Is ex entiled to disability payment

Question:

Hi Jim, I'm a 70% disabled vet. Married for 28 years, living in Illinois, and going through a divorce. No one around here seems to understand VA disability payments. My military time was prior to my marriage, i was med boarded by the Navy so i did not retire from the service. I received my first disabilty rating also prior to my marriage.  Is my spouse entitled to part of my VA disabilty in the divorce? Wouldn't these circumstances be a pre marriage event? This topic is so confusing.

Jim's Reply:

Once we enter into divorce court, nobody really cares that much about our past military service. That just isn't a part of the here and now of the divorce. Divorce in America today is largely "no-fault" and the court doesn't have the time to listen to everyone's tale of what happened when. The court will usually accept that the parties each want to separate and the court then decides who owes what to who. The court doesn't care where each party gets income from, the court just wants to know the facts of how much each side has coming in. It doesn't matter if income is from Lotto winnings, a high or low paying job or VA disability payments, it's all income to the court. Using the information that the court asks for the judge will make a determination of things like alimony and child support. The court doesn't assign or garnish your VA benefits or disability payments to your soon to be ex-spouse, the court just assigns a number...the amount owed no matter where you get the money from.