CBO wants to means test Veterans disability compensation

[mommymarine2003]

4. It took about 10 years for my Marine veteran son to pull himself out of the abyss he was in from two deployments to Iraq

He came home with serious PTSD and anxiety as well as other physical health issues. He periodically has to have tumors removed, thankfully benign, from all over his body. He signed up for the Marines in high school in 2001. I knew he would be going to war after 911. He crossed the Kuwait border into Iraq on the first day of the war in 2003. His second deployment was in Ramadi where their location was mortared nearly daily. His gunnery sergeant was killed minutes after talking to my son. He was in communications and would call us often. I knew he was feeling suicidal. When he finally came home, he was a psychological mess. For two years he would only come out of his room for meals. Due to lack of exercise, his legs had atrophied, and he, a former high school quarterback, could barely walk a block. He quit driving and gave his truck away to his little brother.

He has about 75% disability. With hard work and two years of therapy, both group and individual, at the Portland/Vancouver VA Hospitals (which I drove him to 5 days/week) he began to find himself again. He now has a good job with two young children and a baby on the way. He still needs therapy. He just had more tumors removed. He earned his disability.