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Exact combined
Filing your own VA disability claim means submitting and managing the claim directly with the VA, self-represented, with no law firm or claims consultant taking a cut of back pay you already earned. This page is a free playbook for doing exactly that: ten lessons covering filing, evidence, the C&P exam, and appeals, plus a combined-rating calculator and the government's own official links. It is one veteran, Joe Forrest (U.S. Air Force, AFSOC, Staff Sergeant), writing down what he figured out running his own claim from zero to a hundred percent permanent and total in about a year.
I went from zero to a hundred percent, permanent and total, in about a year. Self-represented. No law firm taking a third of back pay I'd already earned. Every move I made is written down in here. Free because it should've been free the first time.
Read it in order or jump to wherever you're stuck. Every lesson is open, no login, no trial, no card waiting. The ten below are the questions nobody warned you about before you filed:
VA math is not addition. Each new rating only bites into what's left after the last one. Punch in your numbers and see where you really land.
VA math is not addition: each new rating only takes its cut of what disability hasn't already claimed. The exact number rounds to the nearest 10 at the end (5s round up, per 38 CFR 4.25). This version doesn't apply the bilateral factor; paired left/right limbs can land slightly higher than shown. Educational tool, never a ratings decision.
The playbook teaches the strategy. These are the government's own tools, unfiltered. File with them, appeal with them, read the same rating schedule the rater grades you against. The same rulebook the rater grades you against is public. You should know what is in it.
Same answers as the playbook, shorter. No sanitized paperwork version.
Yes. You can file directly with the VA, self-represented, no law firm and no consultant taking a cut of back pay you already earned. This playbook is one veteran writing down what he figured out doing exactly that, from zero to a hundred percent permanent and total in about a year. Free help also exists: an accredited VSO will file with you at no charge, and on appeal an accredited attorney works on contingency.
Filing a claim with the VA costs nothing, and this playbook costs nothing either. Free forever, no pass, no signup, and not one lesson locked. You file directly with the government's own tools and forms, no middleman, no fee. The whole paid-help economy around VA claims exists to sell you back your own benefits, and the one person who should run your claim is you.
The C&P, or Compensation and Pension exam, is the evidentiary hearing in a paper gown. The examiner fills out a DBQ, and every answer marks a box the rater later grades you against. Walking in knowing which box each answer marks, and reading the examiner's DBQ the way the rater reads it, is the difference between an exam that helps your claim and one that sinks it before you're back in your truck.
VA math is not addition. Each new rating only bites into what is left after the last one, so two fifty percent ratings do not make one hundred. The combined-rating calculator on this page runs the real formula so you can see where you actually land, and the playbook covers the bilateral bonus the VA sometimes skips and the five-category map that turns scattered claims into a portfolio.
The intent-to-file is a one-page form that protects up to a year of back pay by locking in your effective date while you gather evidence. It is the most underfiled play in the system. Getting it in before you finish the claim means the clock starts when you signal, not when you finish, which can be worth a year of compensation.
Education from one veteran to another, not legal advice. The author is not your VSO or your attorney. Free help is out there: an accredited VSO (VFW, DAV, American Legion, your state veterans office) will file your claim with you at no cost, and on appeal an accredited attorney works on contingency, nothing out of pocket up front. The playbook just makes sure that whoever you walk in beside, it is a sharp vet sitting in the chair, not a confused one.