The retirement pay you earned —
restored.
CRSC Packet Preparation for Military Retirees · All Branches
Getting CRDP as a 20-year retiree?
CRSC can make that same money tax-free — plus backpay. For many retirees that’s thousands of dollars a year that stops going to the IRS and stays in your pocket.
Chapter 61 / medical retiree only getting a VA check?
CRSC can restore your military retirement on top of your VA pay — typically $800 to $3,900+ a month, tax-free, for life. Many start at $0 and recover their whole retirement check.
“Combat-related” covers more than combat: hazardous duty, training that simulated war, vehicles, weapons, rucks and body armor.
You do not need a Purple Heart. You do not need a deployment. You need a packet that proves causation. Standfast builds that packet — vet to vet, flat fee, never a percentage of your backpay.
Not sure if this applies to you? Take the 30-second check · or start with the free Starter Kit
Three steps. No pressure at any of them.
Take the 30-second CRSC check — or book a free review.
Either one tells us where you stand. No cost, no documents, no obligation.
We identify whether your situation is worth reviewing.
On a free 15-minute call, we look at your retirement type, rating, and conditions — and tell you straight.
If there’s a fit, we recommend the right path.
Packet review, full packet prep, or reconsideration — flat fee, published prices, your call.
Which retired military situation sounds like you?
I’m a Chapter 61 medical retiree
Medically retired before 20 years — the VA waiver may be taking most or all of your retired pay.
Why it matters: CRDP generally isn’t available under 20 years, so CRSC may be your only restoration path.
Check If Your Retirement Type FitsI’m a 20-year retiree already receiving CRDP
You’re getting CRDP automatically — but it’s taxed, and CRSC is not.
Why it matters: For combat-related conditions, the after-tax math may favor CRSC — and it’s worth running.
See If CRSC Fits My SituationMy CRSC claim was denied
A denial doesn’t always mean the condition wasn’t combat-related — sometimes the packet didn’t prove causation.
Why it matters: You generally have one year from the decision to request reconsideration.
Review My DenialI have VA-rated conditions from combat, training, aircraft, vehicles, weapons, burn pits, or rucks/body armor
Hazardous duty and instrumentality-of-war categories cover far more than most retirees think.
Why it matters: You don’t need a Purple Heart — you need the right category and the evidence to prove it.
Take the 30-Second CRSC CheckAll Branches. One Standard.
Standfast prepares CRSC packets for retirees of every U.S. military branch — Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. Each branch runs its own CRSC board, with its own decision cadence and its own preferred narrative format. We work each board's rhythm.
Branch logos are shown for identification only. Standfast Veterans Group is not affiliated with the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Coast Guard, VA, DFAS, DoD, or any government agency.
The short answer: CRDP is taxable. CRSC is not. For retirees whose worst-rated conditions came from combat, hazardous duty, or training that simulated war, CRSC can pay more in gross dollars too — and the backpay reaches back years.
Most retirees on CRDP leave thousands of tax-free dollars unrecovered every year because CRSC isn't automatic. You apply.
Read the full CRSC vs. CRDP breakdown →The law that gives back what the VA Waiver took.
By federal statute, your military retirement pay is offset dollar-for-dollar against your VA disability compensation. That offset is called the VA Waiver. For combat-injured retirees, it can quietly cost $15,000 to $30,000+ a year.
Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) is the law Congress passed to fix it. CRSC is a tax-free monthly payment, paid for life, that restores the dollars the VA Waiver took — for conditions that came from armed conflict, training simulating combat, hazardous duty, or instrumentalities of war.
The catch: CRSC isn't automatic. You apply through the Human Resources Command of your branch, and you have to prove every condition was combat-related. First-time denials are common — usually because causation wasn't documented in the way the board needs to see it.
- Monthly retired pay (gross): $3,200
- VA disability rating: 70% (≈ $1,716/mo)
- Result: $1,716 of his $3,200 retired pay is waived. He receives the $1,716 from the VA tax-free instead.
CRSC restores the waived portion attributable to combat-related conditions as tax-free monthly pay — and reaches back to the date of eligibility as a tax-free lump sum.
Medically retired after an IED blast, with fewer than 20 years of service — so he couldn't fall back on CRDP, and the VA Waiver had already taken his retirement to nothing.
- Retired pay before CRSC: $0/mo — fully waived, and not eligible for CRDP at 16 years
- With approved CRSC: ≈ $1,800/mo — 100% of his retired pay restored, tax-free, for life
- Backpay: none yet — but his packet includes Soto preservation language, positioning him to claim retroactive pay back to his 2018 retirement if a future ruling lifts the cap
Money he was getting $0 of — now paid in full, tax-free.
Published with written client consent; name changed for privacy. Monthly figure approximate (based on rank and years of service). Individual results vary; CRSC outcomes are determined by your service branch's CRSC board.
And for retirees rated high enough that the VA Waiver offsets their entire retired pay — common at higher combined ratings — CRSC can make effectively their whole retirement check tax-free, on top of their already tax-free VA compensation.
"Combat-Related" is bigger than most retirees think.
CRSC recognizes four categories of combat-related causation. You do not need a Purple Heart — or even a deployment — to qualify under all four:
Armed Conflict
Direct engagement with enemy forces. Firefights, ambushes, IED strikes during combat operations.
Even one documented incident can carry a packet.
Hazardous Duty
Parachute, dive, demolition, flight deck operations.
Does not have to occur in a combat zone — or even during a deployment.
Training That Simulates War
Live-fire exercises, force-on-force, MOUT, CALFEX, NTC/JRTC rotations.
Stateside training counts.
Instrumentality of War
Injury caused by a weapon or equipment of war used in a manner consistent with military operations. Breaching concussion, vehicle rollovers, weapon-system exposure.
Includes body armor and ruck wear — years of accumulated load injuries count.
You may qualify if all three are true.
CRSC isn't for everyone — but if you check all three boxes below, it may be worth 15 minutes to find out what a packet could recover. Not sure? Take the free 30-second eligibility quiz — or book a free consult for a straight, experience-based read.
You are a military retiree receiving retired pay.
20-year retirees, Chapter 61 medical retirees (any years of service), Reserve retirees drawing pay, and TERA retirees may all qualify. CRSC restores dollars lost to the VA Waiver — which only applies if you're receiving military retired pay. Veterans who separated (ETS) without retiring are not eligible for CRSC, regardless of VA rating.
You have a VA disability rating.
Any compensable rating (10% or higher) on at least one combat-related condition. The VA service connection is the foundation CRSC builds on.
At least one condition is combat-related.
Caused by armed conflict, training simulating war, hazardous duty (parachute, dive, demolition), or instrumentality of war (IEDs, weapons concussion, body armor and ruck wear).
All three apply to you? That's enough to justify a 15-minute call. We'll spend the time looking at your specific conditions and tell you straight whether the packet is worth building.
Three flat-fee services. Published prices. Never a percentage.
Every engagement starts with a free 15-minute call where we tell you straight whether we believe the evidence supports a packet — before any money changes hands. We don't take cases where the evidence isn't there.
What's at stake: CRSC pays at official VA compensation rates — $796 to $2,362 per month for combat-related ratings of 40–90%, and over $3,900 at 100% with dependents. Tax-free, for life. Ten years of a mid-range award is roughly $190,000.
Rates: VA.gov, effective December 1, 2025. Your amount depends on your combat-related rating and retired-pay offset.
What the alternatives cost you
- Percentage-based firms: typically 25–40% of your backpay. On a $100,000 award, that's $25,000–$40,000 — taken from money you're owed for your injuries.
- VSO (free): no fee, but national VSO offices commonly run 60–180 days out for intake, and CRSC is rarely their specialty.
- DIY: free in dollars. Standfast's founder spent 200+ hours and 277 pages building his own packet. Most retirees who try this either give up or submit a packet that gets denied for documentation gaps.
Packet Review
- Line-by-line review of your DD 2860 and Block 13 narratives
- Evidence gap analysis
- Written report with prioritized fixes
- 30-minute debrief call
Full Packet Prep
- Full intake interview & service-history review
- VA Rating Decision analysis & condition mapping
- All Block 13 combat-causation narratives written
- Buddy-statement coordination
- Cover letter & enclosure assembly
- Submission-ready PDF + filing guidance
- 1 free refile within 90 days if your packet is denied (subject to refile policy)
Reconsideration
- Decision letter analysis
- Targeted evidence rebuild (nexus letters, buddy statements)
- Reconsideration letter drafted to denial reasoning
- One-year statutory deadline tracking
The team behind your packet.
A combat-injured Infantry retiree who built his own CRSC application from the ground up. A 25-year enterprise change-management leader with Dell and ExxonMobil program scope exceeding $500M. A doctorally-trained nurse practitioner whose nexus letters bridge medical evidence and disability law. Three skills your packet needs — lived expertise, operational rigor, and clinical credibility.
Loy O'Kelley
I retired from military service after serving as both enlisted and officer in the U.S. Army, with two combat tours in Afghanistan, a Combat Infantryman Badge, and eighteen VA-rated conditions from those years.
When I sat down to file my own CRSC packet, I learned exactly how brutal the process is — and how easy it is to lose tens of thousands of dollars to a single weak narrative or missing enclosure. So I built the packet the way it should be built. 277 pages. Every condition documented. Every causation chain proved.
Standfast exists because the next retiree shouldn't have to figure it out alone. We bring that same discipline to your packet — vet to vet, plain-spoken, no shortcuts.
"Standfast" is a military command. It means hold your position. Don't break. We named the company after it because that's the posture you need when you're up against a system that makes denial the path of least resistance.
Robert Kelley
Robert's career has been spent on a single throughline: helping people navigate complex, high-stakes transitions they didn't ask for. At Dell and ExxonMobil, that meant $500 million in enterprise transformation programs touching 100,000+ employees across 30+ countries. At Standfast, it's the same craft applied at a much more personal scale — one combat-injured retiree at a time, walking through what your service is owed and how to actually recover it.
At Standfast, Robert leads Client Development. The intake call most clients have with the firm is with him; the relationship he builds carries through the engagement. The same discipline that kept billion-dollar deployments on track now anchors how Standfast handles a single retiree's packet — the calm of the first conversation, the structured evidence checklist, the steady cadence of updates while HRC adjudicates, the decision-letter walkthrough.
"You don't manage a $500 million deployment by hoping it works out. You don't file a CRSC packet that way either."
Dr. Carrie Caldwell Johnson, DNP, APRN, FNP-c
Dr. Johnson brings more than 26 years of clinical practice as a Family Nurse Practitioner and Doctor of Nursing Practice to Standfast's leadership. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the owner of Caldwell-Johnson PLLC, a medical-legal consulting practice based in Waco, Texas. Her academic appointments have included Texas A&M University and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.
Her clinical specialty is the place where medicine meets disability law: comprehensive medical evaluations to determine service-connected disabilities, independent medical opinions, record reviews, and the medical "Nexus" letters that establish the link between a veteran's current condition and their service. Her academic specializations in chronic disease, disability, and genetics anchor every opinion she provides in current evidence-based practice.
As Chief Nursing Officer, Dr. Johnson currently advises on the medical evidence and clinical narrative components of Standfast's CRSC packets — making sure the medical story in your file is as defensible as the legal one. As Standfast expands into VA disability claims preparation, her clinical leadership and nexus-letter expertise will anchor that practice line.
A strong CRSC or VA packet doesn't just need the right forms. It needs medical evidence that a clinician would defend — written in the language a reviewer is trained to look for. That's the standard Dr. Johnson sets.
What our clients tell us, in their own words.
Every name below has given written consent to be quoted. First name and last initial only, with branch and years of service for context. We don't share case-specific dollar figures unless the client asks us to.
I'd been losing $2,300 a month to the VA Waiver for nine years and didn't know there was a way to get it back. Loy walked me through CRSC in fifteen minutes on a phone call, told me straight he thought I had a case, and then his team built the packet exactly the way he said they would. Approved on the first round. The backpay alone changed what retirement looks like for me and my wife.
I'd been on CRDP for six years and assumed CRSC wasn't worth the paperwork. Robert spent twenty minutes on my intake call running the tax math out loud — turned out CRSC netted me more even before the backpay. Standfast's flat fee was less than one month of what the percentage firms wanted to charge me. Clean process. Honest people.
I got medically retired at eight years and figured CRSC was for the 20-year guys. The free consult was the first time anyone explained that I was actually eligible. What sold me on Standfast was the Records Handling page — they named the three people who would see my files and exactly how they'd be stored. Nobody else I called could answer that question.
First firm I hired took 30% of what they promised in backpay and submitted a packet that got denied flat. Standfast charged me a flat $1,500 for reconsideration, rebuilt the causation narratives from scratch, and the board approved on the second look. I wish I'd called them first.
The VA Waiver had taken my retired pay down to almost nothing, and I figured that was just the way it worked. Standfast proved every one of my combat-related conditions and the board approved it — about $1,800 a month, tax-free, for the rest of my life. I tell every retiree I know to call Loy before they do anything else.
Twenty-plus years in and already on CRDP, I assumed there was nothing left to claim. Standfast ran the math and built the CRSC packet that made my retirement tax-free — roughly $14,000 a year that stays in my pocket now instead of going to taxes. Flat fee, never a percentage, and they treated a colonel and a young sergeant exactly the same.
Individual results vary. CRSC outcomes are determined by your service branch's CRSC board. Standfast does not guarantee approval, rating percentage, or backpay amount. Quotes published with written consent; some names changed at the client's request.
From your first call to your submitted packet.
Free Intake Call
15 minutes · same week
We confirm eligibility, review the conditions, and tell you straight whether you have a case worth pursuing.
Records Review
1–2 weeks after enrollment
You send your DD 214s, VA Rating Decisions, and any prior CRSC correspondence. We map every condition to a CRSC category.
Packet Build
4–6 weeks for full packet
We draft your DD 2860, all Block 13 combat-causation narratives, the cover letter, and assemble enclosures. You review every word before it goes out.
Submit & Stand By
HRC decision typically 90–180 days
You submit. We provide the calendar of follow-up checkpoints and stay on call for HRC questions during adjudication.
Ready to start? It begins with a free 15-minute call.
No cost. No obligation. Vet to vet. We'll tell you straight whether you have a CRSC case worth pursuing.
Want to understand CRSC cold? Start with the book.
Standfast's founder wrote The CRSC Playbook after building his own 277-page packet — the same method we use for clients, in plain language for retirees who'd rather file on their own. Eligibility self-checks, the four combat-related categories, Block 13 narrative templates, and the post-Soto backpay rules, start to finish.
Want to start free first? Work through the free tools and worksheets or take the 30-second eligibility quiz. Available now on Amazon — just $9.99 on Kindle.
Common questions.
Schedule your free 15-minute consult.
Independence Day rates locked for all consults booked by July 4th — even if your packet starts later.
Pick a time below. You'll get an instant confirmation and a calendar invite. We'll call you at the time you choose.
Prefer to send a message first?
Use the form below and we'll respond within one business day.
Tell us a little about your situation.
The form on the right is your intake. Send it and we'll respond within one business day with a 15-minute call slot. There is no cost and no obligation.
PHONE:
(830) 266-7140
EMAIL:
intake@standfastvg.com
HOURS:
Mon–Fri 0900–1700 CT • Closed federal holidays