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Dustin Homan

U.S. Army Veteran (2011–2015)

Dustin Homan

United States Army

Former U.S. Army paratrooper turned software engineer. Dustin saw firsthand how difficult it is for veterans to navigate the VA disability system and joined VA Disability Hub to help change that.

"The VA system shouldn't require a decoder ring. If I can jump out of planes, I should be able to figure out my own benefits — but it took way longer than it should have."
— Dustin Homan

About Dustin

I served in the United States Army from 2011 to 2015 as an Airborne paratrooper. The military taught me a lot of things — discipline, how to stay calm under pressure, and how to operate in environments where the stakes are real.

What it didn’t prepare me for was the VA.

After I separated, figuring out what I was eligible for, how ratings worked, and what the claims process actually looked like felt harder than it needed to be. The information existed, but it was buried in legalese, scattered across a dozen different websites, and written for people who already understood the system. If you didn’t know what to search for, you weren’t finding it.

I went into software engineering after the Army. Building things that solve real problems is what I do every day. When Kory showed me what he was putting together with VA Disability Hub, it clicked immediately — this was exactly the kind of tool I wished I’d had.

Why this matters to me

I’ve watched fellow veterans leave money on the table because they didn’t understand how combined ratings work. I’ve seen guys skip filing for secondary conditions because nobody told them those conditions could be connected to their service. And I’ve talked to people who gave up on appeals because the process felt designed to wear them down.

None of that is acceptable.

The information veterans need to make good decisions about their benefits shouldn’t be locked behind confusing regulations or gated by paid services. It should be clear, accurate, and free.

What Dustin brings to VA Disability Hub

I contribute to this site as both a veteran and a software engineer. That combination means I can look at content through two lenses: does the information actually match what veterans experience, and is the site itself built well enough to deliver it clearly?

Specifically, I focus on:

  • Veteran perspective review — Making sure content reads the way a real veteran would need it to, not the way a policy manual would describe it
  • Technical contributions — Helping build and improve the tools and features that make complex VA math accessible
  • Accuracy checks — Cross-referencing content against the CFR and current VA policy to make sure we’re not leading anyone astray
  • Claims process clarity — Drawing on my own experience navigating the system to flag areas where the site could do a better job explaining what to expect

Know something we're getting wrong?

If you've been through the VA process and something on this site doesn't match reality, I want to hear about it. The whole point is to get this right.