Author's note: This response discusses suicide, death, and the emotional harm that can follow reckless media coverage. Some veterans, spouses, and children—especially those receiving Chapter 35 education or survivor benefits—may find this article upsetting.

The Washington Post has taken aim at millions of America’s veterans, their spouses, and their children in what can only be described as a reckless and partisan attempt to smear President Trump’s Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”).

The Post’s first of its “investigative series” portrays VA disability compensation as rife with exaggeration and fraud. Its second narrows in on military-veteran pilots with disabilities—ignoring long‑documented reporting disincentives and the regulatory complexity around the Federal Aviation Administration’s (“FAA”) medical certification process. The logical result is fear, confusion, and stigma—especially for spouses and children using Ch. 35 benefits. One social media user asked the right question: 

“When does coverage like this cross into tortious harm?”

Time will tell. For now, a growing number of Veterans Service Organizations (“VSO”) nationwide are uniting to defend the communities The Post’s recklessness has harmed, including—but not limited to: The Veterans Education Project, Combat Veterans of America, Special Operations Association of America, and Paralyzed Veterans of America.

Both articles use a handful of egregious cases (e.g., one veteran pretending to be blind and a professional bodybuilder’s false claims) to imply widespread disability fraud across the nation, casting suspicion on millions of veterans and, by extension, their families. But there are several glaring problems with The Post’s smear campaign:

First, spouses and children are off limits. The vast majority never enlisted for the stress, separation, and instability that military life demands—yet they endure it all the same. They should never have been made to feel fear, anxiety, or guilt for accessing education, health, or survivor benefits they deserve.

Second, while The Post’s data were drawn from legitimate FOIA litigation, The Post’s analysis itself is drenched in editorial bias. The reporters substitute their personal judgment for professional industry insight—suggesting, for example, that erectile dysfunction or sleep apnea should not qualify for compensation—without consulting medical specialists, VA clinicians, Veterans Service Organizations, or lawyers.

Third, and most corrosive of all, the Post’s “investigation” turns veterans against one another, soliciting disability “tips” through encrypted apps and transforming a shared covenant—and reverence—of service into pure spectacle. It mistakes sensationalism for journalism, and in doing so, cheapens journalism, public trust, and the VA’s mission.

That is why this first response—part of a broader defense series—will do what The Post did not: explain how federal rulemaking and veterans’ benefits actually work. The conditions and benefits The Post mocked were not the product of any one administration but of decades of bipartisan law, scientific review, and rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”).

Defense of Military Spouses and Children

Your benefits are not in danger; your school status is safe; and your parents are heroes.

The Post may have sown fear with its insinuations, but no article—no matter how sensational—can rewrite federal law. Chapters 33 and 35 of Title 38, U.S. Code, were created by Congress to protect veterans’ families through education benefits grounded in federal statute, not politics. Chapter 33, the Post-9/11 GI Bill, extends education support to service members and certain dependents as an earned entitlement. Chapter 35, Dependents’ Educational Assistance, provides the same promise to spouses and children of those permanently disabled or lost in service. These programs are established by Congress, administered by VA, and funded by mandatory appropriations—well beyond the legal reach of clickbait headlines.

The Origin and Legacy of Chapter 35

The Survivors’ and Dependents’ Educational Assistance Program (DEA)—the same benefit The Post dismissed as “free health care and up to $60,000 each for college or trade school”—was created by the War Orphans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1956 (Public Law 84-634), “for the purpose of providing opportunities for education to children whose education would otherwise be impeded or interrupted by reason of the death of a parent from a disease or injury incurred or aggravated in the Armed Forces…” pg. 411, PL 84-634.

The Post’s framing implies that families of disabled—injured—veterans are too privileged to merit such support, particularly if the veteran works full-time or if their underlying disability is any combination of what The Post frames as “minor.” That view is ahistorical, defamatory, and wrong. The 84 th Congress designed DEA to ensure surviving spouses and children could attain the education and stability their families would have enjoyed had service not resulted in disability, missing, or death.

Codified at 38 U.S.C. ch. 35, the program remains a solemn promise: the cost of service should never extend to the futures of those left behind. Changing the law would require an act of Congress. The Post also ignores why the Americans with Disabilities Act exists at all: a long history of discrimination against disabled veterans in the workplace, which The Post has now astonishingly brought back full circle.

DEA by the Numbers

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs 2019 Annual Benefits Report, more than 128,000 spouses and dependents received Survivors’ and Dependents’ Educational Assistance (DEA) under Chapter 35—a 17 percent increase from fiscal year 2018 and approximately 15 percent of all VA education beneficiaries that year. With typical annual growth across VA programs, the number of dependents now likely exceeds 150,000 nationwide. In short, roughly one in six VA education beneficiaries today is a surviving spouse or child pursuing a degree, certificate, or skilled-trade credential—an enduring investment in America’s workforce and higher-education system.

At institutions such as Duke University, where the VA’s GI Bill Comparison Tool reports roughly 530 students using VA education benefits (as of 2025), applying that same 15 percent ratio suggests around 80 are Chapter 35 dependents—the spouses and children of disabled or fallen veterans. Their presence on campuses nationwide reflects deliberate national policy: every expansion of DEA was debated, enacted, and funded by Congress, not granted by chance or charity.

The American Public’s Will

Federal benefits like Chapter 35 are built in plain sight, through the same process that governs every corner of public law: legislation, publication, and accountability. When Congress acts, the country is notified; when VA implements, it does so in the Federal Register. On July 31, 2025, for example, VA issued a Final Rule (90 FR 35965; RIN 2900-AS30) amending 38 C.F.R. § 21.4020 to implement Section 401 of Public Law 112-154, the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012. That statute had already raised the aggregate limit on combined education entitlements under 38 U.S.C. § 3695 from 48 months to 81 months for dependents using Chapter 35 benefits in combination with other VA education programs. The 2025 rule simply aligned VA’s regulation with that congressional mandate. That is how the system works: Congress sets the policy, agencies carry it out, and every word is published in the Federal Register for the nation to see.

When Journalism Forgets Its Oath

The Post’s dataset may come from bona fide FOIA litigation, but its write-up reads like a pure opinion piece. It elevates “hair loss, jock itch, toenail fungus, hemorrhoids, acne, benign growths, varicose veins” to caricature veterans’ claims, then contrasts “sleep apnea” payouts with amputations—as if VA’s rating schedule were a punchline. The rating schedule is a legal instrument built through decades of statute, rulemaking, and case law.

Take hair loss, the first on the Post’s not-worthy-of-compensation list. The VA expressly—and through its M21-1 Manual—bars service connection for male-pattern baldness (androgenetic alopecia) under 38 C.F.R. § 4.118 but recognizes scarring alopecia (DC 7830) and alopecia areata (DC 7831) when first manifested in service. VA’s adjudication manual states it plainly:

“Do not grant SC for male pattern baldness or androgenetic alopecia.”

Federal regulations and VA manual updates distinguish congenital from service-related conditions—a distinction the Post never mentions.

On July 13, 2018, VA issued a Final Rule revising the entire skin schedule (RIN 2900- AP27; 83 Fed. Reg. 32592), following public notice and comment. Two commenters specifically challenged the alopecia criteria: one urged compensation for loss of scalp hair as an exposed area; another sought a higher rating for women due to greater social and financial impact. VA responded:

“The rating schedule is based on loss of wage-earning capacity, and no reliable evidence establishes significant occupational impairment with loss of body hair, or that occupational impairment is greater in women than in men with scarring alopecia… VA will not revise the final rule based on these comments.” (83 Fed. Reg. 32595)

Yet The Post lists ailments its editors alone deem unworthy, from eczema to tinnitus. Each appears in the VA Schedule with its own diagnostic code, evidentiary threshold, and regulatory history. To dismiss them as “minor” is to ignore seventy-five years of statutory oversight and medical review. It is not journalism—it is reckless, uninformed, and—simply—bad writing.

The Signal That Should Alarm Us All

The Post’s “investigation” turns veterans against one another, inviting readers to submit “disability tips” through the encrypted Signal app. A paper that claims to defend transparency is now encouraging civilians to inform on the very people who defended them. It is an invitation to suspicion, not accountability. No agency asked for this— not the Department of Veterans Affairs, not the Department of Justice, nor any Inspector General. Yet The Post has effectively deputized its readers to decide who is “disabled enough,” armed with nothing more than petty gossip, moral vanity, and heavily editorialized VA data. The result will not be reform; it will cause a cascade of false and exaggerated reports, targeted harassment and retaliation towards veterans, and, sadly, an ever-deepening mistrust in our neighbors, our friends, and our fellow countrymen.

Matthew Feehan is a former U.S. Army Reserve Captain and combat veteran who later served as a DOJ Honors Law Clerk and Senior Operations Officer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A graduate of Western New England University School of Law, he has worked across federal contracts, regulatory compliance, and veterans’ policy—and has seen the system from every angle: as a Civilian, Contractor, and Servicemember. He currently serves as Senior Policy Advisor for the Veterans Education Project and is a founding member of Combat Veterans of America (CVA), where he serves as Sergeant- at-Arms, a new-generation VSO dedicated to reform, accountability, and truth in advocacy. Feehan writes on law, governance, and the moral cost of bureaucratic decay—with a voice shaped by leading infantry soldiers in a combat zone and speaking truth in Washington. Matt can be reached via email at media@combatvetsofamerica.org.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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