Should veterans and retirees be "Triple Dipping?"

You have to be retired from the military, 100% tariff from VA, and then shiny for SSDI, where you are likely to be turned down. You will have to appeal & hire a lawyer to win the appeal, ave will probably lose. Military retirees are federal employees. We payed in to social security like everyone else. We are veterans like every other veteran. Until 2004, we are the only federal retirees who could not collect VA disability. Post 9/11 military retirees can now collect their federal person & VA disability. But SSDI is difficult. It shouldn't be for 100% disabled vets, but it is.

Get it! If you qualify for it get it! The value of what you lost can never be measured so take the little bit that they try to compensate you for.

Well let me just say as a person who does need all three. It's not given to any of us. I suffered a spinal cord injury in 2003, continued to fight through to 2012 when I became crippled with constant pain from my injury. I retired received 100% rating and still tried to work after three jobs multiple hospital stays I took full retirement in 2014 filed for SSDI and received it 4.5 years later after multiple denials and only 6 months back pay. So believe me, triple dipping is earned not given.

Not sure someone has already pointed this out, but SSDI is what unemployable/disabled qualifies you for, not SSI.

Free money from military service is money I don’t want. I have my rating and I hurt for it. I can’t throw a baseball with my boys. Take the money back and make my shoulder work again. I have never met anyone getting social security disability that could function normally. I enjoy what I have and I don’t worry about who gets more.

As a vet and an accredited Veterans Service Officer, I know this can happen, albeit in very few circumstances. The fact is, we are not talking about 30-year O-6's that are living the high life. In my experience, I encountered several vets who use PTSD, for example, as a way to boost benefits. They are rated 30%, but claim they are "really, really having problems", but just talking with them for 10 minutes it is obvious they are not close to meeting 50% disability. However, elderly retired vets who went out at a low rank, are 60-70% but are completely unemployable. and live in high cost-of-living areas could certainly fall into this category.

I think this is actually something that deserves a more analytical look than simply, "are you for it or against it." We want all veterans to get all the benefits for which they qualify and not more than they have earned.
These rare "triple-dipping" instances should be taken on the merits of the individual case and not by virtue of the new, highly emotive manner in which we have lately become accustomed.

Beats someone who doesn't work a day in their life getting free medical, enough food stamps to feed themselves and sell some on the side to cover their drug habit

My father served 27 years in the navy with multiple tours in Vietnam. He now has very little sight and only 1 and a half feet since diabetes (a service connected alignment) has claimed the other. He served with distinction and earned his retirement and suffers so he's earned the va and the benefits that go with it and is now over 65 and paid into social security for several decades so he's earned that as well. To make him pick one would be an insult as he busted his ass to earn these things. Nothing is being given it was hard fought and earned. I can only hope that by the time I am his age I can say I've earned my fair share so I keep plugging away. To tell someone they don't rate it just because they something else I hear lots of jealousy in there. Maybe if you worked like that you could earn like that too. If you didn't, it's just plain your fault.

Alot of us who served in the early seventies got screwed out of our some our benefits thanks to a bunch of cowards in Congress..

You can hate all you want, to serve till retirement, then to be paid by the va for being broken, and THEN on top of that ssd benefits that they earned by having a job, whats the problem? Im double dipping, 100% rated, SSD. 6 Yrs 4 Mths, 10 days active duty. Don't hate that you can't