Wally Nunn: The disability explosion isn’t about more combat

A common explanation for today’s soaring number of disabled veterans is simple and comforting: modern war is harder, and more troops are exposed to combat.

The data say otherwise.

The explanation lies less in who we send to war and more in how the military disability system itself has evolved over the past half-century.

When Vietnam was at its peak in 1968–69, roughly 30 to 35 percent of U.S. military personnel served in what could fairly be called combat jobs, including infantry, artillery, engineers, and combat aviation. Today, even when combat aviation is included, the comparable share is about 25 to 30 percent, slightly lower rather than higher.¹ Combat roles are an imperfect proxy for exposure, but they remain the most consistent measure available, and they show no increase sufficient to explain what follows.

Yet disability outcomes have diverged dramatically. 

Of the service members leaving the military in 1969, only about ten to fifteen percent ever received Veterans Administration disability compensation. For those leaving service today, the best available evidence indicates that 60 to 70 percent will eventually receive a disability rating.² That represents a four- to six-fold increase.

This gap cannot plausibly be explained by combat exposure alone. The structure of the force has not changed enough to justify it.

The real drivers are institutional.

In 1969, post-traumatic stress disorder did not exist as a formal diagnosis. It would not be recognized until 1980. Veterans with psychological injuries were often labeled malingerers, alcoholics, or simply “unfit,” and many never applied for benefits at all. Medical records were sparse, stigma was high, and presumptive eligibility for service-connected conditions was rare.³

Today, the system is almost the inverse. PTSD is a standard diagnosis, claims assistance is robust, medical documentation is extensive, and Congress has steadily expanded presumptive eligibility, from Agent Orange to burn pits. In fiscal year 2024 alone, nearly 1.6 million veterans were rated for PTSD, representing roughly a quarter or more of all compensation recipients, depending on how the data is counted.⁴ 

The issue here is not the legitimacy of PTSD as a condition. It is the breadth of its diagnostic criteria and its central role in modern eligibility standards.

Equally important, the modern disability system actively shapes behavior at the point of separation. Service members are routinely advised, by peers, claims counselors, and veterans’ service organizations, that filing for disability compensation is a normal and expected part of leaving the military. The process is organized, assisted, and framed less as a request for exceptional relief than as a benefit one would be imprudent to forgo. This shift does not require dishonesty. It reflects a system whose definitions and procedures make claiming both accessible and rational for a far broader share of veterans than in earlier eras.

The result is a widening gap between “service-connected” and “functionally disabling.” 

Many conditions that qualify under current standards involve ordinary wear, stress, or transient impairment, rather than lasting loss of capacity. That distinction matters, not as a moral judgment about veterans, but as an institutional one. A system that does not clearly differentiate severity will predictably produce higher participation and higher cost, even among good-faith claimants responding reasonably to the rules they are given.

Combat aviation highlights the change. Helicopter and attack aircrews in Vietnam were among the most exposed troops in the war, yet few received disability benefits in the 1970s. Their modern counterparts, facing comparable stress but far lower casualty rates, are now routinely diagnosed and compensated. This contrast is instructive because it isolates system change while holding mission type largely constant.

These institutional changes carry predictable fiscal consequences. In fiscal year 2000, the federal government paid roughly $24 billion in VA disability compensation and pension benefits. By 2024, that number had risen to over $160 billion annually, a nearly seven-fold increase that far outpaces inflation, population growth, or the size of the active-duty force.

None of this implies fraud, weakness, or bad faith by veterans. It reflects a system that has fundamentally changed how it defines injury, proof, and entitlement. But clarity matters. If disability rolls have expanded primarily because of policy and diagnostic change, rather than because the military has become more combat-heavy, then public debate should be honest about that reality. 

How we define disability shapes not only cost, but how resources are prioritized, how recovery is encouraged, and what we mean when we compensate for loss.

There is, however, an important truth that deserves to be said plainly. Today’s service members shoulder a burden that is different from — and in some ways heavier than — that borne by earlier generations. 

The modern U.S. military is far smaller and entirely volunteer, yet it is tasked with maintaining a global footprint that never sleeps. The consequence is repeated deployments for the same men and women, often with little time to reset between them. 

That strain radiates outward. Spouses carry families alone for months at a time. Children grow up with long absences etched into their memories. Marriages are tested not once, but again and again. These pressures are real, human, and costly — and the nation owes its service members and their families respect for enduring them. But they are not the same thing as increased combat exposure, and they do not, by themselves, explain the extraordinary growth of disability compensation. Recognizing modern sacrifice does not weaken the analysis. It makes it honest.

This is not a story about tougher wars.

It is a story about a different system.

Wally Nunn served as a door gunner with the 174th Assault Helicopter Company in Vietnam.

Footnotes 

1. Department of Defense / Defense Manpower Data Center occupational data (modern); Vietnam-era manpower distributions from DoD Selected Manpower Statistics and Stanton, Vietnam Order of Battle.

2. DoD separation data; VA Annual Benefits Report – Compensation (FY2024); VA longitudinal studies on timing of first awards.

3. American Psychiatric Association, DSM-III (1980); VA historical eligibility standards.

4. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Annual Benefits Report – Compensation, FY2024.