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1036 articles to help with your military transition
Expert guides covering VA disability claims, C&P exam preparation, military-to-civilian career transitions, retirement planning, state veteran benefits, and more. Written for active duty service members, reservists, and retirees navigating life after the military. Browse by category or search for topics specific to your transition.
IRRRL is the streamline refi (0.5% funding fee, no appraisal). Cash-out lets you pull equity or refi a non-VA loan into VA (2.15-3.3% funding fee). Side-by-side comparison.
Get your VA loan COE three ways: a lender's LGY portal (often instant), VA.gov, or mail with Form 26-1880. Documents needed and typical timelines for each.
VA Loan Technicians intervene with your servicer to negotiate forbearance, repayment plans, modifications, or compromise sales. They help even if your loan isn't a VA loan.
VA loans require you to occupy the home as primary residence within 60 days of closing and intend to live there for ~12 months. Spouse occupancy, deployments, PCS, and edge cases.
VA covers full maternity care, prenatal, delivery in a community hospital, postpartum, and 7 days of newborn care. Eligibility, the maternity care coordinator role, and what's not covered.
VA Solid Start representatives call newly-separated veterans at 90, 180, and 365 days post-separation to connect them with benefits, mental health resources, and crisis services. Take the call.
Free for every veteran
18 transition tools. Zero cost.
VA claims tracker, MOS translator, resume builder, career planner, budget tool — all in one place, all free.
VALife is the post-2023 replacement for S-DVI: up to $40,000 of guaranteed-acceptance whole life for service-connected veterans, premiums waived for total disability, eligible up to age 80.
Vet Centers offer free, confidential, walk-in counseling for combat veterans, MST survivors, and qualifying loss. VAMCs are the standard medical care system. Here's when to use which, they're complementary, not competitive.
VBOCs offer free 1:1 business counseling, training, and mentoring to veteran-owned businesses and prospective veteran founders. ~30 centers nationwide, funded by the SBA. How to find and use yours.
It's more common than people admit. What to expect, how to set the right structure without making them feel like a teenager again, and how to help without enabling stagnation.
240 days after separation, you lose the right to convert SGLI to VGLI without health questions. After that, you have until 1 year + 120 days with medical underwriting. The math and the consequences.
Post-separation anger is almost universal. What's underneath it, why family bears the brunt, and how to respond without escalating or absorbing it.
WHTT v3.0 (July 2025) is the VA + DOD training that walks separating women through gender-specific VA care, MST resources, maternity benefits, and the Women Veterans Call Center. Here's the overview.
A VA health coverage program for the spouses, surviving spouses, and dependent children of veterans rated permanently and totally disabled, or who died from service-connected causes. How it works, who qualifies, and why almost nobody applies until they need it.
The GI Bill funds education, not business startups, but there are specific programs that use GI Bill benefits for entrepreneurship training. Here's what qualifies and what doesn't.
If your MEB or PEB findings are wrong, you have legal rights to appeal. Here's the full appeal process, from rebuttal to formal hearing to Board for Correction of Military Records.
Deployment disrupts your financial life if you haven't prepared. Here's how to set up automatic payments, allotments, power of attorney, and banking access before you ship out.
Credit repair scammers target veterans and transitioning service members. Here's how to spot them, what they promise that's illegal, and how to fix credit the legitimate way.
Military OneSource's My License Office (MVLS) provides free, one-on-one help navigating professional license transfers for military spouses. Here's what it does and how to use it.
Most families think the VA caregiver program is for spouses only. It isn't. Parents, adult kids, siblings, and others can be approved as Primary Family Caregivers, and most don't realize the program could pay and support them for the work they're already doing.