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For nearly a decade, Army Veteran Geoff O’Neill fought to get his VA rating increased. His sleep apnea claim was denied 7 times, his claims paperwork grew to roughly 84 pages, and despite years of trying to navigate the process, he remained stuck at 80%.
Geoff retired as a Lieutenant Colonel after a 20-year Army career. Despite having almost no sick-call documentation from his time in uniform, he received an initial 60% VA disability rating. A later sinusitis claim connected to his deployment to Afghanistan brought him to 80%.
But two issues remained unresolved: a PTSD rating that had sat at 30% for years and the sleep apnea claim he had been fighting since retirement. Geoff even paid for a private sleep study in 2021, where he received a formal sleep apnea diagnosis, but he continued to struggle to prove service connection.
Geoff was still at an 80% VA rating when he joined the VA Claims Insider Elite Program in August 2026. Just six weeks later, he reached 100%.
This is his success story.
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A 20-Year Army Career
Geoff grew up in Virginia. During his freshman year of college, his father—a Navy Veteran who had served in Vietnam—became seriously ill and was unable to work. Suddenly, the way Geoff had planned to pay for school disappeared.
Then a letter from ROTC arrived.
Have you ever considered the exciting opportunity?
Suddenly, the answer was yes.
Geoff signed up, received a scholarship, and eventually put together what he calls a “piecemealed” 20-year Army career. His assignments took him to Germany with the 1st Infantry Division, to Bosnia, and eventually to Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, Geoff served as a Forward Operating Base mayor, responsible for the support structure of a FOB housing roughly 2,500 people. His responsibilities included dealing with the burn pits on the base.
He ultimately retired as a Lieutenant Colonel on July 31, 2016.
“I still am surprised,” Geoff says of the career that started with that ROTC letter, “because I had no intention of doing it.”
“You Never Went to Sick Call”
After two decades in the Army, transitioning back to civilian life was harder than Geoff expected. He’d spent much of his military career surrounded by other service members. Retirement meant suddenly leaving that community behind.
The transition also exposed another challenge as Geoff entered the VA disability process: he had almost no medical documentation from his years in uniform.
“You never went to sick call. Never,” he says.
He remembers injuring his ankle during a field exercise after jumping off a concrete slab into tall grass without seeing the broken cinder blocks underneath. He heard his ankle snap, laced his boot tighter, and kept going.
Later, on the first day of a five-day combatives course, he dislocated his shoulder. An instructor told him to hit it against a wall to pop it back in. Geoff finished the course even as his shoulder continued popping out throughout the week.
Neither injury produced a medical record.
“I had no notes, nothing,” he says.
Despite that lack of documentation, Geoff received an initial 60% VA disability rating around the time of his retirement.
But his VA claims journey was far from over.
From 60% to 80%—But Still Fighting
A couple of years after retirement, Geoff pursued a claim for sinusitis connected to his time in Afghanistan, where his duties as FOB mayor repeatedly brought him around the burn pits.
The claim was granted, bringing his overall VA disability rating to 80%.
But that’s where Geoff got stuck.
His PTSD had been rated at 30%, and Geoff believed that rating didn’t reflect what he was experiencing. He was also trying to establish service connection for his sleep apnea.
Geoff described waking suddenly at night unable to breathe, sitting upright like, in his words, “Dracula coming out of the coffin,” waiting for his airway to open. He had mentioned his sleep problems during his retirement physical, but no sleep study was ordered.
For years, Geoff kept trying to navigate the process—sometimes on his own, sometimes with a VSO, and sometimes with help from others.
In 2021, he paid for a private sleep study and received a formal sleep apnea diagnosis. But establishing service connection felt next to impossible.
Geoff’s sleep apnea claim was denied seven times.
Over the years, his claims paperwork (supplemental filings, denial notices, and supporting documents) grew to roughly 84 pages.
“84 pages of supplementals, rejections. Here’s this, here’s that,” he says.
For a long time, Geoff thought he could figure it out himself.
Eventually, he realized he was missing something.
“I had no guidance.”
By then, Geoff described the experience as “10 years of banging my head on the wall.”
A Referral That Changed His Approach
After years of trying to navigate the VA claims process, Geoff got his next lead from a fellow Veteran at a birthday party, who handed him a Post-it note with contact information.
“Call this guy,” the Veteran told him. “This guy helped me with my VA rating.”
Geoff decided to give it a shot.
He connected with VA Claims Insider, joined the Elite Program in August 2026, and was paired with his Veteran Coach Evan.
For Geoff, the way the referral happened reflected something he had seen throughout the Veteran community.
“Vets are passing information back and forth,” Geoff says. “One guy finds a good connection and if he’s a good dude, he’ll pass it on to the next one.”
“I’m Going in E1 Mode”
One of the first instructions his coach gave was simple: submit an Intent to File.
From there, Geoff says the process became much more focused.
“When I went through it, it was like boom, boom, boom,” Geoff says.
After retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel, Geoff had a simple way of describing his new approach:
“I’m going in E1 mode and I’m just going to follow every step my coach says.”
They focused on two issues: increasing Geoff’s 30% PTSD rating and establishing service connection for sleep apnea.
For the sleep apnea claim, Geoff pursued it as secondary to his already service-connected sinusitis, with supporting medical evidence that included nexus documentation.
His coach also helped Geoff prepare for his C&P exams and stressed the importance of being open and honest about what he was experiencing.
“I know you’re probably not going to be comfortable talking about this stuff with a stranger,” Geoff remembers his coach telling him, “but it’s imperative if you want this to work that you have to be brutally honest about what’s going on.”
“And that was hard,” Geoff says. “But he was right.”
Six Weeks After Years of Trying
As Geoff moved through the filing process, his Veteran Coach continued guiding him through each step. By September 16, the decision letter was available in Geoff’s VA account.
The VA increased his PTSD rating from 30% to 70% and granted service connection for sleep apnea with a 50% rating.
Geoff’s combined VA disability rating had reached 100%.
After nearly a decade of trying to get there, the contrast wasn’t lost on him.
“10 years of banging my head on the wall about it to try to get to 100,” Geoff says. “The whole process with you guys took 6 weeks. Done.”
When Geoff got the decision, he immediately called his wife.
“When I got the letter I called my wife and read it to her twice,” he says. “She’s like, ‘Read it again. What? What? 100?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’”
What Geoff Wants Other Veterans to Know
Looking back, Geoff says one of the biggest differences was finally having someone to help him navigate the process.
“I didn’t figure it out on my own because I had no guidance,” he says.
Since reaching 100%, Geoff has already passed his Veteran Coach’s contact information along to other Veterans.
His message to Veterans who are frustrated with the claims process is simple: keep going—but don’t assume you have to figure everything out by yourself.
“It’s worth it to keep going forward, but you need to have the right person with you.”
For Geoff, having that support was what had been missing during the years he tried to navigate the process on his own.
“Doing it on your own, unless you’re a ninja, it just doesn’t work,” Geoff says. “You know, you got to have some support. You gotta have some kind of crew around you that knows what they’re doing.”
And after his own decade-long journey, Geoff has one final message for fellow Veterans:
“Ultimately, you do deserve your benefits. You work for them. You should get them.”
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About the Author
Eric Webb
Eric has written and worked in the field of Veterans Disability since 2020 and enjoys writing educational content for the veteran population. His prior work has been published in the Official Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). He holds a Degree in Health and Exercise Science.
