OPINION:
I take issue with the characterization of severely disabled veterans (those with disability ratings of more than 50 percent) as somehow milking the system for federal disability payments (“Veterans caught triple-dipping on benefits,” Web, Oct. 30).
The writer of the piece and Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, imply that these programs are overlapping and duplicative. Nothing could be further from the truth. The three programs in question have three very different purposes. Military retired pay is an earned benefit for serving two or more decades for your country. Compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs is payment for lost earning potential based on service-connected illnesses, injuries and wounds. Finally, Social Security disability insurance is a social insurance program meant to provide assistance to the severely disabled, independent of the reason for the disability, as long as the individual in question worked long enough and paid his Social Security taxes.
Congress recognized that retirees should not have to fund their own disability compensation from their earned retirement, and it did this in 2004 by eliminating for the most severely disabled retirees (more than 50 percent disabled) the offset of military retired pay by VA compensation. Congress has continued to make progress over the past decade.
As the piece notes, just 3 percent of the nation’s 1.9 million uniformed service retirees collect these three benefits. Targeting someone such as the E-9 retiree who served his country for 26 years, has lost the use of his feet, is blind in one eye and has renal problems is simply wrong.
VICE ADM. NORB RYAN
U.S. Navy (retired)
President, Military Officers Association of America
Alexandria
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