Thomas Massie’s allies have crossed a line that should anger every veteran in this country.
Andrew Cooperrider, a Kentucky conservative radio host and Massie ally, posted on social media on April 29 to suggest that Ed Gallrein — a SEAL Team 6 combat veteran — is gaming his 100 percent VA disability rating because he performs demanding farm work on his family’s operation. Cooperrider claims this raises “serious questions about consistency, transparency, and accountability.”
It raises one question: how low will Massie’s allies go to save a sinking campaign?
I served as an infantry officer in the Iowa Army National Guard. I deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, the deadliest year of Operation Enduring Freedom, in one of the most physically demanding jobs the Army has. I led soldiers through firefights in the rugged mountains, called in air strikes while pinned down in valleys, and dove for cover to avoid machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades. I came home with the same kinds of wear every combat infantryman carries — sprained ankles and a wrecked back from Ranger School and body armor, hearing damage from shooting without protection, violent nightmares, and stomachaches that would flare up at the same hour of the day my unit used to get ambushed. Those pains came back during Joe Biden’s botched Afghan withdrawal.
Good-hearted medical personnel repeatedly offered to help me file for a high disability rating. They told me, “Sir, you earned this. You may want it when you get older.” I declined to pursue it due to pride and because I didn’t want the stigma of admitting I had post-traumatic stress. That was my choice. It does not give me — or anyone — the right to judge a veteran’s choice to receive the benefits they earned.
Cooperrider’s attack rests on a basic falsehood: that a 100 percent VA disability rating means a veteran cannot work. It does not. VA disability is earned compensation for service-connected injuries, illnesses, and conditions. It is not unemployment insurance. Veterans rated at 100 percent routinely hold full-time jobs, run businesses, raise families, and yes — work their family farms. The only program tied to employment is Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability, and no one has alleged Gallrein receives it.
Veterans also do not assign their own ratings. The VA does. An independent medical examiner reviews the records, conducts additional examinations, and forwards the report to a ratings examiner who applies the schedule. The veteran has almost no say in the outcome. Suggesting Gallrein “claimed” a rating misrepresents how the system works.
When a political operative with no military service publicly attacks a SEAL Team 6 operator’s combat-earned benefits to score points in a primary, every veteran should take notice. The precedent does not stop with Gallrein. Today, it is a Trump-endorsed challenger in Kentucky. Tomorrow, it is a small-business owner running for school board, a state legislator, a county sheriff. Once a veteran’s medical file becomes opposition research, no one who served is safe from these despicable attacks.
The timing is telling. Trump-endorsed challengers just swept the Indiana primaries, knocking out incumbents who crossed the president on redistricting. Kentucky’s 4th District votes May 19. Massie sits across the river from Indiana watching the results, and his camp has decided that smearing a Navy SEAL’s service record is a winning strategy.
It is not. It is a sign of panic.
There are real conversations to have about VA disability — about ratings consistency, claims processing, and ensuring the most severely injured veterans get what they need. Those debates belong in Congress and at the VA, not in tasteless political smears targeting a candidate’s medical file. Conflating the two corrodes the program and dishonors the veterans who depend on it.
Massie should disavow Cooperrider’s post without delay. If he believes Gallrein’s rating is fair game, he should say so plainly. If he does not, his silence is its own kind of endorsement.
Either way, every veteran watching this race should remember what happened here. A combat veteran’s disability rating became a campaign weapon. That is not accountability. That is not transparency. It is a cheap shot — and the men and women who earned those benefits deserve better.
Mark Lucas is the founder and president of Veteran Action. He served as an infantry officer in the Iowa Army National Guard, graduated from U.S. Army Ranger School, and was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge and Bronze Star Medal in Afghanistan during the deadliest year of Operation Enduring Freedom.