Here's a different take from someone who retired from the military and used the GI Bill to pay for his college degree.
What qualifies as a "disabled veteran"? We all think of the guy who got limbs blown off in an IED explosion or someone who took a bullet or shrapnel in combat. Not all (probably very few) are those folks.
When I retired, it was common practice among everyone involved in the process to try to get as much "disability" as possible to increase your monthly take-home pay. The medical folks, the VA folks, everyone encouraged me and all other retirees to try to claim as much as possible. From my perspective, it was tantamount to fraud, but evidently I was in the minority. When I retired, I was completely healthy, but the VA folks did their best to find me some disability. They scoured my medical record looking for potential problems, sent me for extra audiograms to see if they could find some hearing loss, quizzed me about my back and knees, recommended I get a sleep study done before I retired so I could claim sleep apnea. No dice. Couldn't find any disability for me. But I was the rare exception.
Almost every military retiree I know has some percentage of "disability". Those diagnosed with sleep apnea get 50%! Most of them snore because they are just fat, but they are 50% disabled according to the government. Almost everyone gets some percentage of disability for hearing loss. You would be amazed at all of the things that qualify a retiree for disability benefits.
I don't know the details of this latest program Trump signed off on, and I'm sure it's great politically, but I would like to know the details. I have no problem if a guy can't work because of combat injuries, but if one of my fellow retirees burned through his GI bill and then racked up student loans gets a pass on paying them back while the rest of us pick up his tab because he's a snoring lard-ass with a limp dick, I have an issue with that.
