How we research and write

Most VA information online is either dry and official or slick and selling something. We built this site to be neither. Everything here is written to be understood on the first read and backed by the same law and official figures the VA uses. This page tells you exactly how we do that, so you can trust what you read and check it for yourself.

Who writes this

Boots to Benefits is veteran-owned, written from lived experience navigating the VA disability system, under the byline The Navigator. That means it comes from someone who has filed, waited, read the letters, and worked the process, not from a marketing desk. Lived experience is where the plain-English voice comes from. It is not, on its own, where the facts come from. For the facts, we go to the source.

Our sourcing standard

Every factual claim on this site is grounded in a primary source, meaning an official government record, not another blog. The sources we build on are:

• Title 38 of the Code of Federal Regulations (38 CFR), read directly on the eCFR. This is the actual law raters apply, from combined-ratings math to secondary service connection.
• VA.gov for how to file, the decision-review lanes, presumptive conditions, and current rate tables.
• Other official .gov sources where a topic reaches beyond the VA, such as the IRS on taxability of benefits, the Department of Labor and OPM on federal employment and hiring, and DFAS on pay and offsets.

We link these sources inside our guides so you can open them and confirm the rule yourself. We do not treat law-firm blogs, VSO posts, or other independent sites as the rule of record. They are useful for framing a topic, never for establishing what the regulation says. When a source is illustrative rather than binding, we say so.

How we fact-check

Before a guide goes live, we compare each rating rule and each figure in it against the current regulation or the current official rate page. If a guide says a value rounds a certain way, or that a condition rates under a specific diagnostic code, that statement is checked against 38 CFR as it reads today, not against how it read in an older article or how another site summarized it. If we cannot ground a claim in a primary source, it does not go in.

Updates and corrections

Regulations and rates change, so a guide that was right last year can drift out of date. Every guide carries a visible date, and we revise guides when the underlying rule or figure changes. When we correct a substantive error, we fix the guide rather than quietly leaving it wrong.

If you spot something that looks off, tell us. Email [email protected] with the page and what you think is wrong, and we will check it against the source and update it if you are right. Reader corrections make the site more accurate for the next veteran who reads it.

Our honest scope

This is education from a veteran. It is not legal advice, it is not the VA, and it is not a law firm or an accredited representative. We can explain how the system works and what the rules say. We cannot tell you what to file on your specific claim, argue your case, or stand in for a representative. For that, work with a free VA-accredited representative or a Veterans Service Organization. Accredited VSOs like DAV, VFW, the American Legion, and PVA help you at no cost, and we point you to them in every guide because that is the right first stop for advice on your own situation.

How the site is funded

The guides are free and stay free. We keep the writing independent by keeping the funding simple: the site is supported by an optional paid tool, the VA Claims Copilot, for veterans who want to run their own numbers and prep. Nothing you read here is steered by a sponsor, because there are no sponsors, and our guides are affiliate-free. We would rather earn your trust with accurate free help than sell you a number.

Why this standard exists

The veteran benefits space is full of sites that hype the 100 percent rating like a jackpot and route every reader toward a fee. We went the other way on purpose. Free, accurate, genuinely readable, honestly cited, and not trying to sell you your own benefits. If a guide ever falls short of that, hold us to it at [email protected].