Service record
Enter your branch, service dates, and deployments once. Burn pit and Gulf War presumptives key off these dates.
Start here
See the gap.
A rater does not read your story. They read your words against a list of criteria. This shows you the list.
Keep going
There are three more tools.
Secondary condition mapper, personal statement builder, and a reader for your rating decision. Enter your email and they open. No password, no card, nothing to cancel.
Built from experience
I learned the system because I had to.
Ruck is owned and operated by a disabled Coast Guard veteran who spent years navigating and learning the VA system on his own.
Ruck is the process I wish I had when I started: a clearer way to organize what happened, what is wrong now, and what still needs to be connected.
Your claim is still yours. Ruck does not represent you, file for you, or tell you what VA will decide.
What Ruck does
Start with what you know.
Ruck walks the same ground a claim does. Start with your service and what is wrong, compare your own words against the rating schedule, look for connected conditions, understand the exam and the file in front of you, then put it all in one place and take it to someone who can help.
What's wrong
Build your full condition list in plain words. Add everything, including things you are not sure are connected yet.
Claim strength
Track which conditions have service connection, a current diagnosis, and a nexus established. See where the gaps are.
Read the list
See the rating criteria in plain language and which parts your description supports or leaves open.
Check the connections
Map recognized medical pathways from conditions that are already service connected.
Use your own words
Shape a short personal statement from what you actually remember, without adding facts.
Know the exam
See what is on the examiner's form before you walk in, and what the Board most often finds wrong with those exams.
Read your file
Paste one section of a decision or exam and get a plain-language readout. It is discarded after analysis.
Pack your ruck
Put everything you worked through into one page you can print and bring to a VSO or your doctor. Nothing is saved, so print it before you close the tab.
Beta
Free while in beta
Ruck is free to use right now and there is nothing to buy. If that changes, it will change for new work only and you will know before it does, not after.
Contact
Get in touch
For anything that is not a question about your own rating: press, partnerships, a bug you found, a VSO or firm that wants to talk, or a correction to something the tool got wrong.
info@ruck.vetI cannot give advice on your specific claim or tell you what you should be rated. That is what an accredited VSO is for. VA keeps the official directory and it is free to use.