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Navy veteran Maverick Mears spent years navigating one of the most complex VA claims journeys you’ll ever hear.
Denied, blindsided, nearly broken, and at one point facing the loss of everything he’d already won.
In February 2026, after six years of fighting, he received the news he wasn’t sure he’d ever hear: 100% Permanent and Total VA Disability.
The Sailor
Maverick Mears grew up shaped by a family legacy of service. His grandfather served in the US Navy during World War II, attached to the USS Idaho — one of the first ships to enter Tokyo Bay after the war. The stories his grandfather told had a lasting impact on Maverick.
In high school, he joined the Naval Sea Cadets and volunteered at his local Navy recruiting office. After graduating, he tried a semester of college before deciding he needed to experience military life firsthand. He decided to enlist — signing his contract in 2013 and shipping out to boot camp in April 2014.
As a hospital corpsman, he trained at Fort Sam Houston before completing field medical service school and a greenside conversion with the Marines at Camp Pendleton. He enlisted as a reservist, completing his active-duty training pipeline before transitioning to his reserve unit. Assigned to an infantry unit, his service time was spent more in the desert, woods, and mountains than open ocean.
He served that way until June 2018, when the military took the decision out of his hands.
The Separation Nobody Told Him About
In early 2018, Maverick had a psychiatric episode while on active-duty status. His unit took him to the hospital. What followed showed just how badly the system can fail a veteran.
While he was checking in periodically with his unit — waiting for updates — his administrative separation was already being processed without his knowledge.
He never received a certified letter. Under military administrative separation rules, if more than 30 days pass after that letter is mailed, they can proceed without any response or input from the servicemember. Maverick never had a chance to defend himself — because he never knew he needed to.
In July 2018, he called his unit for an update. The response stopped him cold.
“The guy in charge of me was like, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’ve already been kicked out. And that happened last month.'”
His childhood dream was gone. He had no job, no car, no housing — and Hurricane Harvey had rolled through Houston just months earlier.
“It was soul crushing. That effectively killed my childhood dream right there.”
Learning the System from the Inside
Maverick eventually found work with Veterans Evaluation Services, one of the VA’s private disability contractors. Starting as a scheduler and moving into a quality analyst role in 2020, he began reading actual claim decisions and sitting inside the machinery of the system. He started to understand how it really worked — and that a denial wasn’t the end of the road.
He filed his first VA claims: for tinnitus and mental health. The tinnitus came back approved at 10%. The mental health claim was denied — despite the fact that he’d been hospitalized just months earlier.
“The VA said I don’t have a mental health condition, even though I’d just been hospitalized a few months prior.”
He tried again in 2020 with a sharper understanding of the process. Denied again — this time the VA said they couldn’t find his records.
He reached out to a Veterans Service Organization (VSO) for help. That experience made things worse. As a reservist, he felt dismissed from the start — an assumption that reserve service meant lesser entitlement. They actively tried to talk him out of filing.
“They actually actively tried to discourage me from filing, saying, ‘You don’t have a case, this is a waste of time.’ But I insisted on it.”
His VSO filed an appeal to the Board of Veterans Appeals on his behalf in August 2020. It seemed like progress. It wasn’t. That appeal would take six years to resolve.
Breaking Point
By 2022, Maverick was still sitting at 10%, financially strained, and running out of runway. COVID had frozen the claims system for a stretch, making things worse. He eventually reached a point where he couldn’t see a way forward.
He got to a place dark enough that he considered ending his life.
But if he was going out anyway, he wanted it to mean something.
The Ukraine-Russia war was dominating the news, and volunteering to fight for Ukraine felt like the most purposeful way to spend whatever time he had left. He started selling his car and whatever else he could, with plans to leave the money behind for his mother. He applied to programs that would help him get there.
None of them came through.
He was still here, still stuck, and still at 10%.
It was through a Marines-only veteran group that he found the way forward. A fellow member — who also happened to work as a Veteran Coach at VA Claims Insider, an education-based coaching company for disabled veterans exploring eligibility for increased VA benefits — mentioned the Elite Program.
The pitch was simple: it can cost money if you win, but you get what you pay for.
With nothing else working and nothing to lose, Maverick decided to give it a try.
Joining VA Claims Insider
He joined the VA Claims Insider Elite Program in 2022 with a 10% VA rating. The first meeting with his Veteran Coach immediately changed the tone.
“The attitude that [my coach] had was a complete 180 from my experience with the VSO. [My coach] took the time to listen to me; he was very candid, very empathetic. And he provided a wealth of knowledge that the VSO had definitely been keeping from me.”
Maverick soon filed a supplemental claim for mental health supported by private medical exams. It was approved on the first try, at 70%.
For Maverick, that number changed everything. The financial pressure that had been suffocating him for years finally had a release valve.
Building the Case
From 70%, the work continued. Secondary to his mental health, Maverick was dealing with chronic headaches — initially rated at 0%, then pushed to 10%, then 30%. A jaw condition documented during his active-duty service was service connected as well. Combined, those claims pushed his rating from 70% to 80% and eventually to 90%. But the last 10% felt impossible.
Denial after denial of documented conditions. Private contractors who, in Maverick’s experience from working inside the system, sometimes didn’t fully review medical records. When he was later transferred to Veteran Coach Jenn, he found someone who matched his persistence — strategic and steady through every setback.
“After denials over the years, you want to give up. You think — I’m already at 90%; what’s another 10% going to do? But we continued strategizing, and she encouraged me to get back on my feet every time those denials came in.”
The Rug Pull
In August 2024, Maverick had his first hearing before a Veterans Law Judge. He was simply trying to recover backpay for a two-year gap — the period between when he originally filed his appeal in 2020 and when his mental health claim was finally service-connected in 2022.
The judge told him the gap couldn’t be addressed the way he’d filed. She suggested he file a claim for Clear and Unmistakable Error (CUE) instead.
He did. Months later, a letter arrived from the VA.
They weren’t granting his back pay. They were proposing to sever his mental health service connection entirely — taking him back to 10%.
“Here I am, years of dealing with this process, thinking life’s getting better, I’m going to make it — and here the VA comes in saying they’re going to cut it off.”
He told his Veteran Coach. VA Claims Insider doesn’t handle Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA) cases, but she stayed with him anyway — helping him keep his footing, reminding him that the documentation was solid, and the law was on his side.
He filed a disagreement. The VA ordered more C&P exams. All of 2025 was spent grinding through that process.
“It was one of the most stressful years of my life.”
100% P&T
In February 2026, the letter finally arrived.
Service connected. Backdated to 2020. 100% Permanent and Total.
“That was definitely thanks to me getting care at the VA, but also all the private exams and medical opinions I had throughout the years — because that all helped the judge make their decision.”
His Message to Other Veterans
Maverick doesn’t sugarcoat his advice.
“Pride — being afraid of what other people are going to think — is a hurdle. Your pride won’t get your bills paid. No one cares at the end of the day how you got your disability, as long as you went through the correct route. You’re only doing yourself a disservice by not claiming what you’re entitled to. Because these are entitlements.”
And after everything he went through, he wants every veteran to hear this:
“The VA compensation system can be a literal life-saver. There’s no reason not to utilize every resource available to ensure you’re thoroughly prepared when navigating the process.”
Your Story isn’t Over
Maverick’s path to 100% P&T took six years, two coaches, multiple denials, a proposed revocation, and more C&P exams than most veterans will ever face. He almost walked away more than once.
But he never quit. And in February 2026, after six years of fighting, the VA finally got it right.
YOU SERVED. YOU DESERVE.
If you’ve been denied, discouraged, or told your case isn’t worth filing, you don’t have to figure it out alone. Talk with our team and get a clear plan for your next steps.
Or read more real veteran wins in our full collection of VA claim success stories.
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.
