It is such a prevalent scam that when I had a break in service in 2000 and went through my discharge physical, the physician at Patrick AFB was shocked that I wasn't trying claim every little ache as pain as service-related. When I told her anything medical that I had going on was the result of just getting old, she probed and probed increduously, trying to be certain.

We are an entitlement-minded society, and so long as Uncle Sugar stands there with a fistful of anything, people will take advantage of it. Separating troops get better counsel from their immediate chain of command on making sure they "document everything" than they do on how to best use their educational benefits, or write a resume. It's fairly sad, but yes, it's a huge elephant, gorilla, whatever in the room and our culture is corrupted from within.

Make no mistake that our wounded are identified and processed, but the system is backlogged from the cheats and the likes of folks who think they rate didability from a damaged hand that resulted from a mountain biking accident during the hours of weekly physical training. That's just one case I dealt with, and there are so many more.