How to Fill Out and Submit DD Form 2860: CRSC Application

To fill out DD Form 2860, download the current version from the Washington Headquarters Services forms site, complete the personal, service, and disability sections, describe how each claimed condition ties to armed conflict, hazardous duty, simulated war, or an instrumentality of war, and mail the signed form with your evidence package to the review board of the branch you retired from.¹ The form is short. The evidence and the narrative you write for each disability are what decide the claim.

Before You Start: Confirm You Qualify and Gather Your Records

Two things must already be true before the form makes sense to file. You must be in a retired status through 20 or more years of active service, the Temporary Early Retirement Act, a Chapter 61 medical retirement, or Reserve/Guard retirement once you reach pay age. And the VA must have rated you at 10% or higher on at least one service-connected condition, with your DoD retired pay currently reduced by the VA waiver.²³ If nothing is being withheld from your retired pay, there is nothing for CRSC to restore.

Civil service retirees who waived military retired pay for civil service credit, service members not yet retired, and Reserve members who retired under 10 U.S.C. § 12731b with fewer than 20 years for a non-line-of-duty disability are not eligible.⁴

Pull these documents together before opening the form. You will refer to them as you write.

Every DD Form 214 and DD Form 215 you have, not only the retirement one.²
Your retirement orders or your retirement DD 214.⁵
Your complete VA rating decisions: the decision letter, the rating decision pages themselves, and the VA code sheets. A summary letter is not enough.³
Medical records that show how, when, and where each claimed injury occurred.⁴
Award citations and their supporting narratives: Purple Heart, Combat Action Badge or Ribbon, valor awards, DA 638 recommendations.²
Official service records tied to the incident: After Action Reports, Line of Duty investigations, investigative reports, personnel actions, evaluations.²
For any secondary condition, a VA rating decision or medical record that names the primary condition it flows from, in plain language such as “hypertension is secondary to diabetes.”⁵

Understand What the Board Is Looking For

Your branch of service, not the VA, decides whether each disability counts as combat-related. A VA service connection alone will not carry the claim. The condition must fit one of four categories.⁶

Armed conflict: injuries from direct enemy action such as gunshot wounds, IED blasts, or ambush injuries. A Purple Heart is strong but not the only accepted evidence.
Hazardous duty: injuries during flight operations, parachute jumps, diving, demolition, and similar high-risk military work.
Simulation of war: injuries during training designed to replicate combat, such as live-fire exercises, field maneuvers, or hand-to-hand combat training. Routine physical activity that happened to occur during a field exercise does not qualify.
Instrumentality of war: injuries caused by equipment unique to the military and used for its intended military purpose, including combat vehicles, weapons systems, and agents such as Agent Orange.⁶

Some presumptive conditions travel with a recognized exposure and are treated as combat-related on that basis: Type II diabetes with Agent Orange, fibromyalgia with Gulf War service, leukemia with radiation. A non-presumptive condition that developed as a secondary result of a presumptive one can also qualify if the secondary link is documented.⁶

Conditions that develop naturally, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma, gout, and kidney stones, are generally not combat-related even when service-connected. Being in a combat zone when something happened does not make it combat-related either; the cause has to be enemy action or a qualifying military activity.⁶⁴

Filling Out the Form Section by Section

The current form is on the Washington Headquarters Services site.¹ Every field matters. Unsigned or incomplete forms are returned without review.⁴

Section I: Personal Information

Enter your full legal name, Social Security number or employee ID number, phone number, email address, and current mailing address. If the VA has assigned you a separate file number, add it so the board can cross-reference your disability records.⁵

Section III: Service History

Identify the branch you retired from and attach your retirement orders or retirement DD 214 as proof. The section also asks whether you served in specific wars or named operations. Check every one that applies and attach a DD 214, award citation, or other documentation that verifies that service.⁵

Disability Listing

For each disability you are claiming as combat-related, enter the title of the disability exactly as it appears on your VA rating decision, the VA disability code, and both the initial and current VA rating percentages. You do not have to list every rated condition. List only the ones with a combat connection you can support.⁵

Signature

Sign and date the form before it goes in the envelope. Unsigned applications are one of the most common reasons packages get returned.⁴

Writing the Combat Connection for Each Disability

This is the part of the form that decides the outcome. For every disability, the form asks you to explain the combat connection: what happened, when it happened, where it happened, and which of the four categories it falls under. Be specific. “Injured during deployment” will not carry the claim. “Sustained shrapnel wounds to the left knee during a mortar attack at FOB Salerno, Khost Province, Afghanistan, on 14 March 2007” gives the review board the how, what, when, and where it needs.⁴

Match the narrative to the category. If it is armed conflict, name the enemy action. If it is hazardous duty, name the flight, jump, dive, or demolition operation. If it is simulation of war, describe how the training was designed to replicate combat conditions. If it is an instrumentality of war, name the equipment and the military purpose it was being used for. Note any Purple Heart tied to the injury and cite the citation you are attaching.

For a secondary condition, write the primary condition it stems from and point the board to the VA rating language or medical record that states the relationship. Without that explicit link on paper, the board has no basis to reach the secondary condition through the primary.⁵

Building the Evidence Package

Attach what supports the narrative. Leave out what does not. A thick file of irrelevant records buries the useful ones and slows the review.⁴

Include: DD 214s and 215s, retirement orders, complete VA rating decisions with code sheets, medical records that describe the causing event, award citations and their supporting narratives, and official records such as After Action Reports and Line of Duty investigations that reference the incident.²

Do not include EKGs, lab slips, dental records, personal statements, buddy statements, or civilian doctor letters. Civilian physician documentation is accepted only when a VA medical facility referred you to that physician and the VA records show the referral.⁴

Photocopy the whole package before it leaves your hands. If something is lost in review, resubmitting is far easier from copies than reassembling months later.

Where to Send the Application

The package goes to the branch you retired from. It does not go to the VA and it does not go to DFAS.⁷

Army
Department of the Army
U.S. Army Human Resources Command
ATTN: AHRC-PDP-C (CRSC), Dept 480
1600 Spearhead Division Avenue
Fort Knox, KY 40122-5408⁸

Navy and Marine Corps
Secretary of the Navy Council of Review Boards
Combat Related Special Compensation
720 Kennon Street SE, Suite 309
Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5023⁷

Air Force
Submit electronically through the myFSS portal at myfss.us.af.mil. If the direct link is unavailable, search for knowledge article 000002298.⁷

Coast Guard
Commander (PSC-PSD-MED)
Personnel Service Center
2703 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE
Washington, DC 20593-7200⁹

What Happens After You Submit

Processing time depends heavily on branch. The Air Force estimates roughly 30 days from receipt to a written decision.⁴ The Department of the Navy tells applicants to expect 18 to 24 months.¹⁰ Army and Coast Guard timelines are not published but generally fall between those.

Once the branch approves some or all of the claimed disabilities, it authorizes DFAS to pay. DFAS calculates the monthly amount and issues payments, including retroactive pay back to the effective date.¹¹

Why Applications Get Denied, and What to Do About It

The most common reason for denial is documentation that does not establish a clear link between the disability and a combat-related event. Vague descriptions, records that show a condition exists without explaining how it began, and claims for injuries that merely occurred in a combat zone without a combat cause all fail the same test. Jogging on a base in Iraq is treated the same as jogging at Fort Bragg; location alone does not create the combat nexus. Unsigned forms, floods of irrelevant medical records, and civilian doctor letters without a VA referral round out the usual reasons.⁴

Every branch allows reconsideration when you have new evidence or when your VA rating has changed since the original decision. Army retirees use CRSC Form 12e from the HRC website and send it back to the Fort Knox address, or by fax or email to usarmy.knox.hrc.mbx.tagd-crsc-claims@army.mil. Air Force retirees receive a Reconsideration Request Form with the denial letter and return it to AFPC with the new evidence.² If reconsideration is denied, the final administrative step is the Board for Correction of Military Records or Board for Correction of Naval Records under 10 U.S.C. § 1552, filed on DD Form 149 after other avenues have been exhausted.¹²

1
Washington Headquarters Services. DD Form 2860
2
Department of Veterans Affairs. Combat-Related Special Compensation
3
MyArmyBenefits. Combat-Related Special Compensation
4
U.S. Air Force Wounded Warrior Program. Combat-Related Special Compensation Frequently Asked Questions
5
U.S. Coast Guard. Application for Combat-Related Special Compensation
6
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. Combat-Related Special Compensation CRSC Eligibility
7
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Applying for CRSC
8
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. CRSC (Combat-Related Special Compensation)
9
U.S. Coast Guard. Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC)
10
Department of the Navy. Combat-Related Special Compensation Board
11
MyArmyBenefits. Combat-Related Special Compensation
12
Department of the Navy. Application Process