On My Psych Eval
Howdy,
I want to welcome all my new subscribers to the best Substack in the history of Substack: GRUMP COMBAT VETERAN (I yell a lot; you’ll get used to it). People are saying it’s the greatest Substack ever, believe me. It’s going to be YUGE.
For those who’ve been reading me since the beginning (OG GCV), I had quite a spike in subscribers yesterday. I’d like to think they stumbled upon my musings and were enthralled. Or they read my blurb on Morning Shots and decided to take a plunge. While this Substack is free, I will happily take your money. All proceeds go to my dog, Bucky Boy.
Did I try to manipulate you for money? Yes! It’s capitalism, baby. I might be new to the game, but as TLC famously said, “Ain’t too proud to beg!”
A little about myself before I jump into my latest musings. I’m Lt Col (ret) Will Selber, a recently retired Chair Air Force officer. While I was serving this great nation—please go ahead and buy me a drink—I served primarily as a Foreign Area Officer (FAO - first acronym -BOOM!) and intelligence officer, who specialized in human intelligence (HUMINT - double acronym in one sentence—BOOM) and Afghanistan. I spent 1500 lovely days in Iraq and Afghanistan on six separate deployments, serving at the village, district, provincial, and national levels. I also like long walks on the beach and trying new things.
Point of Privilege: Before I was married (before Charity, BC), I was a on a lot of dating apps. And nearly every woman, except the lovely Charity, had on their profile that they like “to try new things.” What the hell does that even mean?
Anyway, now that I have my resume out of the way, this Substack (which is the greatest eva) focuses on the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT, baby, GWOT), transition issues (to civilian life), and some forays into political issues. I’m currently the Military Affairs Fellow at Bulwark, where I write mostly about national security issues.
Everyone got that. If not, I’ll wait for you to read my previous work. Go ahead; I can wait.
As the bartender on Bourbon Street said to my Bachelor Party after we did an Irish Car Bomb at 10 AM, “And away you go.”
Yesterday, I did my psych eval for my Veterans Affairs (VA) disability claim. For those of you who aren’t down with the lingo, anyone who served in the military can file a disability claim for injuries that occurred on active duty. Many rules and regulations cover this; there’s no reason to review them all because it would be cruel. Depending on what you claim and the VA’s verification, a veteran can gets a lot of moolah: anywhere from 10% ($170 per month) to 100% (~4K a month). This is on top of your pension for those who served at least 20 years, which is calculated at 2.5% per year served of your base pay.
Everybody with me? It’s complicated, but the details really don’t matter. The critical thing to remember is that there’s a lot on the line when a veteran starts the VA disability process.
Before I go any further, I want to say that the VA has amazing people working for it. One of my BFFs—Hi, Kate—works for the VA, and she’s one of my personal heroes. Nevertheless, as many in the VA would attest, the disability rating system can make the DMV seem like an efficient, orderly process.
First, you have to file your claim, which sounds simple enough. It isn’t. Veterans can either do it themselves (G*d, please don’t), get a Veteran Service Organization (think Veterans of Foreign Wars), or hire a lawyer to do it ($). Now, let’s sit with this for a moment. The VA system is so convoluted that veterans need to find someone to file this for them - this is wrong. It should be an easy, simple process.
Nevertheless, I filed my VA claim about a month ago. This is everything I claimed.
Luckily, I have a great VSO — Hi Michael from Williamson County Veterans Services—who is a pro. Many veterans are not so lucky. I’ll save all of this for a later date. Just realize that this is an enormous hurdle for most veterans to overcome. It’s a travesty that we need others to look into our medical records and pull out everything we can claim.
So yesterday, I went to do my first of eight separate VA disability appointments. During these appointment, the VA, in essence, is making sure I’m not full of sh*t and that my claims are actually service related. Luckily, all of this stuff is in my medical records, so I *should* (inshallah) be good to go.
I walked into this nondescript building at 0800 yesterday morning. The psychologist was a lovely lady who probably had years of experience with veterans. Nevertheless, I’ve never met her before in my life—never. This is the first time we were going to talk about my mental health.
Does anyone see a problem here? Yeah. It’s total bullsh*t.
Within 2 minutes, we delved into some of the most painful and personal experiences of my life. I talked in detail about my nightmares, my combat PTSD and Moral Injury, Traumatic Brain Injuries, and the hallucinations I have about the Afghans I couldn’t rescue during our despicable retreat from Kabul.
On the last part, I only started talking to ANYONE about these hallucinations about six months ago. My wife didn’t even know about them. I had to go to the looney bin before I told a shrink.
Writing about them is cathartic and hopefully helps other veterans suffering from the same thing. However, telling a stranger about seeing ghosts is different and isn’t an easy feat. The fact that America’s combat veterans have to bare their souls like this to verify their psychological issues is so wrong.
I don’t know what the reform should be. I understand there are probably legal reasons for this. Veterans shouldn’t be able to claim anything they want. However, my family’s welfare shouldn’t be decided on a 30-minute “eval” with a shrink who just met me.
Again, the VA is full of wonderful people trying to do the Lord’s work in a very flawed system. G*d bless them.
But after 20 years of war, where less than 1% of the population shouldered the burden of a war Americans grew bored with, there has to be a better way.
Veterans aren’t saints. We shouldn’t be deified or placed on pedestals. I’m as full of sh*t as the next guy—ask my wife, the lovely Charity.
But we should be treated with dignity and respect, and we shouldn’t be expected to dance for our money.
Until next time.
Guys, I worked at the VA as a nurse for 14 years. I tried to be a good nurse (Mental Health/substance abuse units). But even 17 years later, I wonder whether I could have been more compassionate, understanding, aware. Most of the front line staff do give a damn about our patients. But there was no support and, more importantly, no education to help me, or my peers, do a better job of caring for you. I knew I had to leave when I saw no plan for absorbing GWOT vets in a system that had WW2 and Korea vets in their 80s and 90s and VN vets pushing 60. So please accept, on behalf of all the patients I cared for, my apology for being so unaware.
My first husband (after nearly 15 years, we both couldn't make it across his PTSD and at the time my own trauma I was working through), was an infantry marine on the first push to Baghdad. He came back with PTSD and moral injury that worsened over the years (before PTSD was addressed mainstream medical). We went to multiple VAs in Cali. Every single time we started the process over, he had to re-bare his soul with total strangers who has the power to totally affect a Veteran's case. Add that to all of the other issues over the years (that's if the vet has the ability and will to keep pressing on), the system has too many barriers stacked against vets who genuinely need the help.