Questions
Is this free?
Yes. There is nothing to buy and no card required.
Are you VA accredited?
Not yet. An application is in with VA's Office of General Counsel. Until it is granted, Ruck cannot represent anyone and does not try to.
Do you file my claim for me?
No. Ruck shows you what a rater looks for. You file it yourself through VA.gov or with a VSO.
Should I still use a VSO?
Yes, if you can get one. They are free, they are accredited, and they can do things Ruck cannot. There is a link on the site to VA's official directory.
Is this legal advice?
No. It is a research tool. It cannot tell you what you will be rated and it does not try.
What happens to what I type?
What you type is sent to our server for analysis and then it is gone from our servers — not written to a database, not kept after the response. Your condition names and saved tool results stay locally in your browser. When you generate a statement draft, its five answers are saved here too so you can resume editing. Anyone using the same browser profile may see them. Use Clear saved results in the tools footer to remove saved results and statement answers. Gap descriptions and pasted file sections are not saved. Full detail on the privacy page.
Can you see my claim information?
No. Your descriptions and file text are not stored on our servers, so there is nothing to look at. Your condition names and results live only in your browser's local storage.
Is my information used to train AI?
Analysis runs on Anthropic's API, whose commercial terms say API inputs are not used for training. Nothing is stored on our end either way.
What if I paste my Social Security number by accident?
Ruck checks for that before anything is sent and stops you. Do not include it. It is never needed.
What do you do with my email?
Tell you when Ruck changes. Nothing else. Never sold or shared. Email info@ruck.vet to have it deleted.
How accurate is this?
It reads the rating criteria in 38 CFR Part 4 and compares them to what you describe. It gets things wrong. There is a feedback button on every result and it gets read. Check anything important against the regulation yourself or with a VSO.
Can Ruck tell me if my nexus letter is any good?
No. It can tell you what is in the letter and what is not, measured against what VA's own manual requires. Whether an opinion holds up is a judgment VA makes, and a letter with everything in the right place can still be rejected on the merits. What the tool is useful for is finding out before you file that your opinion never names a single record it reviewed.
Why did you build this?
Because filing alone took a year of reading regulations to understand something that should have been explained on day one.
Who is behind it?
Built by a Coast Guard veteran who filed his own claims and spent a year learning how the rating criteria actually work. Contact is at info@ruck.vet.
What is M21-1?
It is VA's internal manual telling its own staff how to process claims. It is not law, and 38 CFR controls when they conflict. It matters because it shows what VA is supposed to do procedurally, which is different from what the rating criteria say. Ruck currently includes one section of it, on what makes an examination report insufficient.
Does Ruck coach me on what to say at my C&P exam?
No. It shows you what is on the examiner's form and what they are measuring, so nothing surprises you. It does not tell you what to say. Exaggerating is detectable and can damage your whole claim. The more common problem is veterans downplaying their symptoms out of habit, and the exam tool is built to help with that instead.