Pin steps to your homepage

This is the whole road — every step, in order. Pin any step and it waits for you on your homepage, next to the lines you checked. Unpin it whenever you like.

Step -1Still serving? Go to sick call. Get it on the record now.
Step 0Check your rating.
Step 1Run the VA Math calculator.
Step 2Submit an Intent to File — hold your place in line for a year while you gather evidence.
Step 3Pull your medical and service records.
Step 4Fix your DD214
Step 5Check presumptive conditions — PACT Act, burn pits, Agent Orange, Gulf War.
Step 6Find a free accredited VSO. Never pay a claim shark.
Step 7Take the condition interview. Your worst real day, in your own words.
Step 8Read the exam-day guide. Two pages. Honest reporting only.
Step 9After your exam.
Step 10Sort your health care.
Step 11Protect Your Family — DIC, the 10-Year Rule & Service-Connected Heart/Lungs
Step 12Use your education benefits.
Step 13Your home — VA loan or adapted-housing grant.
Step 14Your state adds more.

Nobody hands you a map out of the service. We built one.

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WHO THIS IS FOR

This site was built by a combat vet for people documenting real damage from real service. If you're here to exaggerate, buy a rating you didn't earn, or get coached on what to say — fuck off, close the tab, the sharks are that way. If the job broke something in you — in combat, on a flight deck or a flight line, overseas, or across twenty years — you're in the right place. Especially if your first instinct is that you don't deserve to be. Document your real worst day. That's how you and your family get the benefits you deserve.

  1. Step -1: Still serving? Go to sick call. Get it on the record now.

  2. Step 0: Check your rating.

  3. Step 1: Run the VA Math calculator.

  4. Urgent Step 2: Submit an Intent to File — hold your place in line for a year while you gather evidence.

  5. Does VA consider you Homeless / At Risk?

    Claims backlogs are real, and they run months — sometimes years. One question can move yours to the priority pile.

  6. Step 3: Pull your medical and service records.

  7. Step 4: Fix your DD214

  8. Step 5: Check presumptive conditions — PACT Act, burn pits, Agent Orange, Gulf War.

  9. Step 6: Find a free accredited VSO. Never pay a claim shark.

  10. Step 7: Take the condition interview. Your worst real day, in your own words.

  11. Step 8: Read the exam-day guide. Two pages. Honest reporting only.

  12. Step 9: After your exam.

  13. Denied?

  14. Step 10: Sort your health care.

  15. Step 11: Protect Your Family — DIC, the 10-Year Rule & Service-Connected Heart/Lungs

  16. Step 12: Use your education benefits.

  17. Step 13: Your home — VA loan or adapted-housing grant.

  18. Step 14: Your state adds more.

DBQprep is an educational tool. Not a VSO. Not affiliated with VA, VBA, or VHA. Not a law firm. Nobody here files a claim.