I was in the Army, I was discharged in 2018, my MOS was 11B and did deploy to Iraq in 2017. I had no sick call history because I always "toughed" it out, and truthfully its frowned upon as a infantryman to seek medical attention (atleast in my unit) unless you were SERIOUSLY hurt. The only thing I had on record was a incident while deployed that involved some back and hip injury.

That was all, and I never thought it was worth filing a claim for because I read without proper records it would be hard to get any decision in your favor.

12/2021 I filed for the sake of trying because my back and other issues still bothered me. I gave it a shot and thought if it goes well, great, if not, oh well.

Did my exams, initially got 40%, by end of claim and decision, this month 7/2022 claim was closed and was rated at 80%.

I didn't use any VSO and self filed. Honestly, if you have issues and can connect them to any incident while in the military I'd say try anyways.

I actually read a story of the same situation on reddit, not sure what subforum, that's what made me give it a shot. Hope anyone in the same situation gives it a shot and gets what one deserves.

God bless.