I’m a veteran who relied on Department of Veterans Affairs medical care and earned a disability rating through years of honest assessment, documentation and examinations. That experience matters — it’s real, it’s hard and it’s deeply personal.

I believe that while exposing abuses is important, the framing of the Oct. 9 front-page article, “VA disability runs on an ‘honor system.’ These veterans are defrauding it.,” sent a message that many of us carry with difficulty: that those few bad actors define the rest of us. The term “honor system,” used in the article felt like a mischaracterization and misunderstanding of the VA disability process. For many veterans, the system is a burden to prove our truth, not an invitation to exploit it.