Reporting for Roll Call -21:00 Hrs - 5-5-13:
Hi LT:
Since you have first hand experience with filing a disability claim, I'd like to pick your brains, as they say (LTs have brains?!!!), to see how someone has to maneuver through the minefield of that process. Since I never had to deal with that, it will be helpful to gain a better understanding of what's involved. Here goes:
a) Since we're dealing with a bureaucracy, obviously we have to start with a form of some kind. What is it, and where do you get it?
b) What are some of the tricky aspects when you fill out that form?
c) What supporting documentation do you need to go with it?
d) Having done all that, where, or to whom is that form turned in?
That's about it for starters. If you can give me some specific answers for these questions, that will be helpful. Keep in mind, I haven't a clue about how the process is supposed to work, just doing what amounts to some forensic dissection here, to get a better understanding of it all.
CENTURION
Hey Captain! What r brains? HAR! I think I have one! Wish I could find it! HAR! On you a), b), c) and d) questions here, let me cut it to the chase. The first thing you need to do as a 'Cherry Troop' who is out of the military and has not done a single thing with the VA is to 'sign in'. When I say this, what you need to do is get a card at the VA. You can do this now on the Internet. Or, you can go to the nearest VA hospital and enter the front door and go to their "Information Booth" and get this done. BUT, this is a booby-trapped trail. Normally, at that Information Booth they have it manned with 'volunteers'. Many of them are "Old Soldiers" from either WWII, or Korea, or even Vietnam. They might be 'happy faces' or they might be 'rude faces'. You have to be prepared for either. I would suggest trying to get your VA Card via the Internet and not get personal with the process quite as of yet. As far as the the 'tricky part', there ain't much to it, but you should get your DD214 Form. Do that before you do anything. Remember, the VA has booby-trapped all the entrance doors to their VA hospitals. I say this with great authority. If the VA has a 'friendly face' waiting for the Cherry Troop first entering their doors, then they would do so as 'procedure'. If not, then they are having the front door manned by rude people and this, too, is 'procedure'. Can you imagine MacDonalds allowing a rude person to be manning their counter selling Big Mac's to their customers?
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