question11796,
First, I don’t see the military giving you a medical discharge for unknown stomach pain. The military is not going to give you anything just because you can’t work, spend most days sick in quarters (SIQ) or spend most of you career on limited duty. In fact, I can see you possibly getting charged with malingering. But, the most likely route the military will take is to simply discharge charge you. They may give you an admin separation, with a good chance that it will be an honorable. If they do send you to an MEB, it will take about six month & you will most likely get 0%. This will give you a medical discharge and you will be eligible for severance pay. For you, that would be two months base pay. Once medically discharged, the military has no further obligation. However, the VA may pick this problem up & give you 10% to 20%. If you can get 20%, you become eligible for vocational rehab. If you qualify for this, you WILL loose your GI Bill. Ah, but the Voc Rehab is way better! This is 100% tuition & books free ride to college, plus $600 to $800 a month just to go to school. This money is tax free like all VA benefits. This amount is in addition to any other money received from the VA.
One small catch to VA disability pay & severance pay is that you won’t receive VA pay until the amount of VA pay withheld is equal to the lump sum that you received in severance pay. In reality, severance pay is only an upfront loan to what the VA gives you. It may take a short while for you to receive VA disability pay. But for someone that is an E-6 with 10 or more years, it will take several years to receive VA pay because they can get 30 to 50 thousand dollars in severance pay. Severance pay is 2x base pay x numbers of years active duty.
The best advice I have to offer is to be very careful. The fact that you have been sent home so many times, seen a number of doctors and no doctor has ever found any thing wrong reeks of malingering. NOT trying to imply you are, but from a distance, that is what it looks like. So, if confronted with malingering, I strongly suggest that you ask for an early separation with you honorable discharge. Then take your case to the VA & try your luck there. It would be best to attempt the MEB process simply to gain additional documentation of your medical problem, but that could also hurt your case too. It doesn’t look good to go to multiple doctors and multiple doctors can’t find a single problem. Even in this case, the VA may find a physical problem induced by mental causes.
To find out what the VA & the military will give you for any disease or injury, you have to look at the VASRAD codes. Both the VA & military are bound by these codes. It is very important to know these codes. This is what both the VA & the military look at when they assign a number. Contrary to popular believe, they don’t assign a number based upon how bad you are or the number of days you were on light duty or sick in quarters. However, if you meet the requirements of a high disability rating, and you continued to run, do PT, lift weights, Etc., the members reviewing your case will & can reduce your rating.
My advice is to hope for 20% only with the VA to make you eligible for Voc Rehab, but don’t try to push beyond that. I would not put too much faith in the military in giving you anything. But do be careful & get your Honorable, & try to get as much documentation as possible.
Good Luck, CeLaw
PS> I have been thru ALL steps in the MEB process
Also, try this link:
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1228/MR1228.ch3.pdf
And do a search on VASRAD codes! You need this info!