Should Veterans feel bad about being awarded and receiving VA disability compensation for non-combat related injuries?

Definitely not! Combat training is intense, physically demanding, and dangerous. Injuries do happen, although we do what we can to prevent them. If you go through a VA physical or your exit physical and are found to have rated disabilities, you deserve to be recognized for them. The money is simply the appreciation our country gives to those who have suffered. I personally believe combat injuries should receive a higher rating than non-combat, but that’s just my opinion.

Non combat related injuries? You mean like a Sailor that was working on a ship and falls four decks down a trunk space and slams her head on a scuttle handle, cracks her skull open and now she's having to learn how to spell her name all over again? Or do you mean that Second Class Petty officer that had to give her first aid and clean up the blood after? How about That 5 ton operator that at CAX and has to transport gear to the EAF and loses steering and slams into a building hard enough to practically impale himself on the steering wheel, crushing his sternum, breaking several ribs, and puncturing his lung? Yeah their injuries don't warrant a disability rating because they need to be shot at first.

For years I felt that way. I didn’t use any of my benefits feeling that those coming from the wars needed it more than me. That is until a fellow veteran working with VA convince me to go to the VA hospital after noticing some symptoms. Now I think that if you are a veteran and were discharged under honorable conditions it is there for you.

ALL veterans deserve to have free healthcare for themselves and their family for the rest of their lives

I myself was in during the Cold War. Went a few places, but that was to basically be fodder for Regan to get involved in that area. I am VA disabled. They do not know what caused my issues. Best guess is radiation, second is maybe has to do with being in the Middle East. We have been taught to suck it up, so no matter what, we do feel guilty, whether we should or not. Serving your country should be enough for VA help. The most difficult thing for me, which my pain is at lest to me is severe, is seeing the loss of limbs, dents in the head from ieds, etcetera; and me getting help. We are men and women who served in defense of our country, I do not think that VA services should matter. But yet when you see the after math of war, well it brings you to tears.

If it'a service related, combat or not, there is no shame.....or rather there should be no shame

My expereince tell me that the VA is the enemy whose main goal is denial of cause. I was kicked out of a helicopter 18 or so feet up. causing life time pain and limitation with no benefits. Yet I walk in and get 10% for hearing loose in a couple months.

I was recently at Mount Charleston out side Las Vegas. The plane hauling the first u2 spy plane to a base with a 2 mile runway on top of the mountains up there crashed into the mountain killing all. The family members were not told for 40 plus years what happened to there fathers brothers that died. Look it up. The secrecy act of this country is total designed to cover up the abuses of the government not to protect the public. It need s to be discontinued. We would be in the stars by now if they had shared all the UFO data as it was known, Hell my whole unit watch a group of UFOs in Korea one night.

No. If you get hurt, you get hurt.

Was the determination on the injury sustained LOD yes or no?