Information verified through August 10, 2026.
The answer up front
Yes — a training injury can be combat-related for Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC), even if you never deployed and never heard a shot fired in anger. "In the performance of duty under conditions simulating war" is one of four independent routes to a combat-related determination under 10 U.S.C. § 1413a(e)(2)(C), and the Department of Defense spells out what it covers in the DoD Financial Management Regulation, Volume 7B, Chapter 63, § 6.3 (current version June 2024):
Read that second sentence again. This is the only one of the four combat-related categories that comes with a written exclusion list — and that single sentence decides more of these claims than anything else in the file.
- Training injuries are a named, independent path to CRSC. No deployment, no armed conflict, no Purple Heart.
- The regulation names eleven activities by category — war games through obstacle courses — and says "such as," so the list is illustrative.
- It also names four exclusions: calisthenics, jogging, formation running, supervised sport activities.
- The fight in this category is almost never about the law. It's about how the medic wrote it down.
- Some events fit more than one category. Pick the lane your records actually support.
One structural point first: CRSC's four routes — armed conflict, hazardous service, conditions simulating war, and instrumentality of war — are alternatives, not a checklist, your service branch (not the VA) decides, and each rated condition is judged separately. We cover the full framework in our guide to where CRSC packets die, and this category's two closest neighbors in the hazardous-duty guide and the instrumentality-of-war guide.
What the regulation actually names
Group the eleven named activities and the category comes into focus. It is describing the training that puts a service member under conditions a combat environment would produce — stress, speed, live ordnance, height, contact, and the friction of a tactical field environment.
Field and tactical training
- War games and tactical exercises — force-on-force rotations, CTC rotations at NTC, JRTC, or Hohenfels, MOUT/urban training, field training exercises.
- Practice alerts — recall and readiness exercises, EDRE, gear-and-go drills.
- Airborne operations — training jumps conducted as part of an operation or exercise.
Weapons and ordnance training
- Grenade practice — live and practice grenade ranges, grenade house.
- Live fire weapon practice — qualification ranges, crew-served and live-fire lanes, blank-fire and simunition iterations.
Close-combat and confidence training
- Bayonet training and hand-to-hand combat training — combatives programs of every generation.
- Repelling — the regulation's spelling of rappelling: rappel towers, fast-rope, cliff and helicopter rappel.
- Leadership reaction courses, combat confidence courses, and obstacle courses — including the confidence/water obstacle courses in initial-entry and leader schools.
Because the regulation says "such as," activities of the same character can qualify even without a name on the list. A live-fire breach, a night land-navigation lane in a tactical field environment, a gas-chamber iteration inside a CBRN exercise — none of those appear verbatim, and all of them are arguable on the same logic. What you cannot do is argue your way past an item on the exclusion list.
The exclusion list is the whole ballgame
Calisthenics. Jogging. Formation running. Supervised sport activities. Those four are out, by name.
That matters far more than it looks, because of how military medicine documents injuries. A soldier hurt on a leadership reaction course at 0600 during a field problem and a soldier hurt on a 0600 unit run frequently produce the same sick-call note: "onset while running, PT." If that is the only contemporaneous record, the board reads the note it has — and the note it has is on the exclusion list.
We see this pattern constantly in denied packets. The event was a qualifying one. The paperwork described it in excluded terms. The claim was not defeated by the regulation; it was defeated by shorthand.
A related trap: unit sports. Battalion football, a command PT competition, an organized-athletics injury — even one that happened downrange — is excluded here, and Army Human Resources Command's own guidance separately rules out sports injuries and ordinary wear from boots, rucks, and body gear. Deployment location does not convert a softball game into a tactical exercise.
What the board still has to see
Sections 6.2 and 6.4 of the regulation each contain an express causation sentence — hazardous service requires the "direct result of actions taken in the performance of such service," and instrumentality of war requires "a direct causal relationship." Section 6.3 carries its requirement inside the phrase "disabilities resulting from military training," read together with the statutory language that the disability be incurred in the performance of duty under those conditions.
Practically, that means a simulating-war claim has to answer three questions on paper:
- What was the activity? Named in the regulation, or of the same character. Identify it precisely: "day 4 of an FTX, squad live-fire lane," not "training."
- Was it in the line of duty? Scheduled, ordered, supervised military training — not personal time.
- Did it produce the rated condition? A documented event, contemporaneous with the injury, tied to a specific VA diagnostic code.
And the evidence standard is the same across all four categories. DoD requires determinations based on "the preponderance of available documentary information where quality of information is more important than quantity," resting on "credible, objective documentary information" rather than "personal opinion, speculation, or conjecture." An uncorroborated statement in a record that a disability is combat-related "will not, by itself, be considered determinative." The burden sits with the applicant.
Choosing the right category when an event fits more than one
Overlap is common in this category, and the choice is worth thinking about rather than defaulting.
Airborne operations — simulating war or hazardous service?
Airborne operations sit in the simulating-war list, while parachute duty sits in the hazardous-service definition. A routine proficiency jump is a natural hazardous-service fit. A tactical airborne insertion inside a field problem often reads better as simulating war, because the exercise itself is documented in orders and unit records rather than resting on duty status alone.
Live fire — simulating war or instrumentality of war?
If the injury came from participating in the range — a fall on the lane, heat injury under load, blast overpressure from your own crew-served weapon in a tactical exercise — simulating war is the natural lane. But if a weapon or munition itself caused it, the regulation's instrumentality-of-war provision expressly reaches "wounds caused by a military weapon" and "injury or sickness caused by fumes, gases, or explosion of military ordnance." A charge that cooked off, a weapon that malfunctioned, a vehicle rollover during the exercise — plead those as instrumentality of war, which does not carry an exclusion list.
You are not limited to one theory. Where the records genuinely support two categories for the same condition, say so on the form and explain both. What sinks packets is choosing a lane the records don't support and never mentioning the one they do.
The evidence that carries these claims
The single most valuable document is the service treatment record from the day of the injury, describing the training event by name. Everything else corroborates it.
A note on statements: a buddy statement or a personal narrative cannot carry this category alone — the regulation says an uncorroborated statement is not determinative. Statements work when they explain a contemporaneous document, not when they substitute for one.
What this means for military retirees
The threshold gates apply regardless of category: you must be a military retiree entitled to retired pay — including Chapter 61 medical retirees and Reserve and Guard retirees drawing retired pay — with VA-rated service-connected conditions and a VA waiver reducing that retired pay. Our eligibility guide walks those gates. Where you file depends on your branch: Army, Navy and Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, or Coast Guard.
On the money: there is no CRSC pay chart. CRSC pays the lesser of the VA-rate value of the conditions your branch approved as combat-related, or the retired pay you waived — with a further limit for Chapter 61 retirees at what a longevity retirement would have paid. Two illustrations at verified 2026 VA rates (effective December 1, 2025):
Illustration 1 — 22-year retiree, the VA-value side binds
High-3 of $5,600 and 22 years of service, so his longevity retired pay is 55% × $5,600 = $3,080, and his 80% VA compensation ($2,102.15, veteran alone) is fully waived. His branch approves a knee, a shoulder, and a lumbar condition — all tied to documented FTX and combatives events — combining to 60% combat-related, worth $1,435.02. That is the lesser figure, so that is his tax-free monthly CRSC. The rest of his 80% rating, not combat-related, adds nothing.
Illustration 2 — Chapter 61 retiree, the longevity cap binds
Medically retired at 9 years with a high-3 of $4,400. Longevity-equivalent pay is 9 × 2.5% × $4,400 = $990. His branch approves conditions combining to 60% combat-related, worth $1,566.02 at 2026 rates with a spouse. The Chapter 61 cap controls, so his CRSC is $990 — about $576 a month less than a "chart" would suggest. Compute this cap first: once it binds, additional approved conditions add nothing to the monthly figure.
These are illustrations, not predictions. Here's how the lesser-of rule works in detail, and the CRSC calculator will run your own numbers.
On back pay: Soto v. United States (605 U.S. 360, No. 24-320, decided June 12, 2025, unanimous) struck down the six-year limit on retroactive CRSC. DoD guidance issued in August 2025 and January 2026 reimposed limits tied to application dates; on May 14, 2026, DoD rescinded those limits and directed the branches to apply the statutory effective date and to review and correct affected awards. Those reviews fix effective dates only — they do not add conditions that were denied or never claimed, and they do nothing for a retiree who never applied. Related litigation, including Ploe v. United States and Carey v. United States, remains open. See our back-pay guide.
What you should do now
- List your training events by name and date — rotations, ranges, jumps, combatives cycles, air assault or rappel training, confidence and obstacle courses.
- For each VA-rated condition, write one sentence naming the event — "left shoulder — thrown during combatives, Level 1 course, Fort Riley, June 2009." If you cannot name an event, that condition needs work before it goes on a form.
- Pull the STR pages from those dates and read the actual wording. If the note says "PT" or "running" for a qualifying event, look for other contemporaneous documents — the training schedule, an LOD, a safety report — that establish what was really happening.
- Check for a stronger category. If a weapon, munition, or military vehicle caused it, instrumentality of war may be the better lane.
- Run the numbers before you file. Use the calculator; Chapter 61 retirees compute the longevity cap first. If you were denied before, a review of what the first packet lacked is where reconsideration starts.
Frequently asked questions
Can a training injury qualify for CRSC if I never deployed?
Yes. Conditions simulating war is an independent route under 10 U.S.C. § 1413a, written specifically for military training. No deployment, no armed conflict, and no Purple Heart is required. The regulation names war games, practice alerts, tactical exercises, airborne operations, leadership reaction courses, grenade and live fire weapon practice, bayonet training, hand-to-hand combat training, rappelling, and combat confidence and obstacle courses.
Do PT injuries or unit sports injuries qualify?
No. This is the only combat-related category with a written exclusion list: calisthenics, jogging, formation running, and supervised sport activities are expressly out. If your record describes the injury as occurring during PT, a unit run, or unit sports, that wording alone will generally defeat the claim in this category — even if it happened downrange.
Does rappelling or combatives count as combat-related?
Both are named. FMR Volume 7B, Chapter 63, § 6.3 lists bayonet training, hand-to-hand combat training, and "repelling" — the regulation's spelling of rappelling — among qualifying activities. A documented injury during scheduled combatives or a rappel iteration fits on its face, provided the record ties the rated condition to that event.
Do National Guard and Reserve training injuries qualify?
The category itself does not distinguish between components. Annual training, a drill-weekend field problem, or a qualification range can meet the definition if the injury occurred in the line of duty during a qualifying activity. Separately, the retiree still has to meet CRSC's threshold rules, which for non-regular retirements generally means actually receiving retired pay, typically at age 60.
How much would an approved condition pay?
There is no CRSC pay chart. CRSC pays the lesser of the VA-rate value of your approved combat-related conditions or your waived retired pay, with a longevity cap for Chapter 61 retirees. Run an estimate with the calculator — a starting point, not a promise.
The bottom line
The military spends most of its peacetime rehearsing war, and it breaks people doing it. DoD recognized that in writing: eleven kinds of training that count as combat-related without anyone ever crossing a border.
What makes this category different is that its hardest question isn't legal — it's documentary. The regulation drew a bright line between training and physical fitness, and the person who decided which side your injury landed on was a medic writing three lines at sick call fifteen years ago. Your job, before you file rather than after a denial, is to find out what they wrote — and where the record is thin, to bring the training schedule, exercise order, or line-of-duty investigation that puts the event back in context.
If your records name the event and connect it to a rated condition, you have the makings of a real claim. If they don't yet, that's the work to do first. We're glad to look at what you have — flat fee, never a percentage, and the first conversation costs nothing.
Sources: 10 U.S.C. § 1413a, subsec. (e)(2)(C) and the Chapter 61 limits at (b)(3); DoD Financial Management Regulation, Volume 7B, Chapter 63, "Combat-Related Special Compensation" (current version June 2024), §§ 5.2, 6.1–6.4 (comptroller.war.gov); DoD CRSC Revised Program Guidance and Attachment 1-1, "Determinations of Combat-Relatedness" (militarypay.defense.gov); U.S. Army Human Resources Command CRSC guidance; DFAS CRSC pages; Soto v. United States, 605 U.S. 360, No. 24-320 (June 12, 2025); NVLSP, "Soto v. United States and Retroactive Combat-Related Special Compensation" FAQs (April 2026), including the Ploe v. United States class-certification filing (March 13, 2026); VA 2026 disability compensation rates, effective December 1, 2025.
This article is provided for general educational purposes and is not legal advice, financial advice, or a guarantee of CRSC eligibility, approval, effective date, or payment amount. Rules, guidance, and implementation procedures can change. Veterans should verify current requirements with their military department, DFAS, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or an appropriately accredited representative.