11/24/2025
There’s been a lot of conversation lately about changing or cutting VA disability benefits. As a Veterans Advocate—and as someone who was injured while serving—I want to speak clearly on this:
When you raise your right hand and take the oath, you are agreeing to give your life for your country. That commitment alone earns respect, but if at any moment during your service you’re injured, your condition worsens, or your life is impacted in a way that follows you long after you take off the uniform, you deserve compensation. Period.
It doesn’t matter if you served four years or twenty.
It doesn’t matter if you deployed or never left your duty station.
You could be marching with your platoon, slip, fall, injure your back—and that injury can follow you for the rest of your life.
Service is service. An injury is an injury. A disability is a disability.
We live in a nation built on freedom, and that freedom is protected by those who volunteer to stand between our people and danger. The idea that we should punish veterans whose lives were changed by their service—by cutting benefits or removing financial support—especially in a time where the cost of living is at an all-time high, is unbelievable.
My name is Joshua, and I am a Veterans Advocate.
I received injuries in the Marine Corps. I spent years in therapy, endured surgeries, and the long-term impact means I can never take on certain federal or physically demanding positions ever again. Many veterans are living the exact same reality—conditions you can’t see from the outside, but ones that affect every part of their daily life.
The truth is this:
• The system doesn’t need to punish veterans. It needs to be updated so veterans are compensated fairly.
• VSOs are overwhelmed, and the demand is higher than the system can currently support.
• This gap has led to many outside organizations stepping in—some legitimate, doing great work, and some not.
• But the answer is NOT to take benefits from veterans.
The answer is to fix the structure, improve accountability, and prevent the situations that cause these injuries and traumas in the first place.
Many veterans live with mental health issues, military sexual trauma, chronic pain, and conditions deeply rooted in their time in uniform. Those problems are not solved by cutting benefits—they’re solved by improving leadership, safety, culture, training, and support inside the military.
I stand with every veteran who served—those who deployed and those who didn’t, those wounded physically and those wounded silently. If your life was changed by your service, you earned every ounce of the compensation you receive.
We don’t reduce benefits. We improve the system.
We don’t blame veterans. We protect them.
And we never forget the cost of service.
— Joshua
Veteran Resources Advocate 🇺🇸