HadIt.com

Veteran-run claims knowledge base and community · Founded 1997 by Theresa “Tbird” Aldrich, Navy veteran (VAQ-34, 1983–1990)

The veteran-to-veteran institution of the VA claims world: free since 1997, no lawyers, no paywalls. Step-by-step filing guides, C&P exam and DBQ explainers, a backpay calculator, a searchable Board of Appeals decisions database, rate charts back to 1975 — and, increasingly, original data journalism and oversight coverage that treats VA’s own numbers as evidence. Its community forum carries more than 400,000 posts of veterans answering each other.

Why we carry them. HadIt is the claims-side record of the same system this site documents from the care side. When HadIt counts it, we cite it.

Start here — their essential work

• What 194,541 Board Decisions Show About How VA Appeals Are Decided (2026-10-06) — Every Board decision VA posted for 19 months, sorted: 49% of service-connection issues remanded — most often because VA’s own exam was inadequate.
• The $35 Billion Countdown: VA Disability Compensation and the 2035 Population Cliff (2026-07-11) — VA’s own population model projects a fifth fewer veterans by 2035 — and roughly $35 billion a year less in compensation reaching their communities.
• The Records Burned in 1973. In These Three Cases, the Appeals Outlived the Veterans. (2026-10-22) — VA revised its instructions for claims built on records destroyed in the 1973 St. Louis fire — fifty-three years on. Three widows carried the appeals.
• VA Using AI to Write Your Medical Records (2026-01-15) — HadIt’s investigation into AI-generated VA medical records, and the oversight warnings around them. Read it next to any family’s chart.
• PACT Act Claim Denied? What VA’s Inspector General Found — The OIG found processing errors in about 45 percent of the PACT Act presumptive denials it reviewed. What to check, and how to ask for a second look.
• VA Processed 3.1 Million Claims. But How Many Did It Get Right? (2026-10-17) — A record processing year, measured against VA’s own accuracy data — whole-claim accuracy down, Higher-Level Reviews up.
• The 30-Year Pattern — VA Design-to-Fail Timeline, 1991–2026 — Thirty-five years of the same failures, on one timeline. The long view behind every pattern on this site.
• VA Community Care Spending Crisis — What the community-care build-out costs, and what it buys — the program every family in a care fight eventually meets.
• How to File a VA Disability Claim: The Complete HadIt.com Guide (2026-08-25) — The filing guide: service connection, Intent to File, effective dates, VA math, and pay — the one to hand a veteran who has never filed.
• Survivor Benefits — VA Families — What a family is owed when the veteran dies — DIC, accrued benefits, and substitution — in plain language.

The latest

• The Records Burned in 1973. In These Three Cases, the Appeals Outlived the Veterans. (2026-10-22)
• VA Processed 3.1 Million Claims. But How Many Did It Get Right? (2026-10-17)
• 2027 VA Disability COLA: 3.6% Announced, Pending Congress (2026-10-15)
• What 194,541 Board Decisions Show About How VA Appeals Are Decided (2026-10-06)

Gathered weekly from their own pages and feeds by the Wire scan.

Summaries are ours. The work is theirs — we link to it, we don’t lift it. Visit HadIt.com →