Your reading, guides, and worksheets in one place. Start with a guide, then choose the tools you need.
Filing as You Leave Service has twelve steps: check your DD-214, copy your records, pick BDD, a standard claim, or an intent to file, list every condition, file VA Form 21-526EZ, prepare for the exam, and watch the one-year window. Education only.
Your First Year After the DD-214 has ten steps: gather records, protect your effective date, pick your claim path, read your records, apply for VA health care, find free help, plan money and work, and track deadlines. Education only.
Three versions of the same buddy statement: weak, strong and harmful. Includes a two-page fillable handout your witness can complete, sign and hand back, plus a checklist to run before you submit.
Five, ten and twenty years each protect something different. Explains rating reduction protections, the 30-day hearing and 60-day evidence windows, with a fillable rating inventory.
A tie goes to the veteran, and an opinion with no reasoning weighs nothing. Explains benefit of the doubt and includes a page to hand your doctor about nexus opinions.
Discharge Review Board or Board for Correction: two boards, two clocks, and the three-year clock starts at discovery. Includes liberal consideration rules and a fillable record worksheet.
For a mental health C&P exam. Shows how a good morning can hide a hard year, and gives a two-week symptom log to fill in before the exam.
Why 50, 30 and 20 make 70, not 100. Walks through VA's combined ratings math, the bilateral factor and rounding mistakes, then gives a fillable worksheet to check your own decision letter.
With a presumption, the proof moves to your personnel file. Covers what you still have to establish, where to get your records, and a fillable service timeline worksheet.
PTSD stressor proof has five routes, and four of them let your own account count. Sorts which route fits you and gives a fillable statement worksheet with crisis support built in.
TDIU is a different door, not a rating you climb to. Explains the percentage rules, marginal employment and the Census threshold, then gives a fillable job-by-job work history record.
Help from an accredited Veterans Service Officer is always free. Find one at va.gov/get-help-from-accredited-representative.
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