Should veterans and retirees be "Triple Dipping?"

When my dad passed away in 1999, he was a quadruple dipper. He drew a military retirement check, drew a 59% VA disability pension, federal civil service retirement and SSDI. He served in two wars, WW II, and Korea. He also got credit for Vietnam. He served 21yrs in the Army, 5yrs in a civilian job, and 20yrs federal civil service. He earned every damn dine that he received from Uncle Sam
As for me, I am a double dipper, I draw a 40% VA disability check and Social Security retirement.

Before making any comments people need to understand the words that they use. Pension by VA standard is for military service during war time with no disabilities this is barely enough to get by based on other income including spouse. Compensation is for injury, illness for diseases incurred while on active duty These are the only two incomes from the VA. SGM Dawson claims 40% rating I presume that’s from the VA. YOU CAN NOT LOSE THAT RATING IF YOU WORK. If you back is part of that rating MAN get your but back before the rating board and get an increase. Your pension (not sure what you mean) but regardless of income you will not lose your 40%. Go see a veterans rep. Either DAV, VFW OR AMERICAN LEGION. HAVE them help you to understand what’s going on. I myself am a quadruple getter and don’t care I earned every bit of my money.

I have a 70% rating from the VA and get the other 30% unemployability so I get 100%. The Army offsets my entire disability pension so I get nothing from them. I also get social security disability. Other than that I receive a pension from OPM due to my civilian employment.

The VA takes care of medical and almost everything else, glasses, dentures, etc. etc. But that did nothing for my family. My wife was eligible for TRICARE. Between all of the above we have enough coming in but I have been retired for over 20 years. The 1% that they offset from the VA and Social Security every year starts to impact us.

This is an old post SSG (Join to see) but i just came across it. I guess you can consider me a quadruple dipper! I am retired Army, 4 on active and 22 in reserves. I am 100% from VA and at 62 I applied for SSDI and received it almost immediately. I had just retired from the Air Force as a civilian. So I'm getting my Army retirement, my VA disability, my social security, and a small OPM pension from the Air Force. I earned them all although I'd trade the VA disability for 100% healthy.

Retirement is retirement. Talking about retirement for service/time. That is not the same as disability pay. One should never reduce the other. They are for two different things.
In my case I can see a better argument for reducing my retired pay because of my VA disability pay. I'm medically retired so it's a disability pay.

See the way i look at it, you must have a dang good reason to get to be able to truple dip, so you earned it as far as im concerned! People that say you shouldnt make more than you did when you were active duty are just haters! Do you honestly think the military gives a rats ass about you after you retire!?! If you do your naive! I say get that money while you can, we all sacrificed alot to get that! People act like it adds up to alot of money, but it doesnt!

This whole thing makes me so fucking mad I have to avoid thinking on it often. The USG is stealing money from poor people, is the way I see it.. Why, pray tell, has every damn politician who allegedly loves vets let this stand? I have a 30%, so the USG steals 30% of my retirement. Yeah, I have known how it works for taxes since about 1973 so you don't need to tell me. I'm just saying it's wrong, it sucks, and it is the government stealing money. Every government.

I try to not say anything personal on here, and to respect those whose opinion differs. Not this time, sorry, for the 10% (at this writing) of useful idiots well, you have your right to a stupid opinion just like anyone else, but your stupid opinion gives support to all the rest of us losing an entitlement many of us need, and you should just shut the fuck up.

I am shocked by the number of people that agree with me, as during my actual conversations with people, many of them allege they have never asked for disability even though one even still had grenade frags working out from some Tet offensive or the other. The reason they uniformly give is they don't ask for anything as we all know someone who "really needs it". Fuck. We ALL "really need it" if it is a legit disability. The USG literally (in the old meaning) prints money. Literally.

Fuck yes we should make more retired than we did serving. Because in my day it was such a fucking pittance that the retirement and the medical were the only attractive parts. Nobody in their right mind would have done it for the pay unless there were no other option.

A 401k doesn't affect your retirement pay, nor does your retirement pay affect any of your 401k. WHY should you be penalized by Social Security (basically a Government 401k that YOU paid into your entire working career). The Government is stealing your money on both counts. As far as drawing SSDI, that is a totally different ball game. You don't have to have ever paid a dime to draw that if you qualify, so you are effectively being paid twice by the same organization (The U.S. Government) for the same thing. So you should choose to either pay taxes on your Military Disability, OR draw SSDI. Personally, I think SSDI is the best choice. NOT TAXED and probably more than the Taxes you save on the percentage of your Retirement. Remember, you will still be paid your ENTIRE Retirement, just not at a tax free rate.

Stop the narcs they will kill you. Contact woods and woods va attorneys. [login to see] .

Hey, if you rate go for it. I am 100% P and T va disability and get ssdi, and it was not easy to do but worth it . This is not tripple dipping, but close. I am due a state pension at 65, if I still am alive. All legal. Thanks