Our troops are currently conscripted. Backdoor draft. My hubby is a veteran...but he's also still active duty and he has NO CHOICE but to remain active duty. He can't quit the army and he can't retire; not until the stop-loss is lifted & the army says he can go.
Until then, he gets NOTHING for being a veteran; only his regular active duty pay.
IF he were wounded badly enough, THEN he would get anywhere from 0% to 100% medical disability, and either allowed the option to quit or be kicked out. Many wounded vets don't want to leave the military, as they can't afford to, but that's not always a choice up to the veteran.
An example; Shoshana Johnson was a POW during the invasion and shot in both her ankles; she was allowed to leave the army, decided to do so, and gets 30% of her army pay as medical disability. A private in the US army makes base pay of apx $1000/month (I don't have the base pay website URL handy for me to look up the actual base amounts, but can do later) so 30% of that to live on? And disabled?
Good luck.
When soldiers retire, they get retirement pay, X amount of what their base pay was when they were active duty. If they're also on medical disability, they DON'T get both; the amount of med dis is deducted from their retirement pay.
U.S. veterans face a greater chance of becoming homeless than the general population, say experts. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, a study released in 1999 found that while veterans count for 9 percent of the entire population, they are nearly 23 percent of the homeless population and 33 percent of the adult male homeless population.
The US Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) estimates that 275,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, and over 500,000 veterans are homeless during a year.
http://home.att.net/~vet_updates/homeless.htm
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