We’ve uncovered the amount of disability pay a vet receives can depend on where he or she lives. And Ohio’s disabled veterans are some of the poorest paid in the country.

Staff Sgt. Richard Dale of Delta is a broken soldier. He says, “When I get frustrated, I get mad, I get angry and then I shut down.”

He’s home for good after three years in Iraq. “My main concern was to get myself home breathing and bring every one of them back, too.” He met that goal, but his life will never be the same.

Dale was a recovery specialist. When vehicles broke down, he was responsible for taking the soldiers and civilians inside to safety. He told us, “The camp we was on we was constantly getting hit with rockets and mortars and that’s a lot of stress right there.”

As a result, Dale has post-traumatic stress disorder and physical injuries, too. Every morning he exercises. He says his injuries are connected to a mission gone wrong.

As Dale describes it his truck hit a massive bump on a convoy road in Iraq. His head went crashing into the truck’s ceiling. “We hit one so hard, it knocked us senseless.” Dale says he broke his neck and he’s had seven seizures. To prevent more, he says he takes about 25 pills a day and the side effects make it impossible to work.

He says the VA should pay him full disability compensation. But Dale is only rated 60 percent disabled and gets about $1,100 a month.

The VA denies his claim in part because doctors can’t prove his seizures are connected to that crash in Iraq. Dale says, “I feel I shouldn’t have to go through all of this.”

So the I-Team began looking into Dale’s case. We discovered the Ohio VA pays out less to disabled veterans than almost anywhere else in the country.

Ohio ranked 49th in the average amount disabled vets receive annually. That’s according to the VA’s own report from 2006, the most recent year.

On average, Ohio pays a disabled vet $8,090.17. Only Indiana paid less at $7,977.71. New Mexico averages about $12,900 a year! And in Puerto Rico, the average pay is about $13,200 dollars!

We talked to the director at the VA regional office in Cleveland. She told us Ohio has been at the bottom for several years. She says each diasabled veteran in Ohio has received a letter inviting them to have their records reviewed.

But Mac McAuliffe, a veteran’s service officer in northwest Ohio, who has helped veterans write claims for 17 years says that’s not the whole story. “It looks like there’s 48 states that are taking better care of our veterans than we are.”

Each state in the country has a VA office that rates the level of disability for veterans living there. Ohio’s office is in Cleveland. And Mac says Ohio VA officers determine a lower disability rate for Ohio vets than another state would rate for the same injury.

The Cleveland director says all employees who rate veterans now receive the same training. But each state still reviews its own claims, and the director wouldn’t say whether an independent review office would be beneficial.

As for Dale, he says it comes down to a question of fairness, and he feels the rating system is unfair. “I wanted to get my story out, let the people know this is how we’re being treated when we come home.” On that issue, McAuliffe says Ohio veterans may have pulled the short straw.

We also talked to the VA about Dale’s case, hoping we could get him some help. A VA officer told me by law the VA cannot give veterans money for disability unless it’s connected to their service.

Dale says he won’t stop trying. If you’re in a situation like Richard Dale, the VA wants you to call this number: 1-800-827-1000