Today’s post will be short and sweet and involves something that came to my attention as I was filling out a job application. One of the many benefits veterans receive is preference eligibility for job consideration, especially when applying to federal jobs. How it works is you can either be 5 point eligible, meaning that you served a minimum of 3 years and received an honorable discharge or you are a 10-point eligible, meaning that you have a certain level of service-connected disability. The main issue with this is not everyone that claims a 10-point preference based on disability is actually disabled. When a military member is on their way out of the service a great deal of attention is focused on learning how to deal with the VA for disability claims. Veteran’s claims range in terms of the percentage in which you are disabled. For example, someone that had surgery but recovered fully but still experiences pain might be 20 percent service-connected disabled, while someone who is an amputee or suffers from severe PTSD might be 75 too 100 percent disabled. Take a look at the VA website to get a more detailed look at how it breaks down, although I promise you still will not understand how it works.

Many times vets will claim just about anything they can to get some level of disability and I believe this is at the encouragement of VA officials. I haven’t been able to pin down a reason except for the “if you don’t use it you loose it” philosophy of funding. It makes sense for the VA to want to generate clients in order to gain additional funding and programs from the government. The main issue concerning this becomes when completely able people are claiming a level of disability and taking advantage of programs and money they do not really need. Some vets will claim that a minor loss in hearing makes them eligible for 20 percent disability and somewhere around 200 dollars a month for a majority of their life. On a personal note I claim no disability, and had metal plates put in my arm while I was in service. Many of my friends tell me that I was stupid for not claiming it, but my injury was my fault, and if I take the money it might mean someone with a real problem may have to wait longer to get their much needed support from the VA.

Additionally, a limited number of benefits like the job preference system becomes something that people who don’t really deserve the advantage now have an edge in gaining employment. All this is not to say that there are not millions of veterans who deserve every penny they get from the government, but it does leave some questions. Should the VA have such a policy as to allow any change in your body to be considered a service-connected disability? Is there a way to change the system? I do not see a way how there is, without potential hurting those in need of disability services. In a time where the government is claiming to be cash poor, and jobs are hard enough to find it strikes me as poor taste to take advantage of the flawed system. For my money, I just didn’t want to say on every job I applied for that I was disabled regardless of how small, but I could use a few hundred extra dollars a month.