Reached Retirement, Now What?

[S3Mi]

I finally reached my retirement date today. Background: I was medically retired from the Army (90% VA, 70% DoD). I only did 2 years of service. I went through the IDES MEB process. Now that I am retired, I have a few questions:

1. How long does it take for the VA.gov portal to update your ratings? I thought when I logged in today it would reflect everything from the MEB. I already submitted my DD-214 to VA, my attorney and the VA liaison.
2. My GI Bill benefits are showing 60% based on time in service. However, I was medically retired due to injuries caused by the Army. So, I should be entitled to 100% of the GI Bill. Anyone know how/when that will update?
3. Should I be applying for unemployment? I do not have a job lined up. My injuries have made it difficult to function day-to-day. I am hoping to go back to school soon if I can get the GI Bill sorted out.

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

 

[shimaze]

You should probably be looking at Chapter 31 instead of GI Bill. You may also want to look at applying for SSDI instead of unemployment. Because you are medically retired and a disabled veteran, becoming disabled with Social Security is the next logical step. But with only 2 years of active duty, you are likely to be 20 years old. Social Security is going to push back on giving yet another disability check when you are already getting two checks for being disabled and at such a young age. You might want to try to work and enjoy the two disability checks as just an extra income. Your attorney obviously knows what he is doing and has probably already advised you on trying to get the 3rd check.

Since you are already at 90% VA halfway thru your first enlistment, the 100 club is just around the corner and should happen before the end of the year. What I would do is to see if you can apply for the 100% first and if you can, then you can find a job and go to work. If you are for some reason denied for the 100%, you can apply for TDIU and get the 100% the easy way. If you go for TDIU, you can’t ever work again and at that point, you should just apply for SSDI anyways. Please understand there is an obvious logical conflict between applying for unemployment and social security disability.

If you can find enough disabilities to get to 100% schedular, you can work for now and then retire disabled again in another 20 years. At 40 years old you could become a triple checker and make more money than you ever could working and make more money now than your grandpa did when he retired and worked all of his life