Are you a veteran or a service connected disabled veteran? Do you know your eligibility catagory?
My catagory is 1. I did 31 years and went straight on the Perminent Disabled Retired List (PDRL) upon retirement because of a VA disability rating. (I did my homework and had a complete medical examination/evaluation before retirement).
VA disibility ratings are not automatic. When I had a procedure related to my service connected disability, I had to apply to a VA disability board to verify the procedure warranted an increase in my disability percentage.
Now days retirees have to keep current with VA evaluation methods. To draw concurrent retired pay and VA compensation pay your VA rating must stay at 50% or higher. Everyone higher than 50% is a category one. 50 - 99% used to be category 2.
http://americasveterans.org/categories.html