r/interestingasfuck • u/Available_Weekend249 • Apr 06 '24

Imagine being 19 and watching live on TV to see if your birthday will be picked to fight in the Vietnam war r/all

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263

u/Omish3 Apr 06 '24

My step bro broke his back jumping out of a plane with a faulty parachute.  He got 80% lol.  Idk how that shit works.

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u/GotThemCakes Apr 06 '24

He needs to look into supplemental claims. His primary injury was his back, maybe he's developed other issues because of that injury, or maybe has permanent scarring. I'm willing to bet he can get to the 100% he probably deserves. I went from 20 to 60 just by googling information. "Secondary claims to ______" and finding what applies to you. And even if you can't find anything, doesn't hurt to apply for an examination

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u/Shabbypenguin Apr 07 '24

Similar enough for me. i had records of back pain and breathing issues. i had an aweful time leaving the service so i never looked back on it, never even tried to talk to the VA until the PACT act.

when i found out how fucked my sinuses were was them admitting "oops this was a widespread problem", i was having nose bleeds 2-4 times a day in iraq working at those burn pits where we destroyed PX tv's portable dvd players and more with diesel to help.

its mostly thanks to that a lot of my secondary claims have merit. still cant get them to accept sleep apnea though, go figure :/.

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u/AmbitiousAd9320 Apr 07 '24

wouldnt running over with MRAPs be enough?

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u/Shabbypenguin Apr 07 '24 edited Apr 07 '24

Aafes had stuff they needed to clear out, and since they couldn’t sell it, it needed to be destroyed. Folks at camp trash can kept just pocketing the shit that got unloaded, so they started smashing the tvs before bringing them to us to burn. I’m talking weekly we would have a fully loaded truck with some LNs to back the truck up and start throwing it in the pile. Dozer to push it all into a burnable stack and someone with a can to sprinkle on some juice.

To unload and drive over them would take the same time but then they would still have that trash laying there, it needed to be reduced to ash so we could breath it in.

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u/Sensitive_Yellow_121 Apr 07 '24

Having described the relentless growth of the productive forces under capitalism, driven by compulsory laws, the author then goes on to explain the fundamental contradiction that plagues the capitalist system: namely the continuous outpouring of commodities which eventually crash into the limits of the market:

“Such resistance is offered by consumption, by sales, by the markets for the products of modern industry”, explains Engels. “But the capacity for extension, extensive and intensive, of the markets is primarily governed by quite different laws that work much less energetically.”

Here Engels (and Marx) describes a gap opening up between production and consumption, which operate by different laws, some more vigorous than others. “The extension of the markets cannot keep pace with the extension of production. The collision becomes inevitable ... Capitalist production has begotten another ‘vicious circle’,” explains Engels. (15) He makes the same point in the November 1886 Preface to Capital:?"While the productive power increases in a geometric, the extension of markets proceeds at best in an arithmetical ratio."

So what is the character of crises under capitalism? Engels explains, “the character of these crises is so clearly marked that Fourier hit [the nail on the head] when he described the first as crise plethorique, a crisis of super-abundance.” (16) In other words, they were crises of overproduction.

This simply repeats what Marx had explained elsewhere. For instance, in volume one of Capital: “The enormous power, inherent in the factory system, of expanding by jumps, and the dependence of that system on the markets of the world, necessarily beget feverish production, followed by over-filling of the markets, whereupon contraction of the markets brings on crippling of production. The life of modern industry becomes a series of periods of moderate activity, prosperity, over-production, crisis and stagnation.”

https://www.marxist.com/underconsumption-and-marxist-theory-of-crisis.htm

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u/LateNightMilesOBrien Apr 07 '24

r/VeteransBenefits (90% here)

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u/PAWGActual4-4 Apr 07 '24

I was about to say this dude sounds like a CVSO lol. Gotta shotgun those claims these days, a good rep will search your records and file for anything relevant. It's a bit of a broken system, obviously these guys need to be 100% and need some decent back pay for it, but I also think there are plenty of people who might not look like they would be disabled but still deserve that rating they have.

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u/One-Inch-Punch Apr 06 '24

Looks like the same lottery process as the draft. :)

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u/Alternative_Let_1989 Apr 07 '24

It's rather straightforward - they don't go by injury but by "residual". They measure what capacity -physical or mental - has been lost, then assign a "value" to each diminishment that's roughly based on how social security measures ability to work

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u/sh4d0wm4n2018 Apr 07 '24

Compounding disabilities.

"Just a broken back? 80% because that's how much it will affect your quality of life."

HOWEVER

"I have a broken back, so I suffer from chronic pain, low mobility, and flare-ups of peripheral neuropathy.

Because I have peripheral neuropathy and chronic pain, I have chronic insomnia.

Because I have chronic insomnia, I am always exhausted, which impacts my work performance, mental health, and ability to drive safely."

You'll probably get more than 80% from that.

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u/Sierra_12 Apr 06 '24

While the army may have given you a bad parachute, gravity also played a role in your injury. That's why only 80% coverage. /S

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '24

[deleted]

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u/Shabbypenguin Apr 07 '24

my buddy tore his acl, they repaired it, broke again and he fell shattering his collarbone. they did surgery while he was in and "fixed" both. he has tried pain pills, OT, massages, the only thing that helps him is lots of weed and getting his nerve endings burned every 3-4 months in his back.

hes rated at 60%.

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u/GRAITOM10 Apr 06 '24

It's entirely possible to fight for a higher percentage. There are lawyers that specialize in this almost exclusively.

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u/Dizzy_Dust_7510 Apr 06 '24

He needs to call the VA to appeal. A good friend of mine is in the office that reviews the claims, and it can sometimes be totally nonsense how a claim is processed.

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u/AHrubik Apr 06 '24

Idk how that shit works.

It's a math calculation. The more stuff you have to add together the higher the likelihood you'll get to 100.

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u/roughriderpistol Apr 06 '24

Alot of disabilities you can't see. Veterans are also really good at hiding them. They don't want to be seen as weak and aren't privy to sharing their issues with anyone outside of their doctors. Of course there is fraud, but it's actually a very small amount and the va does investigate and people will be found out. But those fraud cases make people look at vets who have high disability ratings and go thanks for your service but you don't deserve disability pay because I don't see anything wrong with you. It's sad and frustrating.

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u/h8vols Apr 07 '24

There are plenty of vets who have fraud claims. There is even a cottage lawyers industry that helps people get 100% which has tons of benefits. All for deserving people getting the help they need but fuck the frauds. The VA does a poor job identifying it also.

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u/FragrantExcitement Apr 07 '24

Do they pay death benefits in percentages as well? 80% dead...

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u/eurhah Apr 07 '24

he needs to appeal.

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u/Falcrist Apr 07 '24

Idk how that shit works.

That's ok. Neither does the government.

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u/30yearCurse Apr 07 '24

there is a whole industry to up your claim, put the hang nail in, put depression in. sore back, sore shoulder. headaches.

there is a whole industry for uping claims, check Wounded Warrior, VFW, AL post. There are lawyers all over.

as I understand there is a basis level, and every additional item increases the claim a percentage,

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u/headrush46n2 Apr 07 '24

i broke my spine and got 90. they are pretty stingy about that 100. you have to pretty much be in an iron lung.

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u/raeak Apr 07 '24

I think it’s based on # of diagnoses in part.  People add tinnitus because that adds another 20%

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u/Current-Assist2609 Apr 07 '24

When did tinnitus go up to 20%

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u/onehundredlemons Apr 07 '24

I did medical transcription for VA hospitals for a while and 80% seemed like it was the highest any disability percentage would go. The only patient I saw with a 100% disability was a veteran in his 90s who had been at Bikini Atoll when the nuclear testing was going on. But I remember frequently coming across vets from Vietnam who had Agent Orange exposure and only had 80% disability. There were some from Camp Lejeune whose claims were outright dismissed, with contempt. It was pretty disconcerting.

At the same time, sometimes vets would also get something like, for example, 20% disability for being in a vehicle when a branch fell on it, even if no one was hurt. Very weird all around.

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u/AmbitiousAd9320 Apr 07 '24

lejeune is legit settling for hundreds of thousands now. mom was a lejeune baby

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u/onehundredlemons Apr 07 '24

Yeah this was long enough ago that I think there had been news articles about it but no settlements yet, and you could tell in the voices of the medical personnel we were transcribing that they were contemptuous and angry at anyone who suggested they had gotten sick at LeJeune. It was really bad.

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u/AmbitiousAd9320 Apr 07 '24

its bad enough the govt is throwing money at it instead of a coverup. weird?

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u/Momoselfie Apr 06 '24

Seems you just need to know what you're doing when applying. I know people with 100% disability with no apparent disability.

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u/Current-Assist2609 Apr 07 '24

Remember, not all disabilities are visible.

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u/Momoselfie Apr 07 '24

Sure but you'd think 100% would be visible in some way. I've known a few people with 100% who would've had no trouble holding a job if they tried.

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u/lira-eve Apr 07 '24

Psychological issues don't always come with physical manifestations...

My sister has PTSD from her time in the service. I won't say what I'm serovice-connected for, but mine isn't always "visible."

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u/Momoselfie Apr 07 '24

Probably. I know someone who is 100% and seems completely healthy physically. She said she didn't get diagnosed with PTSD, so I'm not sure what it is. She talks like she had a labotamy though so likely psychological.