same way they go after fraudulent welfare recipients. The burden of proof will be the hard part. The standing literature says that symptoms can sometimes take decades to even begin to appear, and that there is no "cure". On top of that, the VA states that the disability benefits are supposed to cover anything " ... caused, or aggravated, by military service...".

The Social Security Administration has different ways of doing things. The general expectation is that once you are awarded SSDI, you don't ever work again, because you can only make so much per month, and going beyond that amount gives the impression that you are no longer impaired, even though it is possible to secure a livable wage, and STILL be impacted by PTSD. As for the weapons issue, the threat of harm to federal employees is a felony in and of itself (activated ANG members are federal employees for the time they are on duty). A conviction on this count alone would carry a weapons condition along with it.

Hello, the soldier can anyone even know about PTSD Just that their life is F up to function.
That you have things burned into your brain. You might have PTSD. What it sounds like to me
is your spending all your time minding his.

I have PTSD in my mental health record and they will not comp it. But you can look in my record and clearly see an incident I am comped for that anyone with a brain would see as a cause for ptsd and other mental health issues.
The VA psychologist don't like me because I won't play their transgender and lgbt crap so they punish me for it.
I quit going to VA mental health over their homophobic and transphobic plus patient rights to self-autonomy violating lgbt crap! Not everyone identifies with the lgbt labels or group and the mental health industry and media have lied their behinds off to the public about what is really going on!

I'm not a psychiatrist, but infantrymen can be deployed for on tour and found combat is not what he is about. Those people are likely be the one that have been impress with CODs and the like. Especially, if he has been near a blast to receive a shock-wave. This is similar to NFL athletes receiving severe concussion. See Mohamed Ali's last interview. These cause TBI and can later develop PTSD. PTSD may not be just combat, but also from interaction with people, peers, chain of command, subordinates, such as hazing, racism, prejudice, favoritism, harassment, betrayal, abuse. The matter is if any event or events effect an individual emotion severely or prolong exposure to bad stress situation can turn into PTSD. Our nature is to survive the next event from what has happened before. It's more like a preprocessor in computer operating system software. It is hard to prove or disprove PTSD only long term observation. PTSD is a narrow condition. As long as there is no similar event an individual seems find until there is a similar event occurs, then he/she becomes unstable and can act irrationally. "A thousand-yard stare" is a form of PTSD also. These Soldiers are numb emotionally, but aggressive in present of danger. They are likely to act according to combat drill and what their brains learnt from previous events.

By the way, just because he is crazy doesn't mean he is stupid.

This is my conclusion from all the reading and learning about psychology researches and curriculum at USF. VA.gov has a repository website dedicates to all studies and researches on TBI and PTSD. It is an opensource accredited actual published studies and researches and Office of Researches and Development/VA.gov.

Ptsd isn’t something you can cure. So yeah, investigate that

I think most PTSD claims are fraudulent among civilians and servicemen . I`m sure there are those who will claim PTSD because a drill instructor screamed at them . A combat tour will change a man , but so will any experience we have in life . My heart goes out to the civilians who we subjected to 10 years of war and devastation ( I`m speaking of Vietnam ) and they don`t pity themselves with claims of PTSD . I only spent 2 years incountry and I would be ashamed to claim PTSD , though I still suffer from an easy startle response that some have made a joke of . I never explain the startle response--the war is my business only and I don`t want to dwell on it as I don`t dwell on any bad experience..  
I have a special sympathy for those wounded in one of our unnecessary wars while our cowardly congressmen were so royal they couldn`t serve . The true PTSD victims--- how does a man explain his lost legs to himself if his war was fought for political posturing and phony " weapons of mass destruction " ? I also think military service should be a prerequisite for a congressman or president ---but that`s another subject.

Why not just mind your own business?

If he lied about being a sniper I would question if he was really in the Infantry? Having been to Iraq multiple times as an Infantryman, and fired my weapon in combat, I've never claimed PTSD, though I probably have it little.
Unfortunately PTSD is being pushed by professionals and abused by servicemen. We have lowered the standards and made it popular to claim it. It's become easily abused for many reasons, such as, Disability, deployments, bragging, excuses, victimhood...

Before getting jumped on me for my opinion, I'm not saying people don't have it, or denying how they got it. Just that it is being pushed and abused by a large percentage of servicemen.

As a clinician of 5 decades, here is my take. it sounds quite bogus to me. Most of the combat vets I've encountered are still quite traumatized despite treatment at a VAC. They affirm that they are more satisfied w/ physical care than psychological treatment. Their clinical presentation is quite complex.
If any of you are interested, I can send you copies of my published research. " [login to see] .
Rich