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what's up veterans i'm combat craig and i'm a 100 disabled desert storm veteran today's topic is how to apply for a military discharge upgrade and this video is actually inspired by a conversation that i had uh with a veteran today that received a other than honorable discharge because he got popped with a bag of shrooms back in the day so i was like this is a topic i haven't tackled before i'm going to be touching on the following types of discharges bad conduct discharge dishonorable discharge and other than honorable discharge general under honorable conditions is still honorable and then obviously honorable is honorable if you have a quick question about va claims and you think that i might be able to answer it please call me at 208-557-3084 quick questions by the way take five to ten minutes my focus is on making videos and growing this channel um and that's where i go into detail i don't want to come off like a dick but if you have no clue about your disabilities and anything about the va claims process or how to get a ds login or what an intent to file is or any of the basics um we're not ready to have a conversation because you don't uh know much or anything or whatever like i didn't know a year and a half ago so literally i could talk to you for like a week straight but all we're doing is talking like we're accomplishing nothing you need to um get your intent to file in get a strategy and file your claim with medical evidence that moves your claim forward talking to me isn't moving your i mean you're getting a little education i get it watch my videos that's why i make them i have lots of tips and tricks and stuff one-on-one phone conversations that go on for an hour i just it's just not me um so i'm gonna be quick and curt and you know like i said i'm not being a dick uh my focus is on videos i have two things for you first thing if you're brand new learn what an intent to file is this preserves your effective date so do it right now like get into your va.gov account and get your intent to file in it's the first step in any claim it locks in your effective date right now what is it september 9th or something like that so now you have a year to file your claim so you can learn stuff like your disability get a coach vso i don't recommend it but whatever get whoever you need to help do it on your own whatever and then you follow your claim let's say that takes two three months and then you file the claim and then you wait for six months so nine months you preserved your effective date so when you win you're going to get paid back till today so you get nine months back pay intent to file is uh important and it expires every year so if you don't get your together it's fine file another intent to file next year anytime you're engaged with the va actually you should always have an intent to file open i have one open just like a little placeholder but it's a legal placeholder another thing is if you're looking for one-on-one coaching and a lot of you guys are you're still gonna have to do a lot of work but you need to talk to a veteran coach you could talk to one of my veteran coaches by signing up below combatcraigwins.com give you a heads up you fill out the first page that one's easy the second page sucks it's going to piss you off uh if you get stuck in legalese you're not going to get through the contract if we help you win you pay if we lose there's nothing to pay so that's how that works sign the contract if you have a question about the contract i mean i'll probably tell you to just sign it um but you know if you're talking about the money and oh it's expensive i can answer a few of those kind of questions five to ten minutes though also i want to take a moment to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart um after a year and a half of busting my ass on this channel i finally broke the 10 000 subscriber mark while i was on the phone um i mean i couldn't have done it without you without all your support and i want to give a special shout out to brian reese from va claims insider for his ongoing support of my channel and taking a chance on a crazy old coot like me love you bro appreciate the support i ask you guys to like and subscribe because it tells the youtube algorithm that my videos are worth recommending to other veterans i think they are i don't talk about any i don't around about anything but va claims i mean i definitely tell stories but i stay in my lane so something in my videos can help a veteran um so you're liking and commenting and sharing and all that stuff it it helps i mean it's not like a fad it's or some just little marketing thing like it actually makes a difference so now the uh we got to ten thousand perfect ten thousands for a week sucks now it's time to get to twenty thousand let's kick this into overdrive i need twice as many likes twice as many comments twice as many shares and all you have to do is log into your youtube account and do something if the video shitty give it a dislike i'd prefer a like but you know what i mean like do something to it like one of the comments or something it all helps the algorithm that's how we uh get this thing kicked into overdrive first he ate the 10 000 though that was that was a huge number can't believe i made it year and a half i have busted my ass to get here all right in rant celebrations over details are over housekeeping's done how to apply for a military discharge upgrade you do not need to upgrade an honorable discharge because it's honorable you probably already knew that a general discharge under honorable conditions is the same thing it's also honorable um no need to upgrade it um you know whatever you got kicked out minorly how do i know because it happened to me i have a general discharge under honorable conditions i could give two shits if it says honorable or general that's not the fight that i want to have i want to have the fight with the va and i want to make sure that i get the compensation i deserve so you are going to have a different kind of discharge and we're going to need to get that addressed and i'm going to go into that but basically i struggled during desert storm and you know i got steamrolled i had combat ptsd had no clue they just rolled right over me and like last year i filed another mental health claim and when i was writing my personal statement um i was talking about my work life and it's like my entire work life has been affected from this combat ptsd like it literally started in desert storm they kicked me out and fired me right so i've lost every job since then so i know what it feels like to get kicked out of the military it sucks i got like the slap on the wrist version whatever i'm not proud of it i don't brag about it but you know whatever it's it's it is what it is whatever kind of discharge you have you got to work on it there's ways to fight it and that's the point of this video and that's what we're going to go into you could google how to apply for a military discharge upgrade i've actually never even tackled this topic so i did some research i'm going to do a screen share but you know they're not advertising what you do i mean at the end of the day you did stupid you got slapped maybe you got slapped hard maybe you got thrown in the brig thrown in jail or whatever and you ended up with one of these three shitty discharges no matter what the va says and fights you on it or whatever you are fine when you entered basic training you were ready to die for your country and you did stupid you got caught you got charged and you got busted and you got discharged and kicked out they still owned your ass and you were fine when you went in there this is not your fault for that discharge sure you did it and got caught or whatever but they're also in this um as well and they don't really advertise this at all so that's why this whole thing of a military discharge upgrade even exists i didn't even know about this till a year ago either all right let's talk about them i wrote them down bad conduct discharge bad conduct discharge is a punishment for a military crime it results in confinement to a military prison for a short period of time no benefits are available to veterans with a bad conduct discharge challenge that it's a little slap on the wrist and you did a little time in a military prison i didn't do that so i got the general one i guess i could easily gotten a bad conduct if i was a little bit more of a smart ass and i decided to kick somebody's ass in there instead i just talked dishonorable discharge the worst one serious offenses right murder desertion of duty stuff like that i remember uh sitting in a foxhole during desert storm and i was all pissed off and i was like damn you could actually get shot for sleeping on post like is this a civil war like it's probably still a law in the book like if you're on duty i think you could get shot in 1991 they could like execute your ass um but this is a serious one the dishonorable discharge is uh it's a problem and you're not going to get benefits but you can fight it the third kind is other than honorable discharge a judgment of other than honorable is when a military is in trouble with the civilian court system for reasons like felony con convictions leading to imprisonment again all these things bad conduct discharge dishonorable discharge other than honorable discharge you had a partner in crime and that was active duty service they owned your ass and they have some responsibility something happened to you while you're on active duty to make you do what you did or just decide to do what you did so they they have some culpability here so a bad conduct other than honorable or dishonorable discharge is basically a character service and it's shown on your dd214 obviously mine says general it doesn't look great you know which would said honorable but i mean it's on there happened 30 years ago so you know a change in reason for your discharge is a change in the narrative reason for separation um so that you're changing the narrative the story the story the military used to kick you out you're changing that you're not erasing it you're just changing the narrative um and i mean there's so much stuff misconduct disability personality disorder adjustment disorder that's what i got diagnosed with homosexual conduct you get kicked out for that like all sorts of all sorts of wacky reasons it's a narrative i mean think about it you know murder's different i still think that there's probably some reason why you did what you did you're probably still in leavenworth so you probably aren't getting youtube in there but you know what i mean it's a narrative so that's the goal is to change the narrative that's in place by upgrading your discharge with your own narrative so you need to figure out what what you can do each branch has their own discharge review board um you have to understand what powers they have what they can do what they can't do there's deadlines you have 15 years from the date of your discharge to apply to the discharge review board so that might have been 30 years ago so you won't fit in that category um hopefully you're within that 15-year mark and you're within these boundaries again more va law if you're this you get this if not beat it if you're in this sweet spot or whatever and you have room to explain your narrative then you got to figure out what your narrative is and you need to explain why your version of events is more likely than not to use a va phrase better than their version of events because you're really talking to the va for a a change in narrative your your the military stuff happened they think you suck and you spent time in jail or whatever you did so let's um let's look through some of the uh different things i'm going to do some screenshots here so here we are on the va's website how to apply for a discharge upgrade step-by-step instructions we're going to walk through this all branches of military consider you to have a strong case for discharge if you could show your discharge was connected to any of these category categories all branches of the military consider you to have a strong case for a discharge upgrade if you can show your discharge was connected to any of these categories mental health conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder ptsd it's not limited to that it's including that so adjustment disorder depress major depressive disorder generalized anxiety disorder traumatic brain injuries sexual assault or harassment during military service at va we refer to this as military sexual trauma sexual orientation including the don't ask don't tell policy you're going to need medical evidence and a current diagnosis obviously if you're going to go for a discharge and they say you could have one of these problems i don't know how they prove the milk so you're going to need to have a diagnosis and some kind of evidence of these things happening they'll probably be in your military records because you're kicked out depending on your discharge um but current symptoms um are something you're probably still living with especially if you're you know fell in any of these uh her sexual harassment you're still dealing with that sexual assault if you're raped or something like that military sexual trauma that doesn't go away tbis those don't go away mental health conditions like ptsd they don't go away so let's get started how to apply for an upgrade i was in the air force what year 91 before 92 i'm old uh which of the following describes i suffer from an undiagnosed misdiagnose or untreated mental health condition including ptsd so um they they called this before i got actual major depressive disorder and ptsd they called it unspecified depressive disorder i think an unspecified anxiety disorder so that kind of stuff would be uh on there so here's the list of everything and you click uh a box so if i was gonna do this and again i have a general discharge it's still honorable no point in uh upgrading it uh you know what i mean there's it's a waste of my time i don't i don't care um do you want to change your name discharge data anything written no i want to change only my character characterization of discharge reenlistment code separation code and the narrative so the narrative is what you're after here your the narrative is you did what you did and they kicked your ass out and you were 22 years old you didn't know what you're doing and you're up against the government you want to change the narrative reason for the underlying condition of the discharge was your discharge the outcome of a general court martial yes or no so a couple different lanes to go here most of the people i've been talking to um have not been mentioning general court martial so i'm going to focus on administrative stuff have you previously applied for and been denied a discharge and in most cases people it's kind of a mixed bag some people have tried some people figure there's nothing they can do so let's just go with no i haven't tried so review your answer uh air force discharge before 92 ptsd i only want to change the characterization and the narrative reason it was the outcome of a special or summary court martial i think it was called 35-10 for me i've never tried to challenge it and i completed a period of service but i didn't receive paperwork get my results and so you fill out this questionnaire and they'll give you a uh a path to go so for me in this scenario based on your answers you need a complete department of defense form 149 and send it to the board for correction of military records the bcmr for the air force they have one for each branch of the service and then it tells you uh download and fill out dod form 149. special pay special attention to item six you know do you have a condition did it get worse you know you start getting into these questions for you guys that are watching this that haven't even filed a va claim yet a lot of this language is very similar so i'm sure this is going to be uh um you know kind of foreign to you but you know get into the claim process and start learning the way the va talks and you know it's just kind of funny i scanned through here and this one popped up item 10 so you're willing to appear in person hell yeah i am i'll fly my happy ass out there and defend myself all day long this happened because of you and then of course if you would like help you could go to a vso a lot of people go to lawyer out i don't know if it's low or no cost i would uh you know that's a decision you're going to have to make i i don't know if i would use a vso personally because i'm never using one again i don't know if a lawyer is right for me uh most likely you just took what you got like i did um i could go fight mine on my own uh no problem i have the medical evidence i know how the va works but that's a decision you're gonna have to make um but they're trying to you know send you down the rabbit hole and these guys are not going to give you the medical evidence to back up your ptsd so they scroll through here your military record medical records buddy statements testaments to achievement since service you know issues with drugs and alcohol and bad behavior that's i still have that today mail in everything and uh all your supporting materials and they give you the uh address at a good old randolph air force base and um it says unfortunately you can't submit this one online i'm going to scroll back up here i saw something else oh yeah i just want to kind of look at the form here so you fill it out if this is a pdf so you can you know check stuff and put your name combat craig service number give them everything you know what character characterization do you have you know i have under honorable conditions general but doesn't matter because it's the same as honorable so it was an entry level separation and basic you fill this out accurately and you want to make sure your supporting evidence is solid so you're gonna have to get in here and learn this and if you're a conservator or a guardian or you're doing it for you know somebody that's incapacitated or deceased then you're the one that's gonna have to learn how to do this stuff um yes it's daunting uh just note um that if this doesn't get approved it's not like it's the end of the world you can go back and and try again uh not sure how fast bsos or how good they are doing this stuff and i'm sure lawyers are are good because it's law um but i don't know how long you know uh it will take them you know the point is is to get this thing filled out if you're watching this sometime in the future this dd2 form 149 december 2019 the previous edition is obsolete this is another little trick they like to do so if you're watching this in 2022 and they updated this form they can deny this whole request just because you didn't submit it on the right form so keep that in mind all right i didn't go into too much detail here i'm showing you what to do how to do it how to get the form you need where does where you need to send it to all right so that's what you have to do um you can get help you can figure this out on your own um but that's the process remember it's a narrative change you're not too trying to erase what happened you're trying to change the narrative once you get your discharge upgraded then you'll be able to file va disability claims check this one out i did a couple weeks ago about the top three easiest va disability claims to win based on the numbers that come from congress the vba reports these numbers to congress every year so this is last year's numbers that's why i know these are the top three most common and easiest to win